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through Zoom webinar for members of the public who wish to provide comments during the citizen question and comment period later in your agenda anyone testing test one two three test test testing
testing Commissioners this meeting is being streamed live on the County's website the meeting is also being made available through Zoom webinar for members of the public who wish to provide comments during the citizen question and comment period later in your
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feels warmer than that which is a shock typically it's it's really bomy in here today then thiss good compared to what we'll be fine if we don't get a bunch of people in Chambers but which case they need well it should adjust but
I don't know how this I don't know if it's working or just yeah you got lucky I have no clue last week it was still 64 was was it knows right well I guess I know Meat
Locker is not really my keeps me awake I prefer the meat locker yeah 72 so what is it dropped a little bit but we'll see what happens probably nothing well the guy from Honeywell was in our office for a couple of all of
ours but it also depends on like in our office we don't have heat in certain areas believe it yeah I they've been talking about theing for years
right hopefully this this new AC system will fix the issues but I guess it's always a crap we'll see hey good morning for for for
this is the Lake County Board of County Commissioners regular meeting on February 11th 2025 in board Chambers Administrative Building tares Florida for e e e
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okay good morning everyone and welcome to the February 11th 2025 Board of County Commissioners meeting here in Lake County we are going to open our meeting uh with a prayer and I see that Pastor Tony McCoy just made it in I know he was
working his way up here from South Lake um from grovelin he is the pastor of Hope International Church and we appreciate him being here today uh to give our invocation and then we'll remain standing and we'll have the Pledge of Allegiance glad I made it
time good morning County Commissioners and all those who are in attendance today I always consider it an honor and a privilege to stand before you whenever acts upon to be here before I pray I would like to share with each of you uh
the theme that we have at Hope International Church now I won't preach I promise but what I just want to share with you our theme is genuine love uh and I've been sharing with the congregation that love is More Than A Feeling love is an action word in other
words your actions point to what you really love now me knowing all of you and uh it's evident that you guys love Lake County because of your the way that
you serve with your gifts your talents and your expertise I I want to just tell you as we are in 2025 that the road of love will not always be easy or stress free but it will be rewarding I want to thank each
of you for accepting the love call in serving Lake County let us pray father God we thank you for these men and women that have accepted the call to honor You by serving our communities and the citizens of Lake
County we thank you that when you call them you also equip them to be ready for whatever task that lay ahead of them on this agenda today and this entire year may each of them stay anchored in you
stay focus and may they stay present and finally may they position Lake County for positive transformation that will improve the quality of life Foster economic growth and continue to bring our community
together as one I pray that you would bless them today and every day along with their supportive staff and volunteers and may we always be reminded that we have the total victory in you
through Jesus Christ it is in jesus' name that we ask this and we all say amen amen thank you I pled 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 Pastor thank you and TR truly appreciate the message all right before we move along
with the meeting we will have our virtual meeting instructions because all of our meetings are live streamed and we have the opportunity through Zoom to allow participation by the public if they're not here in person so I'll turn it over to Eric Ross and it Commissioners this meeting is being
streamed live on the County's website the meeting is also being made available through Zoom webinar for members of the public who wish to provide comments during the citizen question and comment period later in your agenda anyone watching through the live stream who wishes to participate in the
meeting can follow the directions broadcast now through the Stream during the citizen question and comment section anyone who has joined the zoom webinar using their phone can press star9 to virtually raise their hands
anyone participating online can click the raise hand button to let us know you wish to speak when it is time for public comment the meeting facilitator will read the person's name or phone number and we then unmute the appropriate line
and the speaker will be asked to provide comments everyone will have 3 minutes to speak after 3 minutes an alarm will sound letting them know their time is up we have previously notified the public that comments could be emailed up through
5:00 p.m. yesterday and those comments were shared with the board prior to the meeting anyone wishing to provide written comments during the meeting can visit Lake county.gov SLC commmission meeting that's Lake county.gov
/c commmission meeting any written comments submitted during the meeting will be shared with each board member following the meeting thank you all right thank you very much uh moving on then to agenda updates um Jennifer do we have any
changes yes good morning Madam chair um first we added tab 24 to the agenda as an addendum it is going to be added as a regular agenda item and secondly I would like to um discuss your coordination we do have a closed session today as well
as a CRA meeting so I ask that we recess this board briefly for about 5 minutes or so and we can set up for the Clos session immediately following this meeting we'll have the close session and then we will come back in and adjourn
the regular board meeting after the Clos session has completed and then finally we would open it up as this board sitting as the CRA board all right um also I want to recognize that we have supervisor of elections alen Hayes with us this morning and we
do have an agenda item pertaining to the soe so I want to just go ahead and um recognize it I'd like to pull that off a consent so that we can have Mr um Senator Hayes we called him um due to his Service uh in the state senate for several years many years so um we'll
take that off of consent if um and then any other items on consent we'll address once we get there okay uh Employee Service Awards Janine Nelson good morning Madame chair and Commissioners I'm Janine Nelson with the
office of human resources and risk management this morning you're recognizing those employees who have reached significant milestones in their careers with Lake County including even an employee who has um who was celebrating their 25th year anniversary with with the county so we're going to
start with five years and after each group uh is mentioned then we'll have that group stand and we'll give them a round of applause starting with five years we have Don Cole Don began her career with Lake County on the 6th of January 2020 she's an office associate 5
with the office of visit Lake tourism and also with five years we have Jeff aart he began his career with Lake County also on January the 6 2020 he's our engineering director with the Office of Public Works would you both stand please so we can recognize you
thank you going 10 years Jeremy Cooper Jeremy began his career with Lake County on the 5th of January 2015 he's a senior CAD technician with the Office of Public Works Justin Holmes began his career also on January the 5th
2015 he's a firefighter EMT with fire rescue Justin hunsburger began his career with Lake County January 20th 2015 he's a senior building inspector with the office of Building Services we also have Ava Laura who began a career
with Lake County on January the 5th 2015 she's a public hearing coordinator with the office of Planning and Zoning Dustin Rosen CR began on January the 5th 2015 fire Lieutenant paramedic with office of fire rescue and William warbritton
January the 5th 2015 he is a firefighter paramedic also with the office of fire rescue with our 10-year uh employees who are being recognized please [Applause]
stand I do have a 20-year employee I'm not sure he was able to attend Christian senson January the 28th 2005 he's a fire Lieutenant paramedic with fire rescue so let's give him a round of applause our 25-year employee being
recognized is Matt Dorne Matt began his career with Lake County on January the 3D 2000 he serves as a trades crew leader with the office of facilities manage maintenance Matt you want to stand up so we can recognize you thank you congratulations to all those employ boys who names I've called
and this concludes our presentation today thank you thank you appreciate it thanks to everybody and feel free if you need to get on to wherever you need to go next it's fine with us next on our agenda we have minutes
approval I see we have our clerk with us today Mr Cooney have two sets of minutes for your approval this morning all right I see we've got November 21st and December 3rd of 2024 do we have a motion move for approval second all in favor say I I all
right moving on then to Citizen question and comment period we're now in ENT in the public comment portion of the meeting when the public can discuss items that are on today's agenda with the exception of any zoning items there will be an opportunity for public comment during those specific sections of the agenda if we have any of those
anyone who has joined our meeting V via Zoom um use their phone um using their phone may press star9 to virtually raise their hands uh anyone participating through Zoom online please click the raised hand button to let us know that you wish to speak everyone will have 3 minutes to speak after 3 minutes an
alarm will sound letting you know that you're time is up um so I've got some cards here and I'm going to um I'm going to start at the top Vincent neire oh sorry I'm sorry
Vincent Harwood Marsh and hand cockro if I could just have this oh okay thank you there you go good morning Commissioners my name is Vincent NE come from clemont okay I'm here to speak about uh
a little situation and problem we have that I brought up a over a year and a half ago and nothing has been done okay as you can see we have an intersection between Hancock and Hartwood Marsh okay Hancock Northbound you could see there's two lanes with no dedicated light signal
it does have a vehicle sensor in the ground and the time of the light is 20 to 30 seconds when we go the opposite way going Southbound as you can see we have one lane only has a vehicle sensor and it's
only 20 to 30 seconds long as you can see there's no dedicated turn signal two uh southbound lights are in sync so in other words they work together it's not one goes on and the other one goes off okay look I don't come here to bring
problems I come here to bring Solutions all right and look it's very simple I said this a year and a half ago nothing's got done we had several accidents there and I'm getting a little upset about this okay here's the
solution we have one day dedicated green traffic signal going northbound do it for 30 seconds there's a sensor there so you could do it for 20 seconds minimum and do it for 30 seconds okay when that stops then have a dedicated signal going
Southbound there's a sensor there too so all we got to do is have it for 20 to 30 seconds all that's going to do is slow the traffic a little bit on hardwood Marsh by 20 to 30 seconds because we have sensors in the ground the reason
why I'm bringing this up to everybody okay it's like the Forest Gump movie stupid is what stupid does okay we're going going wait till strongfield Road gets connected to Hancock you're going to be going from four lanes into two lanes and guess
where that two lanes is going it's going right into that major intersection so once we connect skolfield road to Hancock road that is going to be the most congested and I mean the word congested
intersection that Lake County has ever seen okay we're already backed up you all the Commissioners know how deep we're backed up on scoffield road going on to 27 you made several adjustments already and nothing's there's nothing
you could fix could you imagine when that comes straight down Hancock it's going to come along Hancock it's going to go along of a a sister living when it crosses hardwood March it's going to come across one school her Recreation
Area it's going to be a disaster a complete disaster I'm just asking to get this fixed before some before we have a fatal accident once again please I don't want to fall in death ears but if we could do something about this especially
in my districts I appreciate it thank you for letting me have this time God bless the council the Commissioners and I'll see everybody later thank you thank you R I know you're take going to take a look at this Jeff all right and then
maybe next meeting you give us an update on what can be done again ma'am um I with him a year and a half ago and nothing got done I don't mean to be abrupt well you are being abrupt and I would imagine but you know this this is a problem we had for a year
and a half commissioner and I would imagine there's probably a reason why it hasn't been changed so all you have to do is get one guy to go there to change the signals one guy one gentleman I'm not going to mention his name he has to go open up the box change the signals and
we won't have a problem we have a school there imagination that road is horrific here you go ma'am yeah I think um you know we've talked about this before but uh Vinnie if you want to meet with um the group here but they can come back and present
this you know if you want I mean that's the the chair up to the chair but yeah if you've got some feedback right now Jeff farhart and engineering director so we we did look at the signal trying to do the two dedicated we looked at that that the timing there's very the the traffic is quite light going out of
hancok because there's not much there now and that the delays related to the school and on Harwood Marsh would be more significant than doing that um as far as coming up from um Hancock we are looking at uh when we it's going to be four lanes when it actually gets up to
Heartwood Marsh when we build that it'll be two lanes through conserve coming up and then it will be four lanes coming up to Heartwood Marsh and that will be probably this this this year that's going to start construction and then of course the altimate of widening of Heartwood Marsh itself is in 27 unless
it gets Advanced by do if that helps so we are looking at all of this and we're did I clarification on the 27 date it's fiscal year 27 for the state it's actually July 2026 which Begins the state fiscal year so it's a year and a
half from now yeah and I appreciate um I I appreciate um you know we're working with Claremont to see if there's some way to speed that up even more but I always like to point out I I thank the commission because we did make this the number one literally the number one um Road issue about two to three years ago
it was put on the list like in red at the no and you know got the funding for it but we had to play with those rules play Within the rules of Dot and we're trying to we got a meeting next week with um secretary Tyler uh to to look to see if there's some way to speed it up
even more so I I do appreciate that and that'll come and maybe we can provide an update after our meeting next week with secretary Tyler to the board is what we're doing that okay yeah sorry so so Jeff I've I've got a question on on
these turn signals is it a solid green light or is there like a a turn arrow it's it's right now it's green in both directions so you have to wait for an opening to to come what he's asking is that it be green in one way and then turn red and then Green in the other way so that you have
dedicated and then it will turn like a u a flashing yellow once the time comes up right there there there's no flashing yellow right now I know but it could it could happen right okay and you're looking into that right okay thanks
right now you're just so I understand the explanation is that the traffic in the other direction would be held up and that would have a greater impact on causing causing delays correct the traffic on Heartwood marshwood would be held up if you've added 30 seconds both
ways and that's adding 30 seconds to the everyone waiting on Harwood Marsh but we we will look into it yeah I just want to make sure that it's clear that when we when you say we'll look into it if it's not done it's because you've decided that it's going
to cause more problems in the other direction it's not that we'll look into it and you never do I mean we we've already looked looked into it we will investigate it again and and and see if there's anything we can do if I could just say yeah is is there a way cuz at
the end of the day I hate when we hate you know we say we're going to look at something and then it sort of Fades away is can you just do an email that says listen you know here's the amount of cars here here's the amount of cars here if we don't if we do this it's going to cause this so that way if this gentleman or whoever comes and tries to reut us we
can say listen we went to the engineer we Quantified it and so therefore where are your numbers at because I just want you know to be able to the solidity of saying you know the engineers show you're going to cause more issues with this potential solution and then if they push back then you know I feel
comfortable with our position but if we could maybe just take a look at what it created on that adjacent Road thanks yeah I think that's important and I mean I think the last thing we want to have is a situation where resident says hey I need you to do this and we say yeah
we're going to do it and then nothing happens um just so you know it's you know they they've been working on it they' made a a judgment call based on their expertise that this was the right way to handle it for now but you're going to go back take a look at it
you're going to give us some data and then we'll get an update on it and you'll you'll reach back out um to to Mr neem about it thank you very much all right uh farmer Banks hellram farmer Banks halick Clay Road District
South Lake County Farm tip of the day February 14th is coming up which is Valentine's Day don't forget to put your Spring Garden in uh on Valentine's Day or thereabouts um Madam uh bo uh commissioner uh uh Commissioners um
distinguished guests over 100,000 years ago our forefathers and our for mothers did something they had never done before they trusted it was the first tribe that was ever formed roughly back then what happened a kind gesture possibly a
decent proposal um maybe a civility um these are the founding blocks of trust um when they came together they formed a tribe this tribe was strong enough to actually take down the woly mammoth uh this tribe then also created
uh towns and Villages and cities and civilizations civilizations then um made U government uh a government and also art and culture nowadays though it seems like
the woolly mammoth is us we find ourselves fighting each other instead of finding Solutions um we have forgotten that trust comes from being kind and decent and civil to each other so the next time you see somebody on
your right or on your left ideologically you might disagree with remember that we are all American may you all be blessed thank you so much for allowing me to speak you and I want to thank you for your service on the keep Lake Beautiful Committee and we appreciate all you do
there so thank you thank you uh Demetrius brona um good morning uh my name is Demetrius brona and I'm here to ask you to adopt a resolution that will save lives in your community and around the state and I'm
heartened to hear the words of the pastor this morning and the gentleman who just spoke who are speaking of love and love being an action I'm a dad from Tallahassee and I'm on a mission to save lives I'm a member of the Florida handsfre Coalition which consists of bicycle groups pedestrian groups uh
insurance companies law enforcement nonprofits and for-profit entities and we're asking the Florida legislature to pass a hands-free law in Florida which would compel drivers to put their phones down while they are doing the most dangerous thing that we do in states that have this law and are enforcing it
they have seen an immediate and measurable reduction by up to 25% in overall traffic fatalities here in Lake County I'll give you the numbers we can do the math real quick uh there were 5500 crashes 4,500 injuries and 49
deaths 25% of 49 is 10 families that would not be suffering what I and my family are suffering my son is one of those statistics my son Anthony was perhaps the greatest human being I've ever met um he was kind he was funny he
