sir. Yes.
Wow. I stay in contact with Tim. Are you guys ready? I think they got a little bit right. Good morning and welcome to the committee meeting of the whole our first meeting of 2026. So we are very excited to get some new projects on the ground and get some planning. So thank you for participating in this today. Um do we have anything we
want to go over before the meeting itself? Commissioner Barry, Commissioner May. Okay. Um, Commissioner Stroberger was laid over on a flight, so he is making his way back, so hopefully he'll be able to join us for the tail end. Um, Debbie Bowers, are you ready for the presentation? Oh, the pledge. I'm sorry. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Coler. Join me to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it
stands. One nation under God, indivisible. Liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Commissioner Coler. And if you'll lead us in the pledge again tonight, that would be great. And has our meeting been properly advertised? Madam Chair, this meeting was advertised in the Pensacola News Journal in the board's weekly meeting schedule on December 31st, 2025. Wonderful. And just as a community service announcement, you can sign up to receive those notifications on the county website. So know we've received
some complaints that we only advertise in P&J. We can email those directly to you. So if that is something that interests you or some of your friends, please visit myascambia.com. Sorry, technical difficulty. It's not showing. Wait, it's not showing up here. I need
Will you switch on the microphone? I'm sorry. Thank you. So, I'm going to tag tag team with Chris Pate from Florida West. I'm going to just go over the initial laying it out. Um, and then he'll talk about the economic uh development opportunities. I just want to give you a little bit of a brief history just to remind you that this site or part of the whole site was uh Scambia Treating Company and they operated from 1942 to 1982. They did pressurized treating
of mainly utility poles and uh foundation pilings. They caused u a lot of contamination with PCPs and creassote. Um EPA after circular was passed started monitor the in the mid80s. Uh around 1992 EPA completed the first soil removal project. They relocated three just a little bit under 400 households in four different residential areas. And just a little bit when the
um EPA through FD deeded all the property to Scambia County in 2018. Um, and I just wanted to make sure everybody understood there were restrictions. There restricted covenants on the deed. It can only be used for commercial, industrial, manufacturing, you know, businesses, not even temporary, residential, like a hotel and motel can't go on there. Uh, specifically, again, residential, daycare, schools, playgrounds, anything like that that um would have someone interacting with the ground or stuff like that cannot be on the property. So,
the first slide that I want to do is the area. So, the rest of the slides are basically Ariel's and my mouse isn't working, Mike. But, um, this is the overall area. Damn it. Thank you. All right. Well, hopefully you can kind of follow. I v I've broken it down in three different
areas. The north the north parcels, the south parcels, and the west parcels. The blue line, if you can see it, is the uh delineation between the county and the city. And it's jagged. You'll see the blue line and on the big parcel on the north parcel, it's on the it goes down um I think it's spring, not Spring Street. I am sorry the slides are so bad. I had a problem with them. I just wanted you to see that when you get below the uh industrial complex area with all the
warehouses and manufacturing buildings, it juts around and then it go comes back to Palifox. Um so there's one little area that's the county and then north of the big parcel is the county and the city has the middle part. Okay, hopefully that made sense. This is a little bit harder without being able to show you. I'm going to start on the south parcels and I just want to show you that the northern rectangle is already done. It's a storm water pond. It was part of the
Deleno project. Um and it is completed. What I'm showing you in the green is about 7.7 acres that we're asking uh for direction and allowing that to become the fire training facility. And then you will see on the red parcel there is um I've just denoted there has been discussion from EPA and others about donating some land about an acre to the church. Um I did try to cont
um not all of the property that was acquired was a part of the super fund site. Correct. Correct. the so some of and and Chip may help but there's a large portion of that land that can be used for athletic fields and for other things other than being capped or not. No, it cannot the outline areas that were not a part of the contamination cannot be used. Correct. Everything that was dee deeded to us by EPA, which is all of the parcels I showed here, uh have restricted covenants on
them and we cannot use it for any kind of activ uh camp activity or athletic activity. Good good morning. Uh Debbie is correct. Currently that they do have u restrictions on all of the properties. Um but uh in conversations with EPA, they have said if we wanted to do additional soil testing in some of the outlying areas that were not part of the um contaminated area, uh that we could do
that additional soil testing and possibly lift those restrictive covenants in some of those other areas. Okay. Well, maybe when Keith Wilkins was here, maybe that was the conversation that we had back in 2018 that we could because there was no contamination that was found on those properties. And then there were multiple properties, maybe two or three chips, remember that were taxdeed properties that when EPA donated them, those we didn't even have those properties at those times that we acquired those through taxdeed and there was one that was left out that we didn't get. That's correct. And so those were not a part of the donation. So we acquired those after the
donation for for EPA. And so for the other thing on the presentation, so as we get started, uh you know, I was when Senator Nelson did this, I was a young college high school student when this first started with Margaret Williams. Uh and it was a commitment from the county, not necessarily EPA, uh for the residents in that neighborhood, for that church, for Englewood. And I talked to Gwen Crosby before I came here. It's not an acre, it's three acres. And so that's going to be the starting point for anything that, you know, I'm going to be supportive of. But but go ahead.
Understood. Um, then if we go to the that's the suggestion from staff on the southern parcels. If we go to the western parcels, if you all recollect, we have a little bit under $30 million to build a new ECAP facility. In green show in the the lower half part of the green um is where the ECAP facility will go. I apologize. I really had this the tooth where it looks like they're
missing teeth are part of the grant also. So we are trying to acquire that and the grant will pay for that. We are also talking to owners of the parcels on pace in front of the ECAP facility. They're willing sellers. We're discussing that with them. The also the parcels between um the further and eastern end and the big huge ECAP facility that's a little bit like a triangle. We're talking to those owners. Um, and we have been having and they seem to be willing. We're talking to them and the parcel between the stormwater pond which is the 2 acres north
um in that triangle area. We've been talking to uh two owners in there. So, if we come to any kind of agreement with any of those, we'll have to work with Stephen to find a a a fund uh to purchase them. But that would just help enhance the ECAP facility and especially to give it pace frontage. The storm water pond we will need not only for the area but obviously for the development of the ECAP facility itself. And then in red you see a bunch of it's about 4.3 acres of smaller parcels. Um we
can work with Chris. The county itself can do auctions of any of that. There's several ways that we can sell those or put them back into use. And then we get to the larger parcel. If I had my cursor working, the actual uh Escambia treating company plant was north of that green box and uh probably right in the road, which is uh Lance Lance Sound Avenue, but that's where the actual
Escambia Trading Company was located and where most of the contamination is. Uh there's about 73.2 too. You found it. You just have to look at it. Okay. So, you found the um this is exact. This is where the scamia treating company was actually located. Um in total with this, this and this and what's in front of spares. This is what's just below Tisdale, you have about 73.2 uh marketable acres. Staff is asking for this five acres in green to uh for the animal shelter.
