Um um Bradford County, this will be the comprehensive plan workshop. It's July 17th, 2025. It's now 5:30 and uh we're going to open up this meeting with uh prayer and flag salute from Commissioner um Andrews.
Let's bow our heads. Dear heavenly father, Lord, we thank you for this day. God, we thank you for all the blessings that you bestow upon us and our families. Lord, we just pray that you'll be with us during this meeting. And God, let your way be the way that we go, dear Lord. Lord, lead, guide us, and direct
us in everything that we do. And let it be pleasing to you. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Ice to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Okay. We already called the meeting to order and uh I guess we'll start off with Randy. Did you want to Okay. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Brandon Stubs. I'm the planning and
grants director for North Florida Professional Services. And uh we have called this workshop to discuss uh comprehensive plan amendments and amendments to the land development regulations related to subdivisions.
um as you're all aware um things over the past 20 years in North Florida were um kind of off and on again. In early 2000s we had a large boom and then about 2008 things kind of crashed and we had u
a lot of subdivisions that were left and just abandoned. um and it left a lot of uh issues that um now you as commissioners have to face and they're not easy issues, but the question is how do we fix that for the future? Um I've
worked with several other counties to help um draft and revise their uh subdivision regulations um to address these issues. And so what I'm want from y'all tonight is what have you seen as your biggest issues and what things that
y'all want to make sure that y'all address um with this revision because we want to make sure we get it right for y'all. Um there's things that I have ideas on that obviously, you know, I would love to share and we will definitely once we get
a draft come back and have a workshop with the board and share these ideas and and what we have drafted, but I want to make sure um that I address the ideas and concerns that this board has. So,
um, y'all can just open up a dialogue and, um, let me know and I want to make notes as y'all talk. So, if I'm looking down, I'm not ignoring you. I'm just making sure I keep track of everything that y'all want done. I do have a copy of the um, comp
plan and the subdivision regulations. So, if you do have questions about what's in there or um, anything like that, I have them right here with me and can look them up if you need be. What? I'll be glad to start. Okay. Sure. Sir, do you know where Riverbin is?
Riverbin? No, ma'am. Um, if you drive through there, every question that you have will be answered. Um, it is a huge subdivision. I guess you would use that as a term. Um, it was just open fields
where people sold lots and and people moved in under good faith. There was supposed to be association fee put together back then. It was not. So now the roads over the years and I think it's been around 50 years is what I've
been told. Um the roads are completely washed away. When we have major storms, we have to go out there and fill in holes so they can get in and out. Um they've started a little group that that tries to keep it up during the year, but
um when when the rains come, it's like a river down their road. It's the worst place that you could ever imagine. And so my thing is when they go in to build a subdivision, whoever is doing that should be mandated
that they pave the roads because the county just can't we can't afford to do it. um we can't afford to to take the road but at the same time um I mean the people are in in terrible terrible need
and um I have that I have wind cemetery so I have a couple of really really bad ones that um because of how it was set up that um you know we can't help and and they can't help themselves. So
that's that's mine. And like I said, if you'll just ride down in there, you'll know what they should never do. Yeah. I got to highlight here. There's a field trip over there. Yes, sir. Yeah. And I'll echo what Commissioner Andrew said. We don't want to see
anything like that again. We just want to make sure moving forward and you know you've worked on projects all over North Florida and you know we just want to be sure that however it's developed that you know it's developed in a way that either the county you know can take it
over to maintain it because there's very little maintenance involved or that you know whomever comes in and develops that uh you know whether it's an association fee or however it's kept up that it's just not something that as Andrew was
saying where we get the calls and people just expect us to come out and take care of, you know, private roads and and things like that. And so we just want to make sure that moving forward we don't have anything like that. So that we have some kind of a subdivision regulation as far as planning and development.
Yes, sir. Let's update our subdivision regulations. More importantly, let's concentrate on updating our street regulations as they apply subdivision as certain standards that we talked earlier like Epcot standards something like like stuff that was done 30 years ago will
not have to board 30 years from now and that was basically the reason we started this discussion dialogue updating our comp plan our LDRs as far as subdivisions go and in particularly street the development of the streets how the streets are developed so they'll stand hopefully stand the test of time but of course they will take uh you know
some you know wear and tear for a standard you don't know a length of period of time instead of just washing away the road but that's that was basically the uh the premises premises for this workshop tonight. Yeah. And not to repeat what Mr. Andrews
just said but exactly that unless it's FTO um you know certified and and everything's done to spec under FDOT then you know we don't we don't want to touch it. So, we just if they want to turn it over that way and that's the way
it's uh the specs and everything are followed, then you know, we'll we'll gladly take it over. So, and also like we talked about it, it has to be inspected by our road department manager. Um you know, because I I don't want them to go in there and say, "Oh,
yeah, it's DOT specs." And I don't don't know for sure what the base was or anything else. Um because like I mentioned to you earlier, we've got a subdivision with that problem right now. They want us to take it over, but there was no inspections done for our road department. So, we really don't know what's there. Um, so therefore, we're
not taking it over. Yeah. And, you know, we can put an u inspection schedule in there. um which obviously um you would want the inspector there every day, but you'd have major like inspection points or
maybe the contractor can't proceed until he has approval from the inspector. Right. Right. We'll look at something like that. Can I ask a question, Randy? at any time during the permitting or the contract or is any one person required to let these people know when they're
buying in to a flood zone like that or I mean I I don't know is someone Randy Randy do me a favor and go there because when I listen to this I'm sorry next week I won't be able to hear you road shouldn't have been never put in there
without being a platted subdivision on any on any plat Um there there's they'll have outline the flood zone 8 and flood zone X but it is not um how do I put this? Um as flood plane administrator is my responsibility to
let them know that and I point that out to them. It has to be on our plat. there. Again, um uh there's no one I don't think that we don't have anything in our LDRs that states that the developer or the realtor has to publicly make the comment to the
person buying this property that here they have to do this or have to do that. I don't I don't agree with that. Number one, if they got a house in subdivision down in there, they should make a road passable. Correct. And and am I right or am I wrong?
No, you're correct. and and and here's right. Um Florida is a buyer beware state. So it's up to the individual to ask the questions, but at the same time, Florida has laws that says if you know
something, you are legally obligated to disclose that. So there's an disclosure process when buying, but there's also a buyer beware. It's kind of a half of it's on you, half of it's on them. that they do know something and you buy it
and then they didn't disclose that, but you can prove they didn't. So, it's all on them. It's Yeah, it's kind of a mix between the the homeowner, the realtor, and the uh person buying the property, but ultimately, it's the property owner's
responsibility or the person purchasing the property's responsibility to ask the questions, to call the county. Uh I mean, Mr. Andrews can help people all day long, but if they don't call, he don't know. And that's part of the problem. Um, and maybe, um, I know this
is kind of getting off topic a little bit, but it's related and it might help you in the future. One thing that, um, I did for Columbia County was I actually met with the realtors association. So, the association of realtors for the
county. I had them call in a meeting, have all the realtors, I mean, there must have been a hundred realtors in there. and we did a workshop and we kind of just went through flood zones, all the different things, and you know, gave them the number or web address to be
able to go in and ask questions. And um it helped out a lot because then they started sending their um if they had a client, they'd send their client to the website or give them the number to call. And that way, even if they weren't, you know, u disclosing something or didn't
know it, at least if they were calling the county, they could get the information necessary. But can I say something? Sure. But shouldn't have been that done before this subdivision went in? Certainly. Yeah. I mean the roads and
all the streets and the dedication, the upkeep and I mean that's um and that's what we're going to make sure that when this process is done and you have a ironclad set of regulations that if they don't follow they don't get approval. I mean they're just not going
to get a final plat or they're not going to get um you know bu building permits or anything. So they might have correct if they don't do it right, they're not going to get correct. They're not going to get a building permit, right? And then they're going to end up having to deal with if they illegally sell lots
that are not platted, then they're not going to they're going to have to deal with homeowners suing them over um selling them lots that are unbuildable. And the the other thing we talked about is um I'd like to see in this is uh
drainage. Like I was telling you about that that one subdivision. Um it's all built. There's no drainage in there. Uh but now and also they tied in paved roads into our county Limerock Road. So the people that bought these three and
$400,000 homes are now expecting the county to pave the Limerock Road going in, which you know we're we're not going to do. And um but but the thing is now with these rains coming, the lime rock off the county road is running into a lot of
those real nice homes yards. So their yards are all lime rock now because nobody had any planted planting for for drainage. And uh and like I shared with you earlier now, if the county goes in there cuts ditches on our road, then it's going to cause them even
more problems because of the way the road our road slopes. And now they did. In other words, there was no planning for drainage. Yeah. And you don't want to do that too, just for the fact that if you go, like you said, if you go in there and cut and all of a sudden now you're flooding him out, they're going to try to sue the county and say, "Well, yeah, you were
you were trying to do the right thing, but doing the right thing, it made it worse." And then so yeah, you it's a it's a catch 22 for the county and you can't win. Right. Right. You're correct, Mr. Chair. Thank you. And and another thing too, not just the the the
drainage, but retention is that's part of drainage, but I mean, you can go in some of the neighborhoods that like I live out near the golf course and that's an old old subdivision out there and there's not one retention pond out there. So when
you, as you know, get into the development side of that, just as the pavement has a requirement, there should be a requirement for, you know, some drainage, some some capacity to be able to hold that water. Uh because I know that Commissioner Riddick has uh I know
down in the Keystone area, uh he had an area that they they had to dig a retention pond just to help out with the drainage down there. So instead of it being post, it should be pre Yeah. pre-development and and the and the water management district has come a long way with that.
So, uh the water management district has legal jurisdiction for permitting over subdivisions. So, um that the new subdivisions will definitely have to get permitting from the water management district. So, a lot of that is is kind of already luckily
taken care for y'all. Um we will look at um um you know making sure that whatever's in here requires that they you know obtain the proper permits for storm water and we may even look at some
additional criteria that might be beneficial for the county if it's um y'all on St. John's here Swany still Swany. Okay. It's kind of weird how their line goes around around here because sometimes the counties are
split, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, we'll look at um we'll look at both the St. John's and the Swany River and and see what their permitting requirements. I'm I'm real
familiar with the Swany River because I deal with them all the time, but um I haven't dealt with St. John's as much. But um you know, we'll make sure that any new subdivision it has the proper storm water management systems.
