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e e e commit commers 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
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e e e testing testing e e e of so I think it'll be done before the meeting but it's going very slow so I'm
a little concerned is that 27% oh no it's only my fault I just I yeah that's okay what's what's done is done we just gota canel this or cause
more problems you don't want that yeah your computer May restart a few times yes that's okay well good to know we got we got some time still yeah yeah that's
fine yes I mean we obviously do our recording I have a laptop but I don't it wouldn't record the audio EX it's up to 30% that's a good sign started minutes
ago for slow the 60 so that's good for e least it's not too cold in here I saw David the other day and he was all bundled up in his coat Freez oh
no oh no oh that's rough our office like ago it Wass don't Corner they put them all in our
office in our service was 59 for like a week straight it was very uncomfortable just really notable y we're safe sure works okay yeah
Commissioners this meeting is being yeah still thinking about it for for for we are recording it's got the camera it's got this is the board of County Commissioners regular meeting on
February 25th 2025 in board Chambers tares Florida e e e e e e e
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recording in progress good morning everyone and welcome to the Lake County Board of County Commissioners meeting February 25th 2025 and we're going to open our meeting today with an invocation given by Pastor Chase Allen of the First Baptist Church
of ellaa and then we'll all remain standing and Chase will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance well good morning as always thank you for allowing me to be here to represent First Baptist Church of you matilla and most importantly Jesus so let's pray father we thank you so much for this morning and for the chance we
have to come together today for this meeting and so Lord we thank you so much for uh the Great County of Lake County for all it stands for and represents God I pray that you would continue to be ever present in this County that you would be in the midst of the conversations that happen today the business that takes place today Lord and
that all the things that we do would honor and glorify you we love you thank you it's in Jesus name we pray amen amen I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for which it stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you guys so much thank you appreciate you being here moving on then to our agenda update uh Jennifer Barker County Manager do we have any changes or amendments yes good morning Madam chair one change today we
added tab 32 as an addendum to the agenda since the agenda was first published Okay so we've got and that's the only change okay um moving along then to minutes approval um
Christine main is is here on behalf Gary Cooney and the clerk of courts um and we have our minutes from December 17th um we recommend approval all right thank you do we have a motion Mo for approval second all in favor say I I I
any opposed that passes unanimously moving on then to qu citizen uh question and comment period um this is part of our meeting um when the public can discuss items that are on today's agenda with the exception of any
zoning items anyone who's joined our meeting through zoom using their phone may press star9 to virtually raise their hands anyone participating through Zoom online please click the raise 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 your time is up um I'm going to first call on the speakers um and the speaker cards that we have here in the board Chambers and then I'll ask Eric Ross um whether we have anyone online who wishes to
speak okay all right so public comment um we've got actually all of these are on tabs and when we get to the consent agenda we actually have a request on item four so we'll pull that off of
consent But Eric do we have anyone online all right we don't um so we're moving ahead then to the Clerk of Court's consent agenda Christie again Christine Malay with the Lake County clerk's office we recommend approval of the consent agenda items one and two we
motion move approval second all in favor say I I any opposed all right that passes moving on then two proclamations um we have a proclamation I need a motion on that um this is
designating March 18th 2025 is transit driver appreciation day so moved second all in favor say I I I any opposed okay then moving to our um consent we have um Cindy Newton has
asked that we pull tab four so do we have any other items that Commissioners are wishing to pull off of consent I'd like to have tab 11 and tab 12 pulled okay um any other items all right so we would need a motion for approval of consent less Tab
4 11 and 12 move for approval tabs 3 to 22 - 4 - 11 minus 12 second commissioner Smith seconded all in favor say I I any oppos post okay now we'll take them in order Tab four and we'll um hear um from
Cindy Newton who has um comments on Tab four Cindy are you ready to come up and speak good morning Sydney Newton District 4 I stand you before you today with a heavy heart to object to the
proposed release of deed for the conservation easement this easement is held in per perpetuity it's a promise made to the citizens of this County a promise to protect our natural environment preserve open space and ensure a long-term well-being of our
community we're here because we're being asked to make a choice a choice that will impact our shared future this choice is not about whether or not we want a better Road Network or more efficient commute it's about trust honoring commitments and the foundation
upon which our community is built let us not forget the recent history of a previous conservation easement vacated due to an unnoticed improper paperwork a developer was then permitted to destroy a tree hammock and now we're presented with a request to break another promise
the argument presented is that a Road expansion uh necessitates the partial release of this easement it sends a message that convenience expedience see and perceive needs of the moment Trump are long-term commitments to
conservation the citizens of this County REM recently demonstrated our overwhelming support for land acquisition through a referendum uh we recognize the value of protection natural resources investing in our Collective future but what does the
message of this proposal send to the citizens it Whispers The Very fears that were voiced by the opposition to the referendum that the Comm commment to perpetuity is in reality conditional and subject to the whims of developers and
the demands of infrastructure projects it will not matter how this particular easement came into conservation and the in Intimate domain is why it's being released or even that it represents a small portion of a conservation easement
it will just be remembered as a b betrayal of trust I want I'd like to know if all alternative Solutions been considered and also um for this road project has the
four corner San mine um dvo environmental report been considered um I'd like to see the county demonstrate that we we keep our word and affirm our commitment to the principles of conference
conservation thank you for your time would you like a copy of the doo report is it does that report specifically refer to the easement no it refers to the
um why the land is in conservation because of the open space requirement for four quter sand mine and also speaks to the uh water flow from south of the project up around where the roads going through which as I recall that report
was taken into consideration when the actual sand mine application was reviewed and modifications were made to what was requested in order to accommodate and recognize acknowledge what dvo had put in that report um but I am interested in finding out more
specifically about the emen if we could have staff or if there's a commissioner that wants to weigh in but I thought maybe we could defer to staff first and get some additional information on the record yeah the the way I understand this easement is due to the new 516 coming in yes that's correct so the
original easement was a conservation eement from 2019 covering approximately 22 Acres related to the sand mine um cfx has filed a petition in imminent domain naming the county because we are a third party beneficiary cfx is asking that the
county release 1.54 One Acres which will run along um the the span of the new road that they're putting in if we do not approve this today we can certainly fight it in court but ultimately I do believe that cfx will win it is an imminent domain action it's not just a
voluntary release by the county and of of this one point how many acres uh 1.54 one and it stretches how long I don't have the length but it's whatever the length is of the road right so we're
talking um maybe 25 ft in width along a distance of the roadway that sounds about right yes so it was essentially one of those things it was a tradeoff on it was it was it was part of the negotiation on the application itself
and I'm just wondering can we is the land itself was it for open space or was it actually sensitive from a hydrological standpoint is this not something that cfx would have to also take into account if it was sensitive in
from an environmental standpoint I'm just thinking that this was more of you do a calculation we need x amount of open space can we pick up the open space somewhere else but if it is in fact environmentally sensitive I would think it would be important to weigh in with cfx to say hey you need to design the
road in such a way that if this is environmentally sensitive but I my basic recollection was was an open space calculation and that we're not talking about um something that is going to
impact the hydrology yeah exactly um it's it's it's been uh fully mitigated I mean the impacts cfx of course would be subject to all the state rules when it comes to Wetland mitigation so any any mitigation cfx I can I can attest to is
has done what was asked or probably even more with that and I do think that that was just a stretch uh but just the portion as commissioner Smith had indicated it's not the entire area it's just that that linear portion along the road there so it ends up being about 20.5
Acres of conservation easement versus 22 Acres total and I appreciate your comments Cindy but I think it's important that when we make Arguments abouted for open space for the project right but when we're
making arguments about environmental impacts I think it's really important to like hone in on the details as opposed to okay it was a promise easements contracts promises in general right that's what they're about but there are
circumstances that change and you adapt to them and again I I I think it's really important the cfx is doing what they need to do to make sure that they're not creating a negative environmental impact
but this one doesn't sound to me like it's a scenario where we're changing the underground hydrology we're were impacting protected species you know this is like a Road's being built and
some things need to be shifted around and at the time that this was put in place they didn't know exactly where that road was going to go now we know exactly where the road's going to go and you got to adapt and it's just so I don't want to sound insensitive but I think you got to kind
of choose your battles so that when you make an argument that we're doing some horrible thing by releasing a portion of an ment that's probably going to be extinguished as a result of an imminent domain case anyway that we're really not doing some really terrible thing we're doing something that's very practical
and we're taking we're making sure that the agency that's building the road is is doing this in a way that protects the environment sir yeah and I was going to I was just going to say we just happened to have a um a person that's very well in tune
with the with the four corners and environmental issues happen to be on the board is the cfx well thank you yes and I'm sure that you paid attention to all this while you were going through this I thank you and I was just about to say you know cfx was
instrumental and the 40 40 to 45 plus acres of the wildlife Corridor right in that corner near the um near the state park on on 27 there the opposite side of course uh and is working um quite frankly on on additional lands uh for
dedication to the wildlife Corridor so um that's where I had kind of indicated earlier I I'm very proud of the cfx efforts to make this is a very uh sustainable or conservation mined Road as I say often as everybody here hears
me say regularly um they've done a done a great job going above and beyond that so but thank you for your comments appreciate them do we have a motion on Tab four you want me to I'll make a motion to
approve Tab four thank you second all right uh any further discussion all in favor say I I any opposed okay moving on then to tab 11 yeah I and this is just basically for
um our County attorney um this application is for uh open vendor um requirements and I just want to make sure that if we approve this this would still allow a land owner to
have a permanent use for open vender that's correct they would just need to come in and um file a site plan to get commercial approvals so this is just for the uh people who just pull off the side of the road and sell stuff correct the openair vendor code is intended to be a
temporary use and unfortunately some vendors are using it as a permanent way to um sell their materials and just SOA public knows it doesn't have any effect on a landowner that wants to have a permanent use for open air vendors that's correct okay make a motion to
approve is there a second second okay I want to call for a discussion because I wanted this to be pulled anyway um my concern is that we have a full understanding of what the site plan requirements would require um I hate to see us create a super
burdensome situation like do they have to be bathrooms does it have to be public bathrooms I mean I don't want to lose and I'm going to just put it out on the table I don't want to lose the boiled peanut vendors because they've got to put a bathroom in
place in order to have a you know to to sell their boiled peanuts and site plan review can be expensive you got to hire an engineer you got to get it designed you got to submit it you got to go through all the process and then you got to do whatever the improvements are that you got to make in order to adhere so
I'm not sure that two months is is is the way to go for an open air vendor without then requiring them to be permanent if they're going to do more than two months and maybe two months maybe you all think two months is enough because football season boiled
peanuts you know that can we just do carve out for peanuts it seems to me like people going through the beach a lot here both cajan and the normal variety the way they do it on 44 um hes Creek is they're they're there two days a
week so it adds up to how would that work with what we're being we're proposing because I think we've got it as consecutive we we also have to remember the people who have brick and mortar stores that pay the taxes and the water bills and utility
bills so you're saying I need to go to Circle K to get my bolded peanuts no I'm I'm saying I'm saying that that this ordinance fits well unless somebody wants to have a permanent space and that allows them to do that as
well yeah so I have a question so is it to confirm though is it consecutive or the weekend person how how's this it is currently written that when you come in and ask for an openair vendor permit it is issued for a 30-day period the
discussion with staff about doing smaller increments unfortunately is a huge administrative issue because if you only do weekends now you've got to have staff out there on weekends to make sure that they're you know only there Saturday and Sunday and they're not there Friday night or Monday morning so
that was why it came down to a discussion of if we do 30-day increments you can be there for 30 days straight you can leave your vehicle there you can put your signs up whatever the case may be and then you can do that twice per year and if you wanted to do it more than twice per year you would come in and get commercial approvals because
this should only be happening on commercial property anyway was the issue that mainly about the the um shoulders of our roads getting destroyed by cars pulling in and out that you know these various locations
could we address this by requiring a commercial um apron so so this ordinance would require a commercial apron um so that is one of the things that that staff has raised the concern about is the constant cars on and off the road are destroying the the shoulders of the
road um I don't see Glenn here here I know there were some code enforcement issues I believe there was a vendor down in might have been commissioner Parks District that was causing severe traffic issues because of where they were located on a corner so it's been a variety of issues um with this
particular code provision I mean some locations certainly are safer than others and some I could see creating a traffic problem and other others wouldn't um I don't know if there's a way to sort of trigger that kind of review VI if there's a
complaint about um you know traffic concerns but I my my um preference would be that we take the least intrusive measures to try to correct what are the problems right now
and then revisit it if it continues to be a problem and then maybe there could be some criteria for a further review if there have been accidents or there have observed conditions that are creating problems for
traffic that's I mean I know this we're we're we have a motion we have a second this would be approval to move forward and advertise so there's still opportunity for for change so you couldn't move forward but we would probably if we make if if
we Melanie if we reduce the restrictions it wouldn't hold up the ultimate adoption hearing would it or would we need to read advertise if we change it significantly if if you reduce the restrictions you don't have to read advertise if you decide to go more restrictive or make major changes I
would recommend read advertising okay so um yes further discussion well question so question about that um so I want to make sure we get this right uh for the sake of good boiled peanuts um but if we do make a a
change uh to maybe going back and looking at the weekend and I know that you have concerns about the time is that going to we going to have to read advertise that a significant change what I would suggest we do at this point is just go ahead and table it and maybe we'll bring it back and workshop it and then you guys can throw out whatever
ideas you want versus trying to do a pieace meal and continuing to come back and and make changes to it so I think it's a good idea all right so I I I suggest that if we're going to table this thing then we can deny my my motion
in a second and I'll I'll I'll make a motion to table it okay all right so all in favor of the motion say I no no did we get a second to his no no he made a motion to no we need to make a I've already got a motion in a second to approve so there needs to
be a denial vote and then I'll make a motion to right so I'm going to call for the vote and based on our discussion just now I think we're going to get no one saying I and everyone saying aose so all in favor say I any opposed say I I okay it failed going to say I the
approval but I know it's counterintuitive okay so we make a motion that we table this item for further discussion we have a second second all in favor say I I any opposed okay so this item is tabled and we'll bring it back for further discuss about
it sure we'll Workshop it later but I'm totally fine I think it actually I I don't see any issue with just being specific about the type of goods that we should be exempting I think it literally we said you could sell hot boiled peanuts like I think that would be a better way to write the law because
honestly we're going to be able to keep those guys there but then get rid of a lot of the other types of bizarre flea market type stuff you get sometimes in in these these areas like the bigger food trucks is what you're referring to yeah something like that so you still need to monit to what's going on on the shoulders though that's I I think that's
what created this was they're destroying the shoulders up going on well those are good comments that we can take forward as we have further discussion about it thank you okay all right moving then to it um um 12 this is uh commissioner Smith I
wanted this discussed uh yes this here is a request to purchase a pumper out of station 13 for 1.12 million dollar I Chief and I think maybe what I would like to request is just to be tabled for
more information and when I go through this I think that you'll un understand what I'm talking about um afternoon David kilbury public safety director so uh I know that we've had some conversation on
this uh my thought process is as we know the fire service is changing and we need to start thinking outside the box of of what we can do um when a when a pumper starts to get to
end of life it doesn't necessarily automatically mean we need to buy another pumper for 1.2 million uh dollars my my thought process is maybe uh what if we purchase a quick attack truck and have because when we
call for a structure fire um two or three Pumpers show up anyway so if we have the first initial response maybe it's just a dumpster fire and you don't need a a a full pper apparatus with all of it but there may be an opportunity
for like a quick attack truck that has everything on there that you need uh scvas jaws of life all all your stuff you need ladders and 500 gallon tank or 1,000 gallon tank um that would be
significantly less money uh but still have the same effect because from the data I'm seeing so far and I'm and the reason why I'd like for to table this is I'd like to have more data uh a couple things one is the data
on the actual calls um I'm thinking the actual calls out of a fire service 90% of that is medical 10% of that is a fire engine however of those 10% probably 10%
of that is actually needing a pumper so we need to get get that information Quantified and I know that there is a um question about the iso rating U so if we and the and the requirements of keeping an eye the iso
rating where it is so maybe we can have our pumper that we're going to retire keep it in a standby status and keep the maintenance up on it it would be less maintenance because it's not run as much and use the quick
attack truck for all the other calls and that's the reason why I I brought this up I just think we need a tablet for more information and chief I'd be more than happy to hear your thoughts on this yeah I think that's a great idea we can meet with you commissioner and go over the requirements and things like that I
have some concerns and I think when we meet and go over some of those things you'd understand clearly the need for it yeah and I wouldn't mind hearing a little bit more about that what your what your thoughts are on the need because um I know you know what you described is 90% of the calls are
medical 10% are fire 10% of those need a pumper truck the problem is when you need the pumper truck you need the pumper truck so and if it affects the iso rating that's huge because that is the only place two places where we really interface with the public one is when they need the services to when they
get their insurance bill sure those two times so if we're messing around with ISO rating that's a problem that could be a problem so I just I wouldn't mind hearing a little bit more or maybe we can have one-on-one meetings and then bring it back after yeah that's the reason why I want to table it and that's the reason why the the option was to
keep the the initial pumper at the station but not have it run continuously to where you need to have it replaced every five years uh because it wouldn't mess with your ISO rating as long as it doesn't cost a fortune and the fact not running it very much that's the reason
why you keep that M that's the reason why you keep that full pumper there in service but you mainly run your quick attack truck at all your cost well the other thing is it looks like we're going to pay 1.1 million up front and there's got to be a way to negotiate paying quarterly or yearly or or something and
right and when people have a bond maybe that's the way they do it but you know and and of course this is for a Pierce and I know that E1 makes them and and I don't know if there was a bid process on it or not but um yeah there was I'm sure
there's the bid process and and this one point this $1.2 million even though if we purchased purchased the vehicle today it' be three years before it becomes in service so uh timelines are also thing