That's about the minimum number of acres that we can put it on. Um we are bringing action items in the near f in the near future to uh vacate some of the plat portions and rights ofways north of uh Hickory Street and south of Begs Lane in that area. We're cleaning it up so it'll be better. It will be easier to uh market it for economic development. And the last notes on there because I've heard a lot of people with a lot of consternation about the cap. You can build
on the cap. You just have to do the engineering correctly. It may cost you a little bit more than it would normally cost to build on a flat piece of land. Um but even in our deed restrictions, our restrictive covenants, it explains how you can work with engineering um and build even buildings on it. It's just going to be a little bit more expensive. So unless you have more questions for my part of the presentation, it was just to try to discuss the fire training facility and the animal shelter. Can you flip back? I think it was slide number four. And Commissioner May,
if you can give us some clarity on what you would like to see done with these properties. I know it's a project that's really close to your heart and I want to make sure that we're respectful to the community as we move forward. Um, can you give us what your vision might be for this area? That's the church. Just contiguous. I mean, just for a starting point, I don't know exactly, you know, what it looks like. We've been talking about this for 30 years, but a starting point, Madam Chair, is you know, the three three acres that are contiguous to the church, uh, that for a community center or expansion of the church is what I know was promised to the church. And so,
that's for me is the starting point. So, are we are you looking at giving it to the church or are you looking at putting a community center on there? I'm not not giving it to the church, which it was from a store. Okay. How do how does that work legally? Like, are we able to just donate? Yeah, we donate property all the time. to to donate to a nonprofit, you would need the nonprofit to serve a public purpose, which should be defined pretty broadly, but it would need to be
for some function that's open to the public that serves a function that we believe serves a public purpose. Um, it can be sold or donated or leased. Uh, it can be sold or leased uh to the highest bidder. It can be sold or leased to the highest bidder with restrictions or it could be donated for either a economic development purposes or b for a public purpose to a legitimate nonprofit. Those are your options. Okay, that makes sense. And then just to fill me in since I am the newbie,
where are we at with the communication with the church? So, we had looked at doing all of this about a year and a half ago and I um had talked to the wife of one of the deacons. Uh, but I tried to I left phone messages for a deacon and an elder and I never got phone calls back. So I Well, you don't need to get a phone call back because I represent that district and I represent them and simply they came down the whole church in 2018 and we said before we develop this, we're going to give it to the church. This is nothing new. It's been ongoing for 30 plus years and it's not been
a discussion. So just we we've not moved to donate it to the church because we've not developed it at this point. So there was no need to do it until we came up with a master plan. Okay. So do you have a main point of contact that Debbie can work with at the church or what does that because we can't just I mean we have to have a main point of contact at the nonprofit, right? Commissioner May, if you if you'd like to run front door, I'd be happy to work with you on that. Yeah, I mean GR the people have been down here to at least 10 meetings. So I mean I'm not going to go around into hoops about point
of contact. The church has been there for for 150 years. Yeah. It's a lot of contacts at the church. I mean, we know what's right. Anybody that worked here, Chip knows, Keith knows, and Allison knows, and anybody that's here, Commissioner Barry was on the board. I just want to make sure there's a path to get there to do the right thing like you're saying. Um, so that makes sense. So, with that, your vision would be to take the bottom four acres out of play. Which would mean we would need additional space for the fire training facility. Is that correct? And Commissioner Barry, just so you remember, the one of the only reasons we held up on the three acres was
because Gilmore was trying to get that property at the time. And so it was a long, you know, hours and hours of conversation in which Gilmore was trying to do expansion and we did not do the expansion with Gilmore because we had already made that commitment to the church if you can recall. Yeah. I I actually owned the property that buted up to it and we were trying to get it at one point because we had such a problem with homeless people. They were actually tapping into our electrical and running it over to their homeless camp and then they caught our building on fire. Oh yeah. So there's a lot of homes in there on the oldest arm. Yeah. So we do need to redevelop it. So and maybe your company was one of those. I know that Emer Coast Granite uh as well as
um Gilmore was trying to get it as well. So with that, if if that's not a viable option, if we move that direction, what would be another viable option for the training facility? I still think that we have enough land there that we can work with and we will try to talk to the families that own these homes right here. um and try to work with them in buying that property too, see if they're willing. That would cut it down from the because they were asking for 16 acres and then we got them down to it looks like around eight and so that would cut it in half again. Um not in half,
but it will take out 25%. So we'll be down to 4.7, but I don't we don't really have any other location right now that we could put them on. And I don't know that that I mean I don't know that to me that's not as big a priority as other things on the property. You know the training center. Well if so that's a that's a good point. If we don't do we want to put a training facility there. Do we want to look for a different location for the training facility and then work with Florida West on I think we've I mean I know one of the issues that we've had you know a lot of discussions about
recently are budgetary issues and there's a ton of money going that direction already and I don't know that that's a uh standing high priority for myself. So I mean that's how the that's why the facility is moved around a few different times and if we have other if we have other uses for this property I think that's a higher priority. Madam Chair, if I can ask two questions. One is for Commissioner May and Debbie. I know Commissioner May I wasn't here, so I'm assuming the three acres is what you're saying is factual. I don't even care. Well, whatever. What? We're going to have
to change this diagram to So, do you have another diagram for what Commissioner May wants if that we do three acres and it meets the public purpose or because I I mean, where are you thinking going in the fire training center? Is that what I'm hearing? Yes. I I think what we could do is go across here, but we'd have to work out some engineering on this road, Pearl Avenue, because it's used for the 18 wheelers coming underneath uh Fairfield. We do think that there might be an opportunity to come back here and hook those 18 wheelers into this street. Okay. It's total 52.
How many acres is it total, Deb? How many acres does it total? the so uh 8.7 no the whole and not just the whole Midtown Congress not not just the super fund so how many acres that do we have 50 plus total in that area how many acres do we have you mean for all of it oh it's over a hundred yeah it's well over 100 so we don't have an acreage problem I mean we have a location problem you know and you know and I've been consistent with this you know I'm not going to support anything
um that's all Avalon exempt whether it's municipal or whether it's an edate because that's part of the problem with this whole neighborhood that was depressed. This is the third largest relocation in the history of the United States. It displaced more African-Americans than any other piece of property including Wedgewood in the history probably of the state of Florida. And there were a lot of promises that were made to that community. And so how do we redevelop that CRA? How do we provide for the infrastructure, the lights, the s sidewalks, and things that are adjacent to that
community? It's only if we increase the capacity of that CRA or tax base in in that community. So, obviously, we got to bring businesses in here, uh, we have to increase the CRA and bring money in here. So, if we just put a whole bunch of um county facilities and tax abatement properties in here, uh the residents as you go to Pace Boulevard, as you go into the Palifox CRA, uh those people are still going to be left out. You have to understand that adjacent to all of this land where people who were not able to move that are still suffering with flooding,
sidewalks, and a depressed uh neighborhood. So, whatever this does, uh it has to affect the entire community. And so we have to figure all of that out. So, and actually to give you an answer, what I want to see, it's a little more thought than just a layout. It's all the other implication that's going to directly affect that neighborhood. And you know, I'm not going to to say what my ideas are without participation of the residents that live in that neighborhood. I mean, if we're going to pay the people uh and outline Phil 8 and their residents have a whole lot to say
about what happens there, well, people are going to have a whole lot to say about what happens in their neighborhood as well. So, what neighborhoods are this? Because that's mostly an industrial area right there. So, what are your connections? Well, there are a lot there. You're right. That's the problem. It's a lot of residential connected to industrial. It's it's all messed up because the zoning was so horrible because it was a poor neighborhood. So, people put mechanic shops, HVAC system at the same time, you got Miss Bowling living in a house there. So, I mean, that CRA is just a mess. And so quite frankly the CRA plan should be a part of this whole conversation of
what we do with how we redevelop this. Do you do you happen to have a map with the CRA overlay on that? No, I don't. Well, it's the city and the county, I think. Yeah, it overlaps both the city and the county. I question when we get a second. I'm sorry, Mike. Let me Didn't we acquire the property chips from the city? Did we get the city's part? Didn't it roll into the county? I got that because at one time the city was trying to develop it. I know the mayor does have some ideas of some things he discussed with me yesterday. Yes. Good. Commissioner,
it's gone up and back a few times. A lot of times. Yeah. Um currently this, as Debbie Debbie showed, the boundary that exists today where the city and the county boundary is, but but it was different 10 years ago. Thanks. Sorry, Mike. Go ahead. No, no. just um and that's all good conversation because I know I have some of the same issues you do in some of these areas. Commissioner may uh Debbie I I know you probably can I have Chief Harrison come up for a second because I want to talk about the fire training site just for I have a couple questions. Chief Harrison, do you mind
coming up just for a quick second? So my concern I for the fire training side I think but I also agree with Commissioner Barry if depending on where the board wants to go on all these cuts we're going to kind of be in a pickle on where we spend our money. What the fire training site the city has over on garden. Yes sir. Why isn't there a joint effort on training sites between the county and the city? Is there a good reason why we don't do that? We do have a joint training uh center. In other words, they allow us on their property. Will this site augment? I mean, is