And um speaking of that, um one question I want to ask y'all is different local governments have different views when it comes to maintenance of the storm water systems. And you know, when you have typical subdivisions that have like halfacre or
larger lots, you generally have like 60 foot rideaways with paved roads that have swells and those swells go and go into a retention pond. Whereas if you have like smaller lot subdivisions, less than half acre, it's usually curbon
gutter with, you know, drainage pipe inlet, storm water inlets. Um, but there's a question about that's in the public rideway. Well, who's who maintains it? There's also a question about who ends up with the maintenance
of the storm water management facilities. A lot of them, they like to put them in associations. Well, just like you're talking about with the roads, when they're privately owned, if you have a privatelyowned um storm water management facility, um they don't maintain them. And then, you
know, when it's time to do maintenance inspections, they're calling the county commissioners. They're calling you guys and say, "Hey, can you come fix this? The storm water blew out." And you're going, "Well, we don't own that. We can't do it." Um, there are some good things that came out
of of recent regulation as far as inspections and what's called operation and maintenance with storm water systems. Um, they're now required that there be a operation and maintenance identity for
all these. So, all these new subdivisions will require to have some form of responsible party um and require annual inspections. The question is is do y'all as a county want to be taking these on preemptively
so when they're being built, they're being inspected by, you know, the county inspector. They're being inspected by the water management district. Y'all have to accept it. Y'all know what y'all are getting. And reason why I ask is if you want to do
this, we can uh set something up in your uh subdivision regulations where we can do what's called a MSBU, a municipal service benefit unit. And what that does is it creates a tax district uh within that subdivision. And there's an
assessment on each lot that they pay annually for the maintenance and it goes into a bank account that can only be utilized for that subdivision. So if you set up an MSBU for like streets and roads or storm water, it goes into a bank account and it the county is the
administrator of that funds and when you got go repair storm water facility or you got go in and put a fill a pothole, you have a money that comes out of the account that those people in that subdivision are paying for. So in other
words, it doesn't come out of your tax u your taxpayers funds to maintain subdivisions. That just seems so 21st century. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of No, I know lot of counties are requiring
it now. Yeah. Yeah. And and I I would say yes. I mean, yeah, that's something that that we haven't talked about in depth yet, but it was certainly on our radar was to establish an MSBU for future growth. Yeah. Okay.
But 99% of the time we we exorb that. Right. Right. So, Mr. Chair, maybe at a I don't know a very near future date, we can actually today I was expecting that we would review our existing comp plan and then
look at improvements, you know, towards it. So, um but I hear you're saying you want us to just to tell you what we need wanted to add in. So if if there's a a near future date that we can review the existing kind of
review that in in summary um so that we can have a a greater discussion. I have similar as um Commissioner Andrews mentioned in the Ludy area just off of Carter Road for example. It's a private uh area that
people assume that belong to the county. The people who lived there thought it was should have been a county maintained. A part of the thing that makes it somewhat complicated back in the day, the county did go above and beyond on some of these private roads
and they took care of it. But now we have to go strictly by our regulations and rules and we can't do that. But since it had been done all of the time way back when, the people couldn't comprehend why we suddenly were not
helping them anymore. So clarification in that regard would help us in the in the plan. Um but um the other part was when we have to on cautor
um the we have a lot of flooding that occurred there from the runoff um from there and in the um Pleasant Grove area it's same thing. you have a lot of flooding in certain areas that used to be maintained by the
county, but it's not the county's responsibility. So, being clear on some of those things. Okay. Um, and regarding the old, the reason why I didn't bother going through the old regulations is we're basically scrapping that and starting from
scratch. So, that was the idea was these are old, antiquated. We don't want that. we want to go and we want to update this completely with a whole new set of uh regulations. So the idea was
more than likely 80 to 90% of that would probably be scrapped and it'll be rewritten. Um so I didn't really feel like it would benefit to go the old regulations just for that. Um, but certainly, um, I would be happy to do
any and everything this board wants done. If y'all want to go through the old, um, we can definitely do that. Um, and do it like a line item and y'all say, "Yeah, we like that, we don't like it." Um, so if that's something the board wants to do, we can definitely do
it. Or if you want to wait till uh, we have a draft and do it, then we can do it then. Okay. Perhaps you get to do a draft and then you know we can kind of if there's something from the old that is useful you know we can discuss it.
Um that would be helpful to me. Yeah. What I can do is instead of completely just um what we call repealing the entire article we'll do a strike through underline and we'll
if there's beneficial language in there we'll keep it and it'll be strike through underline. That way you can see what we're proposing to delete and what we're going to add. Okay, that'll be helpful. Just one more thing, Brandon. Um, on the lots in the subdivisions, I know some of
the other counties require like when you're doing a lot fills that the lot fills or let's say they're two feet above like roadway or whatever it might be. just using numbers, but that that that's consistent throughout the development so that it's not so you don't have somebody with 4
foot of fill on a site that's draining off onto a site that may have one or two feet of fill. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. And um there's there there's already a law in place that's a state law regarding establishment of base
flood elevations and minimum floor elevations on certain plat. So, if you have a plat that is 5 acres or greater or has 25 more lots, they're required by state statute now to have a minimum
floor elevation for all the um lots and also to if there's a flood zone, they have to establish the base flood elevation for any flood zones. So, that's already in Florida statute. So, that's good. um we will make sure that that's mimicked and or referenced in
these um one or the other. Um and you can make it more stringent if you want. You can say all subdivisions have to have minimum floor elevations for um the lots. And the and the beauty of that is is when they're doing the construction plans, that means they got to come up
with a grading plan for each lot. Yeah. Well, and you know, I see that a lot in my business, too, you know, and I just want to make sure that because that it it doesn't always occur now. So, I'm just saying moving forward.
Just want to make sure because again, we don't want to end up with, you know, some people, you know, getting flooded out, you know, let's say you're, you know, two foot elevation in the center lot and then you got four foot elevation on both lots next to it. then certainly the one in the middle is going to be the
one that's going to suffer. So, you know, and I know there's a cost associated with that, you know, as far as lot development and things, but u I think in in the planning process uh that those lots and uh through the
review through the plan review that uh that that's something that's observed. Okay. Yeah, that's a good one. And I I know this m may may sound silly and there may already be something in place about it, but throughout this county um well I'll speak for my district. Um
there's no culverts. I mean on under driveways I mean and I would just think that that should be a requirement to keep the water flowing and because um when there is no covert then it stops it up and there's not much you can do about
it. So, um, as they're building, I just think that they need to do it right when they when they do it. Yeah. Um, there's a couple counties I'm aware of that have really good covert um, standards.
Um, and I can look at some of that to see and it may not necessarily be part of the subdivision standards because you're not talking about design here. Um, but I could definitely look at something and propose it to the county
as far as um, how to address culvert issues. Will you do that and send that send that to us? Yeah. And I can when I do the research, what I'll do is I'll I'll um, print off the regulations from
different counties that how they do it and I'll send them to Mr. Cornneg and Mr. Andrews and that way they can share that with you all. Thank you. Mhm. And and board one thing that that I hit on earlier um um Brandon when we were
talking is again with the subdivisions they don't allow them to pave the subdivision and tie it in to a countymaintained Limerock Road. Correct. um a board. I don't know what we want to do there because you know you know what if it's a mile long BR road
before the subdivision but but there's there I feel like there needs to be something in place that the people that are buying these real expensive houses know before they sign that contract that the county just because they're buying that that home in that subdivision, the
county is not going to pave that road anytime soon. You you you see what I'm saying? Can I say so? Yes, that's that's been years ago to my understanding that if somebody comes in and makes a big platted subdivision,
they were responsible to put the road. Yeah, but I'm talking about the road to the road to it. Yeah. So that is their obligations. The one that sells the land, sells the lots. Mr. Chairman, if I may. wrong or am I?
So, Brandon, correct me or tell me if this is correct. Um, we're talking about a county ma or a county maintained Limerock Road that you would have to travel down to get to the pa the new paved road in the new subdivision.
Correct. Yeah. And so, um, I'm pretty sure, um, your LDR's already addressed that issue, but if it does not, we will definitely make it a point to make sure that it does because you're right, there's multiple issues with putting a
paid road and a and a dirt road together. Um, if on a PL subdivision, you can't do that. Correct. If you if it's got to connect to a paid public road, correct? And and a good a good example of that is, you know, if you have a dirt
road, there's driveway aprons that lead to a dirt road. Why? Because you can't directly abut a edge of a rideway or edge of a paved road up to a dirt road. It would wash out. It would just deteriorate. It would tear up your
pavement. It would is That's why when you see dirt roads, they're always a paved apron that goes down. into that road to keep it from tearing up your street. I think that ordinance come in about 12 or 14 years ago. Am I correct?
Sounds about right. Yes, sir. Yeah. So, if somebody builds a subdivision, they are required to put that pave road in there. Yes, sir. Am I right? Yes, sir. And I don't I don't I don't think everybody's
everybody's not doing that. Right. Right. Could commissioner daughter do do you run across stuff like that in in your land? I mean, is this is this something you're talking about? Like the gap in between? Yeah. I'm talking about, you know, a
Lime Rock Road going in say for a half a mile and then all of a sudden you got a nice subdivision off of it and everything in that's paved. But the people when they pull out then they have to pull out on a Limerock Road to get to a paved paved road. I mean
that's wrong. It's not that it seeen around but you know again it's typically I mean in areas that are around us the development and the way the development is that road's going to be paved before the road that's at the
the actual subdivision. Okay. But I can't think of too many places where you know you're traveling down you know a lime rock road to get to a paved subdivision. Well, because the one off of 52nd, that's exactly how it is. Yeah. Um there's they just put that
subdivision in there and now I get calls all the time. One, they want the county to take over the roads in the subdivision, which we're never county's fault. Yeah. We're never inspected and they want um and they and they expect that road being paid, right? But, you know, it that's that's the
conversation we was having earlier. Yeah. Yeah. And there's um there's also different so when when you get into subdivisions and you're getting into lots that are
say 10 acres or greater greater than 10 acres you know there's a lot of um issues with well if I'm going to be doing 10 acre plus lots well that's very expensive. of to pave
um for a large area for that. And so there are some counties that have like a division of land process or have another process or other than subdivision where they do um like an unrecorded subdivision or a division of land which
would be like anything that's greater than 10 acres. Um, and what that what that does is it would allow you to allow for dirt roads. Um, they would still have to put in like the DOT base. Like they would still have
to um construct it like they were going to build roads. They just don't have to pave the road. Um, but they would be private. Um so it be private lime rock but only for um you know lots in a subdivision greater than 10 acres. Um I
have seen that. I don't know if that's something y'all want to explore or y'all were like no we don't want to do that. Um there's a couple counties that do have um provisions for large track subdivisions because when you're getting that there's no way you can do 10acre
lots and pave it. you never you couldn't afford to do it right. And I I don't want to hurt builders at all. None. You know, but but maybe as you're working through this, maybe we can come up with with something that'll work. Yeah. I have some ideas um some stuff that I've seen other counties do.
