[Music] Check this. bey. I'm going to let people see the poster cont. Okay. Thank you.
[Music] [Music] This is the Lake County Board of County Commissioners regular meeting on September 23rd, 2025 in board chambers administrative building to Florida. recording in progress. Yeah, we're about to start. I gave him
the thumbs up, so we're about to go. There we go. Good morning everyone. Welcome to this September 23rd, 2025 Lake County Board of County Commissioners meeting and we appreciate your attendance. Today we will start our
meeting as we traditionally do with an invocation which we do um we ask pastors and leaders in the community of faith to join us um for these invocations. And so we put an advertisement out and if you
have a pastor or someone who has never done this who might want to participate, please pass that on to them because we welcome that participation. This morning we have Pastor Reverend James my Congregational Church and he will give
our invocation and then we'll remain standing and we will have our pledge of allegiance. Let us pray. Creator and sustainer of all life, in whose image and likeness we are all created, and whose holy breath gives
life to all of us, we lift the members of this commission to you this morning. Give them wisdom and understanding in their decisions that they may Make those decisions for all in our community that we may flourish and
experience the abundance of your life and grace. Help them to be mindful of your cherished children under their care who experience the challenges and struggles in life. Bless our commissioners and their
families who support them, their staff and all who enabled them to perform their duties. Watch over our first responders, our firefighters, our law enforcement officers, and keep them safe as they serve our communities and embrace their
families who in faith and love send them to their task to keep all of us safe. May we all be mindful of our connectedness as your children. And we may we ever strive to lift each other in ways that realize your kingdom of love
for all. In your blessed name we pray. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. I'll call on Jennifer Barker, our county manager, for an agenda update. Yes. Good morning, Madame Chair. Commissioners. First, we have added tab 28 as an addendum since the agenda was first published, and we're asking that
that be included with the consent agenda. Tab 9 has had an updated easement document added to the agenda item and I'm requesting that we pull tab 11 and move that to the board of county commissioners meeting scheduled for
October 28th. And finally, I'm asking that we move tab two, which is recognizing 4 week to immediately follow the recognition of the emergency dispatchers here today. Okay.
All right, noting those changes, um we will move on to our special recognition of the Pride in America poster contest winners. And I'm going to call on Mr.
Powers um with the historical museum um to make our presentations. Good morning, commissioners. I hope I have some help from Commissioner Commissioner Parks, too. I'll come down. Okay, you come down. Um, the Lake County
Historical Society and Museum, uh, over the summer, we decided to sponsor an art contest, um, for kind of a test run to see how it was received, and it was received really well. Um, we worked with
elementary through fifth grade, had three categories, and, uh, we asked the students to express their pride in America with art. and we have the three winners here. Um, we're hoping to really expand this because next year is the
250th anniversary of the country and uh, we probably need you guys to help us. That's going to be a pretty big project. Um, so with that, the three winners that we have and uh, I'll let Mr. Parks present
them. Uh, we have Sadie Chadam, we have Brecklin Young, and we have Noah Hurst. And their artwork is here. Commissioner Parks, uh, before you get started, can you explain a little bit about what Pride in America is and how
we even got started with this because it was your idea and I think it's fantastic. Well, why thank you, Commissioner. I would be happy to talk about Pride in America. Thank you very much. Uh uh this is something that we do. Uh we've done for uh I don't know, Commissioner, maybe three or four years now. Uh we are the
only county that does this that that we know of in all of America. We we celebrate all that's good about America throughout the month of July. And so, as Rey has indicated, uh this is one of the activities that we did this year. Um there's, you know, lectures and some things that we do. We do the liberty
tree that all the commissioners this year really every year have participated in planting liberty trees at a school in the north part of the county, a school in the south part of the county. And again, the the the point is is that we're trying to celebrate all that's good about our country. Um, and also
kind of uh pass that on to the next generation as well. So, thank you very much. Always appreciate the opportunity to do that. and this commission your support your support. I know commissioner uh you were you you go to all the uh all the Liberty Tree events and everything. So I really appreciate
that and um it's great to we have a good turnout for this today uh actually. So um just happy to be a part of this. Thank you. Okay. So I guess we let each one come up with Yes. So Sadie Ch Sadi Chadam
let's give her This is hers. did a fantast. [Applause] Noah Hurst. So we will we we will make sure that Noah gets this.
Yes. [Applause] And next year is going to be bigger 250 years old. So this will be a big event. We had I think we had 60 60 participants this
year. 60 participants. That's great. Now if I'm not mistaken, these were also displayed in the historical society um in the museum for about three weeks. Correct. Through July. So, if you hadn't had an
opportunity to see them uh next year, uh we'll make an announcement early because some of these things were absolutely fantastic and we we're not allowed to participate. So, the commissioners Guys, thank you very very much for allowing us to
get these kids in here. Yeah, thank you uh historical society for taking this on and we look forward to next year because as indicated it's going to be huge with the 250th anniversary of our country as Barney would say really big. So thank you.
Thank you Ray. Are we going to take the poster down the eel? Can you help us? All right. Um, next on our agenda, very special event. I'm going to call on
Chief Kilbury, public safety director. Um, he's going to make some introductions and, um, explain what our next presentation is about. Thank you, Commissioner. My name is David Kilmer. I'm the public safety director, and it is my honor to introduce the president of Lake County
Fire Chiefs Association for our recent insurance services office ISO evaluation that was conducted. And for those in the room, you have a a a rare treat. The team behind me in dark blue are the voices behind the phone on all 911. So
they are truly so they are truly our first first responders. They're the first ones to get notified of your emergencies to contact the teams that respond out. So with uh with that, I will introduce
Chief Kevin Carroll of the Groveland Fire Department, who currently serves as the president of Lake County Fire Chiefs Association. Chief Carol, Madame Chair, commissioners, uh Miss Barker, and everybody on the uh DS here this morning. Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity because it's not
about me and the city of Groveland or anybody else. We're here to recognize and celebrate these amazing uh Lake County um 911 dispatchers who as you know um are in an office about a block from here. Uh they sit in a very dark room all day with the just the glow of
computers. But uh what they do for this community, they're often very much forgotten. As Chief Kilbury said, they are really the first responders. They are the ones that have the first interaction with um the community. God forbid there's an emergency and it's because of them that we get all the
information uh the heads up information that we need uh while responding or even on the scene. They're the ones calling for additional resources when we request or ask for them. I cannot thank you or thank them enough. Uh before I start though, I just want to let you know that uh the relationship that we have with
Lake County Fire Rescue and all the municipal fire departments throughout Lake County is absolutely astonishing. Um that's the reason and the purpose of Lake County Fire Chief Association is for all of us to get together, come up with best practices, how we can work better together, how we resolve issues
before they even need to get to you folks. So, and we all do a very good job of that. and I'll only be the president for the next few months and uh chief is uh well there'll be a new uh chief coming in but um I do appreciate the opportunity to be here today and let me get to the meat and potatoes here because it's extremely important. So I'd
like to give you just a little bit of a highle view. This is a 60,000 uh foot view about ISO. uh some of you may be aware but it also for our members in the community um ISO really looks at four main areas and they come about every five years and they evaluate um you know
the 40,000 plus fire departments throughout you know the United States and they give them a score that score is called the public protection classification rating. Why is that so important? Well the numbers go from 1 to 10. One being the best, 10 being the worst if you will. And what that does is
that helps your both commercial and residential liability insurance companies determine what your rates will be. It has a direct effect on the the wallet of the people in the community. So, it's important for all of us to strive to get the best score possible.
Sometimes it's not easy depending on your resources, depending on your community makeup, more rural or or more urban. Uh but we all do the best we can to support each other and try to get the best scores possible. We could not have achieved anybody in Lake County. Uh many
of us were uh re-evaluated this year. I believe Lake County uh Chief Kilbury is next year. Uh correct? Um so this was five years uh since we were done. We were just done this past April. Just got our score which will go into effect um November 1st and we did improve. We
improved in part because of the emergency 911 dispatchers. So let me tell you a little bit about the ISO again from that high level view. Um they look at four main areas. Community risk reduction. Uh the water systems capability very important. We don't have water to fight fires. Um you know, how
are we getting it there through the hydrant system? Are we bringing it via tankers or so on and so forth? Uh the fire department overall health that has to do with personnel and training, how well we're keeping up on those things. And the what we're here to talk about today is the emergency communications.
Vitally important. So there's three areas of emergency communications that they really look at. Uh the first one is emergency reporting and this area evaluates the ability to receive and process those calls for 911 that come in and how well they achieve and they do
that. The second area is the telecommunicators themsel. This item uh is the number of available telecommunicators um how well they answer the calls and transfer and processing uh dispatch protocols and telecommuter training. How well are
these people trained? That's evaluated also. And then dispatch circuits. This is the available dispatch circuits and transmitting of alarms. Types of circuits uh available monitoring for the system integrity and emergency power supply. Um which this facility has a
backup power supply. In saying that, let me tell you where the folks behind me ranked not only uh compared to their peers here in the state, but nationally and what their overall score was. So the first area emergency reporting
the uh amongst their peers and state group was 2.14 and nationally all the way up to 2.5. So you have that range of 2.14 to 2.5 with the highest score of being a three. Our Lake County emergency dispatchers earned a three in that area,
the highest level. When it comes to the telecommunicators themselves amongst their peers state and nationwide, that range is between 2.69 and 3.23 with the highest score being a four. They received a four.
Wow. For dispatch circuits, again amongst their peers and state group, it ranges between 1.79 and nationally 2.29. And with the high score being a three, they earned a three. So in the end, our Lake County um
emergency dispatchers, who you know serve all the municipal fire departments and as well as Lake County, they earned the total 10 out of 10 points. Oh my gosh, that's incredible. We could not do what we do without these folks. And again, as I stated, often
we're the ones who are out amongst the people. We're out amongst the community. So, we're the ones that are often recognized. And these folks, Chief Stevens and her telecommunicators here are often forgotten and lost uh, you know, throughout that process. So, so glad to be here as president of the Lake
County Fire Chief Association to recognize these folks and um, and thank you for the opportunity to do that. And I believe Chief Azelle, Claremont Fire Chief, has a few words to say. Good morning. I'm David Eel, the fire chief of the
city of Claremont, also the vice president with the Lake County Fire Chiefs Association. And I just want to reiterate what the Chief Carol shared uh with, you know, how well the the dispatching center did. Um, one thing that's really important with this in addition to the tact the insurance savings for the community is the fact
that you're having an external validator come in and look at the operations within the emergency communication system. And they're basically saying that you're doing everything correctly with what you're doing. And you know, I just want to I I want to just offer my thanks. That would not happen without the support of this commission. And we
appreciate everything you're doing. And I can tell you in our case, uh, had they been with the the national average or even the state average, we'd have been an entire classification lower. So, it made the difference between us being where we are and where we would have been otherwise. So, um, I and it's
probably true of just about every agency in Lake County. It's helping that getting that perfect score helps push everybody, you know, over that that that that cliff in a good way. So, I just want to say thank you. We appreciate the support and we look forward to uh seeing a perfect score on the next round. Thank you.
All right. Thank you so much. We'll give them a chance to head back to work. We need them to head back to work. I'll remind everybody right now if you've got your phone on if you could silence it just in case you haven't thought about that yet this morning. It
makes for much better decorum in our meetings if we can keep the phones silenced. We're now going to move to um tab two, which is a presentation of proclamation um declaring October 5th through 11th,
2025 is National 4 week in Lake County. So, I need a motion. So, move second. All in favor say I. I. All right. And I will present that. Um let's see. Where is Dallas? Here we go. Dallas, you're right in front of me.
If you will come up to the podium and Whereas the Florida 4 age program has been positively impacting children's lives since 1909 and has celebrated over hundred years of service. Its mission is to create a supportive environmental environment where where diverse youth
and adults may reach their fullest potential. And whereas 4 is an organization open to all children 5 through 18 years of age, 4 reaches over 6 million youth nationwide with Florida having over 230,000 youth members and over 8,000 adult volunteers. And with
the Lake County 4 program boasting over 1,890 club members and over 140 volunteers with over 6,600 youths participating in school enrichment programs. And whereas the Lake County 4 program is part of the Institute of Food and Agricultural
Services, Ephus, at the University of Florida and is a program where young people learn by doing through programs such as the Lake County Fair, traditional 4 clubs, and 4 after school programs. 4 members also participate in projects such as science and technology,
consumer education, horiculture, aerospace, entomology, public speaking and animal sciences to develop leadership, citizenship and other life skills. And whereas 4 members working with educational learn by doing projects put into practice new skills and science
as they strive to make the best better, the motto of 4. And whereas 4 provides a unique opportunity for young people to develop life skills through hands-on learning experiences, including educational workshops, project work, presentation experiences, camps, conferences, before and after school
programs, and other events at local, county, district, state, national, and international levels. And whereas Lake County encourages the people of this community to take the opportunity to become more aware of this special program and to join us in recognizing the unique partnership between our county and our university system. Now
therefore, the board of county commissioners of Lake County, Florida, proclaim the week of October 5th through 11th, 2025 National 4 week here in Lake County, Florida. Welcome. First and foremost, um I thank you guys
for your continued support, Lake County Commissioners. Um without your support, this would not be possible. Studies show that poor hers are four times more likely to give back to their community and they are two times more likely to
make healthier lifestyle choices. The kids that we reached this year over 8,000 youth that would not those are our future leaders and we are helping um make the best better as stated by our motto and without your support as well
as the heartbeat of the 4 program which is our volunteers this would not be possible. So, I just really want to thank um some of our 4 volunteers in the room as well as you guys for your continued support. Thank you.