it going to be much more enhanced if we develop? Absolutely. Are they going to contribute and get rid of that site or what what's going to happen? They'll probably keep their own. Currently, that specific site in the city is the only one that's statec certified to teach programs. And so, we have to share the scheduling with George Stone's Fire Academy, us running our fire academy, and the city for their use. And sometimes those don't always match up exactly perfect. So, one group or the other is having to coordinate the times trying to make it best fit in there. This
particular training facility we're looking for will be much more enhanced than what the city has. The city is on a very small acreage uh plot right there. We're looking to have an Ebok place put in special operations, hazmat, so on and so forth. The city doesn't have those functions and those would enhance our department. And just for clarific, will most of the funding of this come out of the MS uh the fire assessment? I think it's going to come out of LOST, but that would be a Stefan question. We have a million dollars from Michelle Salsman as well. That's correct. Yes,
we've had a a grant from Michelle Salsman for about two years now. Uh, and that's something that we're looking to spend. What's the total cost again for the whole facility? Right now, I believe we have $3 million set aside that was not including anything that may have been mentioned for the building of the new fire stations. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Is there a use it or lose it with that million dollars? I don't know how state funding works when it comes to that. Yes, it's it's something that they would like us to see move forward maybe a little bit faster. I don't want to say that there's necessarily a timeline. Uh but again, we've been sitting on
it for a couple years now and we've had a couple emails saying, "Hey, any progress at this point?" And so we we keep them filled in. But Madam Chair, one follow-up question. So when if this site gets developed, would you get it state certified? That is absolutely correct. Is it normal to have two statecertified fire training centers within that close of proximity? It is um the city obviously operates in a 26 square miles and we have 656 square miles that we operate in. So we have a lot more need for to bringing our fire stations into a facility and it's more centrally located
for us than the one down in the city as far as trying to pull northern, central and southern units in. So that's really what we're looking for. Okay. Thank you. And and I think Commissioner May is right. One of the things we have to look at is revenue generating properties. Sure. Is there a world in which we're training students from other municipalities or that we're saving money on training? What what does the ROI for a facility like that look like? Um, and obviously this would be downrange a little bit, but there is an opportunity to where we can charge other students for coming in through the academy. There's all sorts of classes that are
put on through the Florida State Fire College. But by becoming a training facility, we'd have the opportunity to train, teach, and or in in this case we're talking about right now, charge people to come in for those programs. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So, is there any disc if this is going to be wherever this lands or wherever it it's put, will the city participate uh in in cost or have we had any discussion with the I haven't had any discussion with them as far as cost. Uh we
have had discussions as far as joint training and and the facility being larger and able to to have all those units come in and train together. There has been discussion but as far as a cost, no there has not. So it's been a discussion with the city that they would participate in the cost. No. No. No discussion as far as them participating with a cost but participating in training and stuff like that. Oh, so they would pay to train or would they utilize it for My envision would be they've been very upfront and and good partners with us in the past. They've allows us to use that training
facility at no cost. So my initial reaction would be reciprocity to a certain deal and allow them to train with us and it only benefits us in the long run the more we build the relationship with each other. So I I think it's a positive for both and we've just outgrown the training facility that they have at this time. Right. It's again it's a scheduling process. we have to go with them to try and schedule it. They've been great partners so far, but the more the demand, the the harder it is for us to get in there and it certainly is not something that we can build upon. In other words, we don't want to spend an absor at least I wouldn't want to spend exorbitant
amount of money putting in a bunch of training props that we have to schedule around and not be ours. And so what would be like the economic impact if you were char what would that So do we charge anybody to train now? Is there a cost center for it? No. No, sir. Oh, and you know it the sky's is the limit. Kind of depends on where you want to go. We can bring conferences in. That can also bring money in. It could bring people in from different areas of town or the country uh to have conferences there. And once again, the sky's is the limit depending on where you'd like
to go. Awesome. So, your firefighters who are like going to school to be a firefighter, where where are they attending school? The majority of them right now. So then that's if you'd like to call it or I would like to call it an issue is a lot of times for classroom stuff they're working out of the Oola fire station and then for training they have to leave that station and go down to the city on the scheduled days that we work out with the city and this this uh training facility that I would like to see move forward. We would have actually a training classroom facility there and in the training grounds directly on site. So if you have like a high schooler that goes
to school in Cresphere and they're like hey I want to be a firefighter. They could essentially pay to go to school at this training academy. Correct. Okay. All right. That makes sense. So, and you probably would not hear and Commissioner Barry maybe help me. We talked about a training center on the north end. What whatever happened to u putting that training center up on the north end in district 5. So, the issue we we rose arose is that that training center where it was located is there's well heads directly underneath it for the Gonzalez water utilities that are in that area.
and with the drainage sites and and where they would be placed, uh there was a concern that that would not be the best option. So, we started looking for other places. So, are there any environmental concerns being that this uh is a super fun site in uh on this area? Do we have any environmental concerns? I do not. It's going to be your typical apparatus that you would see driving in much like you would see on a on a road in any area in town. Okay. We don't plan on using
POS. I know there was I don't know if that's where you're going with this, commissioner, but there is no intention to use that that product there. No, I I I I'm pretty clear where I go. No, that was not nothing implied. I think I'm going to just say everything I want to say, but yeah, that's great. I thank appreciate appreciate it. Um and what what because I don't want to slim down the training facility so much that it's not worth our money and I don't Right. So, we want to wait and make the best investment possible. Absolutely. Is four acres enough? eight acres enough. Like what does that look like? Um to to be big enough to make an impact but not like your best plan possible.
Obviously the bigger the better, but also having the objective to meet everybody else's ideas and and where it should be. Uh I think holistically around the 10 acre mark give or take an acre or two may work for us. Uh but the idea is to have also like we dis like I discussed earlier is the EVOC class where that gives us enough room to turn apparatus around. There'll be two different burn buildings on the original plans that we had submitted. So having room to move the apparatus on that site uh would be beneficial for that type of acreage. Okay. And if if we don't go in here,
is there room in the north end or somewhere else that you could identify that might be a good option? We looked at a couple different things that are out there. There was some property on Olive Road uh that we looked at uh but it would it would have to be more discussion with staff. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thanks, Chief. So, with that, I just wanted to lay out the lay of the land and where we were on some of the things that we've been discussing and working on with Commissioner May. and I'll turn it over to Chris uh Pate to talk about economic development opportunities that so so Debbie one question
for before Chris comes. So in 2001 2002 there was a conceptual um plan with neighborhood in input that they had and also UWF did a economic analysis impact study. Did you take any of that input into consideration as we laying this out the the ones that they did back then? So the only thing I have and I didn't know when what year it was done is this Palifox Commerce Park that was done by the Hos Center. Yeah, that's the impact. Is that it? That's No, that's the impact study, but it was a
con or conceptual drawings uh with the vision of what this whole thing could be that was done in 200 in here. Yes, is it one in there? Okay, that's fine. Just as long as that was because that was some input from the neighbors. Frankly, many of them are dead. Uh, and so Stephen, I don't know if you remember that Margaret Williams daughter showed up uh about the legacy of her mom at that board meeting and was very passionate about the sacrifice that she had her life. And I'll just tell you, Mary McWain, whose father because so many African-Americans died of the same long
problem, the same kinds of problem. His funeral is is this weekend that that I'll be in attendance. uh we had a lot of detail about the meetings that we had at New Hope Church uh in the input and so I just want to make sure we capture and keep the intent and the spirit of those residents even though many of them have passed on because this is sort of their legacy. So if we can just make sure that that's in I don't know if you did but you know as we move forward I want to make sure that it's included. Okay. So So did you overlay some of those ideas with this layout? like does
the layout that you provided to us capture the spirit of that? Um well, we're taking some of it out for uh county purposes, but yes, I think that when you look at a little bit like LF8, it has boulevards in there. It had trees and stuff, so it would still look like a good commerce park. It probably dealt with smaller units than what we have been talking about recently. um you know office complexes, smaller manufacturing probably look a little bit like the but prettier and cleaner is what and I will get this to I will get a copy of this to all
of you but it has the smaller buildings kind of like that and I know at one time we were talking to someone that was going to take this whole parcel and do a a smaller manufacturing plant. So the spirit of what the neighbors had given to the hos center was more of a complex. Okay, that makes sense. And then Commissioner May and Allison, can you help me out with this? When it comes to naming any facilities that the county owns on there, that's something that Commissioner May could carry that legacy through on with the naming rights. We do have actually a policy that