Okay. That I can kind of propose if y'all like. And and again, when we draft this stuff, if it if it comes down, you're like, "Yeah, we don't want to do this, we just exit out. Just take it out. Any other
we can propose it. Any other questions? No. No. M M Mr. Chairman, I would I would ask uh Randy, is there anything that you've seen over the years that specifically needs to be addressed while we're revising all this?
No sir. I think what we're discussing tonight is basically the point of this. I mean that's and again we do have the 10 acres plus subdivision uh definition in our LDRs and we just had one but those gentlemen did come in here and lime rock the road but as you said 10 acres or more are not considered to be a subdivision. If the lots are 10 acres or
more they're not considered to be an actual subdivision but yes sir that's basically what we're that's the questions I had for with them Randy they they don't have to do anything because of course I had 300 acres that was divided in 10 acre lots.
Yep. Yes ma'am. And so it's just going to be a road that that they Yes, ma'am. their responsibility riverband because they're all 10acre tracks or plus. So that's a citizens uh responsibility. That that would be those individuals out there if they were to create a HOA, a
homeowners association. That is not our responsibility. No, ma'am. Not this board's responsibility. No, sir. Okay. Okay. Mr. Chair, public works director just came in and so Mr. Cornne, same question you just
asked Mr. Andrews. I'd like to ask Mr. Dods Dobs if Sure. You know, if there's something um that he is seeing or not seeing that maybe could be applied. I don't know if you guys have already talked about this or not, but No, no. I'd like to hear Jason's
thoughts. I mean, the one thing that sticks out to me is is something in there if if it's legally possible to put something in there so we don't run into these situations like Miss Andrews just spoke about a 300 acre plot with everything broke down to 10 acres and
then yeah, the citizens are responsible for it, but we see it time and time again come before this board that oh, we need your help. And Jason, I I would tell you that uh Brandon had just talked about we could put language in there that would require
them to build the the dirt road, the Limeark road to DOT spec. Okay. Would that be that would be helpful? Basically, I don't understand.
D with you know 6 in rock base with the the the drainage and the swells, they would be required to build it to the LO base, have it compacted. So, if something ever did happen, the county
took it over, you could create an im the county could create like a MSBU um and do a taxing authority for that subdivision. And then you wouldn't have to come back and redo the road itself. You just have to pave over because the base and the lime rock, everything's
built already. You just go in there and pave it. you wouldn't have to do any other work, just pay right over Limerock if if that was the case. So, it allows a compromise between the cost of developing subdivisions over 10 acres
um and allowing private roads. But should there be an instance in the future, but I I will say this of what I've seen in North Florida, the people who buy 10 acres or greater, they don't want their road paid and they don't want people down it. So, they typically want
it to remain private, and that's kind of what I've seen. Well, until until 10 years from now. Yeah. And there's holes big enough that a four-wheel drive will go under. I mean, it's and that's when it becomes the
problem. Right now, it I don't know because where they bought is it very very bad. I went down there the other day and um but it will become a problem. I I promise you. Yeah. And the good thing about the what he was talking about with these 10acre
plus um what I would and and what I would be proposing it would require them to actually put in they would have to have construction plans. They would have to have storm water management. So they would still have to comply with the
storm water and you know building the roads to standards. They just don't have to pave it and they're allowed to keep it private. Um, so they're they're it's not like they can just go out there and divide, you know, 30 10 acre tracks and put in just a little dirt trail. No,
they're going to have to put in some some effort and do storm water and, you know, account for that stuff. Can I say something? But shouldn't that have be done when they was actually selling that property off? Yes. So, correct. So, before they were
selling the 10 acres, they would they should have had a road accessible road in there. Correct. Correct. If we put I probably know the answer to this, but I know if we put the the wording in our policy, can we go back and make them do that?
Correct. Yes. Well, you can't retroactive, but anything in the future, any any new development in the future would be required to meet the standard. And the good thing about that is you would have a process for the county to be able to review and make sure that
they're meeting the standard. So they would have to make application. If they didn't and they just went out there and s surveyed out 30 10acre tracks and started selling them, well guess what? They don't get building permits. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. Yeah.
M Mr. Steel. Go ahead, Mr. Still. I'll I'll sit down for um Paul Still. One of the issues that we have in Bradford County is much of our drainage infrastructure was uh created in the early 1900s. It doesn't have
drainage easements and so maintenance becomes a real issue because you don't have an easement. And the the question is can you draft kin to what you're doing some way to make sure that
oh these these easements that you do have these easements because it doesn't do you any good to get the water through a drainage feature that then is not maintained and can't yeah I got a couple so yeah there will be um requirements for utility and drainage easements u
within the subdivision not only that the um water management district now requires them. So when you submit your drainage um you engineering for your permit for your um storm water permit, they require those easements to be
recorded and they require it to be uh dedicated to the public. So um yeah, there's there's more than what the county mechanism the water management district through state law has mechanisms for that now. And two, that's part of what we were talking about, the
the operation and maintenance agreement. All those easements have to be spelled out and put on the plat. Okay. Well, you good. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you very much. And um I guess we'll this meeting is and we'll
just get back with you when you when you get that together. Just get back with us and Yeah. Yeah. We'll be um over the next, you know, couple months, we'll be drafting, looking at um and probably, you know, meeting with staff here and there to go over the drafts um before we
bring it back to make sure we have um you know, as complete of a draft as possible before we present it to you. Um that way u when y'all come back um you know we'll have like a 90% draft and then after y'all look at it and review
it and have a workshop over it we can make those changes and come back before the board for like a first uh hearing and um hopefully there won't be any real issues or comments so everything will be addressed and this board will be have a
set of regulations that they are happy with. Okay. And if I can just say one, please ride through Riverbin. Yes, ma'am. And um take a look. Yeah, I want to look that up. I want I want have to get Mr. Andrews to take me on a field trip over there. Yeah. Okay.
Or Jason. Either one. Yeah. Thank you, commissioners. Are you going to be here to the end of the meeting or you got to go? I don't I'm sorry. We've we've we've got his contacts.
Go ahead. I want to talk to you about. Okay. About River B. All right. All right. Meetings adjourned. All right. 2025. Uh it's about 6:40 and at this time I'm going to ask Commissioner Spooner to open us up with prayer and
flag salute. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your wonderful love, your blessing. Thank you for uh blessing us to live in a free nation. Heavenly Father, we thank you for each and everyone that is here this evening. Bless each and every person that is
here. Help us to um govern ourselves according to your will and that we conduct oursel in such a manner um that is pleasing for you. Um help us in our meeting tonight as we address many serious uh issues that we do it in the
best manner that serves our community. Um and we thank you dear Lord um in the name of our father Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it
stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Okay. The first item on the list is the achievement awards. Uh um and at this time I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Spooner and um she's going
to Thank you. Good evening and thank you all for being here. It's um an exciting time. Um each year the National Association of Counties um encourages communities to apply for the for the
achievement award. And this year our county, Bradford County, applied for on behalf of our partners for the hubs that we have, the three hubs that we have. We have three. um the one at RJ that was established in January 23 and also um
Ludig which was established in December of 23 and the art uh service down in Hampton in May of 24 and um Taylor is going to do our little comprehensive presentation um so that you'll know
something about the three hubs and we will be asking for those groups to come just after that the chair will help us present the uh awards. The Bradford County Community Partners Health and Wellness Resource Hub Project
is a program that helps people live healthier, better lives. It does this by offering important services in three easyto-reach locations across the county. These locations, called hubs, provide things like health checkups,
mental health support, help finding a job, classes to learn about money and budgeting, access to computer and the internet. By having these services close to where people live, the hubs make it easier for everyone, especially those
without transportation to get the help they need. The program brings neighborhoods together, helps people live more stable and healthier lives, and gives them more chances to succeed. It also shows how teamwork between local
groups can make a big difference and could be used as a model in other communities, too. The Bradford County Community Partners Health and Wellness Resource Hubs proudly accepts NAKO's 2025
achievement award recognition. [Music] Thank you. And we would ask that the um
concerned citizens group from Stark um the Lord city of Laui to come and I believe that Miss Patterson will represent um the art program and we have our guest here from the health department. It's a big deal when you can
be rec nationally recognized for a small community like Bradford County. Um, and she's very modest, but she was requested
and recognize the lead in county services program special for the department of health in county. The achievement award means 2025 achievement award winner without continuing road and progress. Such words
are improvement, achievement and success having no meaning. The National Association of Count to award the 2025 achievement award for it program titled Graphic County Community
Department Health and Real. All right. [Applause] This is concerned and We have one for this is for the city of where
we have one for the art program. And so if you can kind of come I don't know somewhere here. [Music] Yeah.
[Music] on the second picture. [Music] Everybody get inight and go. One, two, three. One, two, three.
Very good. Thank you all. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Okay, moving on to item number three, uh, the public hearing for impact fee
ordinance. Um, at this time, could I ask our attorney to please, I guess, you want to read this full ordinance? Well, I'm wrong, but I'm happy. He got out of trouble. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, because I can't read that one. In ordinance to be known as the Bradford
County, Florida comprehensive impact fee ordinance providing for the imposition and collection of fire protection, law enforcement, and emergency medical services impact fees. Providing legislative findings and definitions, adopting processes and procedures for the imposition, collection, and administration of such impact fees.