that we need to to look at uh when we have this brought back up if it's allowed to bring back up um that's why I would like to have this Ted and I can ask more questions y'all can ask questions and the chief can
bring back a solid answer with all the facts that that we're asking and Commissioners I'm happy to set up one one-on-one meetings with uh with each of you and um Chief kilbury and Tommy carer and myself and make sure that you get all of your questions answered if you
choose to table it today okay all right will you want to table it do we have a motion to table it I make a motion to table tab uh 12 do we have a second second all right all in favor to table
say I I okay um it passes and we'll table it and hopefully have those conversations quickly so that this could come back up one way or the other and we're making a hopefully this conversation happen this week okay this week I think that's a good goal to shoot
for all right thank you Chief thank you Chief okay um now moving on to before we Chief and thank you and your staff for getting the information I've received so far I know they worked hard it's just I needed a little more so don't let them
it's very well received and thank you very much for that I appreciate that and a thanks to Larry Martin in the gis he uh was instrumental in the quick turn on that so thank you very much thank you all right sorry chairman okay presentations uh tab
23 uh Kathleen dial good morning for the record Kathleen dial Executive Director development services today we have Neil Hamilton vice president of research and strategy with the Orlando economic partnership here to present the 2025
lake Lake County Economic forecast which will cover national state Regional and Lake County specific indicators for 2025 so I will turn over to Neil for the presentation well good morning and and thank you I appreciate the return invite
having been here last year uh it's also it's nice nice I have two have three boys two in soccer so it's nice to be in Lake County and not be at the National Training complex in Claremont so today my you know my job today is to cut
through the noise there's a lot of noise in the economy right now my job is to bring that down to Lake County level say okay what does it actually mean for Lake County so I should I be pointing Us in another Direction there we go so I am I'm going
to spend the bulk of my time on the Lake County detail which I think is where the real value is but we do need to recognize that the county is part of the region as part of the state it's part of the nation so it all Cas is down and by when I talk about region is for the new Commissioners talking about the the
federal federally designated Metropolitan C area which includes Lake orange Oola and seal County um so start off on the National
Outlook oops again 2024 by all all accounts really robust solid year I remember being here last year you know inflation was raging uh uncertainly was creeping up because when it was an election year uh and there was a lot of
uncertainty in the market turned out 2024 was almost as good as 2023 in GDP terms I think we're we're shoot we finalized at 2.8% GDP growth nationally the previous year was 2.9% and that was that was all in the consumer the
consumer continued to spend Against All Odds you see that second chart uh consumer spending actually went up through the year and surpassed 2023 levels the reason was largely because the labor market remained robust
resiliant people were not scared about their jobs they were not concerned they were going to lose their jobs so they kept on spending um again all the count nationally a great year we then move into this current year 2025 and we do
have some headwinds I think you know the the problem with the momentum we saw in 2024 is the momentum we saw in 2024 so I think we're not going to see interest rates cut for probably until at least mid year um that would soak inflation
inflation is still stubbornly high we actually went up last month to back to 3% that's a whole lot above the 2% Target and then we do have this um Gathering headwind of tariffs the possibility of tariffs tariffs by
definition are inflationary um it all depends on how much the the company chooses to pass to the consumer so the J jury's all out but I think the consensus forecast is it it takes generally takes tariffs two months to to wash out and
come into the consumers a lot of goods and warehouse distribution space around the country right now is already here um we're going to find out that's probably going to weigh growth moving forward second third quarter um combined with high inflation so I think we're and this
is a Welles Fargo forecast that I like is generally pretty mainstream I think we're going to see growth slow and nationally from 2.5 to 2.3 is the forecast that's not that's not a bad clip 2.3 historically is kind of there
with a 30-year long longterm average terms of the state 20 so 2024 again we performed All Things Considered pretty well it's not a surprise that the state and every
quarter would outpace the nation we have I talked about our bedon fundamentals in Florida the Florida factor it's its ongoing population growth it's wealth migration those are still in our favor population growth may slow but I think last year it was fine um we out pay the
nation projected about 3.7% GDP versus that 2.8 I just spoke about employment slowed a little bit towards the end of one okay towards the end of the the year that was Hurricane related it's also just in general I kind of characterize
the slowdown in employment as companies were just taking a break they were you know we had the frenzy post pandemic they decided things were let's just there's someone in the market as we marched towards a presidential election instead of hiring 10 people let's hire five people you know so that's the Slowdown plus a hurricane active
hurricane season and you'll see monthly employment average gains down to about 12,000 from 21,000 last year now the state is likewise going to slow I think the Gathering agreement I believe is that that PO those population growth
wealth migration factors that's going to more than offset any negative impacts we have from new tariff policies new immigration policies we are as a state we are exposed more than most we you know with the self sty gateway to the
Americas we you we have a larger immigrant population I think one in five of this region was born overseas myself included um so we need to recognize that those are headwinds but the population
growth probably going to slow a little bit but still be robust enough to offset some of these unknown headwinds we're looking at about GDP dropping to 3.1% next year which is still very healthy still above the state sorry it's above
the US job growth will slow likewise unemployment a very small tick up um I'll get into why it's a very small incre increase later but that's it's to do with the labor force participation talk about our region we we were the sixth fastest growing we're
a year behind in GDP for the region is 2023 we were the sixth fastest growing Regional economy in the U large Regional economy in the US I I like to compare ourselves to the top 30 MS we the 21th most populous region in the country so let's compare ourselves against that competitive set we were the sixth
fastest we can get away with saying we were the fastest growing but it's disingenuous because that includes inflation inflation in Florida was higher than average um if you if you don't account for inflation we were the fastest growing large Metro last year we do account for it we dropped to six uh
so that takes us into 2024 at the parnership we have a survey with of local businesses we get some participation from Lake County with typically two to 300 companies that tell us how they're performing how they're feeling what the top challenges what the top opportunities are so moving into
2024 companies they were you know they were they were still going great they did Flag cost pressures as inflation beginning to B as their single biggest challenge in every quarter last year and that's why we see profitability at that first chart let me just explain a little bit a net balance is we ask companies
you know are did your Revenue last quarter increase decrease stay or stay the same so we take the percentage that said it was increase minus lows it decrease and that's a net balance so the fact all of those lines are above zero means every B more more businesses are
doing well that are not so generally speaking it was still a strong year um we see on the to the right hand side the confidence chart as we ask companies how confident are you are you confident sorry in the US economy moving forward yes no not sure are you confident in
your own business are you confident in the regional economy and so on we saw a decline mid 2024 conference in National economy as as we approach the election and I think when the the the choice became quite clear that or quite evident
that the choice was quite Stark two sides very different policies businesses they just love C they just love certainty they love Clarity so I think as we were very deliberate in the fourth qu to make sure we put that survey out after the election and we asked them how
are you feeling now and confidence shut up um again to do with the fact Clarity was there and ially as we move into the first quarter of 2025 that Clarity is not fully resolved there's still a lot of in the market it's
something I can't really I don't surve results for cuan it's still on the field but we'll find out what happens our job growth in the region actually it softened quite significantly last year a couple of reasons for that um first of all tourism you know there I
call it the delayed tourism it's the Epic Universe effect so tourism added a ton of jobs in 2023 not so much in 2024 that's because we've we've cycled through a lot of tourists coming out of the pandemic and then if the maybe thinking of coming back like you know what there's a new part coming on in
line in 2025 let's just wait so that we've moved that tourism job creation maybe to 2025 also Healthcare you know that softened a little bit still adding a lot of jobs I think they've been more busy building facilties than than hiring the people to go in them a lot of that
going on um retails soften that's that's a direct impact of some of these cost pressures well retail went out of business restaurants went out of business and then in norlando we have some exposure to what I call a back office restaurant type things like
because human facing sectors maybe it's W of flats other companies had some cost pressure issues maybe had to not H or had to you know lose some jobs in the process we also had the Hurricanes um I should add that 16,000 I expect to be
revised up in about a couple of weeks when we get the final final data that's happened in every previous um year that have been back in the US probably led about 25,000 which is marginally below what I'd like is to be about 30,000 as a sustainable job creation Target I do
believe with more confidence more clarity in the market in 2025 we're going to rebound to that sort of 30 30,000 level um you see the chart on the right again we fell below the US growth later in the year primarily to do with the hurricane season in October we're
going to we're going to recover that I think and the labor market closed at 3% still very tight uh we use job postings as a proxy for labor demand they're down about 10% from pre pandemic but still very strong there are still in the
region there are still more jobs looking for people than people looking for jobs so it's still a very tight labor market something I want to I want to flag that people aren't really talking a whole lot about our labor force contracted last year um this is a for Florida it's never
really happened outside of a pandemic outside of a recession I think there were some some headwinds where the people who are moving into Florida look a whole lot different from the people that are moving out where Maybe losing some people for cost reasons we're losing some teachers some nurses and we're replacing them with maybe older
people who are not as attached to labor force so that's something we got to keep an eye on moving forward as we think about what is attractive to a business looking at Lake County uh the Orlando region so Lake County um so Lake
County's population growth has been disproportionately almost exclusively driven by domestic migration that's that's the first point I want to make we can here in Lake County population growth still far above the state far above the Region 3 and a half% when the
Stan region even with this post pandemic Bounce has been about 2% I think that second chart tells tells everything you need to know Lake County accounts for about 15% of the regional population but has attracted close to 40% of net migration in the last three or four
years more in absolute terms than Orange County Oola uh seminal by a country mile you can add a couple of those up and still not get to Lake County it shows how attractive Lake county is to the people that are migrating to our region just as critically bearing in
mind my comment that Lake county is disproportionally driven by domestic migration we are not seeing the same tapering off of domestic migration that we see in Orange County that we see in Seal County and to a lesser extent Oola County you'll see it's
it's the orange one for Lake County you've actually gone from 12,000 to 144 to 146 you've actually gone up a little bit in Dem these are people from elsewhere in the US forget International a lot of international migration to our region lands in Orange County or sea
County but those are they're losing some folks domestically that's not the case for County makes me really confident moving forward for as people move here they bring their money they bring their spending and that's going to underpin a lot of the growth going to see in the future as has always been the case IRS
migration data this this excludes um international arrivals I think the theme here to me is quite clear and it's behind behind it's on the wall um it's real Florida real close why we're getting Lake county is
getting a lot of people from Orange County um the very M modest deficits that we're running in by by a deficit I mean more people leaving for there then coming here the very modest deficits are to deficits are to neighboring counties like Maran
County some in Sumpter which captures that sort of real FL real close even more so than Lake County in the sense of cost I know commissioner Parks um we had the discussion last year Well Lake count is not that really that cheap a new build in Claremont not that much more
expensive than a new build in downtown Orlando but it's still cheaper and I think there's a lot of people moving from Southern Florida from elsewhere in this region to Lake County because the perception is it's still a little more rural more life balance and I I expect
that to continue I don't see that switching anytime soon the County's economy um I'm pleased to say you were the fastest growing County in our region in GDP terms in 20123
5.4% um that and that's within a region which again was a sixth fastest growing region so you're well played for that I will flag that a lot of the growth um and know get this is this is true also of employment in Lake County they're population serving sectors so it's
retail it's real estate it's Healthcare this is to service that growing population I've spoke about so it's you always want to diversify a little bit of that for a rainy day it's not raining right now but it could rain in the future so it's always something you have to keep in mind but still fastest
growing GDP in the region like 2023 employment likewise we're seeing some slow down um but again 2 point we're even further behind for at the county level but 2.4% relative to 1.1
through midy year 2024 still a strong solid performance of Lake County I will say the last 12 months I did some calculations here in the Box about 50% of the the new jobs areed in this County were either retail and Healthcare also it's not on the slide but look back
which on the 2019 to 2024 5year period which sectors added the most jobs in this County it was construction retail healthc care and what we call accommodation and food those are as like you know hotels bars and restaurants
again population serving sectors it's just something to always keep in mind that again it's not raining right now it let trying and diversify if we can a little bit so that if that population growth ever slows as we're seeing Statewide elsewhere that we have
something else to work with but it's for now it's still a positive story wage growth I did want a flag we're back to where we should be you know everyone talks about us you know standard cost of living raise 3% taken that's roughly where we're at
historically it was 2.7% here we're now 3.7 a little higher again that's the reason it's come down the reason was so elevated 2021 2022 because of those sectors I just mentioned retail there was real labor shortage supplies so that bed up wages
but now those same sectors are experiencing cost pressures their profit margins maybe don't make don't quite make sense to offer the same raises so uh wage growth slows a little bit but still positive did I know we had some discussion last week last year I
apologize around commuting patterns into the county I've updated these charts but it's still the same story it's I think there's this huge opportunity for this County of these you know there's about 70% of people who work in Lake County
leave this County for work so let's if I'm an economic developer for Lake County one of my priorities is to get those people working in the county spending their daytime dollars in the county um so I've given some color on that but the Delta between the orange
line and the The Gray Line that difference and it's over 100,000 people I once you take out the people who work in Lake count who actually don't live here these are people that we need to be capturing locally by creating local jobs also I know there's always been a
question how many people are traveling to Disney Universal from Lake County so I've given that it's a total about 12 13,000 people leav in Lake County for these for the theme parks Al also as I look at that chart you know we're coming
up there's almost as many people Lake County residents work in Orange County as do Lake County so that's something we need to keep an eye on too um the labor market right here in the county again very tight softened a little bit through 2024 to the point
where we now have um more un more people unemployed than job postings and again but we are insulated I've spoke of this before Healthcare as recession pref is to come Healthcare is the dominant uh demand driver of
for people looking for work here just carries a very specialized skill set so it's not everyone can get a job in healthcare I wanted to flag this as well as we talk about a potential future slowdown in population growth um not not here right now but elsewhere in the
state um I look we can piece together data that looks at who moves into Lake County versus who moves out and right now there's about 40% of people that are moving of everyone moving out they're in that Prime demographic of 18 to 34 only
about 20% of the people moving in are in that Prime demographic so that's going to weigh on a labor force participation rate that's already low because of the age profile in the county it's only 54.4% labor force participation rate so how do we get that up a little bit you
know that that would be something companies they want a labor force that's that's active that's that can go to work so it's just something again to stick in the back of your mind as we move forward I think the median age of people
locating into us uh sorry Lake count is about 49 those Moving Out close somewhere in the 30s so it's just something to consider I do want to close um and hopefully I've got time for questions with this chart which is always for all everything I've spoke
about possible headwinds some as well you know over the next decade lake is still projected as an employment center to be one of the fastest growing counties in this let's not lose sight of that I think um you know I filter this because it's easy to achieve small growth from a low base
so I kick out every County that's that's got less than 100,000 jobs so these are large counties and Lake counties right up there with O and Johns got a quick summary and hopefully I've get time for questions the US economy pretty confident shall slow next year Florida
and Orlando will probably follow suit but whatever happens we're going to outperform the nation that's almost a given based on the population Trends we've seen historically and then Lake County I think as long as that domestic migration continues and there's no sign whatsoever of it's slowing down um based
on the position within the region and the fact seal County Orange County are maybe perceived to be higher cost than Lake County I think a lot of more people are going to arrive here so I think any headwinds that arrive Lake count is in a
great spot frankly I think I don't see major major headwinds coming up for the 2025 in Lake County I'll close my comments there and hopefully if there's any questions I'd love to take them questions commissioner pars yeah Neil
thank you always appreciate this presentation and um it's important as we go into our budget process to kind of start off with getting this information so thank you again second or third year in a row I believe so great job um I think what was just more of a general
comment um is what was tell Telltale to me was slides 21 and 19 I don't know if you want to put those back up but just very quickly um some of what we probably already know it's just yeah start with 21 I guess slide 21 I don't know is that
the correct one or U yeah we go one more got keep going we'll start there we'll start at 19 okay um obviously what's important here is the um the percentage of of people working in Orange County and other places places far obviously
outnumbers uh Lake County and you you kind of Hit the net the head on the nail the nail on the head you know what I mean that um that's a problem for us and I think that's why we're putting the job centers we're trying to put job centers on the map so just more of a comment
there and if you go to slide 21 that before or after I apologize um no right now to next slide yeah 21 yeah forward I'm sorry yeah one more yeah and I thought that that that was um and maybe this is a question I
thought this was really um significant here so that age group 18 to 34 this is a big problem for us only only 21% are moving into the county that's correct is so the 21 sorry Which F did
you say um no I'm just saying so I just wanted to confirm so that's saying right here that only 21% of that age group is moving into it's of all the people moving in 20% are in that age group which less than it would be typic than
the population and 40 close to 40% of everyone moving out of Lake are in that age group okay so it's a of a head scratcher and I can supply more background no I just didn't know because I because I mean I'm I'm trying to think when we make decisions for the Next Generation I'm thinking that could be a
problem for us in the county if we're not getting enough people from that age group corre and it's not choosing to come in here it's not this is not an issue that's unique to Lake County it's throughout the State of Florida actually I think we're again there was when I saw
that labor force started Decline and we've only seen we've only lost 2,000 from the labor force in Lake County but 16,000 in the last year regionally a lot of you know there's takes a while for the data to catch up and pinpoint why exactly is happening the original
working Theory from myself from some economists at the state were retired people are retiring and that makes sense because they they'll drop out the labor force and take their employment with them basically maybe they don't get back fed maybe it's manufacturing is automated um as more data trickles
through it seems to be we are in the state of Florida losing people across all grips um and we can't speculate why it could be costed it could you know I think florid is no longer as attractive you come out of college I'm hearing I hear horror stories how much a downtown
apartment is in Orlando or even maybe in Claremont I'm not sure but um so I think there's cost there's maybe some political um challenges not challenges but you know people saying maybe I'm on this side of the fence and Florida's move went this way maybe maybe I'll Think Twice of after college moving to
Florida you know so but so cost housing affordability probably factors into that that age group and then I think so quality of life maybe rental affordability y okay y I even I even D have you know personal
friends that you know life is no longer cheap I I have I am cursed by having left Florida 2017 sold my house um in Orange County bought bought the same house 5 years later after I went back to