addresses naming of uh facilities. So, we would apply that. Okay. And and would that be so that would be the animal shelter? What other prop ECAT? ECAT. And is there any other county facilities? I know possibly the training facility. Correct. That's it. Okay. Thank you so much. And so, Madam Chair, just for, you know, just little information because you're a new uh there's been a lot of discussion. I mean, we we went for years with Scott Luth and Blue Wind Turbance with
G G had a lot of discussion with Dave Ro and recycling uh with waste management with the new thing that he that he's done. and we've always just tried to make sure that, you know, it's um something that improves the neighborhood. So, I mean, I think we're we're open to everything, but I just want to make sure we have the full discussion because candidly, this project has sat probably on the um shelf way too long and it's really the I mean, when we talk about Baptist Hospital, uh it's pale in comparison to the amount of land and the economic impact that we can bring,
you know, with 100 plus acres. Hey, Chris. Hello sir, how are you guys? Um well I appreciate um being included today and talking about this area. You know our focus would be more on the northern end of the site that was truly the industrial piece. Um you know Scambia we do not have enough um adequate economic development product right now. We're working very hard uh on trying to change that whether that's at Central Commerce Park or the bluffs um and so that'll open up
additional properties. So we need a variety of pro of product. Um and that's again buildings and and land that is prepared for economic development. Um the outlying fields project and tech park obviously because of the price point is going to have a different target than say central commerce midtown uh in like Ellison. So we most of the projects are going to fit within what Midtown would be more applicable for. And so um you know it's that precision manufacturing some warehousing
space um to kind of suit the needs of a supply chain to help those manufacturers. Um the land that we would focus on primarily would be the land that's not capped uh that to the north. So, it's a smaller piece, roughly 40 acres or so when you look at all the parcels together, as well as working with our um private uh ownership to the north and trying to um make that a little bit bigger so that we can incorporate, you know, not just the parcels to the south and all the land in there. You know, 40 acres is hard to sell, you know, without our
master plan and try to maximize the utilization of that site. So working with our private friends to the north uh C call your Merrill and some of the others that we can look to really maximize and get about a 100 acres of economic development focused land. Um and so we've talked to Collier about that as well as we have one existing industry that's um been on the hook for a while to expand there as well as a private developer that would also help us with two existing industries expand. So we have some immediate projects that are sort of there, but we still need to master plan that
a little bit to make sure the rightways, the infrastructure are all there in the right place so we don't have remnants of land just waiting. So we want to maximize uh every piece of dirt that's there. Um so again, we're just really focused on that that northern end. And then as we look to develop that, we'll do more research on the capped area to understand what the foundation requirements are because shallow foundations are a little bit harder for manufacturing uh to deal with based on vibrations of machines, those kind of things. So, but we'll work to that
and then find proper users for the capped area as well. And I know when you and I had talked, we had um had a conversation about how to avoid people coming to the podium trying to buy the property and us auctioning it off style. What is your best solution and what have you done in other places where you've done economic development to kind of keep those things under wraps and to keep it a more smooth process for the buyer and investor? Yeah, one one thing that we could do is have an option set up that would have a time limit for that um with PEDC and where they
would basically have the price set so you know the money that would come back to the county per acre and then we could look at that and then basically flip those pieces of options right to the company um or to a developer that may be leasing the comp you know property to the company to build a building on whatever. So that option scenario is is something that we could easily work out. Can you walk us through what a timeline looks like for something of that nature? So if we were to say, "Hey, you've got two years to sell it. This is what we want per acre." Yep. What does that look
like as far as your collaboration with us? And then taking it back to the buyer fairly quick. We want to make sure the appraisals are accurate. And so we want to look at that and then look at the um the breakdown of the land. So you're you know because part of that laying out the property is a component of that we're doing that with Central Commerce Park now. So we have a a current survey or excuse me a current appraisal as well as now laying out those parcels. So that's taken about six months um for us. So I would in that time frame that we would um have everything ready
to bring you the option. Okay. And do we have a current appraisal on this property Debbie? We only did uh a couple appraisals. One was for some land that we were going to sell to Tisdale uh Steve Tisdale. Um and those are 23. So they're pretty stale. We would have to redo them. Okay. But what was that price in acre though? I remember when we did those appraisals for I can't remember because I think that's what Scott Luth was basing it off because the price per acre is what we've had. Yeah. And then can we sell it um or do we have to lease it? And then what's our payback to
EPA if we sell versus if we lease or versus if we donate? Right now if we sell it it's 90% EPA and 10% to the state. We can take out some operating expenses but when I research that we don't have a lot of the eligible operating expenses. So basically a sale would not yield us any cash. So, would we be able Yeah. So, that's to the point, Madam Chair, we probably can't sell it, but we could do a long-term ground lease and and is that something that that process would work with or we would have to work with the legal team both with a PEDC as well as with Allison's team
to make sure that we're doing it the right way. So, is that something where we would long-term lease the property and then the investor, the buyer, the company, whoever would come in and they would build their facility with their dollars? Okay. Yeah. we would not government's not a great landlord. And then Commissioner May mentioned that um Eates is not something that he would like to see for this property. How would you go about bringing in because I know that's a huge incentive for some of your companies. How would you go about bringing in the right pieces to invest in that neighborhood without the EDA? So that's one of the things that we're going to bring
back to you. We've already had some discussions with staff um about um modifying some of the the measures for the EDATE. It was very long ago that those were established and you can hit the maximum pretty quick and with today's projects we like to probably raise those thresholds. I'm also excuse me not a big believer in giving 100% E dates. So the county should be receiving funds. That's one of the purposes of economic development is to lighten the tax load on everybody else by bringing in corporate. So um we will look at um making sure those edates have a true ROI back to the
community. Um, and then you mentioned precision manufacturing, some warehousing. What is the average salary that you would be targeting for this property? You anywhere from probably 18 to 35 an hour. Okay. And that would been, you know, depending on skills. So, it would fluctuate. So, Commissioner May, would your vision be to get some community input and build a master plan and then work with Florida West for the appraisal process or what does that look like as far as next steps for you? Well, obviously we want to get input. I mean, I like what Chris is saying and Chris, thank
you for your hard work. I certainly appreciate it. Um, so if this was a CRA and that's why I said, you know, I'd love to make sure that the CRA plan is interwined and I I see our CRA people here. So, I'm not looking at the CRA plan, but there is a CRA plan for this area. But I mean the way I see and cra may go away in this next legislative session. Um who knows? But whatever the tax base
is today, you know, once we make the improvements, that's going to increase and then we get to keep 75 80% of that designated to that area. I think legally I would ask the council to figure out uh how do those lease fees stay within that geographical area if that's legal or if it's compliance or to figure that out. I mean, because if we just did lease fees and it went into a general pot, I mean, the struggle of that neighborhood is real. And quite frankly, you say there there are quite a few residents in that neighborhood and it's almost been neglected
for 30 years. And so to me, if we're going to improve this site commercially and and bringing industries in here, one, as you said, we need to get input, but two, we need to figure out exactly how do we do lease fees? Do we do it the same way we do it on the beach? I mean, do do we keep it there? I mean, what's the governing body? I wish we kept them on the beach. We don't think this I I I No, I didn't say where you kept them. I said, are we going to do it the same way? I That's not Why wouldn't we just treat it like we do all the other CRA? 75% would go in the CRA and then 25%
would go into the general fund. I mean, that would seem logical to me. Seems very logical. Okay, that's But that's for property taxes, not for leases. So I think you were saying so if we collect $10,000 a month from leases, do you want that to stay in that community as well? We could wrap it and all the lease fees could stay there. I mean we could wrap it in the board has the ability to wrap any of this in a in a special district. Allison, is that something that we could bond future leases to go in and do those improvements to the community if we had a long-term lease on that property? Yeah. I mean, I think that you guys have a huge blank slate here. You have a lot of
options. Yes. There are a lot of ways to do that. Yes. And I guess another question, have we asked the state for any money for this? I mean, you said Representative Salman gave some money with some time. Was that for this property because it's a super fund site or was that just for fire or is there another appropriation that we can actually state for? So, I'm under the impression that the union lobbyed her specifically for a fire training facility in Northwest Florida and that's where that million dollars came from. So, it's not sight specific. It's just for a we don't have any state money from for this site. It's just for our fire training. Correct. At the union lobby, maybe we
should hire them as our lobbyists instead of our lobbying. One of the things too that we can do is as we start to look at the projects is package them and go for triumph dollars too, right? Yeah, that makes sense. So that would be great if we could make this a triumph. Did we ever do that, Chip? Did we ever make this one of our triumph ads? this that that's a brilliant idea Chris actually I would be real open for that how we redevelop this and uh do a triumph as for this
uh and one of the things um and Chip's absolutely right I hear what Debbiey's saying uh but there is an opportunity for a mixeduse opportunity here for low-inccome rentals it's just simply I I spent some time back in 2012 in in DC meeting with EPA so I know that it's just of formality of us requesting because much of this ground as Chip knows he's a scientist was not contaminated. Quite frankly, the majority of this land was not contaminated. I mean, it's just where that cap is.
