This is the Lake County Board of County Commissioners regular meeting on October 14th, 2025 in board chambers administrative building to Fairies, Florida. Okay. Just waiting. We're waiting to go live. I think they saw my thumbs up. Oh, yep.
We might have been waiting a really long time because apparently they didn't see my first thumbs up. Aren't you supposed to sing and dance now? All right, we're almost ready. We're ready. Okay. All right. Um, good morning everyone. Welcome to our October 14th,
2025 Lake County Board of County Commissioners meeting. We are glad that you're here with us today. We're going to open up our uh meeting with an invocation that will be given today by Melanie McGuffy from the Central Florida Free Thought Community. And then after
um that invocation then we will remain standing for the pledge of allegiance. Good morning commissioners, staff, and neighbors of Lake County. As we begin today's meeting, let us take a moment to reflect on what it means to serve. The
choices made here today help shape the safety, opportunity, and quality of life for everyone who calls this county home. May we approach this work with focus, fairness, and a genuine desire to strengthen the community we proudly
share together. This morning, we also recognize the centennial of the town of Lady Lake, 100 years of progress, perseverance, and local pride. From its early days along the railway to the thriving town it has become, Lady Lakes
story reminds us that growth is built on commitment, cooperation, and care for our neighbors. As you deliberate today, may that same commitment guide your work. Respect for the past, responsibility in the present, and hope
for the future. Let every discussion serve the people who entrust you with this responsibility and reflect the values that make this county thrive. May each decision made here contribute to a stronger, more connected Lake County for generations to
come. Thank you. I I pledge allegiance 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. Thank you, Melanie. Appreciate you being here today. Um, moving along then to our agenda update. Jennifer, do we have any changes? Yes. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. I'm requesting that we pull tab nine and requesting that we
also add it to the October 8th board of county commissioners meeting. October 28th, sorry, board of county commissioners meeting. Okay. And then I wanted to see about moving up Commissioner Park's um
discussion about Hartwood Marsh um and would also in ask that we include a discussion about 44B at that time. Um and we'll do that after we do our um city of Claremont presentation and discussion. Okay, everyone's okay with that. Since
we have the city of Claremont here today, we thought it would be better to not make them wait and have to stay to the whole through the whole meeting. That's fine. But I'd like to pull a tab off for consent that I can wait until consent to do that. Um yes. Or if you want to just we can wait till we get there. Okay. Okay.
All right. So, we've got those changes. Um, and now we're going to have our employee service awards and quarterly awards and uh, Janine Nelson, HR manager, will present those. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. We're doing this morning our uh, service
awards are going to be recognizing employees who have reached significant milestones in their careers with Lake County, including some 20 and 25 year employees this morning. as well as we'll also be having six retirey recognitions
and uh recognizing our quarterly award winners. We're going to start with five years of service. We have um some firefighters that all started on the same day, July 20th, uh 2020. Uh there are Cody Carpenter, Joseph Casha, Joshua
Gil, Carolina Hernandez, Brian Molina, and um that would be on the fiveyear. And then in our non-fire, we have Mike Ola, who began August 17, 2020. He's a senior engineer with public works. We
have Kimberly Pearson who is an office associate five with the office associ. She began August 31st, 2020. Trevor Sadri, August 31st, 2020. He's a security administrator with IT operations. I know some of those
individuals are here this morning. Would you stand? I know Kimberly as I saw her. Thank you. Let's recognize. Thank you. 10 years. I have two firefighters who started in August of 2015. Derek Jentowski and Bradley
Shelley. Neither were able to make it, but let's recognize those individuals. A 15-year employee, Michael Fetzler, began his career with Lake County on August the 16th, 2010. He's a chief maintenance supervisor with the Office of Parks and Trails. I didn't see
Michael here this morning, but let's recognize him in abstentia. Also, with 20 years of service, uh we have um Travis Newman. He began his career with August on August 15, 2005. He's a roads team leader with the office of public
works. And Nali Batista, she is also with public works as an office associate three. Those two individuals are here. We also have Miriam Nos from our office of HR. She was not able to make it this morning. She also began in 2005. So, we do have two individuals to recognize
here with us today for 20 years of service. Natalie and Travis, would you stand, please? [Applause] And then we have a 25 year recognition.
Amy, would you stand? Amy Elliott began her career with Lake County on September 21st, 2000. Amy is the associate director of housing with the Office of Housing and Community Services. All right, we have six retirements to recognize. Uh, one of
those retirees is here with us this morning and I'll mention her last. Uh, Wes Jones uh, retired. He um, started with us on December the 10th, 2012. Have a retiree and he's the uh, he was the director of office of facilities
management. We have Dolores Collins also a retiree. She started with us on April the 3, 1988. So, she served Lake County over 35 years. She was an office associate three with the office of public works. Carol March began her
career on April 17, 2017. She's retiring next month. She's a financial associate with the Office of Housing and Community Services. Katherine Blandon, also with the Office of Housing and Community Services, began her career in September of 2007.
Then we have Tim Baker. He's a logistics supervisor with the office of fire restic logistics and he began his career April the 16th, 2018. Sue, would you stand? Sue began her career with Lake County on June the 24th, 2019. She serves as a financial
associate with the office of housing community services and she's retiring next month. Sue can recognize. We're ready for our quarterly awards. I'd first like to start with our employee of the quarter, Lexi Farmer. She's a public information officer with
the Office of Communications. She was nominated for this award by her supervisor. She was recently promoted from public communications and outreach coordinator to the public information officer position and she's still assisting with her former role as well. According to her supervisor, she
continuously excels meeting every deadline she's given, routinely going above and beyond. Example, volunteering to do on call duty when she's scheduled to be off and going out of her way to make sure her co-workers see her as a collaborator. Lexi interacts with fire
rescue and the animal shelter, managing all their social media accounts as well as overseeing the county's main Facebook page while developing and implementing communication strategies. Congratulations, Lexi. Could you stand, please?
[Applause] Supervisor of the Quarter, Jeremy Cersei, Battalion Fire Chief, Office of Fire Rescue. Battalion Chief Jeremy Cersei was nominated by his team of training lieutenants as supervisor of
the quarter. They cited his unwavering dedication, exceptional leadership, and consistent drive to improve the professional development of the department, as well as the qualities that make him an outstanding candidate for this recognition. Chief Siri's support for his colleagues is
unwavering. He approaches every task with professionalism, attention to detail and a servant leader mindset that earns the respect of everyone he works with. His ability to streamline processes, advocate for our firefighters, and stay ahead of administrative responsibility has set a
new standard for excellence. Congratulations, Jeremy. Would you stand? Right. Our team of the quarters, our office of visit lake employees. Uh would you stand please? Ryan Richie, director, Amanda Martin, tourism marketing
manager. Joshua Hester, sports tourism manager, and Don Coyle um is not with us this morning, but she's the office associate five for the office. This office was recognized at the Florida Governor's Conference on Tourism with the Bronze Award in Creativity and
Public Relations at the 2025 Flaggler Awards for their tune out to tune in mailer boxes marketing campaign. The Flaggler Awards are Florida's premier statewide tourism marketing honors. Established in 2000 and named after Henry Flaggler, they celebrate
innovation and excellence in promoting Florida as a top travel destination. The awards are open to any Florida based business, organization or individual that markets a tourism related product or service. Is the highest recognized state award and the first time the office of Visit Lake has received such
an award. This recognition is a testament to our team's creativity, innovation in showcasing Lake County as a great tourist destination. Thank you. This concludes our presentation for this morning. Thank you for your attention.
All right. Thank you, Janine, and thank you to all the recipients. Appreciate your hard work. We're moving now to our minutes approval and uh Christy Mlain is here today on behalf of the clerk of court. Yes, thank you. Christy Meline with Lake
County Clerk's Office. We recommend approval of the minutes from August 26th and September 2nd. So moved. Second. All right. We we have a first from Commissioner Sabatini, a second from Commissioner Smith. Um all in favor say
I. I. Any oppose? Those pass. Moving on to citizen question and comment period. Do we have anyone online today? Yes. No. No. Okay. All right. Um, we have I'm looking for general comments because we've got
Hartwood Marsh. We're going to talk about you're going to pull that one. Um, Claremont Fire. All right. Joe Famasi is our only public comment card. We do have one online.
And just before um Joe comes to the podium um I was going to mention that it's a three m three three minute um um comment period and we try to stick very closely to that um three minute limit.
And if you are online if you could press star 9 and click the raise hand button. And um just as a reminder, we're really going to try to sort of rein in the um the tone of some of the comments that we
get and ask that if you've got something really negative that you want to say and you were going to say some something profane, which we do get those emails, do it in an email, but don't do it during our public comment period, please. Um, okay. Joe,
and I know Joe never does that. Say that as Joe never does that. That wasn't that wasn't directed at you, Joe. No problem. Thank you, chair. Uh, I'm here to speak about uh FiveM Road again. Uh, I have more videos to show you. Uh, I know the sheriff's department was was out there monitoring. Last night, I
counted three vehicles that came off FiveM Road. Uh, the speeding across Wellness Way. Uh, I caught them on camera. Uh, there's going to be an accident out there. There's now 40 residents that live in Parkside Trails and they come down Wellness Way. They're doing the speed limit, but the folks
that are coming off FiveM are speeding. Uh you can tell when they actually take a little airborne as they go across, they actually almost don't touch Wellness Boulevard. So, I'm asking again, please, we need some barriers down there. Stop those folks and keep
them from coming in there. Uh I hope that you will consider other things for the Wellness Way area. Um, we do have a water issue down there and I'm asking that you support whatever you can get.
Uh, right now currently we have a one water system coming down there and that if it gets dampened, we're going to have a situation where there's no water to fight fires at all. Um, for three developments. Uh, I hope that you will consider doing something. Thank you for
your time and I'm out. All right. Appreciate it. um online. Yes. Uh we have Lee. Lee, you should be able to unmute your mic. Please state your name for the record and then give your comments to the board.
My name is possible that you're muted engineer at one point, but nobody has gotten back to me. So, I would like to really know what's going on, please. Oh, this is this lead with regard to the crosswalk. Okay. Yes. Um I know I talked
for the crosswalk for the kids going to Eustace Middle School. Talked to Jeff about this the other day. So it is it is progressing. It is being worked on. Um there will be a crosswalk. Okay. Do you think he could maybe email me an update?
Um I'll work with Jeff. I just keep emailing and I'm not getting any response back. So I just would like to know there's Okay. Okay. I heard eminent domain and then I heard there was something and then I heard I wanted a meeting and I just would like or a meeting. I think I will coordinate with Jeff and we will
get an email sent back to you Lee on on the time frame for the crosswalk. Okay. Any anyone else online? Okay. All right. Moving ahead then to presentations of proclamations and we
actually have um four today. And Commissioner Morris, you're up first. This is with regard to the town of Lady Lake in the celebration of their centennial. Make a motion to approve the presentation. Second. All right. All in favor. Is this for all?
Let's do all of them. All at one time. Make a motion. Okay. To approve all the presentations and pro. All right. All in favor say I. I. That passes unanimously and we'll move ahead with our presentations. We have the uh honor of having Mayor Ed
Freeman here. It's nice to see you, Ed. And rec Director Mike Berski. You got it, sir. What an honor. Proclamation 25-103. Whereas on October 19th, 1925, the town of Lady Lake, Florida, held its
inaugural meeting during which the rules of order for the government of the town of Lady Lake were formally adopted, marking the official incorporation of the town. And whereas the area now known as Lady Lake was originally inhabited by seminal Indians and began to flourish as
a settlement around 1883 with the establishment of a railway depot circa 188384 serving as a catalyst for growth and development. And whereas the town's name, Lady Lake, is to drive from a nearby body of water with local legends
suggesting it was named either after a woman who drowned or a lake or because the lake shape was resembled of a lady in a long dress. Wow. And whereas Lady Lake has a rich history as a center along with a bustling railway and
purveyor of citrus and watermelon contributes significantly to the region's agriculture heritage. And whereas Lady Lake holds a unique distinction in the birthplace of the villages. And whereas Lady Lake has evolved into vibrant community boasting
a community focused public library that ranks among the top countywide and accredited police department and a parks and recreation department dedicated to preserving and providing recreational opportunities for families. And whereas the town's parks such as Snookie Park, a
natural preserve featuring a 2,000 ft walking trail surrounded by cedar, live oaks, water oaks, and palms trees, serves as venues for vibrant signature community events celebrated among the historic canopy trees. A and whereas the
centennial of the town of Lady Lake is momentous occasion providing an opportunity to honor past, celebrate the present and envision the future of this cherished community. Celebrations for the centennial will bring together residents, visitors, stakeholders to
commemorate 100 years of history, culture, and community spirit. Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the board of county commissioners of Lake County, Florida, October 19th, 2025 is recognized as cen as the centennial anniversary for the town of Lady Lake.
And we encourage all citizens to participate in the various events and activities planned from November 3rd to the 8th, 2025, celebrating this historic milestone. A copy of the proclamation shall be spread upon the minutes of this meeting. This proclamation shall become
effective upon adoption, which it already has. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the board of county commissioners of Lake County, Florida, and regular session this 14th day, October, 2025. Congratulations, Ed. Congratulations. Would you like to have
like to say something? Uh, thank you all for this recognition. Um, I appreciate it and I'm sure that our residents appreciate it. Um, that Commissioner Tim said it all.
He He missed one part. What's happening on the last Saturday of your celebration? Wow. I have to Oh, here we go. Park and wreck. I I know the answer. Haven't told the mayor yet. What's happening on the last day of your
celebration? First of all, I want to say Commissioner Smith, the last board shorts that we did, incredible. Thank you. Excellent work with that. But uh the town of Lady Lake is preparing to have I'm what I'm hoping is the largest firework
uh show that the county has ever seen. So, please come out that evening. We're having our uh last centennial event. I know everybody's like, "No, I'm going to do it better." But we're going to do it. But uh please come out that evening and that day we're going to have quite a few uh events and activities going on. So
please come out. And I might also add that the town of Lady Lake has a phenomenal historical museum that absolutely goes through the timeline of the city or the town of Lady Lake that everyone should visit. So thank you for that as well. Thank you, Commissioner.
Thank you. Let's get Let's get a quick picture. They just put the gauntlet down for all the other cities. I know. Just set the bar really high. [Music] Uhhuh. to take. Yes, sir. All right. Um, we have three more
proclamations. I'll do the next one and then Commissioner Parks will do the next two. Um this one is with regard to um alternative dispute resolution and I will come down and I'm would ask if Chris Um, Blushment,
come forward, our mediation coordinator. All right, I will read the proclamation. Uh, proclamation 2025-121. Whereas Lake County has been recognized been a recognized leader in Florida for promoting mediation and other forms of dispute resolution as cost-effective and
compassionate alternatives to litigation, helping thousands of Lake County residents and business owners resolve their disputes annually through our court connected programs. And whereas the Lake County court system through the fifth judicial circuit's alternative dispute resolution programs successfully diverts cases from costly
and timeconsuming litigation. And whereas mediation is a voluntary, confidential, and collaborative process that empowers families, neighbors, businesses, and community members to craft their own solutions to conflicts while preserving relationships and dignity. And whereas county mediation
strengthens the fabric of our neighborhoods by addressing disputes over property lines, noise complaints, homeowner association matters, and other quality of life issues before they escalate into costly legal battles. And now, therefore, the board of county commissioners of Lake County, Florida,
proclaims that the week of October 12th through 18th, 2025 is proclaimed alternative dispute resolution week in Lake County. And this proclamation shall be spread upon the minutes of this meeting and shall become effective upon adoption, which we did today. So, thank you for being here. Would you like to
say anything? Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Uh, our mediation program focuses on settling cases to help lighten the load for our judges. And so, we often help people work things out before they ever even need to step
into a courtroom. Our volunteer mediators are the people who make this program work. They're trained and certified by the Florida Supreme Court, and they're members of this community who show up week after week for no pay uh to help others listen to each other, understand opposing points of view, and
settle stressful disputes. So, if you're someone, anyone here, if you're over 21, you can do this. If you believe in listening to your neighbors, in giving back to our system of justice, uh we'd love to have you join us as a volunteer mediator. Every mediator is certified
and trained by the Florida Supreme Court uh program. You can reach out to me. My email is chrisbircuit 5.org. Uh or you can visit the mediation page on circuit 5.org if you're interested in volunteering. So, thanks so much again. Have a great day.
[Applause] Good morning, chair, fellow commissioners, residents. Uh this morning is my privilege and honor to be able to um present two proclamations. The first one is in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. So, I would
love to ask um if uh Roland Nunees uh from Hispanics of Lake County Association would join me. Um wonderful organization. Uh Roland and I met a few years ago as he was helping establish this great organization, especially focused on helping those uh in the Hispanic community with small business
in Lake County. And I believe Roland, you also serve with Lake Sumpter State College as well and do wonderful work there, too. So, wonderful connection. Appreciate what you're doing. This is a fabulous organization. and thank you so much for being here as we do this proclamation. Um, so I'll go ahead and
read it and then we'll get our picture. Whereas the celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month observed from September 15th through October 15th and whereas provides an opportunity for all Americans to recognize and honor the cultural richness and historical significance of the Hispanic and Latino
community. And whereas this month is a time to celebrate the diverse cultures and histories of people with ancestry from Spain, Mexico, and the Caribbean, Central and South America, and their enduring legacy in the fabric of our society. And whereas the observance of Hispanic Heritage Month is an important
reminder of the need for continued efforts to promote opportunity for all, reflecting the values of justice and fairness that are the foundation of our democracy. And whereas we recognize the enduring contributions of Hispanic Americans to the arts, literature, music, cuisine, and traditions that
enrich our communities and enhance our national culture. Now, therefore, it be proclaimed the board of county commissioners of Lake County, Florida. Proclaim September September 15 through October 15th as Hispanic Heritage Month in Lake County. Thank you so much. Glad
you're with us. [Applause] Uh, thank you so much, Commissioner Parks. Um, the Hispanics of Lake County Association, our mission as a nonprofit is to serve as the resource center for workforce development, humanitarian
outreach, and multicultural awareness within Lake County. Um, just since I've started this organization three years ago, I have been constantly amazed and impressed by the the talent, the perseverance, the passion, and the contributions of our community. And it is just amazing. If you've ever eaten
the foods of the local food vendors here or seen their art or seen the businesses that they've started from scratch, uh it's it's so uplifting and and one thing I can tell you from talking to the dozens and dozens, possibly even hundreds of individuals that we've worked with, um is that they love Lake County. They love being here. You know,
we have a survey to prove it that they love the the opportunities that they have here and uh they're very grateful and they're just looking for more opportunities to be able to contribute. So, we're here to help to show that, showcase that, grow it, and uh make the county a better place. Thank you.
[Applause] All right. The sec or the second of my proclamations that I'm reading this morning and our last this morning is uh one of my favorites as well u honoring native plants in Florida. So I'll go ahead and read this pro
proclamation. I'm not sure if Neta Villobos is here. Neta Neta, I'm sorry. All right. Well, I'll just um do this by myself, I guess. Florida enjoys an incredible and distinctive diversity of native plants.
And whereas Florida is home to more than 3,300 native plant species with approximately 1,100 of them found in Lake County. Lake County includes a portion of the Lake Whales Ridge, one of Florida's two worldrenowned hotspots for plant
diversity, featuring 67 endemic species, which do not occur anywhere else in Florida except right here anywhere else in the world except right here in Florida. also included a 58 state listed threatened or endangered species and 12 ferally listed threatened
or endangered species, thus underscoring the need for greater public recognition and protection. And whereas native plants provide food, including nectar, pollen, seeds, and foliage for native birds, caterpillars, butterflies, bees, and other wildlife in
ways that non-native plants cannot. And whereas native plants impart natural grace and beauty to developed landscapes and are well adapted to Florida soils, temperatures, and rainfall patterns. Because they are naturally adapted, they
require less water, fertilizers than non-native plants do. And whereas the preservation of Florida native plants is an essential prerequisite to conservation of our natural beauty, native wildlife, and environmental sustainability for future generations.
And whereas the mission of the Florida Native Plant Society is to champion Florida's native plants and their habitats. The members of the Lake Beauty Berry and Passionflower chapters of the Florida Native Plant Society volunteer their time to educate about native plants and preserve and conserve and
restore the native plants in Lake County. Whereas October is an especially vibrant month to see native plants in bloom and provides opportunities for the public to appreciate the beauty and natural value of the native plants. Now therefore be a proclaimed by the Lake County Board of County Commissioners
that October 2025 is Florida Native Plant Month in Lake County. So I thank you all for uh this uh adopting this ordinance, this proclamation. Um if Neta was here, she would say that they participate. They do many, many hours,
probably thousands of hours of plant rescue around Florida, around us Lake County particular where they rescue native plants. I also obviously advocate through education the use of native plants as well. Many thousands of hours uh going out to the public and educating
um them as well as to the value and the importance of our native plants in Lake County. Um you know protecting our heritage. This is what we have before it's trying to protect those plants before they're lost. So really appreciate what they do. Um and you all
can become native Florida Native Plant Society members very easily. It's very inexpensive. is super easy. Everybody in the audience can go on right now, become a member of the Lake Beauty chapter, which is our chapter, or the Passionflower chapter, whichever one,
uh, in Lake County. All commissioners could do it. Anybody in the audience can go do it so easily online, and it, uh, supports a great mission. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner Parks. I can report too that the Keep Lake Beautiful group has been working on a
native plant um beautifification project at the Aster Library. Um so that will be hopefully a showcase when that's all put together. Moving on then to the clerk of court uh consent agenda. Christie,
thank you. Christine Main again for the with the Lake County Clerk's Office. We recommend approval of clerk's consent agenda and there's seven items. All right. Do we have a motion? Move to approve. Second. All in favor say I. I. Passes unanimously. Moving on to the
consent agenda. Um I believe we have a couple to pull. Uh yes, chairman. I'd like to pull tab eight and if possible move tab eight 8 after tab 30 because it's in direct line with tab 30.
Yeah, I I like the idea of I think actually discussing them together in that same context. Okay. All right. Um and then on tab 10, that's the one regarding the agricultural um ordinance modification. So I wanted
to pull that. Any others? Okay. All right. Then moving along um for with a motion without eight or 10 move for approval of uh consent agenda minus 8 - 10 and nine I'm sorry and tab nine as well
that I pulled earlier and nine second. I'll second that. All right. All in favor say I. I. Then moving back to um let's see. Eight is going to go with with 30. Um nine
that was pulled to another agenda. Um and then 10 is the agricultural um ordinance modifications and we've received a couple emails about this and I had a couple questions as well. Um and I believe Melanie has a
short presentation. It's a little confusing because this is a result of a an a statute that was uh adopted by the Florida legislature and there are differing sort of views or interpretations I guess you could say as
to the extent that this was intended to eliminate all county oversight or regulation on something classified as an agricultural use. Um so I felt like we needed to explore it a little bit more.