Scotland not the same house the same house two streets over and it was a bit double the price and that's some sticker shot cuz I'm I'm still I live in early I first moved here to grad school at Florida in the early 2000s that's the Florida my head is still in I can't quite square
away the cost of certain things so it's something it's a consideration for that younger generation of course okay I want to ask a question though when you go to the next number 35 to 54 we actually have um more immigration in that so
maybe it's that you know maybe it's as a total of the percentage so I can get all the raw data for this for you you know work with Kathleen I was curious too on the labor force participation rate is that factor in the age groups like can you stratify that so that because we
know that we have a large retired population so they are they would be they're yeah they're not in the labor force they not participating so that's why that's really why it's low yeah I mean if you took everybody in all of these bars who were retired out if there was a way to drill down so you actually
understood okay if we were if our demographics if we pulled out people that couldn't be in the labor force or would weren't because they were retired just it would be interesting to see what that number look like different number it would be a different number it would be yep we're we're in that age group
yeah you are it's it's a very you know I'm I'm I'm bringing this up because this is not a Lake County problem this is a Florida problem so you know as but is it a problem you know yeah I guess it's a problem from the standpoint of
you you need folks in certain industries to help provide services for the retirees business of Economic Development we're we're selling the region based on its talent and if that Talent is not in the labor force it's a
challenge personally and selfishly but you know in terms of these people being in the the older generation spending money not not an issue it's more a sort of Economic Development strategy and Target you know yeah yeah that's why that's where my head's coming from
so yeah but it is fascinating to see um and I don't think it's any surprise to all of us the rate of population growth in our County um we are certainly attracting um disproportionate number of people who want to live in Florida are
are are finding us and a lot of them are coming from adjoining counties in particular also Orange County also South Florida you know South Florida we there's a migration north um and you know some stop in Oola some more often they're not wound up in Lake
County um but it's still you know it's I think it's you're in a unique spot and that a lot of your new residents are coming from elsewhere in Florida and historically it happens after hurricanes hit those areas hard and and insurance
rates also impact that um so they it it just seems like we tend to get an influx of people that want to stay in Florida um but they don't want to be right on the coast um or they're looking for a quieter Liv style which that's our big
challenge right because we're this is our quality of life and character that people come here for and at the same time the more people that come here um we feel like that character and way of life is threatened um by Road
congestion you know everything being busier and all of that that's that's the you know that's the conundrum it's I think as a region we're at inflection point where and maybe not so much Lake County but as a region we're an inflection point and we're we used to sell Florida as low cost now we're
selling lower cost high quality we got to we got to we got to find our is we are still lower cost relative to New York Chicago La um but we got to lead more with quality than cost because cost can be a bit of a race to the bottom we
don't like to compete on cost um you get companies that will take advantage of that low cost and then when that cost changes as you evolve and mature they will move on to the next community so we we're always we of competing too much in cost but I think in the short term Lake
County's cost proposition far stronger than elsewh in the region commissioner sman yeah um I just got a couple of questions and you may have already explained this um on on on Tab 21 you're uh in andout
migration for the 18 to 34 year olds I'm kind of wondering um one how do you quantify that as it 18 to 22 year olds going off to college is that included in there yeah yes it would be um and you would hope
they would have bang back but they will be captured right but they'd be coming back I don't know maybe at 30 or 32 maybe uh the the next question is do you have any data for 2024 because this is 2023 no this is the world I live in
unfortunately the smaller we go to geography the more in the past we come and so so I'm kind of wondering uh do you see a trend moving in a different direction in 2024 than you see the trend in 2023 you see the same migration at the
age level of of 18 to 34 about the same range as you do in 23 as you do in 24 I think the there's a lot of chat right now is around younger people not just leaving counties but leaving
Florida um and and are the are these people that have physically moved their location address or is it that they just say they work in a different County no they these are physically moving so we the the Census Bureau they
do as annual survey in in place of the regular census and they ask a lot of people different questions part of the part of those questions are where do you live now versus where do you live last year you combine that with our demographics their income levels you
begin you can pain a picture of who's moving in who's moving out what the residual is okay thank you any other questions thank you so much for being here today and yeah if anybody wants to
drill down further I'm sure you would uh make up available and we can work through Kathleen my last I love working with Kathleen and Meg so any questions you have with them please or for me please work with Meg and I'll make sure you get everything I can all right thank you appreciate you being here appreciate
it all right tab 24 uh next presentation is by the Lake County Museum of Art and TJ fish is here to make that presentation good morning thank you chairman cun VI chair Parks commissioner Smith satini and
Morris great to be up in front of you um some of you know me in my professional uh role but uh today this is my volunteer role serving uh on the board of the late County Museum of Art we've got some board members with us uh Peter and Lou back there and illi and our um
executive director and I want to start off with um emphasizing what the Museum of Art is first of all it's a museum which immediately sets this organization apart from some of the other art or cultural based organizations in the county
um our goal right now is to continue to expand our presence in Lake County and and thus the name I mean this organization has roots dating back over 30 years and if you'll notice uh on the on this first slide partnership private sector so what we're not looking for our
donations what we always are looking for is how can we strengthen Partnerships so uh some of you know we have a physical presence here in taries right here on Ruby Street um and so but that we also have presence building throughout the county
you'll uh see we have partnership with Eustace city of Groveland town of howwi and the hills and continue to expand that to this uh very large spacious County our very beautiful uh County and so with the Museum of Art I want to
emphasize it's it's really what what tweaked my heartstrings is the educational component and why that's important is first of all we have some great kids programs but one of the things that's really struck me as I've been on this board is that art education
comes in subtle forms because I I actually joined the board thinking well what I really know about art I mean I know what I like but I'm not an art appreciation guy necessarily but then you start realizing that how early in interacting with kids and exposing to
art and culture how it can spark unique possibilities so not every kid is going to grow up to be an artist but having that art exposure inspire you to be an architect or an engineer or it may influence how you work out on a site if
you're in construction that there's a certain art to everything and it starts with inspiration and so that's really uh one of the hooks for me personally and I think a lot of people that have invested their time and and their money into the
museum uh often it's about the kids so uh I want to emphasize too as much as it's about art and culture it's also about economic impact I mean there's an entrepreneurial Spirit to the way the Lake County Museum of Art treats our artist the fact that they're burgeoning
business people and we want to see them uh be cultivated and and be able to be successful so we love collaborations we partner with many different groups to bring opportunities to Lake County and to our various communities and uh we want to continue that momentum in partnership with Lake County Board and
County Commissioners so uh visitation to the museum continues to increase so we're excited exed about that um we have several strategic priorities that I want to mention continuing to build our membership uh our physical presence that aspirationally we would like to have a
permanent building of our own over time to be able to House events and and permanent displays uh Partnerships that's the one that I volunteered for uh to help build those Partnerships throughout the county and it's not just governmental I mean we're doing private sector Partnerships we want to partner
with this local government we're partnering with several municipalities uh we have trustees that help financially support what we're doing um we're constantly and consistently pursuing grant opportunities and I'll say it several times in this very quick presentation the kids uh great kids art
program in fact one of the my favorites now is partnering with the Lake County School District on the Christmas card art display so if you didn't get to go see that during the Christmas season it's great to see these kids pour their hearts uh into these Christmas cards and and see them recognized for their
efforts so we continue to expand between um the our art Wednesdays classes uh that's a weekly event we're tapping into some programs that already exist out there and just helping expand uh we've got the summer camp coming up again that continues to grow so this is a really
big component of of that educational aspect that uh we're emphasizing today that it's not just having a museum it's what are you doing for your Outreach and what we're really interested in with the Lake County Board of County Commissioners is how can we help reach some of the the population that's
underserved so if we can be more present physically in four corners or Paisley or Aster or bassfield park that's what we want to do and so that's really the offer and the ask today is not what can you what can you do for us but how can we partner with you to be more present
in this community so right now we have after school at Eustace uh again tapping into an existing program same thing in ho and the Hills uh same thing at the mount D library and again we're looking we' already made contact uh library and cagin crossing and these other
unincorporated but distinct Lake County communities we we want to offer that Outreach uh here's just a a SCH smattering of some of the great exhibits we've had come through the museum over the last few years and here is a overview of the Partnerships we have starting with the laner Char uh
charitable trust the Park West Foundation and then you see all the different Partnerships with the school district with the various cities uh and and also UCF uh we have memberships continue to build and bear in mind being a museum we do have reciprocity with other museums in
Florida and throughout the country that if you purchase a membership to this Museum you have access to other museums that are part of that network uh just overview of the board again we have a few board members here as well as our executive director and I'll stop there with a shockingly short
uh presentation for those of you that know me okay okay um questions for Mr Fish uh no questions other than um I may not seem like a big Arts guy but I'm a pretty big Arts guy and I've I've had
the opportunity to send some younger uh younger adults to the programs that you have here for after school and in the summer they're absolutely wonderful I'm glad to and I've had the opportunity to talk to miss luas about uh other
opportunities and I'm glad to see that Aster's on there and basketball parks on there and k k corner on there I I do believe the one can you go back to the slide of right uh Partnerships
um I don't see Lake County um Board of County Commissioners on there and I I personally would like to um be be able to assist in this uh
moving forward I know this is not an ask but um maybe come up with with something that that we can help out with uh to help the Arts uh get further penetration within all Lake County because I like
you believe that Arts create creative thinking and with creative thinking comes new and expanded ideas so uh thank you for everything you and your team have done commissioner Parks yeah um some some of
the similar sentiments I guess I appreciate commissioner Smith's comments appreciate the presentation today board members that are here thank you for your service um I do think arts in Lake county is important and is it goes to that quality of life um at the very
heart of it I would assume I would think um I would also be interested in and um some kind of a partnership or looking for a way to better help you assist in what you're doing and I know what that is right now at this moment but I I I would agree with commissioner Smith I
would like to look look to Something in the future that we could do with you uh and then also ask um as well I sawell the Florida highway men that was one of so maybe in partnership with the Lake County Historical uh Society Museum as well some Partnerships there uh I
would I would look to that maybe to see this coming year and if I can assist in in any way uh being the commission leaz on to that uh board or that committee um I would love to help assist that so thank you um yeah I think we should explore
the possibility of maybe going through our children's grant program that we could partner in that regard because I think that's really a key part of us trying to uh do Outreach to our our our youth and we could use our library system as well I like the idea of
partnering with the Historical Society especially like on an exhibit like The Highwaymen where you could maybe have a joint event going on where you've got a display in the historical building but you also have a display in your facility and maybe you have your refreshments and so forth that you can do over there that
we can't do over here um and have like a nice social type event that's also educational um so I think there's some great opportunities and I definitely think that Lake County should be up there as as a partner um with the Lake County um Museum of Art thank you I love
that idea by the way I think I'm gonna have to steal that one how does this fit in with what leberg is doing and I think some other cities have and their Arts also um a facility what makes this different than theirs but as far as the arts groups
we're really intending to be inclusive there is no separation or factions we are the one Museum that we can say is the Lake County Museum so any partnership opportunities especially with lebor um there several communities M door leore being two at the top that they're well established and and
opportunities are clearly there you know to build on on those Partnerships thank you thank you all right we'll appreciate the presentation and we'll work with staff to see where we might be able to form that right partnership and then we can bring that back as an agenda item thank
you I'll be following up with staff appreciate it thanks for the time all right thank you um we're moving into public hearings let's just take about five minutes a break and then we'll come back and um rejourn or it's a recess so we're not adjourning
Commission e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e [Music]
all right uh we're back on uh tab 20 this is a public hearing and I'm going to ask uh Fred Schneider um assistant County Manager to present this petition for
vacation uh thank you Commissioners good morning Fred nter assistant County Manager this is public hearing vacation petition number 1301 uh this was previously heard by the board on January 21st 2025 but due to a procedural error that took place during
that public hearing is being heard again the petitioner is applicant is James panaco registered agent pevco represented by Raymond bradock PKA Orlando and I've seen Mr bradock in the audience today this is a vicin map
located in the Mount Plymouth area it's commission District 4 uh location map shows you a road map of the area and uh little area and red there is a is the is the triangle area which represents a park area that was platted in 1926 with the plat of Mount
Plymouth and it's just off of Prestwick Avenue on the east of County Road 435 this is a aerial photo showing tax Parcels um and the request is for the area and uh and if you see in the inset up upper left it gives you a little
closer in view of it and so what you had was there was a previously vacated right away I believe in 1973 from the original plat and the the area of the triangle was a park that um had not been vacated so the park is
still uh considered public uh today and so the request from the applicant is for the vacation of the unnamed undeveloped Park lying north of Prestwick and south of partially vacated Anglewood Street as shown in the Mount Plymouth
plat uh although there's no statute specifically that allows Park to be vacated uh according to the county attorney The public's interest in the park can be vacated uh however with other parts of a vacated plat residents who bought under the plat may still have private rights to the Park
area um letters of support um I didn't receive any letters of support I did receive five we did have five emails from residents in opposition so we have five emails in opposition uh we didn't have any utility issues as this gets
ratted around to staff for for internal comments we didn't have any comments from staff as far as any kind of concerns with the vacation um certified notices are mailed to surrounding Property Owners like always with these vacations within 300 ft and signs were
posted okay this is a close in view of the Park area it is um the triangle area in red which is the per the petition from the requesters to vacate that Park area in red
this is a a photograph our County survey crew staked the Park area uh and then I've shown with the blue dotted lines kind of showed how that triangle looks on the grassy area which was the old golf course so here you're looking South
toward pressbook Avenue and according to survey the plat Park area is approximately 1,210 Square ft uh this is looking North from Prestwick Avenue toward Avenue of the Park area and this is
looking West along Prestwick Avenue and then this would be looking Northwest from Prestwick Avenue toward trun Avenue you can see a lot of that there's a lot of green space out there from what was used to be the Mount Plymouth Golf Course um but now uh that
is all um much of it is now going to be platted or approved for in for residential although they do have a lot of open space that was required so with that um I don't have any further comments staff recommends approval the request this is a public
hearing right do you have that diagram by chance that shows the portion of this that would be in a landscape buffer and the portion that would actually be inside of a one or two lots
if it's is what's on the screen what you're looking for that yeah that's it I don't know if you can is there a way to zoom in on where the triangle is get a shift it up so that little southern area that's a
straight up and down hash mark that that would be part of a road Improvement the the hashed area is if for the plat for the for the development they're dedicating an additional 8 ft of rideway along the ride of along the existing
rideway of pressbook so that's an additional 8 ft of rideway that would be platted okay so to give us 33 feet from Center Line which is our standard for Rural roads because this just it has 25 right now and then you have um the remaining triangle piece that okay and
then the little tip of the triangle that actually goes into um yes a lot yes well I guess it's all except for the right away that's pulled out part of um Lots it just has an easement it'll just have a a
landscape or a buffer easement or drainage easement or something over between the where the bottom of lot 169 is where the word says park that's supposed to be platted buffer area Okay
um but I I you know I'm I don't know if if any if anything could be done in there with regard to any kind of fencing or something you know if that's a concern with with that but um with regard to the the right of way whether the park was vacated or
not um I still I still think we'd be okay as far as right of way goes because I what I was thinking as maybe a compromise between the people that don't want to see it vacated who are actually lot owners in there who arguably then have a private interest um would be we
vacate the little tip and then we keep the part where actually the words Park are written and you put a bench in there but that was just one thought um
I that would be you know or do you will there be I guess it will be an HOA so um you could have the HOA be responsible for the for the bench in the little Park
area so I'm I'm kind of looking at this and it looks to me like that you have uh a 15ot easement from theway is that right we that's the that's the I'm gonna ask
the uh could I ask Ray bra to come up and you can ask anybody you'd like Ray Brady you explain I just I just want to know what the rideway is if and it looked to me like it's 15 ft but if that would could be put up on
the screen it may be a little okay okay can you zoom in on that keep zooming all right hold up okay so the the question I have now it's blurry let just my eyes no it's better
now it's pretty good now I'm trying to figure find out where that 15t was it was from you've got you've got the 8 ft of RightWay that will be dedicated to the county then you've got a 15t wide landscape okay right there right that's
that's 15t of what landscape track that will be owned by the homeowners association how much area is the square that's left the little the dark area that I it's
189 Square ft 189 Square ft are you going to lose uh lot 169 and 170 that you can't build on no no those lots are trem that lot's 200 ft deep and the whole intent of the landscape track
was to make sure that we had no double Frontage lots that was a requirement when we when we had the PD done so that nobody could have a driveway coming out the back of their house or back of their yard on the presswick so everybody they would all have to go to the north so
yeah like you're saying if if the area that's in Black right there is about 190 Square ft so it's 10 ft by 19 ft which is not much of anything left um I think we could offer
if it would be suitable to the board to get rid of the 190 Square ft and vacate that portion and maybe you could vacate the whole park we would just agree as part of that area that's in that 15t buffer that will'll put a
park bench in there and uh make it the responsibility the HOA to maintain and with rights of the public too with yeah with the right of the public to they want to you know we're going to have a sidewalk right there on that 8 ft of rideway so it'll be a sidewalk that'll be constructed okay so there will be a
sidewalk long crestw right there so it' be you know it be an ideal spot you know somebody walking just want to stop and take a break and sit down and catch your breath they could do it just so people know if we made this triangle a square
we're talking less than a 10 x 10 area 10 by 20 10 by 20 yeah correct you're right yeah it's just that when and and most of it's going to be landscape you got landscape and sidewalk
right I mean the the practicality of it of it staying as a quote unquote Park is not much I mean it's a it puts a burden on the county to to go out and maintain this little area uh where we can do something here that
would generate uh the same opportunity for the residents that are out there and not put a burden on the county and the taxpayers well I was looking for something that would be a compromise because I understand the people that live in the neighborhood who just in principle they
don't like the idea that something that is technically on their plat would be vacated for the benefit of a developer that seems to be the heart of the issue so what if we flip it and the developer actually does something that benefits