[Applause] Ready, two, one, four. [Applause] All right, we're going to move back to our ARPA update, then our minutes approval.
We'll have citizen comment, and then we'll move into the uh agenda, the rest of the agenda. Um, let's see. Good morning, commissioners. My presentation won't be as exciting as the previous ones, but that's well, that's okay. We'll make it through it. Uh, for
the record, Sean Bodde, grants program manager, parks and water resources, here to provide an update, American Rescue Plan update. Uh this will include brief background information, two updates, and conclude with requested action.
During the May 20th, 2025 meeting, the balance of 1,557,38 from the town of Mont Verd projects was reallocated for a new water main line to service the future veterans transitional housing project. Since that time, a covert or equalizer
pipe that runs under Tammy Drive within the Venetian Village community began to fail, leading to serious public safety concerns. This resulted in public works having to utilize existing uh storm water funds earmarked for the Lake Amos flood mitigation project at a cost of
$280,595. And staff is requesting to reimburse the storm water fund. Here is an aerial of the neighborhood and exact location of the covert for your reference. Uh as a result of this emergency work, staff recommends using available funds
from the water service line portion that was allocated in May. This will leave a balance of $1,276,713 from the utility portion alone and will not impact the funds set aside for the building construction. Uh further staff is also recommending to add an accompanying sanitary sewer line
to the scope of work. Uh lastly, as a reminder, since we are now past the obligation deadline, um excess funds can be reclassified or reallocated to another qualifying project, uh the replacing resizing of culberts does qualify um under the infrastructure expenditure category.
Here is the most up-to-date project list which includes the new Tammy Drive project if approved. And in conclusion, requested action is to approve the reallocation of funds within the project list as presented. All right. Any questions for Sean? Do we
have a motion to make those changes? Move to approve. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That passes 5. Moving then to Thank you, Sean. Appreciate that. Uh minutes approval. Um Mr. Cooney, our clerk of courts. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman, and I have two sets of
minutes for the commission's approval. Move approved. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. Moving then to citizen question comment period. We have a lot of uh comment cards um that apply to um two other items later in the
agenda. Actually, I think three items later in the agenda. So, the cards that we're going to call on now um are the ones um that are not items on the agenda. And I will also ask that um anyone that is online um you can press
the star9 button to virtually raise your hands. Um if you want to uh participate, you'll need to click the raise hand button to let us know that you wish to speak. I'll start with the cards that if I could just real quick. So because it's so many people, so many items, so
many cards, and everybody's pretty busy here. A lot of workingclass people here in Lake County who have jobs like myself. Can we allow people who cannot stay three, four, five, six hours to maybe speak at the beginning on the item? I know it's a little unorthodox,
but not everybody can be here for six hours, right? This I mean probably a lot of people here who want to speak on one of the three items, but literally can't stay five hours. So, I don't think we're going to be here five hours. Okay. But we're going to be here many hours, I think. So, I'd rather them be able to speak a little bit earlier. Are
you guys okay with that? I mean, well, the problem is I think that we can we we might be able to move up some cards when we get to those items. Um, if people will give preference to those that need to get on their way. Um, but we've already got just on our regular
citizen comment cards. Um, we have one, two, three, four, five, six. And do we have anyone online? And Okay. And we don't know yet whether those three are for items later or for for just regular comment. Okay. Um, yeah. So, that's
that's if that's three minutes a piece, we're gonna Yeah. Okay. But if we get into substantive discussion on items in the middle or even later in the agenda, wouldn't that put off the comments on the later items till even further? I mean, I just feel like what I'll do, let's let's just go through these cards. I'll take a look at
the rest of the agenda to see if there are items that are going to be timeconuming that maybe we'll take those items and push them later in the agenda and then take these that we have citizen participation on and move those up and that might be the way to handle it. Okay. All right. Um so I'm going to
start with Lee Boresque. Um this is regarding crosswalk and I'm reading the comment. It has to do with the 44B bypass and Eustace an area that I drive every day. So, I'm happy to see that you're here commenting on this issue. Yes, I had come um about a year ago. Um
fortunately, I've not um followed up as often as I should, but the area I think everybody is hopefully aware at Orange Avenue in Eustace where the 44 um B cutoff is and that goes and they had that new development there, Bright Water maybe. I can't remember the name of it.
And then they have Tony's Pizza um the new 7-Eleven and this uh Sitco or the Circle K. Um Eustace won't finish the sidewalk from the end of the um school zone that is off of Bates. The end of
the sidewalk needs to be finished somehow from there to the end is what I'm being told by the county and the city is telling me that the county is supposed to be doing that. So I know it's a joint effort. I just need to know how to get forward so that we can get this done because the city count city
manager keeps saying that it's the county. I understand you guys have to actually put in the crosswalk, but you can't do that until you have a sidewalk to go to. So, how do we solve this? We now have a beautiful new community with this wonderful, beautiful crosswalk that goes right in in front of it, but any
kids walking home from their middle school uh games that live on the um west side of Orange Avenue have to or south side of Orange Avenue have to cross that over there, right? It's completely dependent on traffic. No way for them to stop the traffic. I've had children in
my neighborhood um I live off of Washington. I've had children in my neighborhood come beg me because they've stood there up to 45 minutes after practice at night trying to just get across that street. Um I met with the city of Eustace police chief yesterday and he was again told that it was a county problem. So I need
help figuring out how do we get together with Eustace and get this solved. Thank you. And I don't know if Jeff is here. Jeff, if you could come talk about this particular issue or even meet with Lee outside to tell tell her about where we're at. It's something we've been one and they said that it's all taken
care of and but then I was told it was a different Well, it's it's complicated because there's right away that we don't have that we would have to purchase or use them in a domain to acquire. Um we've had even when we did the um flashing light at Bates um and the bypass that
was really difficult because we had property owners on the corners that didn't want to participate and allow the county to have rideway. So it gets very complicated when you don't actually have the rightway to put the sidewalks in public knowledge for the um who owns those properties. Can I get those? It's all on the property appraisers
website. I'm just trying to You might be able to go and beg and plead with them. I will start. But Jeff um Hehart, our engineer, county engineer, public works director, can step outside with you and kind of update you on where we're at as far as trying to get that connection made.
I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. All right. Um our next one is Dan Matthysse. Um this is regarding Commissioner Parks report. Is this and I'm not sure. Dan Dan's over here. Yes.
the report. Oh, till you get down to the Yeah, that's about Hartwood Marsh Road and a continuation of the discussion so everybody knows it's a continuation of the discussion that we had a month ago about um well project that was just mentioned and Hartwood Marsh. So,
okay, that's up on my agenda a little bit later. And Vincent is here. So, are you willing to stay through the meeting till we get to that discussion about Hartwood Marsh? Uh, all right. Go ahead. Why don't you come on up and do your your comment on Hartwood Marsh
commissioners. Thank you uh commissioner uh chairman can't be on for letting me speak early. I do have other appointments later on. Uh my name is Vincent Neimik. I live in Claremont. Uh I guess three out of the five councilmen know exactly who I am. I've been coming
here for the past eight years about the same project, Hartwood Marsh. Okay. From uh Commissioner Smith, Campon, Commissioner Parks, Anthony Sapatini. I know through your reputation of being a Republican and Mr. Tim Morris. Hello.
How are you, sir? You probably saw me here when I was fighting for the crosswalk along hall with Marsh and I thank you again for granting that for the public safety reasons for our children. Okay, I'd like to show you just a little diagram if I may.
I don't know which there you go. Perfect. on the top you'll see 2007 that's the top picture on the top that in 2007 we were approved to have Hartwood Marsh widened as you can notice you can see all the other properties
around it one two three and they're just developing this this is vacant vacant it's all vacant if you scroll down the 2025 it's all occupied by our developers some of it we had an annex from Lee County.
Okay. The reason why I'm showing you this is because it's just Claremont is growing and growing and growing. Harwood Marsh happens to be a main vein into Claremont. I know that some of you have
taken Hartwood Marsh. Okay. This was in 2020 when we were told that it was going to be starting the project in 2022. Then it got pushed back to 2024.
Then it got pushed back to 2026. Guess what? We're up to 2028. So, somebody kept kicking the can over and over and over. All right. I know it can't be my count my commissioners up here because you've been listening to everything the citizens of Hartwood
Marsh wanted and we've been working hard to get it. Okay. As you can see, we're developing more along Lake County with the 331 homes that's been developed, the 60 61 homes by the Lake County side, and
that's not including all these other ones that are being were built. Okay, this is just to show you an aerial map of the traffic along Hartwood Marsh from all the way from 27 to all the way to
the 90° turn on Hartwood Marsh. This is taken a photograph from my vehicle coming home off of 27. This serves a public safety matter. All right. We have a fire station located right on the top
of that hill. So, if they Oh, geez. If they have to get to the emergency, it's going to shorten time. I'm sorry. I only have three minutes. But what I'm asking you to do is be a little lenient if you can. If you have to take a vote later on, we've been asking for this project
to be pushed through. Help us out. Support us as we support you when it comes to election time. God bless and have a good day. All right. Thank you. And I'm going to ask Commissioner Parks, do you want to do you want to talk about Hartwood Marsh now or can you
I mean it can we can wait, but I'll I'll just say in short what I'm proposing later on. Again, it's a continuation of the discussion um that we had uh a couple month two months ago I believe when we were talking about transportation. There's a way to start construction um as I understand it in the summer of 2026. we could start this
coming summer um in combination with impact fees that are collected and DOT money. The DOT money um just lack of better way to describe it, it's as frustrating for us as it is, I'm sure, for everybody in the audience, will only be paid out uh yearly starting in 28 to
29 to 30. I may I may it may be an additional year, but the point is is that we can get that money, but obviously, you know, contractors like to be paid right now to build the road. So, let's build the road. And if we need to do a short-term loan that will that will
last within two that would be paid out within two to three years or in two to three years when we get the money from DOT, I think we could do that. And I think it would time value of money. Uh I know there's always concern about interest on loans like that. But time value of money and the increasing cost
of construction, you know, asphalt alone is now 300% more than what it was four or five years ago. Um, so if we keep waiting and putting it off and waiting for the DOT money, the pay as you go approach, which is very um, financially prudent, fiscally prudent, in this case, I think it'll be more fiscally prudent
to go ahead and do that uh, now upfront and then just get the construction going this summer in 2026. I appreciate that, Commissioner Parks. Uh, I also listen, we're all involved. I happen to be the advocate and the spokesperson for Hartwood Marsh in my area. That's why I joined the no
committee and I have been asking and asking and it's not that we're falling on deaf ears. It's I know how economics work. I also know how politics works. But as you saw in the photos I showed you, we were approved in 2007. I know
you're pushing hard for this, Mr. uh Commissioner Sean Parks. Commissioner Campion, I know you're tired to see my face talking about this. And also you, Commissioner Smith. All right, Anthony Sabatini, if you could please help us out on this one, I would appreciate it, sir. And so would the residents of
Claremont. You too, uh, Commissioner Morris. Thank you for letting me speak and have a little more additional time. Thank Thank you, Vincent. All right. Um, Joe, uh, Famasi and then after Joe is Richard Johnson. Commissioners, uh, good morning. I'm
here to talk about uh wellness way. There's a water workshop going to be put on by the Claremont to talk about reclaimed water, converting it to uh from sewer and other options. I'm hoping that uh Commissioner Sabini and Commissioner Parks can come down with
St. John's Water and encourage them to do a policy change and expand their operation which will help the wellness way and all of Claremont. Also, the ponds that are located inside, they call them infiltration ponds inside of uh
Lake County that are run by Orange County. If we could make enough reclaimed water, we could actually put water back into the aquifer to recharge it, which I think that would be beneficial for the city of Claremont and Lake County that we're moving to a more
economical and also environmental change. But I need you guys to come down here and help be part of this park workshop because also St. John's offers up to 50% grant money to help support those kind of projects and we're going to need your help to convince them to
give the city 50%. Which would probably make them more driven to do it. So, uh, your support, Mr. Sabatini, uh, uh, need you to be there. Commissioner Parks, I'll be there. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. um Richard Johnson and then after um Richard Johnson is Jason Graham. Good morning. My name is Richard Johnson. I purchased a home in 2013 at
14345 County Road 455 in Claremont. Uh we have a 11 acre farm that we run and in the past the first 5 years of the property our horses and cows were fine and then 2018 we found out a resident at
14227 County Road 455 which is south of us has purchased the property and started filling in the wetlands. We contacted DP and Lake County. Uh we had Lake County go in and fix where he had take the
drainage and raise it to flood the area so we could float a boat in. We got that fixed and they started flooding uh filling in the area with 1,000 truckloads of dirt. And I know Lake County has nothing to do with D, but
Lake County issued him a permit for grading of the property. And then that grading permit is states that he is not allowed to impede the natural water runoff from surrounding properties which
is myself. So we've had to shut down the farm because of the ho hoof uh foot rock on the horses and cattle. So and recently we had purchased the 10 acres that's in between us which has nothing on it. The only reason we purchased this
property so nobody can further build on it and cause our property to flood. Last year when we had that hurricane, we had to run a 2-in pump up into a neighborhood in front of us to keep the water out of our house. So, I'm just
asking for Lake County to help me to get this water around to go into the the Army Corps engineers built a moat system around it due to the um that uh the um there was a dump site tower chemical.