There's a lot of safe land where children were eating. Scammy Arms was there uh for years uh and it was it was safe uh and that grounds been tested over and over and over again. And there is opportunity where we can redevelop this and make it a model project where people can live, work, and play. So, I'm so happy that you mentioned that the property that's adjacent to the church, is that part of the develop? Can we develop that for residential? Because there is a new state law. Yes. In God's backyard and the churches can build pretty much any affordable housing that
they want. So, is is that property available for affordable housing that lines up with the church? Commissioner, uh, as Debbie said, right now there is a restriction on all of the property, all the hundred acres. Uh, but, uh, with some additional soil testing, sight specific soil testing that some of the outline parcels, as Commissioner May mentioned, we could show the state and EPA that those areas do not have the soil contamination, and we could get those restrictions lifted so
that residential would be allowed. Commissioner Ray, do you think that's something the church would I don't know about I wouldn't speak for the church, but I would speak for me. Uh because with the lack of affordability, uh quite frankly, uh that's probably the closest that low-income people are going to get to the city of Pensacola. Uh and so there is an opportunity and we've had this conversation and you're new to it. Um so it's just a matter of petition to EPA and I would be very open to that. um whether it's partnering with the church or whether it's uh partnering with you know other chotos AMI Habitat CI I mean there is an opportunity for that land
to get redeveloped into some residential housing. So I know we can't vote on anything but we could give the directive that we move forward with the soil testing with the property adjacent to the church for those purposes. Is that something you would be interested in? Yeah and Chip I believe we've have we tested it before? I I in 2012, I know when uh Keith was here and um I went to DC uh to discuss it, you know, there had been some testing. I don't know if it came through Senator Nelson's office or whatever, but there had been some testing of those out
of areas. You're correct. There was testing done back in the 1990s. Uh but we would have to do more current testing to get those restrictions lifted. Okay. It'd be good to it it would be good to I mean we have that capability in house to test that don't we too or we have to we we can certainly do that through our water quality lab. Uh it would take some funding but we could certainly do it inhouse a lot less than if we contracted it out. So when you say funding is that like 10,000 or
like a h 100,000? It depends on how many parcels we're talking about and how many samples. So I mean actually now you bring up a good point. I'm I'm glad we're peeling back this onion. The number one job of us is the public safety of our citizen. We have we have we have a responsibility to test that and so it should be tested. I mean because it's still connected to I mean it's contiguous. So I mean it should be tested because the reason that they purchased all the land outline areas is because where that cap is that was contaminated and you just couldn't
buy the contaminated area. So it went out and stretched out and so we probably shouldn't again at this point since it's been so long go ahead and test those areas to make sure there's no contamination. I'm in full support of that. I mean that's a better discussion for us to start from here to get it tested to see exactly where we are with it. I can certainly get an estimate for what that would cost and we can just do a parcel by parcel estimate. No. And and we want to start with the parcels that are contiguous to the church property. Is that correct? That's the
priority. I'd say all the all the outline areas should be tested and if we're going to test it, let's just test them all. Well, Commissioner May, I gota ask a question because Chips, that was part of a class action lawsuit that went all the way down to Cross Street, right? This area. I'm pretty sure it was cuz I owned a house over there. Yeah. Isn't this part of that, man? All y'all own my You Ashley, that's good, man. I'm glad you still own a house over there by site. That's good. Yeah, I don't know what the request is, but I know it went down to Cross Street. So, it's not right by
there. It's quite a bit of ways from where that site just is. So, if if if I'm got this right, and I'm pretty sure I do, where would we test? We wouldn't go all the way just that site, right? Well, it it depends. I would think uh we would want to minimize the testing we do because of the cost uh and look at those areas where we think there may be potential residential redevelopment um so that we can get those current restrictions lifted. Um it would be a process uh but you
know in conversations with D and EPA it it is something that they've done before in other areas. But Commissioner Colola, in good conscious, if we remotely think that there's contamination, we should test it no matter what we put there. I mean, so we shouldn't say that there's a cost. And you know, how far do we go? We go as far as we think that contamination is. I mean, contamination is not contained to a chamber. I mean, that's the problem. You got all of Wedgewood infested. I mean, you know, because people thought we should just test here. I mean,
so if it's I mean, we should just test it. I mean, it's not going to cause in the scope of things. It's not going to cost more than a million dollars that we did on a plan in outline field 8 that we didn't use. I mean, I can promise you that. And it may save a life, you know, if we get it tested. Commissioner May, if if that's a million dollars you're willing to give our department, we'll take it. We'll just take it right outline field. We got it. Just budget it. You might not get the check, but I mean, you'll we can assign it. So, well, and how does the testing that you're going to do compare to like a phase one testing that you have to have for a mortgage? Because I know the Jones
flooring property like when we bought that we had to do the phase one testing and it passed. Yeah. FA phase one testing is basically just a research to see what use has been on historical use has been on that property and if there are any red flags like dry cleaners or service stations that might have underground storage tanks. A phase two uh environmental assessment would involve testing of the soil and groundwater if uh there's some suspect reason why it may be contaminated. Okay,
that makes sense. Um so do we commissioner caller, one of the things that you mentioned was making sure that we're testing for the areas that we're looking at redevelopment, which I agree. What is your you guys' thought on starting with that and starting with that price point and then expanding? My point was just discussion because we have thousands of houses on the other side of Fairfield that's already residential that got funding through a class action lawsuit. I guess that's what I'm asking. The toxic plume went all the way down into the bio down to Cross Street was
where the class action lawsuit everyone north of that received funds. I don't know if we need to test down. That's a question I'm asking you. I don't know. Um, do we just need to do that area? But if we're talking about toxic ground and what Commissioner May saying is if are we focused here or where's that end? Yeah. And so Mike, so I there's probably a foul somewhere. I mean because if it was still contaminated, we would have labeled it a brownsfield and probably would have gotten a federal grant uh to test it. Uh let me try to clarify something. I think we're
talking about two different things here. the the class action lawsuit, Commissioner Coler, that you're talking about, I think was the Agricult Chemical Company super fund site, which is different. That had a groundwater plume, as you said, that extended all the way to Bay Tahar. Uh, and that was the the $70 million settlement that the Levan Papantonio law firm worked on. th this the Scambia treating company uh contamination uh is different from that. That's
okay. Thank you. I wasn't sure. That's what I was trying to clarify because I wasn't sure. And Mike, you know, the Conico with Fred and when they did that big lawsuit as they said in the Bayute, which was, you know, like I said, $70 million. So when we had the treatment plant, uh which was at the old Creole plant, it was it was capped. It was only so many acres. It was not as widespread, but when the federal government came in, they just bought all of the land. I mean, you had scam your arms. It was low income. We had all that stuff down Pearl Street. We had all those things off of
uh Palifox. Uh and so there was a big outcry. So, it was a it was it was environmental and it was social in the acquisition of those properties. So, it was not all just contamination on the environment. It was the displacement in the things that happened when they had to relocate that plant. Sure. So, if I'm looking at Debbie's map that's up on the screen correctly, the green box in the bottom right hand corner, there's three essentially three different parcels there. The bottom one is the middle one would be the one adjacent to the church.