the community by putting a park bench in an area that had been a little tiny green space but it was a green space shown on the plat so um it I think it would be a a nice compromise and then the county doesn't have to maintain it HOA is required to do that but
everybody's allowed to stop and take a break on that bench so anyway but we do have to hear from the public but before if we want to go ahead and have some more comments and questions yeah maybe just a quick question I I mean I'm not going to sounds like that's a good compromise um a good idea but just to
confirm with Fred um so this this uh area this this plat was goes back to 1920s right so this was all done 23 26 somewhere in that vicinity yeah yeah so during like the what we called the city beautiful movement where they put the sweeping turns and the tri little
traffic triangles is it was back when traffic calming was I guess popular back then at that time so that was that is that the purpose of that Fred was is is more of just the yeah I mean is it was it going to be a
park it's hard to say what the purpose was other than Green Space um as far as a park of that size it even back then it was more something that you could put a Ben in or you know do some something like that there I mean I've seen some
plats like this you know in South Lake where they had these sweeping turns in little triangles and they just landscaped it in the middle put some trees a couple there are more of these in Mount Plymouth yeah there's probably a bunch of them yeah all right I just wanted to understand the intention of it a little bit historically on it but it
does sound like there's a good uh compromise if you will but from a real property standpoint um title standpoint it will be shown as an encumbrance on those two lots because it's vacated but you still
have the rights of the the people that own Lots in Mount Plymouth they still have a they still have a private right to that I just wanted to make that point so we it's not we can vacate the Public's interest in a vacation we can't vacate private rights to something and
so more than likely it would arguably be an encumbrance so just keep that in mind um that there's the water's still a little muddy and we can only do so much
um so we have we do have speaker cards so um would you prefer to make your presentation before or after we hear from the you you've already heard my side why don't we let the okay talk and then I I can come back and answer any
questions okay all right um the first card is Julius Johnson oh good morning um my property is within 300 ft of this so I am interested in maintaining some of the nature and
Beauty that's there I realize it's an extremely small piece of property it designated as a public park years and years ago and it shouldn't really matter it's so small but it does because vacating the park de designation and turning it over to and for the convenience of a developer is another
example of the elected officials whose job it is to safeguard the public good become are acquiescing to developers in the process chipping away at the Serenity and beauty that is in my neighborhood why not just
keep the property as a park and put up a plaque or a monument to some of the nature the floor and the fauna that's being dislocated anyway uh there should be some or or maybe a monument maybe a a map of the area because it's on a bike
trail and people can get lost I know I have friends and relatives who got lost down the dirt roads trying to find the bike trail which is neighborhood lakes I think uh that would be a good use of that space is to put like a little map of the the Beauty and the nature that's there so I think a monument to help
future Generations appreciate the nature and beauty of that area would be appreciated and um that's all I have to say thank you thank you thank you for being here thank you for your ideas um Kathy Comet thank you I am totally against any development
I have lived in Mount Plymouth in my home on Prestwick Avenue facing the golf course for 30 years they're talking about building all these homes and vacating all this property that's in front of me and the side of me
I look at my front door and that prop that old golf course does not go like this it goes like this so therefore any development or any changes in that property I'm concerned about drainage I'm concerned about flooding because it
is so low I contacted the St John's River Water Management years ago cuz I was concerned about this before we even put a spade in the dirt to build our house and they assured me that nothing is going to come in that way of
the golf course they assured me that is maintained by them and if the golf course fails and that was my my point of this if the golf course fails and they start building what then St John's river IM and I have the paperwork somewhere
and I can't find it anyway assured me that when the development comes in first of all we have no HOA where I am and we don't and I we don't want any so he said when if it starts to develop what they will do is they will come out and
because the kids used to swim in it years ago when we used to get a lot of rain yeah that's how low it is so he they said they would come and fence it off with the nice fence that there would be no building in that property now I hear that yes there is going to be
building there so this upsets me and the drainage upsets me what about the turtles that are out there the wildlife that's out there the Bears that come and visit me the raccoons the cranes I feel sorry for them I could cry but anyway that's my objection I really
really really don't want to see it I really don't thank you thank you thank you for your comments and unfortunately when that Golf Course was put in place it um it it didn't have a limit or deed
restriction or requirement that it had to stay as a golf course and it had old I think we decided the last meaning it was R3 zoning on it so whether they brought it in for development or they just platted it they had a legal right
to use that land that had been the fairways now I can tell you that issues like gopher tortoises and in Wildlife they have to when they do their development plan they have to protect any of those
locations and follow the rules on whether they relocate or they create um buffers around them but they they do have to do a lot of things under Florida um you know laws to to protect the
wildlife and the nice thing is the lots are larger than a typical new subdivision lot that we see in a lot of places so it does create more green space than if this was being done as a a very you know a new subdivision per se
so there is some hope for the critters that are out there too hope so in drainage I I'm my assumption and Fred you could address this to what extent are they moving dirt for lot Contours flood plane issues Flow Away
issues how does that come into play when you take something like an old Fairway and well within that old Fairway there were a lot of um low areas I lived in I lived in Mount 10 years from 92 to 2002 and they fill
up with water it was it was interesting amazing to watch but the subdivision they're they're taking into account rainfall uh any flood zones accounting for off-site flow that comes onto their property uh so they're trading and they're holding everything they need to
within their own development property uh and I I I think some of those don't really even have outfalls where they outfall off the property I think it's it's all internal but like most of it to meet like Bas flood elevation and things like that like the lot area itself will
they be filled um will it just be the house pad will it be are there going to be swailes I mean how are they going to manage drainage I don't know that I can answer that today uh I I don't have my the knowledge of exactly flood planes but a lot of those areas weren't
designated flood planes okay as far as those lower areas um cuz because the golf course went up and down you know so well I didn't mean to catch off guard on a question like that but I just appreciate you raising it and I think it's something that we definitely need to keep an eye on um as this moves forward to make sure that we
don't end up displacing runoff locations and put it into existing Property Owners yards thank you that would be me because I am I look at my front door and you see the you see does the St John's River Management still control that property but they have a permit from St John's
they have a permit from St John's they don't technically control it but they oversee the their Regulatory and they oversee any drainage plans and then and then when it comes through Public Works and also any any other apartment but
we'll look we look at the the construction plans were approved and so one of the things I I recall looking at was having personal knowledge of that area looking at the lot elevations and making sure that those Lots those homes
were going to be built well above where I thought the water would get to well from my house three houses down either way it's low dips down okay absolutely all right thank you so much welcome so ma'am uh ma'am H how long have you lived
there 30 Years sir and what what Fairway did you live off of what Fairway the trying to think almost to the end of it the 14th Fairway yeah down almost to the end go almost to saaka Maxon where it turns around into sacka Maxon so I got
to apologize to you are probably hit your house that's what I figured you were going to do okay yeah I'm right there yep thank you thank you all right last last card and then I'll check for online speakers too but we have Cindy
Cindy Newton uh has a card and then I'll get to online speakers you don't hit the ball that far you did that with a putter hello Cy Newton District 4 uh vacating a public park for the benefit of a bit a developer is setting a
precedent for the county it's a small Park and perhaps seemingly insignificant to some but as you hear from these residents it's a vital part of an historical opport opportunity for Mount
Plymouth uh some of the ideas for this were a bench of historical kiosks to represent the um very old golf course the old hotel that was there that was
brought brought in very wealthy at that time individuals there's a lot of history there and perhaps even a time capsule was hoped for on this parcel uh so you know as this sets precedent I
really hope you do do understand the importance of vacating a a public park and this could transfer to other public spaces in the future uh so please be very cautious of
this thank you Eric we have someone online okay yes we have a couple the first is Barbara Morris you should be able to unmute your line and please state your name and give your comments to the board good morning my name is Barbara
Morris live in District 4 I also live in the Mount Plymouth subdivision I have three grown adult children who also live here and four grandchildren we're three generations that have lived here since the early
80s I strongly object to this vacation and what I have witnessed today the presentation has furthered the misinformation being presented to this board the prior
meeting the tip of the park was 300 feet and now they've reduced it down to 120 when in re in reality they have no idea the size of that park because because the plat does not have calls or
measurements to the distance of the park there is no Center Line designation and the surveys all have exclaims to them to that effect so each time they come forward to you to try to convince you this is no big
deal they change the maps this originally was a 13,000 Square ft area that was dedicated to the public and had not been properly vacated I have submitted to you evidence
of that specifically outlining exactly every step they have made to try to bagle this park into their PUD furthermore when the Pud was approved a
legal description was submitted for the boundaries of this PUD it did not include this park it did not include the surrounding rideway at all so what they are
attempting to do is now go back and add land to a PUD that was not properly advertised at the time and by your vacation of this you take our rights and
our plans from the public away from us we've been planning planning on what to do with that area of land since 2021 all we've been waiting on is for the developer to
establish the surrounding buffer so that did not disturb what we had planned we have a historical bike Loop that you approved that borders on this that was a
intricate part of what our plans were in this Community to help preserve the history of Mount plymouth's subdivision it's 100 years old next year it is a historical area that it the
only thing that's not going to be wiped out is going to be this small parcel of land it's the only thing we will have left to memorialize what we have been trying to do in our subdivision and in the process
you also are reducing our open space for the remaining part of the plat we only have about three tiny Parks like this throughout 2.8 square miles of our platted
subdivision and you're going to consider reducing it even further I strongly object to it I believe that there has been miss information presented to you to try to convince you to go along with
this I believe it is illegal for you to vacate this 13,000 squ foot of land that was not originally included in the greens PUD and to just allow them to throw it in there with no public hearings about
that PUD or modification of that PUD um they're going to add 197 homes around there to share the small parks that we do have thank you Barbara they open
space um Eric we have other speakers online yes one more Gracie you should be able to unmute your line and then state your name and give your comments to the board hi my name is Gracie pit um I live not within the 300 feet of this park but
in the fairways neighborhood right up the street from it um and I would just like it to be noted that I strongly object to vacating our public park here that does nothing to serve the people who actually live here this would only benefit the developers um it seems very
wrong for us to lose the little bit of green space we're going to have left um yeah that's it thank you thank you Eric and even else okay um so I have a question um for staff about
and then I'll let me Mr Brad come up um I was wondering as far as uh other parks that we have out there I know we have the the Sunken Gardens um Park that we maintain and then we also have which incidentally for
new County Commissioners if you haven't been there it's definitely worth going to see because it was part of this old Resort and um it's really fascinating and it's been they put a lot of time and effort parks and trails to get that cleaned up and then there was another
little pocket park that has a kiosk on it um that gives some history as I recall of the area um do you know how many others yes I um preparation for today I I may not have all the answers but I did contact allice of parking
trails to try to get an answer that I thought might be a question um but they've got the three existing kiosks they got Scott Park Mount Plymouth Park neighborhood at Lakes Park and of course the sunken garden has a a
kiosk um then there's I think there's a historical where the old hotel was the I think the Mount Plymouth land owners League maintains an area there as a historical site for what used to be the hotel there um I think I think that's
what we that's what's out there they got the part they got a few Parks already yeah I mean I I guess the one of the points I wanted to make is that we already have we already have some things that we do take care of and so that was one of my initial thoughts was well what would it hurt to create a little this
little triangle piece but little you know two board fence type thing um around it and it's on its own and you've got landscape buffer on each sides and um I think that we should um use the rideway for rideway
purposes that little strip at the bottom because if there's going to be any improvements that need to be made for the road that we've got the rideway sidewalk and for the sidewalk sidewalk is important to the whole neighborhood um but it's still doing the same thing
it's still Green Space it's still serving the same purpose of being open space but if you you it's just a question of whether you transfer it to an HOA that's part of this new development or do you leave it on its
own as part of the old 100 year old plat and you know I I I'm I know that some of you may not understand but I I'm sympathetic to that that it does have that historical significance and it wouldn't be that much harder just to make sure that it's
staying um in in good shape you could still put a bench there I like the idea of a map that shows where you get your ENT where you find the entrance to get over to neighborhood lakes because you can get there from this community without having to go out to 46 um so that would be nice a directional type
math map um you could have some historical information you could even show the old plat to show exactly where you were standing on what used to be the old Mount Plymouth um plat anyway those are my thoughts yeah I did I did contact Angela Herold previous to this meeting
and and she's the director of the office of parks and trails and she did say that if the board had a purpose or something they wanted to do that she would be more than happy to accommodate whatever the board wanted to do on on that
site far as Park Trail thing or maintenance of something who's maintaining it now it's just bowed it's it's it's mowed by we mow it I think they mow it um so I guess my question I'm just
trying to understand then the the the options I I agree I want to be sensitive to the history of this area and um you know some plans that have been in place but to I thought I heard earlier about you could do a park bench with maybe an interpretive kiosk but the question is
is that HOA or is it us whether you vacate if you vacate it and they're agreeable to to put that responsibility on the HOA that's one route you can go the other is you don't vacate it and then Parks and Recreation would be responsible for whatever you put on the property or don't put on it if you just
have it set aside as Green Space um so right and and then the the it's the top Corner that's the approximately 219 or 189 square foot that that's would be vacated in that case the the first yeah or you just don't and that lot doesn't have that little has that little carve
out in it okay so um as I'm hearing all this a thought came to me that you know
um this would be a county park for the county benefit F not right and we have July coming up and July is pride in America month
and usually we plant Liberty trees in July why don't we just plant a Liberty Tree here and dedicate that Liberty Tree to all the citizens of Lake County like we do throughout the county I mean it's a location where you
definitely could have tree um I I like having a tree there I like I also like the idea of a map and a bench because people do we have a little bike trail that is um you know in that
area so you could have both I mean you don't have to have you can have a tree and a bench you a tree and a map it'd be nice to have a um a Liberty Tree to to show it especially since this is going to be 250 years of of America um
although the Liberty Tree started before the foundation of America but the Sons of Liberty had a lot to do with how the revolution started and uh Liberty trees if you don't know anything about Liberty trees please look it up it's phenomenal it's fantastic history uh I think this
might be a great place for it and you put a park bench and then maybe a little of course we have our Liberty Tree dedication sign and then a little sign to say you're here and then yeah okay with that and then it would be up to
the uh Parts how we water the tree or the landscape because obviously um from what I'm hearing they don't want to we got to figure out how we're going to water WEA they have a way of doing that doing the trees where they they
keep it bagged and they they have a way to okay help with that but but we do have to let the applicant have here comes our professor good morning uh Angela Harold director of parks and trails previously we worked with iist and the UF a team over there
to find the correct tree so that it will survive in that environment and we would have staff out there if that's the direction the board wants to go to make sure it's watered regularly okay commissioner Park Yeah question um Angela man man sorry we're getting we're getting into the details now with this
but it's important obviously so management then um irrigation long term because we wanted to make sure it's done right um so with that in this case that's going to be on US unless it's unless it's on them right um is there irrigation line
not to my knowledge that would probably be a question for them I don't know what they have out there um yeah yeah so I mean since we're talking about it which option to go to I got to ask a question about the management of it and yeah we have other parts around that area that
we currently serve correct yes we do we have several and we have uh contractors that do the Mowing and the Landscaping so we would just add that to their contract it would probably incur a fiscal impact but yes okay so and then the next question is is um it's going to
be ostensible then then so be seen so we parking is going to be could be an issue ever I I don't know if that's going to be an issue I'm not sure we would make it as a stop Park and and hangout place maybe it's just along the mount plmouth bike Loop we can put the key ask there
as people are walking by or riding by on their bikes but yeah no parking there yeah there wouldn't be space for parking Park it's not a rim for parking I'm asking the question because if I'm going to go look at all the parks which I love Parks thanks I'm going to check out all the parks in Lake
County I might go by and see this and and just want to pull over and park there on the side you can literally park your car up at the um near for near sento Avenue and then you can walk the bike Trail or you could take your bike
with you and you could ride the bike trail um but there are ways to get to this that wouldn't require someone to drive to it so we're taking a partial property that has been mowed by the
owner not the owner but he's been gracious enough to do it and now we're going to create work for the county staff to do you need to understand that there have been many times when that property was not being mowed and we had
complaints from residents out there so I just want the facts to be clear I appreciate the mowing that's been done but this has been 10 years of a lot of headaches related to people riding ATVs out there it getting overgrown it's so
just just so you have a clear picture okay well I have I understand that I'm just saying we're just going to create more work for our employees they're out there already at multiple locations so they're not making a trip to Mount Plymouth for this one little triangle
they are already there taking care of things in that very close area that would be my point that it's not like it's an outpost somewhere there are already things being done in that we have staff that work um 7 days a week at
the neighborhood lakes Scenic Trail and trail head which is right near there okay we need to hear from the applicant uh first of all just some clarifications of of all you've been told by you know the people who have
called in and neighbors who have come uh this project uh is fully permitted it's got a Water Management District permit we're creating retention fonds we're creating swailes area ke keeping the
storm water that we would create on our site treating it properly and carrying it away so as far as impact on storm water from today to completion there there'll be no impact um as far as
misrepresentation of areas nobody that I know of ever said anything about 13,000 square feet you saw what uh Mr Snider had Stak uh uh it's 1210 Square ft exactly I
have a survey certified survey of the Park area and it designates 1210 Square ft so there was never 13,000 Square ft yeah I think there was some question that Miss Morris raised about whether the road itself Englewood or whatever that platted Street was whether that was
included in an old vacation or not and I think that's maybe where that 13,000 it could have and but we've gone back to the actual 1973 vacation of Englewood and it included all of the RightWay it did not include the little Park area so we're talking
about the 1210 Square ft uh to our development it doesn't impact anything all we were trying to do was clear it up and make it something that would be functional and part of the landscape buffer that we can maintain keep it out
of the County's responsibility we're happy to put a bench in uh we're happy to let the homeowner association continue to maintain it uh put in there whatever you want but to us we were just trying to clear up this little isolated area which as you can see from the
pictures nothing's been done on it it for all practical purposes was part of the old golf course why it was put in there originally I don't know if you looked at the way the rideway was vacated evidently the ingoing and outgoing lanes