Okay. So, um, we'll I'll have Eric in the back if you can advance the slides because I don't have the remote. So, the the purpose of this ordinance is to make some changes to our land development use table. Um, the first change is to comply with Senate Bill 700, which went into
effect on July 1st. It amends section 163 3162, which is entitled the Agricultural Lands and Practices Act. This particular bill is creating new regulations which prohibit local governments from adopting or enforcing any law that inhibits housing for
legally verified agricultural workers. The other statute um or house bill that went into effect in uh July is House Bill 21 which was signed by Governor DeSantis on June 13th. It also amends the same section 1633162
the agricult agricultural lands and practices act and this one clarifies that bonafide agricultural activities include the collection storage processing and distribution of farm products. So when we look at 163 3162 there is a
legislative finding in that existing statute that says agricultural production is a major contributor of the economy of the state. The purpose of subsection 3 is to prevent duplication of regulation. And that subsection 3 essentially prohibits local governments from regulating activities of bonafide
farms on lands classified as agricultural by the property appraiser if those lands are regulated by best management practices. And those best management practice would would be from specified state and federal agencies such as FDAX, D, water management districts, USDA, Army Corps of Engineer
or the US EPA. The uses that we are proposing to change from uh conditional to permitted include chicken farms, egg processing facilities, hog farms, and slaughter houses. And these are highly regulated by state and/or federal law. So the proposed ordinance would be amending
LDR30103, the schedule of permitted and conditional uses to comply with state law. The changes again would be um taking these particular uses from conditional and making them permitted in the agricultural zoning district. So we of course have agricultural housing
camps which is under Senate Bill 700, chicken farms, egg processing facilities, hog farms and slaughter houses which would fall under um distribution and use and processing of agricultural um products and then writing stables as well.
So when the staff sat down and looked at the two bills and looked at the comprehensive plan, this is our analysis and our basis for the proposed changes. So the Lake County comprehensive plan has multiple provisions regarding agricultural uses, some of which are on your screen. So we have policy um I
1.2.8 which says agricultural and equestrian uses shall be recognized as a suitable use of property within all future land use categories. Policy I 3.3.12 recognizes agriculture as an important and necessary economic activity within Florida and Lake County. And we're
required to make sure there is adequate and appropriate land and water to be reserved for its continuence. Policy I7.7.1 agricultural primacy. The county shall encourage the continuation of agriculture agricultural uses on lands that have an agricultural exemption and
those lands will have primacy meaning that conflicts between those lands and other non-aggricultural uses will be resolved in favor of the agricultural interests. Policy I 7.7.2 is to support agriculture. Says the county shall support agricult agriculture as part of
its economic base. Next, the staff went and we looked at LDR30.01, which establishes our zoning districts. When you look at the agriculture zoning district, which is the typical A when you look at land use maps, the purpose of that district is to provide a method
whereby parcels of land which are most suited to agricultural usage may be classified and preserved for that purpose. Agriculture is a major industry of the county. Therefore, it's the intent of the district to provide long-term means for preventing further encroachment upon agricultural enterprises, encourage agricultural
pursuits by preserving good soils and agricultural areas from subdivision development or commercial and industrial construction. Additionally, in the LDRs, we have districts that are more geared towards residential rural uses versus a general
agricultural category. And both of those include the ranchet district which is the purpose is to provide outdoor farm or rural atmosphere in which to reside and the AR district agricultural residential which is also to protect and enhance rural lifestyles and quality of
life of single family dwelling units. We also have section 823.14 which is Florida statute is called the Florida right to farm act. It defines a farm operation as all conditions or activities by an owner, independent contractor, supplier, etc. in connection
with the production of farm, honeybee, aquaculture products, or in connection with complimentary agurism. These conditions and activities include, but are not limited to the marketing of farm products at roadside stands, the operation of machinery and irrigation pumps, generation of noise, odors, dust,
fumes, and particle emissions, ground or aerial seating and spraying. the placement and operation of an apiary, the application of chemical fertilizers, conditioners, insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides, agurism activities, and employment and use of labor. The Florida Attorney General in an
informal opinion dated September 15th of 2005 stated that zoning ordinances are intended to control development and land use. To the extent those regulations do not limit or restrict the operation of a farm, it would appear that they would be applicable to land that is owned
agriculture. But note such ordinances must be reasonable, uniform, certain and must supply sufficient standards. So when you take that particular opinion and you look at the statute which is the right to farm act, county zoning
ordinances are limited. We cannot regulate activities of farm which include fumes, emissions, machinery operations, seeding, spraying, fertilizer activities, labor, anything regulated by the state, regulated by the federal government or anything that limits an agricultural operation. It
also includes no noise, odors and dust. We cannot regulate those things. So when the staff looked at the legislation that came down and we looked at our particular zoning matrix, we went through line by line and of course the ones that we picked out um specifically based on the new legislation, the
chicken farms, slaughterhouses, hog farms, and egg processing facilities are currently conditional uses. It is our opinion that we are preempted from making those conditional uses with the exception of if the board wanted to keep
those as a some type of condition on it. You would have to come up with specific code provisions that tell them exactly what they would be regulated and doing. The only thing you can essentially regulate is maybe setbacks, maybe buffers and only to the extent that it
does not limit or restrict that farming activity. So again, looking at how highly regulated these particular uses are by state and federal government and the fact that we would have very limited ability and we would have to specify exactly what we were regulating versus being a conditional use permit whereby
the board can place conditions as it determines necessary. We are recommending that these items um be changed to a permitted use. Next, please Eric. So again, option one is to approve this advertise in its current form. However, if you would like based on
comments that you hear today, you can approve it to advertise with the following changes. We would have to add specific LDR provisions for chicken farms, slaughter houses, hog farms, and egg processing facilities that are reasonable, uniform, certain, and supply sufficient standards. So, I would not
recommend that you leave these as conditional uses because again, that opens it up to potentially putting in conditions um that we simply cannot regulate under the Right to Farm Act. Okay. What about writing stables though because you don't you didn't list that. So, writing stables are they're a little
bit different in terms of they can be considered a commercial use. However, when the staff went back and looked at the purpose of the agricultural district again is to preserve use agricultural uses, agricultural lands, the purpose of that district is not residential in
nature, although many people do live in an agriculturally zoned district. So, when we went and looked at that particular use, it was determined that having horses, riding stables, maybe providing lessons, those are all things that would be an appropriate permitted use in the agricultural district. it
would remain a conditional use in the AR and the RA district. However, again, if you would like to leave that as a conditional use, you certainly have the ability to do so because it is not something that would be regulated under state or federal law as a a typical agricultural type of of use.
Do you know if the property appraiser gives an can give an a exemption to a writing stable? I I don't have the answer to that question. I know the particular property that spurred us looking at riding stables does not have an agricultural exemption.
I'm assuming if they were to submit evidence that they were breeding horses, then potentially they could get it. And of course, riding stables would be, you know, when you're breeding the horses, that would be an ancillary use to that. Um, so as far as the idea of like
having, you mentioned setbacks and buffers might be the only place. What about like impervious surface area? What about um disposal of waste? So I I will tell you 100% disposal of waste is not something we can regulate.
Those are things that would fall under USDA or FDAX regulation. Um that's an inherent part of those agricultural operations. Um as far as impervious surface potentially we could regulate that. Again, it's if somebody if a
agricultural operation came forward and said, "Well, if you're limited to me to 10% ISR, I you're limiting my agricultural operation." Depends on the operation and what they're doing. It it is something you could potentially regulate. However,
so I I have um someone in my district who has written to me a lot about the riding stable issue. They're very concerned about taking away altogether the conditional use permit side of it just because of people that are adjacent, how they're impacted um
potentially by someone having, you know, a lot of um boarding, riding, people coming over, parking, that whole type of activity. whereas it doesn't really it seems like a farm but it's not really a
farm because it's not producing anything um like the things that this um new law applied to. So, um, you know, I I would be inclined to say have some uniform regulations that could apply or keep
that as a conditional use permit with a list of things that could be included as much. And I think Melanie is is recommending that even for a conditional use for riding stables, we would have set regul. Again, it wouldn't necessarily be
a conditional use. we would just have specific provisions in the code that says you you're permitted to have a riding stable in agriculture, but you have to comply with these requirements. And again, that's that's geared towards commercial riding stables. It wouldn't be if you have horses and you're having
friends over and they're riding and those types of things. So, it would only be if it's a commercial riding stable that it would remove it a little bit out of the traditional agricultural uses. And a lot of people that live on land that's zoned agricultural um they they're you know they're not operating
big farms and conducting big farm activity. However, they might live next door to a large nursery or farming operation. Um that's why I think having setbacks and buffers might be a really smart idea so at least you have
something in place. would that apply because where we've had our biggest problems um are the mar medical marijuana facilities. Um does that on in its own um medical marijuana has its own statute. So there's there we're
preempted to a great extent on medical marijuana. There are some setbacks from specific locations I believe such as schools and things like that. Um but but that again is a very highly regulated area, but there's no we we can't have a local setback um that exceeds the the state
statute on I I would have to go back and look at the marijuana statute. I mean it's a possibility. I just don't have that one. I think it's worth looking at that just because and again all these things seem to happen in district 4 um where we have the medical medical marijuana plants. We have people that I mean it's just the
the smell and I don't know you know whether a buffer would completely alleviate that because you can drive down a road next to one of these and and you're going to smell it. But if you're living in a house already next door and one comes along um you know there's like
absolutely no recourse and we get people you know, upset at us that that they have to endure that um on their own property. So, um I I I'm more inclined to say um
have some type of a um a uniform requirement for setbacks and buffers. And then with regard to the stables, um I guess the last question I would have was can you not regulate like light usage and um the hours of operation if
they're not producing anything on the property? Couldn't we in the case of a commercial operation of a riding stable be able to dictate, you know, they couldn't go past 10 p.m. with all their big lights on or things like that? Again, with a writing stable, you would
have more ability to regulate that. It's considered a commercial use. It's not a traditional agricultural use that is regulated by USDA and and those types of agencies. And I'm all for the writing stables. It's just that I'm trying to look at it from the standpoint of the person that
lives next door. Um that there needs to be some protections in place, I think, for adjoining property owners. Um couple questions. So you you would s you would suggest that if we were to to address the um writing stable use that
it would be some basic um requirements that are in the code that it's permitted assuming you meet hours of operation an impervious surface area whatever some basic guidelines not get too detailed but that that's correct
okay and I assume um you're going to ask it anyway but the dog kennels don't this is Dog kennels is not an agriculture use, right? Okay. I don't I know it is. I'm just we get that's a problem too that we get asked about a lot. That's correct. That that still I believe requires a conditional use
permit and that is not proposed to be changed as part of this ordinance. And agurism the the agurism laws how what is the the correlation to that to this? So again agurism uses are they're protected. We can't regulate them. the
the debate becomes whether wedding venues are agurism uses because that starts shifting more towards the commercial side. Um we do have some cases that we are are working on with that right now. One case we have on appeal. So that's a little bit different. That's a discussion for a different day.
Okay. So I I'm I'm more inclined to um just approve this for advertisement as is currently written. I have a problem with regulating. I mean, what do you do about a somebody
that has 300 acres and 200 cows and then somebody moves into five acres next to them and say, "I don't like the cows." Now all of a sudden, we're going to regulate cows or or llamas. So, this is a slippery slope that I don't want to go
down. So, um, it certainly beats a wedding venue next to your house on agricultural uses that is completely allowed. So, uh, I I think we just need to advertise as is currently re uh, written
and recommended. Commissioner Morris, do you have any comments or questions? Um, I think I I agree with Commissioner Smith. just do it the way it is. You guys just must not get many complaints in your districts from people
because my my whole concern is driven by the fact that I get these complaints and then I have to try to help people um find ways to continue to enjoy their own property, their own investment, their own lifestyle, while making sure that the people next door can do their thing,
too. So, I think the I mean, I personally think the writing stables ought to come out and be on its own. And I still think I think we should have some reasonable regulations such as setbacks, buffers, and maybe ISR just just to have something to make sure that
it it these things don't get so u first reading anyways. Well, this is just to advertise. So, I'm totally sympathetic to all that. So, do we should advertise it and then and then do the amendment or should we wait to advertise it until we include that?
I think you'll have to advertise with Melanie. Would we have to include both options? So if you if you want to if you want to pull writing stables out and do them as a separate ordinance, then I can make that
change and you can still we can advertise this so I can change it before we advertise and bring this back for public hearing. If you want to leave writing stables in and just create a new code section, then my recommendation would be we probably table this and we
bring it back to you for approval to advertise again so that you can look at those requirements before we go into public hearing and make sure you're comfortable with them and we're not in a giant hurry. I mean, we could table it, get this, do this right, make sure that we've taken everything into consideration. That's I
think that's smart. It's not we don't have like a deadline that you know we've got to get this on at the next meeting. I I And I don't know if you received there were there were two emails that came in. One from Kathy Boyce and one from Cindy Newton that had some concerns about it also. Did you receive those? Oh yeah. Okay.
And I've been hearing from Kathy since this whole discussion came up in the legislature because she's got her own experience with the writing stable situation. Okay. Table it. Yeah, that would be I think that'd be great and give staff enough time to work on some specifics to
bring back and then if if you all don't like the spec specifics, then we strike them and we will have advertised. Okay, motion motion the table. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? All right. That passes
unanimously. Um moving then to let's see we've covered consent 10 and 30 and then 10 and 30 will be later 8 8 I'm sorry 8 and 30
or 8 and 30 okay so we are presentations 26 26 okay um the first presentation is um economic development regarding the incubator um the UCF incubator and then
27 will be um EMS and city of Claremont. Good morning commissioners. For the record, Meg Brew and I serve as the director for the office of economic development here in Lake County. The county entered into an interlocal agreement with the city of Eustace in April of 2023 for the establishment of a
UCF business incubator located in the city but to serve the entire county. The city of Eustace in turn contracted with UCF and the Lake County Business Incubator officially launched in October of 2023. The agreement is not up for renewal until next year. However, it is a
requirement of the agreement that the business incubator deliver a report and presentation to the BCC annually. The amount of progress and traction appreciated by the incubator this past year has been truly impressive and I am excited for you to hear about some of the incubators most recent
accomplishments from our site manager by Brian Bedrich. But first, I am honored to introduce Tom Corino, US city manager to provide some remarks on behalf of the city regarding our partnership for this initiative. Good morning. Uh Tom Corino, city of
Eustace. Uh so I am here primarily to thank you uh for your support for this effort. Thank you to the board of county commissioners. Thank you to the county manager. Uh thank you to county staff, especially Kathleen and Meg. Uh while the incubator is physically in Eustace,
it really is a countywide effort. Uh we are all partnering to improve the entrepreneurial environment uh countywide. So again, while it is physically in Eustace, there are clients uh that uh participate in the incubator throughout uh Lake County. Uh I do want
to thank again thank you for your support. Uh but also thank uh our other private sector and public sector partners. Uh this effort involves the University of Central Florida, uh Lake County, the city of Eustace, but also um
the uh Lake Eustace area chamber of commerce and lead and also uh private sector partner in mega workplace. So we want to thank all of those partners uh for really working to improve the entrepreneurial environment in Lake
County. Uh, so again, thank you and I will turn it over to Brian Bedrich who will talk a little bit more about the specifics. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom. And good morning, commissioners and staff. Um, thank you
for this opportunity to give the annual update on the business incubation program, and thank you for all the support that you've given throughout the year. Um just a little bit of background. I think a year ago you would have heard a
similar uh annual update and in that the in that update the incubator was just getting started um and it was really all about kind of laying the foundation for the program. And um I came into this
role in January of this year. And the focus that uh I've had is really building upon that foundation that that was laid uh uh beforehand. And so the ways that I've gone about building on that foundation really have three areas
of focus. You can see up here. Um it's really implementation of the methodology that the UCF business incubation program has uh proven over the last 26 years that they've been around. It's also about integration
um of UCF uh into the Lake County business support ecosystem, right? And finding a way for this process to work here in Lake County. And then third, it's really what we do is focusing on smarter, faster growth
for businesses here in the county um in a variety of ways. And so I talked about that methodology that is um shown up here. Really what over the last 26 years we have come up with a way to really
help new companies get off the ground and be successful, help establish companies um scale up and also help international companies that want to establish US operations here in Central Florida uh by supporting them to do
that. And some of the things that we do uh within this program include introductions to capital, introductions to business development opportunities, uh leadership development, mentoring, and um
really a lot of what it comes down to is a lot of connections. It's connections to the UCF professors and resources. You can see on this slide connections to innovation districts and to industry clusters and um all of the resources
that UCF has available trying to bring that and make it available to Lake County businesses. And here you can see a study that talks about the results of that uh that methodology. So this is
from the HOS center and looking at the overall incubation program. You can see the numbers here. What it's showing is that this program generates significant sales, jobs, tax revenue, and then at the bottom there I think is um something
I want to point out. Every dollar that's invested into this program ends up generating $1045 uh return on investment. And so the second point I mentioned was how do you take all that and integrate it here into Lake County? Um, and you
can see here this is it's more than just trying to recruit a bunch of companies to come into this program. It's really getting out uh into the community, raising the awareness that that it we exist, the support is there, the support
of all the several other partners here in the room that I'll I'll I'll talk to in a second. Um and then also informally supporting and coaching some of these businesses uh prior to the coming into the program and as well as
providing educational programming throughout the county um that help entrepreneurs uh gain new skills and and be successful in their efforts. And um
this integration has really made easy by the partners that are here in the room. So, we've we've got a whole bunch. We've got LEAD, we've got Mega Workplace, we've got the UCF staff, city of US staff, the economic development team from the county,
all have been super supportive, super helpful, um really um a joy to work with. Um Tom mentioned being located at the mega workplace in Eustace is this business support hub. There's a lot of activity going on there. um colllocated
with lead with SBTC. We can have um you know daily conversations about what it takes to support the community. The economic development team has set up monthly alignment meetings where we're all getting together and truly collaborating, not just kind of talking
past each other. And so um all of that has just really helped me personally and helped integrate this program into the county. Um I also talked a bit about the educational programming. So we are some examples of the partnership are we
worked closely with lead to do we did a cyber security summit back in July. We're doing a lot of entrepreneurial programs um including one that we just launched on October 2nd called Excellence in Entrepreneurship. And all
of those educational programs we're getting into kind of a monthly cadence. So roughly every month we're doing something and averaging about uh 17 entrepreneurs attending and and benefiting from these programs um each month.
And that kind of leads into the third point. So ultimately supporting these businesses. So you can see uh here on this slide uh we are now at nine uh clients within the program. So if you think back to one of them was a
carryover from last year when you would have heard the last update and uh eight more are not joined and there's six more in that pipeline that uh have hopes that they should uh be joining the program soon as well. And just to give a couple
quick examples of some of those clients, I think many of you were at the lead dinner a couple weeks ago. You would have heard uh Paul Cart from Opticon speak. Um and Opticon is a fiber optics company from the Czech Republic. They
have opened their North American headquarters uh in Eustace and they have uh one of the things I I really like they they've made a commitment to the to the county and to the community and they followed up on that. They've actually
made a hire. They hired somebody out of Lake Tech, uh, took that employee, sent them off to Czech Republic, had them trained for a week or two, and then came back to hit the ground running, uh, to support the contracts that they're already winning. Now, it's three months
that they've been here. Another success story I really like to share is a company called Intelligence Factory. Um, I had hoped to have even more news, but um, the ink is not yet dry. I can't make a public announcement, but stay tuned. Uh very soon there will
be uh uh more good news to add to this story, but Intelligence Factory has really had a great journey. That is what the incubation program is about. They came in the beginning of this year, they had no sales. They were just starting off. By the second quarter, they had
broken even. The third quarter, they were starting to hire people. They've made two new hires at high wage jobs. And then that deal that I'm uh will be able to announce soon is going to be a very big outside investment deal where
they're going to get a big capital infusion. And that's exactly what we're looking at, right? And the best thing of all is the plan. They're based in Montura. They're planning to stay and um they'll be a bigger entity, but the hope is that they'll uh they will stay in the
county and continue to grow with us. So just visually if you look at um what it's been like from the last year, if you look here, we're looking at just headcount. You can see the growth of the program. We're going from six, I think
it's actually 32 now. Um you can see the upward trajectory there. Uh this also this next graph has a good representation of the revenue increase. You can see that green line shooting up. I I built this with the hopes I'd be
able to make that announcement. So, as soon as that's done, you're going to see that blue line shoot up here as well. And really, all of that is to kind of demonstrate those results that this program tends to um tends to generate.
And a lot of excitement. In addition to that deal, we've got just one company alone has a $6 million pipeline of uh proposals that need to be awarded in 2025. So that's going to be another uh big chunk there. Um and
really that's uh kind of circling back. These are the kinds of things that lead to that $1045 return on investment that that historically uh we're we've shown. And so just to really recap it, you know, if we go back to these three points, I
think that methodology has been implemented. It's in place. It's going strong. Um I think that um the integration and collaboration is here with lead with mega workplace, the city, the county. Um and really that you can
kind of see the beginning of those graphs where we're really poised to hit that kind of hockey stick growth where things are going to explode. Um, and that's really all I have. I just want to thank you again, you know, for the support, the funding, um, that has made all this progress possible. And I don't
know if you have any questions or anything. Anybody have questions, great presentation. Can't wait for the announcement. Hopefully soon. Um, we did have a card from Pam Rivas. Did you want to speak? No, it's all been said, but thank you for being here. All right. Great. Excellent.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um, we're going to keep moving. We've got the EMS um discussion next and I just want to let the Renfair folks know. Um we we really need to do this. Um we appreciate appreciate you being
here. Um but your comments um need to be heard in conjunction with our tab 30. So we'll get there if you can just hang in there and I think you'll find all of this extremely interesting because it it really really is. Um but thank you for
being here. All right, Tommy Carpenter. All right, good morning. Thomas Carpenter, assistant county manager. And uh we're going to talk this morning about the city of Claremont's request for ambulance service um along with u an
update from Chief Simpson about the EMS system and where we are. So before I want to before we do that, I just want to recognize we have folks from Claremont. I believe Councilman Howard is here. U Mr. Van Wagner and Chief Isel here are here from Claremont. And if there's anyone else here that I have
forgotten, please forgive me. So, uh also from our side, we have our fire rescue leadership. So, we'll get started. So, um really what we want to do is I'll start out the presentation. Uh we'll talk about uh City of Claremont's request and how we've kind of gotten to
this moment. uh Chief Simpson will come up and do a presentation and talk to you about the county's EMS system historically. Um how we've arrived, how we have the system that we do and then currently where we are. I know commissioners Campion and Parks have been part of this journey with the MS
system. Um other commissioners may not be familiar how it's structured or how we got to where we are. uh Chief Simpson also talk about the strategic planning and then I'll come back to you for really trying to wrap it up with the options uh for consideration and then turn it over for board discussion.
So, as I go through my first couple of slides, I really want to make sure that um I am being as historically accurate as possible because I believe as we've met, there's been information that's gone back to elected officials and to board meetings, council meetings, and so I
just want to do my best to make sure I keep the record straight on this. So, our first meeting uh between the county and the city was on May 5th, and really it was a sit down to say, "What's the plan for ambulances? We need ambulances in Claremont and we concur with them
100%. Um the growth has been um phenomenal and we know that um do over the last several years we haven't really been able to keep up and chief Simpson will get more into that into that part. In terms of uh the really the discussion started out as what are your plans and
for us we had yet to uh come before the board for our fiscal year 26 presentation uh which the board did approve for 45 uh people and so uh we can um our plan is we have the ability to staff up to seven ambulances next uh
next year by December of 27. So it's hard for us to make that commitment at this meeting because we had yet to present to the board and you had yet to approve the fiscal year 26 budget. Uh Claremont's plans uh they also recognized the need to add and they wanted to um their plan was not to add
sta not to add ambulances immediately using current staff. They wanted to hire and bring on their first ambulance somewhere in the March April 26 time frame and then the second ambulance toward the end of calendar year 26. And so what we decided to do is give us your
numbers for personnel. Um, and that way we can do an analysis of what it would cost for you to staff, what it would cost for us to staff, and then perhaps next time we get back together, we'll have a better idea of just when we can staff ambulances.