So, what we were showing was this, but it was it was just to show an acre or now three. Okay. So, I guess Commissioner Ray, just to clarify, well, do we I'm I guess I'm asking, do you want to dedicate these green spaces to the probability of affordable housing and then look at dedicating the northern part to Florida West so they can provide jobs for those housing?
as far as the southern pieces and then we would present that to FD and then in the meantime Chris you would need appraisals and then um Commissioner May are you wanting a master plan for the northern part what's what's next steps for you Chris I think Chris wants to master plan it and it'll have to go and it's a when we say master plan it's pretty light it's just really to utilize how do we utilize the land the most we're not looking for a very expensive master plan so this is something Florida West can run with you don't us to do that. I I think we're good to do that with
BEDC. And Madam Chair, I think we're going to have a fly in next month to Niko and you know, I plan to go to EPA. This if you go into the EPA office in DC, this is one of the model projects and it's it's information overload as it relates to this. I mean, when you say this is the third largest relocation in the history of the United States, that's pretty huge in the amount of money. So, I mean, there's a a keen interest that the federal government has on this project, and I know it was a number one priority of Senator Nelson when he was uh in office. I I
have not ever spoken to Senator Scott about it. Uh but I know that this is important, and you know, I think that my office can reach out. I'll get with Chips. We can reach out and get all the historical data on this and and bring it forward. Okay. and I would love to support in any way that we can as far as the affordable housing aspect and working with the nonprofits that you mentioned earlier. Um what Chris, what do you need from our board to move forward with the appraisals and the planning and the leases? Um we'd like for you to get the appraisal if you could, you know, but the the other planning we can do just as long as we have the understanding that Yeah. you guys
go with that. Is is that something the board Yeah. tonight. Debbie, can we start with the old appraisals with what that land I mean because what we did was we based we did a because they're going to be so expensive and those companies that express interest Pensacola Glass um Gilmore u granite um what who's the electrical company? What was his name? Tisdale and Tisdale has on and off and so we did do appraisals of those properties in partnership with Florida West before
um our current director here. I did we did that with Scott Luth. So I I think it would be great to pull those out and dust them off and share them with us even though they're old. It gives us a starting point of what at least we can anticipate per acre or what it's going to be worth. Okay. And how does the appraisal work for the capped site? Is there certain appraisal companies that we can use for that? Because that seems like a very specific thing to put a dollar amount on for a lease. Well, most appraisers uh are familiar with how the discount for environmental issues and what it can and can't be used for. It can be used. So, it's just what's the expense going to be
to someone and what's the val what's the loss of value because it's going to cost more to develop it. Uh but most proposers are familiar with that. And is that something that we have on record or that would be something that we would need to go and have somebody complete for us? I I'd have to talk to the appraiser to see how much. We can also I think based on everything else that we do, we can also have our engineering department to look at it or facilities and give us some estimates of what we think it would be worth. And see when you go get Wow. And that was light. Um,
so Madam Chair, I can see my my Yeah. Well, it's very pretty. Thank you. Um I guess fortunate or unfortunate um Senator Nelson uh was very very environmentally sensitive and and and so am I. Uh but many of the environmental restrictions as we know are being lifted each and every day by this current administration. you know, restrictions that were once in place for the development of land, redeveloped land, those it's every day, uh, EPA at the federal level, uh, is
kind of, uh, relaxing its rules. Doing appraisals without knowing whether or not it's contaminated, uh, would be, you know, worthless because we came back after we tested it and it was good, clean land. There's a big difference from it being clean versus not being clean. So you got to test it first and then do the appraisals and do in line with the restrictions because there are just a ton of restrictions that have been lift. I mean it's every day that there's a federal regulation that's been changed. And so I think you know whether we get our lobbyist to look into it or our staff or
Debbie, we need to look exactly where we are with EPA because many of the things that was under the the uh Obama and Biden administration and Senator Nelson is completely different than what's under this current administration. So, we may be in a better shape. I mean, particularly in terms of restrictions. That would make sense. So, I I guess bring us a price point back for all of the testing. Um, and then I would just like some detail on how the capped part is discounted more or less. And I think Chris is going to need that in the future as far as doing the leases.
Commissioner, ju just uh talking about the capped area uh which would be the most uh challenging to build on. Uh just very simply, the the cap uh that separates the contaminated groundwater from the clean fill material on top of the rubber membrane uh cannot be pierced. Uh and so uh six feet is sort of the magic number uh that any piling or any subsurface structure could go without penetrating
that cap. So anything that's built on a slab would would, you know, be easy to construct. Uh if there's any pilings, they just cannot penetrate more than six feet. Okay, that makes sense. So there's parts of the property that we know are contaminated that are not worth sampling more or less and you guys would know where those are. Horus is saying yes. Okay, that makes sense. So at Chip probably or maybe Harris is a witness. I know that when Keith went over to the city, they were
trying to buy and I spoke with the mayor briefly about some inland port stuff that that he's trying to do. But we may check with the city. I mean, I know they did some testing, some surveying, and some appraisals uh when they were trying to acquire the land when Keith first went over with with with former Mayor Robinson. So, I'm sure that they have a foul over particularly on the parcels that the city had at one time because we did we got those parcels back within the county that the city had. Correct. That's correct. We we're actually meeting with the city on Monday
for another issue. So, we'll we'll certainly ask them about that information. Okay. Oh yeah. And I and I think I would think that somewhere in our CRA office in that pallet fox redevelopment plan uh that they would be able to gather that information too because the CRAAS were involved in the parcels of the redevelopment that we were going to do um on there from the from the city and I think we just couldn't come to an agreement on price is the reason we didn't give that to the city or sell it to the city. Well, and I think if my memory recalls just because then that's what
what happened is that you know we couldn't sell, you had to lease and so it it became a little muddy and then it just all got dead in the water. I think there's some good information that we can go but conceptually uh Chris I'm Madam Chair I'm ready to rock and roll with economic development, job creation and redevelopment of that neighborhood which was promised to that community. And I think Commissioner May is right. It's important that we move forward with those jobs and that we provide the people who live around there a good place to live, work, and play. So, just so I
understand, our goal is for the southern parcels in the green for us to look at testing those and possibly dropping the restrictions for low-income housing. and then the parcels that are indicated in the orange to work with Debbie to get the best dollar that we can for long-term leases and then work to get triumph funding for infrastructure. Yeah, I'm I'm going I mean actually all the way up to your washers here that comes there and I'm sure you have a lot of walking traffic that even
walking up to the back door of of where your building is now was considered all a part of this. I mean all the way from Pace Boulevard and Cow Town all the way back down to Palif Fox and and so that's why I say it's important to make sure that we do the testing because you know there's some a lot of infield housing uh and if there's some contamination we said we had a a huge lawsuit now we're having this discussion and if we are aware that there's contamination we have the responsibility I mean and so there's always you know in my district there's always
people who live there who still think that it's contaminated and quite Frankly, you know, it's just um what they've read and what they've heard because, you know, I was there on the ground. Just where that cap was was really where the contamination was as Chip said. So, thank you. So, as far as like the next steps moving forward, the bottom half we're looking to drop the restrictions if we can through testing and move towards affordable housing. And then the top half,
the portion highlighted in orange. We're looking to move forward working with Florida West getting the appraisals done and doing job creation is that and let Chris move forward with a development plan for a mixeduse. I mean, it can be, you know, our outline feel right in the city of Pensacola. I I would say Chris, I would um the mayor has and I don't want to, you know, speak out of turn uh with him. Um, but I know that they're working on a a huge project
with from what I understand 2,000 jobs. And, uh, I would hopefully when we come back with the plan that we've looked at talking with the city in terms of if those are real or what companies they're working with. I don't want to, you know, have a public discussion about it because I I'm sure it's all confidential. But, uh, if you would include me, I'd certainly appreciate it. And I think I'm going to meet with the mayor myself on next week. Yes, ma'am. I just want to clarify. So, at the moment, the training the fire training facility is on hold for this location anyway. But may we proceed with the knowledge we can
use the animal shelter, the five acres for the animal shelter. I think he just comes, he comes back, let him lay it all out and bring it back to us with whatever. Okay. I mean with what we've said in mind that you know that you know it's not going to be all non-Avalor producing and as Commissioner Barry said we can wrap lease fees and anticipated income just kind of with not just you know a picture uh but a a concept picture with you know some real goals objectives parameters guidelines and plans that's inclusive of of that CRA of
of how it's developed and I think that makes sense to me if you're looking for the model what it says simply what's been presented uh every time on outline field 8. Okay. And then as far as getting a cost analysis for doing the testing, what does that look like? We'll come back to you with a uh price per parcel uh for the soil and and groundwater testing and then you know how many parcels you you want to do. We can just multiply that out.