Approving an impact fee study. adopting rates schedules for the fire protection, law enforcement, and emergency medical services impact fees, providing that the impact fees will apply to all new construction not exempted here, for which a completed building permit application is submitted
on or after October 1st, 2025, providing for the use of impact fees, providing for exemptions from the impact fees, providing for municipal participation, providing credit for developer contribution, providing for payment of impact fees, providing for changes in size and use of property, providing for
review hearings, amending, restating, and consolidating certain provisions of the Bradford County, Florida Code related to impact fees. specifically chapter 43 entitled impact fees on land development repealing and superseding provisions of the Bradford County, Florida code which are obsolete or which
pertain to the imposition of impact fees for roads, parks, public buildings and library facilities requiring periodic review of impact fees studies and this ordinance. Declaration of exclusion from the administrative procedures act providing for repeal of conflicting
ordinances. providing for severability, providing for codification, and providing an effective date. Mr. Chair, at this time, I would ask that you open a public hearing. Thank you. Is there any public comments on this item? Okay. Seeing none, we'll close the
public hearing and um we'll move on to a motion and a vote. Do I have a motion? Do I have a motion to uh approve the ordinance as read? Make a motion we approve the ordinance as read. I have a motion from Commissioner Thompson. Second,
second from Commissioner Andrews. Are there any any questions? And I understand the importance that we have to have um impact fees. I I get it. I truly get it. Um but I'm concerned
uh about the amount uh for the residential uh vote. Um, we have the impact fee. We're going to have our fire assessment and then we have the increase in our
um guess our garbage and so forth. It it's it's important to have it, but I'm concerned about the amount. I think it's a little too much. I know I probably am alone in that, but sometimes it seemed like we just nickel and dime our poor
residents to death. And so, Mr. Chairman, if I may. Yes, sir. Bear in mind that the impact fee only affects new construction. I I get it. And the builder will be the one to pay the impact fee or the the uh developer. Yeah. It won't be put on the citizens.
It will and I mean, I just said, well, well, there's not a a surrounding county that don't charge it. And and I do get it that we have to pay some impact fee. I'm just concerned about the amount. And then I know that
even if we have a developer that is then passed on to the persons. Absolutely. Yeah. Because uh if you're building a $300,000 home, $1,60 impact fee, I don't think that's going to that's not going to hurt.
Absolutely not. You know, well, and if I may. Yes. Yes, ma'am. And I understand what you mean, Miss Spinner. I honestly I do. Um but impact fees are just what they what they say. there. What this is doing is trying to
keep us from continuing to be in the hole that we're in right now. The impact of people coming in um does affect the um fire and rescue. It does affect, you know, it affects everything. It affects our schools. It affects our roads. But
with what we have um until we we have growth like to to meet our needs um and and like you said all the neighboring counties they have this
and um we've we've we've just kind of sat back and and not tried to get where we should be and this is this is just a step forward unfortunately and I agree and we had it, but they put it it was put on hold. City put it on
everybody put it on hold so that we can encourage more development and we have to have um impact fees. I'm just concerned I would like to see this reversed for the non-residential this the the amount of of fee to be
reversed. It's a price of doing business. I mean that's what your other counties the price of doing business. And I don't have the exact number in front of me. Uh I did have it a couple months ago. Um the money we lost last
year on new homes is close to $180,000. Exactly. That that we lost just in one year. So um and then you add that up over the past three or four years, that's quite a bit of money that we could have put to use. Um and we need the money.
Any other comments? Okay. So, I have a motion and a second. Um, all in favor by a sign of I. I. Any oppose? Nay. Only to the amount, not the fee, but okay. The amount that we're recommending.
Motion carries 41. Okay. Next, we have a u a public hearing for the u zoning and land use changes uh that we've already done. Uh Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Excuse me.
These are the ordinances that the uh the ordinance to the resolutions that the planning and zoning board passed in the previous meeting. Excuse me. Um so I'll read these. Uh this is S250603A by Newman Real Property LLC. Land use
change from agricultural to commercial for Bradford County parcel number zero 4760-0000101 and I will read this ordinance by title. This is excuse me this is an ordinance of Bradford County, Florida amending ordinance number 91-01. The Bradford County Comprehensive Plan
is amended relating to an amendment to the future land use plan map series of the Bradford County Comprehensive Plan pursuant to application S250603A by the property owners under the amended procedures established in section 163.3161
through 163.3248 Florida statutes as amended providing for the amendment of the future land use plan map series of the comprehensive plan from agricultural to commercial of certain lands within the unincorporated area unincorporated limits of Bradford County, Florida. Providing severability,
repealing all ordinances in conflict, and providing an effective date. And again, we need to ask for public comments. Uh motion and a vote. Is there any public comments on this item? Okay, seeing none, do I have a motion
to approve this ordinance as read? I make a motion to approve the ordinance as read. Second. I have a motion from Commissioner Daltry, second from Commissioner Andrews. Is there any other questions? All in favor by sign of I I. Motion carries 50. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next item
is the res the reszoning companion to this land use change. This is Z25-01 Newman Real Property LLC zoning change from agricultural to commercial intensive for Bradford County parcel number 04760-00101. And I'll read it by title. This is an
ordinance of Bradford County, Florida, amending ordinance 96-07, Brafford County Land Development Regulations as amended relating to an amendment to the official zoning atlas of the Bradford County Land Development Regulations as amended pursuant to an application Z25-01 by the property owner of said acreage
providing for reszoning from agricultural A2 to commercial intensive CI of certain less on the unincorporated limits of Bracker County, Florida, providing severability repealing all in conflict and providing for an effective date. And again, I'd like to ask for public comments, a motion, and a vote.
Any public comments on this item? Yes, sir. Okay. Do you know public comments? Do I have a motion uh uh to accept the ordinance as read? Make a motion to approve the ordinance as read. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Dry,
second by Commissioner Spooner. Any questions? All in favor by sign of I. I. Motion carries 50. Thank you, Mr. Ed Chairman. The next item, excuse me, is the land use ordinance again to the resolutions we read at the planning and zoning meeting.
This is S25-0613A by again Mr. Bero as agent for the Battels. This land use change from residential to commercial for Bradford County parcel number 01194-0000100. And I'll read it by title. This is an ordinance of Bradford County, Florida, amending ordinance number 91-019.
The Bradford County Comprehensive Plan is amended relating to an amendment to the future land use plan map series of the Bradford County Comprehensive Plan pursuant to an application S250613A by the property owners under the amendment procedures established in sections 163.3161
through 163.3248 Florida statutes as amended providing for the amendment of the future land use plan map series of the comprehensive plan from residential low density to commercial of certain lands with the unincorporated limits of Bradford County Florida providing severability repealing all ordinances in conflict and providing for an effective
date. And once again, we'd like to ask for public comments, a motion and a vote. Any public comments? Seeing none, do I have a motion to uh accept the ordinance as read? I make a motion to accept it as read. Second. Motion by Commissioner Andrews, second
by Commissioner Spooner. Any questions? All in favor by sign of I. I. I. Motion carries 50. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next item is the zoning change to the previous land use change. This is Z25-03 uh zoning change from residential to
commercial for Bradford County parcel number 01194-0-0000100. This is an ordinance of Bradford County, Florida, amending ordinance 96-07, Bradford County Land Development Regulations as amended relating to an amendment to the official zoning atlas of the Bradford County Land Development Regulations as amended pursuant to an
application Z25-03 by the property owners of said acreage providing for reszoning from residential mixed single family/mobile home one which is RSF/MH1 to commercial intensive CI of certain lands within the unincorporated limits of Bradford County, Florida, providing
separability, repealing all ordinances in conflict and providing for an effective date. And once again, I need to ask for public comments. A motion and a vote, please. Any public comments? Seeing none, do I have a motion to accept the ordinance as read? Make a motion to approve the ordinance as read.
Motion by Commissioner Doldry, second by Commissioner Spooner. Any questions? All in favor by a sign of I I. Motion carries 50. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And the last item on the zoning agenda, this is E. This is a road closure. This is part of the west half of the southeast quarter
of the northwest quarter of section 21 township 5 south range 22 east Bradford County Florida. This is an application by Nicholas and Angela Price uh presented the board of county commissioners to consider the exercise of its authority pursuant to chapter 336 Florida statutes to close and abandon
the following. This is the norly 15 ft and the Wesley 15t of parcel F which I provided in the packet to the board. U this is part of Bradford County. This is being part of Bracker County parcel number 01311- 0-0000101. And what this is, as we have done in the
past, the big uh subdivision that was done years ago from Li to almost to Rafford, we call it Woodlon. All those platted streets that have never been publicly opened to the never been open to the public or went in maintainer thing, but they've never been publicly closed either. So basically this this gentleman has come to ask the board to
consider closing the north 15 ft of his parcel or the pilot street that affects the north 15 feet of his parcel and the Wesley 15 ft of his parcel. And I need gas for public comments. A motion and a vote. Do we have any public comments? Okay. Seeing none, do I have a motion to
accept this road closure? Motion to accept the road closure as read. Second. Have a motion by Commissioner Spooner. Second by Commissioner Daltry. Any other questions? All in favor by sign of I. I. Motion carries 50. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's all I
have for the zoning agenda. Thank you, board. All right. Thank you. All right. Next, we have public comments. Uh the first one I have here is uh Citizen Joe. And if you would when you come up, just state your name and address if you
would. If not, it's fine. Oh, let's talk about impact. and all this. Why isn't county trying to save? Because I see an automobile accident. I
was in Hampton the other day. Woman come out of her house with a baby. Ambulance, two fire rescue trucks, a big tanker truck, and two police show up.
Why all these vehicles showing up for a baby? I mean, I get it, but if the baby's in trouble, all you should need there is an ambulance. Not two pickup trucks, the tanker truck
from the fire department, and two police officers. Save a whole bunch of money. That tanker truck probably gets six miles to the gallon if you're lucky coming all the way from start to happen and they turn the lights off before they ever got
there and just right on going back to start. Why can't you save some money like that instead of trying to pass it on to us? That's all I got to say.
Thank you. Next, I have uh Mr. Paul Steel. Uh Paul Steel, 14167 Southwest 101st Avenue, Stark, Florida. Uh it's starting to rain and so I want to talk a little bit about flooding tonight. Uh
my experience is that we need about after we come out of a dry spell like we have have had uh we need five or six inches of rain to sort of get things all saturated again before the water starts to flow. At least where I live we've got seven inches. And so we're at the point
where water begins can be begin flowing off the land and causing flood flooding issues. So, it's real important that we begin looking at some real critical parts of the county. And uh one of those critical parts is actually in the city of Stark. It's the uh Edwards Bottomland
project, mitigation project that's run by the Swany River Water Management District. And that uh the lack of maintenance on that project has resulted in accumulation of trash and debris and an overgrowth of plants that slows the
water flow out of uh down Alligator Creek, which is going to probably cause flooding in the city of Stark and all the way back up into eastern Bradford County uh up to the golf course uh uh the country club uh subdivision up
there. And so I think uh the good news is that the uh local mitigation strategy meeting from the emergency management met this this afternoon and I believe uh Brad Wit is going to be requesting information and letting Swan River know
we're concerned about that. But I would urge you also to keep informed about that project. And then the other issue is uh the buildup of trees across uh all of our waterways really. Uh the the big
ones that uh impact Lake Samson and Lake Crosby are between Lake Samson and three pipes and then from three pipes down to the CSX trussle. And it's important for the county as you go
into your planning process of of money uh how to spend your money to try to put in some money in the budget so that the uh uh public works department can have the funds to go in and clean out trees and trash that have fallen across
those two areas, but also many other areas in the county where that where the drainage uh blockages occur. So, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Steel. Hey, the last one I have is uh Mr. Strong.