So that second meeting was on July 29th, and in the meantime, we had uh communicated with the city of Claremont just really what it would look like. the Claremont uh the city's plan was they would still operate under the county's uh COPCN under our license and then we
would fund them in terms of personnel and operational costs so that they could run calls within the city limits in the ISBA. Their plan was to keep the ambulances in their city ISBA area and if they go outside of that then it would be for what we consider life-threatening
emergencies, a heart attack, a stroke, something of that nature. And so when we got to comparing plans by this point, a couple things had happened. Uh the CBA, the collective bargaining agreement that the board had passed in year one, uh
back in April really had taken effect. We had seen applications come in for paramedics that we've never that I've not seen as being in this role. And then we had a our fire academy, our paramedic academy for six months for a six months program was graduating in August and it
looked like all were going to graduate. So we were in a much different place and um we had a pretty good feeling that the board was going to approve our request for for folks. So when we talked to the city of Claremont, we said we can add an
ambulance by October 125 and one by April 126. The one caveat to that was we do not have a ambulance station in the city of Claremont. And so for us to actually physically add that ambulance, we're going to need somewhere to put them. So, we had done uh we tried a
couple avenues uh working with the city to see if we can get back into a fire station to staff an ambulance and at the same time working with a uh private individual uh for a location on Bloxom Avenue as an ambulance station that uh had to work through the city's uh
planning and zoning. It needed a conditional use permit to do so um and then go to their council. It passed the planning and zoning portion, but when it made it to the council, it was denied. So we weren't able to get the station on Bloxom Avenue.
So that was our limiting factor for us actually getting an ambulance into the city. And then at the bottom, I've list the personnel costs. And I thought it was important to to show the most recent costs because when we initially started our conversation, the county's costs were cheaper. Um we were able to staff
dualert or singleert ambulances with firefighters or without cheaper. Since then, uh, Chief Isel has shared with me that their pension costs have gone down. And at the same time, the board approved, um, in September our, um,
contract, the CBA with the fire uh, fire union for year 2 wages. So, ours went up for firefighters and for single search. So, now when you look at the cost when we do that analysis for one one ambulance up to four ambulances, um, the pendulum has swung back to our side
where we're going to be a little more expensive. The next meeting uh was between um Miss Barker, the county manager, and Mr. Vanwagner on August 18th. And again, between the end of July up to this point, there had been discussion operationally, how can we make this
work? Um there is a need to do this and and again, Claremont's plan was to be able to hire staff in and their time frame, I believe, was that uh March to April 2026 time frame to do so. And um
the conversation that um that I believe Miss Burke or Mr. Van Wagner had was that our offer has always been if their ambulances are part of the system, they treated just like any of the county ambulances that uh the county will cover all costs.
um if they are not part of the system and they're part of Claremont's um system where they're managed operationally uh by the city and they stay within the city and they only leave when um there's a a higher acuity call then we would pay a portion of that
through the MSTU ambulance MSTU funding um the number that we arrived at was $141 per call and then for transport where we collected that average is about $423.58 8 cents. And so that was the offer that
was that was made at that time. And so since that meeting, we have continued to uh communicate with um with Claremont. I appreciate Chief Azelle and his staff for their openness and willingness. We pick up a phone and talk to one another to to work through
issues, questions, how is this going to work? How is this going to look? And so, um, to the best of my recollection in speaking with, uh, Chief Isel last week, uh, this is really, I think, where the city has landed, uh, thus far. And if I'm incorrect, and certainly correct the
record, um, for their request. Again, they would continue to work under the county's license. Um, and they would provide the personnel to staff ambulances. Uh the county would cover operational training costs and that includes fuel, medications, medical director training uh that's specific to
ambulance operation supplies, things of that nature. Uh the county uh would then provide the ambulance MSTU subsidy. So how we arrived at that, we used fiscal year 24 numbers since we had a complete year of of those numbers. The $ 8.9 million is what the ambulance fund
received for MSTU to operate. We then took that number and divided it by the number of calls during that year, the medical calls, 62,762. And that's how we arrived at the $14181 per call. That would change with different fiscal years, but that was the
thought process behind it. And then patient billing revenue uh for patients transported um and what we collect. So the thought being the Claremont Ambulance would transport the patient, they would do the patient care report, they would have to send it to us for processing. We would then uh work
through that part. Whatever we collected for the calls that they transported, then we would pay back to them. Again, that average for fiscal year 24 was $423.58. So that Yes, sir. Um chair. Sure. Um quick question just so before
you move on to the next slide just so I understand because since we had talked I we I had not heard what um Claremont um we were waiting when we talked to hear from Claremont so I hadn't heard this um the 8 million 900 that is a that's the
total number they that's what the request is a lump you're just saying that divided that's what we received in the ambulance MSTU for fiscal year 24 countywide countywide for operations okay and so we took the countywide number and then we took the countywide number of
calls divided that into it and that's how we arrived at that number. Okay. All right. So that's that's the subject. I just want to make sure that that wasn't the actual amount that was being asked. No 8 million. Okay. All right. It is not. So that will um
that'll complete my portion of this presentation so far. So I'm going to turn it over to Chief Simpson for his his part. Tommy, do we know how many of the uh 62,762 calls were in Claremont's ISBA?
We do not have the number for the in the ISBA, city limits and ISBA or just ISBA. Uh they they want the ISBA, I think. Well, I think you want the city and ISBA. You're looking at the total that they would I was just kind of curious. Okay.
And I'm kind of I'm kind of curious. Um, well, I'll wait until after chief finishes, then I'll ask my question about the 14181. The 14181 um totals everything. It's it's employee
cost, truck maintenance, uh medical examiner, all the equipment, all the training, dispatching, that's everything, right? Supplies. I'm sorry, Commissioner. I'll repeat that one more time. Apologize. The 14181.
So the 14181 that includes the the employees, the trucks, the maintenance, the medical examiner, the drugs, the training, and the dispatching. Yes. So the MSTU offsets the EMS budget by $ 8.9 million to cover that.
So it's built into that is what you're saying. Okay. And there's no distinction here between calls versus transports. I'm sorry. Calls versus transports. I mean, we're talking about just so both. So, when it comes to um
ambulance service, we can only bill for what we transport, but we have to run all the calls. Uh we transport about 72% of the calls that we run. So, those calls that we do not transport, we cannot recupate recuperate funding for. So that's why we take the subsidy and
divide it by total number of calls versus transports. Okay. So in that last bullet there, that's strictly the the payment that would be for a transport. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning, commissioners. John Simpson, deputy chief with the Office of
Fire Rescue. Uh as Mr. Carpenter said, I'm going to provide you kind of an overview of the history of ambulance provision and the development of the EMS system in Lake County. Uh we'll talk a little bit about the MSTU, where it goes, how it gets developed, all of that. Uh and then we'll get into the
regulatory oversight of EMS in the state in general and Lake County in particular. Then we'll also kind of wrap up with uh our strategic plan moving forward. So if I could delve back into history for just a bit, if we take a look going all the way back to the 1980s, in the early 1980s, there were three ambulance
providers in Lake County. There was one based out of Leburg, one out of South Lake, and one out of Waterman. In the mid1 1980s, it was decided that in Lake County, there would be a consolidated ambulance service, and it would be countywide and be completely ALS. Prior to that time, depending on where a person was in the county, when they
called the emergency number or when it got into 911, it would depend on where you are as to what service came and what level of service they provided. So the decision was made in Lake County, it would be all advanced life support countywide response and consolidated into one. It was operated by Waterman.
Soon soon after that, it became Lake County EMS. And while it was operated by Waterman, it was managed by a private management company. Sumpre County then came to Lake County and said, "Let's make a partnership." And so Lake and Sumpre County partnered together to have countywide ambulance
services, each operating independently. So as the 80s closed and beginning into the 90s, Hernando County joined and in the mid 90s, Citrus County joined. Each county, the ambulance service was the single ambulance provider countywide. Uh but each county operated independently.
It was overseen by all the employees were hospital employees and the management company oversaw it, but they dealt with each county individually. So um when we take a look at that progression uh that continued through the 90s where the ambulance service was
operated separate from any of the fire services. The ambulance service was the only advanced life support provider in the county and truly in all four counties. Um Spring Hill and and Hernando was the only exception. They had a small fire department that provided advanced life support but the
ambulance provider was the only advanced life support in the other other counties. So that continued on through the 90s. So as we entered the 2000s, we saw a shift, right? So as we got to the 2000s, Waterman Hospital said they were no longer going to provide ambulance
service. Since they were no longer going to provide the service, each county had to determine how they would provide service in their county. So at that point, Lake County and Sumpter County said, "We're going to form a partnership and we are going to operate an independent ambulance. We're going to
develop a notfor-profit governmental corporation and animal service will be provided from there. Well, when we began setting that up, we said, well, historically, advanced life support is only provided on ambulances. We have a lot of municipal partners and county
partners through the county fire service that are already responding to these calls. They are providing EMS response, doing first response. We need to grow this into an EMS system. And so that's what we did in 2000 was to start that.
As part of that, the MSTU was developed. The MSTU was developed. The ambulance MSTU was developed to offset unfunded costs to the ambulance service, but also to the EMS system as a whole. On the next slide, I'll talk I'm sorry, two slides later, I'll talk a little bit about again the details of that MST and
where the money goes and that sort of thing. But we decided that what we wanted to do is we wanted to develop a more expanded and comprehensive EMS system in Lake County, not just the ambulance service. And so that's what we did. As as we got into the 2000s, we brought more and more municipal partners
on board to provide ALS services. And that way advanced life support was provided in a shorter time frame than when the ambulance got there. So again, uh at that point, no longer relying just on ambulances. we began relying on our first response partners.
So in uh the 2010s, so in 2011, Sumpre County decided that they were going to deploy a different model of EMS provision in their county. And so that partnership was se uh separated, pardon me, was separated. At that point, Lake EMS was developed. And Lake EMS again
was a governmental not for-profit corporation that provided countywide ambulance service, but also acted as the EMS authority. and provided countywide EMS support. I'll talk more about that in a bit. Uh but continued to do so. So,
as we uh progressed through the 2010s, um again, the system continued to grow. It was functioning very well. Uh it was functioning as it was intended. Uh municipal services continue to be funded, continue to be supported. As we moved into the 2020s, um actually
as we approached the 2020s, in 2018, the decision was made that the EMS service, the annual service would be brought into the county proper as the office of EMS. And so it dissolved Lake EMS and became the office of EMS, still branded as Lake EMS. A couple of years after coming into the
county, we began looking at this and saying, you know, we can do things more efficiently. We can also uh you know really capitalize on a more efficient deployment model, more efficient use of resources, use of employees and capitalize on our existing employment
force because if you guys remember in 2020 when the co when COVID pandemic hit, we saw a seismic shift not just in our organization but in the industry as a whole and across healthcare as a whole. We found people leaving the organization not just leaving us but leaving all health care out of fear of
the pandemic. Um out of fear of what the next thing was going to be also there were opportunities opening up for remote work and things like that. Folks began leaving this. Additionally we found a dramatic decline in the numbers of folks that are uh joining EMT school, going to paramedic school. Um even the nursing
programs were experiencing that. As a result, it became more and more difficult to staff ambulances. and we we recognized that difficulty. So we joined the office of fire rescue and the office of EMS together so that we could utilize that larger workforce to continue staffing ambulances. On the next slide I'm going to give you kind of
a brief rundown on how our staffing model had changed over time. So in 2022 October uh we merged the two departments. Um you know during that time coming out of the pandemic oh by the way during the pandemic we also a massive decline in uh call volume. It
was unprecedented decline in call volume. Not only were less calls, we were transporting a less percentage of them. So we in the next slide you'll see we changed our deployment model to again capitalize on the workforce that we had but also remain cost-effective while being efficient and meeting the mission.
So uh bring the two departments together. We had to kind of rebuild. As we began to rebuild, we started um looking to you know again the in-house paramedic program looking at how we can recruit. We also looked at the new CBA agreement that the board ratified and I'll talk more about that in the
strategic planning side about the impacts that we had. But we ran into some serious staffing challenges and we openly admitted that uh but we uh again redesign the system so that we could accommodate. So I know the table's a little bit small
uh but what I wanted to provide was a history of deployment in Lake County. So the turret you have provides by year. The hashed lines are basically where years are omitted because no staffing changes occurred during those years. Um and also just to explain unit
hours. So that's the number of hours an ambulance uh ambulances are deployed during a day. So going back to 2012 when we first came to become Lake EMS, we had 12 24-hour ambulances and seven peak load units. Rescues had not been developed yet. Rescues are staffed by
firefighter medics and firefighter EMTs. would be years before that was implemented. So, it deployed 379 unit hours uh in 2012. I won't go line by line, but you can see um what we're trying to do is again use effective efficient use of our our combined
workforce. So, as we came into the county, we began to deploy rescue units and we offset the medic units by those rescue. So, you'll see those numbers eb and flow. In 2022, we were at the height with 22 units. Uh 15 of those were 24
hours and seven of those were 24-hour rescue units. What we found though in 2022 was Medicaid minimum wage. Uh you may remember that Medicaid minimum wage in the budget bill came out and said that if you collect uh money from Medicaid, you must pay everyone a
minimum $15 an hour on 24-hour shifts. Some of our employees were not making $15 an hour. They were making a good living on the annual's pay scale, but it was specific about $15 an hour. The way we overcame that was we converted all units to 12-hour shifts, which increased
their hourly rate. But to do so with the current workforce we had, we had to convert an additional uh medic unit to rescue and we also had to take two medic units down to create the 12-hour workforce. It continued to meet the mission, but the workload went up on
those units and we'll talk more about that in just a bit. Uh so currently with the new CBA and the medic units going 2472, all medic units have been returned to 24-hour trucks and rescues remain at 24 hours with eight. So today we have 20
ambulances 24 hours a day strategically placed across the county. So I mentioned the MSTU. So I just want to provide a little bit of a history on that. Again, it was established by ordinance in two in the year 2000. Uh the way it was set up was to fund
unfunded cost to the ambulance service but again to develop that EMS system. Um when we began to put that in place on the ALS agreements the ALS agreements actually spell out that we would provide uh funding 0.1 mil of assessed value not
collected value but assessed value in those cities to back to those municipalities to assist them in offsetting their ALS cost. uh in return they would assist by running ALS first response setting up that system design was done so that required less
ambulances on the road and because you'd capitalize on the more resources. So when you look at the funds distribution 0.1 mil of assessed value goes back to every city that participates in the ALS side. Um then the property appraiser, tax collector, the CRAAS, reserves, all
of those things are collected out of the MSTU before any money runs to the ambulance service for operational funding. So um if you take a look at what actually comes at 8.9 million, it's roughly half it's half of what's collected actually comes to support
ambulance operations. So the way we're set up is we are a user fee delivery model. What that means is we bill for services, right? Um, and if you look at the EMS budget, about 70% is covered by billing revenue, 30% by MSTU
or taxes. U, when you take a look at that, um, it's it's important to remember that uh, again, we're paid for transport, which means the bulk of the EMS budget is actually borne by users, not taxpayers. Um but in in those users that are using
it really the majority is born by insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, those sorts of billing services. Uh about 12% of what we do is self-pay. So again, the bulk is funded through revenue. Um we are paid for only transport. I mentioned that earlier because the commission had
a question about that. Only paid for transport. So anything we do not transport, we do not bill for and we do not collect on. Our transport ratio is quite high. Uh in the world of EMS, particularly 911 response, it's 72%. So we transport about 72% of the
ambulance calls that we run. Of that 72%, our net collection rate is 77%. So that's what we collect out of the bills that we send, which is where that average of 428 comes from. So, uh, just to kind of wrap this part up, you know, countywide analyst
provision has been done since the 1980s. It's a proven, efficient, and effective model. Um, you know, the it's been proven to to take care of of answering the mission, answering the demand. Um, it's efficient because there's no duplication of services. We strategically place all of the units so
that they aren't duplicating each other. Uh, and every call is answered by the closest ALS ambulance. And so in a little bit I'm going to talk about uh operating as an EMS system. So before we do that I want to touch real quick on uh the regulatory side of
things. I know the commission is familiar with this uh as we uh go through public hearings every two years to renew our COPCN license. But ambulance service and ALS provision in the state of Florida is highly regulated. It's regulated by the Bure of Emergency Medical Oversight. It is chapter 401 of the Florida statutes
dictates that we are a certificate of public convenience and necessity state which means you must have a coopn issued by the county commission to provide ambulance service uh within the county boundaries. Um it places the authority on the board of county commissioners meaning that the board is the sole
authority on who can provide ambulance service or ALS of any kind in the county. So even BLS ser transport services require a uh COPCN. This is followed up by uh ordinance
section 1119 that provides the process for COPCN application. Um Lake County has the only non-restricted ALS COPCN. Um all of our response partners operate under our COPCN, our license. We act as the EMS authority as office of fire
rescue. And we do that by agreement, not by issuance of COPCN's. So when we start talking about the EMS system, I I want to show you this graph because I think it lays it out pretty well. Again, we've developed this over many years to de to deploy as a system.
911 phone call is made. Our communications center answers all 911 calls as a secondary PAP for all EMS and fire request. They begin the questioning of the caller. From there they begin providing care instructions. So truly care begins at that point of phone call.
That is truly time zero. Our first first responders. So as they begin providing instructions, as you can imagine, only so much can be provided. So that begins to expand that level of care. As it moves to that next level, our first response partners, our advanced life support partners, they begin providing
that next level of care. Then the ambulance arrives later into the call. Again, care begins to expand. As it expands further, gets deeper in the protocol. transport decisions get made at this point as to where they're going to go. That care expands even further as they arrive at a primary care facility
like an emergency department. So that initial receiving facility, then they can transfer out to a tertiary care facility like a burn center, trauma unit, all of that. Now, one of the joys about an EMS system is the first response unit that gets on scene or the ambulance can activate alerts, trauma alerts, stroke alerts, those kind of
things, and transport directly to once we get there, transport directly to those tertiary care facilities, cutting out that initial receiving facility. But that's how that expanding level of care works and how it works here in Lake County. So, um, our municipal fire departments,
we are partnered with eight municipal fire departments, seven of which are advanced life support. Umatillaa is is currently still basic life support but all the rest are advanced life support. As a system we provide many services to our partners and we do this for clinical continuity. We want to make sure that
all the paramedics are trained the same. Everyone's using the same equipment. All the medications are the same. All the supplies are the same. Medical directors are the same. And so these paramedics are trained and exit under the same medical directors. So that list medical direction, clinical education, treatment protocols, medical supplies,
pharmaceuticals, controlled substances. Um the clinical equipment, we allow our partners to use our purchasing power. They purchase their own hard medical equipment, but we they can purchase at our rates. Um we do provide loaner equipment at times. Uh we provide clinical quality oversight, unified 911
dispatching, uh permitting and compliance, and regulatory oversight. Of course, all of these services are provided at no cost to our partners. Again, they're provided to keep a unified system. We have some public private partnerships. These partnerships are with ground ambulance providers. All of
them provide advanced life support uh or critical care. And uh when you take a look at the list, it is actually done by health care systems. We are partnered with all of our health care systems in Lake County. Uh there are three-party agreements that are performed between us
the uh private agency and then the hospital system to take care of all of the inter facility work. These are definitive care to definitive care transfers hospital to hospital. This allows us to focus purely on 911 response. Now understand we still do back them up with true critical
patients. Standalone ERS that do not have landing zones have to have trans air crews transported in and back to the landing zones to take care of those. There are times where someone walks in having an active heart attack, needs to get to a cath lab. If there's a diff a time differential for the private, we will step in and do that emergency
transfer to get them to the cath lab. But overall, we focus about 99.9% of what we do is is scene response. And so we partner with them for that. I want to talk just a little bit about locations of our hospitals. You know, uh we are blessed with a great health care
system in Lake County. Uh however we have some unique geography and quite a distance between hospitals. So the blue stars on the map represent our current hospitals. Now Spanish Plains which is a UF facility is actually in the villages technically in Sumpter County but we treat it as a local facility. UF Leburg
is in Leburg. Advent Health Waterman is in Tavaris and then South Lake Hospital which is Orlando Health is in Claremont. Uh Advent Health Miniola is opening soon probably by the end of the year and that is also in Claremont. So it'll add an additional hospital there. It is uh located as you know uh Hancock in the
turnpike. Um we also have six freestanding emergency departments in Lake County. We have one in the four corners, one uh two in Claremont, an Advent Health facility and a UF facility. We have one in South Leburg which is an RHS facility. Uh we have two
in Eustace which is um HCA and UF. There are also two coming. There are another one coming to Eustace which is Orlando Health and one has broken ground currently in Futland Park which is Advent Health and so those are additional facilities that we transport to. Now one of the things I need to
point out is there are no comprehensive stroke centers and no trauma centers in Lake County. Now I will say thank thank you to UF Leburg. They actually have provisional approval to be used as a comprehensive center which means when we triage patients needing comprehensive
stroke care we can now keep them in county. Historically, those have all had to be taken out of county. Um, when it comes to trauma centers, we utilize um multiple helicopters to do those transfers. However, as you know, the weather in Florida, uh, if the weather's bad, we have to go by ground. As a
result, ambulances regularly transport out of their primary stationed area. Well, that's one of the points of having a countywide response system, having a countywide ambulance system, is other ambulances are backing those areas up. And when they leave those areas, if there are calls on their way back,
they're running those calls. And so all of that is shared. The other thing I want to point out is um I put in here as mid-occtober, forgetting that we already are at mid-occtober. Today, University of Florida Leburg stops providing OB services. So there are now only two OB
facilities in Lake County. One at South Lake Hospital and one at Advent Waterman. Uh the new facility that opens in Mola, when it opens, will not have OB services. So that creates again a need for transportation to outside areas. Uh and the thing also to remember is
transportation decisions for us are not based on geography. Transportation decisions for us are based on the patient acuity, patient condition, patient need and when they're stable, patient preference. So you know I put on there why we operate as a as a system, right? It
provides high quality compassionate care. It gives a gives a mechanism for that. Uh, it provides continuity of care. No matter where you are in Lake County, when you call 911, you're going to get an ALS ambulance with the same level of trained staff. Um, so it it provides that equitable equitable
delivery of clinical services. I already described how we operate as a system. We do that 911 call, initial treatment, first response continues and expands that treatment, and then the transport arrives on scene. I want to touch briefly on a study that
was done in 2017. Bitchin Associates is an international EMS and fire consultancy. They performed a comprehensive review of um EMS and deployment of ambulances in Lake County. It was a really wide ranging study, but
one of the things they did look at was what if a municipality decided they wanted to provide their own service and leave the system? What would that look like? It just so happened that they used the city of Claremont and the city of Leburg and then used both of them together in that study.
So what they found was there would be a decrease in revenue to provide ambulance services. There would be a decrease in MSTU taxation uh taxes to provide services, but at the same time it would need it would increase the need for county ambulances because it would begin
duplicating services. is you would have ambulances that are stationed very close to one another, but they're not running each other's calls. So, it is disjointed ambulance placement, but it is also uh an increased cost because you're not bringing that revenue in to offset the increasing volume. Um, as I said earlier
that the county is ultimately responsible to provide ambulance service in the county, which means that service still has to be provided. So units would have to be stationed around any city that was doing their own so that they could make sure they weren't trying to cross a city and creating increased distances.