Okay. And so we would be able to prioritize those based on the cost per testing. Could we have that by the January 22nd meeting so we could do that as a discussion item? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner May, anything else? Chip, do you think that you'll be able to get all the files and all the information from EPA by the by the January meeting? And I just don't want to put too much on you. I mean, because I know I will not have gone to DC by the the January meeting. I think our flyin is in February, but I just want to make sure we have everything, all the information from the city and from the EPA and the whole file. So, just give yourself enough time. But any testing that
that was done more than a few years ago is not going to be acceptable to EPA or DP uh because of windb blown activities and natural attenuation and many other factors. So we're going to have to do uh new sampling for all those sites. Okay, sounds great. How long would the turnaround be on that? I'm sorry. Because if Commissioner May has it in hand when he goes to Washington, maybe that's a better ask for him to say, "Hey, we need dollars for this, this, and this, and this is what our
soil results say." Yeah. How long does that take? Well, we can have you the dollar estimate by the meeting on the 22nd. Okay. Yeah. It would just be an ass when I'm in DC for money. I think you and Commissioner Colola would have a much better chance of getting money out of Washington than I would. Escambia, I'm staying home. But but but you my my concern to me with EPA is to look at the master plan and look at the contamination. I mean I I don't know if we're going to get any more federal money, but that's something that we could give to our lobbyists and we could give it
to our It doesn't hurt to ask. Yeah. We could get our Tallahassee lobbyist to look at it as well and to to our delegation because I mean it's going to be a heavy lift for the infrastructure and the superructure to get this done. I mean, it's, as Chris said, it's going to be a triumph ass or a heavy lift just to get the infrastructure inside of here. So, was this an actual brownfield or no? Was it a has it been It has to be labeled a Brownsfield. It was contaminated. And so, there there are grants for revitalizing those areas. Have we gotten a Brownsfield grant for this, Chip?
Uh, Claire, have we have we gotten a Brownsfield grant for this? Have we applied for one? Oh, they got rid of there's no more. I don't remember. No, there's probably no money now. I guarantee there's no money for Brownsville now. I mean, it used to be money. Yeah, there sure there certainly could be some tax incentives for redevelopment uh under the Brownsfield program. Did they take all the Brownsville money? Have they stripped that money or is there still Brown still available? Still available. There's chip chips. There's grants. I thought I thought the
funds were gone. there's grants or there's just tax incentives or you're avoiding payments in the future or there's cash with the brownfields program. Uh I think it's both. I I think there is some cash, but but I think mainly it it's tax advantages uh based on the number of jobs you create. Ch, can you bring I mean that's a good point, Madam Chair. Can you bring that back? I mean where those grants are, the incentives and those type of things because you know
When I say no tax abatement, I know we're going to have to incentivize businesses to want to come in that area. So, there's opportunity that you can bring that back. I mean, that helps gives justification to why we're going to do these appraisals and testing and all that. So, if there's something that you can work with Chris and uh bring that back, that would be great. Yes, sir. And and Steve, I thought it was all gone, too. I didn't know it was still available. All right. Um, our next cal meeting is going to be on ECAT, unless that is something that is no
longer needed. Madam Chair, yes, sir. I see Mike stepped out, but um before we break this morning, and I don't care that we do it as a cow or just put it on as a discussion item for a board meeting, the dealing with customary use on Predic Key is it's going to be have to it's going to have to be dealt with by this board. I mean, I I tried to softly, you know, intimate that in November whenever we talked about it most recently, but it's, in my opinion, it's not going to go away. Um, you now have some of your District 4 advocates that have taken up
the the mantra. Commissioner May and I have sat through uh have sat through hundreds of hours of uh public comments and meetings related to the beach stuff uh six or seven years ago. And um in my opinion, our board is is going to need to take some action. I don't know that it has to be, you know, a cow a three-hour discussion by us. I mean, there's one there's, you know, there's there's two directions the board could take. I mean, either either we take an action or we don't
take an action and then just let the chips fall where they may after that. But I would, you know, if there's at least a few of us that want to avoid 2026 of every single meeting addressing that, I think that's the only way that we're going to do that. Do you want to add that to the January 22nd as a discussion item? I think if we ask add it tonight, it's not enough communities. Madam Chair, I I walked out for a second, but um I agree with Commissioner Barry. We're all getting the emails.
I think we have a responsibility to listen to the people and try to come up with solutions. But I I think we need to have a cow on it honestly is my suggestion. But let's put it in February then and put ECAT off. Are you okay with that, Madam Chair? What what is the February? So the February meeting was based around ECAT, but I know we have a few agenda items for ECAT tonight and there's been some changes with ITL. So I don't know if that that was my question. Is that still relevant or can we change the It's going to be a I mean it'll be a discussion about but yield uh to do customer use. Do customer use. Are you all right with that, Madam Chair? Yes,
absolutely. Let's do it in February. That's fine. I think it'll slow down what he's saying because I'm getting it every day. Yeah. And I'm getting it too, but Commissioner at the at the end of the day, those citizens are going to have input. So, at the committee whole, they're not going to be able to speak. And so, what Commissioner Barry is saying that you put it on as a discussion because those citizens regardless are going to want to give their input. So, we can have a committee of the whole, but we're going to have to add it to the agenda. And well, maybe a second meeting in February. We could do that after we have so Okay, that's fine. Whatever. But I was just saying too in line with what Commissioner Barry is saying, regardless it's
going to be a lot of input. So we can do committee of whole and we can discuss it and then have it or we can have it as a discussion and have those citizens come and speak because it's going to be there's a lot of them. But I agree something's got to give. So I I do agree with Commissioner May because I can see the hate mail now. You guys did this as a committee of a whole and we missed the discussion and you didn't get our input. Um and and they would not be wrong. So with that, do are we I'm open to whatever y'all want. I think you're going to get a lot of discussion tonight. So, you're going to get it every night until you do something about it. Right. And I mean, there'll be a lot of people here tonight. Mr. May and I have the the one, you know,
one specific group again of of uh you know, not solely of District 4 constituents, but uh that advocated for beach issues, you know, some number of years ago. And uh you know, Commissioner Robinson was uh you know, we we were slow to you know, or perceived slow to be doing something. And it can really mean let's yeah let's let's let's address it. Let's do something. So it'll make it'll make everybody's year better no matter what the outcomes are. So are there are there any
legal restrictions we have? Legal issue policy. I'm sorry. Is there legal issues that we're with this customary use or is it uh just policy issues that we need to serve as a board or there I also want to know Commissioner Stroberger is not here so I'm not I'm a little That's true. it's his district. But so I think the reason that this is in the last six months or so become such a big issue is that you know based on Governor Dantis' initiative the statutory presumption regarding
customary use has now been amended back to its pre208 favor in favor of the public. The statutory presumption for about seven or eight years was changed and it was swayed in favor of the private owners. It's now statutoily the presumption is back in favor of the public. But still if there is to be a declaration of customary use in favor of the public. My opinion is this board would need to
declare that and would have to declare exactly the geographical area that you're declaring that over um by ordinance and that would need a vote of this board for sure and it needs to be based on the historical factual evidentiary record of customary recreational use by the public which is your oldfashioned old school things like photographs of people in the old-fashioned bathing suits from
1903. And it's probably also things where your environmental department can show where public resources were used to protect certain beach properties, BP oil spill, hurricanes, BMS. I mean, all these kinds of things factually with with witnesses, with documentary evidence, not just, well, you know, I always used to go out there. It needs to be very specific evidentiary record. Um, but this board would need to declare it by specific geography and by ordinance. And this