was resilient he was my absolute best friend in the world and there is a Darkness here on this planet that was not here when he shed his light in 2024 I was able to Usher meaningful distracted driving legislation through the Florida house it was assigned to
three committees where it met unanimous bipartisan unopposed support um it never was voted on the full by the full house because in the Senate uh the chairman of the transportation committee refused to put
it on his agenda and when I tried to speak to him he did not have the time to uh allow me to answer any of his questions uh in doing so uh that Senator sidelined our law enforcement to stop
people from doing such dangerous behavior um I sent an email to you about two weeks ago uh with the draft resolution language and a one-pager some stats and statistics uh and if you pass this resolution you'll be joining a
growing chorus of counties and cities that are asking the Florida legislature to do something about this dangerous behavior and I'm hoping that uh by coming here today and telling you my personal story and telling you how
this unfair behavior that killed my son who did everything right Anthony did everything right and it was a man who knew better than to drive distracted and chose to do so anyway who killed my son
and left me and my family with a a shredded life and and and rebuilding a life that beforehand was just a beautiful uh it was a beautiful life I had a beautiful life um so I'm here today to ask you to pass this resolution
and show that love that the pastor was speaking of uh love for our neighbors love for our community um by Saving Lives thank you thank you for being here and thank you for what you're doing to try to change things to make things
better I'm all over the place I was in Oola County yesterday this morning I'm here today I'm going to Citrus and Sumpter County to ask those uh bodies to do the same thing that I'm asking of you today and I have to say I did a double take because it said Leon County and I
thought okay did he mean to write Leon County but yeah thank thank you for being here and I think that we can we can bring it back and have a discussion and see if it's something that we as a board could get behind whether we you know we just need to take a look at it and um I appreciate that anybody want to
weigh in I just want to I thank you for sharing your personal story this is I know it's not easy and you're absolutely right we have an epidemic in this country 45,000 or more people die every year of of and and they're not accidents they're crashes right 94% of them are at
least yeah thank you for thank you for that because a lot of people were still have the habit of referring it to as an accident but if you are looking at your phone while you're driving it's not an accident you should expect to run into something absolutely and I would like to connect with you at some point after the
meeting but I'm I really support what you do and maybe we can um talk about some other efforts as well because I think there's some there's some things maybe the legislature could do to help as well I would love to do that we will connect thank you thank you I would like to say first of all I'm sorry for your
loss I can't imagine that ever happening and I'd be um hopeful that we can come up with something that would be meaningful thank you Commissioners I really appreciate your time thank you thank
you next speaker card Joe fasi good morning Madam chair Commissioners I'm here this morning I'm calling on my representative Mr sabatini I would like you to bring a workshop down to Claremont so that my residents
and the people of Wellness Way have an opportunity and public view to put their sentiment out to the council I hope that you will come down with this invitation a lot of my fellow neighbors
can't make it to this meeting at 9:00 a.m. in the morning they have to work when we had a city workshop at Claremont at 6:30 p.m. we filled that Hall so I think that they deserve the opportunity to let you hear them their thoughts on
this mstu they're the ones that are footing the bills so I'm asking that you please come down and give them the opportunity to speak to you I don't think it's too much to ask and I hope that you will collaborate
with the city of clont and uh Mr Parks please don't be disparaging in your emails about the city that that was unkind we're trying to find collaborative situations here and try to work
together so I think you should also invol the City of Claremont in this discussion if you come down I ask please I know there's a few of you on here that are already told me that you want this tax but we do not and we are
the ones that matter we are the ones that are footing this bill so I ask you kindly please come down give these folks a chance to speak to you in person emails are impersonal but in the public being able
to come up here and speak to you face to face is very important and it's a major portion of these government activities that they should be have the opportunity to do it please come down to Claremont
6:30 p.m. and let's talk thank you um just a quick update on that um yeah so we did have a workshop uh we were there last two weeks ago staff I'll update uh everybody on that a little later on in the meeting um as know we got to move through the agenda but do
have an update on that as well um there was a public comment that was accepted at that um at that uh Workshop uh on this particular issue and um The Wellness Way as a whole so cover all that a little bit later um as far as the
disparaging remarks I think um you all know you know the problem with that comment is I think some of you that have known me for years know that that's I don't operate that way that's the last thing I do is I I the very last option for me is to make disparaging comments I'm when I'm preaching to work with the
city the entire time so I don't I don't think I think that attitude is always been put out there to try to work with the city so I you know I sorry I just respectfully disagree with that anyway more more more on later um so commissioner I know yeah I'll uh I'll
get to it a little bit later just a few comments I was going to bring it up at the end but you know since it's here and I'll be quick um you know obviously I learned about the M mstu issue when I first got on the commission and Melanie did a very good job briefing me and you know I definitely admire the passion of
commissioner parks and other members of the commission to develop a vision for an area that otherwise did not exist and of course part of that Vision was essentially leaning on a tool MST us that um you know are very appropriate in
some some times and some places I'm just speaking out loud here you know sort of extemporaneously but at this point I don't feel and I'm probably in the minority here but I just want to express to my commission out of respect to them my my position here uh as it's
developing is that I don't always think it's the best tool most appropriate tool and so even though I'm probably in the minority I don't support it to use in that manner I feel like the commission doesn't see that the the juice is worth the squeeze in terms of what they're
paying obviously you know I believe that there are going to people who completely disagree and Commissioners who disagree too and that and I totally respect that I understand that because at the end of the day it's just about you know what tools are most appropriate to create the compelling Vision we have for that part of the
county I would not yet but eventually like to see a vote out of respect to the constituents were so earnestly passionate probably our most passionate commissioner going here Mr Joe um to see where the commission is on on that mstu repeal now with that said I'm not
rushing it I want I just encourage everyone to take a look at it keep it open mind talk to them and then maybe we have can have a vote on it but honestly I understand that um you know this is a long-term project you know the county is invested in that area you but I I spoke
to them a little bit during the election especially afterwards and um at this time I feel like I'd like to see uh that repealed and and those people given a little bit more um economic freedom with their property uh property tax bill with
that said again I I'm not making any motion yet I just hope that the you know um commission will keep an open mind despite you know our past positions on it and then maybe we can revisit it in terms of a workshop honestly unless it's Unique information that we don't have access to I don't I don't see the
immediate need of putting the entire commission down down there cuz I believe you I believe there's going to be a workshop you know a room full of people who say this is a terrible um tax you know we need to get rid of this I also believe that there are people who probably believe in commissioner Park's vision of the county which this is it's
worth it and that and that the the end product is going to be worth it and there's going to be a debate at this point I'm I'm in the camp of repeal but I just hope everybody will look at it and then eventually we can have a further discussion and that and I just wanted to put my thoughts on the record thank you very much yeah and I'll when we get to our my comments later on I
have a quite a lengthy breakout on that so yeah and you're going to address that during your report yes okay um yeah because one of the things I wondered about was the the possibility of um until you have more uh
residents online that are contributing that maybe there's a way to Stage this in in such a way so that it would lower the amount significantly um and it would be staged okay and my biggest concern is about
notice if people know that they're this is part of the program when they buy property whether it's investment property or their own home to me that's key like if you have the notice and you understand um or every the information
is there it's up to you then as the investor or the homeowner to to you know to talk to someone about it and what does it mean but if there's a better way to do it and make it more fair um with the idea that we were trying to elevate this area in such a way so it wasn't
just the same old thing it was going to be something that was special and that would be reflected in the overall feel of that that area so we'll we'll get to that when we get to your comments just notice too during the comments so just just to bring back my memory if I'm not
mistaken I've had several meetings on this um mstu uh we brought it back down to Claremont to see if Claremont uh wanted to have the mstu and my position's always been that um if you don't want
the mstu fine we won't do all the enhancements that are there we'll do beo grass and mo like we normally do every other County Road uh I think that the people in Claremont and the people down in that area want enhancements that people in
Aster shouldn't have to pay for I agre so uh you either get Bea grass and mow once a month or you get your enhancements I mean I don't know what what else there is I agree and I can touch on that too and the key would be to know really what people you know
you're there are times when you have to say Okay majority rules let's see what everybody wants and let's see and let's see if we can present it in a way where they could actually make a decision about how much it would be and how it
could potentially be staged and um because we know how it works now when it's just a regular rideway there's only so much you attention you can give those right so okay all right yes sir
one quick comment um my concern's always been that there's going to be housing down there and we need that commercial aspect to support it so I I understand the concept but from what I can see all
we're doing is putting housing in and and the commercial's not not there so can address that okay yeah I would appreciate it because my understanding is now that there's one large parcel that is starting to be sold off peac Meal which was supposed to be one large
development so um I that's what my concern it's always been my concern sitting home Planning and Zoning is that what we have and what we get might be two different things this is worthy of Workshop I think um because all along
the idea was they were set aside Ides so that if those set asides are not developed for commercial purposes they cannot be developed for residential so in a worst case scenario you have green space plus residential but that green space cannot be kind of like a golf
course if you've got the regulations in place you can't switch that over and decide you're going to develop it those set asdes were supposed to address commercial job creation employment center type uses so if that's not what's happening if things are being dismantled
I want to know about that too because if you think about it from the taxation standpoint and the mstu once you have your commercial in place you're going to have a lot more money to spread around as far as in keeping the rideways uh enhanced so that would take a huge
burden off the residential but we got to then make the commercial happen how do you make the commercial happen we've got folks that I mean this is what they're working on day in and day out is trying to find those companies that will come and take down those pieces and develop them or build you know build
improvements on them so they can attract companies here and I know all of you have had discussions with um whether it's lead or it's our own economic development team that they are aggressively working on trying to help Market those commercial Parcels so maybe
that's part of the staging that it doesn't kick in for the residential until you have the commercial online that can help share that burden yeah I think we we got answers on that and no no residential area has been um approved what should be commercial so
there's been no sacrifice to the cap that's been on Wellness Way um and no sacrifice to the vision of it or the rules in fact the rules continue to get more strict we keep we've made changes some of you remember this we've made changes to make it even more strict when
it comes to development through the last couple years so um I can go over all that in the report but I would encourage you um the great presentation that uh Jennifer Kathleen put together with Meg and it's a a very good detailed presentation on I'll cover in summary
later on in the meeting but I would encourage you to get a copy of that maybe we can have that maybe we could get that presentation and it could even be made in the form of a video so that that's something that could be circulated to the residents we do and and we'll have news about the website
for wellness way because part of the issue with this is um in the absence of having information out there uh social media does its thing and you start you start hearing things like oh there's 30,000 homes going to be built in Wellness Way no there's not there could have been 30,000 homes without Wellness
way but that's a piece of history that we don't always cover because you know it's been 12 years now and we have different people new people coming in and commissions have changed and everything so I think it's going to be helpful to have that put on the website as well the video that you're talking about that's a good idea um of this
presentation but there'll also be it'll also be you know the facts about Wellness Way on the website and a tool that lead will use uh as we now get into the the next stage of this plan and that is to go to acquiring the larger higher
wage employers that go alongside of that so I can touch on that a little bit more in my report though in my understanding that um you want to do a a separate presentation hold oh no well no I'm I'm going to update a
little more on my comments later in the meeting but the presentation I think the the chair was mentioning she we can give that to you so may I make a suggestion that maybe um we do a presentation during a regular board
meeting just on this because this is be this is streamed live via be great um Lakefront TV which is all over the county uh that way everybody in the county can see it and then you can give your updates you present it because
you're the most experienced in this whole thing so I would say I would like to see you pres have a formal presentation to the public on the Wellness Way and the Wellness Way plan yeah we can do that yeah and then um staff IT staff can break that out and
create a link and then that can be shared around the the community I think that could be extremely helpful and and I I think we also need to meet with the developers and tell and and and basically have them tell the people buying down there that there is
an mstu just like the villages does with the CDD and the bonds I mean we have to educate these people that they're not only paying adval or but there's an mstu that goes along with it so and it might be buried in the back I don't know of a contract yeah yeah and you know again I
was planning on covering that in my report but but I'll say that um you know I did research on that um we have we have notices uh people that knew there was an mstu now could lenar for instance have done a better job yeah probably we
also keep in mind at all this we do have uh a we had a hearing so all went out on trim notice correct um you know saying if you object to this or have questions show up on these dates you know nobody showed up plus it was in closing statements
there's one neighborhood I'm looking at just to double check um I am very sensitive to that CU I agree if somebody if there some way that some somehow the ball was dropped un noticed I do think we need to be fair so I'm always open to that um and I think we can continue to
look at those certain C certain circumstances um and I think all of you don't want to do that so um we'll look at that but uh the notice was there uh again I think that's what the um the website will help too in the future is because we'll be very direct and explain
what what that is and what it's used for I mean there was a question about what it was used for I I'm straying into my report later but okay all right um and Joe are you going to be able to stick around for the rest of us okay all right
okay um last card um on non-agenda items is Cindy Newton morning Cindy Newton District 4 um I just want to talk a little bit about the uh project in Mount Plymouth greens it's already been approved uh for those that
aren't in District for this is also the same area that had the uh Park vacation up at the last meeting uh it is in the WIA River protection area and the Arsenic
contamination uh that's on this property Not only was in the soil also it affected groundwater uh there's a plume that is still within this area right here in a
well it has been shown as being stable at this time uh there are a lot of restrictions that have been put in place for deed restrictions on this it can't be used for residential um a
park retention storm water things like that it's pretty much just going to be dead dead property uh the site also has to be inspected annually and there's a twoot soil cap
that's in place over this during the inspection it has to be inspected to see whether or not that's been Disturbed and be repaired uh if there is a storm event uh 25-year frequency 24hour duration
event n Ines or more rain uh there has to be an inspection so Milton filled that and I'd like a copy of the report that they should have had an invest vestigation and testing done to make sure this was still in place utilities
are going to be placed be brought in along Exmore which goes right beside this if the uh two foot area in this maintenance area is
Disturbed then there's very specific protocol in these restrictions uh with testing of the soil as it's brought out uh it's got to be taken off site so the utility companies are also going to have to know what
these Protocols are I just don't know if there's anything in place in the current PUD to address um making sure the annual inspections are done uh the storm water events if those inspections are done if the
utilities are brought up to speed on what they have to do if they disturb the site uh also future residents have to be informed and I don't know if that's anywhere in there if it's going to be buried in an
HOA um so there's just a lot of questions and if any of the swells detention retention features uh ditches anything that disturbs this it can destabilize that groundwater plume
or increase the potential for exposure to contaminants resulting in risk for human health Public Safety and the environment so I think the county needs to keep a eye on this project as it moves forward
and thank you Cindy um yeah I would like to have the county attorney staff take a look at um for those of you that weren't on the board when this came through um the golf
course property was I believe zoned R six um it had a residential zoning they could plat it without bringing it to the board for any kind of discretion they chose to go the Pud route and bring it
to us now it was over I think the number of units that didn't trigger the Pud so if they had done the straight zoning and just platted it they wouldn't have got the number Lots they were asking for so tradeoff there um in the Pud we put some conditions they had to do some traffic
calming improve some of the roads do some Paving of roads that weren't paved and um they had to do you know we had the normal things you would have in a PUD um dark skies and all that kind of stuff um usually in those puds there's