So um as we began reviewing this, so just some additional concerns that came out of that study and also looking at um looking at our numbers. So you know certainly if it was not a countywide response, equity and countywide ambulance response would be lost. U that's right off the bat. Responsibility for ambulance coverage still remains
with the county. I use the most two recent months, August and September, uh, as examples. So, in August, it required 10 ambulances to transport out of the city of Claremont. Uh, in September, it required 11 ambulances to transport out the city of Claremont. I want to give you a little bit deeper breakdown on that. There are two primary ambulance or
two ambulances whose primary service area is the city of Claremont. That's Rescue 89 and Rescue 109. Medic 89 and Rescue 109. They're actually stationed in Minnola, uh, just outside the city of limits. So if you take the two of those units for both of those months, they transported roughly 64% of all the
transports that occurred in uh in Claremont uh during the month. When we add medic 95 out of Groveland, that amount goes to 70 77 um 75 to 77%. When we take medic, which is our current which is currently an overtime unit in
Groveland, and you take uh rescue 112, we then reach 96 to 97%. So if we take those six south end ambulances, it covers about 97% of that. But the two ambulances that focus on Claremont again is only 64% of the volume. Uh and of
course longer ambulance response times are likely because greater distances would be involved. So our current deployment uh we have 20 ambulances 24 hours a day. They are strategically placed across the county. Um, in addition to that, we do have two overtime ambulances that on a fairly
regular basis get staffed. Uh, one on the south end and one on the east side. And then we have, uh, one ambulance that we currently use as overtime for paramedic training, uh, that could be running. So, um, you know, Mr. Carpenter mentioned this and I'll mention it
again. We know we need more ambulances. you know, uh, we've run into some difficulty staffing those because of lack of qualified candidates coming into the system, but we have now seen that resolve. And so, I'll talk about that in just a bit. So, real quick, I want to touch on uh, unit hour utilization. This
is a measure of workload that we utilize. Um, I know uh, Commissioner Parks, Commissioner Campion, you're familiar with this. We used to look at this a lot when uh Lake EMS board days, but we look at this as time on task, which is the time an ambulance is committed. So, from the time they're
dispatched to the time they're available right now, um it runs between 41 to 61 minutes depending on where you are in the county. Uh but the average is 48 minutes. So, in a way you can look at it is once an ambulance is dispatched on average they're going to be engaged for an hour, right? So, an hour of time is
gone. and you divide that by the time in service to give you a percentage of time that that ambulance is actively engaged in a call. Uh we do that because as a 911 service, we must have a state of readiness. Um as a state of readiness, the kind of the national recommendation is an ambulance uh atu on a 24-hour
truck to be somewhere between 0.25 and30. Once you get beyond that, call concurrency starts causing prolonged response times, that sort of thing. The graph you have is the September UHU graph. Uh, and we look at this every
single month at the end of the month. The green line is 0.25. The yellow line is 0.3 and the red line is 0.35. As you can see, a lot of our ambulances are above that 0.25 mark. uh we have a bunch that are exceeding the 0.3 and there are
a number that are actually above the 0.35 mark which tells us that we do need to add resources and again while we're meeting the mission we need to improve right we need to improve response times we need to improve state of readiness we need to decrease our travel times that sort of
thing and we do that by adding resources so I want to talk about how we're going to do that so over overcoming those staffing challenges um as with all EMS services had a lot of staffing challenges uh coming into the mid 2000s. Um however uh we are now seeing higher
enrollment in EMT programs, paramedic programs, but we are seeing a huge influx of qualified candidates that are really wanting to work here, wanting to work in Lake County, want to work for Lake County Fire Rescue. Um during the last year, we implemented the new uh CBA. You guys ratified the new CBA. Uh
we actually put on eight new hiring classes this past year. Uh which has actually brought ambulance to full staffing. Uh so now that we've reached full staffing, um we reached out to the county manager about adding ambulances, adding staffing. And so that's what came before the board recently for the budget
that was passed. The budget that was passed adds 45 ambulance positions for us to begin bringing up more ambulances. We're seeing EMT and paramedic applications at the highest they've been in a decade uh or nearly a decade. uh we instituted the uh paramedic academy
which allows us to clear paramedics, maintain the quality but put them on the road much faster. I just want to give you a brief overview. Right now we have 16 current employees on paramedic provisional. That is the final step for them to become cleared as staff paramedics and be released to place on
ambulances. Um right now we are onboarding 18 paramedics. They're in the onboarding process and 20 EMTs are in the onboarding process to for the November 3rd orientation interviews started today for the next hiring group. They're interviewing 11 additional
paramedics and 35 EMTs. Um so again, we are seeing a large influx with all of those employees is where we're going to add ambulances. So, what we're looking to do is we're looking to add two take the two overtime units, make them full-time ambulances
the first quarter of this year and then add three additional ambulances during the second quarter of this year. Those will all be again be strategically placed. The uh our approximation is that um let me sorry let me back up there. So
the as it shows there benefit of the adding additional ambulance I think you guys realize that is increased decrease utilization spreads the workload out more and also decreases response times. So our goal is to reach that 0.25 to 0.35. We can do that with countywide
response. Um and our approximation is is to reach the level of about 30 ambulances in the next couple of years. Um you know because we're going to continue to see that volume go up. I told you we had a dramatic decline in volume during COVID. We actually saw a multi-year decrease in our transport
volume. That has now returned. We are now precoid response level and that's why you're seeing the utilization numbers being as high as they are. Uh so we forecast that that volume will continue to climb and that we will need to continue to adjust as we move forward. The other thing that we're
looking at is uh we're really running into some real estate challenges. I know Mr. Carpenter spoke about some of that about getting an ambulance in Claremont. So we are exploring the idea of ambulance hubs. For instance, we are working with city of Minnola uh their fire station. They've moved into their new fire station. We're looking to do an
agreement with them to utilize their former fire station as an ambulance hub where multiple ambulances can be deployed. By doing so, we can actually spread that workload across multiple ambulances because they'll be alternating on calls and also it decreases the real estate cost and the
difficulty in finding property within municipalities. And with that, I will turn the floor back to Mr. Carpenter to discuss the options for consideration and turn it over to the board for board discussion. So, I'd like to begin if I could, Mr. Commissioner Morris, you asked a
question about responses information about uh ISBA and city limits. So, um, ambulances, ambulance responses into the city and ISBA, 8,838, uh, ambulance responses into ISBA and
city, and then 5,618, uh, was either a ground transport or a air trauma alert airlifted. 5,618 and that was information uh, provided by Chief Ael.
Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, so everything we've presented to this point has been our conversations and uh what we've talked about up to the point of this presentation and so uh first one is our option one which is I believe the city of Claremont's
request and that will be that the city will provide their personnel to staff ambulances. uh they'll continue to work under the county coopn and our license. Uh county pays operational training costs. Uh county provides ambulance MSTU funds per call and patient billing
revenue for ambulance transports that are collected that we previously discussed in this presentation. Ambulance is not part of the EMS system and will respond primarily to the city and ISBA area. uh will respond to high acuity calls if requested uh outside the
city and ISBA and the ambulance remains under the city's management operational structure. Uh options two and three were discussed between Miss Burker and Mr. Van Wagner, I believe in their August 18th meeting. And the first one, option two, the ambulance remains in the city's
management operational structure as described in option one, the county will pay a per call fee with the ambulance MSTU funding and provide patient billing revenue collected for patients transported. Operational training costs uh are not covered by the county. Option
three, uh to uh for a Claremont staffed ambulance if it's part of the county's EMS system with county oversight for day-to-day operations and the county will cover all costs for that ambulance. And then the last option is to keep the system as it is remains unchanged and we
move forward with the strategic planning and the goal of reducing our utilization hours and we we know that in the urban areas of Claremont and Leburg Golden Triangle our goal is to decrease the response time for our ambulances which would require more ambulances on the
road and and we're we're aware of that. So with this I'm happy to turn it over the board for discussion. All right, thank you very much. Uh, questions? Just a couple questions before we get into the discussion, which I think is really important and I appreciate the
city of Claremont being here and definitely um long overdue discussion. It comes up every every four or five years. It's good. It's good that the public's hearing this. Encourage anybody that's not I guess people they're not listening, they won't know. But we want as many people as possible, I think, to
listen to this presentation and the discussion. Um, just a couple quick quick things. I'm glad you brought up the history on the slide seven. Um, the the move by Sumpre County, if I'm correct, was to privatize. So, everybody knows we were not in this board, two of
us, and then I'm sure all of us would agree did not want to privatize EMS. That's why we went away from that. They wanted to um that was really heated discussion if I remember. Um and then uh the further that 10 years later or or some years after that to go to Lake
County Fire and Rescue is because not only Fitch report but then a lot of meetings we had here proving that that was going to be the more cost-effective option as well doing that. So, I know I know you you kind of touched on it, but I just wanted to emphasize that with the exclamation point that those were that
was a lot of time and a lot of hours that went into that uh during that um period of time to to get where we're at now. Could you touch on stroke care because you you sort of maybe go into it a little bit more because what I what I get and I've c I know from certainly from discussions with Claremont and not
to zero in on a few specific cases but but let's just take the stroke case where somebody and no and all of us in here have you know family and we want the the quickest response as possible for all all things that happen but for stroke in particular because time is
totally of the essence. So, just so that it's clear and that we're talking about this, it's is it um because I hear, well, should we get a stroke truck? Um and what could that do? Uh um what are we are we unsafe with strokes right
now? I mean, is it is it could we could we be doing better? I you sort of touched on it with the facilities that the facility where it is is the most important thing, but and then we talked about this the other day. If you could just rehash that a little bit. Absolutely. Yes, sir. Yes. Um so when it comes to stroke care you have what are
called primary stroke centers and comprehensive stroke centers. Uh comprehensive stroke center can do interventional work. So in other words they can do clot retrieval and things like that where they actually pass a catheter into the brain to remove a clot. Um and then the other side of a comprehensive center it can do surgical
intervention which is in case they're bleeding in their brain they can do the surgical side of it. So historically we've had primary centers but not comprehensive centers in Lake County. So we would transport those by ground if they were within a certain distance of the scene or by air if if we need to go
by air with Leburg coming online as a comprehensive center and we utilize them as such. They can do all the clot retrieval. They have the suite built all of that and they're currently doing that procedure. So if you look at the vast majority of Lake County, it all falls
within a 40inut drive of the of the Leburg center. Um, and so we're doing almost all those exclusively now by ground and almost everything in Lake County is going by uh by um going to Leburg. Um, if you'd like I do have a map I can
Yeah, please. We can zoom in just a little bit. If we could zoom in just a little bit. And it may be difficult to see, but as you see the color start coming into focus, you can stop right there. So, anything in blue, Leburg is actually the closest comprehensive stroke center, and
that's where we're taking those currently. Um they are bringing surgical intervention online soon but they have immediate transfer agreement to uh any surgical candidate gets transferred out and they do that within minutes of of arrival. Um the ones that are in other
colors on the very far east side of the county uh Sanford would be the closest one which is Lake Monroe. uh in the southern part of the county it would be celebration and then even further I'm sorry it would be or Orlando and then the very farthest part of the county would be u celebration would be the the
comprehensive center to go to so you mentioned the sto stroke truck so there's a stroke truck currently posted in Sumpre County across the street from the Spanish planes hospital so that is a partnership between UF health uh and Spanish planes as well as the vill's
fire department they station there they treat it as a regional asset set. We've met with them. We've met with our medical director. If there were a need for that, we could request them and they could respond. The distance they would have to travel is kind of restrictive because we could be at the comprehensive
before the unit gets there. So, it is something that we're having conversations with them about. Our medical directors are aware that it's there, but they said that they will treat it as a regional asset that can be dispatched. U but is it so the most important thing with with a stroke is obviously who's getting there first and being able to
diagnose that the first responder they may hear about it on the call of course but that's the most is that because without the stroke truck you're pretty much deciding we got to go immediately to Leburg is that so correct for simplifying correct so all the paramedics are trained to do stroke assessments to
determine destination need whether it's going to be a primary or a comprehensive and they make that call from the scene um if it's going to be an air transport. The first response agency can go and request that air asset so it's inbound as the ambulance is getting there. If we're going to go by ground, then once the ambulance gets there, we transport
immediately to the appropriate center. Okay. Yeah. I'm just trying to because I recognize that concern and uh it seems to have come up a lot certainly South Lake, but you know, what's the best thing to do? Um you know, do do we need to get look for
a partnership for a stroke truck? Because it's a stroke truck is is how it's a lot of Yes, sir. I mean, there's a cat there's sorry on it. A stroke truck is a fully staffed ambulance, but it has a CAT scan machine in the back of it. And so, that unit has to respond out uh put its leveling jacks down and then it
actually does a CAT scan on scene. It has neur neurology nurses on board and they do tellalth with a neurologist to read the scan uh so that they can actually push clot busting drugs at that time. Um you know, so you have to have that to do the clot
Correct. Correct. You know, they've seen a lot of su, this one's really new. They've seen a lot of success with the Gainesville truck because it responds into very rural counties like Dixie and Levy and those types of counties where they don't have hospitals or even primary care, you know, primary care centers. And so they actually rendevous
in that county and then transport to the stroke center. We're finding that most of all, you know, our strokes we can get to the stroke center before the stroke truck could get there. Okay. So, so Chief, could can I ask a question? Um, specific specifically uh
pertaining to strokes. Um, any paramedic can call in for air care, correct? Yes, sir. So, it could be a paramedic on a Claremont truck that recognizes a stroke and immediate attention can call in for air care to go to a trauma center. Yes, sir. And usually, uh, all of our fire
departments except for one or ALS, so they all have paramedics on them. That is correct. They're all trained the same. So, it's essentially having a non-transport ambulance showing up to your house within minutes and then waiting on the transport unit to transport out. Correct. That is correct. But there are also opportunities to
where um a call could be made to have a fly out quicker. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay. Any more questions for John? Okay. As far as discussion, um,
do we want do you want to dive in? We want to have Claremont. I'm just curious. Um, I mean, can they get a COPC in or not? Designation. The only uh the only body that can award
a COPCN is this commission. This commission has ultimate authority over ambulance provision as well as ALS provision in the county and so uh the county commission would have to agree to provide a COPCN. There is no other process for that. Okay. Thank you.
John, real quick, um on the question or on the presentation when the new ambulances are planning to come and personnel are planning to come on board, you said two in first quart. Yes sir. First quart. Yes, ma'am. First quarter. Uh, two, three additional second quarter.
Second quarter. Okay. So, I guess one of my questions for Claremont would be if if that were the case right now, if we already had those on board, would you even be making this presentation today? Um, or request, would you be making the request no matter what? Even if the
county had 30 ambulances, you would would you still be making the request? Morning ma madam chair commission. I'm David Eel, fire chief of the city of Claremont. Uh that really starts getting down into some of the fundamental
reasons as to why we're coming forward with the request today. Um it might help to kind of explain how we how we look at our responses across our different service delivery uh programs. Uh kind of looking at a traditional fire just to kind of put this in perspective. Uh we look at how long it takes to get the
first team there and we're looking for four firefighters for a lot of reasons. That allows us to meet our two in and two out requirement. Allows us to start doing, you know, uh intervention measures to get the fire under control, get victims out of the house. But we're also looking at getting the effective response force there because we realize that there's a lot of other critical
tasks that have to take place on that scene in order for it to be taken under control. So we've got everything from water supply to incident command, safety, all these other things. And it's it takes even on a just a just what we call a moderate risk fire, it takes about 16 people to get that effective response force. So we're measuring both
of those elements, the the initial arrival and the ERF arrival. And we also use that same methodology across all of our other service delivery programs, including EMS. And we break that up into a low risk, moderate risk, and high risk. And when you get into the moderate and high-risisk responses, what we're
looking at is getting the first team of medics there and then the ambulance there because what we have to do is we have to get those patients ultimately to the hospital so that the modalities to treat the patient can actually be performed. There's a lot of them like we talked about, you know, the thrombolytics we can't do in the field
and a lot of other things. And I'd actually asked uh um I probably messed his name up, Matt Leiler with Orlando Health. Here's their government affairs division. I asked him to come up and to talk a little bit today, but he had a conflict. He had to be in Hillsboro County, so he couldn't be here. Uh, but
what he was going to talk about is like with stroke alerts, STEMI alerts, uh, sepsis alerts, and trauma alerts, the the critical time element we have to get that patient to the hospital so that the work can be performed. And what we're looking at on that on that response, we
want that first team on scene within six minutes of, you know, the call being picked up at the 911 center. and we want the ERF on scene within 10 minutes. That applies to fires as well as EMS. And what we're seeing in Claremont is extended times for the ambulances to get there. Uh we measure at the 90th
percentile. And right now, year to date, we're running over 18 minutes on ambulances to get on scene. So, we're looking to get that number down to that 10 10-minute goal. And to do that, we realize that we need to put additional units out, you know, out into the workforce. Uh the model we ran using
Dekens U apparatus analysis and deployment module uh when we ran that uh it took about six ambulances plugged into that system in order for us to get down to that 10-minute mark for the arrival. So I I I I commend the county for the efforts
that are being done. Um but with that number um I I agree with Chief Simpson. I think we need 10 ambulances right now to address some of the growth that we've had in the county and just the call volume that's come back postco. And I think we get to that goal a lot quicker if we're doing it concurrently. And
there are costs that Claremont is willing to pick up on that side of the uh you know side of the equation. We've got managerial staff we're adding in there. We're also looking at purchasing the ambulances when we have our own ambulances. We're willing to do all the work, the maintenance and everything else on them. And we'll also we'll also
pick up the uh the infrastructure that's needed to uh house those ambulances and operate them out of our facilities which are things that we're also working on. So, you know, we're a little space constrained and that's been one of our challenges, too, is to, you know, where where do these pieces go when they're there? So, we have several things in play right now to ensure that that
happens. I have I have a question on response time and our ambulances specifically. How many of our ambulances are currently located within the city of Claremont? Currently, uh the last ambulance we had in Claremont was located at the Ark. uh
that moved several years ago and we currently do not have an ambulance inside the city limits and we've asked to come back in and we can't come in. Uh yes sir, the the request has been made. I just don't have the room. Um the two stations we have agreements at are two and three. Uh one of those stations
we're getting ready to rebuild because I don't even have enough room for the uh for the for the fire apparatus that are there. And the only place that I have space right now is station one. And with the rebuild we're getting ready to do on two, I may have to move a fire apparatus there. And if we go into the transport
business, uh, based on the request today, that's where I'm planning to put one of the ambulances. So, you wouldn't even put your ambulance, you wouldn't be able to put your ambulances in the city of Claremont. I could put one at station one today. That's the only place I have room. We've acquired Why couldn't we put Why couldn't we put
one of these new ambulances that we're fixing to get on board into that station? I may have an engine in that in that station which is going to take up the other available space within a couple months when we go under construction. Uh that's the that's the other piece that we're fighting with. And if we go into the transport business, I'm going to need the space in
that building for the ambulance. So I today, yes, we could put it there. I just can't guarantee that three months from now that we're still going to have the room and space available for you. So three months from now, you're not even sure if you can get your own ambulance in there. Well, we with with the timeline that we
have, we're looking at about in there or you can't or we can go in there or we can't. Well, with our timeline, yes, we'll be able to make it happen with you. Yeah. If um so Chief uh Tommy, somebody
if we had if we had ambulances currently stationed in the city of Claremont, would it help reduce the timeline? Yes, sir. Thank you. That that was going to be my question. And that that's kind of the to me kind of that that glaring piece of the puzzle here. Um that if
those ambulances were being housed in the city clar right now to be uh blunt about it with what we have right now. Go ahead. At the end of the day the city has
decided that we're willing to invest in that infrastructure for us to be able to do it. fire has come to us with a plan on how we can gran granularly get to where we need to be for the response times that this city council wants to Mr. Smith's
point. It's not our job to give you infrastructure. That's your job. We are willing to do that to be a partner to you guys because it win it. It does a benefit for our residents. So, we are investing our own money to make this
ambulance structure stronger. But to just come in here and point out that we're not being a good partner, that's not okay. because at the end of the day, it isn't our responsibility to pay for county infrastructure. We're
doing that because we want to be able to do it and we can hold our fire chief accountable. We can hold our city manager accountable. We as a city cannot hold you guys accountable for what's going on in fire. It's ironic that I sit in Ray Good Game seat who came to you
guys 15 years ago with the same complaint that we don't have the ambulance infrastructure that we need. And I'm going to stand by that that it has gone on and on and on and on. This isn't a new argument. We are now coming to you with a solution that we take that
responsibility and we as a council are willing to invest for this into our city and we can then hold our people responsible where we can't do that with you guys. All I can get up here is is ask. But we're just looking for a good partnership. Thank you. All right. I got a question on that
though. If you have two ambulances, we know we need six ambulances that run calls within the city of Claremont. If you have two ambulances and they're on two Claremont ambulances and they're on calls and they're transporting out, are you saying your citizens are now going
to have to wait for those transport to come back? As you heard that this is a long-term plan that we were looking to bring six ambulances into the city. This is not a short-term. The two ambulances are to start. It's a crawl, walk run. And with what he has, we already have the heat maps. We're looking at the areas where
we may need to put what I call micro stations or smaller stations where we can get to some of those locations faster with us bringing on fire station 5 which will be in Wellness Way. We're redoing fire station 3 which is part of the constraint issue. We can add space there. Um we still have space at fire
station one. Um we're looking with you guys on fire station 4. So what they have done, they've done a lot of work to granually fix the issues that we as a city council recognize and we want to fix those and we want to be a partner with you guys to fix those. But to tell
us that you guys are going to do it and we've heard their plan, but we actually have a real plan that's fully vetted based on the heat maps of what we have in Claremont. So you can either choose to work with us or you can guys can do it on your own is where it really lines
that lap. Well I yeah just and you know Todd and you and I have talked about this before. I don't I think everybody up here wants a good partnership. So I'm going to say that um I mean again I started a conversation off. I mean we all want the best response times in here and everything. I think what because that's
important. Um, I think what we're trying to say with the ambulances being in Claremont or not is I know it's technically because it's a countywide system for EMS to find the location, but if the heat map and there should be two
there and frankly there should be a lot more I I feel like in the in the Claremont area ambulances, but if they're trying to be stationed in a certain spot and for whatever reason and that I'm not going to go over any of that, we don't need to. we should just be solutionsoriented from here on out.