They put a moat system so all that water could go out to Lake Proport. But now that that original owner had filled in some of that moat system, that water can't go. It has to rate so high to flow over the existing wetlands to get into
the moat system to exit. Uh our land just stays flooded. And like right now when I leave here, I'm going back home to mow probably three acres by weed whacker just to get my property mowed. I I I don't know what else to do on this.
it. Something needs to be done just to alleviate the water off my property so I don't lose whatever investment I got now into two properties because I borrowed off my 401k to buy this property, this other 10 acres, so nobody would develop on it. So, I'm just looking for a little
help to figure out how to get this water to move off so we all can have actually a better property values. Thank you. Do you know is there a D case on it? D case? Yes. and they closed it. I opened up another one because I found
out in mowing the back part of this property for the um the owners that just sold this. It's been sold twice in 9 months. Uh so they could get back to and see the new dumping. The person that owned it prior that developed it, he
must have been working into a construction company's dumped concrete, pavers, piping all into the wetlands all around it. So now the water can't flow. It will flow, but it has to get so high to get around all this debris. And every
time somebody comes out and looks at it, they say, "Well, the original owner said this was all here prior to him buying it." Which is a lie because if you look on Lake County's website, the aerial pictures, you can see the property from 2005 to now where it's all trees, it's
low, and all a sudden he comes in, you see him cut the trees, the dirt starts piling and and just a thousand loads. So if you go at the the road that was there at ground level now is 6 and 1/2 ft tall from my new property. So there's no way
for the water to go around it recommendation. So I've got staff coming down to meet you in the rotunda to get some more information and to see what we can do to assist. So if you'd like to step out to the rotunda, they'll be happy to help. Thank you so much. Thank you for bringing this to our
attention. All right. Um, Jason Graham. Good morning, commissioners. Um, to introduce myself, I'm Jason Graham. I am the president of the Professional Firefighters of Lake County, Local 3990. And I promise I'll keep this very brief.
Um, I just wanted to thank each of you guys uh for prioritizing our department and investing in its employees. Um, the raises that you're going to approve today, they're going to make a real difference for the firefighters, the EMS workers, and their families. And it
shows that you recognize the difficult and vital work that we do every day. Um, we've seen a lot of really positive changes the last several months. the morale on the field has improved and we've seen a noticeable
increase in retention and recruitment. Um, and I believe that the the step that you're going to take today is going to only build on that momentum. Um, and it's going to carry us even further forward. So, I truly appreciate your support and your commitment not only to
strengthening our department, but also to prioritizing the safety of the community that we serve. So, thank you. Thank you. We appreciate you. Appreciate you being here today and and certainly appreciate those comments. Yeah. Thank you.
All right. Online. Um we'll take our online callers and we just want to make sure we'll see if they get into content that's later in the meeting. I'll let them know. Cynthia Doyle, please unmute your line and state your name for the record.
Yes. Hello. My name is Cynthia Doyle. Um and my comment is about naming um the road um for Kirk. We're gonna we're taking that up later in the meeting after we get through the rest of our agenda. It's a little bit further down.
So if you could hold on. I have one other comment. Okay. A non another type comment that's not on the agenda. Exactly. Um, my comment is about Anthony Sabatini. Thank you.
Um, I believe he should not be sitting up there. Okay. I think you, Mr. Sabatini, are you know what, you guys? You guys, we don't do clapping in our meetings even when I mean, we just don't do clapping in our meetings. So, if we start doing clapping
in our meetings, um, we'll have to ask anyone that's doing that to leave. And I'm going to let you say your piece, but our goal is to maintain decorum at our meetings. And I'm not saying any bad words. I I'm just
making a comment about Anthony Sabatini's comment. Um if he's allowed to comment, I should be allowed to um counter his comment. May I continue? What's that?
Is that on? Yeah. I don't know if this is It sounds like this is about tab 24. No, it's not. It It's about a comment he made publicly on Facebook. All right. Well, it's citizen comment. You're allowed to speak.
Okay. Um I find you, Mr. Savadini, um a terrible example of someone in public service. You have been divisive and you also make horrible calls for violence against those who you should be representing. You
really should be ashamed. Real men are not bullies. So, we know what category you fall into. Um, you griped about E Elhan um Omar defaming Charlie Kirk, but in the same post you wrote that Corey Mills, who
defended Ilar Omar and she he is a um Republican, you said he is an American last piece of trash. I find that extremely defamatory. You called for the death penalty for both the accused murderer of Charlie
Kirk and his partner. his partner who is cooperating with police is transgender so he should die because he is transgender. You also said to hang Charlie Kirk's murderer murderer's body in front of the White House for 90 days.
Your fantasies are not welcome here in Lake County. Mr. Sabatini, Lake County doesn't need no stinking ignorant bullies on our commission. Thank you. All right. All right. Next caller. Terry, please unmute your line and state
your name for the record. Hi, my name is Terry Lewis. I'm from Claremont. Um, my uh comment is about the renaming of the road. So, I think uh I raised my hand too early. Too early. Okay, just stay online. Thank
you, Terry. Okay. And we have a third caller. No. Okay. So, that's it. All right. Moving then to our clerk of court's consent agenda, Mr. Cooney. Good morning, commissioners. Again, I have 11 items in my consent agenda for
your approval. So move. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Passes 50. Consent agenda tabs 4 through 20 with the elimination of 11 and
the addition of 28. All right. Do we have a motion? Make a motion to approve. Second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Those items on the consent agenda pass. And now
we're moving into our public hearings. Um our first public hearing is tab 21. I'll call on Jeff Heheart. Um this is with regard to a res resolution to vacate two
drainage ditch rightway easements. Um the closest municipality is the Claremont municipality. Morning. Jeff Airheart, engineering director. This is related to a vacation on a subdivision that's down on south of
474 down in the four corners area related by the Park Square Enterprises and designed by Macintosh and Associates. Um it is down in the four corners area. It's on the south side of 474. It's in Commission District 1. It involves the vacation of two drainage
ements. You can see the one small one on the left and the longer one on the on the right. a little more closer up in the aerial. You can also see those that the one on the on the one on the smaller one is going to be totally vacated. The one on the right is going to be replaced with a with a another easement that's
going to be associated with the development that's coming through. So with that there was no um objections to it. There was initially Duke hadn't had an objection because they thought their easement was going to be um vacated but that is not the case. That's going to going to remain. So there was no objections and public works has no
objections. So open the back to public hearing. Okay. All right. It's a public hearing. Um I don't see any speaker cards on tab 21 on this vacation. If you meant to fill one out, please raise your hand. All right. Otherwise, I'll bring it back
to the board um for a um a motion to approve. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That passes 5-0. Moving now to tab 22. Okay, this will be an ordinance of the board of county commissioners of Lake
County, Florida, amending section 141, Lake County Code, Appendix E, Land Development Regulations Entitled minor lot splits and family density exceptions, adjusting the requirements of the family density exception, reinstating the agricultural lot split process, amending section 14072 entitled platting required, providing for
severability, providing for inclusion in the code, providing for filing with Department of State, and providing for an effective date. you choose to approve this today, it'll become ordinance 2025-45. And I would request that you approve it with the suggested changes that were included in your packet. Okay. All right. We have two cards. Do we have
anyone online on this item? No. Okay. All right. First card is Raleigh Rollers and the second card is Cindy Newton. Just so you know, you're in the batters box. Good morning, Madame Chair, commissioners. I'm Riley Rollers. I'm
here on uh to speak on behalf of Florida Farm Bureau Federation. Uh Florida Farm Bureau is the state's largest nonprofit general a organization. We represent more than 133,000 member families and over 300 a commodities in the state.
With 2371 of those member families residing right here in Lake County, protecting private property rights and ensuring Florida farmers and ranchers are and continue to be economically viable are top priorities for Florida Farm Bureau. As many of you know, a faces a variety of
unique challenges which can lead to devastating losses. During tough years, a relies on their most valued asset, their land, to help them survive during those difficult times. Farmers and ranchers across the state need the value of that property to
remain high in the event that they need to borrow against that value as collateral for reasons such as to cash flow planting a new crop, buying fertilizer, feed, and seed for the next year or to buy additional acres to expand their current operation.
Restricting their ability to split a lots or parcels into smaller lots reduces the value of that land and diminishes their private property rights. For these reasons, retaining the ability to break a properties into smaller agricultural parcels is
necessary to ensure agriculture remains viable and sustainable in Lake County and throughout the state. We appreciate Lake Countyy's efforts to reinstate section 1413 entitled a lot splits of the land development regulations that was repealed last August 2024. And we urge
you to approve this ordinance. We are especially thankful to County Attorney Melanie Marsh for her willingness to work to address our concerns. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Cindy Newton. Good morning. Cindy Newton, District 4.
I'm requesting that a reference to the Wild and Scenic River Act of 2000, Florida Statute 369.3057D. 3057D, which requires the partials of land adjacent to the Wakiva River system not
be subdivided in a way that interferes with the environmental protection as part of the lots split regulation in Lake Cloudy. This includes the Blackwater Creek uh which is 17.9 miles from the Wakiva River uh up until Lake
Norris. Uh I believe that including this in this particular regulation will help ensure it's brought to the attention not only of staff as they do administrative approvals but also
uh for applicants as they're looking at whether or not this would uh pertain to them and it may even save staff some time in the process. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Melanie, just a question on the Waka
River Protection Act and how it affects lot splits. Um, are the density requirements still in intact? For minor lot splits, yes, they still have to comply with the underlying density of the future land use. For
family density exceptions, the only exclusion is the green swamp. So in the Wakiva area, they could theoretically still do a family density exception so long as it is a minimum of 1 acre upland, I believe. Okay. And that has to stay in the
family. Is that 10 year? Correct. It has to stay in the family for 10 years. And as part of approving this ordinance, they would no longer be able to get that family density exception with an agricultural classification. they would have to actually build a house within one year.
Okay. All right. I think that creates a a a legitimate limitation. So, they're not just dividing lots and then waiting time and then selling. They literally would have to build a home for a family member. Okay. Yeah. I was just say I think my question's answered, but it's the Wild
Scenic River Act that was referenced. That's probably that part of it was aimed at subdivisions for larger subdivisions. uh than a lot split. I I would assume so, but I haven't looked at that act. We can certainly go back and look at it, and if we feel another amendment's necessary, we can bring that
forward. I mean, they're still going to have to adhere to the comp plan with the exception of this change, but then the the LDRs as well. Correct. The only time they would have a density exception is if they do the the family density split, right? Yeah. And the Wild and Seening Act, if
you think about it, I mean, it covers uh Seminal and Lake with the river running through our two counties. And on the Seminal side, you have a lot of subdivisions that existed a long time ago. And on the Lake County side, there's very little um we don't have a a
way there. There can be no subdivisions in that area. Um, under our comp plan, the only thing that you could do would be if you owned family property. You could divide it for a family member, you can't even use a you can't use a minor lot split to make something smaller than
what the allowable density and allow around the river. I think it's 1 to 40. Yeah. One unit to 40 acres. So, I mean, we've got a lot of protection there. So, I think that we we I think that we've got it covered. Um, okay. Any other comments? But no,
there were no speakers. Move to approve. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That passes 5. And madam chairman, just to clarify for the record, that did include the proposed changes that Can you just clarify on your motion that included any of changes that were
listed in our packet? That's correct. Thank you. All right. Um, moving now to tab um tab 23. I'll call on Jordan Salinger public. Madam Chairman, if I can read the title
first and then we can have the presentation. So this will be an ordinance of the board of county commissioners of Lake County, Florida providing for the levy of a 5-cent local option fuel tax in Lake County. Providing that the imposition shall be effective for a period of 10 years beginning January 1st of 26. Providing for administration of the fuel tax.