some language too about the requirement that all other regulations any other agency regulations those things all Happ to be complied with so I'm not sure I mean but we didn't know about the arsonic um we knew that they were going to have to do some
testing to see there was speculation that because it had been a golf course and it had been operating for all those years that stuff had been stored where the all the maintenance work would be done and so there was some concern there but they they had to do that on their
own um then this came up that it was much more extensive than they anticipated so I'm assuming that DP is the regulatory agency um so I I have the ordinance in front of
me it's a 2016 ordinance they were originally R3 they did change to a PUD um they were granted 197 units there is a provision under the environmental section of the ordinance that says mandatory soil sampling shall be required in accordance with ASM
standards where golf courses are cons environmental condition and the results provided to Lake County and to FD developer shall address all remediation actions per the findings prior to commencement of the Pud so they are required to do soil sampling they are required to give those reports to the
county ultimately it would be FD probably that would come in and enforce but we do have the ability under this ordinance um to to require them to do the samplings okay so it it sounds like and knowing what I know have learned recently about D is that they're
somewhat short Ed and um they're not super proactive and that's concerning to me and I feel like we need to take a look at those reports and for example like with hurricane Milton knowing that that was a in that particular area was like a Thousand-Year storm event so
there was a lot of flushing going on in those soils potentially so I think that we need to make sure that um somebody's taking a look at these reports and that the extent of development is protected whether there there needs to be some
fencing there needs to be a way to make sure that the homeowners and and people that live out there now aren't getting into this area where these soils are it's just um an Institutional control
yeah um do we want to make a not a resolution but dir staff to request immediate soil sample test I mean might as well just ask right now like hey when you when's your soil sample coming through yeah there should they should
have been providing them I'm assuming that they were providing them staff phase two sampling done I'll have to go back and look through the files the files are pretty extensive we've had some public records requests so I do have the files in my office but we'll look and see if we haven't received copies we can I'm sure pull them down
from D's website yeah perfect and I'm sure there's some regulation on the depth of the soil sample so they may have to get down to a certain depth in order to even provide the soil sample yeah it does reference ASM standards so I'm assuming that there's some um
guidance there yeah they they would do the surface and then down into the surficial aquifer with those two samples yes the D does have all these files uh on their website except for any testing done uh for Milton um the current
testing annual testing and storm water testing does not have to be remitted now to D because they've signed off on this but DP does have the right to request it
so it does have to stay on file with the developer but I don't know how that stay moving forward once the developments but you're saying that they pertinent information so you wouldn't have to go through all the
files and uh that way you do have a copy of the main sections and then you could look into the D files for any but we don't we don't know whether the um storm event testing was required during remediation
or is it an ongoing requirement yeah we'd have to look at that um as far as the information that we have or the information that's available from DP I don't believe that we have anybody on staff with the necessary certifications that could look in depth
at those so we may have to go to an outside consultant and have them review all of that information and then let us know if there's something else that needs to be done or should have been done or could be done yeah I I just think it's important knowing that it's not it's not just that
there's this new development coming on board there are a lot of people that live all through that area so it it's something on Wells and they're on Wells so um I think it's something that we need to give attention to I got a couple suggestions that we can connect afterwards about what where to look on
dp's website see what kind of closures have been done what letters they've issued okay thank you Cindy appreciate it um now moving on to um oh online do we have someone
online yes we have a couple of people online the first one is Barbara Morris Barbara you should be able to unmute your line and state your name and your comments to the board my name is Barbara Morris I live in District 3 I actually live in the Mount Plymouth subdivision that was just being
discussed I want to um add to miss Newton's commentary as a resident here I am very concerned that that the county knew about this contamination de knew about this contamination and the potential
that it had in our water supply but no agency notified any Resident at any time so that we could keep track of our wells to see what we're drinking so this contamination obviously
has been there for at least 15 years since the place shut down is there a system or is there something that the county can do to help ensure our safety when a contamination is is
located like this especially with the potential of a PUD coming in with heavy equipment and disturbing xmore which is bounding on this which was not tested what can the county do to help
keep the citizens informed for their own safety when contamination of this of this nature is discovered it's a very good question Barbara and we're going to be looking at that because I'm thinking maybe some um
residents if they're willing to allow testing of their water in nearby locations if we could do some um actual testing of their well water that could be very helpful and then um providing um
information once once we we have that and if we do need to put people on notice to have you know they should consider having a private company come in and test but I think we need to gather some information and we need to consider exactly how we provide notice
um if I lived out there and I didn't know anything about this I would expect that my County government would let me know that it's a possibility you probably want to have your water tested um or at least give them enough information so they can make
that decision I agree okay uh we also have Sandy Russ Sandy you should be able to unmute your line and state your name and your comments to the board good morning my name is Sandy Russ and I live in the alaha lake aapka rural
protection area and my concern today uh is about the growth in this area and other rural areas and first I'd like to thank commissioner Campion for her efforts in looking into Lake County becoming a charter County and how that
is a way for the county and the rural um neighbors and citizens there to more effectively manage growth and annexation into our neighborhoods um I recently read on the leeburg City Council meetings from a
couple weeks ago that um they are definitely planning to Annex and amend the Zoning for the future development of the Silver Springs development which is over 880 homes I've been to a couple of meetings with the uh attorneys that
represent the developers and there's not a whole lot of listening going on there for our concerns about another huge development into this rural area our roads in these areas can't
handle the increase in people that the cars the environment that our natural resources are being negatively impacted by this unmanaged growth or potential growth into these rural lands so again I just wanted to thank commissioner campon
for her efforts we we appreciate it and um please continue your work to protect our rural lands and our way of life thank you thank thank you for calling in um do we have any other comments yes yes uh
next up is Javier misis you should be able to unmute your line please state your name and your comments to the board yes hi good morning everybody my name is Javier matus I live in Claremont and the regy community uh or a developer opted out of
the Wellness Way Corridor enhancements uh therefore I believe the mstu should not apply to us I have spoken many of our neighbors here verbally and also through our Facebook page uh Facebook group page that we have
and unfortunately many of them were not able to attend today's session to also um be against this mstu uh that's why I think is a good idea to have another meeting um where
you guys can come and we can see each other and discuss this I did attend the workshop in Clermont where I also um mentioned that I believe we didn't want to be part of this I did
review the closing documentation because that was one of the things that we talked about um I I did both you know I I have an Adobe Acrobat copy of it I did a contrl f to see if it mentioned anything about mstu or
Municipal service tax unit or whatever it means nothing came up um we were surprised to see this added to our property taxes this year which increased our taxes by about $500 approximately I don't remember receiving
any kind of email phone call mailer any kind of communication saying that this mstu was going to be applied to our taxes from what I understand this tax is something that our developer opted out of and our community was not designed for and we were not informed
about in my opinion it seems to me that deceptive practice as were used to impose this tax illegally to our community as it was in disclosed to us this is almost like buying a car a year later receiving an RV and then you know the dealer telling
us you got to pay for it but it's okay because you're going to make a lot of memories it just that's the only analogy I can come up with that kind of hopes to drill down how we enr View and our seric communities feel about this we didn't
ask for it weren't notified therefore shouldn't apply to us I kindly request that you really look into this and exclude my community from this undo Burton for the reasons that I stated thank you so much for your
time and your community is bridge view okay all right any other callers yes I believe we had one more roxan you should be able to unmute your line and state your name and comments to the board hi good
morning good morning can you hear me yes okay uh uh my name is Roxy and MOSI uh I live in the ridge uh Ridge View subdivision I am coming on zoom and I
thank you for this opportunity because I do work at night so I am sitting here waiting to go to sleep in a little while uh I am just want to just talk for a couple seconds about this MTSU I was shocked when I opened up my uh tax bill
and saw this on there I am one of those residents that was not aware of anything I have gone back to the builders the salespeople I have looked through all documents I have done everything that I possibly could to see what I have missed on my part because I do know that when
you have closing stuff things do get missed but this was something that was never ever ever told to us on our side or given in documents or anything I know I'm obligated for property taxes I get that but I really this mts2
mtssu tax was a shocker to us um I I don't know I feel like I get where you guys are coming from you're looking to do great things out here but I don't think should it should be on the dime of the citizens that were and the homeowners that have bought houses here
I mean yeah we we pay our taxes we give you a lot of money every year where there should be other ways to put in pretty grass and pretty flowers and things like that you know I did hear a remark about well we'll just use regular grass well if I have to pay $400 a year
then I just want regular grass on the side on the roadways it just doesn't seem right that there was this just all of a sudden hey you're going to pay another amount of money for property taxes because you decided to move to Wellness Way Wellness
way to us is was being soell as subdivisions it was not being sold yeah we heard you were bringing stuff out here but I moved here to for a subdivision I didn't move out here because I'm waiting for a job in these uh commercial sites I'm here because I just wanted to live there Lake Louisa I
wanted to live in this area uh I don't think I'm totally against this MTSU tax and I really believe in uh I thank Joe for standing up for us all this time and I think there does need to be a better way for all of us to come together and
everybody can say what they really mean about this tax and if they knew about this tax I don't think we knew about it on this side maybe Wellness Ridge does I don't really know I didn't go over there because they did have the CD CDD and I was very clear about that lar told us
about that so we Mosey on to the other side it's just something that really needs to be looked at it was a shocker and it's a lot of money and I think it needs to be fair and it just needs does not need to go on the citizens just and wellness way I
mean we could talk about the cars we could talk about everything there there's hundreds of cars coming through here if that's the case everybody from Lake County should be paying who's going through these roads this just it just doesn't seem right at this time to charge your residents all this money for
pretty little roads for a future that we really don't know if it's going to exist all right thank you very much for calling in and any more callers we do yes uh next up is Aaron Aaron please State your full name and then give your
comments to the board hi um I apologize I'm trying to move to a new room so my kids aren't screaming um my name is Aaron fulweiler I live in Wellness Ridge um and I was in the process of trying to
compose an email because I wasn't sure if I would be able to speak um at this meeting today um but I have a few things that I wanted to address and I know it's hard when people are speaking and they give
like multiple points and you can't really like comment on each one of them um but that's kind of how I feel in these meetings as well um but I so I live in Wellness Ridge and many of us
have concerns about this mstu tax um but my specific concerns today are that um you know we have been hearing multiple ways multiple times that we were not notified about paying this mstu
tax so in my email that I'm composing to all of you I will share my personal documents which I am not happy about um having to disclose but if you do the search and find and type in mstu you will find that in my closing documents
for wellness Ridge there is absolutely no mention of msdu like uh some of the other residents had said we had moved here for a subdivision we had been in a different area of Lake County and we had h a terrible situation
with a neighbor who we ended up having to uh involve police a few times and so we were looking to just move away from that area to keep our kids safe uh and we found Wellness Way and it was safe
and far away from the neighbor who was harassed pass ing us so we found a house that we could afford and it was barely affording it but we found it and here we are and we've been happy and we feel safe and now we hear that we're going to be having to pay another $500 each year
$400 $500 that we don't have because of something that we were not disclosed about and it's enhancements uh based on Regional benefits which you know you guys have mentioned this Wellness Way project
presentation in the presentation to the City of Claremont a few weeks ago they had mentioned multiple times about the regional benefits of Wellness Way which is great but I am not looking for regional benefits I'm looking for just a
house and if it's regional benefits then we should not be the only ones paying for this everybody is going to be using this road and I understand the comment about somebody in Eustace shouldn't have to pay for something all the way out here because they probably wouldn't be here
but that's where like an additional solution needs to be found such as you know I don't know because I'm not this is I'm not a like I'm not in this sort of uh you know I'm a teacher so this is not my realm
but some sort of solution where you know there can be like a toll or something that like whoever is using this area can pay help pay towards it because like we're not a gated community and so anybody at any time can be coming in
here using our area using our trails that are we're supposed to have or the benches or the fancy grass or the employment centers or the shopping and all of these things but yet we are the only ones paying for it and I don't feel like that's fair thank
you we appreciate it I don't know if you heard but the the Buzzard went off but we've heard you loud and clear and we've got your comments appreciate you calling in Eric anyone else okay that concludes um the the public comment period um we're
going to move on to the next um part of our agenda and that is a presentation of proclamations and we have one on the agenda today and I'm asking for a motion um to approve this is a proclamation celebrating the 140th anniversary of the
First Presbyterian Church of Eustace and um as a good Presbyterian I'd be happy to make that oh that is wonderful that's a nice and and I'll second that all right all in favor say I I I okay and we have Jean Thomas um who is an elder with
First Presbyterian Church and she's here to receive the proclamation and then I'm also going to attend um their church service on Sunday and we'll do another presentation at their church service so um I'll go forward to read the proclamation
oh yeah we also have some photos that we'd like to show um which demonstrate the the beauty of the church um and I believe they're going to show some
of the stained glass windows which are just magnificent and um my mother was reading the history of the First Presbyterian Church of Eustace and there are so many families throughout the Eustace area that have been members of this church and have been involved in
this church and this really neat story about the fens who had a department store downtown and they were planning to do some Renovations on their home at that time and the church needed some additional work and they postponed their
own personal Renovations and repairs to their own home so that they could contribute the money to help add to the church and take care of things at the church and I thought that was a really neat story and and it's it's nice that it's about the fens but I could tell you
story after story about other um members of this congregation that have made sacrifices Through The Years in order to do what they they thought was important for the church and for the community and um yeah so it's a really really super special place and we're hoping that we're going to get these there we go
here is our beautiful First Presbyterian Church of Eustace and you can see how how gorgeous it is I hope we're going to see some windows there we go and I'm going to read the proclamation as you look at these photos
and Jean if you'll come up to the podium then I'll be able to give you the proclamation whereas the First Presbyterian Church in Eustace is celebrating its 140th anniversary in February and whereas in 1881 GD Clifford one of the initial
settlers in the city of Eustace built a general store where in the large Hall on the second floor Town meetings and religious Services were held and whereas Dr JH Potter a retired Presbyterian minister in 1884 extended the call to organize the Presbyterian Church of
Eustace with 13 charter members and whereas as pendry owner of the akaha hotel donated land at Center Street and Citrus Avenue for the church which cost3 ,750 to build and members dedicated the
wooden building in January on January 7th 1885 and whereas in 1912 due to a growing congregation the building was moved down the street to its present location on Center Street and construction was started on the new building which was dedicated on April
5th 1914 whereas the modified Gothic structure with its beautiful stained glass windows has stood strong over time time and whereas the modified whereas the church has been an important part of eustace's history and continues to be a
beacon of hope faith and resilience in Lake County now therefore the board of County commissioners of Lake County Florida proclaims that Lake County does hereby Proclaim and celebrate the positive impact the church has had on its congregation the city of Eustace and the Lake County Community as well as the
history and beauty of the First Presbyterian Church in Eustace and congratulates the church on their hund and 40th anniversary and this Proclamation shall be spread upon the minutes of this meeting so thank you for being here Jean than you I appreciate you so much we
appreciate you thank you so much would you like to say a few words [Applause] sure thank you Commissioners for this uh opportunity and thank you commissioner campon um the vision for First