They just weren't put in the two locations in Claremont and the the when I say locations, a static location, not the dynamic rolling ambulances, um they weren't put in there. So that I think that's what we're trying to say is they were not there, but if they're there now, which I think everybody here
is willing to do, uh plus, you know, potentially put more, then I think that's going to reduce the response time. We're growing and we have to expand our our fire services. As we expand those fire services, I'm not sure that it is the city responsibility to
build infrastructure for you guys. And I'm not keep saying though, you got I got to just correct you there if you don't mind. I just got to point out so your residents are Claremont residents. They're also county residents and you are part of a countywide system. So when
you say you guys, we're we're looking out for all of them. So, I just I just I have to take a little issue with that because it's not really um us and you. I mean, we're we're a we're a countywide system just like we we we watched the
presentation. We heard the presentation and we understand that. Um I guess I mean, I've lived through this whole um review and discussion about what happens when you fragment. Unfortunately, what happens when you fragment? Everybody
loses. I I totally I mean, I you I just don't think you can prove that that doesn't happen. I I don't think we're trying to fragment. And what I want to point out to you, I get what you're saying, but this entire county works off of the MT MSTU, the existing MSTU. What we're saying as a
city is we're going to take our taxpayer dollars and build infrastructure that benefits directly our citizens. That's hard to do when we say, "Well, we're going to subsidize the county because they didn't build infrastructure down here." and and we can have we can
have that different discussion build fire stations or EMS stations. So I mean for you to say we didn't do the infrastructure but that was part of the deal. I mean several years back there were supposed to be a place for those ambulances. So I mean and I I'm
all about being solutionoriented. I just we have to deal with real facts. And that's the the difference is that we have a plan. we have a specific plan and we have a specific plan on how to solve the problem in that area and invest money into your ambulance service. So I
think it's a win-win. Um you know it really comes down to what you guys want to do if you want to maintain control and you know when we see the for the licensing that you guys have a monop monopoly on it that nobody can else even get into it if they wanted to. So I I
think there's a lot of things that are that are eye opening in this whole discussion. Um, but at the end of the day, we're not trying to fracture. We're trying to work within the system, and I think we've come up with a good plan to do that. Um, ultimately, it comes down to you. I think 18 minutes is completely unreasonable, and I think that working
with us solves that issue for us. Thank you, Rick Van Wagner, city of Claremont. Thank you uh chairman for hosting us and allowing us to be here and all our commissioners. And I want to say just on the outset uh your staff has been
wonderful to work with. Uh they're respectful and I appreciate their straightforwardness and cander and but they've done it always in a respectful manner. So you need to know that I I have the utmost respect for these gentlemen and for Jennifer. She's become
a friend. And Sean, thank you for intentionally coming to Claremont since I started in this role in December. And the only thing I would just add, Tommy, for you is we we've actually been discussing this 10 months. So, it's just gotten more structured. I think that's
the right term as we've gotten. But Jennifer and I have and Sean have been talking about this need since December, I think, is when we started our first discussion. So, this is morphing into a short discussion, but it's been 10 months worth of investment. And I just
want to be candid with you, Mr. Smith, that this isn't just us quickly dialoguing over this. No, I completely understand. I thank you for that. So, I would say to you, four is better than two if we just add numbers. I would love for the city
of Claremont to have two ambulances in this town. And I told Tommy and I told Jennifer, I would love for the county to have two also. So this isn't an eitheror. I'd like to see all of us here as Wellness Way continues to grow, as
the ISBA continues to grow. This is only growing. And Mr. Smith, you had asked me a question when we had a Zoom call. Is Claremont willing to put skin in the game? Yes, sir. Anything over a million dollars is noteworth. It's noteworthy. And we're doing that
with staffing. We're doing that with vehicles. We're doing that with all kinds of stuff. And we're trying to do it with you guys. I' I've been asked over and over, are you trying to get out of the system and start your own? This is us putting an olive branch out kindly
saying, can we work together? Because if this doesn't work, then I've been asked by my my my counsel to figure something out. and I'm wanting with all my heart to work with you. Jennifer's asked me, "Do you want a call center?" I don't
know how to do a call center. I don't want to start working on billing. That's not the that's not where I'm coming from in this at all. I really truly want to work with you guys. And I think if you were to ask Mr. Parks, Mr. Morris, Jennifer, there's a whole different
atmosphere. And I'm not making any accusations or anything, but my heart is truly to make Claremont and Lake County Commissioner Leslie better. I want to do my part. I care about this entire
community, not just Claremont. I care about all of us. I'm not just coming up here just for Claremont. Although I care I'm a champion for Claremont, don't get me wrong, but Mr. Smith, four is better than two. And I and I, you know, I think
I have a um I think I just want to I just want to um reiterate something. My comment about skinning in the game was had nothing to do with this conversation and you morphed it into me saying like it had something to do with this conversation.
It was a completely different conversation on a completely different issue. It's it's the spirit. It's the spirit of us working together that I just I I can hear your heart that you're concerned that everybody does their part. And so I'm not trying to
miscategorize your comments, but I hear your heart. The Bible says out of the abundant the heart, the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And I hear you clearly speaking to me, Rick. Claremont needs to be a part of the solution. So I'm saying to your your your comment, whether it was directly or not, no
disrespect, sir, at all. I don't mean that. I hear you. And we're we're coming to the table. We're we're truly wanting to be a solution to this. And I promise you, I'm trying to figure out with council's blessing how we can find some
other additional spaces for you guys potentially. We're not trying to just keep you out. We're we're this doesn't help Claremont. We are trying to figure out a solution. All I want to do is help people. And we're not trying to do it for free either because we're we're willing to lease places.
Just let that be known, too, is we're not asking for anything free because we we will lease places to help out the citizens of Lake County and Claremont. Well, I all I want you to know is we're trying to help people. That's all we're
trying to do. And we're and we're willing to go outside of the city limits into our ISBA. We I mean, Chief and I have discussed that. We're we're trying to figure out how to do this. Our fire services, we've tried to do more than we have in the past. This is a whole new spirit of cooperation we're trying to
operate with. So, I really appreciate you're just letting me chat with you for a minute. So, thanks for all you guys are doing. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Hold on. I think you got a question. I just have one question. It's more for our staff, but I I appreciate that. And again, probably can't say this enough.
Appreciate the spirit of cooperation. I I like the idea of trying to get problem solving. Let's get to four. I think that's going to be good. Um, but just real quick because I want to again this is an important discussion. The sub subsidy subsidy or the subsid
subsidization I can't say that Tommy if you could address that. I mean is is is there's is there's a is there this overwhelming subsidy from from Claremont to the system? I mean what? So the ambulance MSTU is based on
property value. Higher property value pays more. It's uh I think it's 4621. I have to look it up to actually get the actual 4629. I was close. Sorry about that. 4629. So per $1,000 value. So wherever
property values are higher, they will generate more. Um I think this year the MSTU fund out of Claremont is estimated to at $2.8 million. Um for AML's operations we're probably received about half that. Okay. What were you you were explaining the other day though the ambulance
scenario. Put that equate that to number of ambulances serving Claremont. There was like a 10 total but two. Oh yeah. Like I was talking about earlier. So it took 10 ambulances to transport out of Claremont in August and 11 in September. um the two that primary
serve there is 64% of the transport volume uh you add an additional south end unit when we bring in uh rescue 80 I'm sorry medicating um rescue 85 it then goes up to somewhere between 75 and 77% by the time you use all six of the south end ambulances you're covering
about 97% of the transport volume okay I think what you're asking too is the tax revenue so as as Chief Simpson said the tax revenue collected is about 2.8 in the past year it by the time you put into the CRAAS you pay the 0.1 mil to
all the fire services that provide ALS service um on behalf of the uh ambulance service it's about 1.4 4 million that's retained from the city of Claremont residents into the system. If you remember the cost of the trucks, the
personnel on the trucks about a million dollars. So basically the MST revenue collected from the residents of Claremont pays for one truck. Then you have your additional costs which is your medical direction. All of that's provided through the system because we
get a majority of the revenue into the system from build revenue, not taxes. I think that's what you're asking. No, you got it. Yeah. I just because again, good discussion. I just wanted to make sure because I don't want people saying, you know, there's this we're we're paying for all of South Lake out
of Claremont for the ambulance services. It's actually it's actually kind of the opposite that it takes a lot of the out it the entire system works together to cover the cost. That's why the entire system isn't working. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you.
Yes. Morning, commission. My name is Tom Bennett. Um I represent the Claremont Local 4350. This might be the first time in history that you will have a union president in front of you asking for more work. We're seeing our boots on the
ground are seeing these increased response times and we're seeing our community suffer. I'm not here to speak on behalf of the firefighters. I'm here to speak on behalf of the community of Claremont. We want to work together with you guys. I have had in-depth conversations with with your union as
well, and they are 100% on board and have written a letter to the IFFF saying the same. The bottom line isn't necessarily your deployment model. You guys have a great team working for you. You guys are doing as much as you can with what you have, but unfortunately
all of you should probably be angry as well as all of us should probably be angry at 30 years ago and the planning that took place for this county. So, we are the 17th largest county in the state of 67 counties.
The next smallest one are our partners to the north, our neighbors to the north, Marian County. They're just a little bit maybe 10% smaller. I called them yesterday and their EMS division chief told me they have 42 ambulances on the road today.
42. It's exactly like Mr. Simpson said, this is an ambulance problem. We do not have enough. And even with the 30 ambulance plan, five, six, seven, eight years from now, it's still not going to be enough, especially five, six, seven years from
now. Um and as far as the system is concerned, these are things that we have highly paid, intelligent people to work out from county and city management and fire department management to work out mutually beneficial agreements. In
Orange County, our neighbors to the east, there are seven or eight municipal fire departments. Every single one of them transports and have done so for decades. We don't need to sit in a cave and reinvent the wheel here in Lake
County. I think we just need to collaborate. And I think th this is where that happens. This is where that the beginnings of that takes place. And those agreements, whether it's the high acuity calls or whatever it looks like right now, the ISBA, give you an
example, the last two fires I fought, the city of Claremont put 15 to 20 firefighters and incident commanders on those scenes. That's collaboration. That's us working together for the betterment of the community. Now, may the may there be
some boundaries? I'm sure there will be. You know, having a a a Claremont firet truck respond to Umatillaa, it seems like there should be one in between us that would work, right? But these are common sense decisions that should be made by the
people we've placed in those in those roles to make those collaborations. And I and I think that's the over overarching goal of everyone here. Um, honestly to cite a a study that was done in 2017, this community has blown up
since 2017. Our community has blown up since 2017. We've grown probably 25% in the last 5 years, let alone eight. So, it's going to take an army to increase public safety across the county, but especially in the city of Claremont
right now with the density of of population that we have. Again, I'm hearing different solutions just in this conversation with uh Commissioner Smith and our city manager. I mean, I'm I'm I'm seeing that
we're asking you guys to empower these people to make these collaborative relationships. Let us put an ore in the water, start rowing for our community, and transport our people to the to the hospital, increasing our public safety
in the city of Claremont. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate you. I want to go back to Um, when we were talking, I think it was um, Councilman Howard said something about
crawl, walk, run. To me, the crawl and walk is actually finding a place to put two ambulances inside the city of Claremont like we're supposed to have right now. To me, that is the the difference is is that we're growing. We're trying to expand our so we can't
do it right this second because we're actually tearing down one of our fire stations. We're having to move personnel and apparatus around to make sure that we can still do our primary which is fire
which we're also doing um ALS response. So we now have a limitation of what we have. What we're saying though is that as a council and the way that I read council, I can speak for myself, but the way that I read the rest of council is
that council is willing to invest in the process of making sure that we can bring in ambulance. But I don't think that, and I'm speaking for myself, I don't think that I'm willing to do that if we don't have somebody who we can hold directly
accountable because then our tax dollars are just spent in a way that we can't control. And I don't want you guys to come back later and say, "Oh, well, we had these agreements, they didn't work out, and we pulled those, and then all of a sudden, we're the bad guy again." So,
from from our standpoint, the infrastructure comes from our building. Like I said, we're building we're in the process of trying to get fire station 5 up as quickly as possible. That wasn't even on the map for a while. That should tell you how serious this council is about getting
our our times down and getting our responses to where they should be. And we've worked with Chief Hazel. He's come up with the plan. We've looked at it. Um, and it's going to take investment on our part, but that's an investment that we're willing to make, but we need you
guys as partners. Have you guys like I mean I know that when we put in orders for new ambulances, it it takes quite a while too to actually purchase them. How far down the road have you gotten on that side of it? We've already purchased one. I believe
they already have one ready to go. Um, so like I said, we'll have our ambulances ready to go. Um they were saying by May um I know that we are already working on having staffing I believe it was in November December um because we just finished our
fiscal year. So we we are just now in the process of we just finished everything. So at this point we're funded. The only thing we're waiting on is a yes from you guys. But you all right so you got it your ambulance but but I heard that you didn't really have a place to put it. Um
we will because we're trying to finish fire station 3. So we're working through fire station 3. Um we'll bring that on. We have another facility that we just that we're working on right now which is our training facility. Um we're repurposing
an old um piece of land for that. There's buildings on there. We went and tooured those the other day and I've asked that we get those up to par. We believe that there's showers and areas in there that we can also do that
to build that infrastructure quickly. So, all it takes is for you guys to say yes and we as a council to say here's the money, go do it. And the fire department has seen us do that. Whether it's through the new training facility,
um through accelerating fire station 5, um right now you have a city council that is willing to invest in in public safety. How much have you projected out you'll need to increase your um your your millillage in order to cover all
this stuff? We lowered our millage in with the anticipation of this get getting approved at the and I believe the number was 1.9 million um for those first two. I don't have it in front of me. Um so but our
millillage was lowered with this anticipation. Um we made our goal was to get to 4.2. We were at 4.88. We dropped down to 4.56. Um the ultimate goal would be to get to 4.2. But if we bring this on, we may not
be able to lower it any further and we are aware of that. So that would be something where if we bring this on, we know that there's that additional and we're not going to be able to and that's including building the places to put your ambulances. Correct. because we're already redoing
some of these facilities and so we can build that in. And so like fire station 5, we can build that in. Uh and because we already have facilities in place that we can repurpose. Um but it takes us to be able to say, "Yeah, this is what we
want to repurpose this into." But like I said, I I tooured one yesterday and I don't know how fast. I mean, it needs some roof changes and it's already got showers and a bunk room and everything. So, it's sort of built out. It's just old. It just needs a little TLC.
Um, is that your numbers? Are they based on that what we called option one where we're still paying your we're doing your operational that has been fluid and where's Rick? Rick will have either Rick
or Dan has the what our final numbers were based on in our budget. Um like I said if for it's a pretty big difference. I mean if we actually if you get the the two was 1.8 if I remember correctly. Correct.
It was 1.8, 1.9, 1.8, whatever. Um, and that was included in this year's budget. Okay. But is that our option one where we're still we're paying for your um that fluid supplies, your training, your
medical director, all that we're still paying for. There was some discussions that changed some nuances and I wasn't involved in those nuances. Okay. It is a big nuance. So the personnel cost for the ambulances currently for two ambulances is at 1.75
million. That is what we're looking for on the partnership from the county. The additional cost that we have the field supervisors division chief to run the program that's that's on Claremont's side and that has been incorporated into this year's budget along with the purchase of an ambulance with equipment
and everything else for us to eventually get to where we have all of our own ambulances. What about the drugs and the training and the medical examiner and the dispatch? When we purchase a apparatus, the initial outfitting is going to be be at our cost and then we will use the replacement agreement that we have in
place with with the current system. What um what's the And it's the medical director. You're saying the medical examiner. Yeah. Yeah. It's Yeah. We don't want it to be the medical examiner. We want it to be the medical director. I want to do medical the the um so the budget question though
but I had heard that that that those numbers were based off of you have a reserve for three years what happens after 3 years is that am I getting oversimplifying that you lowered the millage rate and then but there's a reserve that so we had 16 million above our required
reserves and so some of that money is being used for one-time projects uh but the the discussion with staff have been we need to land on our millillage. We can get to 4.2. Um depending on insurance, insurance is our
one big question. Um but we can get to 4.2 if we don't do ambulance. If we do ambulance, we probably can't get to 4.2 and we probably need to stabilize where we're at. Um so that's a, you know, it's an eitheror. say we can continue to
lower the tax base or we can invest and our citizens would like to see us invest in public services and we have as a council have uh been very active doing that and so you know it's it is
it's a tough place to be. Of course we want the lowest taxes possible but we've been able to lower it. we were at 4 um no 5 06 and so we're down to 4.5 you know so
4.59 so we've lowered it substantially each year that I've been on the council and I want to get as low as possible but I also want to make sure that we're serving our residents with the best services we can and that's where that balance comes in and that's where the partnership with you guys comes in is that for us to be able to do that and
for us to hold everybody accountable for us to have some control over that so that we can look our residents in the eye and say this is how we spent our money and here's where it went. That's where that works at. But it sounds like you got enough. You could build us a couple spots to put
ambulances and we could at least address the first I mean in the first quarter we've got a couple more ambulances coming on board. I I guess I'm just not understanding the you know the you're working all the numbers from the side of here's where we
need to go in order to have our own ambulances as opposed to shouldn't we be working the numbers? How do we make sure we get those response times where you want them? We can do that if we continue work as a countywide system. So just so you know, I voted for that
ambulance to be placed in the city. There was some questions that were asked by other council members that were not answered well to be frank and that's how that got denied. I voted for it. So it's not that I don't want ambulances within the city and there are other locations
throughout the city that I think are easily they're a little easier than the one that you guys were asking for. Um, but that was a question by a council member and that's where that went south was that um, you know, but it wasn't up to
me. So, it was, like I said, I voted for it. So, we're just, you know, I'm trying to help you guys get there, but we can't solve all the issues ourselves. I think um, and again, I may be oversimplifying this again, but
everybody, we want more ambulances. We want those response times to go down. the county does. You do. We see that. I was really concerned about the stroke question. So, I know I get it. There's there's a lot of these that are concerns that are out there and we continue to grow so rapidly. But I Yeah, I think
getting the two ambulances in Claremont, you know, as of a couple years ago would be would would have been nice. And again, we're not going to go back there, but I'm thinking put a trailer up in a put it in a parking lot if it matters that much. you know, find a spot until it's temporarily can go somewhere else
to its permanent static location. But I guess what I'm hearing you say then is so let's get those two in as quickly as possible. Let's get two more that maybe perhaps your uh the city is willing to invest in and buy. 100%. Yeah, we want to go to six. I mean, this we're
not like I said, we've already sat down and looked at this plan. I I mean, we have a a fairly solid plan. things are going to change because of roads hopefully. You know, we'll see so we'll see some things change on on our gridlock and and response times because
of improvements, but during that construction time, I mean, it's even going to be even worse. So, um things will be fluid in Lake County just because of our growth, but having being able to target specifically to get to our goals is where we get to. And you
guys, you're overseeing the entire county. We're overseeing ours. We have goals that we want to get to for our citizens and you have overarching goals for the entire county. We can still be on the same team and allow us to get to those goals. And so I'm
Yeah. No, I I have a hard time understanding why, you know, we're talking Well, I think I think so maybe to get right to it, I think maybe this is could be the the final sticking point with that. So you're willing to invest in it and and but I but I guess it's this this
like who's controlling it kind of thing. Um, so if I, if I understand this correctly, the science, if you have two, let's say, there's two that are based there permanently now, they could be, and then if you added two more, perhaps you're immediately able to jump in, all the more the better, and pay for those. And now we're at 80 percentile.
Yeah. 85% I believe it was. are those and I understand your concern about if the Claremont's going to invest in this extra service that you want to show your taxpayers that you know you're being considerate of that but I mean most of pretty much 99% of the time or I'm just
throwing that number out there it's going to be most of the time I mean the calls that are going to be there are going to stay there I mean it's going to be if it's a static location it's it's going to stay within the Claremont area within I know there's the concern about well we're going to get transported up
to Umatillaa. I I mean if something if somebody's from South Lake is getting going up to Umatillaa there's a huge disaster going on. So that wasn't the cons. So the concern was closest unit and getting stuck in a vortex. So we do have so let's say we transfer to Leburg and then we have
something that's in that north lake and then we get you get pulled through a multitude of calls. Not it's not a I mean look if we have a blue rhino we're going to come we're going to show up. I you know, right? But I mean, so it's like even doing that like I don't even care. Put
the put the city of Claremont logo on it in partnership with the county, you know, on those ambulances. But I guess that's like probably the if I'm understanding it's the do you want the COPCN or not is the question. Will you you know if you're not going to get that,
are you still going to proceed with a partnership with us? We were trying to partner with you. We're not looking for a copcn. We haven't we haven't asked for you. Nobody nobody's even discussed that. And that's what I I thought I heard you say earlier when we were talking individually a month ago, but I I it's
just I don't know if that's the issue right now with moving forward with getting two more or not, but no, we're ready to move forward as soon as you guys say yes. Like I said, we've already bought an ambulance. Yeah. Um so we're ready to outfit and move forward. I think we should put those options back
up on the board though because it's what's that? Um that they've already been covered um chief and uh mayor and then um Tom. Okay. So, um,
as far as num number one is where there's actually the the distinction as I see it is they're under the control of the city. They would go to high acuity calls outside the city and then you
would actually the county would pay for the um um operational um the medical director the supplies. Right. So the first option would be we would pay for everything we currently pay for and we would pay them per call.
Okay. So, that one doesn't seem fair to everybody else um in the system and that's for transport. Yeah. Okay. Number two is what you just described. Um but they would pick up
their operational and training cost and that would include um correct. Okay. That's the difference between those two. Correct. One and two. Correct. Mr. If I could just clarify on option one, the only thing we're not including
in that is low acuity calls outside of the ISBA. We'll do closest unit for all calls within the ISBA. We'll do life-threatening outside of the ISBA. And that's for like Councilman Howard was talking about when they're up at Leburg. If another call drops, if it's high acuity, we'll take it. If it's a
toe pain, we're going to allow another unit to do that. And that unit's going to start coming back to Claremont. So that that's the main difference. It's not a fully integrated ambulance as was talked about earlier. Okay. So, it only leaves for the high acuity. Correct. Go anywhere in the county for those.
Okay. And is this are we So, right now we're only talking about one ambulance, right? Or are we talking about two? You're talking about two. Our goal is for two. And that would happen how quickly? We're looking at an April May time frame. Okay. All right. And um but on on one,
the only other the other distinction is that the county picks up the medical director, the supplies, the all of that extra stuff. Okay. Which what does that about equate to if in value? Like how do you
So what we looked at the operational cost of all the ambulances. We have 46 total that are licensed by the state. Our costs are over $4 million. When you divide it out, it's about $87,000 per ambulance. So, it's going to be in that neighborhood of what it costs operationally to to operate an
ambulance. And I would, if I may, uh, chair, I would like just clarify with chief on option one because as the discussion has occurred, I thought I heard something. I I just want to make sure in terms of the personnel costs, are you asking the county for the personnel costs or are you handling those?
If we're getting the call, that's that's all. Okay. All right. I just wanted to clarify. Okay. All right. So, all right. Then number two is what we just described. Um but yeah, they pick up the operational
cost. So that's the you said comes out to like 879 90,000 an an ambulance unit. So about 180,000 extra in that area. Okay. Three would be um they stay under
the county's in the county system. County covers all the costs, but Claremont staffs the ambulance. Correct. That would be three. Correct. And they could have their logo on the truck and they could have the logo on the truck. And then for we leave everything
as it is, but we'll be adding by second quarter. We've got four more on the street. Correct. Okay. And that would that include option three. Would that include if they're transporting to I don't know um South
Lake Regional and then get a a call into four corners, they would go to that call. Correct. Option three would be just as if we were adding another county ambulance to the system. The difference would be that it would be staffed by Claremont personnel and it would have a
Claremont logo, but everything else would remain operationally the same. Pretty good partnership there. Okay. And then three, we would also still be adding what we just discussed. By second quarter, we've got four more. Well, we have Okay. So, let me clarify. Okay.
We have funding for five ambulances this year. Our plan is two in Claremont. So, if the two in Claremont are theirs with the boundary established, we have three for the rest of the county.