are separated by the Little Triangle it would not have been something that you would have gone out and tried to do Park type things in somebody in their Infinite Wisdom thought it looked pretty good I guess put it on the plat of the whole process of the whole
area that that the old golf course uh contained this was the only area that had something like this there were some rideways that have been vacated over the years but none of them had the little triangle in it so we're happy to do whatever we can do
to keep it in in a state that the residents out there can use it it'll be operational it'll be maintained it'll be landscaped if we want to put a a special Tree in it we can put a special Tree in it all we want to do is is finish this
so we can get the development done get the traffic cing in get the utilities in get all the storm water put in PVE Exmore do everything that we've been committed to do and move forward so we'll take your direction and lot like 169 you it can
still be lot 169 without this piece in it it will not affect lot 169 one way or the other and I do have a question about your your pod legal description as I understand it because this park was not vacated with the road because it was
a park and your PUD legal description if this is vacated would have to be amended to add it to your pod if they want if the staff felt it was necessary it could be an administrative revision to the to the Pud I mean like I say it doesn't
affect the overall development at all I mean if if it's a procedural thing and a staff thinks it needs to happen I got a email from Mike fitzerald yesterday that he said he felt it would take an amendment if you put the park in the PD
if if that's the case you know they could do it but as far as overall impact to the PED there is no impact and you can move forward and this can be partitioned out if the count it be partition this intact as a park okay
it's your decision and one other thing uh just so and uh Mr Snider suggested that we have there was some discussion at the February 11th meeting about the whole remediation that was done I have Ken
Derek here from Universal so if any of those questions uh if you got any questions about the things that were brought up back then I after we close this maybe we you could ask Mr Derek any questions you might had as what they did as far as the remediation and what if
any testing needs to be continually done and he can give you updates on that okay and that was with regard to the Arsenic that came up at the last meeting okay um all right so we're bringing it back to the board and um I I personally think that the way to go here
is you you just partition this off leave it as a park and then the county can decide if you want to put the Liberty Tree there make sure that it's something that can be viable and it can survive and it can Thrive at the very least signage that helps people find neighborhood lakes entrance because you
can get there from this Community you can go straight into the neighborhood lakes onto the trail um and maybe some information about the history and you know here's where you're standing and you happen to be standing in what was a hundredy old plat and maybe something
about the hotel and the the background of the of the area but it would be a nice little place I personally think that that would be the right thing to do for the community and it'll allow the project to move forward so not to vacate the plat motion not to V vacate PL
second so Madam chairman if I could just jump in as part of that motion because you originally voted on this to approve the vacation there was a deficiency in the public hearing process we didn't open it for public hearing so if you're going to reverse that today I would ask that you include in your motion that you
resend your previous vote and then you move to deny the uh vacation I think it would be appropriate then for the person who made the motion to to um with prision and resend your previous our previous vote okay and second agrees
with that all right and did we have any more discussion uh yeah yeah I just wanted to say I'll um I'll support the motion um just understanding though that so we're going to be taking care of it the part the parks and trails okay I'll respect the history on it but
you know normally this is a little outside of the scope of the parks and trails master plan to do small very small project projects like this particularly that's why I was asking the question about who's going to use it and it'll probably be mostly residents that'll use it but that's I respect the history I just wanted to understand that
that's what we'll be doing we'll be moving forward with some kind of landscaping and interpretive display Liberty Tree Liberty Tree as well Smith the Liberty Tree I want a map that shows you how to get to the neighborhood Hood Lake Trail because that is a very large
park facility and Trail and this would direct people in that Community how to get there and you can include some other information I think parks and trails is really great at figuring out the right things to be included in there they can also confer with people like Miss Morris
who can ask them what kind of things would they like to be on that kiosk totally and obviously we would do both right you have a nice tree plus the maps all that yeah so yeah we got 200 all in favor say I I I any oppos
okay so we have than you and the project can move forward but we'll have this cutout acknowledging that it already exists next item Madam chairman Madam chairman do you want Mr Derek to come up oh I'm
sorry I do think it's really important that we get this on the record because this was a a big discussion theic issue and the aric contamination that occurred from the old historical use of this property as a golf course if you could do that just give us an update
on um where you're at in the process and and what additional work needs to be done if any good morning um what would what would you like to me to tell about what was done with regard to this
arsenic contamination what needs to be done going forward how do we make sure that this is not something that's getting into the water of um those that are on Wells in this area yes um okay I I'll give you a little background arsenic was was
discovered above the groundwater cleanup Target levels only in one location and that was in the former um shed uh with the maintenance area so we have uh been monitoring the groundwater for four consecutive
quarters and by the D standards the target level the levels have been decreasing in fact they they've gone down to about 20% of what they originally were and at that point um the D FD approved the groundwater monitoring
ports and said no further actions required so we've established a uh radius around The Well of 100 ft we there was no arsenic in any of those Wells but only in the one well in the center so those are decreasing and and
and that was in N in 2022 that FD said no longer do you have to monitor that's okay uh there was one area in the um maintenance shed area where we found some soil that was above the residential
limits um and the we did we did a assessment uh the soil was removed was Blended uh certain actions were performed and only one area remained and that was around the maintenance area and and in that area um we have capped it
with 2 fet of soil in accordance with an approved plan from D it has been grassed it's remained grassed for years um there was an inspection performed I think last week on it and it's intact it's grass covered and in that area there is a uh
conditional site Rehabilitation completion order and in the golf course no land use restrictions are due to completed cleanup but in the maintenance area there's uh engineering and institutional controls that have been implemented at that former maintenance area where the Arsenic was in the soil
and groundwater two Declarations of restricted covenants were filed on January of 2024 and these land reuse restrictions include multiple uses including residential schools and daycare facilities they cannot be constructed in that area and there's groundwater use
restrictions as well um requirements have been set forth from any dewatering and storm water features and um Duke Energy has also been issued a letter of support they've issued a support for the restrictive covenant they need to be they need to notify uh the state if
they're going to do any work to be conducted in that area there is a plan on how to handle that impacted area so any soil that's removed has to be placed on a tarp or visqueen to prevent any contamination or and then after they do their work they have to put it back in
the hole and cover it and and seal it and um ues issued the engineering control inspection maintenance report last week and that's where we are today was there anything special you had to do after the hurricane when you have a big rain event like that
um yes that there there should be an inspection after large rain events and you actually do soil testing or how do you how the inspection is just like a surface testing there's no more testing that's required all they need to do is just make sure that cap is still
in place and it's not scoured away nobody's digging in it nothing's impeding that that cap and is there any type of physical obstruction so when this property is developed and there is there any is there fence now and will there continue to be a fence or how does
that I know there's there's signs around there R did you put a fence up no no I I think there's just notifications indidual yeah if if you could just answer that into the microphone it sounds like you said that it's an individual tract owned by the HOA yes
that's yes it's an individual track owned by the HOA and these restrictions go on that piece of property so do do but you don't put any kind of a a fence or something that lets people know they don't want their kids digging in there
or playing there or having picnics there there'll be lots around it yeah and uh you know those ownerships will probably do their own fencing that will create this track that that'll be out there I mean it's intended to be open space it's
not intended to be confined it just it's it's got the twoot cap on it so it's not going to affect anybody that's on it that comes out and sits on it you know you'd have to get down below two feet to get in to anything that
would restrict them and Ken can tell you how much of that dirt it would take somebody to consume before they'd ever get enough yeah aidence that would hurt them they would have to dig around 3 ft in the ground start eating the dirt for it to bother them and they'd probably
have to eat about 10 lbs of it and probably the soil would kill them yeah because you because you put um you have the cap and then there's clean fill that's on top of it that's brought in right yes and then it's grassed over so and and that grass is supposed to remain intact and so after large storm events
it's to be inspected yeah where it's where it's a problem is if you you know letting somebody build on it and break that cap or go go do put wells in or something like that it's an Institutional control well that's all restricted nobody's allowed to dig in it I mean you can walk on it that's and we just we and all of that is documented so
that you wouldn't have like say 20 years from now the HOA says let's put up some playground equipment here well if they pulled a permit and they documented where they were at it would show up on the deeds and they would say no you're not allowed to it's an Institutional control you have in place it's been recorded yeah okay well thank I
appreciate it appreciate you being here and I hope that information is helpful for people who live in the surrounding area as well and can you please provide your name for the record yes my name is Ken Derek all right moving on to um Regular
agenda commissioner Parks uh tab 26 um this is regarding the medical examiner Services meeting and yes yeah so the uh they had my first my first meeting this last week or the maybe the week before um for the medical examiner board
um and so since between that meeting and then our the meeting we had here where we last discussed it the state Emy board came back and denied um our request uh without prejudice to remove ourselves
from District 5 and go to District 24 um and correct me if I'm wrong Jennifer and Melanie on this but mostly because we hadn't looked at the we hadn't contacted not that we hadn't contacted them but we hadn't been in full we hadn't receive full input from the
stakeholders mean like the sheriff's department anybody else the state attorneys that might be um have interest in this um so what we have to do today is I guess the the main thing is is that um District 5 and the other counties but
specifically Maran is asking for a reimbursement of costs associated to this to this date meaning this month approximately for the new medical examiner facility uh in the amount of $225,000 uh for their work that they've done which and hearing the meeting and
listening to their side and understanding what I and been Le trying to learn pretty quickly here about our our position as well I think that's a fair request um because the discussion at that meeting was mostly it was you know pretty contentious um
mostly coming to to trying to deter DET whether this is going to happen or not whether Us in s County are going to leave and do a different district and then so obviously the other counties having concern about wanting to be reimbursed of their cost up to that point so that's the cost request and
then what we would also decide today uh is to um I guess go back and um get input from the stakeholders and then move forward with when I can and I can deliver this message at the next Bo the next me's
board meeting which is in May whether we're going to stay a part of of 24 or not or a part of five or leave to yes I have it I have it mixed up part District Five 5 to 24 24
yeah so um I I along those lines um again I still have a couple questions about the cost uh when you look at a capital cost for the actually construct the building and then the operational cost I think it for us to be fair it should be a on a
per body basis we had not been going on a per body basis it was a per capita basis which would not be fair to us uh so I I I still a little I'm still trying to get a little Clarity on whether they all
understand that all the other districts I mean all the other counties um I guess agree to that um whether they fully agree to it or not but I I took away from the meeting that we could still look at that those costs with our
current District looking at whether it's uh both the capital cost for the building on using a per body basis as well as the long-term operational cost as well on a per body basis I guess my question would be if we're going to continue why would we go
ahead and pay them the $25,000 now I mean if we're not going to do it yeah I think that that's because if Oh you mean pay it now and then not do it right yeah I think you we could still do that I think we could pay the 25 now and
then make it very clear in the next either today or the next month or so we're we're um going to be in the district or we're not and then we wouldn't have any cost beyond that correct Jennifer Melanie so the the cost I think what commissioner Morris you're
asking if we're going to stay in District Five would we pay the 25,000 because we're proceeding on as before correct and oh I see yeah that's what he that's what he's asking so I think the prudent decision would be to determine um whether or not this board is going to
pursue the relationship with seino county in District 24 or to remaining in District Five along with the other four counties and and I we we had already made that decision by commissioner Parks I'm yeah I don't think you agreed but
the other four other Commissioners did um that we would pursue um working with with simol County right we did but after after that it was when we got the word back from the state office that they denied that they denied it but they said they without prejudice so could come
back so the idea I would think what you would do normally is then reach out to the stakeholders that would be the sheriff the state attorney anybody else that was a concern um to see if we can get their support and explain to them why it is that we we are in the position that we're in and why we think it's
unfair how it's been handled the formula has been handled in the past and why we weren't agree in agreement moving forward with this gigantic Capital project that we didn't think was necessary or needed and that we were being disproportionately or would be disproportionately charged for it
correct if we stayed in the in the current Arrangement so I think that's the next step is is is the part working with stakeholders um the question today is do we help pay for the services they said they already incurred
and you know that then goes back to what happened at those discussions previously was there a commitment by Lake County um to to participate in the cost of Designing the building itself so historically none of the
counties to my knowledge have actually voted to participate in a new building that the votes have all been by the district me Commission our um local committee District 5 committee um when the renewal came forward that you all
approved in September Maran County as the administrator had included language in that document to get everybody to agree at that point that those costs would be split based on the same allocation Lake and seminal asked for that to be removed
that language was removed it is not in your current operating agreement and the confirmation that we had back from Maran County via email is okay we will continue to work on a separate inter local to allocate and determine the costs for the new facility that
statement has also been in the minutes going back several years um sporadically that statement has been made at those District Emme meetings that we would have to bring back a new agreement we have to bring back a new agreement and that has never taken place so right now you just have a straight operating
agreement um with District 5 and District 24 which includes seminal the Maran county has been operating under the assumption then that Maran County did move forward with obtaining a design professional um which again was voted on by the district me
committee uh it never came back to this board again I'm I'm assuming it did not go back to seminal I don't know if it went back to the other committees um but they did obtain the design professional they did buy the property in Summerfield that District em committee did vote on
those items but again there's also those statements back in the minutes about okay we will have to bring forward a new interlocal to move forward with this process and allocate these costs in that new separate inter local for that specific part of operating The District
5 em me has never been brought forward so again um that me board then voted to move forward with the expenditures but none of the other commissions were were formally like we never had the opportunity to vote whether to do that Lake County did not and I I'm positive
of simal County did not because commissioner zimbauer from simal county has comments on the record throughout those meeting minutes that this was not something his board had voted on right yeah which which I understand is a problem um I mean that's
I it's already been done but at the same time you're trying to be you want to be fair to Maran County as well so just just to add to the uh commissioner Park's description of the last District me committee meeting that the question that you have on your agenda today is
confirmation that you want to continue to separate from District 5 and move into District 24 that conversation was brought up um I believe it was by the Citrus county commissioner because her take on it was okay yes you had signed
an interlocal agreement with simol County but it was contingent upon the state em commission approving it and that didn't happen I clarified on the record for them that that agreement the interlocal between Lake and simal is still an effect to the extent that we can bring this issue back to the state
em they wanted um more information before they decided to approve the redistricting so the last direction that Jennifer and I had was that we were going to continue in that direction with working to move into District 24 with simol so if that direction has changed
we would like a motion and vote on that today so that when we go back to the next committee meeting um we have clear Direction on that in the meantime seminal county is working on a proposal that will be offered back to the district M and we haven't seen it yet but obviously it will be in conjunction
with Lake County um for a amicable separation again if that's the direction this board still wants to go so what you could do today um even if it's even if it's just like I don't want to say consensus but we you are we did vote on that it was a 4 to one last time to
continue that pursuit to to go pursue that direction you could still do that from what I'm saying today um now you might have some new information that comes in from the um the sheriff's department or the which you're going to you're going to reach out to them right or we're supposed to
we're we're trying to set up a meeting with yeah that's right you're going to do that okay yeah as well so that maybe maybe that changes something and then there's an update next month on that before the May me meeting that might change it but right now you're going to continue to pursue
the separation then at this point yes that's the direction that we have unless this board votes differently yes right which yeah okay and then the remaining question was whether you put the $25,000
over to Maran um and say hey we never we never really agreed or authorized this but this is for what you consider our share of Designing this building which to me is is is an ambiguous message um now you could use this as a bargaining
tool you could use this for negotiation purposes or as a way to have that amicable Separation by saying okay we want to have an amicable separation um and we will put this money towards that to offset some of your cost um but but we've got to agree that we're going to
separate yeah yeah be because to that to that point you know you could you could ask um me board five District 5 at the next meeting in May for all six count Seven Counties six six
counties to vote for an amicable split and you'd probably you could get that to your point of working hubly um if we agreed to pay this where it's a six zero agreement for all the
counties to split and then it's done and then the state me board would would say okay I see how you all are cooperating now you're going to they're going to do this split so I believe that M County um commissioner lockart she her comment was
that when a proposal is brought back to amicably separate districts that her intent was to bring back some sort of division of these costs as well um an authorization to do that so whatever that plan ends up being that plan will
also come back to this board um prior to the next meeting of the District 5 committee so I think that's the path that we should take the same path as seminal since that was the direction we set out we set out on and that this
should only come back to us if we are able to work that agreement out well yeah but so to to your point though they did say they're going to reimburse they just don't know the amount yet seal County yes that's correct so that she
she representing her board at that I think she said that that's what their board would do right well she didn't speak she she made it clear that she was not authorized to speak on behalf of the board because they had addressed that's right for that issue they had not addressed it and if if the vote came up during that committee meeting that she
would vote no at that point because she did not have authorization from the board right okay so I I feel like making a vote on item two is is premature short of saying that we would take that issue back up once we got to that point and in
the meantime we continue on the same path but we've got to make it very clear this is the path that we're on this is the direction we're going and um I'll reach out to the sheriff and the state attorney which we've already attempted to get those meetings set up to see if we can get their support so
that we can revisit it um you know and then see if we can get approval from the state committee yeah and I've got a couple of thoughts on this okay um first I believe the reason why there was a denial is because there was a
misunderstanding uh through the board that gives the approval because we hadn't had the opportunity to get with the stakeholders yet the sheriff and the state's attorney I think once that happens that denial will re be reversed