Providing for the fuel tax proceeds to be distributed among Lake County and the municipalities. Providing for notification to the state of Florida Department of Revenue. Providing for amendments to late county code, chapter 13, article 2 entitled gas taxes, providing for inclusion in the code, providing for severability, providing for conflict cause, providing for filing
with department of state, and providing for an effective date. If you choose to approve this today, it become ordinance 2025-46. And as a reminder, a supermajority vote is required. All right. Very good. Good morning, commissioners. Madam Chair, for the
record, Jordan Salinger, public works operations director. So, the purpose of today's presentation is to provide some additional information for board consideration of the adoption and execution of an ordinance providing for the levy of a
5-cent local option fuel tax to be effective January 1st of 2026. So, this presentation looks similar to last month's presentation, but today we'll specifically discuss gas tax a bit more and what it specifically means for resurfacing. And then we'll open it up
for board discussion and direction. So, we're going to talk about funding sources. And so, to talk about the funding sources, we need to talk about the funding need. So, with respect to funding, we have to look at the three buckets that we need. We have three
separate buckets that need to be filled. So we have operations and maintenance which is our everyday maintenance. These are the potholes, the shoulder drop offs, um the roadside mowing, the tree trimming, signs, signals, striping and preventative road maintenance. Then we
have capacity projects. Capacity projects are development related. They're the new roads. They're increasing capacity. They're widening roads. They're intersection improvements. And they're safety upgrades. And then we have resurfacing. Resurfacing is the repaving of our
existing roads. So we'll discuss how each of these buckets gets filled because there's um there's rules, right, that we have to follow with each of these funding sources. So first we'll talk about impact fees. Impact fees are a non-tax source of funding. So they're
one-time charges that are assessed on new developments. This is residential, commercial, industrial projects. The fees are paid for by developers to offset their impacts to our roadway network. So growth should pay for growth
and that's the intent. These fees can only be used in their designated impact fee districts. So you can't take fees from one area and use it for say resurfacing on the other side of the county. It doesn't work that way. So there's two important things to note
with impact fees that this revenue source can only be used for capacity projects and it can't be used for maintenance activities. And then also these impact uh the increases to these fees, they have to follow very strict rules. There's caps
and there's phased increases that occur, you know, in cycles every four years per state statute. So the next opportunity to increase the impact fees for the West District is October of 27. And all other districts were already levying the max
impact fees possible within their cycles. And the next increase would be January of 28. And then we have sales tax, which this is a consumer's tax. So it's a 1% tax on goods sold in Lake County. Sales tax is
used for lots of purposes countywide. It's split by thirds between the school board, the municipalities, and the BCC. Approximately 17% of the BCC share is distributed to public works. What's important to note about sales tax is
that it's similar to impact fees in that this revenue source also cannot be used for maintenance activities. It can only be used for capital expenses and for public works. That means resurfacing and capacity projects. And then here we have the gas tax
pennies summarized. I think this is a little easier than explaining the pennies individually. So there are three pennies that are state imposed and we collect 100% of those pennies. There are a total of seven local pennies.
One of those pennies applies to gasoline and diesel. Um and we only collect 50% of that penny. The remaining six pennies are split with the municipalities where we get about twothirds and then the other third goes to the cities. So gas tax in general is public works
main source of funding for maintenance and operations. So this is what funds your everyday road maintenance and the administrative roles that support that maintenance. And in red you can see here that there is an additional five pennies that have not been implemented. This tax
has been available since 1993. That's 32 years. And the majority of Florida counties already levy this tax, especially in central and south Florida. So here we have a few other funding sources. We have MSTU, which is a
property tax line item that is levied against homeowners within unincorporated Lake County based on the approved mill rate. This revenue is then shared between storm water, parks, and roads. Then we have general property tax which is um levied across all properties
within Lake County. So it's a larger pool than MSTU and it's also pray based on an approved millage rate. Because there's simply not enough gas tax to fund resurfacing, we have to supplement with MSTU and the general property tax.
And then lastly, we have service fees. Service fees are charged for services provided for development activities such as plan review and site inspection. Again, we want that growth to pay for growth. So, this revenue pays for the public works staff that's performing these services so that the gas tax is
preserved for its intended use, which is our roadway infrastructure. And then I'd like to note that there is one other funding source that's not shown, which is the MSBUs for new subdivisions. So, recently implemented, all new uh subdivision residents pay
into their own MSBUs for that subdivision specifically. So this ensures that maintenance of that new subdivision is also not a drain on the gas tax. So not only are developers paying for impact fees, but new subdivisions are essentially paying
their own maintenance longterm as well. So this is what the compilation of these funding sources looks like for fiscal year 26. On the left you can see the stack dollars associated with each category. They it totals about 37.5 million. So these funding sources are
assigned to those three buckets that we discussed, the capacity, the resurfacing, the maintenance and operations. So on the right is a pie chart that gives a little bit of a different visual. Capacity projects um are funded with impact fees and sales tax and it
takes up about 37% of our 37.5 million. Operations and maintenance takes up about 43%. And that includes uh gas tax and service fees. And then we have resurfacing which is a compilation of multiple funding
sources because gas tax can't support it at this time. So right now resurfacing is made up of sales tax, MSTU and general funds. So the majority of resurfacing right now is funded through a property tax mechanism. So, we know population is growing and
like most of Florida, we're we're going to continue to grow. Uh, population has doubled in the last 25 years and it's going to increase another 35% um over the next 25 years based on a medium growth scenario. So, in theory, as population increases, there's more
gas consumption and more pennies are going into those maintenance buckets. But there's a few complicating factors because while we are collecting pennies for more people, fuel efficiency reduces the number of pennies and then the value of those pennies are impacted by
inflation and increased construction costs. As this chart clearly illustrates, the rate of increase in construction costs has significantly outpaced the national consumer price index or inflation. This trend directly diminishes our purchasing
power. So when it comes to resurfacing, the cost has increased significantly, severely impacting the number of miles we are able to resurface with those same pennies. And then during this time frame, the users of the road have increased by
nearly 105%, but the gas taxes only increased by less than 36%. And you might say it's because of electric vehicles. However, electric vehicles only make up about 2% of Lake Countyy's registered vehicles and then the hybrids only make up another 4%. So
that really doesn't explain that huge gap. So when you factor in fuel efficiency though, more people are working remotely, so there's, you know, less driving in general and the electric vehicles, then it starts to add up and
make sense. None of us are really contributing as many pennies to the pot as we used to. So, now we're going to look specifically at our resurfacing needs. This chart shows the annual miles of Lake County roads that have been resurfaced since 2014. And as you can
see, the miles fluctuate because there really isn't a consistent funding source from year to year. You see that the miles jump in 21 and 22 because we had a resurfacing loan that came to fruition during that time, but then immediately after that, the miles plummet again.
So, in more recent years, additional funding has been allocated to resurfacing. So, you see the resurfacing miles start to climb, but it's difficult to get back to precoid miles since the cost of construction really never came down. This is what our roads look like um
going back to 2018. These are the road ratings. Green signifies good roads that are rated seven or better. A yellow is our danger zone where this is where the roads start to rapidly deteriorate. And then red is simply where we don't want to be. These are roads that are in a
critical state of repair. So as you can see over eight years, the needle really hasn't moved much. It we're barely treading water there. The concerning part is you see that the yellow is starting to trend higher, which means that roads are going to
deteriorate quicker than we can empty that red bucket. So, here's a closer look at where we are present day. Resurfacing is tied closely to maintenance. When resurfacing is deferred, the cost of maintenance increases both due to economic factors
um such as inflation, but also the fact that rebuilding a road from the base up is four times as as expensive as preventative maintenance. We currently have a $90 million deficit in our critical resurfacing need.
So, it's it's kind of like not changing the the oil in your car. you know, you eventually have to replace your whole engine. So, if with regular oil changes and preventative maintenance, you can get 200 to 300,000 miles out of your vehicle. But if you never change the
oil, you might experience critical engine failure at just 50,000 mi. And the roads are exactly the same way. We're not really able to maintain them because we're more reactive. We have to focus on the roads in these red buckets that are in a state of failure.
But if we were to transition eventually, if we got rid of our red bucket and we transitioned to preventative maintenance, then we would end up saving taxpayers a lot more money in the long run. So when we're talking about our red critical roads, um what exactly are we
talking about? Which roads? So it's completely understandable for our residents to not want to be taxed for new development. So, it's important to differentiate um the impacts from development versus just our existing aging infrastructure. So, here's a
jigsaw puzzle of Lake County and every road depicted here are the red roads. So, we broke them up into two categories just so you can visualize a little easier. The collector roads are in darker red and the local roads are in orange. So, as you can see, there are
significantly more local roads that make up our critical road category. 80% 80% of that $90 million deficit are local roads. That means those are roads within neighborhoods. Our Lake County
residents in the older neighborhoods with the older roads would be the biggest benefactors of the 5 cents gas tax. So, our department averages well over a hundred complaints a month and the vast majority of those complaints are pothole
and and shoulder work complaints and delaying the resurfacing will just continue to increase these complaints. So, here's a closer look at an example of what one of these, you know, red category roads are. So, in district one,
here we have Katherine Circle in the Groland area. This is a neighborhood um that was developed in the '9s. Here's an example from district 2, um, Adam Court in Montver Hills. This is a neighborhood again from the 80s.
District three, Dorawood Drive. This is a neighborhood from the 80s. District four, Crape and Royal Trails. Homes here were built in the 80s, 90s, and there are some newer homes today, but these are not new county roads.
And then district five, this is Leburg Boulevard in Futland Park area. These homes were built in the 70s and 80s and a few in later years, but as you can see, these are not new developments, and new developments typically are not increasing the traffic within the local
neighborhoods. So, these roads that are being left behind uh due to the lack of funding and it's and it's the resurfacing of these roads that would be paid for by the 5-cent cast tax. So, here's a snapshot of the resurfacing funding for the last few years. The
county recognizes that road deterioration is an issue. So, we've been trying to dedicate more funds to resurfacing in more recent years. Fiscal year 24, we were up to 5.1 million, 25, 8.1 million, and fiscal year 26, uh, 7.5
million. And we're hoping that that trend will continue. If we can maintain an $8 million annual budget for resurfacing, this is what our 10-year outlook could look like. It's definitely better than where we are now, but it doesn't get us
out of the red, and it doesn't significantly reduce our yellow categories. um and the yellow category and preventing the green from entering the yellow category is where we would be saving the most significant amount of money with preventative maintenance and
extending the life of those roads. So, should the 5-cent gas tax be implemented, we could achieve a $12 million annual resurfacing budget. The goal of gas tax is to place the least amount of burden possible on the Lake County residents by sharing that burden
amongst the users of the road as a consumer tax. The 5-cent tax applies to everyone traveling through Lake County that stops for gas. It's a much bigger pool of contributors than the general property tax and MSTU, which is what is currently funding the majority of
resurfacing efforts right now. So I believe that over time if we can get ourselves out of the red zone that we may be able to transition away from general fund for resurfacing purposes which is a much larger burden on residents than gas tax would be.