Right. We do not have funding for six I'm sorry, seven ambulances. What about options in the current in the current fiscal year though? Is that two in addition to the the two that were No, that's what I'm saying is we have funding for five ambulances
total. So in the current fiscal year, two were going to go in two were going to go it's a countywide system, but two were going to be housed in the Claremont area. So if those two are the Claremont with restricted boundaries, then the three we have to
look at putting elsewhere because those two wouldn't But go back go to number option number three though, right? Okay. Option number three is that they're putting the ones that they're they would fund and that would be on top of the two that you were going to put in
the Claremont area. They would fund they would fund the purchase of the vehicle and their management staff. We would fund the person essentially the personnel and the um operational cost.
We would fund the operational cost and the personnel. You're talking about option three. Option three says Claremont staffed ambulance is part of county EMS system. So, we would be funding their personnel
and their operating supplies if they would be funding the the purchase of the truck and their management staff, if I heard that correctly. Well, yeah, that doesn't sound a little confused on the options, too. Um, what what we would like to do is Claremont is
willing to purchase the ambulance and all the equipment. uh we what we're looking for is the per call reimbursement, you know, the MSTU and then the actual revenues collected to offset the uh the the the cost of the personnel on there. Uh what we're also picking up this year is we're we're
looking to add another battalion chief to each of our shifts to assist with management in the field and we're also adding a division chief of EMS to run the program as oversight. That is in Claremont's budget. We are not asking for reimbursement on that. Uh we're just looking for the transport. The only other piece that we've asked for is
there is some training that is specific to transport that we're going to have to go through. And if we have to incur cost by having backfill or sending people off duty, we've asked for that to be reimbured. And we're estimating that's that might land in the neighborhood of about two to 300,000 depending on what
the schedule looks like with that. And we're also working actively with the team over there to get those numbers down. All right. So, but option three um could be two more with the with the city than the two that we're plus the two
that we're putting in there. So, we just approved 45 I mean the city the two more that they're paying understand but we just approved 45 positions with the anticipation that they were going to be on the five ambulances. So, we would have to take a
look at the numbers associated with if they bought the ambu the two ambulances and then we ped provided the per call and we've got the 45 positions. We can't afford to buy two more ambulances to house all of our 45 now. So, we've got to figure that out. No, I I guess what
I'm I'm trying to zero in on the maybe the solution that we'll get the two that we wanted have all along have been there last couple years there underneath option three, but then they're willing to pay for two more ambulances themselves. Then I mean you're still it's still
county oversight. Um I get it. Put the logo on it. I again I don't think I think they're not going to be on a once in a blue moon they're going to be called somewhere way out of bounds. But I mean, could that could this solve what we're trying to get to to get two more?
Well, just let let me get on number three. Number three doesn't work for us because we've already approved adding the division chiefs. So, we've already added four positions in that level of of management oversight to the tune of $800,000. So, we've already approved that to go in like this.
No, we're not. This is specifically because we're bringing this on. So, let's just say that we didn't approve anything today. What are you going to do? I mean, then we don't fill it and we don't have ambulances and you guys can figure it out from there. So, may I make a suggestion? Um, we have
two ambulances coming on board first quarter. We'll have one one's already there now, I think, isn't it, Tommy? Not in the city limits. We don't have Yes, we have, I think, 22 or 23 on today. So, we have that up and
running. before you next board meeting, we're going to bring an agreement with the city of Miniola to use their uh old fire department. Right. So, that's going to be an ambulance hub where we can put up to four. Right. Okay. So, um just however this works.
Wait a minute. My question is we're going to have two ambulances coming on board the first quarter, four ambulances coming on board the second quarter. Correct. Can the two ambulances coming on board
first quarter be designated down south? Yes, that those are the first two. Those are the first two. Okay. So, I think we're just getting a cart before the horse. I think we need to see how that goes, how it goes and see if the response time
comes down and then we'll go from there. that I mean that's what my thinking was and I keep coming back to this like if we could just find a place to put them actually closer inside the city limits then we're even a step further in getting those response times down and
also seeing how it works how your number whether I mean it could be that in a year or two what you're saying makes sense and everybody wants to go down that rope to me you got to try this first you got to see what happens when you actually get two more there if you
want to beef that up even more and fund another one or two and see how that goes. But I wouldn't I wouldn't go to fragmenting the system. I think you fragment I mean I've heard a lot of things said today that just are concerning to me when you're talking
about a a system of this nature um that you know nebulous sort of moving parts not sure maybe put here maybe have a building over here or we might renovate this. It's like, okay, that's that's fine, but we can't jeopardize the whole system over some things that
aren't totally fleshed out. And I I say you you you beat you add the ambulances, we see how that goes. We look at those response times. If we can't get to those targets and the city is still unhappy with the response times, then we relook
at some of these other Madam Chairman, if if I can jump in on the issue of space. So, as you know, the property manager is housed in my office. She is constantly looking for space in the Claremont area. It is extremely difficult to find. The location that was
recently um denied by the city council was about 2,000 square ft at $12.40 per square foot. If you go into a commercial plaza, which is typically where we're having to look now, you're doubling your
square foot price because it's triple net leases and you're responsible for all of the things that you are in a typical commercial plaza. So, you would be looking at $25 a square foot. But even in that scenario, it's extremely difficult to find space in Claremont in
that area for lease because they're getting gobbled up by commercial businesses that obviously are going to want those storefront type areas. So, just keep that in mind. We'll continue to look. We're we're looking all the time for a variety of reasons, but we always struggle finding viable space
down there for things like this unless they can go on, you know, public properties or properties that are already zoned for this type of use. Quick question. So m maybe for council member. So So um the option three you said doesn't work
because you're you're committed already to a you're equivalent of a battalion chief then. So not just the battalion chief, we're adding in the battalion chiefs and the division chief. Um so you have three battalion chiefs and a division. And so that was $800,000. And so this was a big
investment for us and we had a lot of discussion about it. So it's not something we entered into lightly and you know at the end of the day part of the reason that doesn't work for us is that if you guys retain management then we have no control. I can't go to Chief Azelle and say I'm really unhappy with this. You need to fix it. I can't come
to you and say Lesley Sean. Yes. I mean you totally can. That's this is this goes back to Ray Good Game was up here 15 years ago asking the same thing. It just never got fixed. I love Ray Good Game, but Ry always
wanted an ambulance in a loca. He wanted that ambulance just to be there just so he could drive by and see that ambulance was there. It wasn't. But here we are. So I I mean I don't know that I I agree I didn't agree with him then that that was the the solution, but it made him feel better and that's
what he kept asking for. But to say that that was the vision and we haven't realized it and now we're going to fix that. I I don't agree with that. I don't think that that Ray was right then. So at the end of the day, you've got a city who's willing to partner with you guys and invest our citizens dollars to make
a better system for them. And you know, if you guys want to go at it on your own and continue the management and do all of that, then that is totally your prerogative. We're just here trying to be a better partner. Yeah. I guess I just want to explore that more though about I don't I'm not
following the additional battalion with four because I mean you're going to have them staffed anyway and I think that includes county will cover the cost. No, on on item three you guys would have all of that all of that oversight. That's exactly what that says. Whereas when we bring it under us, it's under
us, which would be under our chief. So that way we can hold our staff accountable and make sure that we're doing what we want to do. We can't hold your staff accountable. I mean, it just doesn't work that way. But if you have two more ambulances there that are in that those static
locations, I mean, yeah. What's the big control over stat? Is it is it I'm just And I'm not I'm not I'm not trying to catch you. ours is trying to it's not and and this is what I've said is that we know where our our heat maps are. We know where our weak spots are and we're willing to go and figure out how to fix
that on a granular level at our city level so that we can look at our residents and say, "Look, we invested tax dollars into this and we fixed these problems." If you guys want to fix those problems, be my guest. I'm I'm saying the same thing. I mean because those those heat spots though if
you're going to put them statically there most pretty much most of the time that's the area they're going to serve. Uh so I was I'm just and maybe we need to talk about it more offline but in the big picture we want to add six ambulances to be able to serve that entire area and have that 10-minute
response time. That's what it's going to take. And so then we sit down and we figure out exactly how we configure that. But to get there, that's something that we have to control. If you guys want to figure out a 10-minute response time and
go do all of that work, then I know more power to you. It would be st they'd be staff as I understood. They'd be staffed by you, but I mean, and you all said that you liked our staff, like everybody that you know, the response and the medical director and everything. Yeah. So, I'm just wondering like why the you know, spread too thin.
So if we add to it, then that fixes what you just described. I mean, you're you're saying everybody's doing a great job. We just need more on your leadership staff for quality people, and I highly respect that, but I'm I'm I I do not want to get into
specifics, but right here, I can show you responses that have should been much sooner. And I'm just telling you respectfully, there are people that their needs are not being met. And we're asking for the opportunity. I mean, we have the union president standing up
here saying, "Our our staff wants to do this. Let us help us." I I I gave this example to you, Sean, and I said, "It's like a grown adult, 25, 26 years old, leaving living with his parents, and the kid wants to move out and the parents
are crying saying, "Don't leave." And I'm saying respect that analogy. Can I finish that please? But really, really in in a in a system like this, largest city in Claremont would like an opportunity. It's not a bad analogy. It's somebody that's grown
up to a point. We have an ISO rating of one. We we they're doing a great job on Claremont side. And I don't mean that disrespectfully, but I have grown kids, too. And I don't want them to go, but we're talking about EMS and you're talking about an ISO. I mean, I'm This is like, are we talking about really
transporting here? Are we talking about building a fire department? I mean, it just doesn't I don't understand why you would bring that up. I heard the word I don't want to get confrontational, but why wouldn't you want our help if we're willing to put money in? Why wouldn't you want that?
I I I do. I just think there's I think you have to do this in a step-by-step process. And the the key is to get more ambulances in in that district. How long? And then who will be up here to listen to us in the future? Will this be a different council? Will it be a
different group of people? I'm just saying all these are so many variables that we don't control any of us. So you if you make a commitment, say let's talk about it in two years. That's fair. But what if who's here? Who's not here? I'm just saying variables change. People
change. Four years, three years, everything changes. And we have a a golden opportunity with a council that wants to put money into this. We're not just talking. We're actually putting it aside and wanting to do it. And I I honestly don't understand why you
wouldn't want us to put a million plus dollars into something to help solve the problem. And and I I heard fracture the system, but you know what? It's become a trigger word for me because that seems to be the go-to comment whenever we bring this up. I've been talking about this for 10 months.
But but but it's a real word and it means something. And when you literally have um you want to help. I I I just And the reason I disagree with your analogy is I don't think that you grow up and then you have an island of a system inside of a countywide system. I think it hurts
the residents not an island that's in the county and we're willing to service those areas, Leslie. So respectfully, you can't say that we're we're willing to service the ISBA. That's what we've said. And I told Jennifer and she suggested south of the
turnpike you should look at. Now we were willing to look at that. We're not trying to be a problem child here. We're trying to grow up and do something significant for our city. They need help. But all of these say we have a problem. These are I'm happy to show it
to you. These are serious issues that were 20 minutes or more that should not have been that long. And I don't like talking like this cuz these guys are doing an amazing job. And I don't want to come across ungrateful, unappreciative, or anything like that. They're just
spread so thin that they can't do this alone. You have your own union telling us they're willing to work with us. So again, I don't understand. I don't think I don't want this to be about kingdom building or anything. Let us work with you respectfully. Let us work with you
under your certificate with our gang. And I think we can do something great. That's what we want to do. That's what we're respectfully doing. I think Jennifer's and Tommy have come up with a fair formula that we're willing to look at and and we've talked to all five of
you. I'm asking you sincerely, give us an opportunity to do this. We won't we won't fail you. We will do a good job. I promise you we will. Chief Ael's leadership and these guys, I'd put my own life into their hands. I trust these guys. They will do a great job and they
will help Lake County even beyond the borders. Well, and the only thing I want to say is my my goal is to have the best system possible for everybody and for the city um residents of Claremont. My concern is that um we're kind of talking in a lot
of platitudes and and the reality is you got to look at what what actually works and what will provide better response times and better response times will come from having additional um personnel on on the street and the ambulances on
the street and that's exactly where we're going. If that doesn't work then you come back and revisit it. In my mind, I just think it's like it's it's risky. What what's being described um is is very risky to the residents of Claremont um who think that okay, we're
going to get all of this this better response time. You need about 10 ambulances in order to get uh the people of Claremont where they need to be. You need the rest of the system. We need to be working together. Um, and you know, a
high up on my list of working together would be one of the first steps would to be working with the city of Claremont to actually have a place in the city where your am those ambulances could be. Yeah. I I don't quite understand why. Um,
you know, and you said it better that you know, they're going to need at least six to 10 ambulances to cover what Claremont needs without the county's assistance. So either way, the county is going to be involved. So So
with that, I would like to make a motion that we approve option four with the with the um agreement that the first two ambulances come on board go down to Claremont.
Yes, sir. I'll second the motion and obviously want to continue the conversation and try to get to work on this as quick as we can because I I do think the conversation is good. But I'll second the motion and I and I'm hoping that for the discussion I'm I'm hoping that um within
the next uh 6 months by the time they're ready we'll have but we'll have numbers going back and forth to see if what our plan is doing is actually bringing the numbers down. We're going to continue as long right now the we have uh 17 uh in on provisional. We have we're about to
do another orientation with 15 to 16 paramedics. We're going to continue to hire them as long as they apply and when we reach the end of our budget and it doesn't we can't afford any longer. Then I'm going to come to the county manager and say we can hire paramedics and we need money. That's not something we're going to stop. That will continue to
happen. And just to reiterate with what Chief Simpson said is that we're going to look at those utilization hours and those response times and that's where ambulances go. We know they have to go to Claremont. We've got to pay attention to Claremont. We've got to pay attention to Leburg. We've got to pay attention to other things, but with spec specifically
with Claremont, we can sit there and look at those response times and work with them to ensure that we're providing getting ambulances in there to bring those times down. That's our goal. I would also like to um encourage or have
staff look a little harder in the city of Claremont to find us a place for ambulances and if we have to um put a trailer I remember being in a trailer when I was in an ambulance and maybe put it on I don't know where South Lake Park is if that's even uh plausible but
there's an opportunity there or some land owned by the county that we can put a trailer in a cover. Yeah. Question. Or a business owner that might even have space that we could use for that purpose. Yeah. Yeah. Um temporarily until this new static location. Yeah.
Just real quick on the the motion. Would it So would it include I think you're going to say yes, but that that we could come back here in six months after the after this initial wave is put in and then with Claremont and have go through the same thing if we need to again.
Yeah, that that was I think that's definitely you mentioned that too that that would be part of this is revisiting it and and also the idea of if they wanted to staff an ambulance, put a logo on it and
control that ambulance um in addition to everything else that we're doing. I'm certainly open to that as long as it's not um taking away from the the system as a as a whole. Um
yeah, but that I mean that would be on that would be on them, you know. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. Any further discussion? And again reiterating that it's an ongoing discussion. It doesn't just end today.
Um the first step is that we dedicate those first two um to the city of Claremont area. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. All right. Sorry, got a little heated there. It's
just that, you know, it the end of the day, the key is to to protect everybody and make sure that if we go down this road, let's do it very carefully, incrementally. Um, and let's minimize um risk. And I understand you guys having
aspirations. Um, but I think that we we've got to be we've got to be very deliberative about this. There's too much at stake and and everybody's safety is at stake. Um, okay, moving on. We got to move on to we're 12:15 and um
talk about a road. Oh, we were going to talk about a road. Um but we got to take like a five minute break. Okay. Okay. Yeah, sure. I'm fine on a break. Okay. I'm always there for a break. You want to tell that? Um we were going to talk about Hartwood Marsh. So just give us like five minute
break and we'll be talking about Heartwood Marsh. Okay. Excuse me. How come there's no public discussion on fire? Is this a presentation? I only saw Hartwood Marsh. Hartwood Marsh.
Joe, I don't have a card on that topic. I wasn't expecting it to be a long one. What's I Yeah. Well, we're going to be continuing to talk. So, [Music] All right, we're on. Okay. Okay, we're
going to proceed with um the topic is um Harwood Marsh um and County Road or State Road 44B. And I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Parks or Jeff. Uh we well um I'm going to turn it over to
you quickly, but as you see, thank you uh city for Claremont for sticking around. Um another controversial issue, I guess, huh? Right. This maybe this will this will be easy. Uh I hope so, too. Yeah. Uh so we this was commissioners, if you
remember a couple months back, this was maybe an item both 44B and how to address Hartwood Marsh Road. both being that for years they've been code red top of the top of the list as problems for all of Lake County at our no list of priority projects.
Um and I know the city of Claremont for years has been their top road issue um as well. And I it's literally every week that I'm getting a comment or question about Hartwood Marsh Road. You probably do with 44B. So the discussion um was
was un was uh left unanswered or uh to be continued in a sense from a couple months ago about how do we address the immediate these two immediate issues. If you remember we were talking about funding and all that kind of stuff. So um I wanted to bring this back up because I think there's a um a
relatively easy solution here to get this construction both for Hartwood Marsh Road and 44B uh underway. uh Harwood Marsh could start as soon as 2026 um if we were able to uh sort of bridge the re bridge the uh the cost to start
the construction between the time that we actually start the construction versus the time that DOT starts paying us back. And so I have proposed uh very similar to 44B. It was discussed that day as well a couple months ago to uh loan this in the short term to get the
construction started uh by the summer of 2026. Right, Jeeoff? He's in the back, nodding his head. Uh so that is what I wanted to talk about today. Thank you and I apologize. We we had a long meeting last time but um it's
was on the agenda then but wanted to address it now. And I'm hoping that this is something that we'll see fit to move forward for both these projects. Uh I know it's a big deal up in the north part of the county as well. So, um this is staff or whatever chair, whatever you want to do, but
Well, I've got speaker cards, so I'm thinking I just go ahead and do the speaker cards. Um Joe Famasi, uh then Dan Matthysse, then uh Rick, and then Vincent. All right, Joe, you're up.
Joe from Wellness Way. Uh I come to you this morning to ask you to support this project. Uh the economic impact of people being late to work going down this road. Believe it or not, it's an arterial road that goes to Orange County. Those people that go down that road that earn that money is what pays
for these taxes. So they need a little bit of relief. Also, there's several developments that are started down there now that are going to be completed before you know it. Uh they call it the Wellland Way North project. That's going to add more pro uh traffic to that area.
It's going to cause awful more delays. There's also two schools located down there. Imagine and the Windy Hill Junior High. Uh if you've ever traveled down 27 during school hours, uh remember to stay in the middle lane because if you're making a left onto Hartwood Marsh, good
luck. So, and uh also it leads to lots of accidents on 27 unbeknownsted. They line up way back both lanes and uh ends into a collision. So, I'm asking that you support this
project. It's about safety. Do not forget about the firehouse located down there. Good luck trying to get out during school hours. Um, you're talking about emergency and wanting to save lives. This project will do that. It'll help the emergency uh services to be able to go out in both
directions in a time when they need to get out. Uh there's just going to be increased trafficking which is going to make it harder for people to come out on Hartwood Marsh to go out either direction. So, I hope that you will consider this project today because this
uh when they open up that connector road, how many more people are going to be coming down the Hart Marsh area? Yeah. So, please consider this. Grant this project. We need it now, not down the road. Um we can't kick the can any
further. Thank you for your time. Dan, less than a year. Good afternoon, Madam Chairman and council. It is afternoon at this time. So, good afternoon, Madam Chairman and commissioners. Dan Matthysse with the city of Claremont. I'm not going to be repetitive because we also have a
meeting to get back to very shortly, but I'm just humbly asking for your support for this roadway. It's a very important east west connector that relieves some of the State Road 50 traffic, but the traffic on this road has been has been horrendous lately. And trying to get
down to Okoi or Winter Garden, it's it's a long long journey just getting through this segment here. So, we ask for you for this help in doing this project. It's been on the program for years and years and years and it keeps getting pushed back. The traffic is not going to get pushed back. The funding and the
expense is not going to get pushed back. So, we ask for you to act on this immediately, please. Thank you so much. Thanks, Dan. And Rick. Hello again. Rick Van Wagner, City of Claremont. I don't see it on the agenda. Was it
only a jump? It's his report. It's under Commissioner Park's report. It's under Commissioner Park's report. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. That's okay. Our number one road that we get complaints about is this road right here. More than 27, more than Highway 50
is Hartwood Marsh. And the expense is only going to continue to go up in my mind. And so, we're asking that you would please get the loan and help us to do that. And again, Mr. Smith, we are putting money into this. Also, Jennifer can give you some more specifics, but
we're trying to be a good partner. Forgive my passion. I'm I I love Lake County and I love Claremont and I just want to make it better. And Sean could tell you, he probably heard from the same constituent. We have one person that complained to us from their
neighborhood on Hartwood Marsh to 27. It takes them 45 minutes to get to the highway 27 every morning. They came in tears and said, "Please change my quality of life." I I cannot in good
conscience, Mr. Smith or anybody else, say in 2032, we can probably look at that. I can't I can't say that in good conscience. It troubles my soul sincerely. And this is just one person among many.
We've had hundreds of people communicate with us over the years. So, I just ask that you consider please looking at this. Thank you so much. And Vincent, now do we get to count all the other times you've come to talk to us about how bad Heartwood Marsh is? I
guess not because you have been here a lot and we appreciate the fact that you have been tenacious on this issue and you have been a good representative of your community. Thank you. Uh good afternoon, commissioners. Uh I'm like Commissioner
Campion said, I've been here for seven years going over the same project. Uh I'm trying to be very simple. In today's invocation, there were two words mentioned. It was growth and commitment. Now, that touched me a lot.
All right. Also, smart planning. As you can see on what I printed out, I'm going to keep this short. If you could zoom in a little bit so they can see those numbers. And I do apologize about the typos. Okay, this is a Hartwood Mart expansion phase one, only phase one,
which is going up to just Regency Hills Drive. We still have to go all the way around to the next roundabout to the 455 connection. That's phase two. All right. In 2007, the approximate estimated cost was only $9.7 million.
Okay. The all these numbers I'm getting from when the OM engineering service incorporation in 2022 the estimated cost only went up $6 million there. So that's a total of $15 million.
Okay, here we go. COVID came around 2025. The project's now going to cost us $25 million. Okay, in 2007 in 18 years it's 15.3 million but in a three years out of that
15 it's 10 million. So with this idea which thank you to the council on saying or the commissioner the BCC the 3 to 5year short-term bridge loan rate would be approximately 3.5 to 4.5
percentage. I'm not no mathematician, but if you do the math, we could save money because now with the cost being so out of control to pay for it, it's to me,
take the loan out. Let's get phase one so this way we can get on the MO and just ask for more help. All right. My city manager's been working with you guys, trying to help you out financially. We're trying I'm trying
everything I can. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and tell you about the properties, the firehouse, the schools that's going to be affected because I'm not here repeat. I'm being very humble. All right? And I am I'm asking you please
be considerate. God bless you guys on your decision. Thank you. Thank you. And then um bringing back I mean this this was under Commissioner Parks' um report and that's why I wanted to bring it up when we still had our Claremont folks here. Um, and of course
this goes hand inhand with the request that we had talked about um for 44B as a way to get the state of FDOT to to to step up and try to move that up in priority or to potentially even work on
aspects um choke points if you will on 44B maybe the intersection at 44 and 44 um B um that's so bad very similar where you there's not even a turn lane to get into um to to um and everybody just
makes a turn lane. Um and that happens in several places on 44B and it's just it's absolutely crazy at peak hours. So um a little different with 44B because this one you've got your funding in outer years. Um the 44B project has been
like for 13 or 14 years the number one priority on the PO list, but it just hasn't been funded. Um so um my request would be to to ask for um a a loan amount of 10 million for 44B
and then present this to FDOT and see if we can get the project bumped up. And we also should go to um the city of Eustace and city of um Maldora as well to see if we can get assistance or contribution. Um I you know I see Claremont is going
to spend the money to do utility relocation. We may need some help like that from Eustace or Mount Dora because you have both cities serving 44B with utilities and they've both approved um projects in the recent very recent past
on on 44B. Um, so that I think it I think it makes construction costs are only going to go up just as we were discussing and um, so this could be a way to move these projects up.