Presbyterian Church is to reflect and reveal the unselfish Love Of Christ and all that we do and we are going to do that for 140 more years and counting and we just want to want you to know that it is so important for us to be partners in the community partners with Eustace um
to share the love and care and nurture our fellow citizens and thank you for this recognition today and we welcome you all Saturday afternoon to our wonderful open house and tour from 2: to 4: thank you [Applause]
I'll all right well we've had sort of some really nice feel-good moments and things happening today at our board meeting as well as some really difficult issues um but um I appreciate your support on that I know it means a lot to the congregation um to
be able to recognize the church and then it is quite a milestone um okay moving on um to the clerk of courts consent agenda Mr Cooney good morning again I have two items on my consent agenda for your approval I I moved to approve and I'm glad to see
that um clerk of court is here today yes we welcome you we always love to have you in our meetings but Christy does a really great job when you're not here well she should thank you second all in favor say I I any post all right moving on then to
the county uh Clerk or the county uh consent agenda and we did pull tab six do we have any other items that need to be pulled seeing none I'll accept a motion move for approval minus 6 do we have a second second all right
all in favor say I I any post all right then coming back to tab six um we've got Senator Hayes here um just going to check to see whether I think
I'll just I'll turn the microphone over to you for your comments thank you madam chair good morning I have a question when y'all go home do you feel like you've been in a wrestling match with that sixlet word
growth um this is the second time now that I've been here and issue after issue after issue is growth sadly I don't I don't bring you any different issue it's growth this morning for me as well um but I am here this morning
simply to ask you please let us continue with this contract with the architect and construction management firm the supervisors of Elections office is in dire need of more space for administrative purposes and for warehouse purposes that need grows with
each new home home that's approved to be built I don't want to go through all the details of this ongoing saga but please allow us to get to the point where we have a guaranteed maximum price then we can deal with facts that we know how
much money we're talking about last year the board gave me authorization to bring to you a project not to exceed a guaranteed maximum price of $4 million I'm asking you today to allow me the time to complete that project
that's the completeness of what I'm asking for if for any reason I cannot provide that stated objective I'll sit down and be quiet the GMP will be a figure that we can all use to determine if we're going to be able to bring the project in at that figure or not that's
all I'm asking let me finish the job that you gave me last fall I'd like to make a few points if I may the need study that you paid $20,000 for showed that we need 50,000 Square ft facility to accommodate our current
needs and provide for the growth projected for the next 20 years the estimate for that without any bids was $24 million and the board at that time said No Deal then last fall as I mentioned the ask was for two metal
buildings for $14 million at that time you authorized me to take charge of all the preconstruction items and bring that project home I'm still in the process of doing that we discovered that that 40,000
square ft would provide only the room that we need now and leave no room for future growth that led to the proposal for the tilt wall construction and the $22 million price that you said no to the last time I was here your last action was say no to that price and now
I'm back to the $14 million 440,000 ft project we need that space as soon as it can be built again all I'm asking for it is time to get the bids in the architect needs four to six weeks to complete the drawings
then we need time to get it out into the field with the contractors and get that guaranteed maximum price I will also say that I'm it's my plan to bring to you a composite price guaranteed maximum and
then we can also split it so you can have the administrative building in one price and know whether we can do that or not as I said before the the cost of turning the present facility into a
warehouse is zero we can do that without costing the county any extra money but and so with that I would like to see you can not approve this termination of these contracts but let me go ahead and continue to do the job you asked me to
do last November or whenever it was all right thank you for that presentation and and your um a little bit different approach as if I'm hearing this right and that would be that if the
contract continued and the two metal buildings were design that you would bring in a price for them as two separate projects to for the board to consider whether the board would support
just doing one versus to at this time so that's a little different than what we've been asked before well correct yes I'm asking for both of them to be built at the same time for $14 million that's my goal but if I can't do that then my
offer is let's and y'all have mentioned unfortunately this is the third group of Commissioners that I've been dealing with on this thing and you two new Commissioners you you're you're new to the game so to speak um but the others uh have have been going through this
with me and all along I've been telling you that you can build the administrative Suites if you will the administrative building on the property down there if you're you know if you're not willing to do the both of them at the same time so I'm I'm open to
whatever we can do but we need space that's it we need space and we can do it in peace meal if you want to or we can do it all at once all right any com yeah I I I guess I got to say something I was on the selection
committee and I was here when this was first brought up I believe um Senator Hayes brought up that he um could build two buildings for $14 million guaranteed maximum price we agreed to that we said okay let's go ahead and move forward I
was on selection committee and every firm there heard me say the guaranteed maximum price was $14 million you come back with a price of $26 million no sir that's not correct it
was 22 am I Am I Dreaming or or is that what we just we turned down a couple weeks ago was $26 million no sir what you turned down a couple weeks ago was $22 million okay 22 sorry all right 14 22 26 30 but there's so anyway anyway
the guaranteed maximum price was $14 million for two buildings you came in at 22 million now you're saying you can come back in at 14 million I don't believe it I think what we need to do is just buy the building you're in
currently make it administrative and have you have a warehouse space somewhere off site and just be done with this thing let's stop kicking the can down the road let's stop wasting the money give you a uh an answer if you're staying where you are
you're going to have a warehouse somewhere else that's it that's where I stand Madam chair sure help me understand the financial wisdom in your proposal when you can
turn the existing facility into a warehouse for no cost at all and and yet you're telling me that you need to to spend several million to renovate that place to buy it renovate
it and you have inadequate parking there right now it's not going to work and you you got a completely occupied building are you going to ask my people to stay at work there while all the H jackhammers are going on in the Reconstruction of
it I think that is I think that's a very unwise Choice commissioner so I I I live right next to the supervisor of elections I I do not agree with with the inadequate parking all the time sure there's inadequate parking not all the time but it's during during early
voting uh I was able to park there just fine during early voting I was only there once so I'm just telling you my personal experience I drive up and down that road several times a day um I don't see a need
for big conference call centers when you can do that offsite I don't see a need for big training rooms when you can do that offsite you can do those trainings off site that happen once a year several times a week a year it's your business
you know it better than I do um so I'm sure and you're a smart guy you can figure this out I'm just saying we have spent a ton of money for no reason well actually we've spent a ton of money to vet this
to say maybe the supervisor of election is in in the proper place at this time and in 15 years we may have to move but we don't have to move right now and we could save that money now sir if you want to save money why don't you cancel the contract at Sears
that's costing you $46,000 a month you can save some real money if you terminate that contract um we are we are currently working on that that contract was um was brought up mainly because of you I had nothing to do with that
contract sir I want the record to reflect that completely all I'm asking for again Madam chair is permission to do what you agreed to do last fall I'll I'll bring you that guaranteed maximum price if
it's if it's more than 14 million then I as I said I'll sit down and be quiet I'll make a motion that we terminate the agreement second second all right we have a first and a
second do we have any further discussion not not me no and well my further discussion would be that I do like the idea of breaking it in half and the idea of a price for each separate building as a possibility because one of
those buildings could be what you just described commissioner Smith which would be a storage building I I do think that there a lot of folks that like the idea of where the location is now because it's right on the highway it's prominent and if you turn that into a storage
center the one thing I worry about you can have people going in there and there's not going to be an office there's going to be a sign on the door that says you got to now drive over to 19 in order to um do your paperwor or we
could very easily have it small office there with two or three people in it to take care of those of constituents as they come in and I and I appreciate what you're saying that you've already got Warehouse I mean you've that building already has the back entry points you already have
places that things can be stored and so your request was if you were going to stay in the building on the highway that you that could be warehousing right off the bat you don't have to do anything different um here's the thing we're we're trying to look at this
from the standpoint of how do we save money and make sure the service is still being provided um we also have the delicate situation of you being a constitutional office you're duy elected you have jobs that you have to perform and you have to provide to the people of
Lake County so but we're the money people technically the way it works the way the Florida Constitution works and so we're strictly looking at it from the standpoint of money and and the convenience to Residents and the fact that the is such an essential part of
our local government um we all come with our different opinions and how we would do it if we were running that office versus sitting here as a County Commission so I do think there has to be a certain amount of difference to you as the one that
runs the office and your preference is to use the building on 441 for the purpose of um if if you were to only get one building and you could have one building for storage and one building for um administrative your preference is
Administrative to be the new building um and the building on 441 to be your warehousing I'm fine with deferring to you on that decision I personally like the idea of breaking it into two buildings get a price for each one so that if we went forward with
one that we would only be in $ million compared to 14 or compared to 22 so from the money side it makes it makes sense to break it into two parts and we have to if even
under commissioner Smith's proposal we still have to find a warehousing location if we if it were to go the way that you want with keep administrative on the highway warehousing somewhere else either way you still have to have another building so why not go ahead and get the pricing for two separate
buildings with one of them being storage and it and then my argument would be at the end of the day let the supervisor decide would he would he rather have that as storage or would he rather have that as administrative because he's the one that's running the office so we have a motion on the table that's just the discussion that's where
I I would go with it um and that would be my proposal to the board just a quick question how so how much are we talking about then in additional fees to get to that point well you said they're four to six weeks out to be that's right comption and then You' got to meet with contractor to decide what your price
would be and knowing that it can't be over X amount but we would want two buildings out of it we wouldn't want it to be oh well it's you know we it it needs to be broken in to two be happy to break that down yeah I mean I guess and my question though it goes back to kind
of like the discussion we had last last meeting I mean if there's no desire on the board at least you know numbers wise to move forward then you know why would we why would we go forward with well my answer to that I mean I understand your point
you know I've been with you for years on this but well commissioner Parks the answer to that is number one the board doesn't have any hard figures to deal with all theyve dealt with so far has been estimates and the idea of comparing
this $14 million project with the 22 million dollar project is a totally bogus idea that's comparing an apple with a banana and and that dog won't hunt because the $22 million project price
tag was for a tilt wall concrete two-story building that was had a 15,000 ft uh footprint so it gives us 30,000 square ft and then 20,000 square foot metal
building for the warehouse which the need study showed excuse me instead of 50,000 matter of fact I brought to the board the need for 50,000 Square ft based on the homework that I had done myself and my staff the needs to study showed we need
48,4 so I was off by, 1600 square ft and I didn't charge anything for that and yet for 20 years that's right for to hold the growth for 20 years that's right but anyhow back to the current situation the you know really I think
you need to forget the $22 million that that ship has sailed it's gone down the tube and so you don't want to to pay that for tilt wall construction so now I'm back back to the same two metal buildings that I was before so why did
you bring us the $22 million building I mean and what I'm hearing now Alan is good question what I'm hearing now is that we want an administrative building quite frankly the sheriff who is our he's safety for the county he is busting at
the seams he need he needs ailing yes sir for safety I understand okay I think the perfect spot would be right down there on Lane Park Road for him to build that building and we welcome him as a neighbor not a neighbor I don't know if it's going to have enough room for both
y'all but he's going to free up 75,000 square feet when he moves and I'm not going in that 75,000 square feet commissioner and I'm not going to that is completely inappropriate as commissioner uh Campion stated I'm an elected constitutional officer of this
County just like y'all are and the the idea of putting my office in the space vacated by the sheriff's office is that dog won't hunt either I call a question all right so we have a motion and we have a second um all in favor um
on the motion which is to terminate the agreement to move forward with the final design on two separate metal buildings um all in favor say I I all right all opposed I moving on to public hearings um we have
a card on Tab 17 um I'm going to call on the County Attorney to um read the ordinance and title and then we'll have our um public speaker card right this will be an ordinance of the board of County commissioners of Lake County Florida repealing and replacing section
15-7 Lake County code entitled maximum rates for Towing Service and Storage increasing maximum towing rates providing for a complaint resolution process providing for inclusion in the code providing for severability providing for filing with Department of State providing for an effective date if you choose to approve this today it
become ordinance 2025-the of Statute which is why we brought this forward and the towing industry did request that we increase inrease rate since no increases had been um approved since 2018 okay all right um we do have a
speaker card we have Garrett pette Garrett packette 13819 Old Highway 50 Min old Florida owner of Car Store Towing Madam chair Commissioners staff and guests um in regards to tab 17 and the ordinance uh I think one of the keys is
not necessarily the increase but it's actually the dispute process and that is something is mandated by House Bill 179 that has gone through uh the Senate and passed and I think that we don't have that dispute process right now in this County and as a company that has been
operating in Lake County for over 30 years in Central Florida for 55 the dispute process is a very important thing because it keeps people honest and it does give the the constituents the opportunity to have that grievance process against those towers that are
not abiding by this ordinance and I just ask that you please accept this ordinance and approve it all right and you're saying that this ordinance does in fact include the language that yes you're concerned about thank you it does we've actually excuse me we've actually had two complaints already against
towing companies both of which were unfounded we're going to um continue to monor those and we'll let you know if those complaints rise and whether or not that's going to be an impact on the staff um being able to provide that particular service uh if it's possible if you'd be interested in putting a
board together U a community board you know maybe a couple Towers uh some you know staff members uh Commissioners you know other other people to also review these because um I'm a past president of the Sunshine State Towing Association a founding member of the pwf and the
Sunshine State Towing Association and it's very important that we continue the level of Towing and and the people that are in this industry and and keep it keep it keep it good and good to the the residents of the count of all counties not just this County but of this County
so it's very important so I think that the the the grievance process is very important so during the grievance process how how does it actually how does it actually work do we have our own committee or we do not Glenn can you
come up so right now code enforcement reviews the complaints and then they go back and forth with the towing company and the complaintants but I'll let him describe what he's doing good morning commissioner Glenn Guzman director of Code Enforcement so we have had a couple please state your name Glen Gman the
director of Code Enforcement you just didn't hear it he said it um so we have had a couple of complaints like uh County attorneys mentioned um and we have processed them and we're glad to see that they were not violations and the towing industry was
um acting in good practice and so um but what it allowed us to do is to realize that yeah we do need a more formal process um we're currently working on amending our website to include that process um that will allow people to
fill out a form allow us to track those Pro uh those Grievances and then that would go before the special magistrate so we'll bring those complaints um um to them okay so it would still fall under chapter eight so you do the initial
investigation and then it would go to special Master to make the ultimate decision did we not obtain compliance and yeah it would ultimately go to the special magistrate okay all right and then we can you know if we feel like we need to put other folks together um for input um but it
sounds like we've got a good process in place for getting to the bottom of whether if there's any anything that needs to be discussed in regards to that because I you know I'm kind of the point guy for most people in the towing industry in this County and I like to tell them that you know you need to have
a moral compass in all that you do and and and try to make sure that you abide within the rules that are set forth by County Commission law enforcement what have you and um if there is a problem with a towing company I'll give you my card I will rattle their cage because I don't tolerate that from Towers I just
don't and I appreciate you giving your contact information to M Mr man and we'll go from there and I think that's great because if you can self-govern self-regulate get people in line so it doesn't hurt the whole industry more
power to you we're a pretty tight group as far as Towers go throughout the state and the thing is is that we try to self-govern ourselves and typically in the towing industry if you give someone a hard enough time then everybody kind of discusses it and then you get a hard