Good evening. My name is Vion Strong, Post Office Box 530, Lo. I have a couple things. We have uh wonderful jail over uh
on the property. Um it's probably at capacity. Um we have all of these people that our government wants to house down in South Florida at Alligator Alcatraz or
whatever it's called. And we have Camp Landing that they want to house people at. My opinion, my opinion only. They pay $248 per person. I think that we should
clear out our our jail and house the immigration people in our jail, get the money, then I as a citizen and others won't have to pay the fire assessment.
There's the money right there. House the people, the people that are supposed to be in our jail no longer. We first appear them, send them home. There's one way to raise the money. We house the immigration people
$248 a day. We send the people that are arrested, first appear them, send them home. These are our citizens. Second thing, the impact fee. We should have been collecting the impact fee all the time. We never would
have had this problem. The impact fee has been something that I've talked about time and time again. The impact fee is paid for by the developer. I'm not sure why it's an issue. We should have collected it.
We've had Wawwa that's come around. We've had the racetrack that's come along. We've had um TJ Maxx has come along. We've had all of these people. Yes, they're in the city of Stark, but the racetrack was out of town. We've had
all of these developers that have come in. We have to You had the subdivisions that are out in the south end. We've had all of these opportunities that we've missed. You've had the hotel that's come in. We've had the stuff that's come in
that we've missed out on money. We got to think about the citizens also. Yeah, it's been growth, but I'm tired of the but it's coming in on the citizens. The same way you're thinking about developers, you got to think about
citizens also. So, let's think about the citizens and your problem with it being on the developers. think about the citizens and what you're putting on the citizens because I don't want to pay
that fee that you're putting on the on us with the fire assessment. Thank you. Okay, that's all the public comments I have. We'll move on to item six, approval of the consent agenda. Make a motion we approve the consent agenda. Second. Go ahead.
I have a motion from Commissioner Thompson, second from Commissioner Daltry. Is there any questions? All in favor by sign of I. I. I. Motion carries 50. Number seven. The first one I have on here is uh
communities in school. Uh Mrs. E Dero. Dilario. I should know it. I talk to your husband all the time. He got you got it pretty close. I just call him Jim though. Just fine. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.
Good evening and thank you for the invitation to come tonight. We'd just like to give you all an update about Bradford Community for Schools. As you all know from the past, Bradford Community for Schools actually began in our community in 1999. So, we've been around for a very long time. Way before
that, I won't age myself. I was already with the Bradford County School District as Miss Spooner knows because I had her lovely children. So, we worked alongside of each other for many years. So, I could attest for their good work even back then. Five years ago, I became the executive director, which has been a
real blessing for myself and many students because I've gotten to see them kind of full circle go from Rainbow Center young prek, elementary age, right on through to helping them at the end of life or end of school life, career life with scholarships and other things. So,
I would like to thank you all on behalf of our board, staff, students, and families for your continued support in what we're doing. We really are making a difference. So, I brought you a brochure tonight. This is our updated brochure. I'm not going to read the whole brochure to you, but I do want to just share with
you what our mission and our vision are because I think it's important to note. Our goal is to connect with students by surrounding them with a caring community of support, empowering them to reach their full potential and achieve success in life. So, that is a good statement to
sum up by saying that we are really a very strong dropout prevention program. We moved away from our accrediting folks would be a nice way to say that a year or so ago because they were requiring more and more of us with zero
funding coming down. So we now are a standalone 501c3 operating with funding from two sources which I will share and then with community support as with your from yourself. Our vision is to provide a supportive environment
for student um improvement and success through the connection with each student to a caring adult mentor and community resources. And we're trying to help them 6th through 12th grade be successful in school and then beyond as well. I would
like to gladly and successfully report that we had another 100% potential of seniors who were this year up for graduation. All of we had 26 students at 100% graduation rate. All of our 26
students graduated. Some of that was pushing, pulling, tugging, begging, bribing, pizza lunches, whatever it took. But we managed to get once again 100% of our students graduated. Um, we also were able this year to give nine scholarships through our take stock
program. We awarded seven students, which means they'll have a free two-year college education at the college of their choice. Of course, we're pushing Santa Fe because it's small, it's local, classroom size is small, and they get a lot of support. Then the other side of
our program, there's take stock under our umbrella. Then our communities for schools staff, we also through fundraising, which I'll share in a moment. We were able to give two scholarships, which we have named the Cheryl G. Kenova scholarship program. Uh
many of you all know Cheryl Kenova. She worked tirelessly for 14 years with community for schools um in leadership capacity. She now has stepped down. I understand that she's got family to take care of and other organizations. So, we
thought it would only be right to honor her um with two scholarships in her name. So, we were able to scholarship nine students this year, which I think is phenomenal from a small 501c3. We also became a part of a program at the state level which incorporated seven
of our seniors which now at the end of this year will be 12 of our seniors when they graduate will actually in addition to what we're already doing will have four-year free ride scholarships including money for some incidentals and extra things along the way. So we
continue to write grants, we continue to reach out. Um our goal is always students first. Um, we have a wonderful working board. We have a very small part-time staff. We do not work for very much at all. No benefits or any extras.
I can truly tell you that our funding goes to our students. Uh, we have fundraisers every month. We do a bingo. We would love to invite you all out to bingo one night. Um, some of you all have come and it's a lot of fun at the downtown grill. That's usually the last Monday night of the month. And then we
also have our annual golf tournament. So, for our golfers, and last year we talked about a few of you all golfing. Um, October the 24th will be our annual golf tournament. This year, we're going to move it back to Stark since our Stark golf club is in such great shape. And of
course, we always wanted to do business local. So, that's a plus as well. So, we have take stock dollars and then we have community um for schools dollars, which comes from Northeast Florida Career Source. We have a partnership with them which is um been a wonderful wonderful
relationship. There's a list of items here that tell you some of the benefits for our students. Um we have an afterchoolers club which we've partnered with tobaccof free that's been great. Uh we actually have the angel tree program at Christmas time which are gifts
provided through lifespring church. Uh we have back to school supplies. We have mentoring resource referral to other agencies. I'm going to skip back to the summer youth program in a moment because that'll be our highlight here. Our hanger resource room which provides
clothing, shoes, personal items, school supplies, whatever might be needed. Our weekend backpack program throughout the school district last year was regularly feeding about 67 children with backpacks completely filled every week and going
home with students on the weekend. So that was our need for for food and then our scholarshipping which I've already shared. So I want to tell you a little bit about and thank you to Career Source Northeast Florida for helping us with this. We this summer were able to employ
20 high school students between 9th and 12th grade. We had several we had 12 to 15 various employers offer their work sites. All they had to do was provide a work site and be a mentor. We took care of everything else. We met with
students. We talked about employability skills. We talked about great way to lose your job, great ways to keep your job. We met with employers. We've met with parents and we're wrapping that up um actually this week and it's been a very very very successful program. So
many of our students, they got to chose choose their location and then the employers met with them um interviewed them. So that was a nice process. A lot of our kids have never been employed before. They can use those hours for community service for college. They of
course were paid for those hours at $13 an hour, which is great. My first job, I think, paid about $3.74 an hour. So, $13 sounds like a lot of money. And then, of course, many of them are also able to keep these part-time jobs or we'll put
them on a resume and come back later for assistance. Um, this is our third year doing this. We continue to grow every year. So once again, funds are instrumental in helping us do this. Um our employers are very very pleased. They they really wish we could continue through the school year, but obviously
that would be um something very expensive to do. Our future goals um we actually have six staff members. Three are housed at the high school that my secretary or financial officer and I are housed at the Career Tech Center. Future
goals would be to expand to the middle school. We do include middle school students in the scholarshipping piece where we're looking at their grades. We're looking at their attendance and their behavior, meeting with them regularly, but we would love to have a person that we could actually staff at
the middle school that could kind of be on site like what we have at the high school. So, this past year we served close to 100 students, which I think is admirable for a small staff of six part-time people. We're not really part-time, but we'll say for all intended purposes that we are. Um, and
we have an excellent working board. We have 10 members on our board, and they're very, very helpful in anything that we ask or need in support of what our students require. Miss Spooner, thank you for being a mentor. She continues to shine and be a mentor in
our community and supports our endeavors. Thank you so much for that. Um we are part of a program uh our second year where we're trying to recruit more male mentors. So through church groups or local organizations which we speak at would love to have
more men uh become involved as mentors. It's very important. Um simple to do background check and then you would meet with your student for about an hour or two per month just to listen, share and support their endeavors. So, without
going through the whole flyer or brochure, that kind of sums up what we're doing. Um, we are growing. We are moving into other parts of the community trying to impact, of course, our elementary school some now because we have sixth graders there. They used to
be housed, you know, at either Lahi or our middle school, but now we actually have sixth grade in the elementary school. So, that's given us a little bit of a a spread as well. So, just want to thank you all for your help and your support and um if anybody's interested in mentoring or golfing or playing
bingo, we would love to have you come out. Any questions from the board? No, just thank you for what y'all do so much. it's so important to keep them, you know, going in the right direction. And um thank you all for everything you do
living in our community and and I know I've worked in our community for decades now, but we do have a lot of students that come from a lot of either lowinccome and or maybe single parent or maybe jobs where parents don't make a lot of money or maybe parents work out
of town. There's just a myriad of reasons why extra support is helpful. So, we're here to help any student any time that would need anything that helps them get across that graduation stage. Yes. And I just would like to say thank you to for the good work that you all have
done and then the success of this program and the number of students that you've helped over the years. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for mentoring, Miss Spooner. Yes. Thank you so much. Yeah. 100% graduation rate on the students you have. That's awesome. They they may be kicking and screaming now, but in five years from now, they'll come back and
thank you. But um for sure with that diploma. So, thank you so much for all you do for them. And we're not only about college. We're big on trade schools as well or helping them start a small business, go to a North Florida career technical or an apprenticeship or so. It's not just about college. Of course, that's a
choice, but we want them to do whatever they could be successful and happy and remain in our community and be a viable citizen. And I I appreciate that. Yeah. Because I'll be honest, college isn't for everybody. It's not. And and there's a lot of good trades out there. Excellent. Um working with your hands
that you can make a lot of money at nowadays. One of So, one of the young men with one of the scholarships this year, um I won't share his name because I don't have his permission to do that, but as a senior, he has almost finished his two-year Santa Fe degree. Wants to start a
plumbing business. Already has a part-time job with a local plumber. So he already has an avenue for his apprenticeship, but he wants to go into that as a local business owner with a college degree. So then that combination as well, but that was his choice. I mean that that's the way he wanted to do it.