And here's a glimpse of what a 12 million budget could look like for us. You can see that we've gotten completely out of the red and we have significantly reduced our yellow danger zone. So in this scenario, we would transition to a proactive preventative maintenance approach and that's where we would see
significant savings over time. So now we'll look at precisely what the what the 5-cent local option means for us. So here's a snapshot of Florida. Out of Florida's 67 counties, 39 out of 67 already levy some portion of the
additional 5 cents. That's 58% of the state right now. 35 counties already levy the full 5 cents. So Semino County is highlighted in yellow because they are the most recent county to have levied this option and they did that last month um at their August meeting
with a majority board vote. Now, this graph is super interesting because it shows how we compare to our immediate neighbors with respect to the gallons of gas sold versus the revenue that everyone's receiving. And the counties are organized from largest
population to smallest for reference. And Seinal's revenue here is highlighted in orange because it's an estimated amount for when their 5 cents is implemented just so we have a better comparison. So there are two outliers here. Um and
each of them have not implemented the five cents and that is Orange County and Sumpter County. So Orange County, they're both unique because they have much different funding sources than we do. So Orange County receives nearly five times the amount of sales tax as we do because they have amusement parks,
right? And Sumpter County, they have the villages. So they have their C uh community development districts and they're responsible for roads, sidewalks, water, sewer, drainage, etc. The homeowners are responsible for paying into special assessment bonds, right? That helps pay for their
infrastructure. Um some of these bonds are average $50,000 that can be paid all at once or or monthly over time, but that's a substantial revenue source for their infrastructure that we simply don't have here. In all other cases, all of our neighbors
are collecting significantly more revenue from gas tax than us because they're simply charging more pennies per gallon. So, Oyola and Marian are most similar to us in population and both of them nearly uh have double the revenue
that we do. All right. So this is a look at the average gas prices and here's a snapshot that we used in last presentation from last month. This the graphic on the left shows how many pennies uh each county has implemented including the state imposed and the locally imposed that
total a maximum of 12 pennies. We kept seinal here at seven pennies because they haven't quite implemented it yet. It's not yet effective. So on the right it shows the average gas prices, red and darker oranges being the highest average
gas prices. So if we look at Bradford, Bradford levies the full 12 cents, yet they have the lowest gas prices in the region. Orange County, they levy less gas tax than us at only 6 cents, yet they're 5
cents higher than us. We have Sumpre County. They levy the same gas tax rate as us and yet their gas prices were four cents higher. Hernando, they levy the full 12 cents and they have the same average price as
us. And then we have these neighbors here where there's two counties with the highest gas prices in the region, yet one levey's only 6 cents and the other levies 11 cents. So they're kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum. And then here's a snapshot of present
day. This was just a matter of days ago. So this looks a lot different than the last map that we just looked at. And this is only a one month time frame. So you can see that just in one month there's huge regional fluctuations in
gas prices. Um so you can look at all these examples again, but you have a bunch of examples that tell the same story. Gilchrist was one of the highest priced, now it's the lowest. Putnham, lower average gas prices, but they levy
the full 12 cents. Elatchua, same gas price, they have the full 12 cents. St. John's, slightly higher gas prices, and they levy less tax than us. Pulk close to being the same as us. Um, they have the full 12 cents. And the list goes on.
But Sumpter, last month, Sumpter was um was higher than us. this month they're significantly lower. So, it's not that we've, you know, levied any taxes since then. So, this tells me that the gas prices are really a moving target and there may be little to no direct
correlation with with the taxes that are levied on the back end. So, why is there so much fluctuation? The price you see at the pump is a direct result of several overlapping cost factors. So while taxes do play a role, distribution and marketing,
refining, crude oil cost, um, all combined make up a significantly larger portion of influence factors that drive cost. Additionally, the 5 cents would only be a portion of that 17% you see in this picture. So that 17% includes other
state and federal taxes. So that 5 cents is is very just a small drop in the bucket compared to all the other cost factors. And then here's a look at the fuel prices at the state level. So over a one-year period, there is a 36 cent difference between the highest and
lowest gas prices. This is driven by again economic factors that don't relate to gas taxes because the taxes don't fluctuate like this from year to year and certainly not monthtomonth. So the average weekly fluctuation is about 6 cents per week and a higher
month-to-month shift of about 8 cents. All right. So, this is a look at the gas consumption by residents versus visitors. So, per visit lake, we get close to a million visitors a year, but that's from known sponsored events. So,
this doesn't account for private events or commuters or anything like that. So, we believe that the actual number of visitors is significantly higher than that. Um in 24 there was 176 million gallons of gas sold of regular gas sold
not diesel. So to determine how much is attributable to visitors we had to do some reverse engineering here and I used two methods. So the first based on the specific county demographics we calculated the average number of miles driven by age group and average fuel
economy. So if every resident of driving age drove the average annual number of miles, then they make up 85% of the gas sold. And of course, this is an overestimation because we know that some residents don't drive or don't have
vehicles of their own. And then the second method uses the actual number of registered Lake County passenger vehicles and trucks and again assumes that everyone driving is driving the average number of miles and we came up
with 78%. So therefore anywhere between 15 and 22% of gas tax revenue is from non-residents. And I think both of these calculations could be a bit on the conservative side. um and fuel sales attributable to visitors could
potentially be much higher than that. And then finally, while there is plenty of evidence that shows little to no correlation between the fuel prices and the 5-cent tax specifically, we can evaluate what this would look like if the 5 cents did directly increase the
price of gas. So assuming your tank is completely empty, these are the potential impacts of the average size gas tanks in each vehicle category when you fill up all the way. So for sedans.7,
for an SUV $15, and for a goodiz truck, $155. However, uh when you consider the average size tank miles and fuel economy, the annual average impacts for sedans is $2310,
uh $31.50 for SUVs, and $40.30 for trucks. And that that is assuming average uh gas consumption, average miles driven. And this is also making the big assumption that the 5 cents will
directly increase the price of gas at the same rate. So the 5-cent local option fuel tax, it can be authorized by a majority plus one board vote or a countywide referendum. However, it must be levied before October 1st to be effective January 1st
if we went with the board vote. proceeds from this tax would not only um benefit Lake County, but it would also benefit our municipal municipal partners that also, you know, struggle with transportation expenses just as we do.
So, now I'll hand it back to the board for discussion and direction. I I hope that the revised presentation answered most of the questions you uh all would have, but if you have any additional, I'm happy to try to answer them for you. I had a quick question. Um, we were always told at no meetings that the
state gas taxes are indexed for inflation, but municipal and county gas taxes are not. Is that correct? That's accurate. Yes. Okay. So, they just are flat. So, for instance, if if it was like sales tax and it's a percentage, then it
would, you know, increase with inflation. But these are just a penny. It's a penny. No matter what the gas price does, we still get a penny. Mhm. And those pennies just don't total as much as they used to. And that's that is an issue legislatively to get
Yeah. There's a lot of legislative issues and I think that's one of the things that needs to be focused on as well is that we're not getting a whole lot of help from the legislature when it comes to
taking care of roads in our county. Okay. All right. Um, moving along then, we have we've read the ordinance, we've had our presentation. Any questions before we go through speaker cards? We have a lot of speaker cards.
And um we always ask whenever we have a lot of speaker cards um if you feel so inclined that someone has already said what you intend to say, you could get up and you could ask that uh you know you just be recognized as supporting what someone has already said or that you're in agreement with the prior speaker. So
um can I just say one more thing on that? Yes. So one one practice that's very popular in Tallahassee in the state capital is exactly what Commissioner Campion just said, which is somebody comes up, they make a really substantive argument. Usually the person comes in behind them, they did a great job. They
say, "I wave in support or I wave in opposition," meaning they wave their comments. But it's very emphatic. It's very effective and it's just not popular in other places other than our state capital. So I, you know, I hope people will maybe adopt it, but you know, it works very well. It's not like we're trying to reduce anyone's time, but
obviously it's popular in some places, not others. So that's all I have to say about that. Yeah. And a lot of people will do that. We've seen that happen here. So, we'll just ask that you'll consider doing that today. Um because we have a lot of cards to go through. Um all right, I'm going to start with them just in the order
that they were handed to me. Um David uh Miles and Eigor Emery will be next. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'm sorry for the frog in my voice, but uh I would like to read a letter. I am
one of the council members from the town of Howie in the hills and our town manager at the direction of the town council sent this letter to the board on the 15th of September and I'd like to read it into the record if I could
please. The town council of the town of Howie in the hills supports the BCC's adoption of the local option gas tax LGT by supermajority vote. Lake County is
facing a documented 710 million transportation infrastructure def deficit which places a growing strain on our ability to maintain safe and reliable roads. Without new revenue,
critical projects ranging from routine resurfacing and bridge maintenance to major capacity improvements will continue to fall further behind. This shfall directly affects the quality of
life for residents and the economic vitality of the county as a whole. The LOGT is an established tool under Florida law and is already in use in full or in part by a majority of the
counties across the state. Because it applies to both residents and visitors, it distributes the burden more fairly than property or sales tax alone, ensuring that those who use our roads
help contribute to their upkeep. The projected revenue would provide a stable recurring source of funding that can be planned against responsibly rather than relying on short-term or uncertain
funding streams. Further delay or placing the matter on referendum risks an outcome that fails to address the problem at all, leaving municipalities and residents to contend with worsening
traffic, deteriorating pavement conditions, and escalating repair costs in the future. The need is clear. The tool is available and the responsibility now rests with the board to ensure that
Lake County has the means to keep its transportation system safe and functional. The town respectfully urges the board to act without delay and adopt the LGT by supermajority vote. And I
might add two points. Uh I've lived in Florida for 35 years. I spent 12 years in Palm Beach County in the 1990s when they enacted this tax while I was there.
And in addition to that, uh we in the have exactly the same problem you do with our town roads and we get to pave about two blocks worth a year. So, we're looking forward to you passing
this extra funding source. Thank you. Um, Eigor and then Dan Matthysse. Commissioners, Igor Emery, for the record, I live in District 4. In my hesitate to say it, 30 years before the commission advocating for transportation
issues, we have talked many times about funding. Uh there needs to be more attention from this commission on funding going forward. This cannot be the only solution, but I come forward this this morning to speak in favor of
adopting this gas tax. Um as you know in the planning that you guys have seen and the long-range transportation plan is currently being looked at. We have long-term substantial issues brought about by the growth we've seen and you apparently continue to expect. So,
please adopt this and all other methods that come before you. Please fix our roads. Thank you. Dan Matthysse and then Sandy Moore. Good evening, commissioners. Dan Matthysse with the city of Claremont, deputy city manager. Our city manager,
unfortunately, he was not able to be here today. He fell ill. But I'm here to tell you on behalf of himself and myself that we are very much in favor of this gas tax and we hope you do pass it. So thank you Sandy. And then Glenn Spurlock.
Good morning. My name is Sandy Moore. I'm the president and CEO of the Leburg Area Chamber of Commerce. On behalf of our board and members, member businesses, I'm here to voice strong support for adopting the 5% local gas
tax option. Lake County has grown faster than anyone expected. Um, as you know from the presentation, so I'm going to skip all of that. Um, but unlike our peer counties, Lake County has not used the diversified funding strategy strategies to keep up
our roads safe and economy strong. Those counties combine local gas taxes, sales surface tax, mobility fees, and grants to build sustainable funding. We had we have to rely on bonds just to pave roads, and it's not sustainable. As
business leaders, we know that good roads are good business. Workforce mobility, freight reliability, and quality of life all depend on solid infrastructure. The 5 cent gas tax is a fair, unbased biased solution and
ensures everyone who drives on our roads, including visitors, helps pay to maintain them along with dedicating at least 8% of the general fund um general revenues to transportation. This will show that Lake County is serious about investing in our future. Doing nothing
will only make the problem worse and more expensive. On behalf of the Leburg Area Chamber of Commerce, we urge you to adopt the 5-cent local gas tax and move Lake County forward. Thank you. Thank you. Um, so Glenn Spurlock was
next, but I see Bud Dorman's here, but you're after uh Glenn, so if you want to just stay up. Okay. Okay. Good morning. I'm Glenn Spurlock, and I live in Lake County, obviously. um staff did a great job of explaining why there's a need for an additional revenue
source. My question for today is it's called a fuel tax on on the agenda, but we talked about gas, we talked about fuel, we talked about gas. So is it a gasoline only tax doesn't include
diesel? Okay, if that's the case, how is that fair and equitable across the board for all road users? Diesel vehicles, especially larger trucks, weigh more. They do more damage to the roads and the infrastructure, requiring the tax to be levied, but we're not including them in
this particular tax. Second issue is electric vehicles now represent 2% of the vehicles on our road. Electric vehicles do not use liquid fuel. How are we gaining the
revenue required for their use and the damage they do to our infrastructure? Those are my two questions. Just looking for clarification. Thank you. Right. And I can at least answer the one on the diesel. It's not diesel. It's only gasoline. And that percentage is I think we
calculated based on what we think are Lake County um electric vehicle owners. We don't really know people coming from other places, but that was our best guess. So So electric gets I spoke with our local delegation today
and they are looking uh to bring something in Tallahassee to address the electric cars possibly by um adding a fee onto the registration that's in the county. So they they are going to try to address it because they do they use the
roads just like everybody else. We heard that last week at the Florida Association of Counties as well. Yeah. And the statute doesn't allow us for the diesel. I mean, obviously they tax that differently, right? I I was just going to clarify that this tax can only be levied in the
manner in which the state allows us to levy it, and this tax does not include diesel per state law. They collect the taxes on diesel through another statute, another another method. All right. Um Bud Dorman and then David
Colby. Hi, I'm Bud Dorman. White Aluminum and Windows worked there for 46 years. We put 20 vehicles on the road every day. I'm happy to pay the extra gas tax. Safer roads, more efficiency, quicker to job
sites, salespeople working more efficiently. To me, it's a no-brainer. Um, I believe that all of you are highly professional people who have been voted into your positions because of your ability to make tough decisions.