time and that's how that works it's little little old school this is how we operate business so but that's us okay all right thank you thanks Glenn all right so we have uh any other public comment do we have someone online
yes yes we do have someone online Barbara Morris you should be able to unmute and say your name and your comments to the board Barbara you should be able to unmute your line maybe she accidentally put her hand up I think maybe she I'm sorry are you there
bar difficulty there um I had actually raised my hand during the prior prior one okay that was being heard um and I would ask public comment was not requested on the prior one and I'm concerned that
there might be one in the future that I want to speak on and it won't be called for so if you if you if we could possibly make sure public comment is called for on all of the uh issues being brought forward thank you okay I understand you want you want your hand
to be up to make sure that if it's something you need to weigh in on you've got that chance so we'll we'll try to be diligent to to always ask um any any other comments okay all right moving on so we did have public comments we had the the ordinance title read do we have a
motion move to approve second all right all in favor say I I any oppose Sor right that move that passes 40 and Mr satini had stepped out for bathroom break I believe um moving on then to uh the ordinance uh entitled open burning
regulations this will be an ordinance the board of County commissioners of Lake County Florida repealing and replacing chapter 10.5 article 3 Lake County code entitled open burning regulations revising the requirements for imposition of a burn ban and prohibiting open fires in Lake County during such ban providing for severability providing for inclusion in
the code providing for filing with Department of State and providing for an effective date if you choose to approve this today become ordinance um what would trigger a burn band per this ordinance um which is the drought level index and and that's when it reachs over reaches over 500 for a
period of time a burn band would be in put in place until it dropped back below the 500 okay all right commissioner Parks question is it possible for us um in certain areas to contact people individually about Burns that we know of
uh through the phone reverse are you talking about like right now with the smoke from yeah um so we try to share information if we have it when there's controlled Burns currently they're doing some controlled Burns in various areas of the state um which does cause smoke
um that people are seeing uh we try to make sure we get that information out um not to specific areas but we try to put it out countywide what about in areas where um you know somebody's clearing and they just do a burn they get the burn permit from forestry um what about
not not those kind of notifications um I don't know that we is David here no he's not here okay um I'm not sure if we get those notifications upfront typically what happens is we get a resident complaint about open burning and then once we investigate we find that they've
been permitted um and then we follow up with the resident to let them know that they are indeed permitted and allowed to do the burning um we don't necessarily get that initial information sent to us that a permit was issued yeah I know there's a lot um that could happen at certain particularly
certain times of year that might be I might be um helpful if we're able to find some way to put those notifications we can work with our Communications Department and fire rescue and see what we can put together I mean maybe it's just an educational video that we put out on social media to kind of let
because this is you know typical for this time of year that they do a lot of the controlled burning um but burn piles and things yeah it's exactly so let us work on it and see if we can put something together like a PSA would be good and but I'm thinking too that you can go on their website and see what
permits they've issued right so correct maybe part of what we're doing is saying if you you know sense that there's a problem go to this here's the link and you can look up to see whether permits have been issued um in as well as making people more aware of when there are in
fact burn bands but um we've they've been burning up in the um Okala national forest and um it's been quite quite Smoky but the key is people knowing that yes this is not now there was actually a fire too um but but
the more recent smoke issues that you've been seeing is related to control burning up in the forest and I think people are really glad to know that state of Florida is taking um forestry management seriously and in light of everything that's gone on in California
it's like it's it's good to know that they're on top of it and they're making this happen technology we have is there a way that we could contact the residents directly the uh we've got alert Lake reverse exactly like a you
know um we can look at that and and see what the thresholds are there there's pretty stringent guidelines of when you can use that alert Lake system let us look into it because that could be an option yeah I I just want to make sure that this um ordinance I want make sure that people understand that this
ordinance doesn't supersede the state's Authority for the national forces service to provide burn bands and it and it does not restrict uh backyard charcoal grills that's correct that is importantly that's very important your
Stakes are safe yeah move to approve wait a minute I didn't call for public comment do we have anybody online anyone in the audience all right we'll bring it back to the board um go ahead move to approve second all right all in favor say I iOS all right um moving on then to um
tab 19 okay this will be an ordinance the board of County commissioners of Lake County Florida amending section 2-101 Lake County code entitled Lake County Arts and Cultural advisory committee adjusting the name of the committee amending section 2-14 Lake County code entitled membership adjusting committee
membership providing for severability providing for inclusion the code providing for filing with Department of State providing for an effective date if you choose to approve this today it become ordinance 2025 5-7 1976 okay so we have um this ordinance is to um address the the name
and the membership correct and part of that is to remove the requirement that there be a county commissioner sitting on this board correct there would be no County Commissioner liaz onto this board so it would be staff Lea on and then
when staff feels that there are things happening that we specifically need to know about as opposed to what we do already which is to get information out through our website in different um different forums as far as events and
cultural things going on we're making that happen through staff um so that that's that's the purpose of of this ordinance all right if you have any questions public comment thank you public comment do we we have any public
comment anyone in the audience move approval second all right all in favor say I I I any opposed all right moving forward to the last um item on our public hearings um this is regarding trespass notices for public property
this will be an ordinance of the board of County commissioners of Lake County Florida amending section 2-4 Lake County code entitled trespass notices for public property in section 2-5 Lake County code entitled control of access to County owned controlled and leased property clarifying enforcement Authority revising the appeal process
providing for severability providing for inclusion in code providing for filing with Department of State and providing for an effective date choose to approve this to become ordinance 20258 these changes were requested by the tax collector's office and the Sheriff's Office okay all right do we have any
public comment we do have someone online yes Barbara Morris uh you should be able to unmute your line and state your name and your comments to the board hello again uh Barbera Morris Mount pth District 4 I just want to verify um having read this
ordinance that it does not apply to controlled areas like public parks uh we have a situation out here in Mount Plymouth where the county has fenced off one of our private public
parks and has placed a no trespassing sign on it so that the residents when you go to the gate entry way if you enter you're breaking the law so I just want to make sure that um this ordinance does not impact our public
parks and possibly to maybe address that no trespassing sign that is on the park in Mount Plymouth so this ordinance allows the county to trespass any individual um who violates the requirements of the
ordinance off of any property including public park property um the county as a land owner also has the right to close off any and all portions of publicly owned property as they deem necessary um the parks director would have to discuss
why you're the specific Park you're talking about has been fenced off and marked as no trespassing but the county has the right to do that separate from this ordinance even though it's a private park in our subdivision um what Mrs Morris what's
the name of the park that you're referencing so we can look into that it it's doesn't have a name it is a substantially large Park that was on 46 before the alterations to 46 was done
and it surrounds the old lake bed um it basically is a forested area that I've walked in and other people have walked in just to enjoy the the nature of it um when they did 46 they just threw up a
fence along 40 C 46 to prevent four-wheelers and threw up a sign for no trespassing so that the residents no longer can use the park okay I believe the parks uh and trails director has some information regarding that hi so uh
Angela Herold director of parks and trails for the record um that is the dry lake bed where we have uh ATV and four-wheeler issues we've had many complaints from the surrounding neighbors those signs are put up so that we can trespass those individuals you
can walk into that Park and and use the trails there that is so that we have back up to trespass individuals that are tearing up the property in there and we do yes ma'am is there any way that we can put signage on there it says Public Access is allowed other than ATVs and
all that kind of stuff or foot traffic or traffic yeah right we have signs that we can put up that say no motorized vehicles but we also can also alert them that is available for foot traffic yes and then if you have a motorized vehicle then you'll be trespassed if you don't
then you're okay yes sir okay good yeah just whatever the wording is just make it super clear and that it is perfectly fine to walk on that property yes um okay Barbara thank you for bringing this up and um for staying on this issue and
thank you Angela for taking it on and we'll get something put up okay all right do we have any other public comment all right we'll bring it back to the board um for a motion for
approval all right we have a first we have a second all in favor say I I any opposed all right moving then to tab 21 um this is request approval to appoint a member to the affordable housing advisory committee and um this is the
committee that commissioner Morris sits on and the request is for Brian Broadway move approval second all right under discussion I just want to point out that Brian Broadway is phenomenal phenomenal yes and I'm hoping in the
future um and if if if you haven't had an opportunity to to to visit with him and to see the good work that find feed and restore is doing in our community um I can't say enough about the amazing
work that they're doing to to help people who are what often you know I guess the the phrase that's used is is um those who are um working but they
can't afford housing so his his community his work um that he's able to do is is help people you know have a place a roof over their head at least a safe place for their family
as they work through his program um so that they then can um get to a place where they can be in traditional permanent housing and I don't know what we would do you know with without him and his organization and the people that
support the organization and um and I know Maria and her group they work with him um and they're just doing great work so he's an excellent member to have on the affordable housing committee so all right we have a first and second all in
favor say I I any oppose moving on to um the mount Plum sento community redevelopment advisory committee um asking um to reappoint Francis KN who is here with us today sitting in the audience
um this applicant is a qualified elector of Lake County and resides within the Mount Plymouth sento planning area and I am the liaison and I certainly recommend that reappointment do we have a motion move for approval second all in favor say I I I
any opposed all right thank you thank you Francis for your service um moving ahead then to reports County attorney County Manager uh yes I just would like to make everyone aware of office closures next Monday the 17th and
that is in observance of President's Day all right um commissioner sabatini I went to the Florida Greenways and trails conference the day parks there passionate about those things so um it was good learned a lot
obviously uh who's our guy that always goes down there Mike Stevens all those yeah a couple of them um one of our great staffers Quigley I think this is last name is there um yeah I'd like to just at the next meeting have a brief discussion on timeline of what's going
to happen with the the new funds we have and parks and trails and how much we can spend when when that happens because um you know I guess I was told half of the money we're going to bring in from the new amendment is going to go to Trails um or I guess maybe we pass some
previous ordinance directing that uh something like that so I mean we can do it now I just just curious I don't know enough about the parameters how that money is supposed to be spent when it's supposed to be spent Etc I think Melanie told me a little bit about um um it but I'd like to have a a much firmer
knowledge of the whole thing because obviously people in the community already chirping up kind of wondering what what our approach is going to be right doing everything we can to spend that money to prioritize the the good trails in different parts of the county um and then secondly well I guess I guess we any response to that I mean it
it go we can talk about more about later but it but it can be used for land that could be used for Trails it won't be used for trail construction right that was a distinction is you're not building Act ual trails with it but the rideway or the area needed or the areas needed
on the sides of the trails that kind of thing that there's opportunity um got it Park to follow up on commissioner sabatini I would like the commission to start looking about completion of
something we've got all of these things that we have just little pieces going along I think our next budget year we should look into what can we do to get something completed and move on to the next one because uh it it everything I'm
turning in when people call me it's you know you've had to deal with it five years ago 10 years ago 20 years ago we need to get some things completed so we can show progress are you talking about Trails I'm talking about Trails I'm talking about roads infrastructure the you know we need we need isolate
something that we can do and complete and part of the reason most of the reason why you do things in increments all about the money and when you can get the grant money how much you have to leverage to get the grant money sometimes it's ride away you can't get
the ride away you know it it was always a pet peeve of mine before I was on the County Commission was the sidewalks to Nowhere like just drove me crazy like okay I'm walking on the sidewalk and then all a sudden I guess I have to stop because there's no more sidewalk um and it it is it is irritating and
aggravating but then when you're on the money side of it and realize that sometimes you you piece it together so that one day it will be whole um but you know I I'm I'm all for um opportunities to um talk more about some of the
projects that are ongoing and and and actually delve into some of the you know the the gaps and why the gaps are there and how we're trying to fill those gaps and and like like the roundabout that commissioner Smith wants
well yeah and that roundabout probably would have been started already I mean literally already except for the fact when the bid came back and we had the money for the original bid amount and it was like I don't know Fred three4 million dollar more than what it was
supposed to be so we did have the money for what the original roundabout was going to cost but then based on new construction cost so I think they're back to design looking at can they redesign it in such a way are there any
bells and whistles and is there anything that can be taken out so that we can bring the cost down but it's like everything it all comes down to the money I I agree with commissioner Morris I think it's Fred's fault that we don't
have that roundabout yet well we don't have four laying on 466a either well to that point like I got I got it was a comment made at at recent city city council meeting why aren why don't why doesn't the County build all four lane roads they know the traffic is going to
be bad let's just do four lane roads at once and I'm I'm thinking okay because it's a lot of money to build four lane roads and then to maintain them as well until the traffic comes I mean we do a great job of getting the right away because that's the most expensive one of the most expensive Parts about building
a road but so I I understand the it's why isn't it done now but it all comes down to the money exactly yeah and I think in honest ly if you have specific projects and you want us to delve more into why is this this way then I think
that's that's like something that we could take on you know as a more specific okay this is I want to know why this is happening this way then we can get staff to bring back information and we can go over and that way when people ask you you'll be armed with the
information um and and again I I do think that half the battle is getting information out when people know and they're not just being irritated by the fact that they're assuming the worst but it's you know it's that vacuum and all of it gets filled on places like next
door and social media but if you can actually provide the information it helps tremendously I think when people know okay this is going to happen in two years or this hasn't happened yet because but it's in it's programmed you know to happen in the future so we have
like the Waka Trail um out in the serrento area where the um we've got a trail head at the park and then we've got the trail head at neighborhood lakes we've got a piece we've got part of it built but the next part we got a gap to
get to the other trail head and staff can tell you you know it's like it's a methodical you're waiting for DOT to give you a little bit more money for the rideway now we've got the ride away now we've waiting to get a little bit more from them to actually put the asphalt down and it's that's how you get that's
how you make it happen and get it done is the increments it's just frustrating and Bobby Bia he is the king of figuring out how to incrementally make progress and get things done but commissioner satini back to your report oh and if if
I could just ask staff one question so you know obviously is it next spring that we either appoint a board or start making decisions on on on allocating These funds is that next for the for the public lands uh so we just put the application on our website so
we're accept accepting applications we cannot get the bond until 2026 because that's when the current public lands referendum sunsets so we have about a year before we even can get the bond so in the next few months we're going to be
gathering applications we'll bring it to the board we'll do some vetting on the staff level we'll bring it to the board for the appointments to to this committee this this resident committee that will then make recommendations about purchases land purchases to this
board for consideration and ultimately approval and that committee also will be able to establish a process or criteria for how we're going to rank things how we're going to buy things that would ultimately be recommended to you for approval so it's always going to be Advisory Board it's an Advisory Board
correct final final purchasing decisions will be made by the BCC very important board can I comment on that the most important board we'll have I I think in the county so okay good good to know so and then finally yeah uh as you guys remember from my
comments last month um you know one of my focuses this first year is I want to make sure we're super fine-tuned on doing everything we can as a county in terms of um sharing the priority of the president and the governor in combating illegal immigration and so as you
probably know over the last 30 days the governor the president and the legislature have all been very uh involved in conversations about uh how that looks going forward and what and one of the major components to what the president the governor and the legislature saying is that the counties