It's Hartwood Marsh and the city limits. They're going to end up with a road anyway. um if they're going to do 50% on either side. But um I'm okay with them getting the loan
and us committing the money to pay it back. But I just don't think that since they're going to end up with a road, it's going to be theirs anyway. If they get the loan, we've already committed that we're going to pay the money. Yes. Yes. The funding is identified in
several sources and through 2029. where the timing is going to get paid back. I mean, it's going to get paid back from the FDOT funding, correct? Um, it's DOT funding impact fees and I believe we also have a portion of the match and penny sales tax,
right? All right. So, but but about that though, a time a timing question though. I mean, for that might be totally out of the blue for you, the city of Claremont. Oh, I discussed it with them. Oh, did you? Okay. I didn't know. I I um had the discussion.
Yeah, sure. Well, Mr. I I haven't discussed this with all the council members. We just finished our budget cycle. So, I I don't have a feel. I mean, my guess I think we'd have a hard cell getting that much money in all
honesty right now because we're looking at a parking garage. We're looking at station uh five in Wellness Way for a fire station. So, I I don't know that we can pull that off right now. So, yeah, fair question. Fair answer. He Yeah, you did say that to me. Okay. Yeah. No, I didn't mean I just
meant that to me. It was I didn't hear about that. So, but but uh that's the problem. I mean, the problem is is you're committed to some other and your your budget is smaller, too. So, I'm not sure. Would you even get the same This is a bonding question, but or a loan
question. Would they even get the same rate? I guess they might, but it it depends on credit ratings and and their debt ratio, current debt ratio. So what they're asking us to do is to invest $12 million and then they're give them
the road. And I don't understand why we would be doing that if it's they're going to be their road. So the way though that these things normally work though, I mean on a collector or arterial road, those are county roads. Um we might have a JPA that says when it gets to 50% ownership.
Is that what this provision is that Commissioner Morse is talking about? The JPA Correct. It's it's the ISBA. Um their specific provision for Claremont says that if they annex a sum of greater than 50%
of the existing frontage of properties abuing any subject right ofway um however it let's see maintain located between yeah or county four-lane or greater roadway. Claremont shall assume maintenance responsibility. I think the
fourlane is actually an exception to that. Um, but it is an ISBA provision. I mean, we'd have to fix the road anyway before you handed it over, right? It it does. It says nothing in the agreement shall require Claremont to assume maintenance for any road or
drainage facility that does not meet city standards other than rightway width. See, that that's that's the catch is that a city isn't going to take over the road unless it meets the county standards. You're not going to get it to county standards unless you do the improvement. And that's why it falls on the county as opposed to the city.
Otherwise, you would just not do anything. The road would be in horrible condition and people would be waiting 45 minutes to get, you know, to to an intersection. And and just to clarify, the county fourlane or greater roadway is an exception to that. So, they would not be
required to take it either now because it's not meeting their standards or if you were to fourlane it unless they agree to do it otherwise. So, so here here's the problem I have. I do not have a problem um with anything that I'm seeing. The
only problem I have is is this needs to be agendaized. It needs to be agendaized because if this was agendaized, I'd have gone down there personally, driven that road several times, look at the other option. There may be other options out here
other than, oh, let's just take out a loan. There may be options that we can take something away from something the county has and adding it to this road. Um why put it on the agenda though? This this was part of the discussion that we had when we were talking about
the gas tax and it was not none of nobody made a motion on it at the time. Commissioner Parks wanted to bring it up under his reports to have the board reconsider the loan option. So I would like to see the whole thing agendaized. Otherwise, I might have to vote no on
this. I I like the idea, but since it's not agendaized and we don't have all of our options and you know, I'm not really thinking about this. The first I'm hearing about it is 12 million here, 10 million in Eustace. So, now we're at 22 million. So, what the heck?
And and to clarify, because it is not on the agenda today, you wouldn't be taking a vote. She's Jennifer's looking for direction and then she would bring Well, yeah. Yeah, I mean I would I would be um I mean do whatever we need to do, but the time is of the essence if we're
going to get this started by 2026, both of them projects. I thought it was something that we were all pretty clear on that both the need for both of them to try to get it done. Um the time value of money is is a big deal here and waiting to waiting to get it done would
be even more expensive. I'm not I'm not saying waiting. There may be other options of funding. Yeah, maybe. But I I don't know. Hold on. Commission, we know how we're going to pay back the 12 million. How do you pay back the 10 million on top of that? So, the 10 million would have to be
identified either through the penny sales tax or we would have to do it through impact fees or but that's not our road actually. I don't know that we could pay impact fees on that or or just general revenue from sales meaning sales tax within the
general fund. Well, run the numbers on 10 million and 22 million. 4 and a half%. So estimated it's probably about 5 million a year annually. What's our penny sales tax? Oh, I'm sorry. I take Yeah, it's
probably about 5 million a year. So, why don't we why don't we put this on the agenda for next meeting, right? And then we bring back some numbers and um in between now and then too, Jennifer and I can try to have some conversations with you and Maldor. Not that we get any
answers back, but we might get a feel for, you know, where they might be. Um, we know that commissioner or representative Cobb was looking to do her own appropriation, not a request from the board of county commissioners, but her own appropriation for 5 million.
And um, when I met with her about a week ago, she said that she's only going to put that request in if we secure uh um seed seed money. She commit anyway. What's that? No, she said she's not going to do it unless we we put seed money into it. So just, you know, that
that's part of this whole equation, but I think that just putting it on the agenda for next next meeting, you could actually take a vote. We can't take a vote today. Um, and yeah, I I mean that's that's fine. I again, but I mean we've been talk Hartwood Marsh Road. I know I know 44B
too, but we've been talking about that for years. And I mean, at one point they were even the public was under the impression that it was actually going to be done. Uh, and then we didn't get the loan or or DOT pushed it out. DOT pushed the funding
pushed it out. So, I mean, this is not a matter of like just not doing it. I mean, it's got to be done and it needs to be done in 2026 and it's only going to get worse. So, I mean, I know we can't vote, you know, apparently we can't vote on it today, but um, to me
it's it's pretty clear that we need to do this. Um and 44B too, but because it's got to get done and 466A. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, there there a lot of projects all bad, but I don't
think any anything touches Hardwood Marsh. I think it's by far the worst in the county. Thank you. So, that's why I'm like full speed ahead on Hardwood Marsh today. Everything else being close behind it because I think it really matters a lot, too. But Hartwood Marsh, I mean, 45 minutes to get out of
your driveway and get to 20, that is insane. You're basically frozen in time. I mean, this is like a crisis of traffic that this county has never experienced. So, that's why I'm 100% for going as fast as we can. Yeah. Yeah. So am I. I mean, if that's
direction that you need, I mean, I mean, it's only two of us, but Well, I mean, I'm I'm I'm in favor of the Hartwood Marsh project. Um, I'd like to come back and bring you some videos of 44B and what it looks like at Brad. I know. um support of that too because you you know it's it's critical mass at this point and we have been told
in talking with the secretary of FDOT if we actually came with money now that's like a that's almost a $40 million project so the question is can we can we fa could it be phased could could they
address choke points could DOT actually potentially find the money if we came with with a payment in hand as seed money. Um, but we won't know until we actually tell them that we want to move
in this direction. We we won't know. And and don't be confused by me wanting to agendaize this is not me saying I don't like it. It's the proper way to do it. No, you're right. It has to be on the agenda. So,
do you want me to have engaged the services of our financial advisor at this point or you want to just still hold off on that? That's what I was I would say. Yeah, I say you do. That's what I was trying to get direction on. If to get the numbers, you're going to need to, right? Yeah. That's why I was trying to get
direction today because to engage with him I mean there's a cost to it and if the board was not interested to move forward I was not going to engage the services of a financial adviser and I'm glad you made that clarification because the story I want the story out there to be clear because there'll be a
lot of people in Hartwood Marsh and 44B. So what they would hear today is is that we have an interest in this to now you're going to get now I'll get the financial survivor the financial advisor engaged and we'll do a presentation have an option and h and we'll have an actual
amortization schedule. This was just seeing if there was any interest. There was no sense spending the money on the advisor if we weren't going to move forward or if there was no appetite for it. Okay. Yeah. So that's that that's sort of the message in the story is there's an appetite to do it but we can't make the final decision today. You're going to get the data and bring it back.
Correct. And it's just basic. It's not going out for loans at this point. It's not It's just a presentation by the financial advisor as well as staff will put together more information detailing the the as Commissioner Campion said, the chuck points on both
roads come with the financial advisor to actually give us here's your cost. Here's what you can do. You can do either a five-year loan, a 10-year loan, a bond, whatever. He can offer the solutions for financing. Sounds like a good plan. And and I would and I would like to see
Jake Glover from PFM. I would like to see other options other than a loan. What can we take away from whatever project we got going on in the county and moving it toward those roads so we don't have to take a loan out. Okay. I think it's valid. I think let's just
see at least go through that process and see if there is something that we could just bump down and try to um I know um you know we're also having a discussion with Mount Dora about the the CRA issue. Um you know we had brought up this really great idea when we had our joint
meeting last time with them that why not take that money that would have gone to the CRA in in an increment and put that towards roads in that immediate surrounding area um or in Mount Door in general. And I feel like it ought to go to 44B and 441 widening. And that could
at least be some more seed money that we could offer up to DOT to try to get them to move those projects along. My issue is not with the the need. I know it's the need. It's how do we plan on paying it back? Yeah. That's that's what I'm interested. And it's the Yeah. And it's the dire situation really that's put us put us
here. You you opened up CRAAS. Yeah. That's what is it 15 million from CRAAS come out? 15 million is paid to CRAAS. Yeah, that's another from the general fund countywide, but I I was referring to that one CRA expansion issue
that includes all municipal plus our county. Yes. Got it. Okay. Yeah, that gives her direction. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you guys for staying. Thank you for your input. Um moving along then we're going to we're going to bump down to uh item 30
and number eight. Um, so we have our Renfair um, education foundation folks here and I've got cards, but but I think what we want to do is we need to start with the fairgrounds presentation because this request for the Renfair
um would uh have implications um that relate to how this pro how this project moves forward. Okay. Uh, good afternoon, Madam Chair and Commissioners. Angela Herald for the
record, director of operations, parks and trails, public lands and facilities management. Um, I am here to introduce Emily Cologne this morning who's going to give you a potential partnership opportunity to construct and maintain the new fairgrounds location. So, a
little bit of background, the new fairgrounds location is approximately 68 acres located on road 448, Kenny Road 448. Uh we have been engaged with a consultant to start master planning the site. Uh we did receive infrastructure
sales tax funding. It was approved on in fiscal year 2021 for 250,000 with annual allocation of 500,000 approved beginning in fiscal year 2024. We also received $2 million in legislation appropriations through FDAX and uh staff was recently
contacted by Mr. Cory Warner for a potential partnership for the construction and operation of the new fairgrounds. So with that little bit of background, I am going to bring Emily up so that she can discuss it further. Hi, how are you? Emily Cologne. I'm with the Southern Group representing AM
today. And so this is, you know, I'll try to keep it brief. She did a great job with the overview, but this is looking to partner. It's not necessarily a commitment yet. It's just with the conceptual site plan that we're looking for favorable approval today. And then we will start digging into the cost
analysis and numbers and we're hoping to have um those numbers towards the end of the year and come back to you. There's the map. Oh, yep. Thank you. Are you are you representing the private entity?
Yes. Yes, sir. And your request is just for us to approve the conceptual conceptual site plan and then you know greenlight it and then we get going and start digging into really what the numbers are and then come back of course before we do the planning and
construction and being this is a public private partnership just to make sure that the county will have no money in any of this right? No, it' be a partnership. It's a partnership. We will partership. But we don't have No, I'm talking about the pre-planning
and getting all the numbers and the part that you're doing, the work that you're doing, analysis that you're doing. Well, we'll start digging into the numbers, but we're not going to spend county dollars without approval. So, Right. Okay. Yeah. I don't have any I don't have um numbers to ask you for right now. So, until we start doing cost analysis and
spending some money, we can't ask for anything. Right. So all those numbers that you're going to gather bring back. We would you're not agreeing to any of that by saying yes today. Y the partnership part with the money once we know what money we're talking about.
I looked over this plan and uh it seems a lot more reasonable than the last plan that we saw um before you were on the board, Anthony. There was a plan that was $150 million for the fair grounds.
So, uh, this plant here, uh, has a 150,000 square foot event center. You have a place for rides and outdoor events. I'm assuming that could be like a grass area and for soccer fields or whatever. Well, we will move forward and I'll come
back with something more real. All right. Then a parking area. I like it. Um, I think the the Renaissance fair is here. uh because they're wanting to have an extension.
Would would there be an opportunity for the for the private sector to talk to the REN fair to see if there could be a partnership there coming in 2026 to see if y'all can collaborate and come up with a plan that would work? So, this would be something that I wouldn't want to say.
No, you can't say yes. I I can't say yes. I'm have my plan. But you would be able to work conversation. Yeah. But of course, the timing would be the concern. But yes, I mean it's a conversation. Yes. Okay. But can I uh put my client on the hook for an agreement? No.
No. No. I'm not I'm not asking that. I'm asking that there may be a plausible solution to it. If not, then we have another fairground that they could use that there's other options, but um I think this may actually work out for the Rener. I don't know.
So yeah, I think the concern is and we could we could have the speaker come up um from Renfair group, but it's really I think going to come down to um if you do the analysis, get the numbers, come back with an actual proposal um and we're
working on that. Would you and we come to an agreement would you actually have started to you know alter the site by the time that they would need it for the next rentfare potentially because I don't know what site preparation will be needed today.
Yeah. So and I think that's where these discussions would need to go um to I mean and I don't even know how you make any commitment like that until you know really um how you would phase it. would you you know how quickly would you start to to move? Um but I think that I think
maybe what we're looking for is just the idea that it's a possibility that still may be able to have the Renfair there if you haven't started work and then if you have started work and you've gotten it all done basically could we then have an ongoing um arrangement so
that the Renfair could have their event there um moving forward once it's been developed. though. Um, just a question. I'm sorry I'm going back a little bit because this is the first I've seen the the concept plan. I mean, a couple months ago, I may have heard something about,
oh, there might be some kind of public private partnership. And then this couple days ago, I heard, okay, there's going to be potentially a public private partnership for this. Um, I mean, is this is this uh this is your only part of the presentation? It's just this slide. I
mean, so what do you So you're asking for do we approve the concept plan or is this just like what's the ask again? Repeat it. I'm sorry. Repeat it. We're at this time just looking for discussion and direction. If this is a possibility that you would like us to explore, then we will continue it further. But we wanted to speak with you
all first, give you the proposed layout, let you know the background. We were engaged with the consultant on the master site plan, but we can pause that if this is another avenue that you all would like to explore. Who Who's the consultant? Southern group or somebody else. Who's the consultant? Oh, she means our old plan.
Yeah, the old the old $150 million plan. Not that one. There was another one. Just for my knowledge. Who is that? Who is that consult? I'm just curious that one. Gator sketch. Gator sketch. Yep. Gotcha. For which one? The 150. Not the 150. That was that was roads and burrito was the 150 million. Roads and burrito was
roads. Yeah, burrito. Okay. Um but again, so like I I mean I see the rides and outdoor event. So is this just it's the same thing fairgrounds but just with this this is a potential public private partnership where they would come in and they would also operate and maintain it
after it is completed and construction as a res revenue share potentially. Okay. And if you notice we were initially looking at maybe a 30,000 foot expo center. is actually proposed in this
concept plan to be 150,000 square foot event center and uh would what would be the next largest event center there in the county comparable wise not to put you on the spot here what how how big is our unairconditioned uh fair 16 that I think that's 16,000
feet 16 so this is 150 versus yeah okay wow and then the lake sumpter convocation center I guess that would be what probably 20 30 probably I don't know but I can Maybe it's probably about double our fair grounds. I I totally support the moving forward because no matter what happens at the
end of the day, we're sketching out a firm concept and we're exploring what I think is always a good idea because everything every city and county should be exploring public private partnerships. Um, you know, pulling the final trigger, that's a different question, but moving in that direction, as long as it's not, you know, super
expensive, then yeah, absolutely. I support it because this, I mean, this is very new to me. I talked to Jennifer the other day and I didn't even know about this plan, but I'm very open-minded on it. Um, I'm sure, you know, my pro my thoughts will change a little bit over time, but right now, I mean, I'm very
openminded. I think it's a good idea. Has so much potential. Um, I love the idea of a private entity um stepping up and actually, you know, running with this project as long as it's whatever agreement we have is is fair and
equitable, correct? and that were satisfied with, you know, with the terms. Um, and then my other question would be, you know, trying to find a place for the Renfair. Um, they love this location. Obviously, it would look very different once this
was done if it in fact is developed this way, but it looks like there's enough outdoor spaces that you might actually be able to have a a a nice Renfair there. Um, and if it didn't and you didn't like it, um, then we could go back to trying to find another another
spot. But what about cross the road? Isn't that kind of We've explored that. That's No, she'll explain that. Yeah, we've explored that fully. Oh, sorry about that. No, no, no. I just mean we've been we've
been down that road so many times. This is another one like Hartwood Marsh Road. Oh, okay. We don't have to borrow 12 million on this though, right? No. Um Yeah. And if you we can do we can have Bobby um and Angela and everybody
that's been involved in exploring that other we can get those we can get that analysis off of the shelf or out of a file or so you can at least digest and look at it and see whether was that. It was pricey. In other words, she gave you homework.
Yeah. Yeah. And then there was a parking issue. Um Okay. All right. So, how about um I guess we would just need you to take back to your client um that were that Do we need a motion on this?
So, or just a consensus? Consensus I would say to get to I would do a motion. Yeah. But if whoever makes a motion could include that they would at least take into consideration uh you know. So, I would I'd like to make a motion that
we have we uh um approve the concept plan to move forward to see what the actual numbers are and also uh encourage the private developer to work with the education foundation to see if there can
be a plan working together in 2026 so both parties could function. Second, uh before we go a vote, can I ask a few questions because this is all very new to me. So, what's the name of the principal, the investor, the the group? Uh, American Event Management. Okay. And where are they based?
Um, Lake County. Oh, okay. And, uh, do they go to different places? Is this a first time idea for them or do they have a history going to cities and counties and planning a similar project? Just curious. Yeah. So, I'm relatively new with them, so I'd have to give you some more background.