uh the second problem I have is um this 2,494 44493 I'm assuming that's done by population and not done by usage uh it it was operating under the current agreement so right so in in Maran County
from what I understand or all them U District Five U decided that maybe they should actually do by usage and Lake County usage was uh lower than two other counties so I think this 25,000 need to
be adjusted to uses and not to population and the third thing is is we need to stand strong with what we agree to as simal County I don't think it's right for us to tell simal County yes we're in it with you and then the next meeting say oh we don't know what we're
doing uh the the board Direction was quite clear to me at least that we were going to move forward with simal County creating a cohesive U medical examiner between our two
counties and that's as far as I as far as I'm willing to go with it I'm not willing to even entertain anything other than working with Sim County because that's exactly what we told them we would do as a board right and and that was conveyed at the meeting too
so okay so do we actually need a vote or is this your request to us or well I felt like you know I wanted to update you on it for sure um but I I don't think we need to do action on it now until we get some more information on it but um I mean we have to we don't
the the next meeting's in May you want do you have consensus for it do you want them to take a vote so I I think the Dilemma that Jennifer has is that simol county is looking for a confirmation that you want to continue to move forward with them before they spend time working on a plan all right orlit so
let's take a vote on that motion on item one okay I'll make a motion that we continue our our negotiations in um steadfast agreement with s County to move our public or our medical examiner
from uh District 5 to District 4 second all right all in favor say I I any oppos opposed yeah okay all right um and then the the the request regarding reimbursement I hear on the board that that's not something you want to vote on
today we can table that yeah yeah we still have time on that okay and that doesn't need a formal vote to table and so now we're moving on to item 27 um Angela Harold to introduce Park View
good morning again chair and Commissioners Angela Harold director of parks and trails um recently we met with the group from Parkview who provide live stream camera facilities and services at local park properties and we wanted to bring it back to the board for some discussion and Direction they are
offering to provide free cameras or donate cameras to up to four designated locations throughout Lake County so I'm going to bring them up the park viw representatives are here to give you their presentation and answer any questions that you might have yeah first off thank you all for
having us here uh today to can you bring the microphone up to you so we can hear thank you yep first off we appreciate you guys having us here today to share about our service and how it can help benefit uh Lake County and uh it's residents my name is Stephen I am the
Chief Operating Officer of Parkview I have here with me today Aaron uh the CEO and uh Becca the CPO and um parks and wck has always been a big part of all of our Lives it's how we've connected and formed many of our personal relationships and friendships
and we actually all met uh through playing pickle ball in St Petersburg uh Florida and it was really through our own kind of experiences is where the idea from Parkview uh first came from we found that some of the commun community challenges that we Face fa were different Parks had different rules
operating hours levels of play um sometimes you could get to the courts they could be completely overcrowded other times no one would be around to play at all and then also especially in the Florida Summers uh the real-time weather conditions with you know where it could be completely dry in one area
uh but 5 minutes down the road it could be completely soaked so the only way to really know would be drive there and find out you realize you kind of wasted your time um in doing so and then from the county side some of the challenges were Park misuse and
vandalism qu administrative questions calls and complaints and then funding and budget constraints as well as resource allocation and so our solution to that was the ability to know before you go and live views that you could see how
busy the courts are if they're empty if they're overcrowded and also the realtime weather conditions not just for the community uh but also County staff uh tourists you know tourists able to use it Lake County residents are able to use it both within the county as well as
when they're traveling uh to other locations uh that we had and then while we are not a security company um it does encourage proper and safe use of the parks and then with that we can also be
an information resource and broadcast for the county working with you guys to provide all pertinent and relevant information in regards uh to the park systems you information about uh closures events leagues um just kind of anything really
really relevant that'd be valuable and we can pretty much work with you guys and customize uh whatever information that you really want to be shown and on on your pages and then yeah as uh Angela mentioned we're able to donate up to
three between three to five uh camera equipment locations uh to the county uh free of charge and this will remain free for the PE there's always going to be a free option for people in the community uh to use it so it's never going to be an option for uh someone that is unable to use it because they can't afford to
do so so it's it's going to be remain accessible uh for everybody in the community to use uh so basically we transform the park goinging experience by providing real-time insights that eliminate Community uncertainty and ease County challeng es and this is uh this is our product
right here some examples that we have Eagle Scout Park uh which is pickle ball in denen uh Florida as well as uh Rec deck volleyball it's one of our private Partners um and we actually just launched a new uh website um here
recently they've been told we're able to show it here at the end of the presentation we can pull it up so you can guys can kind of see and visualize it yeah and we can show you uh an example of what the footage looks like we're based out of St Pete I'm not sure if you're familiar with that uh we have
uh that map right there is just a little still shot of St Petersburg area and you're you know here in Lake County we'd have a couple pins it looks like we're going to have probably Wooten Park as well coming um just wanted to give you guys a a quick quick peek into what it
would look like yeah so people would easily be able as you mentioned there would be pins on the map people could explore see nearby locations quickly and efficiently um with the new website and app that we have coming uh here a are we looking at a different
screen uh there we hold on a second he had us on a different screen there we go okay now we can see you there's a magician behind the curtain here yes as we mentioned this is this is our new website this is Eagle Scout Park in uh denen Florida um this is this is a
live view um so you're able to see uh the number of people that are playing if courts are available and basically make the decision you know if do I want to play there or do I want to go to another Park um or would I rather you know do something else entirely with my evening
and you can see there's inclement weather possibly in the area of Cloudy Skies and as you know it can be downpouring at this location and 10 minutes away it can be a sunny sky so the whole point is to just help the community make an informed decision um so they're they're not driving aimlessly
from park to park or location it can plan their their day efficiently and accordingly in a real world example from yesterday it rained basically all day so someone could wake up at 8 a. who wants to play check the camera see if the court is dry or not uh if it is dry make
their way there if it's not sleep in and from an administrative standpoint uh you know City staff uh or County staff excuse me can uh also have access to this I mean the whole community so it also allows we've have quite a strong support in the St Pete and Tampa area
from the uh city and county staff that that are our campas in the those locations that we serve they love it as well because if they need to PE a quick peek into the park they can use the uh the new website and then we have an app coming as well that they can peek in
instead of having to drive over there so it's also helping you know with uh County resources as well yep and then there's additional information on the page uh as Stephen said uh we can customize it however you like so park hours if there's lights
what time the lights are on if there's reservations available links to whatever Wherever You can reserve it um a description and then uh real time weather so you can see if a a storm is coming and I I think we do I don't know how if he's he can navigate on the site
if you wanted to go to explore so scroll all the way up scroll all the way up and then explore um yeah okay um if you can allow or yeah either way okay now if you want to go find Lake
County you can zoom out if you need to I just put an example pin yeah on there you go so you want to click on we have Hickory Point Wen park right there yeah so just to kind of give you guys an example what it could like look like for your community like Hickory
Point uh for example um people would easily be able to find that location it's a very you know it's it's probably the best volleyball location i' I've seen you know this would be great to Showcase that to both you know future residents um tourists as well as for the
local community and I know it's a big draw for events and uh tournaments from my understanding as well yeah we spoke we've seen spoken with quite a few cities and counties uh in the State of Florida even some nationally now but we're extremely impressed with what you guys are doing here so who whoever is in
charge of that uh shout out to you because uh it's it's an incredible facility and then we hear you're adding 24 pickle ball courts as well so looks like it could be a tourist uh recreational Mecca um here in the Florida area thank you for showing that
yeah yeah so our current footprint right now is we're at uh 20 Parks across uh 8 C cities um the first couple quarters of this year we have uh a lot of projects in the work for expansion especially within the State of Florida but we have a couple elsewhere outside of the state
um some locations of Interest this is just kind of a general list we kind of put together of where this service could be of use and valuable but you know obviously you guys know your county better than we do so it's just kind of a general list and uh we what we started
as just pickle ball we found the value in tennis uh volleyball we've had a lot of requests for like boat ramps uh so people can see if there's you know if there's trailer parking um and and how busy that is uh dog park speeches and more so there's really a lot of use
cases uh where something like this is of value where people have ever drive somewhere and only to find out you know things aren't as they expected and they wish they didn't spend uh 15 minutes in the car and you know completely wasted their time so it's just about providing
utility and convenience to help people and then we have uh all different kind of uh Network Solutions uh depending on the site layouts and the power and connectivity um on each uh individual one and this all this is stuff we would determine uh during like a a site survey
um that would pretty much you know decide the number of cameras the the best placement of the cameras and that type of stuff and all the cameras are ndaa compliant um as they will be on on federal Municipal grounds um or excuse
me County um yeah anything that the requirement for that is any um city or county that receives any type of government funding which you do uh then it needs to be a specific type of camera which basically is a USA sanctioned cameras so you don't have foreign uh
produced cameras that could have you know some type of spy rare so that's why it's NDA compliant and really the next steps uh if the county did decide they want to move forward from our end is is pretty simple we have a non-binding Loi which is just
pretty much intent uh to enter into a project it's like as you mentioned it's non-binding it just helps us uh allocate uh the donation uh for the county and then we would determine the number of park locations and it be done under a gift agreement uh memorandum of donation
so it's a non-monetary uh transaction so nothing with the RFP uh process Aaron has a lot of experience with that um and yeah we would just determine the type of equipment the camera placement um seeing
if there's power and connectivity on site and then the for the implementation we have an sop that we provide um the the only thing with the donation that we need uh from the county is simply to mount the hardware and and we will
assist uh with the software side and getting everything else uh set up and live on the page for people to use yeah because we because you know we have a li limited number of donations and uh with the donation for those that we are donating to we ask and return you know
that you have someone on staff to just Mount the camera and they're about this big it's really simple um and we we would provide all the equipment necessary for it and we would assist with you know the SOP instruction and then like you said the it side to get
the stream live but we would maintain the stream live and and uh everything at no cost to uh the county so I guess we want to open up any questions for question um yeah I appreciate the
presentation uh I'll I'll ask the U well let me say I know there's a need big time to figure out where to go for pick a allall courts and that's a that's a crazy issue right now so I appreciate this is it's pretty interesting what you're doing um I'll ask the obvious question though about the
Privacy you know what I mean maybe that goes to the type of camera you know can you can it be of such low quality that it's just shapes that you're seeing you know without FES you know how do you address that issue because I think that could be a concern yeah that's a fair question you know one of the first
questions we always are asked um so first off it is in compliance with all federal laws there's no audio um it's video only and the intent of our service and product is to not hone in and say oh that's you know
Mr Parks out there playing and he's wearing his Nike shirt and he's missing his back hands again it's it's just would want to show up in the play me yeah there you go I think I think Kirby would take you on I think um so so so it's just to give a general
idea of hey are the courts too crowded are they not crowded enough there's no one to play with or has the weather affected the area um we have the ability to zoom that in Zoom that out to to your preference we also have uh blur technology with a click of a button we
can blur can blur out faces so um those are not federal requirements it's entirely legal it's no different than a ring doorbell or um uh news broadcast out in the public so but with that we obviously want to cater to the city and counties we work with in their
preferences and we have the ability to do so so I I got a couple of questions I just want to make sure that I understand your presentation correctly this is a live Zoom only no recordings right correct okay so that takes care of that
problem um no facial recognition being done take care of that problem okay uh can you and did I hear right that you can make reservations on the website for each individual Park is that right or no
or is that an opportunity or we can provide a link if you have a reservation system in place or you look to implement one we can provide that link site and then the phone number is on there yeah yep um any any um information you would like uh on the C on the page we're going
to work with your team um to collaborate with how you would like it what information you'd like on there with links uh contact information all of that and and the last question I'm not quite sure I heard right because if I did I wouldn't understand your business model
you said it's no cost to the county correct yeah so we've selected there's only we obviously can't donate to all of the uh Partnerships that we work with but because of your unique volleyball facility being the largest in the state possibly the country country largest in the country and you're looking to expand
and then there's 24 pickle ball courts coming you know we've selected this as one of our few municipalities that will donate the equipment to other other municipality but County other cities and counties are going to have to pay for that um but with yours we would so I would make a suggestion that we don't
make this this decision I think we take it to the Parks and Recreation let them really vet this thing and come back to us for the recommendation so yeah you all make your money by people getting your app right and advertisement so it's free for everyone we're going to have a
premium model um but it's it's the ad Revenue yeah and this will be yeah this will be mostly derived by like pickleball volleyball tennis Brands Sports nutritional uh local Realtors local businesses that kind of things no drug sex alcohol any of that stuff
correct if you saw on the website a minute ago you would have saw a little gray box below the the player that's where one advertisement would go and then one to the right so that allows us to not have to charge um like the we're not charging um the community right now
to use it we will always have a free version of it um and that's how we're able to monetize so so yeah I like your idea oh go ahead so what's the normal charge for somebody that you're going to give us two or three now if we wanted to do other ones what's the normal charge
yeah that's a good question it it deter it's determined by the site location is there power on site is there connectivity on site um what type of camera are we going to do use a bullet that's fixated and still or we're going to use a PTZ it it really can range it
can range anywhere from a thousand to 7,000 per per camera so one time one time yeah one time Fe correct yep so I really like the idea of the possibility of boat ramps as well as you know as a boater I was thinking
silver Glenn quite frankly and kayak kayak it was in kayak re couple Springs and yeah boat ramps around here can get crazy oh yeah yeah that's a request we didn't so and we have so many boat ramps within a that hits all of our Chain of Lakes you can
if you have like Hickory Point has phenomenal boat ramp and then you have lake usus has boat ramps toar that I mean there's a lot of opportunities there so uh again I would just say hand it off to Parks and Recreation let them do all
their little stuff they do can Angela can we can I see you for second so I would like to say a couple of things first before I hand it over to Angela we will have to evaluate the procurement process before we can just handed over to parks and trails so we'll have to
take a look at the procurement process make sure we're doing everything the way we need to do it and also bring in the it as well as parks and trails to evaluate so once the attorney says it's okay yes um is parks and trails okay to at
least vet this thing and let us know your professional opinion on absolutely yes okay and we would also be willing to uh maybe take it to our Parks uh Recreation and trails Advisory board so that they can way and that as well all right sounds sounds good great
presentation I think it's a great service you does this need a motion so if you just give us consensus to move forward then we'll start the process of reviewing procurement requirements and get staff coordinated with the with um Melanie on that I'm good I'm good I'm
good too yeah I think it sounds like we all are um thank you for being here today and we'll have our staff work with you and find out what we Hoops we have to jump through to make sure that we're doing everything the way we have to congratulations on being an entrepreneur thank you guys thank you you guys very much thank
you okay moving on then to tab 28 yeah yeah I figured you knew him see you guys very soon tab 28 um commissioner Smith this is a vacancy on the parks recreation and trails advisory
committee that ends on June 30th 2025 and the applicant is Patrick long from District 5 move to approve second all right all in favor say I I any posts all right moving on then to 29 um again
commissioner Smith is on the tourist Development Council um we have to fill a position for an elected Municipal officer and those officers have to serve from our two largest municipalities which are leberg and Claremont and we already have a lesburg appointee so we
have a request for Allison strange from um Claremont um but we also would have to change the term on Alan Risman so that we make it coincide um with the end of his Municipal term so I'm turning it over to you for your yeah um I Allison
strange is a is a would be a a great pick H however I think through all of her other businesses there's a lot of conflicts that she wouldn't be able to vote on or she to have a a waiver
on I'm uneasy about the conflicts that would come along with um having um council member or commissioner strange on the TDC board
um I just wish they would pick somebody have her Bas on between the TDC in Claremont but to actually be on the TDC board have somebody to has less conflicts in my
opinion yeah and I I mean even just earlier on the agenda there was a request that was made for the spring games right correct that was a yeah correct pfx spring games Legends way I mean there's a bunch of them your concern could be could be a continual it
could be continual and it could also hinder what we can do as a as a TDC board because You' have one spot that wouldn't be because there's so many conflicts on there or you you know if you're missing somebody else that day and then she can't vote those are the kind of things that you're about yeah
valid concerns so I I don't know I don't know how to do this I maybe maybe just go back to the City of Claremont and yes you know well I'm sure she'll understand I hope I mean I I like her
and I hope she understands but I just I'm I'm comfortable that's a lot on her plate even to do right what she's doing now yes so the message is just to reconsider that position from appointment from Claremont then can we
do that so we can send a letter um if that's the consensus of the board uh we can send a letter to Claremont requesting that they appoint someone else from their Council to serve in the capacity as a TDC representative from Claremont and if we can give some
reasons that were stated ABS absolutely all right thank you okay yeah as long as the letter is very clear that the concern is and not just a general conflict of interest statement but something more along the lines that applications that actually come before the board oftentimes are associated with
her her group and her organizations that she's representing and so it could create quum problems and all of that I think I I think we can relay that there's concern that there would be a lot of items that she would be unable to vote on due to the conflicts and that
could create the issues of the TDC and moving forward projects as far as aligning um Alan ryman's term we wouldn't need to do that today or should we go ahead and do that you can leave that and when we bring back another applicant We Can ad address it at that
time okay okay then moving on to tab 30 um this is a request approval to reappoint Paul John's to the greater Orlando Sports commission's executive board representing Lake County move approval second all right any further discussion couldn't think of a better person excellent he does a great job
they say all right all in favor say I I and he opposed okay moving on then to tab 31 with regard to library Advisory Board I'll call in commissioner Parks or commissioner Morris I'm going to pass this off to uh commissioner Smith uh yeah this this is in my district and I
would like to be able to UM Vet and pick out somebody to be on the library board okay all right then um moving to um item 32 which was added that was the discussion about conservation
easements is this this is commissioner sabatini's request oh wow we moved quickly didn't we so wait down here um yeah it's 32 it's a agendum to the regular agenda yeah oh yeah okay so I'm sure all of you
have seen uh in the news um this very hot topic about one of the um largest property trans in our County and so um this is a very important topic and I want to talk to you about it um
because it has to do with the future of the county um I'm not going to specifically talk about um any pending application from um the owners of the land that own the land right now because