and local governments have to play a part um at at various levels and so I'm not recommending anything yet but starting next month or two months from now after session or probably at the end of session of the state legislative session uh I think there's going to be some mandates for what we need to do and
I have no doubt that our constitutional officers in our Cy especially in this area of Florida are going to do everything they can to comply with the law that's not really my focus my focus is can we come up with a set of protocols or ideas or procedures that make us the model county in the state
for getting information to the appropriate authorities to help their enforcement methods and so um you know just wanted to throw that out there as sort of something to keep in your mind as we go through session at the end see what product we have and then what we can do to improve upon it because I I don't believe we're just here to be
dragged along for whatever state or federal lawmakers uh consent to I think we should actually be trying to become a model for what that looks like I know that was very abstract but uh we'll find out more about what we're supposed to be doing and how we can improve upon it next month that that's all I have thank
you all right yeah and I'd like to reserve comment on that till we find out exactly what you come up with oh yeah definitely okay commissioner Parks all right um yeah so I have a bit of a lengthy report um I'll start with some of the um some of the events first and
then the report on the uh Claremont meeting that we had ear earlier um so the Historical Society um appreciate being the leaz on the Historical Society so I want they wanted me and I wanted to announce that on February 22nd uh there will be an event um that
they're holding uh Dr Daniel Sylvester Florida African-American folklore historian at 2 pm at the Lake County Historical Museum um and that is uh sponsored by them so that is an event that's open to everyone at 2m on February 22nd went to
the the dedic this past week at the uh in grov Wind um of the oak tree Union colored Cemetery of Taylorville um want to give uh I know shout out congratulations to grovin fire chief Kevin Carroll the city of grovin
and of course Pastor Tony mcoy who was here earlier doing the invocation uh for all the efforts that they put into that they did give a shout out to um commissioner satini so they they appreciated your support they gave you a shout out there for that as well and and the commission too so I I um I thought
it was incredible event they had the Florida Army National Guard come in and formally dedicate uh Soldier the burial resting spot of soldiers that served us this country in World War I uh as well I thought that was very uh touching and hearing some of the stories as well so
it's open you can go out there now it's amazing it was uh totally overgrown you really couldn't even get through there but now it's just the be the beautiful beautiful place that I don't know it's just you got to go see it and the Community came together to do that and put it all together uh and make it look
so nice so um also went recently uh to the flid association County's Innovation Summit uh commissioner sabatini also went to that want to thank our staff that did an Incredible video in a short notice uh Jennifer thank you to your staff Lavar everybody that uh addressed
AI that was the Hot Topic is AI and use of AI and how it could change uh for us in the county and of course making sure that whatever we do with AI that um trusted and verified first and that it fits into the mission of what we're trying to do as a county that was
expressed this video Kathleen did a wonderful job Lavar Eric I think was was on the video too um that was played to all the counties all 67 counties so we're sort of uh like it or not now a leader in addressing Ai and um that was
Eric and Lavar sort of um preview preview video I guess to I know they have some ideas about what we can do for AI and Jennifer has asked him to do that um so I'm really excited this year to see how that plays out rowing I want to thank commissioner
Smith you went to a City of Claremont Workshop recently as our chair for TDC thank you very much for your comments um a lot of history there I think you did a great job um I want to give a shout out of course R to R Ryan and our staff Ryan
Richie Jennifer Kathleen who's been involved with this a little bit as well about uh going back and understanding the history and you know the rowing The Boat House facility came up as an issue in Claremont and we do have involvement because it tdt dollars years ago were
provided for that facility and so there was a uh which is okay to look at vision and where we stand with things I think that's good to do from time to time any good business does that um and so they're taking a look at that but I think Ryan and um commissioner Smith you did a great job at that meeting we're
there the important message is is that we're still there to the city of Claremont to offer our uh support our expertise you know Ryan has going out um this commissioner Smith knows this to try to recruit events uh that will
benefit us all in Lake County TDC events um that the county staff helps on a larger level that maybe locally the City of Claremont can't do by themselves good things happen when you ask people for help is kind of the lesson here and I think that's what I
hope is going to happen I just they put the contract on hold with the Lake County rowing Association the city the city did they're looking at that is that that's correct uh commissioner Smith at the me yeah um so they put that on hold I think uh that's okay but um I
I think uh the rowing Association is uh done wonderful things for Lake County they have certainly fulfilled their dichotomous the dichotomy of what the boat house does they've certainly fulfilled their part and that was the community part you don't ask the Lake County an association and volunteer
parents to go out and nationally Market the L the usra and large events that's where the county and the City come in and working with regional Partners so the rowing Association in my opinion has done their part and she say I think we need to get back if we're looking at where we go as a county and the city
with um and Claremont with rowing and all paddle Sports by the way it's I I'm focusing in on rowing but it's all paddle Sports canoe kayak even sailing could be a part of that as well um where we go with that and uh um we can help we can help make that um we can
help further that Vision so thank you for that commissioner Smith All right so uh lastly with the uh in regards to the workshop um that was held on January 21st um we did make the presentation to uh the City of Claremont um regarding
Wellness way we did also touch on the end of that meeting uh on the mstu as well the issue that had come up that was was from about 6:30 to 9:30 that evening so I do appreciate staff uh Meg is here Kathleen uh Lavar uh Jennifer of course
was sitting right by my side they actually presented most of the presentation uh it was very uh very informa it was very important to go back and give a lot of history to back to why we're here where we're at and with this with this the um situation with what
happened to Citrus in the late late late 1980s and the moving away way the transition from that industry uh into uh trying to not become another bedroom community to Orlando uh so you did a great job
um again the the focus on the historical aspect um from the what happened in the freezes after the freezes and I'm I'm trying to summarize this and we can give you the presentation where we went through all this in detail but I think what's important to remember
is that entitlements were provided I I say this every chance I get because sometimes it's oh what are you doing just approving more houses well these were land owners at the time that had entitlements that came along after the freezes so the die is sort of already
cast when it comes to that the next question of course is what do we do as Leaders to try to promote the right kind of growth pattern we wanted job centers on the map not the pattern of development which was making us a bedroom community to Orlando as I mentioned before and that was what was
happening in South Lake we wanted something different we wanted high quality walkable so high quality walkable conservation minded neighborhoods not the same old same old and we wanted fiscally sustainable
development I think what's important to point out about Wellness Way and this will this will get to a question that was asked during the meeting it's not like the rest of Lake County we have we have come up as a rural County but recently in the last 10
years that has changed we like it or not have very urbanized areas in the county proximity to Orlando so things that we think of and we try to work with and we policies that are in place often sometimes we're still in the mindset that Lake county is r and there's very
large parts of Lake County that our Rule and boy I'm committed as ever to make sure that we keep them rule by the way but what became apparent during the meeting and during public comments was that there was some uncertainty um again coming out of about Wellness Way from the city council members some not
all and I think uh you know the some questions about the planning process and some of what you've already brought up about um job centers and you know where the jobs um we heard I heard one city council member ask why the county was even doing urban planning sort of implying we shouldn't have planned well
inness way or it should have been made into another city that was a idea that had come up as well that it should just become its own city um primarily because the County doesn't do urban planning and typically I agree with you a a county does not do urban planning and again going back to that work mindset we've
been a rural County since our founding um but the reality is is we have to do urban planning um so you know I was not able to answer that question we we were not able to answer those questions in the public hearing so I'm kind of why I'm answering that question now why should we do urban
planning um and also the mayor expressed uh frustration that you know where the jobs and the job center wasn't happening any reference Ford sea Commerce Park um so the The Wellness Way question about why we're doing planning why we're doing planning there is because it wasn't
being done pretty pretty simple nobody in South Lake was doing it other cities were doing it there was a mindset to avoid growth and I get it I wanted it to be that way too but it wasn't being done in South Lake South Lake County period um if we hadn't done it with those
entitlements that I referenced we would be somewhere between 20 to 25,000 homes uh that would have all been done sort of in peace meal fashion 100 acres here 80 acres over there kind of flying underneath the radar Claremont wasn't planning at that time at that
time we see what happens with the growth patterns in places like four corners and that is why we do Wellness Way so that's the answer to that because we're trying to do something different with that pattern so the answer to that was was pretty obvious to me why at this point we are doing urban planning
especially when you have Horizon's West which is urbanized Orange County right on the border now regarding the question about the jobs because I know that that has come up as well and specifically look at the Fort SE Commerce Park so I respectfully disagree with that analogy um it isn't a good comparison
Ford SE Commerce Park um actually had a slow start how many years ago was that put in place over 20 yeah yeah so longer than that um I mean for a long time it didn't wasn't doing anything um or very hardly anything um I mean if they'd gotten
pretty impatient with it back then imagine what could have happened um so you know 20 25 years 30 years or more now um and that area became a success because of of uh as you know the infrastructure 1927 and the Turnpike being there and so it started out with
Logistics um warehousing uh not a lot of jobs actually with that so there wasn't a big housing demand to be located right next to the for Commerce Park because it's Logistics and warehousing and storage and trucks coming in and out at times so when we started marketing for C
Commerce Park and the county took the lead on that that's when krog grata came in working with grow1 to will give them credit um and tell us steel and some of these companies that are high wage employers so now that's finally happening after all this period of time
um so those that'll that will come in Wellness Way um we have a toll road that's under construction now Wellness Way Boulevard that's under construction or we're working on that and uh that will be key to the success that infrastructure that's in place um to
encourage the job centers that are on the map as well so during the workshop there was some talk about um Wellness Way in its own city um I'm not making its own City I guess they would go ask legislators to do that I'm not in favor of that I don't think that that would be a necessary extra additional layer of
government and Taxation that would be in place um there was also um some conversations about whether to a DNX actually DNX out of uh Wellness wake the city of kerm um you know I enjoyed being being a partner and I hope that they
will be um and I understand if there's not a stomach for that and some of these tough questions that we're trying to wrestle with today these are this is tough what we're doing it's not easy if they don't have the stomach for it and they want to DNX it's not really going to hurt the county in my opinion I don't know if legal and if our staff
thinks differently but it doesn't hurt us and uh if that's what they want to do then I I I guess that's okay and we'll move on um you know I think there's a governance model that could be set up if that were to happen with the citizens Advisory Board in a few years that could be set up um to advise made up of
businesses and residents to advise um if they de anex completely have some representation there so regarding the mstu there was some public comment comments regarding opposition um or at least some people asking questions or having serious concerns about it um so
some said they were not notified or didn't know of the MS2 absolutely still want to be sensitive to this uh and would want to make sure that we're triple checked it and triple sure that everybody was notified or that they had some kind of notification at least we know that sometimes when you have
notification sometimes you can only do so much whether you know people look at or see at it or or sort of pay attention to it but but we certainly want to be fair so I I get that um I think in some of the neighborhoods and research that I've done it already turns out that notifications uh closing documents were
provided on the mstu so I checked that um Wellness Wellness uh Ridge was one of those um now maybe Builders like lar uh which is that one Builder maybe they should have done a better job at that I I understand that and I think that's
where in the future potentially the website will help whether the builders do it Builders often times just want to sell the home so they'll almost could tell you anything but I think the website sorry not you um big Builders uh that they'll they'll they'll do that and
uh um so I think that that could help in the future so all that being said um and believe it or not I'm actually I actually shorten my conversation for you commissioner Smith on Wellness way because we'll come back to it with the presentation later but to to the issue
about the mstu um this is what what I would propose uh um hearing the concerns and moving forward is um first of all uh change the ordinance that we've we've talked about that uh before change the ordinance the mstu ordinance which
should be noted that the City of Claremont actually wanted this ordinance the language in this ordinance so I would propose we change it to make it more clear I know Mr fasi has valid concerns about making it more clear on the uh the use of the money the use of
the funds so our attorney has already crafted that language so I think we should just uh go right into ask asking the city because it has to start there as I'm as I understand that's correct because they've opted in they need to accept those changes before we can make them on
our side right okay so I think we should do that and and I'm I mean I to the end we should do that we need to change that and make it more clear no doubt about that um I would also and Jennifer this might be where You' want to put the graphic up the um that I want to propose
this so the next part of this uh and being sensitive uh to the concerns uh heard I would propose we change the uh payment period this would provide a relief uh to the current um mstu rate so
uh we wanted to do I think we approved which by the way these are approved in July every year they're not it's not something we do now um this so we'd have to make this vote in July during the process is that correct that's correct all right yeah so instead of doing the five-year growth base growth scenario
which is what we voted on um which is the 0 917 mill rate I would propose this the 10-year so you you would uh back that off there would be relief it would go to 0442 uh over 10 years um so you get an
immediate uh relief on that um now that will extend the payout period so there'll be longer there'll be more use of gas uh either gas tax or uh general fund revenues uh for that upfront but um that is uh I think a good scenario here
a good compromise that addresses those concerns as well um again the use of the MS2 to be clear because there's a lot of discussion about this it it does not go to resurface roads I I'm not sure why that keeps getting out there that's the gas
tax we're not making people that everybody that's using those roads pay for it this is for long-term maintenance of the lighting uh and and of the landscaping again this is not an urb we don't normally do this as chairman looted to
earlier grass swes and Bea grass on a rural road or semi-rural or outside of the city is perfectly fine with me in fact that's what I would want this is a different scenario we're in an urban environment we're trying to uh promote
jobs we're trying to promotee all the aspects that people had asked us for in better development we're trying to steer development by the way towards this area instead of further out and Grove wind and further out in the green swamp so we're we're I think we're trying to do
everything that people have asked us to do over the last 10 or 12 years and uh this is this is a tool this is a part of that otherwise uh to pay for the lighting to pay for that maintenance it's it's not a Capital cost thing um developers pay for
the roads uh the impact fees and the road funding fee which I will'll touch on in the presentation and Dr Richard Levy can explain that as well you should each meet individually if you have not with him on that as well it's very complicated but it
works that's what funds that Capital side this is maintenance otherwise you don't have that then you start straying away from what we have always talked about with Wellness way it's very similar very analogous to The Villages everybody loves the beauty of the
villages um the county roads through the villages uh as you know the Sumter County pays that with their gas tax for the resurfacing but the additional amenities that's paid through by the the residents and the businesses of The Villages correct so this is no different
than that um I think it's fiscal responsibility at the same time I understand the concerns but I you know I don't want we're doing this we're trying to attract jobs or trying to create a better uh Community I don't want my friends in you matilla paying for um for
something that is is primarily benefiting the direct benefit is all on these four three major roads by the way it's not all the other roads it's just the three roads that are defined in the ordinance um for wellness
way so um that's my proposal I don't think I've missed anything Jennifer you and I have talked about this at length but we we would not do this I don't think we could vote on this now per se but I think we what we would say is you know this is an
understanding to move forward for July um to to to go this um to go this route so I mean I I just want to hear your comments on it I'd like to see like the overall budget and the on a map the three
roads and the overall budget and look at the number numbers based on buildout including the commercial buildout um so I can better understand like maybe we have different levels of service that you start out
with that increase as you get more contributors so you give more relief now and then as more people come on board level service goes up and now you have more people to spread that same number among yeah um and I'd be open to that
too and I think that's a good question question um you know this in explaining how this will go down I guess in theory goes down the more development comes that Dev it it does in all all three of the scenarios it does come down as there's more development um basically