is really not a Pensacola Beach issue because the way the leases are described on Pensacola Beach, 95% of the leases on Pensacola Beach end at the vegetative line and the sandy strip of the beach on 95% of those parcels on Pensacola Beach are already owned and controlled by the public. Yeah, madam council, I I wasn't I wasn't inferring it had anything to do with the the legislative issue on Pensacola Beach. You have uh you have a common advocacy now was my point. Oh, that's 100%. Yes,
that's my there was a there is a group that is interested in beach access regardless of which barrier island or whatever. 100%. I mean, I guess I would change I'm sorry. I know, Commissioner Co. I guess I would change my mind. I didn't realize it was that deep and we got to have all this evidentary information and pictures and I mean there's going to be a lot of staff time. I mean so we that's what you put on the people that that honestly I mean you have people that are advocating for us to take this position. My point is just if it's challenged. Yeah. That that
some of that information is going to have to come from them. Our board can take action. Those the exhibits and witnesses those don't those don't have to come to us for us. Yeah. that that would be the eventual litigation which would probably be inevitable but okay that's I mean that's that's part of municipal government you know is litigation so they go to court and litigate yeah there's going to be witnesses there's going to be all that our board can take action I mean you know you would like to think that you know uh you know municipal bodies throughout the state always take you know wellinformed and well-intended actions and and you know maybe that happens
maybe it doesn't but you know our board only has to have so much information to take action you know we define an We say that it's historically we we say that it's historically been used to you know by the public. That's our action and then the rest of it it it'll it'll be fought somewhere in some time frame that probably extends a long time but that's again you know uh not so you anticipate Commissioner Barry that it'll sorry you anticipate that it'll probably end up in litigation no matter what decision I Allison's not in Yes. I I think yeah I mean
I I think that it is highly likely. We we were challenged over the easement and the easement appeared on a plat. So I mean I would anticipate that private property owners and you really should have some basis for your legislative findings of the area that you're defining. So we do need to have some reasons why we're declaring that there is and there was a historic recreational use of the properties. But yeah, I mean I would anticipate that some of those folks are very
unhappy about the idea. I agree with you, Madam Chair. Commission at least time with his res. So do we want to do it because what we could do is staff going to need to present to us on this because I know I have questions. I think all of us are going to have legal questions on that. Is is there going to be a presentation from staff or is this mostly community presentations? I think that's a question for the board. Well, that's where my question was going with the cow. So, I just want to clarify um madam um attorney are the way I understood it when we talked
yesterday is that the board would when you say geographical area are you saying if we decided to do customer use at some extent we would have to go plat by plat in that definition? No, forget the plats. the the the plat issue is related to the 75 foot wide easement which is across 1.2 miles of the gulfront of Purto Ki that was involved in litigation last year. So far to date, I mean that lawsuit those lawsuits were dismissed. The county in my opinion successfully was able to
demonstrate that the plat uh do memorialize that 75 foot wide easement. In my opinion, it exists today. It's enforceable today. So that 1.2 miles of Purto K does have a 75 foot wide easement that is open to the public. So that's that's a different issue that exists that is there. If the county commission makes legislative findings by ordinance that there is a historic
recreational customary use of certain parcels of the sandy strip of the beach regardless of 75 ft. That's not the issue. The issue is basically between your vegetative line and your mean high water line, the sandy strip of the beach. Was it recreationally used historically by the public? You need to declare what that area is and declare by ordinance that there is a historic customary use that shall remain in place in favor of the public. The change in the law statutoily helps
you because now it is swayed back in favor of that public customary use, but it still might have to be demonstrated in court if it's challenged by the private owners who were unhappy potentially about it. Um, there are places in the state where they're very used to the public using the beaches and they they don't challenge it. And there are places where private owners, the Upland private owners are very unhappy about it. So if if the Upland owner is very unhappy about that use,
they may challenge it. And then it comes down to the real nitty-gritty ability to demonstrate with evidence that that is a historic customary use of that sandy strip of the beach. Well, I guess from my perspective, I know Commissioner Stroberger is not here, but I would like neighbor uh you know, you guys to come up with some schematics to show us some recommendations, Chips and Tim, of what would be, you know, reasonable recommendation for the board to vote on. I mean, I think we
ought to have a staff recommendation of some sort. Is that something you guys could potentially send to us before or that? That's what I was thinking on a cow. I don't know where we're going to land, but um that's kind of where I was going. So, do we want to Yeah, I agree. I mean, staff should go out to him when he has his town halls and come back with something that fits. I mean, you know, I hate all the litigation. I mean, it's I don't want any litigation. I mean, but I mean, as Commissioner Barry say, it's probably inevitable, but I mean, Alison, do we have a precedent saying,
you know, this this holds up in court or it's a no real parameters or precedent? I mean, so there was very So, I think the customary use statutory presumption in favor of the public went into place in the very very early 70s or late 60s. And from then until like the mid 20 like until around 2018 there were very very few cases because I would say there was essentially an uh
acquiescence that the beaches were for the public. there was a philosophical understanding not really in the 60s and 70s it wasn't from the public perhaps a different issue yeah but um I think that generally the private versus public sandy strip of the beach issue in most places was there was very little litigation from the outset on the customary use statute very little until the 2018 statutory
change there has been a significant ma amount of litigation I believe between 2018 and last year because basically that statutory presumption swayed the other direction and there are a lot of public access groups very unhappy and so there was I think a significant amount I would in I'm not anticipating necessarily that there is going to be a lot now it's going back to the way it the statutory change is putting it back to the way it was for 50 years when there was very little. Um,
I personally don't know of another county at this moment. I have asked. I haven't found another county yet that is engaging in this process. There might be some smaller incorporated areas that are taking this on. I haven't found one yet, but I have heard just anecdotally that some municipalities are looking into the idea, smaller beachfront communities maybe. Um, so there's not I don't know of a lot of recent precedent yet. And was it Okaloosa County or Fort
Walton Beach? Walton. Okay. And they've been in litigation for how long? Yeah. W the Walton County situation is in my opinion unfortunate in that it has been a very expensive and longstanding issue. And frankly, it's I I don't know enough about the workings in Tallahassee, but I think maybe was a a part of the statutory change back in 2018. Uh they have engaged in this battle and certainly uh is one of the folks I'll reach out to is the current Walton County representation to kind of
get a feel for that. it has literally gone up to the US Supreme Court and back down in Walton County and they have now survived two changes in the you know the change in the statute as well. So I'll get an update on their situation but yeah that I don't know that that's 100% resolved but yeah that went up to the US Supreme Court. Okay. So do we want this to be a cow or a discussion item? I lean more towards discussion item because I know the community is going to want their input.
Well, I think both you have anformational brief first so that we have all the knowledge, historical knowledge and then obviously the these folks are going to keep coming and talking to the board and then we have a discussion item and a further a follow-up meeting. We'll do the cow the next the February cow on customary use and then that evening we'll have a discussion item or the next meeting the next meeting there a little bit space. Okay. So the following meeting we'll we'll have that as a discussion item. I think that'd be good. I think we bring
we're gonna bring it for a discussion. I mean I'd like to have it for a discussion item and an action item because at some point we're going to have to make a vote. We can take action. Yeah, we can take action on I think but I also think after we have the cow there will be a little bit time to it's in my opinion there's always a good to have a little bit of decision space to make sure we're making the right decision. Okay. So the next cow will be on customary use and then not the meeting that night but the following meeting we will have a discussion item and an action item on customary use. Okay Hassan, can you relay that to Commissioner Stroberger?
Okay. Oh great. Yeah. Okay. Anything else before we adjourn? Wonderful Cal. Thank you everyone.