technically I didn't know until this thing hit growth spotter in West Channel 2 that they had already submitted in application so not talking about zoning not talking about um um comp plan amendments but right now we're in
basically a crisis in this County uh because the County's failed miserably for decades to protect um certain elements of of the community that I think give it a sense of identity and purpose and meaning and obviously the
people in Lake County um agree with that sentiment it's quite ler why they approved the bond buying mechanism at the rate that they did in fact I think if it was twice as high it would it would have passed by the same margin probably three times honestly um and so we're all going to
have to make the decisions of how we want to spend that money um and what we want to do to buy easements and there's going to be different types of projects and land that are of interest to people uh but I believe and I hate to rush things like this
because honestly there's nothing we can do these things are happening very quickly in this County 440,000 people but I think we need to prize the agricultural working lands I think it's more important to have working agricultural lands in the community uh
than just quiet um passive Green Space although that's extremely important and beautiful and great uh it it it creates a different type of value and I think the agricultural for working lands of which actually if you really do the math here we're talking about probably five
or 10 Real Farms really in the entire County um and doing what we can do um to try to prioritize which ones have the most value and then and then making an offer um future offer spend some of our conservation easement money is very
important um with that said I mean I put this on the agenda because even though our bond uh funds even come in till next year and there's nothing we can do at this exact moment we should at least be entertaining the conversation with major
stakeholders in the community about potential conservation easement rights uh because if we don't then time flies and it's just gone uh those opportunities are gone and this for me is an opportunity to engage with the major stakeholder and the community and
talk about it so I I obviously had staff reach out uh to um one property owner about a potential offer of conservation easement rights and there's actually been these really contradictory mixed messages in the media there's probably
15 articles on this topic in just the last seven days and the statements are actually extremely conflicting um about what's for sale when's for sale what's going to happen what's not going to happen it's been an enormous amount of false information uh but I think the one thing that we can all probably agree on
is that it is an important property uh who whose use is good for the community and that we should formally have staff reach out um whether that means off the Record or not uh and make
tentative um opening conversations with potential commitments for future conservation easement rights uh because if we don't these things happen so quickly they could happen in the midst of one or two County Commission meetings and those Communications didn't didn't
didn't occur and didn't result in anything positive and so U staff was already doing that they've already reached out and there's been conversations and because of the Sunshine Law obviously there's no way for me to ever bring this up other than just dumping it on the agenda and everybody has to sort of react to it
because I can't just pick up the phone like I used to do in legislature and kind of gauge people so um everybody in this County's been everyone on this commission's been on the in the county for a very long time and they've watched the county change and they probably have
their own opinions about what are the properties that um would benefit the count the county as a whole with conservation easement rights for me the working Farms the large working Farms are probably the single most important um that I believe with that said you
know I kind of got um what I wanted in terms of the first step which was to open up a conversation and like I said before um the folks who own the land that I'm interested in trying to offer a conservation needman to down the the road have given some different
Impressions um the first statements were well we've never really even thought about that you know we've already had these other people and then it was you know there's contracts that are already in place but then quite literally after that that was sort of walked back and well actually it's sort of contractual
not really it's 18 to 24 month type thing and we'll see and and then eventually it landed at well if the county can make a Comm measurable offer then then maybe we'll do that so i' love to get your guys' thoughts again I hate to rush and jam you guys up with stuff
like this but when these deals happen so suddenly in the community and we as a commission only find out when the application gets dropped and the News pick pick it up or growth spotter that's the only time to to have the conversation really uh so just love to get your guys' thoughts on it even if they're just sort of abstract thoughts
and again I'm not interested really and I'm not trying to push everybody's opinion on land use in comprehensive plan amendments that's totally you know qual judicial we'll talk about that another time but just I guess the importance on conservation easements in one one type of property or another in
terms of the The Limited funds we have so I not sure whether the County Attorney wants to pipe up but I think that we have to stop right at this moment and I don't think we can have any conversation about any particular property period
um we can talk in abstract we can talk in abstract about land use we can talk in abstract about conservation easements um I know the state has a program in fact representative trunow was um um I
think working really hard on um a a purchase of a land um um across the state as a possibility of of of easements so that what you do is you the farm a farm continues but they um their development rights are purchased and
that is what facilitates them being being able to continue on as a farm I think that was the program maybe that he was working on um but I do think that um um and I and I like I welcome the opportunity to talk about land use in general and I and as far as the
obligation of local government um you know to to try to manage and and quote control growth in light of property rights in the state of Florida um it's a very complicated discussion and and a
lot of you know people in our County um me included um you know aren't thrilled about how quickly Lake county is growing and how quickly our Municipal boundaries are expanding um those are issues that I
brought up before at County Commission meetings because I think that's really where most of the growth um is happening it's Municipal uh expansion and I think that that one thing could really pull things back and and we could have more
um sort of quality um development my my ask to the cities continues to be honor the County's rural and rural transition land uses if they would do that one thing that would help delineate where
Urban and urbanized uses are versus rural and rural transition uses are those are the kind of things that I think we can talk about and we can talk about in abstract but um we have to be like extremely careful about having any
kind of discussion um if there's um you know whenever there are pending applications um we have to like we we we can't have those discussions whenever you're ready I guess we can go in order so I I just I
don't know where you're talking about I mean there's farmlands all over the place here in Lake County uh North eus is full of farmlands south lake is full of farmlands East Lake is is full of Farmland so I don't know what land
you're talking about um but I'm not sure that if couple of things here um we can't purchase I don't think we can purchase a track of land as conservation and have somebody else Farm it because
we're using public funds to make a conservation for somebody else to make it a Farmland and I'm not sure if you can even Farm F conservation land I'm not 100% sure on that um the second thing is don't we have like TDR rights
or we're looking into tdrs transfer developments yep transfer development rights which would give those Farmers the opportunity to transfer the rights they currently owned to sell off to somebody else so they could do it in a more dense area right that's a concept
yeah that's the concept so to to say that we're not concerned or or we've done a horrible job is absolutely not right this board has done nothing but try to protect our conservation lands in our rural protection area the best we could without getting
sued um the ne the next thing the next thing is is we have a referendum that was passed by 80% but that referendum has rules to it
and one of the rules is we have to have a board set up to find the best most logical place to purchase these conservation lands within the county and bring that recommendation to the County
Commission Now I know that that applications are out there so if you want to be on the board please fill out your application to be on the board um to help us know where these lands are uh but that can't start until 2026
because we have to have other millage Sunset right Jennifer that's correct that sunsets in April of 2026 and this picks up and then we could go out for a a bond at at following that okay so we are doing
everything we can to save conservation here in Lake County Lake County I think is currently over 34% conservation land already as we currently sit today we're just trying to make it more um so we're doing the best we can but to
buy somebody's land and have them Farm it I am there's other opportunities out there yeah I think there are federal and I do think there's federal state programs along those lines um that have been done in other areas that's that's very
different than the um public land acquisition referendum that was directed at um um passive lands water water quality concerns you know habitat concerns Wildlife concerns those kind of
things but anyway um I love the topic so um commissioner sabatini as it's worded on Tab 32 discussion and Direction regarding conservation ements absolutely love the discussion so appreciate having the discussion um yeah I mean it's it's a
it's it's time we talk about it more um you know pursue we can continue to pursue do some of the things that we've talked about in the past and protecting these agricultural lands these we have some very aable lands in in Lake County that that I would hate to see lost to
development so no doubt about that how it fits with the with the recent bond referend in that past I mean there there there could be there might be a little bit if there's some conservation land maybe that's part of some agricultural Legacy lands but the big thing that we
need to do and I think you sort of touched on it a minute ago commissioner sabatini was um you know the discussion about on the state level I know commissioner Campion alluded to this as well it's the rural and family lands protection act is the way to go yes
commission uh Senator trunow has been a part of that um recently had just a few days ago had a good good conversation with um commissioner Simpson Commissioner of Agriculture about this would love to come and talk to us about how that works um we could fit that in a
s a future County Commission meeting but there is probably a leadership role to your point of maybe we bring the a all these a properties because I think there's a lot of them more than we realize around the county together and maybe we have a leadership role in
pursuing the next cycle or maybe there's flexibility within this cycle for Rural and family lands protection act monies alongside of I do think we should expedite um I know we can't we can't use the bond money technically until two
years from now but I do think there's some things that we could do to we're going to set up the committee but I do think we need to pursue deals right now as soon as possible um and and yeah exactly get the get it get it going because it's just it's not going to get
any cheaper we just need to find a way to maybe stay in the game with that and even though we can't fully Bond the the $50 million until you know two years from now but so a little bit of a sort of a rambling I appreciate kind of what you all have said so far um
and you know it could almost be a whole another Workshop item but it is it is a very real chance and you know again I'm glad it's actually glad it's on the agenda um for us to take a leadership role and get get with our a folks and and pursue these opportunities
so what they do is they if if you are awarded one of those grants um from if you're I don't call it a grant I guess it's a it's more of a um a purchase of development rights and easement on an Agland so they could pay anywhere from
50 to 70% of the market value and then uh you can continue to keep going forward and use agon you can sell the land actually to another somebody completely different and use it and it would it just has to stay in agricultural use so maybe there's maybe where our role is is putting the deals
together on that maybe finding other a act folks in the community that might be interested in a property that is going to fall underneath this Rural and family land protection act and then maybe there's some maybe we pursue like trust with public land or the elal land trust or somebody else to kind of bridge the
gap in the in the time being maybe there's a a portion of it that comes from our referendum Bond money as well um if it fits within that ordinance and I encourage you that you know the new Commissioners if you have not for good reading you can read the ordinance that we authorized last year it goes into a
great detail about what it'll do so just my two cents on how to proceed but I love that I love the discussion well I have a few things in response to all the opening comments but I don't want to cut off our the last guy maybe we can do some opening
comments and then have a conversation I think we can move very forward in a similar direction if we just I think if I think if you'll look and see what the state has done um they've they've kind of worked on that Wildlife Corridor section and that's the type of land that
they've been acquiring so I think that's the first thing we would need to do is identify and and qualify what they would be interested in I don't think that we're going to have enough money to go out and do that so I think we're going to need help from from the State or the other organizations so that's my two
cents all right so first thing we talked about I think it's very important that we we make clear is that there's no limitation on the 50 million Lake forever program on spending it on just conser pure conservation versus buying e
easements to working agricultural land so what I'm telling you is again I hate the abruptness of all this but it's the way we have to start things I'd encourage to definitely doing a workshop on in the next couple weeks we can go more into detail is prioritizing the purchase of easements
on working a land versus just pure passive land and the reason why is kind of what Sean just said if we don't do it now the price just gets out of trol down the road and it feels like I could be wrong here and we're all
experiencing it is that these working lands are being sold at a high price right now like literally right now so even though we have a year until we can do anything if we at least engage in conversations with major agricultural land we can lock in commitments and show
an Earnest commitment to buying easements on these working a lands before the price goes crazy before things are sealed up and again like we saw in the convers in the conversation again we're just talking about conversation conservation easement it's not about land use uh specifically if we
make it clear that we're interested in buying those lands and I think I think then we're going to have more willing Partners who come to the county and say well maybe you can buy these conservation e maybe not at the end of the day we can't do anything that they don't want to do but I just want to make sure that our interest is extremely
well known uh which I don't think historically uh you know it was a major topic until now and so now it's a major Maj it's a major uh topic and interest and I want to make sure people know that's all I'm going to be voting you know of course we're going to have a Citizens advisor board they're going to have great ideas but at the end of the day the final Authority will be ours and
for me if somebody says you want to protect the passive piece of green space that's you know singularly beautiful to look at versus the working a Farms which I think will be completely dismissed from the community if we if we allow them all to just follow a natural path I
guess you could say um I I'm going to go with the working land because it's what's created the identity here and so that's where I think we should prioritize our conservation easement money going forward and we could talk about the topic all day long um I do want to point
out that um many years ago when the first public lands acquisition process was started um there was a debate that occurred after properties were acquired about whether property should have been acquired in
areas that were already rural that were already restricted for development because they were in areas that could not be developed why would you buy those lands um unless you were trying to maybe
create like a park type experience where you go hiking and that type of thing part of a larger or part of a larger Wildlife quarter so there there's a lot of when you when you make a decision about prioritizing I think you have to be careful that you have a broad criteria um because there are properties
that are under threat of development because of their location but they're highly sensitive environmentally that's the type of land that a lot of people feel should be way at the top of that list um the location is key as to
whether it's actually um threatened by development um so that I think based on what we learned from the last fast land acquisition process is really important to keep in mind um because if it's not under threat of development and it's
already in a natural condition then maybe it's not a prime candidate for for purchase so there I think there are a lot of criteria that go into it um and um and I do think you have to look at other resources that are available
because you will deplete that money so fast one of the things that was raised when we were having the discussion about this second referendum was how can you leverage this money because really when you when you look at the dollar amount it can only go so far but if you can
leverage it by um using it to get grants like the Forever Florida grants and so forth you use a portion and you match it with this money you can make it go further there's been a lot of discussion about using it for a combination of trails that um then also provide
Wildlife corridors and green space corridors so so you just you know I think that it it's great to be uh passionate about the idea of protecting a certain type of land um in in Lake County but there are a lot of different
types of land that deserve and should be protected and I think the location is always going to be key the threat of development should be key the ability to connect Wildlife corridors it should always be at least a consideration so
all of these criteria um I don't know whether we can form the committee before we hit the 2026 mark But if we can form the committee and these kind of discussions can occur I think the sooner the better is great um I don't know whether you can go you know actually
enter into letters of intent and and do anything like that or not but that was alluded to so if that's something that could be done if you actually form the committee you have the criteria and then they actually start getting applications in maybe you can have at least letters
of consideration or something like that that you could start to review properties and at least use this time as a time to be doing that yeah there's there's yeah there's there's nonprofits that'll do that trust for public land leral land trust even a trust that'll do
the same thing that could bridge the gap in between yeah exactly you because you you you got to you want to get on as quick as possible it's not going to get any cheaper um so we do have I I mean this is a good position to be in really if you think about it to be talking
about all these different kinds of lands so it's we're in a we're in a better position uh this year now with this than we were last year but I think I think you can leverage the term leverage was used you can leverage so it could be leveraged to some some lands that are a if there's a conservation element to it
yeah well it'll you know at the end of the day there's going to be finite resources we're all going to have our opinions I think each of us have made our opinion to know whether we agree with each other's opinions or not I think I'm going to be very just blunt with you for me I'm super high on on the working agan why because it's all it's
all going away okay it's it's going away and that's and the only way you fix that is to follow what some states have done which is to prioritize buying the purchase of those conservation easement I would like to see the committee get formed earlier I'd like to see the citizens committee get formed earlier
I'm not say we to do it today and what I'm saying is over the next few weeks I think we should come up with a in even it's just informal set of policies where staff is already identifying areas making conversations you know in the votes or the votes there might be three or four Commissioners that say nope this is where we're going to spend the money
but at least we're making that decision early we're not waiting um you know we don't we don't want this this or this fell at number five on the list or whatever but I I guess my biggest thing is I just like to get get into it very quickly and then don't miss opportunities especially when they're major stakeholders and commissioner
Smith made a very good point he said there's Farms everywhere in the this County that's right but I think the biggest thing you should be doing right now and that we should be doing as a collective group is really prioritizing which ones are stakeholder sign significant and singular in the
community that do give it a sense of uh identity in place and which ones are not as important and so therefore we can each argue for where they should be on the list so I'd like to see a schedule a workshop in the next couple weeks where we start a committee start conversations and and please don't uh misinterpret my
criticism I don't make to say the people who have been on the commission for the last four years have done something wrong I meant just if you look at a half century of change in the county although we've had a lot of very good change in the county I think most people would agree um that we could have a stronger
approach towards preserving certain forms um of the economy that's it um that's really that's really my point but I'd like to see it's just uh take a look at a workshop and um and we can start doing this and again you know I might be
in theid here but at least I know your guys' positions and we're all going to be on the same page so and just to be clear I think that um for the last 25 years the County's comp plan is clear that agricultural land is given a very high status so that's a reality the
other thing that you need to understand I think is very important is that um most of the municipal boundaries that have grown in Lake county is where your development is happening they're not gobbling up Farms as a general rule um
yeah it's just a it's an interesting way to start a conversation by saying that the county has done miserably County as a whole not a County Commission don't misinterpret what I I hope you think I meant oh this commission or that Comm also think that this is a philosophical argument too that I think you need to take into consideration and that is how
much do you want land to be owned by the public I mean how can can we I mean that's what they do in socialist countries MH they buy up all the land and then only a few people are paying for everything to be operated in that country you know it's like you you kind
of need to put it in a bigger philosophical context I think um because um we could we could go broke if if only you know you got a handful of people who are out there in ownership it just like there's
totally no no no that's a danger it it is and I just think that you know you got to kind of step back and say Okay um I mean everybody always starts this conversation about growth Management in Lake County going back to the freezes in