So yeah, that's awesome. Yes. Yeah. We need a lot of mechanics too, don't we? Yeah. Yeah. So we have a lot of success. We got too many of them retiring right now. We do have a lot of success stories and we do give students choice and what they want to do. We do share with them
different, you know, avenues and ways to just become successful and to keep our young people in Bradford County. I I really hate to see that our including my own at the time they all graduated. There were not jobs here for what they were going to college for. So, they had to to kind of go on and that that's kind
of sad. We have a lot here to offer for our young people. But as they get out and get these degrees and certifications and apprenticeships, hopefully they'll start more businesses in our community and it'll keep our young people here. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. Next, we have the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council um Scott Coons along with the u the regional Florida uh tourism task force. Thank you. Thank you, Scott, for being here. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board. I'm Scott Coons. I have the honor and privilege of serving as the
executive director for the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council. Thank you for the invitation to appear for you tonight. I'd like to give you an overview of our organization and then discuss the budget requests we have this year. Council is part of a statewide network of 10 regional councils. Our
mission is to improve the quality of life of our region citizens by enhancing public safety, protecting regional resources, promoting economic development, and providing technical services to local governments. Our region is large in geography, covers 12
counties and 40 municipalities, 14 of which those are member municipalities, 8,000 square miles, and over 600,000 persons reside in the 12 counties. Council is made up of twothirds elected official, and the governor has the opportunity to appoint one-third
citizens. Uh your board representative is your chair, uh Commissioner Reic. Under state law, counties are required to be members of the region planning councils in our region and many others across the state. Cities can be voluntary members. Council was formed in 1969, been around for over 50 years.
Bradford County has been a member of the regional planning council since 1974. Those are our 12 uh member counties and our 14 member cities. Council is governed by an executive board of elected officials. Our new
chair this year is Commissioner Alfred from Elatchua County. Our vice chair is Commissioner Perkins from Swany County. Our treasurer is Councilwoman Hawkins from the city of Jasper. Our new secretary is uh Vice Mayor Buoie Hutchinson from the city of Hawthorne.
And our media past chair is Mayor Hope from the city of Archer. We also have several expio members that participate in our organization. The state department of commerce, environmental protection and department of transportation as well as the three water management districts that cover our 12 counties.
We have five program areas. First is regional. The council has a strategic regional policy plan to guide the growth and development of the region. And we also uh perform clearing house review activities to review uh large-scale comprehensive plan amendments and provide advisory comments to cities and
counties. Our second program is public safety. Uh we staff the North Central Florida Emergency Planning Committee. This is made up of local first responders, emergency managers, and fire rescue uh personnel. Uh Michael Heater from your emergency management office as your county representative participates
in the organization. also work with the state division of emergency management on hurricane evacuation studies. Uh we provide first uh spawn first responder training for hazardous uh materials for uh fire rescue units at no cost to cities and
counties. We also staff the North Central Florida regional hazmat response team which Bford County is a participating member and also under state law all counties required each year to monitor 20% of the businesses that generate hazardous waste and we provide that service here to Bradford
County and several other of our counties on a cost for fee basis. Our third area is economic development. Uh we're designated federal economic development district maintains a strategic uh economic strategy for our region to diversify our economy and also to
promote the region for tourism under the original Florida tourism task force which I'll discuss a little bit later. Our fourth area of activity is local government assistance. We have two areas there and comprehensive planning assistance. We provide technical professional services to five counties
and 15 municipalities across our region assisting them in complying the state community planning act in their planning and zoning matters. We also work with uh several communities on the small cities block grant program for uh neighborhood improvements, housing and renovation.
Our fifth area is transportation. Uh the program there is transportation disadvantage. This is a state-f funed program to provide paratransit services to low-income uh disabled and elderly individuals to get to life sustaining activities. Most of the those trips over
half of them in our region are for u medical appointments uh diialysis visits, cancer treatment and similar uh activities. And the program uh this past year coordinate over 50,000 trips throughout the 12 counties. The regional planning council serves as the official
planning entity for that program and develops the annual service plan uh evaluates the service provider which in Breedford County is a Swany River economic council makes a recommendation to state commission every 5 years who should be providing that service. Moving on to the budget request for your
invitation this evening. Uh as I mentioned earlier the county is a member of the north central Florida regional planning council and interlocal agency public organization. Uh by being a member, the county is a part owner of the regional planning council and each year uh the council assess 30 cents per
capita contribution for each member. Uh in this coming fiscal year, the county's contribution would be $5,810. We use those funds uh to leverage uh other grant uh opportunities. Uh that's only our member contributions are less
than 10% of our overall budget. uh and your return on investment is about 9 to1 based on the funding we're able to bring into the uh county for transportation disadvantage, the public safety training and the economic development planning. Secondary's uh request as I mentioned
earlier is a fee for service for monitoring the hazardous waste generators which is a state mandate. We conduct the site visits, provide educational information to businesses and then file the compliance reports with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The second organization is the regional
Florida tourism task force as a separate entity which the regional planning council provides staff support to. Regional planning council formed the region Florida task force some 30 years ago to promote our 12 counties and two of our neighbors to the west Jefferson and Makulla as uh visit natural north
Florida to promote ecoourism cultural and heritage tourism. that organization uh rece uh applies for each year from the department of commerce and receives a regional rural uh development grant uh for their marketing program. Uh some of the
benefits of being a participating member each year they use those grant funds to send three or four task force members to the Southeast Tourism Society's Marketing College, which is a three-year program to become a certified tourism marketer. uh as well as uh the opportunity to
participate in the visit Florida annual vacation guide. Uh the task force takes out a two-page spread and pays for over half of the advertisement and then participating counties are able to also be included in that ad at a substantial
discount uh for their placement as well as participating visit Florida welcome centers uh every several months including tomorrow uh visit national north Florida and five or six of our participating counties will be taking over the I75 visit Florida welcome
center uh providing tableabling inside the welcome center to share information about tourist opportunities uh in the counties and lodging and other opportunities uh in those counties. And the contribution to that organization is $3,000. It's based on
the first two pennies of your local tourist development tax, commonly referred to as the bed tax. It's a tiered uh contribution based on the amount of bed tax revenue. uh the first two pennies here in Bradford County last year generated about $124,000.
So that uh is in the banding your contribution would be $3,000 to the organization. We're able to perform all this work with a very uh modest dedicated staff advancing our mission. Uh in summary, we're part of a statewide network. Uh twothirds elected officials, one-third
gumal appointees. We're a planning coordinating entity. Our program and portfolio is very diversified. regional planning to public safety, economic development, local government assistance, and transportation. And we appreciate the county's membership in the organization for over 50 years, as
well as your participation in the original Florida tourism program for over 30 years. Here, that concludes my comments and be happy to answer any questions for the board. Any questions? No question. just just um a thanks and
appreciation for the services that have been rendered to our county as well as the city over the years. Thank you. Yes, I thank you. Definitely. Thank you. Thanks for coming tonight and with the presentation. Um no other questions. Um
yeah, because my dad was on the uh planning council way back in what the 80s, correct? Uh for probably many years, 16 years, I guess, something like that. Yeah. So, well, thank you very much, Scott, for coming. Thank you. Thank you.
All right, moving on to item eight, the community organizations uh 2025 through 2026 fiscal year uh fiscal year budget requests approvals. Mr. Chair, I
Going back, I know we had everyone come in and do their presentations, but uh I think we had also uh last year I know we just decided to keep everyone at the same amount that they were currently at. I think we did have some offered to go a little bit lower. Uh we've had some that
have come in higher. Um but u I would like to see us keep it at the same 2425 budget that we had with the exception of the Acorn Clinic who did ask us to go ahead and decrease
theirs by $1,250. Okay. Okay. So that's a motion to um Mr. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So, we um we just heard from the two organizations and we
would we need to go ahead and include them in the approval uh of this because this is the last meeting we'll have before the clerk's office has an opportunity to put it in the budget. So, uh we we'll need to include those in this approval process.
Okay. At whatever level you you decide. Is there which one the the sheet you gave us? They're included on this. Yeah, all of them is included. Yeah, it is
in the spreadsheet. But that's all of them though, correct? Yeah. The one on the the spreadsheet is Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So, this is all. Yeah. And then, of course, just one item on the spreadsheet that you need to take a look at is the Bradford Cowboys
Athletic Association. It says um 15,000, but in previous action, you decided that that money would be moved entirely into the recreation budget. Correct. Correct. Yes. So, we got a motion on that. Wait a minute. Which which one are you
guys going off? You have a different one than we have. Okay. I mean, we all got the same thing or should um So, do you have can you project it on the screen or do you have that?
You'll have to go. Can you pull it up on the screen? No. Can you Well, I mean, we all got the same stuff. Put it down. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, I got one, too. I mean, we all should have the same thing. Yeah, I got the same one as Yeah, you have. Okay, this is the This is
Yeah, there's only there's only one version of this. Yeah, right. We're good. So, we have a motion. Do we need a second? Okay. Well, so let's clarify this motion here. So, we need a motion to approve
the budget. Same as last year except for the Bradford Cowboys Athletic Association. We're not we're not going to fund that. We're going to move that fun into the recreation into the recreation. Correct. And then the acorn clinic um we will
fund them as Commissioner Daltry said at the uh $1,250 less than last year. Correct. And then also the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council should be funded at $5,810 for the dues
and the communities and schools. Okay. It's on there. It's on there, Commissioner. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It's on there. Yeah, that shouldn't be on there. Yeah. $5,810 for dues. And the only change I see is the uh original Florida
task force should be funded at the 3,000. And it has here. Last year, we only funded it at 2,000. And that's where we should keep that at 2,000. We should keep it. Okay. So, keep it at 2,000. Keep it at I mean, okay. No.