And I think this is a decision that doesn't need to go to referendum. We need a supermajority today so we can move forward with this tax that's going to make it a better life for every citizen, including all your constituents.
So please vote yes on the gas tax today. Thank you. After David, then um Adam Edgington, David Colby, president CEO of the South Lake Chamber of Commerce and on behalf of my nearly 10,000 business members. I would also like to export this
ordinance. Uh we we think it is very necessary. Our quality of life as as well as our economic prosperity is directly linked to our roads and and we feel that this needs to move forward at this time. Um nobody likes attacks. Residents don't like attacks. Businesses sure don't like attacks. But in this
case, we think it is very necessary to move this forward and we appreciate all of your support. So, thank you for your time. Thanks for your service to our community. We appreciate you. Thank you, um, Adam. And then Andy Price, Madame Chairman, uh, board, thank you
guys today. Thank you to all our staffers. Jordan for putting on um all the pertinent statistics that we need to review here. And um it does pain me as a conservative to say that I would like to pay additional taxes, but I would also
like to not sit in traffic indefinitely. Um I do have to agree with the previous gentleman who discussed the electric tax. There are multiple different ways and approximately 28 different states that collect taxes on electric vehicles. I certainly um as an owner of one
believe it is the right thing to do. Um the last time this came in front of the uh board of county commissioners was the uh 2018. It was pulled over the Parkland shootings correctly. So um that being said, if we do not do this as a super majority
today, it will be another year at least minimum. That puts us eight or nine years from the last time we discussed that. Uh just using some general numbers, that's about $50 to $60 million in road resurfacing that has put us behind. We're approximately 90 million
behind. So to me, um I think it's a no-brainer. This is our most equitable. It's the only tax besides beds and heads that we're going to get to help us um you know, with outsiders helping paying in. So with that being said, I think it's
the lowest hanging fruit. It is the easiest one for us to adopt. We get to tax other people's citizens. Um and uh that's that's all I have to say. Thank you guys. Please vote yes today. Andy and then Janet Noak.
Hi, I'm Andy Price, the resident of Lake County. Um I will wave most of my comments. A lot of my statistics will be redundant to the proposal that we saw at the beginning. Uh but I just want to say I am in full support of the gas tax. uh my time in Lake County, the biggest complaints we hear is growth and roads.
And I think this is obviously the fastest and quickest way for us to address this problem. Thank you. And Janet and then after Janet, Cindy Newton. Good morning, commissioners. Madame Chair, thank you so much for listening to all of us today. Um I'm here um on
behalf of the Homebuilders Association of Lake and Sumpter counties. We have well over 200 members of our association and in the state of Florida over 9,000 and uh we all believe that this is the correct way to um fix this problem that
we have. I know for most of us who drive these roads every day, we experience those long traffic lines. If you've ever been on on Highway 27 going uh and trying to get into Leburg, you can get
hung up there at the McDonald's. So quite interesting. So uh we are um asking you today to please vote for this 5 cent tax which we think will really help and let's do the right thing for all of our citizens of Lake County. I
thank you so very much for your support. Cindy Newton and then Jimmy Nuswmer. Oh, you're waiting. Hi, Jimmy Nuswmer from Groveland. I'm here on behalf of Lake 100, a coalition of businesses and community leaders
committed to the Lake County's long-term prosperity and economic development. We're asking you to approve the 5% local user fee instead of sending it to referendum Lake. Uh I'm going to skip all the statistics. They gave me a nice list of
statistics. Your staff did a wonderful job of pointing out to it and making it pretty clear the need and where it needs to come from. Uh the 5% user fee is a consumptionbased fee that is the fairest funding mechanism dedicated to the repairs of the existing roads.
Uh again, more statistics about the other counties that do it to maintain our roads in the situations we're in. But sending this decision to a referendum delays the action at least another year, if not another decade. The results of the this results only fe
excuse me, the results only further deteriorates our roads re rising repair cost and greater frustration for our citizens. We understand that leadership is making tough decisions and for sound policy.
I think uh on behalf of Lake 100, we urge you to vote in favor of this user fee. Now, I'm going to jump into Jimmy Nusba uh taxpayer. Um I live in Groveland. If any of you hit on Highway 50, you know the problems with the traffic. However, the
roads are deteriorating. A user fee is the best way to do it. my 88-year-old father that sits at home doesn't need to pay more taxes on his property to pay for the road that I use and everybody else. The second thing I want to bring up real quick is that we need the roads for my business. I'm a business owner.
You guys all know that. And I need to but more importantly, the guys that you recognize that are standing back here in the back of the room need these roads in good condition to get to your family member when they need your their services. I mean, the bottom line is they need to your your family member has
a heart attack, you want them to get there. The roads aren't there, they're not getting there. This is a user fee. The best way to put it out there, let's let the people people that use it, whether they're passing through or those businessmen, every business association here standing up and saying, "Do the
right thing. Pass this. Don't kick it down the road. Don't send it to referendum. Let's get this done so that our people can have the services that they need." Thank you. Shane Gwig and then Cheryl.
Good good morning, chair, uh, commissioners. Appreciate everybody's time today. My name is Shane Gerwig. I reside in, uh, South Lake County. I', I've lived in South Lake County as a homeowner for the last 20 years or so. First and foremost, I can appreciate the
fiscal responsibility that this group helps the citizens of Lake County out with. Uh, generally speaking, you all really watch out for the taxpayers's dollar. You want to be able to spend it well, and we appreciate that. But just like Mr. Nusb speaking a little bit
about earlier, this isn't a tax. This is actually a fee on the services that we receive and that we we use. There's no other options. There's no other options out there that really dials it into this directory. So, from what I can tell, from what staff presented a little bit
ago, we're looking at a uh 20 to 25% of this particular fee actually being paid by folks other than living in Lake County. I have looked at different reports by diff, you know, different commissioners and different papers by different commissioners and and looked
over things. I I didn't see a proposition or an example or an idea of where we would actually have 25 20 to 25% of this fee being covered by folks that don't live here. So, I really believe that this is a good option, a
good alternative. Uh this, you know, I I appreciate that the willingness to not add additional taxes to the citizens of Lake County. However, this is not a tax. This is a fee for using a service that's out there. Uh I would definitely encourage you and urge you to support
this uh as as a supermajority and let's go ahead and start with the funding in January. Thank you Cheryl Pavlaca from Minnola. Thank you commissioners for allowing me to voice my opinion. But most importantly, thank you for reading my emails. I sent each
of you one after the last meeting and you all responded and you all gave me some good input. uh and it was reflected in the presentation today which was much better than what was originally on the website. So, thank you to the young lady who presented that. However, I am still
opposed to the 5-cent gas tax. And here's why. The Homeowners Builders Association and the Affordable Housing Impact Statement, both of them referred to this tax will be used for road improvement projects, capital projects.
That is not the case. We're not adding or expanding the road like the young lady said for Highway 20 uh highway 19 there going off into 561 or Highway 27. This is for resurfacing only. That's my
understanding. I also believe that a lot of the reason why resurfacing hasn't been done has been lack of a real project plan. The first time I saw something in red was when the young lady presented today. If we know what roads
are in critical use, let's prioritize them. Let's ex explain how much money it's going to be. We are putting 7.5 million this year. She said we'd like we will get 12 million from the uh 5 cent
gas tax a year and only 15% to 22% is from visitors. So it will burden us. It will burden those that are driving to work that have to take their car um to get to work in the lowinccome category.
I believe we can gradually implement tax a cent at a time. Why not start out with two cents and see how well we do against those roads? Why don't we I disagree with the 2% ratio of electric cars? Just driving here today, I saw more Teslas
than I did regular cars and more hybrid cars. So I do think we need to address our legislature and voice our opinions about electric vehicle tax as well as the department of transportation not being a penny for
penny as chairman said it needs to be addressed as uh looking at inflation. So those were some of my ideas. I think that uh I will support whatever this board does, but and I agree that a user fee uh is a good way to go about it, but
I do think we shouldn't jump to 5 cents. Thank you very much for your time. Do we have anyone online? Anyone online? Cassandra Brown, please unmute your line and state your name for the record. I am Cassandra Brown.
Can you hear me? Hello. Good morning. Is this a for the gas tax discussion? No, my apologies. This is for uh tab 24, please. Okay. Yeah, we're not we're not there
yet. All right. No more callers. Excuse me. All right. So, here we're we're back. We we've got all of our speaker cards. Um I wanted to clarify something. I think Cheryl just said the this particular tax would raise 4 million for the county and
3 million would then be distributed among the cities. Okay. So, when we talked about 12 million in the presentation, that was um the effect of adding four more to what we're already allocating from the general fund. That would then total 12 million a year. Correct. Okay.
Correct. All right. Just wanted to clarify that. All right. For board discussion, you guys want to start in order? Anybody want to just jump right in? Um, I'll go. I'd be more than more than happy to to
start. Um, I I've said this in the past that um this has been an ongoing situation uh since I've been on commission and we've um started doing things to help out. One of the things that we have done
was the MSTU uh which which is a um attacks on property in the places where individuals neighborhoods where they use their road solely themselves. Um I don't think it's
fair for um all of the property owners of Lake County to pay solely the burden that is used throughout the county. Uh, as Mr. Mouse Burmer said, um, this is a user fee. Someone that drives,
uh, 18 miles a day should not have to pay the same price as someone that drives 200 miles a day on our Lake County roads. Um, I believe that this is a fair consumption tax, uh, or user fee.
Um it it addresses not only um some of our deteriorating interior roads, but it also does safety, if I'm not correct, if we can do some safety improvement projects with this uh
sidewalks. We've heard about sidewalks. Um and what it also does, we um have implemented extraordinary circumstances two years ago which raised
the impact fees to the highest maximum amount that we could raise them on our on our builders and we can't move that for four years now. We're two years into it. We got two years left. So in another two years we can look at it again but we
can't do anything for two years on impact fees no matter what anybody says we have to abide by that now um as far as reservicing and new
construction. If we add this tax this user fee to the pot then we're using some of our capital money on resurfacing. Maybe we can move all of our capital money from resurfacing back to just capital
and and utilize this user fee for our resurfacing. Uh I think this is a a fair way to do it. I'm in full support of it. Uh a lot of the businesses here are are in support of it. It's good for our economy. It doesn't put the full burden
on the citizens of Lint County solely. It puts the burden on people who use our roads. So, I'm in full support of it. Well, I know uh Jennifer is probably tired of coming down to my office and explaining why we can't get more money
out of the budget to uh do roads, but um I came I came in in November thinking that there was a pot of money out there that we could move it around, move it around, move it around. That's not the case. It really isn't. Uh the budget is
lean. Uh we do a good job of managing the budget. This is a user fee. I I don't have an issue with it at all. Um I've got like Jimmy, I've got 10 trucks a day I run. And uh it's just as easy and just as
cheap to fuel in a county that's got the 5 cent on it as it is in Sumpre County. So I don't I don't have an issue with it at all. Um, I I think it's time that we need to do something and it's going directly to what we need to have done,
which is the roads. So, I'm in full favor of it. Commissioner Park. Yeah. Um, I am um, you know, I I appreciate it. First of all, I appreciate everybody coming today. Um, really being a part of this process. Um,
so you know, like many that have expressed, probably all of us in the room really, um, nobody, nor am I passionate about a user fee or a tax, but I'm very passionate about making the right decision. Um, as has been said,
you you put us out, you put us up here, we serve you, and we do this to make tough decisions. I know what things that we do today, there's going to be some people are not going to be happy with me or other people on the board. But this is something um you know I've done done a lot of research on um it's we've
talked about it now for years but in particular this past year doing a lot of research on this and I do think it's the right decision to do. I think there's a lot of questions that have been addressed. Um, and let me just start by
saying not to forget to say to Jordan, that was an incredible presentation. Um, so Jordan, thank you so much. Um, you will you will probably all uh be happy when I say it. Literally her presentation has cut like 15 minutes off of what I was going to say because I'm
just going to reference I'm just going to reference Yeah. Everybody clap. It's uh I'm going to reference her when I when I'm asked about why I made this vote. I'm going to reference in large part her her uh presentation, but also to the business men and women that are
out there today that are giving up a lot of time and money to be here. I mean, some of them I I'm happy you're here. I'm surprised you're here and you're speaking in support of this. So, that certainly weighs a lot on me as well. Um and it weighs into my decision. Yeah, I
think it's I think it's time that we do this by a super majority to vote majority vote. There's it's not perfect. There's problems that are still out there with this. This is a first step and a a few things that the commission I think has to do uh in the future here uh
to get caught up with our roads. Um we'll talk about general fund and all everything when we get into the to the budget process this coming year and what we can do out of that and work with the cities with better joint planning agreements to have road funding agreements put in place before development occurs. But this this this
uh will free up more money for resurfacing projects. many of which were showed in the pictures. Direct impact on all of you immediately. So, I am in uh I'm in support of it. I think it's time we do it. I think it's incumbent upon us. It shows good leadership. Um it's
tough, but it does show good leadership. And I know that we've had some discussion on this and I know that there's it requires a supermajority vote and there was questions um from Commissioner Campion, um Commissioner Sabatini as well. Uh we need a fourth
vote for this. So, I will I will um I will put something out for you for a question uh knowing how serious this is and what um what I think uh and trying to be solutionsoriented to get this done. So, if we're worried
about rightfully so about um user fees and and taxes and things like that, which I think is good, and I appreciate the comments about us being uh fiscally prudent. We are, with the exception of Sumpter County, not explaining why this is true. We are the lowest have the lowest millage rate of all the counties
around us and we've done a good job of budgeting to keep it that way. Um I have a proposal that I will put out if this if this gets us the fourth vote where tonight we lower the millage rate and that's a whole discussion and you know
what our discussion about having the concerns over reserve and the impact on the lowering a millage rate is on reserve and there's a wonderful graph that Jennifer has that you know she will show us tonight where uh our millage
rate is kept at a curve at a a curve curve like this, but the expenditures that we all have to constitutionally support go up like this and that gap keeps widening every year and there's no ability as I think we can cut another half a million out of the budget.