the 51 and 15 year was how much subsidy and for how long would the other funding sources at the County pay until the other other properties were no longer vacant vacant properties and the property values went up so um but we can
certainly I'm hearing that the board wants to have another presentation on the Wellness Way and the mstu we're happy to do that so what we can do is is give you over the next 15 years 20 years it was part of the mstu calculation process with the with the consultant you
know this is where we think the growth is coming and when and this is how much we think the maintenance is going to be at that point and so here's where the millage is and we can go through all of it again we're happy to do that and and it has to go down because we this is not
the general fund you you can't just keep the rate the same and collect more and more money on stuff that's not in the budget and go to some other expense so this will go down I mean there's not correct well with the schedule um through 2040 is right there it's just
whichever scenario so the board you know originally approved the 9. 917 I mean as early as this July we could go down to the 0442 the 0249 then that's just based on the current schedule so yeah to play Devil's
Advocate as a taxpayer whenever your taxes ever gone down you know I mean it's that's when you look at your tax paying you go yeah yeah yeah they say they're going to go down it's no you we we got to like work these numbers and
make sure that this is not a scenario where we say it's going to go down and it doesn't or let's just go ahead and set it at the rate that it needs to be to be sustainable at some point in time when you actually have enough people on board
it doesn't seem fair fair to me when you have a small number of people on board and they're picking up the tab they're I mean they're essentially subsidizing it for everybody else and then one day there'll be more people chipping in I it's just I think we got to really get
in the Weeds on this one and and I also think that there's a theory you know everybody says well we shouldn't be and some other in the county paying for this enhanced service but if the commercial
properties are developed as job creation centers and they're commercial um and this all materializes the way that it was envisioned and these are the partials that are used by lead and economic development to bring businesses into
Lake County I could argue that that enhancement of all those commercial users benefits everybody totally and you could justify having some locations
where you're doing some additional Landscaping Maintenance because you're also bringing in a lot more money from those areas because you've brought businesses to those areas so so this is the reason the exact reason why I say it should be a separate
presentation we're at the end of the meeting um people aren't expecting this conversation to happen so I think we need to make this we need to publicize it so that people
in wen's way understand that this conversation is going to happen and then they can have an opportunity to weigh in not have this discussion I mean we talked for 15 or 20 minutes a lot of a lot of good information a lot of good
thoughtful information toward the end of a meeting when most of the people in Wellness Way don't even know we're having it so that's the exact reason why I say we needed to have this as a presentation so everybody is aware of what's going to happen and I think we
need to move forward um with that presentation stop the conversation here so we can have all that thoughtful conversation as it comes up yeah and and I'm I'm I think that that's great i' I've actually been an
advocate at for having more meetings on this I've talked Wellness Way with you all day but just to be clear we did have the workshop at Claremont with people to attend it so it's not like we're not correct but but all of us were part I know I know so we'll have we'll have
another one here now as far as the the the rate goes I mean again we're staying within the budget so you know if it if we're spending more on than what's allowable in the order then we we are very wrong you're right we would be way out of bounds on that but I think we can
we can talk about that uh I mean obviously we're going to talk about it more so um I wanted I had at some point I had to present this that's why I'm doing it now um that this is what I would favor um you know moving forward like this I think it's a it's a good
compromise um and you know there's some things that have to be done to attract businesses by the way upfront and the businesses are coming I know that social media might be out there and has an opinion that it's all houses and then we're not saving land that are set aside
for commercial we are we are and there is commercial that's that's coming there's projects that are being presented and unless some other commission changes the Mind changes their mind and wants to build all homes I mean then that could happen but I
wouldn't do that so I I and all these pieces go together to try to it to make that a reality so there's it's not easy to talk about nobody like I don't I wish we didn't have to do this I wish there were no taxes but what's our current
rate what's the current rate again 0917 so yeah I I think we made some progress here so do we want to schedule this for like a more detailed conversation next month yeah I think that's what we're going to do right you want to do it at the board at the board meeting or do you want to do it as a
workshop meeting I mean I I like the workshop set here yeah okay yeah I mean I like a workshop but I mean it could be wherever yeah we do it post meeting or before the meeting I'm I'm good after the meeting yeah okay because I if we chose the same day that way you know we we know we don't have we we've done that
before we've had workshops after yeah we could do that let's let's make it down the road where we can notice everybody and then do we have the legal Authority currently to adjust the rate or we have to wait till July July it's set for the tax year already okay so now you have some notice too trim trim notices yeah
and just um think through you know the concerns we had people were working couldn't log into the meeting that kind of thing um if the meeting is um I mean they can go online and watch it again and then they're not flipping through we can like keep it separate so it's really
easy to get to people can just watch that part of the meeting um I think that would help a lot I've got a good idea why don't we give the video to All the home builders down there that they can give to their
potential buyers well that would be a great idea and we used to have good meetings with all the builders the city cut those off um which I think where we would we would talk about those kinds of issues but we'll we'll um we'll that's another topic but
yeah and I do want to look closer at like the one Ridge View um I want to I wanted to understand more about what notice people had and if there's any other way that the county can back that up in the future on other on new
projects to assure notices are effectively getting to buyers so Madam chairman I pulled the ridge viw PUD there's no requirement in there that they notify future buyers of a Wellness Way mstu the only requirement of any
notification that PUD is that they have buyers sign an acknowledgement that they are buying property next to an active sand mine but at that time nothing was contemplated about the Wellness Way mstu I'll also tell you that I don't believe that that language is in any other of
our puds in that jurisdiction what we started doing I think two or three years ago is putting language in those puds notifying um potential buyers that they would be subject potentially to a internal subdivision Road mstu for maintenance but nothing on the Wellness
Way um bigger standard um I have already suggested to the planning department that we look at putting that in all future ordinances and Wellness Way way um but keep in mind too that we adopted that ordinance to establish the Wellness Way mstu in
2022 it would show and it did show on all of the tax bills for that area in 23 as a zero millage so future buyers or potential buyers that were doing their homework and looking at their tax bill should have seen the line item and should have seen that it was Zero
millage and at that point they could have questioned what is this why am what's the charge going to be is there going to be a future charge so it's been on the tax bills for all of those properties since 23 would there be any buyers that came before that
though absolutely so the Wellness Way mstu ordinance that you adopted in 2022 was advertised in accordance with law it was a display ad in the Daily Commercial which is a countywide newspaper um there was the hearing was held in December I
believe of 22 as a a public hearing so it was advertised in accordance with law now individual notices were not sent to to every single property owner down there because we typically do not do that with any of our ordinances whether or not they have Financial impacts or otherwise we just advertise in the
newspaper so for any existing PE I mean we have puds that are not undeveloped correct do we have any approved puds down there that are undeveloped yeah I'd have to defer to Kathleen I'm assuming there are puds that are approved that are not built out yet I'm just wondering
though whether you can administratively not notice a zoning meeting you have a zoning meeting you make an amendment to those puds and you add that language and if the people you know if the developer that's involved doesn't want it I mean why wouldn't they want it
why wouldn't they want that I you can do that if you want to bring back a county initiated rezoning for every single PUD that's down there you do have to individually notice every property owner in that PUD um you have to bring it to the planning board and to the County Commission
um another option that I can explore with the staff is whether or not the county has the ability to record a notice that would attach to all of those legal descriptions that would get picked up in a a you know a title search now do people really read everything that
they're given at a closing probably not should they yes um but that would be another option that we could look at is just going ahead and recording some type of blanket notice that would get picked up in those title searches yeah like it well this Ridge they had there was there was a notice on
their closing statements and some of the some of the builders may have done that voluntarily I'd have to go back and look at that specific ordinance but I just know from generally dealing with all of the ordinances and reviewing them over the last couple years I don't recall any specific ordinance that said they had to
notice about the Wellness Way mstu okay well let's get some closing statements from Wellness r or from Wellness Ridge if you have residents that will give those to us then we can certainly look at them but it's not something that's public record that I would be
able to access right right Mr has one I'll bring uh I I know I've seen yours um from from Wellness Ridge I'm talking about Ridge View I've seen the your three properties I've seen yours okay no can't yeah I mean the no get
recorded can't get picked up so we can't do that no I know I know um but we can I think the question is with Ridge View is the big question I agree with that that I don't know but okay we're going to work on scheduling when when we're going to be able to do this and as part of that
let's have um hopefully some discussion on things that we might be able to do to make sure that is if this stays intact as more people come on board that we know for a fact that there's something recorded in the public records that if they're doing any
amount of due diligence they're gonna they're going to find we'll we'll do that we'll include that as the presentation we'll get that scheduled hopefully within the next month if calendars work out if not the very next month okay and just to clarify that Workshop is going to be here in the
chambers correct okay okay all right thank you any more commissioner marks um no that's it all right commissioner Smith am I doing my I no okay we still
have so um speaking when we have this Workshop I'd like to have the current head count that's in the mstu boundary and then the um what it could be in the mstu
boundary all right so I um asked her Library grand opening that was great it was absolutely fun phal um if you haven't been to the asra library I would implore you to actually take a trip out to Aster and see the
library it's absolutely fantastic um and I know you're probably going to talk a little bit more about that um I had a meeting with a company called Park View that's going to be coming up later I will not make a long discussion on that today um I spoke at the
Legacy um Club in lesburg about what's going on in Lake County um The Claremont uh boat uh Workshop boat house um I just wanted to
say that uh yes the TDC is working on some some opportunities to get uh the usra here for Nationals and Regional
events however I noticed that the uh um some of the people on the Claremont commission um are thinking about the return on investment via money um well The Boat House was built there's more there's more to return on
investment in my mind when you have uh an organization a nonprofit organization like um the boat house has to where they invest in the community and they invest in the small in the in the kids and they
teach them uh teamwork and they teach them responsibility uh they've sent several kids off to college so there's more to in my mind there's more to uh return on invest just in monetary views there's also the social aspect and I think that
the boat house is doing a a great job on that whatever Claremont The Boat House come up with it's not our deal I'm just saying that the TDC is is going to continue uh to
um look at ways to get the usra here in Lake County because that's a great economic driver for Lake County and that's what the TDC is about and I think Ryan's doing a fantastic job at that
endeavor so that's it with that was also um at The Innovation the sunshine Sports Innovation think tank that Ryan was part of bringing down here to um Claremont to discuss Economic Development
opportunities I went to the UCF incubator program in eustus community building with commissioner Morris fantastic um it was a great program thank you for being there by the
way uh I met with Lake County Museum of Arts that's going to come up later I'm going to have another presentation on that so I want discuss that here at the end of this meeting uh but that'll be another um presentation that I'm going to be
requesting to come up and um as of right now that's up okay okay um I also want to reiterate um how pleased I was with the opening of the
aster library and appreciate everybody that was able to be there um a big thank you to library services and George and his team also Communications for doing an excellent job and parks and trails as always came
through um with the nice upgrades to the surrounding Park area and being able to Stage having things opened for people in the in the area that wanted to still use the park while all that construction was still going on and the fact that we actually got another basketball court
that was really cool too so um um love the dog park just everything about it it's just perfect um and I know the community was getting anxious to get their programs back online and now they are back online and so that's great um
so um that that was a real just a excellent event and and the fact that you know I I think back to the meeting when we were talking about even doing this and being able to do it and then Maria and her group tapping into um funds that could also make this a
reality so it was it was really a team effort and I think the community is proud of it and they appreciate the attention um you know the focus on their area um along those lines of Aster I want to bring up that there will be um the last meeting I believe it's going to
be the last public meeting the fish and wildlife um Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission is holding on February 20th at the Astro community center this is the last opportunity um to um discuss and that for the um closure of the silverglen um
Springs area for boat moing um looking at Justin let me know if I say something wrong here but I think I've got it correct at this point um so you know they're looking at restricting any moing in the Springs
area silver Glenn and a lot of people are upset about that a lot of people feel that um it's not fair um to disallow the public to do that on the other hand there's the other argument that the Moorings are and anchoring are harming the environment
harming the Springs um people are going in there and they they basically will camp for night after night weeks so that therein lies the issue um in addition to disturbing the the the
under you know water aspects and um so you've got that part of it you've got the over overnight camping and then you've got the old old structures um the old vehicles that just stay and I don't know if you've seen this in other parts of Florida in bays and harbors and so
forth you know where people it's it's almost like it oh they just leave it there yeah and they might not have good facilities they may not um have good measures intact to make sure that they're not polluting the water in the springs
so it it's a legitimate issue to be looking at how can we do this in a way where we are being fair and allowing people to enjoy the natural resources of our state um while not destroying um what you know we are supposed to be
stewards of so um to that in Maran County and fucha County are taking an active role in expressing their displeasure um that this could be closed and offering up ideas on how we could do this in such a way as we still protect the Springs ideas are that you actually
have some permanent more ing structures so like you see like in the keys you go out to the reef and you tie your boat up to it and then you're not anchoring and and tearing up underneath the water so that's one idea and that's what the other two Counties have promoted as well
as requiring inspections and uh assuring that the structures that are going in there um actually have they're up to what code requires um the vehicles are of an age um they actually you know they're not they're not polluting the
water um so that's one that's another idea another idea that I've heard is um actually having a permit if you're going to stay overnight so that you actually have a limitation on who's there and how long they're there just like you would in a campground um so um we've got some
suggestions I think at the next meeting I'm bringing back a proposed letter that we would write and possibly a resolution we would adopt and it would be in conjunction with Maran and valua so that we're all on the same page asking for the same thing this will ultimately be decided by the state um but I just
wanted to get any feedback from you all and how how you feel do you think that these are reasonable type things that could be done so that we can still have the Springs open but that we're protecting them at the same time yeah I I would say that um first of
all No One MS inside the spring head itself the spring head is roped off and it's moing outside the spring um I'm okay with with the with the permit because you have to have a permit to go to like Alexander Springs so I'm
okay with that but I I certainly would hate to see it shut down to all boat traffic it's a beautiful place I'm an avid boater and I go up there quite a bit and it it does need to be
managed um I I think the idea of having the the structures there that you could tie up to would be the best uh we do it in the keys uh you you might have three boats on one morning but you know and it's going to hold the traffic down a little bit uh the overnighters have
always been an issue there and uh that needs to be addressed and I I don't know if the permit would do it or not but it it needs to be addressed so I agree okay well my plan is to bring back to the board um some specifics based on what
volution Mar and are asking for yeah um and then we'll work together with them and see if we can get fish and wildlife to hear us out on this and I'll plan to go to that meeting on the 20th I think Justin's going to go with me and um and I was going to ask um trusty hendrik as
well to go and we were going to also go up there and take a look at things so we can have seen everything firsthand and um and then the next thing I wanted to bring up is we had someone today comment on the remember when I threw out the idea of exploring the charter idea if we
could just limit it to the idea of of um um growth management and annexation management so that the county and the city are working together um I'm reading commissioner Smith's body language right now
um but this is what residents are asking for everybody I mean I'm getting requests from people I would never thought in a million years would be saying what are we going to do about the growth this is getting out of control can we put a pause on it while
infrastructure has a chance to catch up and we all know the idea of in infrastructure catching up me it's a double-edged sword we use impact fee money to leverage dollars to be able to do projects um that's one side of it second side is the legal side of it you can only put a pause for so long unless