Okay. clerk, is that is that clear enough? Okay, we're good. Okay. All right, everybody good with that? Okay. So, do I have a motion? Commissioner the motion. Okay. I've got a motion from Commissioner Dry.
Second. Second from Commissioner Thompson. Okay. All in favor by sign of I. Motion carries 5. All right. Item nine. We need to uh appoint a new recreation uh board member.
Well, I would nominate you, Mr. Rick, and I would second and I would third it. All right. You got a fourth, Miss Barry. Okay. I appreciate that. I'll do my best on that. Okay. So, we have a um a motion for Commissioner Riddick from
Commissioner Dudrey, a second from Commissioner Andrews, from Commissioner. Third and all in favor by a sign of I. I. Motion carries. 50. Mr. Rick, can I just add um the difference in what we just agreed upon in the
community organizations? I know you were looking for an additional 15,000. After the sheriff had his contribution, there was the parks contribution. And I think it came down to about a $15,000 deficit. So, I think you're you're
getting closer. We're getting closer. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. Anyway, just want to bring that up. All right. Thank you. Thank you'all. All right. Okay. Moving on to item 10, the uh clerk's report. All we have is Dana has our year-to-
date uh report for departments. Okay. Board departments from October to 24 to June 25. And also we will need to adopt a military tonight. Good evening board. Good evening.
Uh this evening I plan to present a brief update on revenue and expenditures for the first three quarters of fiscal year 2025. If you look at the signal sheet I passed out. We will be reviewing the general fund, the fire rescue fund, and the road department fund.
First, we have the general fund. We began fiscal year 25 with a fund balance of 17.9 million. Revenue for the first three quarters was almost 17 million. expenditures total just over 19 million, resulting in a use of the fund balance
of $2.2 million for the first three quarters, making the current fund balance 15.7 million as of June 30th. If revenue and expenditures continue at the same rate, you can expect the fund balance to be around 14.9 million by the
end of this fiscal year. Do you have any questions about the general funds third quarter update? All right. Uh, next we have the fire rescue fund. We began fiscal year 25 with a fund balance of 835,000.
Revenue for the first three quarters, including budgeted transfers from the general fund was 6.4 million. expenditures total just over six million, resulting in a savings to their department's fund balance of around $400,000 for the first three quarters, making the
fire rescue's fund balance just over 1.2 million as of June 30th. If revenue and expenditures continue at the same rate, you can expect the fire rescue's fund balance to be around $1.3 million by the end of this fiscal year. Any questions?
[Music] Thank you. Okay. Uh, finally, we have the road department's fund balance. I mean, fund. We began fiscal year 25 with a fund balance of just over a million dollars. Revenue for the first three quarters, including budgeted transfers from the
general fund, was just over 2 million. Expenditures total just under 1.9 million, resulting in a savings to the department's fund balance of around $55,000 for the first three quarters. Making the road road department's fund balance
almost 1.1 million as of June 30th. If revenue and expenditures continue at the same rate, you can expect the road department's fund balance to be around 1.1 million by the end of this fiscal year. Any questions on that?
Any questions? questions. Thanks. Thank you very much. Okay. Next, um the board will need to set the proposed millage rate for fiscal year 2526 tonight in order to stay on schedule with the trim timetable. The
trim timetable calls for the clerk to present a tenative budget on Tuesday, August 5th. Before you is a spreadsheet outlining your options and setting the fiscal year 2526 millage rate. Your current rate is 10 mills. If you keep the rate at 10 mills for
fiscal year 2526, you may expect to generate 15 million $516,590. This is an increase of $1.4 million from fiscal year 2425. The next one, a decrease rate of 9.75
would generate 15,128,675. This is an increase of just over a million from fiscal year 2425. A decrease rate of F 9.5 would generate $14.7 million. This is an increase of 695,000
from fiscal year 2425. The rolled back rate is 9.466 which would generate 14.6 million. This is an increase of 642,000 from fiscal year 2425.
A decrease rate of 9.1104 would generate 14,136,000. This is an increase of 90,000 over fiscal year 2425. A decreased rate of 9.0 would generate
13,900 964,000, which is a decrease of $80,000 from fiscal year 2425. As you discuss your options tonight, please remember that whatever you set your proposed millage rate at tonight,
the property appraisal will use that rate on the trim notices that are scheduled to be mailed out to all taxpayers on August 15th. On September 9th, the board will hold its first public hearing where you will adopt a tenative millage rate. This is
it is not recommended that you increase the proposed rate you set tonight. An increase would have an impact to the trim timetable and it would require the property appraiser to mail out new trim notices. So I ask that you please set the proposed millage rate tonight.
Hey board. So, um it's I think it's you well you guys recommendation that we keep it at the same millillage um in order to generate the maximum that
we can for this year um because you haven't really we haven't um been in a position to collect any kind of um assessment at this point. We can't draw it out. Okay.
We have no idea. Um I mean we know about what's going to come in. Yeah. Can't drop it down. Not until we get the first year's worth of fire assessment in a motion. So I just um at 10 you it seems that we need to keep it at
the 10 mills. So we'll make a motion to keep it at the 10 mills. Okay. I have motion from Commissioner Spooner, second from um Commissioner Thompson. Any other discussion? All in favor by a sign of I.
I. Motion carries 50. Thank you. Thank you. Um, sheriff report. He's not here. I was going to speak up about something real fast. Miss Strong had asked about housing inmates. Number one, our judges aren't going to
catch and release people around here. I mean, they went on certain offenses. first time misdemeanor offenses, but we already house approximately 50, I think the sheriff told me today, 52 federal inmates that we've always housed. It dropped during CO. They cut them all
loose during CO, but we've been housing 50 for probably 12, 14 years. And that's about the max we can handle. And that money goes into the jail set. Pardon? All that goes in the jail set.
It's not. It's 120. All right. And I think sharers get around 78 or 80 right now. Somewhere 7080 range. Okay. Thank you. All right. County manager report.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh the first item on our agenda is to ask for the approval to release an RFQ for the real estate broker services for the marketing of the county's 100,000 foot warehouse and attached acreage. Let's do it.
Okay. Yeah, we need a motion, a second motion. Okay. Have a motion from Commissioner Spooner. Second. Second from Commissioner Doldry. Any questions? I have a question. Where will we advertise this other than in the Bradford County Telegraph?
We'll put it on our website. And uh what would be some other Rachel? What would be some other avenues to to advertise for that? Say it again. Northeast Florida Road
Yeah, that'd be probably the best place. Yeah. Okay. Right. Good. We have a motion and a second. All in favor by sign of I. I. Motion carries 50. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Next, I'd like to ask Michael Heater to come up and give us an update on the splash bash and
events going forward. Good evening, folks. Michael Heater. I want to ask Chief Carter to come up because I wanted to commend him publicly even though it's second place. We love you. Uh earlier today, the sheriff's office took on fire rescue in a blood drive,
battle of the badges. The sheriff's office squeaked out a few more donors than fire rescue did. So, we are temporarily holding the trophy as the winner of the battle of the badges. However, I think our next one's scheduled for October uh probably during fire prevention week, which means
that ought to be interesting. Uh but we wanted to I want to public publicly commend Chief Carter's department uh for the personnel that turned out because uh we spent public safety together spent our day saving lives one pint at a time.
So I want to say thank you publicly. I would just I would like to add that they have guns for persuasion. So I think they have have an advantage. I struggled with this because as a 30 plus year fireman, I was kind of torn between it, but then I realized, okay, well, one guy signs the checks. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Um, uh, Mr. Corn, thank you for the opportunity to speak. Uh, I'll be very brief about, uh, what we're going to be doing. Uh, we did a, uh, had our splash bash. It was our fourth event this year, our second at the fairgrounds. Excuse me.
Uh, yeah, battling bronchitis. Um, and uh, we had a good turnout of people. Last year was a three-day event. We scaled it back uh, with financial concerns, but we still had between 3,000 and 3,500 people turn out. Uh, fireworks was a 12minute show. We had seven giant
water slides, live music, food trucks, and for the first time in four years, we had zero injuries. We've always had, you know, somebody got hurt, bloody nose, this that or whatever like that when fire rescue's always been there to take care of it. This year with the add
additional staffing that we provided, uh, thanks to the high school's JOTC program, we're able to have enough eyes on the field to keep the little ones safe. So, I'm very pleased to report that we had zero injuries and uh, only one minor law enforcement issue that was
resolved quickly. Um, the other good news is is that the tourist development council approved $5,500 for advertising. We spent 1,400. So, we are going to be returning $4,100 back to TDC that we can use for other programs and other initiatives as we
move forward. Um, we have several things coming down the pipe. We had a meeting this evening to talk about the the fair coming up in the springtime. Uh, we are we are making progress. We've got some good and I'm not going to steal any thunder like that one. I will tell you
that we're making progress and we're excited about what's h going to be happening with the all new and improved fair moving forward. Uh we have a big plan coming up for October with a car show, a touch a truck, and uh we've been requested by the state of Florida's
Model Railroad Association to host their annual meeting. So, we're going to do it around the same time in October and do a giant cranes, trains, and automobiles event for the public. Uh, so we'll have a vintage car show that's being brought
in as a for cancer charity, a touch a truck, and model trains for the kids and everybody to look at. So, we've got a number of items coming down the pipe. Just so you know, we've had a request from the state's uh remotec controlled
airplane clubs if we would if Bradford County would be able to host an a remote controlled air show uh here. All of these events are going to be something that we can charge for so we can charge admission to the different festivals that we're
talking about. The sounds on the grounds concert series that we're generating. Um and we're starting to I've had conversations with Mr. Cornne about how we can start working towards uh generating some some income and some revenue on this one. So I myself, excuse
me, I'm sorry. I'm real excited about what the future holds for the for the grounds. I I think that we're in moving in the right direction and it's baby steps. We know we're not going to be able to come up with 1.5 or 1.7 million like that, but we have a vision on where
we want to go with this. And ultimately, as this moves into the association and and we start building on something, I think you're going to hit a point that you can look back on this in the years to come and realize that we are we're on the precipice of something great and I'm really excited about it. And I will
finish up with one last thing and that is Miss Spooner, thank you for making the appearance at the parade uh and at the bash. The parade went off without a hitch. Uh, and we had nearly 100 seniors
and veterans that came from the nursing home because of the parade route going by all the nursing homes in Stark. And they had I think it was between 80 and 80 to 100 people just from the nursing homes that came out from the facilities to watch the parade. A lot of compliments on that. So, we we're
excited about uh what's happened. Next year will be our fifth. It's also our 250th birthday and we've already stay started laying the groundwork for what's going to be probably our biggest Fourth of July event in history. So with that, I appreciate it. I'll entertain any questions that you may have or anything else.