the 80s and how it was the farmers who were desperate to make sure that their land had some development right capacity because they couldn't make ends meat they they lost everything and so that's kind of back in the 80s is when growth
management was really at a you know its Pinnacle um as they tried to establish okay which lands are going to be which are going to be Urban expansion which which are going to be you know urbanized um all of that was established at that period of time in Lake County but if you
look at where the growth centers are then they're the municipalities so um I I'm not quite sure how you do it differently than how it was done you know establishing you got an urban area you got a ring around that that you're you know your suburban
area and then you go further out and you've got your rural areas that's kind of how all of that was set up back in in the in the 80s and '90s um when the first comp plan was was adopted then what started happening in Lake county is
that a city would grow out of the urban and urban expansion area and then they would actually Annex lands that were rural transition and Rural lands in my opinion that is where it falls apart
that delineation between urbanized areas and rural areas um and I I'm of the opinion that if we can kind of reestablish that and convince our cities and and our our voters and our residents to get behind
that we will do more good for protecting the character and charm of Lake County and in creating more of a managed growth approach than anything else we can do but those that's my two cents worth but I do think you have to be careful when you start talking about buying up and controlling land and I I couldn't agree
more we went to the state legislature two years ago just for that same fact that the the problem we're having is these municipalities are annexing into our rpas and then don't have to follow the rules of the
RPA rural protection area um we have transitional zones but as soon as the city of travares or the city of leeburg or the city of highway or you name a city and ta is in they don't have to follow those rules so we as a board went to the state
legislature two or three years ago and asked them to put make it a state law that you have to respect the rural protection areas and that didn't move forward um I don't know why it didn't
move forward so we're we're trying another Avenue it's not like we're not trying but uh I'm a personal belief that if you're a land owner you have a right to do what you want with your land I mean it's personal property rights now if you have a a farm land that he's
willing to sell it for $1,000 in acres which is what it's probably worth without the commercial aspect then okay but he's probably W $350,000 an acre because that's what it's worth under a commercial thing and not a Farmland
so um you know I was in smut pots in the middle of the Orange Groves in 1989 trying to help uh one of my friends Dad tried to save his Grove it didn't work he lost everything so I'm just going to say I do think you
know moving forward I think I agree I want the committee set up as soon as possible I want it to be the right committee I do think we could do this in three weeks if we wanted to or next week get everybody from agriculture that's interested the Commissioner of Agriculture maybe we could could
coordinate a meeting with him as well and go over this even this specific program and what's we know is available to us through some of the trust um for protecting a lands um that is a a component of it I want to be very clear and be on the record too I'm not for
buying out like the total total government purchase of all um of all AGS I I don't think you are either but I but you know it's the old phrase if everyone owns the land nobody owns it so I don't think we want to get to that point but I think from a protection of our economy
and just as a n kind of a national security issue you might have there could be a benefit to getting some people together for the county that are interested in keeping their lands and agricultural use through an easement process where that's you know pass down to the Next Generation I think some of
those are 50 years out so it's not a permanent easement although some of them might be I don't know that for sure but that could be a sort of a a Middle Road for us to address uh a very real concern of losen good
agriculture lands in Lake County as well so I think the county manager has U something to say about yeah thank you commissioner Morris um so we are currently accepting applications we've received some for the committee we our plan is to bring it
back to the board to actually seat a committee in the March or April time frame this year so that it that's on the Move we want to make sure we get as many applicants as possible possible so we get a good range of candidates to be considered by this board um once that is
that committee is appointed by the board then they will start the process of looking at the criteria for the lands to be considered for purchase using the public lands referendum funding the way that it's worded do they create the
criteria and bring it back for us to opine on the criteria or do we establish the criteria and Prov that committee what's the sequence there I I think it's for them to come up with criteria that they want to make to recommend to this
board for consideration and then ultimately it is this board's decision on what that criter criteria will be because it's like two steps right you got the criteria and you got our oversight of the criteria then you have the actual process of evaluating applications based on that criteria
correct so we have input on both parts of that corre and it gives you basically a checklist to kind of evaluate the properties yeah read yeah read the or read the ordinance um you know that was it was dis discussed multiple times using the countywide conservation strategy um as a as a sort of deciding
factor which by the way addresses agricultural lands in that countywide conservation strategy so we are kind of covering it so um yeah that was and it might the there's some different GIS models that might even actually be mentioned in that ordinance
I'm not sure 100% you would think after looking at it all last year I would had it memorize I feel like it was in the ordinance there was language about the mark San model and the uh countywide conservation strategy yeah yeah we can send that ordinance out for everybody to review again so it's
fresh in your mind yeah thank you so can we do we have some consensus maybe on a potential Workshop where we do go more in detail with this stuff because I I do think the Tim lead this is very important on on the committee on the priorization and and on the on the what
we can and can't do and then also working working with our state Partners you guys described the family rural trust uh protection Grant uh mechanism it's usually $50 to100 million funded it's pretty limited um if you get six or S million out of that for one property
that's considered very high um we should be lobbying them and we we maybe we could talk about that the workshop we should also be talking about the legis to the legislature about doubling the size of it uh because it's remained the same for many many years now uh and so
we can do that at the workshop well well we're going to have a committee set up I'm sorry we're going to have a committee set up March or April right well March is seven days away well going back to commissioner
campion's question is that to set up the committee or the criteria for how we set up the committee because I'm all about voting on a good committee but I'd like to know kind of what where the other Commissioners think about is it just anybody in your District district and then that's it and then they apply whatever they want so we have in the ordinance we have specific requirements
to be a member of the K committee some of it may have a background in in Trails some may have um um a geological background there's specific things and then there's a couple of just at will type members so or I'm sorry at large
type members so we'll bring that we'll send out that ordinance for you and you'll be able to see what the requirements are for the membership and then we are taking the applicants and so the staff will vet them and and put them into the appropriate category of what
they what eligibility they meet and then bring it to the board for final approval you may have three or four people that meet one specific criteria as a Committee Member and you may have none so I'm I'm more than willing to um
to to answer your question is once the ordinance comes out bring it back to next meeting and then see if we need to Workshop it I agree yeah and again I'll just put it out there um no necessarily answer it today but if you want to get a full including in the workshop invite everybody in Lake
County it's agriculture they're very tight you invite a few of them a couple of the leaders they're all going to come you could get them in a in a room and potentially with can't speak for him but I think he said he would meet with us the Commissioner of Agriculture himself
we could have that meeting and say this is something we want to we want to encourage we're trying to hear from you are you interested in this um what are your other ideas do you know of other trusts or anything you know programs that you could participate in how do we facilitate if nothing else just ask them
how do we facilitate the protection of AGS in Lake County so we're talking about a different work know it's a different it's so maybe we need to break this into a couple parts one would be if we want a workshop specifically uh you know I think it boils down if we can just get the municipalities not to
change the rules in the RPA it would most sign a jpa tomorrow but but but we've had the request about uh a workshop on on a land protection uh connecting our Farmers to programs that
kind of thing um how about at next meeting I bring back a a a a proposal on a couple things like that whether we do that separately on that on a issues I'm I'm not sure I mean the commissioner that's one possibility another is
somebody who has all of the knowledge about the programs and we and we invite all of our all of our a folks we've got a way to do that that most of them are part of the um the local Farm Bureau um you know we can work through them on their terms and go somewhere to one of
the we could go to a farm um but we have to open it up to the public and make it easily accessible that's true so um and then the other issue is the committee are we publicizing that heavily asking for people to get applications and how are we letting people know this is a
time to put an application in if you're interested in serving yeah I believe we've done some communication on that Angela can better answer that question because this could be something if you could share with us a link or whatever the ad looks like so that we personally can also share that
with people so we have received about 10 applications I'm waiting for there were some additional questions that were specific to the this committee that we sent to those individuals once I have those back we'll be getting that to you um then we can vet it and see where we
have applicants that match up and then we were going to put out and work with Communications to put out a press release saying we still need these vacant places but we can put out an initial press have we done an initial press we have not no ma'am I feel like you got to do that you got to go ahead
and put the press release out that says there's going to be this committee here are the positions the types of trades or expertise we're looking for if you're interested the deadline is this and get that out there so that we get as many as
possible and then you guys do the vetting to see which ones fit into which category and then we go from there and making the appointments yep we can work on that and then one question what's the quantity how many people are we looking at it is nine with one commissioner liaison okay yeah okay let's move quickly on
that I think we're all in agreement that that needs to start getting into place very quickly and then just a couple final small remarks so we're very far out from the next legislative session other than the one that's we've already done our priorities for but I would strongly put at the top of our priority list reform and expansion of the family
rural Farmland protection uh uh trust bill because what that would do is if you could break it down the population or like certain counties get x amount or just doubling it make that a priority of ours I think that is very important because it is a very limited program even though obviously I completely agree
with you that we should be lobbying to get as much money out of there as we possibly can no let's go ahead and say that's going to be our next islative priority we want to keep that on we want to put that on our list and to the extent that there's any opportunity this session for more money to put in be put in that program we can let them know so
I think that if we're all in agreement there that that needs to be a a high priority and especially in a place in Central Florida where we we've got one of the highest growth rates um where there is a lot of threat to those lands
continuing on in their current um use that we we should be asking the legislature to help us out okay thanks guys appreciate it and uh again you know these things pop up because this is the the fat the speed at which this countyy is growing you wake up you turn on the
news and quite literally major major changes happening in the community so all we can do is throw it on the agenda and get everybody to just have that conversation very quickly so appreciate it guys okay moving down to reports um County attorney report County manager no
report uh commissioner sabatini oh that's all thank you commissioner Parks uh yeah just a couple things um so appreciate the staff um from Public Safety you're you we won't forget about you she won't forget about you forget
about I'm not I'm looking at my I got my order it's it's all in order um so the Mont verd fire station I appreciate that I thought that went off very well and I know Mont verd is is happy so thank you Chief back there uh for doing that um wanted to uh just I guess uh celebrate
the alternative water supply Grant request uh for funding um it's not it's not a study per se like we're still studying the problem we know what the problem is I think we've used that term as a study but this is essentially a
plan that puts all puts puts together um what we know will work to create alternative water supplies for wellness way and that was amazingly proved at the speed of lightning uh in the terms of legislature world uh right now because we had had some good meetings Kathleen
was with us um Chris our lobbyist uh with d and we found out rather quickly within the last two or three weeks afterwards that that's actually been awarded to us already uh and that'll actually be administered through Claremont although we'll work with them
of course um to to put that all it together so I wanted to announce that I think you you you may have all have heard that or know that already so and then if you could put a couple of maps up on the screen really quick just I promise this won't be too long which one would you like first we have them both
ready no we don't to do that uh let's put up the missing link there you go so news from cfx uh this Missing Link uh we have we have approved an agreement with Orange County to fund that road uh segment it's the missing
mile between the 429 uh and uh Wellness Way Boulevard not State Road 516 and you know this was a concern you can literally see construction going right up to the Lake County Orange County of Wellness Way Boulevard and Wellness Way which is Central of course to our Economic
Development plans to put job centers on the map This Is Missing Link now will will um I'm not sure exactly when this construction will occur but the agreement with cfx and Orange County um certainly expedites that now to construct it again from 429 new
Independence Parkway to Wellness Way Boulevard so this will happen very in relative terms quickly so that's good news for us um because that was going to be a problem if that wasn't never done then you have a dead end Road to Nowhere The Road to Nowhere uh so that's great
news so you're saying that they're going to go ahead and build that yeah that will that will be fantastic news good job yep good job um I appreciate it that well there was a lot of people that did some good work on that um and then the next map too uh
quickly uh so it's a little bit of good news here uh last or two years ago on cfx we went through 2045 long range planning and this Corridor uh became uh sort of labeled as a corridor of concern or a coridor for future planning and
that is specifically this is Highway 50 in South Lake County and that's the Florida Turnpike and all my South Lake friends all of you probably know this just how lovely it is in the morning and in the afternoon getting trying to get on and off Florida's Turnpike on Highway
50 so a couple years ago um this was put as a corridor of concern on the uh the the 2045 plan for cfx and now cfx has as of the last meeting we have agreed to actually go ahead and start moving that
up and study we're going to study the toll uh feasibility of a direct connection from the turnpike um through that little portion of Orange County uh potentially all the way up uh I don't want to say uh County Road 455 uh
because people will assume that's where it's going to go but they'll be there'll be uh express lane connections U hopefully in sometime in the future uh making it a lot easier to get on uh the turnpike from Highway 50 in Lake County
because you know that as you go past all that development that's occurring right there you can wait a long long time in these signals you have people trying to get over and turn get into the right lane and the right lane backs up several miles outside of the turnpike so uh that's going to be express lane project
that we're going to explore and study so I want to be very clear I don't know when that will be constructed it's just we have taken the step to move to the next step and that is uh study this a little more in detail with toll feasibility so little bit of a good news
there um for traffic concerns on Highway 50 Coming Out Of Quon that's all I have all right great that's good great update commissioner park or commissioner Smith uh yeah I wanted to say that I join commissioner parks
commissioner Morris at the fire station uh groundbreaking I was there m Bird right yeah mount Bird yeah mount bird um fire station uh I've had several conversations with the citizens about
conservation land right here in taries um looking at opportunities there to change that land from what he currently has over into conservation uh I went to the Liberty Tree celebration in lesburg it was absolutely
fantastic that was um on Monday and then on Monday went to uh Tallahassee with Jennifer uh met all the uh state representatives and and um St John's Water Management
what we have 14 meetings that day uh very well received uh a lot of work um gave him a lot of information and I think we're going to be okay there given us given them our late
priorities and then um had to Hickory Point Boat Ramp ribbon cutting uh thank you to Parks and Recreation and everybody in the in Lake County Water Authority um everything's great there and I must say uh chairman that you know
last meeting probably wasn't on my best behavior and I let my emotions get to me so I I apologize to if I made you feel bad if I if I um said some things that we not right it was not my intention so
I apologize apology accepted all right uh commissioner Morris beging uh all my committee meetings uh learning a lot more about Lake County and how it operates um went to a meeting that py
homes put in what was looking in the Lady Lake area and there was probably 150 people there so it's going to be very um contentious up in that area with growth so um that was something was going to go into the town so you'll probably start getting some calls on
that okay that's it all right um and because I have the next report and I just want to make sure that commissioner Smith has whatever he may need to make it through the last part of the
meeting in fact I have some really great Florida goodies Florida sunrise Orange jelly candy I've got Florida beef jerky I've got Florida Taffy about anything you could want or need to keep you happy
well thank you while I give my report okay so my report is uh those are good candies by the way the tangerines Orlando based right yep um on Saturday great event out in sento uh neighborhood
lakes uh honoring Katherine Hansen and naming um the road there that segment of serrento Avenue uh in honor of um Catherine for her great service for so many years in Lake County not just on the County Commission but in the community and all that she did for
Northeast Lake County um so that was that was a great event staff did an excellent job um thanks to her family for helping pull all that together um Hickory bo uh Hickory Point Boat Ramp opening excellent event thank you to Lake County Water Authority they've been
working on that for a very long time and for parks and trails and all that they did parks and wreck for bringing that together um the boat ramps are longer and deeper and they are the state-of-the-art boat ramps um a model
for other ramps throughout uh Central Florida and Florida um I learned that as part of this event um I attended the Early Learning Coalition um meeting last week um after our last meeting um I represented the county at the First
Presbyterian Church of Eustace their 140th um celebration fabulous service they had great music and they were super appreciative of of the uh Proclamation that we adopted um I attended an opioid task force meeting and that will be coming back for more discussion by this
board we do have a retreat tomorrow that starts at 9:00 a.m. we'll be over at the EC right um and um so we'll be delving into some of these issues more deeply um I met with representative Gentry
actually out at the Lake County Water Authority uh Wolf Branch snc preserve and showed him the situation with the uh the odor issues as well as the water quality concerns and surface flow concerns um that was an excellent meeting I think that and then I was up
at Silver Glenn U or in Aster talking about silver Glenn and that was a great meeting I have to say um that uh the people that attended the meeting probably 200 um were um all very thoughtful speakers uh presented lot of
information there was a lot of um information that came out um with regard to the St John's river and concerns about herbicide treatments and the fact that eelgrass was not only dying in the Glenn it's dying throughout the river because of those herbicide treatments and a lot of discussion about what do we do about water quality issues on the St
John's as well but um the fish and wildlife you know is taking this under um consideration they're recommending approval of the Springs protection Zone um I argued to the group that it was a extreme super extreme measure it was going too far and preventing voters from
actually getting into the Glenn and being able to enjoy that that really wonderful um natural wonder um I have had meetings since with um Captain my singer um and uh Marine Patrol staff um
trying to get input about what we might be able to do at the local level um to get ahead of this a little bit more because if this extreme measure comes down it's it's I personally think that if they do put this in place there's going to be a lawsuit because the
statute reads right now it doesn't tell you what harm to the springs and harm to that area really what that criteria is what that threshold it's very vague um but that's that's you know an issue um separate
from the fact that um there are ways to um protect that area and uh Tamp down on that party atmosphere and make it more of a natural experience like it should be um within a um a national uh forest in a um natural resource like that and
I'd like to bring back some ideas to this board which I think that we could go along in helping solve that that situation we need some support from FWC we'd probably need some State money to make some of it happen but locally I think our our team and and the sheriff's
um group are are really capable of of making some positive changes if we give them the tools and um so I'd like to bring that back and talk about that more so that's my report today um we'll be meeting tomorrow and um I just hope that commissioner Smith will share all of his
goodies with with everyone and I'm going to turn it over to you for the uh tell us what today is well and I was looking in here because it's it was um very but I don't have one so today in case you were wondering today is chocolate
covered nut day oh if I had only known I could have thrown in some chocolate covered peanuts all right all right well that concludes our meeting thank you everyone see you tomorrow morning take how's it going good how you doing
good for