Yeah. So, so yeah, to get right to it, let's let's cut a half a million out of it uh tonight. And um Florida statute 336.025 025 allows in a case where we might need
the gas tax if we enact it today. This statute 336.025 would allow us to use out of reserves the gas tax to address a concern that might come up with roads related uh during a storm or some kind of Yeah. a wash out.
Yeah. So that addresses that would address our our concern. I know your concern about about reserves road about reserves. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm glad you brought that up because I I didn't I didn't bring this this up as is my hope that once we get our roads
taken care of, we can continue but lower the impact on our citizens every day through their property fees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this would so this proposal then I mean if you think about it it's it's you're going to gain the revenue to over
the next 10 years or however long this is enacted for for resurfacing which frees up more money from other sources. And I don't believe the state is going to help us any more than what they are going to do what they've done this past year. Um despite them saying they have money in reserve. Um projections show at
the state that will actually be in a deficit in two years. It's amazing. in Florida. Um, so I think that that is uh I think we have to put more skin in the game. So we're able to do that with this proposal. We're able to show the residents that we're trying to be sensitive to property taxes as well,
take it very serious, but then we do have a reserve ability to use the gas tax in a reserve situation in an emergency situation uh according to this statute. And I I I just think it's a good solution and I'm hoping uh one or
both of um those with questions will um will do that. But but I I understand I understand um both sides of this as well. I'll say that too. I appreciate I appreciate that suggestion or offer. Uh Commissioner Sabatini, just first I want to follow up on Yeah, tonight I'll be making a motion or
seconded somebody else's motion to reduce the millillage by another half million. So I think that's a great idea and we've already cleared that it's not going to have a direct effect on roads. So uh I'm opposed to this. I'm opposed to new taxes, especially taxes that are regressive, that hurt working-class people more, people who work every
single day 9 to5. That's my definition of workingass. Um, and so I'll be voting no, but I appreciate the conversation. So, a couple thoughts. Um, from my standpoint, um, I think one of the best things that this board has done is put the, uh, MSTU in place for any new
subdivisions that come through county approval. so that a new subdivision actually within their subdivision, they capture the funding to be able to resurface the roads inside their subdivision. Um, so I think that's been a super positive thing. I I feel like
the the slides that showed the pictures of the the roads that are degrading and indicated I think in most of them they were subdivisions built around the 80s um is an extremely compelling reason why the voters of Lake County would probably vote in favor of a referendum to do
this. If we showed that the money was going 80% apparently based on the presentation would go to neighborhood roads. They would go to neighborhood roads. They wouldn't this this fee or tax wouldn't change whether you wait in
line at you know 44B in Donnelly it's that it's not going to change that at all this is strictly for resurfacing 80% of it will go to resurfacing subdivision roads most of which were built in the 70s 80s
so I guess I from my standpoint I feel like this is something that voters would support especially if you showed them that your neighborhoods are going to get resurfaced. The roads in your neighborhoods are going to get resurfaced. Um I I don't I don't agree
that it's fair. Um and I guess everybody sort of agrees that it's not fair because electric vehicles aren't paying it. Diesel isn't paying it. Diesel are the you know, we know that a lot of the roads in my district are torn up because of large trucks and and they're
important. I mean, it's commerce. They need to be there. They're doing work. Um, but it's it's doesn't seem that doesn't seem fair. Um, I do think that um and and I and I appreciate the comments about, you know, you're elected to make hard decisions.
You got to stand up, be a leader, do what's hard, and sometimes, yeah, I mean, some of the things that we have to make decisions about are very difficult because we do make half the room happy, half the room mad. Um, rarely, never do you make everyone happy, right? And um
and I appreciate the fact that so many people from the business community are here today supporting this. And I appreciate you all getting together and deciding, yeah, this is good for for business. Let's do this. Um I just from my standpoint, I never ran on a platform of raising taxes. Never. That's never
anything I ever told people I would do as a county commissioner. Unilaterally make a decision to raise their taxes. and when there have been times when we've had to make tough decisions um with regard to millage rates and so forth. I mean, my goal has always been to keep the taxes as low as possible. I
get that this falls into that category of kind of being like a user fee. Um but again, I think that we could sell it to the residents of Lake County to support this in a referendum. And so, I would go that route. I would ask the voters to support this if this is what they want us to do in order to resurface roads and
make it really clear this is not going to build new roads. That's not that's not what this is for. It's strictly for reservicing and so we could take that to the voters and see if they would support that. But but I'm not So what happens if they don't? What what's your answer if they don't? If they vote it down,
we we will continue we will continue to do what we've been doing, which is using a combination of our MST. Can I Can I jump in though? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We had issues when people were yelling and doing things. I mean, we don't do that. So, let's like I don't think that's
appropriate for people to be there's 38 counties that the the county commission have made the decision to do that and maybe those commissioners went out and ran on that platform and maybe that is part of what was you know in the community support for it.
So, it doesn't look like we're going to have I want to go ahead and call the vote and and see where everybody stands now and not and not put it on a referendum. Maybe we'll bring it back in a year and when the polit political environment changes or something. Yeah. And I would I would second that.
Um and I I mean I have discussions I respectfully totally disagree that it would not help people that are waiting in traffic at 44B and Hammock Ridge Road and all these other roads because as was clearly discussed this we are using we are using what money we have now for
resurfacing. It's going to free up money for projects for us to be able to use more out of general fund for capacity projects. The state is not going to do anything different. We are going to be in the same frustrating scenario at NO meetings saying, "Why is my project
that's been on the LOP been there for 10 years and it's not even funded?" Well, they're going to say, "Because you haven't put money in the game and it's not cost feasible." This is a first step to get us to be cost feasible. But it has a totally direct impact on how these other capacity projects is just doing
something that we should have done. I was not I was not I didn't run on trying to raise taxes either and I don't think any of us did. But I also ran on trying to be fiscally conservative and knowing that these roads that are going to be fives and go to fours, it's going to cost them 10 times more, let's just say
four times more than it would be to actually resurface it. So, I'm not going to I don't want to put them in a situation or myself where these roads where I I mean, in my neighborhood, I'm seeing lime ba rock base coming up right now. And I know I just know enough to know that that that's expensive to fix
that road. It's no longer just a simple resurfacing. And I just don't want to put them in that position, us in that position of of uh repaving roads um with new base where it's where it's more costly as well. So, I mean, I understand
it. I understand your your your concern about that. I I don't know. I'm curious. I don't understand it, but Oh, go ahead. I'm I'm curious, Anthony. What is your answer? Well, first of all, let me ask you this. If you put it on a referendum and the voters of Lake County say no,
you're okay with trying to jam it down their throats anyways? Yes, absolutely. Really? Absolutely. I'm a little surprised by that. I I I know that the voters of both Lake County and the state of Florida have both either embraced or rejected tax. So So my question is how are we going to
fix the roads? How would you fix the roads? Now your definition of fixing the roads is very different from mine and and I'm not on the cross I'm not on the firing line here. You've called the question. I think Kirby is seconded. So let's have our vote. Well, we do have a first and a second. Second it, but I fully support it.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the question. And this is part of a part of a plan, you know. So, here's a here's a couple of things that I think we've already had the debate. I'd rather just see the vote get recorded. So, here here's a couple of things.
Diesel come up. Diesel pays about 60 cents more a gallon um currently today than gasoline. Another thing that came up was, do we have a list of roads? Well, we've got eight pages of roads
that are fours and fives that need to be redone. The third thing that's come up is we know up here that we use a lot of our capital money to resurface roads because everybody's complaining about roads
if we have this user fee. Now, I didn't run on raising taxes. I'm a full conservative. I want to keep taxes as low as possible. However, I'm a fan of heads and beds because that's visitors paying for some of our marketing and some of our infrastructure to bring in
visitors. I'm a fan of this because it's not solely on the backs of Lake County citizens. There's no other way to do this other than putting it solely 100% on the back of Lake County citizens other than this fee.
I agree. And I'm not in favor of making my aunt who drives three miles a week pay the same as somebody who owns 10 trucks that drives a thousand miles a week pay the same amount. It's just not
right. So we have a couple choices. We can either put it 100% on the backs of the Lake County citizens or we can do the proper thing and have everybody who uses those roads and fills up their gas
pay their amount that should be paid. Um we have roads that are listed. We know that we use capital money on reservicing currently today. We can transfer that back to capital to help 44, to help H Heartwood Marsh, to help all these roads
that have capital needs. We have already charged the developers the highest we possibly can for another two years. We can't charge them anymore. Even if we wanted to, we can't. It's against the law. So, we have to wait two years on
that. So, this is the only option we have. we either have a user fee or put it solely back on the taxes of of the uh citizens of Lake County. I'm not willing to do that. So, since we're having a debate though, I do want to point out the fact that we do resurface roads with sales tax money.
And sales tax money, onethird of the sales tax money comes from people who are buying goods in Lake County. So, it's not 100% that our other sources are only property taxes. We do use um sales tax, but when you want when you want to free
up sales tax for capacity projects. Yeah. No, it's I mean, it's always a juggling act. I mean, we every everybody in this room, I'm sure, our home budgets, we always wish we had a little bit more. We always have things we wish we could do more of. We have needs, not wants, but needs that we need more money
for. We're always juggling. And and that's part of what we do. And I think that's what that's part of what I think a lot of what people in Lake County expect us to do is uh is is to understand that you we can't do
everything. We can't we have to um work with what we have and they expect us to be fiscally conservative. I we can't we don't do that. Um we would be here all day long and night. Um but
um another thing I want to point out is I want to keep coming back to this. 80% of these roads are in subdivisions. We're not talking about our major collector roads and arterial roads. We're talking about the fact that I do think that people would support it if they knew that we were going to be
working on getting neighborhood roads resurfaced and that's what this really a majority of this tax would go to. But um I would say I'm sorry just a minute. Um, on the other issue with regard to the legislature, I really think that we should push the legislature on allowing us to use
tourism tax, hotel taxes that come in from people staying in Lake County to um to pay for for road needs. And I think that should be across the board in the state of Florida considering that we are a tourism economy. That would make so much sense to allow roads throughout the state of Florida to be um either
maintained or built using hotel taxes. So, I think it's something important. I do think legislative issues I think we have to keep putting the pressure on um for additional legislative sources, but I you know we've got a motion. We've got a second. We know where everybody's going to vote. Well, we we got more comments, too.