you're actually looking for a way a plan and you're pursuing a solution um I think 6 months is the rule in Florida and you go past that you have to show that you're actually working on something specific that's going to address what your issue is otherwise
you're going to be in uh a Bert Harris suit um and you're going to potentially be shutting down opportunities for good positive um economic activity in your county so it this gets very very tricky and yet these are people that I'm
hearing from that I never thought in a million years would be saying what can we do to get a handle on on growth man management and often it comes back to I point out that most of the growth is annexations most of the growth is cities
growing um Can is there a possibility um for for cities to look at annexations differently and is that opportunity a County City relationship where we're actually looking at the infrastructure
before new properties are annexed to make sure that we have a way to get the infrastructure in place or coming online um so I I don't know what the process is I know it's like 18 months by law that you have to study the
charter question so what would we do next to set up the charter commission and give them could we give them the parameters of what we're what we're asking them to do or is it just open-ended if you appoint a commission
to look at Charter right so the last time you brought this issue up what we had um contemplated doing was setting a workshop and bringing in some folks that could talk to you about Charter counties and what you could and couldn't do and I believe we are still working on scheduling that so I think you need to
have a a bigger broader discussion on it with the folks that either have Charter counties or have helped to set them up so that they can give you those insights okay all right does that sound all right so we'll move towards a workshop and we move towards a date it's just that it takes 18 months if we were to go in that direction to even get to a point where
you'd have something on the ballot for residents to vote on in the meantime I don't know what else to do other than to ask um our friends at the cities to consider the fact that they don't have to Annex property just because they receive an annexation application it's
not a requirement it's a legislative action and they don't have to say yes right to every single annexation application they get so I I find it interesting that I just received this yesterday as a projection of the growth in Lake County for 2030 for
2030 the low is 423,000 500 and the highest 533,000 people here in Lake County in five years and right now we're sitting at uh 414 yeah that's a lot
more my concern is that we're going to have 14 municipalities that aren't going to be happy so I want to make sure that if we're going to have this discussion that they are included in it oh absolutely the cities have to be part of the discussion but the reality
is the cities are people and you're talking about City officials yes absolutely the city officials need to be involved in discussion but it is the people of Lake County and the residents of Lake County that I really feel like
we need to be taking into consideration the sentiments that people have that it's either that we're not against growth but we need infrastructure to catch up how how do we make that happen I don't I don't know the answers to these questions I'm just
putting it out there that I hear from a lot of people I'm I understand we have property rights issues at play you know reality is when you have growth you usually have economic activity and that's positive and you're trying to bring High wage jobs in but if it's all
rooftops rooftops everywhere and people feel like that's not what I want Lake County to be we've got to have some delineation between the rural areas and the urbanized areas and the infrastructure needs to catch up how
do we make that happen and and I don't know if you all are not hearing that but I'm hearing it over and over again what people that live in our cities and people that live in the unincorporated area are feeling is that it is
happening way too fast and we're not able to keep up with the infrastructure needs and and just just so you know you may already know this is um we have these transition areas right we go from
one: one to 1 to five to 1 to 10 well as soon as the city annexes in they can blow that out and not even pay attention to it and that's the problem I've got so they don't they don't recognize the transitional areas into the rural zones
um I'm all for property rights I'm all for building uh but I'm do all for also doing it the right way and and I think that's one of the reasons why we have a legislative priority right now um that if a city comes along and takes up both sides of the rideway of a County Road
they need to take over the road absolutely and they need to quit blaming it on the county I mean the other ones getting the the other ones getting the funding to fix the roads but then they're blaming the county oh it's the county road well no you own all the land on both sides so commissioner Smith but I also worry
about the the County resident that lives at the end of that road right and they there still has to be a level of service that the city if the city then takes over that road that they have to maintain I mean if we can even get so far as they have a responsibility and we get legislative help that way but we you
know we can't have them take over and then they just say h well well I've got I've got County roads in my district that is nothing but City residences all over there's no County residence on the county road so it should be a city road that's what I'm talking about or or you
get a piece of the millage you know if it doesn't go to the city of responsibility a piece of the millage from those those cities would come in to help fund um those those County Roads
um we tried a couple years ago and we went to our legislative delegation we had we had legislation drafted our legis delegation was working on it um and commissioner I mean commissioner Morris
may remember from the private sector side um we were asking for a special act by our legislative delegation that would say rural protection areas if they're annexed by a city they can only be
upzoned if there's an interlocal agreement with the county otherwise the city has to um adhere to those lower density requirements and it was moving ahead everybody seemed to like it and then
boom it was just killed and didn't happen and I know I know the private sector got involved and you know put their two cents in that it was too restrictive but we had the interlocal agreement part in there so that if there was a time when you needed to make that
change at least we would be doing it together um so we could res cor that and ask our legislative delegation if they would consider taking that back up as a special act so at least our rural protection areas and our rural transition areas I mean I would throw in
the rural transition areas being upheld that would be like your Thrill Hill area you've got some rural transition there and then you have rural protection and if eustus keeps annexing that direction all of that is going to be high
density can I add to the conversation here um yeah I would welcome any conversation about what we can do better for uh growth Management in the county um been embroiled in it for 10 years especially in South Lake County um I
think pay attention to the obviously the joint planning agreements with teeth and strength to that more strength in their in a governance model I guess is better way to say that would work in this case so getting jpas with all the cities
especially having them agree to adhere to the countywide conservation strategy which to a a question commissioner sabatini had earlier the countywide conservation strategy should be the steering document The Guiding document for the land acquisition but among other
things it does other things as well like uh you know could be could be tdrs it could be uh better development gree between the city and the county to do a a higher standard of development also how do you address and stay out of rural areas and if you do
then maybe you mitigate the impact to developing within a rural area somehow fully mitigate it not just from a road standpoint but from a conservation standpoint as well starting to look into the the value of that as well it's so complicated and whenever you have these
jpa meetings it's like they have no teeth at the end of the day unless a city is willing to sign a jpa that says I will adhere to the County's land use designation and D densities or I will not Annex into these areas that's the
part of the geographic part of it as well and have we ever accomplished that well I we haven't yet but we're hoping to that's that's one of the only ways it's going to work I'm disheartened and disillusioned at this point I feel like all of that sounds great but in reality it just is
impossible the only way to get it done is either the residence Lake County say this is how we want it to be and we get that momentum going or we get the legislative delegation to say we're willing to do a special act that says we're going to honor the county
densities in the unincorporated areas and the only way to deviate would be a County City intergovernmental agreement so that all of these things that we you know are talking about you actually put it in agreement and you deal with it there and it could be one of those is
the way what has to be done yeah okay all right so we beat that one pretty good um and then the last thing I wanted to bring up it was added to the agenda and this has to do with the mid Florida materials um landfill that is owned by hubard construction our hubard I think
is the way the companies actually referred to um we went out go one thing about anation okay so I'll be quick no go as long as you want this is important just that um you know
obviously that's the the stronger legal approach is you know do we look at a chart do we look look at you know a local Bill a legislative Bill etc etc and and and those are you know stronger legalistic approaches one thing I think that would make sense and I think would
be uh pretty high Firepower for very little push like the effect would be very strong it wouldn't take that much is you know we get these emails that say Hey annexation notification annexation notification this city Lady Lake USIS these cities are getting ready to Annex
and we see those but then that's sort of it you know it's like we see it and like I guess in in our individual capacity we could reach out and be like hey we we think that's a bad one or maybe that's a good annexation for some reason I almost think that we should just make it a like a practice where if we see those they're
automatically put on the agenda for a brief discussion pen a letter send the letter to both the city and also residents and say you know we as the County Commission think you know this annexation is okay or this is bad just understand that cuz they're going to get
the legal the legal technical instructions of what this indexation means we could put it in a much more verbose Manner and just pen a letter send it both to the constituents of that area or the city as a whole it's really not that expensive I've done a lot of lot of mail um you know political mail
but yeah this is quas high you know pretty similar that says hey this is happening you know we're the count we don't have the legal authority to weigh in on this but you know we believe this and you know this is good or this is bad or whatever and I don't think it's takes a lot of time I think it's just you take
that email that we get that says here's the notifications you kind of put it on the agenda and then we look and look and look and then just very briefly or you know Land Development team can be like yeah this is going to you know quintuple the amount of density yeah like you look okay so you see where it's at if it's infill and it's no higher density than
the density we have then that's like the no-brainer that's like infill is good same density it's not but if it increases the density or there are infrastructure issues those could be highlighted as our concerns and then do we have enough time
though from the time that we get those notices to actually get that here and I know that staff is stretched thin we would really need somebody that is able to look at each one of these compare it to our comp plan compare it to our ldrs
look at the roads talk to Public Works and get that information back to us which is really what needs to be happening but it is a it's a lot of it's a lot of like labor yeah no I definitely don't want to like you know suck up all the time staff's time with that but I
almost think that if it's just at least listed you know that same email is put on as a discussion and we take a look and you know maybe we don't send a letter in every case but just some of them are a bit egregious they end up in the newspaper anyways but I feel like you know we could are I think our
weighing in on it would rise the um sort of public uh sentiment to a very quick degree and and even with some of the officials let's be honest some of the City commissioners on there you know staff said hey we're going to push this annexation I'm going to be completely blunt a lot of times the people on the
city commission don't even know what's going on I've seen in real time they're just like okay I know there's like annexation they don't understand the density rules they don't have you know indepth conversations with the step so they're just like voting for maybe if they saw this outside voice from the county that's like you know I don't
think this is good for the county as a whole they would think differently about it just just an idea and I think yeah I think you're to something I think it is worthy uh of the time it's just you're going to need a staff person that is spending the time necessary to
give us that information so because otherwise I mean we get these things and we're getting bombarded with stuff all the time to take the time for us to actually look at it and come to a conclusion that would require us to pick up the phone get a hold of someone at
Public Works tell me what the road situation is there are issues get on the phone talk to you know Mike or somebody in Planning and Zoning can you help me decipher what this or you know Melanie's got her plate full and you know we're
asking her can you take a look and tell us whether this is consistent with our comp plan and this is it's uh it's a big undertaking have one staff person that's doing this giving us that information and then I like the idea of Outreach I
mean I like the idea of a letter to the city if we think it's a bad one and and I do like the idea of letting residents in that surrounding area no the County Commission sent this letter to the city of whatever um expressing our
concerns I think that Steph I I bring it up uh because I think in some ways it's a it's a softer and and more um just a less aggressive approach than going immediately to the more strict
legal route which of course is either a um um Charter County huge lift and then of course a legislated LED local bill which seems like a local bill but as you indicated earlier immediately indicate you know implicates a bunch of other special interests and then all of a sudden it quietly they were were local
special interest though so exactly if I'm if I'm not mistaken didn't we just have a situation where the Water Authority said don't build this development the county said don't build this development Claremont built the
development the development flooded we got blamed wait are we we're talking about the one that was done in the 70s no yeah that's Emerald Lakes I mean you had the water authority and the county say don't build it
Claremont built it it flooded and then we the County Commission got blamed for it makes of course yeah our warnings were historic they were you know pretty early on um yeah no it's still it's still it was a different mindset at that point in time in that point of History
if you think about that was like the 70s or so when that was first done people are way more engaged and looking at growth issues much closer and I think
um yeah I mean I where you could run concurrently the we'll have the workshop on the charter thing I mean I I know it it is at least it elevates all of this to the point of we're at critical mass you know based on those projections it's only going to get worse is there a way
to do this better um I think we could sort of do both of you know be looking at that Charter side of it because that is the hammer um I just don't want it to be you know the genie gets out of the bottle and then it actually does more harm to Lake County because it turns us
you know into a higher taxation County and all that we don't want that so we really have to we have to really be careful with that um that's all I have thank you but I think you're I think that's might the be the best approach right now as far as
getting the residents more involved in yeah giving input to the cities and then having the county weigh in and then we've we've done what we can do based on the law as it is now yeah and I it certainly wouldn't indicate that staff needs to do like a like a seven page Bill analysis on on every one of these
annexations here's every legal impli just sort of like hey this this is likely this is likely going to uh increase uh you know density to a to a certain amount that's it just sort of a very quick and then we can do our own homework individually so what I can do I'll work with um Jennifer and the
planning staff to see if we can add a new tab that would be annexation notification or something like that um we do typically have a pretty short turnaround I think we get those notices 10 maybe 15 days before the hearings sometimes we can get staff reports from the cities with more information
sometimes we can't but we will see what we can pull together a lot of times Public Works has already sort of been involved with the city in the project so we would have um some information from them but we will look at doing that you want to shoot for March end of March beginning of April April we'll shoot for
April to start having that on your agenda and by then we'll be able to kind of pull together maybe a a standard staff report one two-page staff report yeah just I think level the density is being proposed versus the density that is in the county and then any obvious
Public Works issues yeah and if the city refuses to uh give us any information just put that in there the city refuses to give us information okay good all right so back to Mid Florida material so um Madam chairman I'm sorry to interrupt before we do that just a reminder we had a
closed session scheduled for 11 o' okay we do have the court reporter here do you want to finish your discussion and then wrap up with the Clos session or do you want to stop and switch over to the closed session um because we can go back into session after you can go we have to go back into session anyways okay so
right yeah because I I do I need to tell you about this because there is an Ask involved and it's it's hitting a really important stage of this whole thing can I make one suggestion next meeting can I go first can we go 5 4 3 2 1 he hasn't gone
yet you're going to go you're going to be going um next next I'm good so so if the board's okay with that we do need about a five minute break to allow the court reporter to set up we'll come back in session I have my little standard blurb I need to read on
the record then we will shut everything down close off the chambers have the Clos session and then come back and you can finish the meeting okay um and we're gonna if you don't mind Nikki or whoever's doing it let's just make the order of report start at uhhuh so that it's it has
nothing to do with number of our district but it actually goes this way till we we in here and then then go back the other and then we go back to commissioner Smith for our closing um day yes okay all right so we have a game plan we're going to close for five
we're gonna we're going to take recess for five minutes then we'll clear out we're going to then have well we we'll come back in session we'll come back in session and then we'll do our um close session then we'll reconvene just so for members of the public that are here we will come back into session briefly but
the closed session we will shut off all recording equipment and everybody will have to leave the room um for that that will probably take 30 minutes to an hour depending on the discussion and then the board meeting will resume after that yes and just to be clear the Clos session is
a specific litigation matter and we're not allowed to speak about anything at that closed session except for that specific litigation matter just in case someone is listening to our meeting right now and thinks we're going to and they think that we're going to close the meeting and we're going to talk about whatever we want we we can only talk
about the one thing that is on our um Clos session and that that particular litigation matter involves the pace funding right okay all right we'll take a five minute break recording stopped for