Um Mr. Chair, just a comment. I just want to commend you. Uh Mr. heater. You know, we had some awful weather during that time, but despite that, you know, everything just went off super and uh all of the participants, but especially wanted to thank you for the elders, for
the senior citizens that are in the nursing facilities really really appreciate it feeling like they're they're not forgotten. Correct. And so that was a big plus and all of the activities at the fairgrounds for the kids and family. Yeah. Thank you.
Lot of fun. We had a really good time and I I I mean anyone who knows me knows that my age is an average because mentally I'm still eight years old and I think like a kid because I act like one and uh I am uh I I enjoy getting out and doing stuff especially for kids. So for
me uh it's a labor of love. Thank you so much. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Michael presentation. So Mr. Chairman, there's another item. It's not on the agenda, but this came up late this afternoon. uh Chief Carter would like to come up and explain to you
an opportunity for a grant uh to to fund a combined opioid response team. So, Chief Carter, if you'll uh if you'll do that for us. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you. Um first, before I started, I do want to say I just returned from uh my chief's conference this this past week. Got back
yesterday, as a matter of fact. Um and I want to publicly acknowledge Chief Harold Theas from Elatchua County was named as the fire chief of the year for the state of Florida. uh huge accomplishment for him. He's been a great mentor and friend for me. So, I just wanted to publicly uh recognize him and congratulate him on his uh
achievement. I come before you this evening to talk about a grant opportunity. It's the first responders comprehensive addiction and recovery act grant. It's funded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Uh this is a a great
opportunity for us. We're missing a big um a big population that I think we could that could really benefit from our services. As you know, our community resource paramedic program has been a a great success uh thus far and this is really just an expansion on that. Uh
this is a combined effort with the Bradford County Sheriff's Office. The sheriff and I have met about this. He's 100% on board and supportive of this. And what this would allow us to do is take what's already been uh put in place with the community pair medicine program and expand that to 247 coverage. As you
know, David Weekes, Lieutenant Weeks, works a a 40-hour schedule and is not available at night times and weekends typically. You know, he will come out after hours. Uh but, you know, to be able to have this this 247 would be an incredible addition to our community.
Not to mention again the the the uh population of patients I was speaking of earlier that we that we miss out on is the people that interact with law enforcement. Law enforcement a lot of times will go to respond to a mental health call um and we will never know that even happens. And so law
enforcement will deal with that. They'll either you know recommend a Baker Act or they they'll transport to a Baker Act facility um or they'll they'll you know follow up with the patient later on. but we never have any contact with them and a lot of times there's that that patient never follows up with a meridian or you
know some sort of um help further on beyond that and so again this would provide 247 response not just from our agency but also from the sheriff's office so this would be provide a combined uh response and then again as I mentioned Meridian earlier would also provide a partnership with them uh to
have a mental health counselor on call 247 as well this also would expand our medication assisted therapy program to 24-hour access. So, if we get someone who's in withdrawals at 2:00 in the morning, we can start treatment right then. Um, this is an opportunity for up
to $800,000 uh per year for up to four years of funding. So, a significant amount of money uh a big opportunity here for us. There's no county match and um all staff that would be hired for this uh team
would be fully aware that this is a grant-f funed program. with no guarantee of funding in the future beyond the four years. And typically, as you know, I like to put together presentations and I don't bring things before you last minute. I try to be well prepared for uh for these things. This is a an opportunity that kind of fell in our lap
and was uh was something that we felt we were very well positioned to uh to move forward with. And so, it was uh something that the application is due on Tuesday, July 22nd. So, that's next Tuesday. Uh we're putting this together again in coordination with the sheriff's
office and their team as well. So um it really I think is a unique unprecedentated unprecedented opportunity for us to collaborate with the sheriff's office and bring this resource to our community and and again just just a benefit uh to the public at
no cost to the taxpayers which is what we've been able to accomplish thus far with this program and just continuing on with that. And so I would just ask for for approval to move forward with um with applying for that grant. I didn't something of this magnitude and and this amount of money. I did not want to come,
you know, come before the board after the fact and say, "Hey, we we applied for this even though there is no county match." So um I wanted your support before moving forward with uh with something like this. 100%. Yeah. Absolutely. Ask consensus. It let them go forward. Chief, what what's what's the name of
the grant again? It is the first responders uh comprehensive addiction and recovery act. I'll get with you after. Okay. I can give you the funding number and everything as well. Okay. So, go ahead. I'm sorry. We need to make that as a motion or can
we just all agree? No. Consensus will be fine for tonight and then what we'll do is we'll go ahead and make application and then at the next board meeting we'll have it on the consent agenda for retroactive approval. Okay, sounds good. Yep. We have a concern.
Okay. Are they going to pay for the vehicles and stuff out of the grant? Everything could be is is fundable through that uh through that grant. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Okay. Fundable. Is that a word? Fundable. That's right. I don't know. Fundable. Absolutely. If not, it is now.
Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Thank you. All right. County attorney's report. I don't have anything tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Right, Commissioner D. Hey, so we have a new CFO. Not sure if
y'all are aware of that. Uh Blae and Gogia, I think it's how you say his last name. Pasco County. Um just want to remind everybody that uh where he has a lot of uh good things that uh he's going to do for our state. He is hellbent on
property taxes. Um so just like we've been hearing a lot from the legislators about that. So again, just keep that in mind when items come up and you know, we've talked about this before that uh not not to be doom and gloom, but you
know, we we certainly need to be looking after physically looking after everything that we can and um just hoping that at some point somebody will realize the impact. But uh he certainly
uh as the new um what the CFO is also the state fire marshal. That's correct. Yeah. Um I know that he is uh put all of his support behind first responders, fire rescue, and law enforcement. So we
always like to see that. Um but like I said, there's that one bullet point that just need everybody needs to keep in mind about property taxes. So that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, M. Um, I do have I just want to acknowledge um um
our legislator um Senator Jennifer Bradley. You know, there's a saying in the good book um and it says um how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. And Senator Bradley has some
beautiful feet. She is that saint on the hilltops of Tallahassee. She looks out for our county and our community. And I just want to thank her from the depth of my heart
uh for pushing forward um the appropriations for the RJ phase three renovation. Um that is going to help our community tremendously. I think um
Representative Chuck Brandon and even um be before him, the others who had tried to to help us, but I'm eternally grateful uh for that for our community. It's going to make a very big difference. But I want her to know how
grateful we are uh for her work in Tallahassee as well as um Representative Brandon. Um and also just wanted to I acknowledge the good work that Mr. Hila did and he went over that. Um but we had
an opportunity and um Mr. Conne was there for the Kuanas um meeting. And so we had a chance to hear from the PACE um program um out of um Orange Park and I hope that they can come and present to
our board because that's a significant program that could have significant impact and helpfulness towards the children or the or young girls in our community. So I would ask um that we have them on our agenda uh sometime in
the very very near future. but they offer services that would help um with with counseling preventing kids from dropping out of school and a followup with them that would have be a benefit. So, I'm I'm thankful uh if we can have
that done. Um and um those were the important things. So, we're going to be moving forward in our community and making some good things happen. Thank you. So, Mr. Chairman, we currently have PACE tentatively scheduled for the second
meeting in August. So, we look forward to having them here and and make the presentation. Um, several weeks ago, Commissioner Dory and I and some others in the in the uh community traveled up to Orange Park to take a tour of the facility and get a presentation from them. And it's
absolutely amazing. And there's no question in any of our minds that have have seen it so far know that there is a need in Bradford County for those services. So hopefully when they come before this board uh there will be a momentum and a an appetite and a
willingness to move forward with with that program. And if I could just add to that and and Miss RH was there too. Thank you. Um if I could just add that uh it's a state funded program and so currently their reach program where they would come into
the schools and offer the counseling and assistance. Um, you know, it's not anything that right now they're looking to have a brickandmortar type facility, but at some point um, you know, we need to look around at at uh, like maybe RJ or uh, you know, some other, uh,
facility that we could, um, be able to have them at where they could actually, you know, have their programs and and, uh, assist with the the young ladies and that that need the need the help. So, anyway, I just wanted to add to that. Go ahead. Sorry. Yep.
Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Yeah. I'd just like to say uh thank everybody for coming out. A bunch of them gone, but appreciate y'all coming out. Makes us feel better when we got a room for
Thank y'all. Have a good weekend and a safe week. Oh, can I one more thing? I wanted to acknowledge my friend, Miss Norman, commissioner Norman from the city of Lai who came out um this evening and she is
um the person for the hub in Lai. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you. I would just like to also thank everybody for coming. Um, sometimes it's it's u very uncomfortable
when we make decisions like we did tonight. Um, but I just hope and pray that everyone knows that we're trying to do the best for the county that we possibly can and I think we did that tonight. Um, so I appreciate each one of
you um for our teamwork that was obvious tonight. So, um, and other than that, that's all I have. Thank you. Uh, and I too thank every one of y'all for coming tonight. Really do appreciate it. Uh, board, thank y'all so much for,
uh, allowing me to serve on the, uh, athletic board. Um, I will tell you this. I had a meeting with the city last week, uh, trying to get things organized. I had a meeting today with, um, our clerk and Mrs. rodent and county manager and um trying to make sure we
get it right. Um now we're going to be putting it in the attorney's hands uh from the attorney from the city, the attorney from Stark and I mean from the city and our attorney to um come up with uh what's the best way to move forward from here as far as the accounts and
start to get things going. But um really excited. Um, I will tell you this, I continue to constantly keep having calls, uh, people encouraging and, um, just wanting to see this really work. So, um, I'll keep you updated as we move
along. And, um, I believe the city was supposed to have a meeting this past Tuesday where they picked, uh, their person to sit on the board. uh the TDC board won't meet again until um the next Thursday in August. So, we won't know
who's going to be on the board from the TDC yet. And then after that, we will um put up kind of like a resume or something kind of like we did with the fair, send it out for people to fill it fill it in and u why they would like to serve on that athletic board. And uh
hopefully we can get four real good citizens to serve on that board along with the three standing members. and uh then we'll move forward in trying to hire the right person for the athletic director. So that's kind of where we're at right now. But um but again, thank
y'all. Thank everyone for being here. Uh if there's nothing else, come before the board. Meetings adjourn your vacation. So all right.