Okay, cool. That's all. Thank you. We're we're looking at the same company at the college to do some work also. Okay. All right. So, we had a motion. We had a second. Um, all in favor say I. I. All right. Um, we'll
Thank you so much. Yeah. Um, and then if the one thing I want to make sure Yeah, we can have we can have um um Elizabeth come up and talk a little bit about Renfair. I think the the most important takeaway I've always had from
the Renfair discussions is the amount of money a Renfair makes and how that money then goes 100% back into um our our students and teacher needs and so forth in Lake County. So, it's like such a big
part of supplementing, you know, educational needs in Lake County. Absolutely. Good afternoon. Thank you so much. I will do my best to move along. Um, I really just appreciate the opportunity to your point to share about the impact of the Lady of the Lakes Renaissance Fair, which is hosted by the
Education Foundation. Last year, the Lady of the Lakes Renaissance Fair had an economic impact on Lake County of $4.8 million. This was the third year in a row that the Renaissance Fair surpassed an economic impact of $4 million as
reported by Visit Lake. As the Education Foundation prepares for this year's events in just a couple weeks, we will be welcoming another 30,000 patrons over the span of two weekends, and this includes welcoming thousands that will be visiting Lake County from across the
state and the country. This is the largest fundraiser for the Lake County School District. So today and along the lines of the conversation, I'm asking that you all consider and support the education foundation's request to extend our lease into varies for 2026 to be
able to host the 25th annual Lady of the Lakes Renaissance Festival. Since January, I've appreciated the opportunity to work with the Lake County staff um including visiting Lake Idmir um to make plans for the 2026 Renaissance Fair as our lease comes to
an end this year. We've been presented with the 18 acres of beautiful county property in Umatillaa as a future site and the staff has been so gracious and creative in presenting ideas to make the property work. However, as each month has passed, we've identified a number of
challenges. More significantly, challenges and costs associated with traffic, safety, logistics, and infrastructure each making a move to Umatillaa unrealistic. And these challenges coupled with the reality of moving a large-scale event like the Lady of the Lakes Renaissance Fair would mean
a loss of 20 to 30% in regards to attendance numbers and therefore the funds for the Lake County School District. Simply put, the best way to describe a move to Umatillaa would be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. As I know you all are aware, the
Lake County School District has navigated the reduction of its budget by $16 million. Although the Education Foundation cannot fill that gap in its entirety, it is our mission to serve as the connection between public education and our community by identifying needs
and securing resources to enhance the quality of education. Over the past five years, in part due to the Renaissance Fair, the Education Foundation has invested more than seven and a half million dollars in the Lake County School District. One of the most important investments we can make as a
community is in our future workforce. That's our students. One more year in Tavaris would allow us to support the Lake County School District while reimagining the Lady of the Lakes Renaissance Fair or redesigning our fundraising strategy as a nonprofit. So,
in closing, we are so grateful for 24 years of a partnership and support from the county and our community. This fundraiser for the Lake County Schools would not be possible without partnerships. We are eager for the opportunity to continue collaborating whether it be public or with private
partnerships in a way that is both meaningful and feasible and I encourage to see all of y'all in a couple of weeks at the Renaissance Fair November 1st, 2nd, 7th through the 9th. Thank you. I have a question. Um, is it always are these always held in the fall? So the
way that it kind of maps out is there is definitely a route or kind of um fairs across the region. And so our fair kind of fits perfectly in between some of the fairs that happen in south south Florida. Um there's groups of vendors and performers that come down from other
parts of the country. So we have these two weekends, if you will, locked in from the perspective of performers and vendors, um which is why we have these two weekends. So, if we were to kind of be up in the air, because we don't know what's going to happen when they come
back with their proposed um you know, plan. Um can you kind of uh lock in next year with a big caveat that it may have to be cancelled or moved to a different
location? We definitely could do our best to communicate that as appropriately as possible so that we maintain um interest from vendors and from performers. That's the biggest thing is we don't want them to write us off, right? Um the reality is though is
if they're planning their schedule a year in advance in regards to where they're going to go because they caravan from place to place, that is a potential risk that we would be taking with this. Um, I I'm open to that, but it it is
definitely a risk in regards to will they remain involved. I I think we're missing a a a very big picture here. If if the partnership works out and they're not ready, we have a phenomenal place called Lake County
Fairgrounds currently over in Eustace. Have you been to a Renf Fair? I have. Okay. Several times. It started out in a retention pond is where it started at Hickory Point, right? So, and then but it doesn't have to have a
bunch of trees. Scotland didn't have trees everywhere. Uh you didn't start off with trees everywhere. Uh but that's just an option if there is no other option. I'd hate to lose the Renfair because
you're unwilling to move it somewhere up the road for a year. Yeah. Um, can I No, I think but okay. I think that's a it's a really good point and I I wasn't mean meaning to be condescending at all. I just, you know, was having a hard time picturing how you could fit that at the
fairgrounds because of the parking problems we already have and where you put everybody, but I guess you'd like put them all through those places where the little expo buildings are and where the you normally have rides and things during the fair and in the livestock pavilion and all that. So, that would be a possibility. The other thing would be
the Umatella site, although you don't like it and you said it would be a 30 to 40% reduction in revenues, it could just be a maybe a one-time thing with the idea that once this is developed that this site could be a really with all the outdoor spaces that's shown on this site plan. I mean, it really could be a a
good location. Um, is that what your county is to come back when it's done or do you have a plan B? My well my hope is that we would be able to be in Taris for one more year till allow us the time to re whether it be reimagine the Renaissance fair whether
it be in a place that doesn't have trees or a a different type of Renaissance fair experience or if the reality is that we need to um reimagine how we fund raise as a nonprofit. Um, so I would say that we need that year so that we can
continue to work through that, but also provide the support for the school district that is a part of our mission. Okay. So, you really hadn't thought into 27. I if it's not going to be available. I mean, well, I
think I would get with Angela and go out there to Eustace and look at the fairgrounds because there's a lot of land out there that when the fair is not there, you don't realize how much land is really there. I mean, there's a lot of land out there. I would just want to say one thing. I wouldn't say that I haven't thought
about it. I just want to make sure it's clear that I've been working with Angela and the staff and they've been great since January of this year trying to figure out how to make Umatillaa work. And so, it is a largecale event, all the moving pieces as well as preparing for
this year's event. And so, trying to do it in a way that's strategic and meaningful and also honors our mission too. I was going to say um you're you're doing a wonderful job representing the Lake County Educational Foundation. You're being very diplomatic. Uh and I
because I had some lengthy conversations with you. I think I know the last couple weeks. So, a little bit more specifically into this and having been a board member years ago. I don't know how many years in a row I did all the parking was part of the parking team getting thousands or hundreds of people
that would come in. So, it's a very well attended event and it's a big deal. Um, so I appreciate what you're doing. Um, but you I think you need you're being nice. I think you need a certain to to make this an even better uh or just as
good or even better potentially final and that's my words there potentially final Renfair for Lake County next year. You need to have some certainty that you know that you're going to have the space this space. So that that's why I think I I I would
be I would think you need to have that certainty from us. So, like the agenda item was pulled. I I think you do need the the one-year extension for that. And what I'm saying is is may I don't want to put words in your mouth, but maybe and you're working with the board, but there's probably more than a 50% chance
that you might not even do Renfair anymore after the next year. Right. Right. I mean, I think that we are open to it. We recognize the impact of the Renaissance Fair on this community and on our students. Um, but also as a nonprofit, 50% of the funds we raise are
from events. Um, research shows that it really shouldn't be more than 30%. And so I'm new as the executive director. I have the joy of evaluating a lot of things and really building on such a great organization. And so part of that is having those tough conversations with the board on where are we headed as an
organization. Yeah. So you'll know in the ne I'm sorry, one more question. So you'll know as I understand it in the next six months when you keep workshopping with your board pretty much what you're going to do with that. Right. Right. um really being able to ask for that additional year was kind of
our stepping stone to be able to say where are we headed with this. Yeah. And I don't think we can guarantee them a year. I'm sorry I told you this yesterday. I don't think we can guarantee you a year because it will
certainly mess up what the private sector is doing over at the fairgrounds. And I'd hate to destroy what's what we have a great motive uh momentum on the fairgrounds
be destroyed for a one-year project when there's so many other places in Lake County that you can certainly go. I can name two or three off the top of my head and we can talk later if you'd like. I'm just thinking about reality. So because like the concept plan is going to come back. She's going to bring
numbers back to us. They're it's private sector. Remember that. So they could have this thing up and running in November of 2026. Yeah. But when would they actually start doing Yeah. Right. They could be Yeah. If they started their site work, right? They could be they can be clearing in
February. It would be clearing. It's not government work. Taking trees down, things like that. Grading. Site grading. Well, the map that you showed as well, just for awareness, where the Lady of the Lakes Renaissance Fair is where the parking is allotted. Um, I'm not opposed to us minimizing the size of the Lady of
the Lakes Renaissance Fair to be able to be there one more year and kind of partner again with the private partner um because it would be the parking area. And I recognize those are conversations I can have with them. Um, but please know that like I am open to variety of ideas and being creative, but being able
to stay in the same location where it has the brand identity, it has the recognition, it's going to make sure that we already have the infrastructure that we're not going to have to invest in the marketing. we're not going to have to invest in. So all of those dollars raised are going to go back to our students.
Um I I can't vote for your extra year extension because of the things I've mentioned and I hope the board can agree with me. we got it would I think would mess up what we have going on with the fairgrounds and the event center.
However, there may be an opportunity and it may be an opportunity that they may as what they may very well be cleared enough for you to do what you need to do. that I can't I don't want to put them on the spot and say they got to
stop everything they're doing for a year to make sure that they don't mess up what you're going to do for a weekend. I'm sorry. What do you think? They can have a conversation with a private partnership to see
when they felt they were going to clear when they felt they were going to start pouring everything. Well, it depends on us if we approve the numbers and all that stuff. So, so I mean it's only I I can't see where I don't think it's a
benefit to vote on it today. I think there's a lot more information that needs to be that needs to be gained before we say yes or no. So, and I hate to put it in limbo, but we don't know the timing right now. And I do know the fairgrounds has been needed for 15 20
years that's been talked about. Yeah. the the reason the timing part is because you have to tell vendors basically next week. That was my hope being able to have some decisions in place in the sense of we'll have our vendors and performers out there in the next three weeks and so
being able to articulate what our plan is for next year as well as the number of um stages materials out on the site. I try to be really mindful of people's time and not having to move things twice. So, what if you go take a look at the existing fairgrounds? Have you ever
been back all through the property in the back during the fair? Not you need to come up here, Jim. Because I was just going to say if you could tell your vendors, it's either going to be here or here. We will be letting you know. That way they at least
know there's going to be one. Okay. Come up to the mic. name, please. It's really not big enough. I I mean, I've looked at the area. It's 60 acres. How big is the fairgrounds now? Useless fairgrounds.
60 acres. It looks really different when you have all of those rides and things out there. I just look at aerials. I don't drive by. I just look at aerials. Well, because there's wetlands and everything that you can Yeah, there are wetlands. Anyway, it's it wouldn't be worth moving
for one year. I don't think I we look, you know, I agree. I Well, why vote on it today? We we we need to know, but we tell them it looks we're think we might make I don't know because that way at least you could tell them there's going to be one and it's either going to be here where we're at
right now or it's going to be over there. But you you're at least letting them know there's going to be one and um moving it. Yeah. Because otherwise it puts us in a spot where we could be losing an opportunity that could be
worth millions and millions in the long run. Transform doesn't work that way. We could let them know three months out, four months out. Well, we aren't going to be back next year. Yeah, they can change their plans by then. So, well, I mean, the clerk needs your name for the record, please. He said it. Jim Miller.
I did. Jim Miller. And And I'm sorry, it's 30 acres of land out there, not 60. 30 acres of land. which is more than what you're using now, right? It is more than what we need now or what we're using now. We don't need a
bigger spot by any means. So, I got to So, I'm understanding it's either Tberaries or nothing. That's what I'm hearing, right? You're not even willing to look at other places. Even if it's going to be even if
it's going to be a 30% decrease, isn't a 30% decrease better than a 100% decrease? No, sir. It's not because because the 30% decreases over the next two to it would take two to three years to recoup that if we do if
it brings it back. I I I don't think I don't think I'd like to study, but I think for today's purposes, I can't make the commitment of being able to move to the fairgrounds, but I
can't I can appreciate taking time to have a discussion with the private partner and allowing y'all I mean I I I think that's totally okay. So, why don't we just we'll bring this back at our next meeting. You'll have a conversation with them. I think we're open to the idea. If it doesn't
interfere with what the private partner has planned in their timeline, then we're we're okay with extending it, but only if it doesn't interfere. We can make, you know, adjustments as well based on what would work for them. So, okay. All right. I think we have a game plan. Yeah. Absolutely. I love Yeah,
absolutely. It's not us or them. It's together. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you for waiting all day to get to this point and yeah, we do appreciate
what you do. Yeah, about three times as many of you. All right, Lori, I'm going to mark your speaker card unless you want. Okay. Okay. All right. Now, we're going to jump back and pick up our regular agenda item. Tab 28. Commissioner Sabatini. This is uh discussion about the lawsuit.
Yeah, we we talked about it most of the time. Um, I don't think uh the board supports it, but I wanted to be formally on the agenda. I I think we should join the lawsuit. There's now two uh 20 cities and counties do it. Uh the item looks a little deceptive. It's not 20,000. It's actually 10,000. It's five
and five depending if there's two more appeals, but the only real commitment on the front end is is is 10,000. Uh I think it's modest for the amount of destruction and harm that SP 180 is going to cause if it doesn't get fixed. To this day, out of 160 legislators, not
one legislator has committed to erasing or removing the burdensome language. Uh there's been a lot of chitter chatter, um euphemistic talk about fixing the issue. None of them have said the simple thing, which is you have to rem remove
one sentence from the bill to fix 99.9% of the issues, and no one's committed to that. So legal route is the least we could do. You know, I know that the board at this point, the majority doesn't probably support, but I'm going to go ahead and make the motion that we do join a lawsuit because I think it's the least we could do. Five years from
now, if there's unfettered destruction uh uh and rampant sprawl and destruction of Lake County identity, I think we'll all regret not joining it. So, I would join to move it. So, is that for 10,000 or 20? 10.
Yeah. Okay. I know they want 20, but I I would offer 10. Do we have a motion for discussion? I mean for a second for discussion. I mean I'll second for discussion. Um but I I I I um I appreciate that and I might as I
said before I might be with you given given another month or so and some of these committees get out and I'm fine with that. I might be with you but not right now. I mean we could come in as amikas. We could have come in later. We could do something like that. And then please I
would encourage you to look at the thousand friends of Florida lawsuit which is the second one that got filed last week. I'm sure that one and they got probably one of the best attorneys was nameo or whatever. I mean he's real good. So so I'm sure that's a go too. So I do hope you guys will study it and support it and and hold uh
hold it in your view. So, and and yeah, and I would just say that um the the discussions that I've had with members of our um legislative delegation is that they are in fact going to do what they can do to get it fixed. So, I appreciate the fact that
they have indicated that that's where they intend to be. I understand the reality is that if if that's not what the rest of the legislature is willing to do, it won't matter what their good intentions are. Um, but I appreciate the fact that
they've indicated that they are are interested in trying to to fix it. Um, couple thoughts. Um, I I like the idea of waiting to see whether those conversations and the legislative committee work actually starts to
materialize towards a fix and then make a decision then. Um, and I also think uh another possibility is we get to the end of the session, nothing's been done, and then I'm 100% there. Okay. 100%. I agree. I agree.
With that said, I'll I'll withdraw the motion since I after Commissioner Smith's comments because I think uh obviously I'm not going to force anyone to vote if we know we don't vote. So, no, I'm I'm in favor of uh waiting until we see what's going on. Okay. I'll withdraw the motion.
I'll draw a second. Okay. I think that's a good resolution and then we all know where we're at on it. Okay. All right. Now, on um tab 29, this is Commissioner Smith. So, tab 29 is the uh naming of it. Since
uh um Anthony brought up a very good Charlie Kirk memorial, I started looking at the the ordinance a little a little better. And there's a lot of things in there that I didn't realize like the county manager can just get the building to name whatever she wants to name and
it doesn't have to come to the board. I saw a problem in that not with Jennifer but maybe something down the road. So, uh, bathroom. There's a lot of things in here that the only thing that the only thing that's changed in here is, uh, they have to,
uh, either have significance in the county, be from the county, or live in the county. Everything else is the same. Wait, that that's what you were wanting to add. So that the county manager couldn't name a building for somebody that didn't live in the county, be from
that. Oh, you struck that language that was in there. That's it. You took the county manager's ability to just label rooms and whatever, right? Or department or department head. Guess I guess Jennifer's not going to get her building. If I could, but but Jennifer is not going to be here for another 20 years.
Break room named after her. Well, I think the the obvious most significant thing in there is limiting our own authority to name anything in the county after a state or federal figure. And to me, that just doesn't really make sense because obviously I
think it shed a very positive light that the governor himself and other national media outlets like Fox News were highlighting in a very positive way what we did last month. And I just think the option should be there. I don't think that, you know, this county should be limited in who it name something after. For example, I don't think the state
should be limited to only uh name statewide figures. Last week, the last month, the state delegation named a a a state road after a particularly county figure, a very great sheriff we had who was elected at the county level. So, I don't see the reason why they should limit themselves to only state figures.
We should only limit ourselves to county figures. It's an option. Obviously, I think it I would take it I would be more open-minded to it if every week we had a bunch of things that are national and statewide interest on the agenda and we needed to limit that. But really, I don't see in the foreseeable future any
other row namings happening. There's only been one in the year I've been on the board. So, I I push back. I'd vote no on any of these changes thus far. Also, the way speaking at the second item that you brought up, the county manager's authority to to name something. Um, it does say that it has
to have consensus. It's not a totally unilateral move. It's guided by the board. It just doesn't have to be formally done in the sense of an a resolution. And I see that as being helpful again if it's for something more modest that doesn't require you know a formal meeting something small or maybe a room in a building something like
that. So uh with that um you know I push back on this. I think that some of these are controversial changes. I would I would just maybe if you want a workshop and sure but right now I'm a no on these changes. I think the policy is good. And I would also just end by saying it's policy to guide us. So really it's law.
that's not really law. At any given time, there'll be an election. There'll be new commissioners, off commissioners. The consensus of what those commissioners want and you know what the votes that those commissioners um create is the policy. So, you can write it down and you can limit yourself in that way, but it doesn't really handcuff you because honestly, you can make the
motion, disregard the policy and do it anyway. So, I just don't That's exactly right. You You certainly could. I just wanted to I just wanted to to enhance the fact that um I think that we should be voting on things that are directly related to Lake County and Lake
County citizens and what people have brought to Lake County and what people have come from Lake County. So I that's it. Sure. But would you It would only be Lake County. So like
you know I don't know, Trump. Ronald Reagan, you know, there's a lot of roads that have been named after Ronald Reagan and Turnpike's one of them, right? But if you wanted to do something special, I mean, let's just say it was was Donald Trump that was, you know, um, you wouldn't we wouldn't be able to.
No, that'd be put on the state road. It would they can't put anything on. Again, I just don't see I wouldn't want to handcuff us. I'm not saying that because it's hard to imagine. I mean, there's a lot of agree circumstances that could come up and then you're like stuck. totally agree with the sentiment that we have a lot of Lake County heroes that need to be named and Lake County
kind of leaders that to be named and of course I would say probably less than 1% of our roads far less than that have memorial designations. So I just wouldn't I wouldn't be in favor of policy that limited what we consider in the future. I'll put it that way. Yeah, I think I think um it should we should strive to be mostly local. I
agree with that. But yeah, you do want to have the flexibility to have some national, you know, hero or somebody that's of recognition. um without having having to go and make a oh it's against your policies and you
know make a policy change on the fly. I'd rather just keep it that part at least the way it is. Yeah. But I mean I think I think having an having you know what I I'm just I'm just one vote. I I think it should be Lake County people. I think it should mostly be maybe we
make a note of that. I don't know. So um if you don't like this that's fine. Yeah. That's a good question, but I mean it'll die. But um I just wanted to put out there that I want to recognize Lake PE Lake County people and Lake County
for their contributions that they have provided to Lake County. That's it. Yeah. So, okay. I think most of the time they will be. I mean, we're definitely going to wrote name a road after Sean probably here in I think a couple months is what you told
me. You know, do you know something that I'm kidding? I should know. Well, we don't have a requirement that you be deceased, do we? Like the school board the school board has that whereitas you're not allowed to name a building unless the person I think I think they have to actually be
Yes. deceased. I mean, you you you want to name what just name a road after you right now? I mean, Commissioner Smith, no, I don't I don't need I think I think we definitely all agree that the focus most cases shouldn't be local. Yeah.
And I think that naturally is what would happen without having to put something in writing. That's naturally where it would go. I I just think that y'all um just reread over it and see if there's any cleanup that you would see in it. I mean, I that's all.
Okay. All right. Um we did 30. We're moving on to 31. This is uh Commissioner Sabatini, District 1, Children Services Council to serve a remainder of a two-year term ending 51426. Sounds good. And that's what Courtney.
Oh, you got a name. Yeah, there's a name on there. Second. Fine by me. All right. All in favor say I. I. All right, then. Moving along to the county attorney's report. Nothing. County manager's report. Nothing today. Thank you, Commissioner
Sabatini. Um, I just want to uh let the board know I've been chatting with Melanie about our petition. I think uh our county attorney staff and Melanie particularly did a very good job on the petition um uh to challenge the budget that was proposed by the property appraiser,
which obviously I think we all agree, we do agree should be reduced significantly. Um one of the nuances in the law is that it's a petition. they can actually technically they can kind of ignore it or wait a long time. So I'm hoping this board um there's a consensus
on the board to direct our staff to be very persistent and loud in our communications towards the governor's office and um staff involved with the cabinet and what the cabinet's called the state administration board when it makes decisions like in this capacity.
just, you know, I mean, I've been telling them and they're listening, but I want to make sure everyone knows like we're all here together that we should be very emphatic that we expect them to make swift action. They had the potential to put this on the agenda for their December meeting.
Uh, and so I'm hoping that I mean hoping they they move they they meet earlier than that, but December is fine, too, as long as, you know, obviously they there's going to be a formal presentation of this petition so that way they they do the right thing and reduce it, which obviously they will.
And then secondly, I would say um I think it's noteworthy that there has not been a response filed to the petition. Is there a requirement for response or is that No, there's no court rules here. It's not like the what I'm what I'm understanding um
Commissioner Sabatini is it's the squeaky wheel. You want to be the squeaky wheel, right? What's that mean? that. No, I just whenever I'm speaking I'm okay with the squeaky wheel process, by the way. I like the squeaky wheel process. Good. Yeah. Yeah. But if I ever talk to
the staff about administrative actions they can do to support something we've done in the past as a board, I want to come back to the board and just let them know, hey, like I hope everyone is on the same page on this, which is because I think that we can step up our communications effort and really direct
the administration like not just file the petition because I mean my only fear is that this petition gets filed, but then it's, you know, people are busy and there's all these different statewide entity items that are um on their uh agenda and maybe it gets tabled something like that. That's my fear. And
so hopefully we can really weigh heavily into the fact that we'd like to see this resolved in December. Yeah. I think the citizens need to know um one way or the other how the state feels. So I I'm I'm certainly agreeable for Melanie to be the squeaky wheel.
Oh yeah, I'm I'm on board with that. I don't know whether we should use our our um lobbyists to make contact with the governor's office and cabinet members. Yeah, I I think that would be a good idea because I mean although from the
legal side I can be as squeaky as you'd like, there is no defined process like there is for challenging a sheriff's budget. So other than calling them, I can't really make them do anything with it. So um I'll get with Jennifer and we'll reach out to Chris. Okay. Yeah, that sounds like the most
direct way to get a hold of the people that we need to be talking to. All right, all I have for my report. Thank you. Okay, very good. Commissioner Parks, nothing to report. Mr. Smith. Um, yes. I spoke at Plantation. I'm gonna be speaking at Rotary Club
tomorrow and Kathleen and Jeff and Seth came with me. Phenomenal job tomorrow. I'm speaking club. I believe Jennifer, you're coming with me and Kathleen or no, Jeff is coming with me.
Um, they do great presentations. Very proud of our staff. Um, And then of course I've had several site visits throughout the week. All right. Um on on mine um if you I don't know whether did everybody get a
copy of the report from might have just been me because it's my district out at Mount Plymouth the golf course um fairways that's being redeveloped and we've heard from Mrs. Morris and some other people, Cindy, that were concerned about things that were going on out there with the redevelopment of the old
fairways. So, I'll just ask Jennifer to forward or Kathleen that report. I think it's really helpful for everybody to see it in case you get questions about it in the future, but they did a very thorough job and looks like they're getting all of the issues addressed, but it is
frustrating at times when um things happen during development that aren't supposed to happen. And that brings me to the one other thing I wanted to tell you about that happened this past week over on 44B. There's a project that was approved by the city of Eustace. I think it's called Huddle. Um there were a lot
of people that were upset about this project. Um well, it had been actually annexed quite a long time ago and had been given um its land use under the city's formbbased code. Um and then when it actually came in for site work and
site approval, um that's when a lot of people became aware of it. They had not been aware of it before. There wasn't a whole lot the council really could commission could do at that point other than there were some waiverss being requested and so forth. So that that all
happened. It raised a lot of controversy couple maybe a month or so ago. Well, last week um I get a message that there's something going on at Lake Joanna and looks like polluted water is going into Lake Joanna. And so, um, I
was able to get a hold of, um, Bobby and, um, and, uh, uh, Butch Hendrickk with water authority chair. Um, Bobby got a hold of, um, um, Justin. And then I reached out to the mayor of Eustace. And I'm driving down
44B to go, well, I go over to check out our baffle box that's there that's supposed to be cleaning the water before it gets down to the lake. It's totally muddy down there. So I drive down 44B and this one project puddle. They're pumping water, dirty, dark brown water
into the swailes along 44B. It's traveling along the road and then it bisects with the canal that goes into Lake Joanna and it's just pushing water um dirty icky water into Lake Joanna. Um Bobby's team, they were able to work to
get a boom put out and I think they put a second um curtain to protect the lake. I'm not totally sure at this point on what's happening there. They took water samples to see what was going on with what was actually in the water. The city I contacted the mayor, the manager of
Eustace, they got down there with their code enforcement. Um they made them shut everything off. They issued a stop work order and um it was not authorized obviously and um they're it's uh they're going to have to figure out what they're
going to do with all their water. The water the soils don't drain over there and they've got ponds that are completely dirt ponds that are full of water that's not perking which you wouldn't really expect over there that it would perk because it's like there's it's a very bizarre um you know it's got
like a hard pan under under it. Um, so anyway, I just wanted to report on that. I really appreciate the fact that county staff, public works, everybody bolted into action, water authority, um, and the fact that the city of Eustace immediately got out there and and tried to mitigate what was going on and
hopefully um, you know, there there will be repercussions um, by the city, by FD um because yeah, I just don't see how any contractor could ever think that that was something allowable that
that could be done and unfortunately hopefully I mean with the lake not really sure of the situation there. Hopefully nothing really bad in that muddy water and maybe it's all settling at this point. So, um anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for everybody
that got involved and and tried to mitigate that situation, but it does make you very upset that um that a contractor sub or whomever you know decided that they would do something like that would do it. Um, so that's brings us to the end of the meeting. And
Commissioner Smith, you have something a little bit more on the light side to do the meeting with. I do because today of all days is National Real Sugar Day. So throw down your Sena and pick up some good sugar and throw it in your coffee. That's all
there is. All right. Okay. With that, we stand a jar. Number two. Anytime your you know that anytime your phone goes off during a meeting there's like we have an actual problem