Yeah. Yeah. Just a little just a little more. I'm just a few more. Um I mean, really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. No, I I I think this is important to have it on the record. Um who's who are you trying to persuade on the on the five person board at this point? I'm trying to persuade one of you two. Okay. Well, I'm not persuading. just I I
I I get that. I understand. And by the way, respectfully, they did a good job. I mean, listen, there's things you're radically opposed to. There's things you're opposed to. I'm opposed to this. Not radically opposed. I'm opposed. Yeah. With that said, they've made their arguments. You've made your arguments. I'm just a little curious why we want to
dwell further. Well, I'm just I'm just trying to make it clear then. I I guess be being maybe it is being repetitive that again so everybody understands yeah that you're seeing the 80% of the local roads but we don't use we use general fund and sales
tax right now for resurfacing. So if this is approved the resurfacing frees up money for other capacity projects. I mean, I I don't I don't understand I I I don't I just don't understand that argument, but um yeah, and and again, uh you know, about being
fiscally conservative, I just I think that's a point that you know, why these are we're supposed to manage these roads and their liabilities. I'm not going to let something at my house go uh where I could be doing routine maintenance and the the reference was made where uh you
know it's going to cost me and my family something because of my irresponsibility uh you know 10 times the amount. So I just I just don't want to be in in that position. Again it's tough. Um I offered a solution. And I thought maybe to offset that a little bit with the with
the um with the general fund millage rate so that it could be palatable to do that. Meaning that you can you can literally from this statute use um monies from gas tax for um for reserve occasions uh you know disasters
and you know that being that we are concerned about our reserve and how it what we do with the military affects that. Here's a here's a solution for that. um make good points. All right. So, um we've got a motion.
We've got a second. Did you have any more comments or discussion? Uh we just implore you to vote uh for approval. And again, I'm going to I'm going to I mean, I think I've said all I can say is this is not something I'm going to support. I think the voters of Lake
County might support it. I would certainly go to bat and try to put that out there and see if we can get that support. Um, but I um I I'm not going to vote in favor of adding a new tax in Lake County right now. I don't think it's the right time to do that. Um, I
think that everybody is uh um you know, it's tough as it is with the property taxes, but it's uh we we all have a lot of expenses and I'm just not I'm not going to go there. Um so if we have opportunity to approve this and lowered property taxes, you forgot. I'm I'm in favor of lowering property
taxes. That's what that's 100%. I hope you'll still stand with that tonight. So, uh, well, there's no way to use this. I I I won't because you can't where our reserves are already down. I mean, what this this provides a tool. I mean,
when we were we when we took out the loan a couple years ago to do resurfacing, we couldn't even use the entire amount that we had because it was impossible to get enough contractors to get the work done. So, if you raise $12 million a year, there's no guarantee you're going to be able to actually do
your resurfacing of $12 million. I just think that's a bad argument. Well, I just think I think I think it's a practical it's a practical reality. It's a it's a practical reality. I mean, that's like saying um we have the money now, but nobody's going to come and resurface our roads. I mean,
you still collect the money and but actually, if you have more that you're using, you're actually going to draw contractors. Those in the business know this. Well, the whole argument is you're going to get this much done over this much time, but if you can't actually get that much done, then why would you collect any more than you absolutely
could use? So, that's I mean, we all have our reasons, and I don't think that it needs to be I I I don't think that it needs to be um what it, you know, kind of feels like uh it's getting a little personal here. Everybody's got their convictions. Everybody's made great off. Everybody's got their convictions. We've
stated our convictions. People know where we stand. And there we go. All in favor? I just want to make one more statement. It's just not for county roads. It's also for city roads as well because cities get part of this funding. Yeah, it's true. That's just So, we have a motion. We have a second.
Um the motion is to go forward with um the the 5-cent additional gas tax. All in favor say I. I. All oppose say I. I. All right. We're going to take a it's 20 after 11. We're going to come back in at 11:30 and then we'll pick up our next um
item. And I do want to move up the tab 23 is a short item. It's the Okaha Community Center. So I want to move that up so we can talk about that first. Yeah, definitely. Release valve. back in session and we're going to pick
up um on tab 25 which I believe should be a relatively short presentation although I have several speaker cards. I'm assuming that the spear cards are all here to say that they're in favor of this project getting done. Um but what I'd like to do is um we're going to have
a overview by Maria um Abdul Kim and um and she's going to kind of go over kind of kind of what's happened up to this point with regard to the funding sources and progress of the uh Okaha Community Center.
Good, good afternoon, good morning, madame chair and commissioners. Uh, for the record, Maria Abdul Khim, director of housing and community services here for the presentation for discussion and direction on the Okahumpa historic Rosenwall school restoration and
community club project. So, this project came to the attention of housing and community services initially back in May of 2022 uh for an application for the construction of the uh community building. The initial project cost was over half a million
dollars and at the time the county could not fund that project. So, we met with all of the community club members and they then submitted a second application for the fiscal year 2324 community development block grant uh which
outlined three phases of the project. The first was a structural stabilization of historic school building. The second was the historic restoration of the original school building and the third was construction of a new community building with ADA compliant restrooms.
The application noted funding that was committed from other sources which included the state of Florida African-American Cultural Historical Grant as well as the National Trust Grant in the amount of $599,890 combined
for the second application. The original budget request for the CDBG funding was in the amount of $287,310 which was the amount needed to fully complete the project at that time. And you'll see the construction acquisition project line item budget form which is
attached onto this slide. To date, the state bureau of historic preservation reports that of the 499,890 awarded through the state grant, 124,972 has been expended and they are reviewing
a reimbursement request for $249,945. The state was not aware of the additional 100,000 national trust grant award and at this time we were not able to receive information on the uh available balance of that award. So, I have a timeline here if you'd like to just take a few minutes to review and
I can summarize while you're doing that. We did receive uh we did have an annual public hearing for the funding through the Department of Housing and Community Services which the applicants participated in and then we received the second second application in May of
2023. In November, we hold a mandatory workshop for applicants that are being awarded funding so that they can understand that this is a reimbursement fund uh grant and also that so that they can review and understand their reporting requirements as part of that
grant. Again, initially the application included three phases, but prior to the execution of that subreient agreement, the applicant condensed the project to two phases upon the direction of their architect. and then the county entered into a subreient agreement with a
project completion date initially of August 13 of 2025. The mortgage was recorded as required by the county for projects involved in real property. Here you'll see a timeline uh which mainly contains the information through
the planning and zoning office and again the project began in April 2024. The staff comments were submitted by May 2024. The applicant then changed the architects and staff and met with new architects in July of 2024.
The applicant submitted a new presubmittal plan proposing substantial changes in January of 2025. And a new site plan was submitted at the end of July of 2025. Staff comments returned were returned to the applicant in early September of
2025. So key points regarding that timeline is that again the project began in April of 2024 and the applicant is still uh not in compliance with the site plan requirements as of September of 2025. I'm going to go back just a little bit.
In January of 2025, the applicant submitted another presubmitt to planning and zoning. And again, staff comments uh a staff comment letter was provided to the applicant. I believe that um the site plan is still uh was still pending
review. In May, the Office of Housing and Community Services received a request made by the applicant for the county to pay the award awarded CDBG funding to the applicant upfront instead of on a reimbursement basis as the grant is uh
required to do. Um at that time, the applicant had mentioned that currently they did not have available funding to pay the contractor. In July of 2025, a full resubmitt of an updated application, site plan, and deeds were sent to development
applications instead of the assigned case manager. The correct project number and name was not referenced. Uh I believe it was called the Virgil D. Hawkins Community Center. It was then forwarded to PNZ uh case manager in the planning and zoning department. It was
reviewed for sufficiency and taken into uh the number you see listed here. and the project was kept open as a courtesy to the applicant. This past August, a meeting was conducted with the applicant, the Office of Housing and Community Services, the
County Attorney's Office, and the CDBG consultant to discuss project expenditures and timeliness, which resulted in the applicant advising that benefactors are available to assist with cost overages. In September, a staff comment letter was sent to the applicant again by the
planning and zoning department and a resubmitt was uh requested to be required again in September. Public media outreach by applicant to solicit additional funding led to a meeting with the applicant planning and zoning the county attorney's office and the
department of housing and community services to discuss next steps on the project. Planning and zoning had confirmed had received confirmation that the applicant received the most recent staff comment letter and provided clarification to the applicant that Mr. Diko is listed as a
primary contact on the application. And also in September uh and actually to date the renovation of the historic school building has not received a certificate of occupancy. The project still has several rough inspections to complete as well as all of the final inspections.
So, in conclusion, the county facilitated multi-depal reviews of the applicant's requests to allow for input from the county attorney's office, building services, planning and zoning and housing and community services office. The applicant has requested the county to enter into a contract with the
lowest bidding contractor. Although this bid is higher than the CDBG award, a contractor has not been selected uh to date, but there may be some changes to that. The county suggested to the applicant that this award be rescended and the
applicant can apply for the next funding cycle which will be in the spring of next year. Although there is no guarantee for an award, HUD does have specific performance measures related to timely expenditures of grant funding. The grantees are not exhibiting timely expenditure of grant
allocations, risk jeopardizing all future funding for the county as well as affecting any current phase of CDBG funded projects. Uh this this contract this second contract that we entered into should end December of 2025.
This project has been flagged in HUD system due to zero funding haven't been drawn down to date. The options that we discussed during our last meeting with the applicant was uh available state grants whether historic or legislative or reducing the project
scope to construct restroom facilities to serve the historic structure. The community center could be a future phase with successful fundraising efforts as well. And I will hand it back to the commissioners for any questions or comments
and direction. All right, we have speaker cards. Um, the first one is Bobby Rhodess and then we have Malcolm Jones. Bobby, would you like to talk first? Hi, my name is Bobby Rhodess. I'm the president of Eco Construction Group. I'm
the contractor that is assisting them with phase one. Uh thank you very much for your time, commissioners. And um I want to speak on kind of two behalfs. One as a contractor, but but more importantly, one as a person, as an individual that has been involved with
the OK Oklahoma community. Um you know, this has been going on with them for, you know, I think five years now. and the amount of just care, eh effort, and commitment I've seen from this group is has really been just a awesome thing to be a part of. I'm honored to be involved
with this project. Um and um you know any support uh would would be greatly appreciated to assist them in any way possible. Thank you. And after Malcolm is um Charles Fields. Good morning, Malcolm Jones. Uh I'm the principal architect of Maj Architecture
and Design and I was the uh architect brought in place of the previous two help with phase 2. Um myself along with the partnership of Little Diversified Architecture which is a very reputable architecture firm in the state of Florida. Uh we have come together uh to
support the OK Oklahoma Community Club uh as much as we possibly can uh by reducing our fees greatly in order to support this project. Uh we've spent a lot of time coming to know these individuals and have echo echo Bobby's sentiment um and just uh growing an
affinity uh for the work they're trying to do. And we're prepared and willing to make take any measures and make adjustments to the plans to come up with alternative solutions to reduce uh the current cost of construction. And if that requires more pro proono efforts,
we'll do just that. And so if any possibility of further support to come out of the uh county um I would hopefully uh definitely encourage that. Thank you. Thank you um Charles and then Barbara Nissan. Good morning commissioners.
We're at a crossroad and I've been before you all a number of times as well as other members of our organization and uh I won't belabor the point in terms of our obvious support to complete this project. But this this community project
represents another crossroad. is a crossroad that intersects three significant individuals that really don't get enough credit for uniting the community, uniting America during the
1900s. Uh those individuals would be Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and Virgil Darnell Hawkins. We all know their significance and their contributions because they those three gentlemen literally changed America for
the better by enhancing educational opportunities for those individuals who would otherwise not have that educational opportunity. And it is a act of perpetuity that continues from generation to generation. The most important thing right now with
this crossroad is that we're at another crossroad, a financial crossroad. And we have a plan that uh I think well first of all we have a plan that other board members will present to you today
that uh in my view is very compelling and towards leading a pathway how we can get this project done. On September the 9th I spoke briefly before you all and indicated during that time we're right there at the finish line. We've been messing with this thing for a long time
and we need to try to get this thing pushed across that finish line at this point and I think some of the changes that have been proposed might help us at least go a long way into accomplishing that particular mission for us. So that's all I have to say.
All right. Thank you. Um and then Barbara and I'm sorry I realize now you have the specific order because you knew how you wanted this done. I think I'm on track now. You're good. That's fine. Good morning, commissioners. Thank you very much. We
very much appreciate the time for you to take with this and put us on the agenda. Um we're very grateful for that. Um we have many members and supporters here today. Can you raise your hands? and um
the folks that are here in support of our project today. I have to echo um when I became involved with this project, I was overwhelmed with uh who these people are and their values
and the significance of this project. So today, we're here to request your help. We have three points for you to consider today. We request Lake County public money to complete the Virgil Darnell Hawkins
Community Center. We believe our community center meets the qualifications of a clear public purpose. Counties often use their spending powers to support local services. Funding for community centers is usually
permissible as these centers typically provide services to the greater community. The Hawkins Community Center will provide services to residents, local school groups, and tourists. Economically, this is an important and significant
project. Clarification is needed in writing on this CDBG grant distribution of funds. Additionally, extension is necessary to complete the Hawkins Center.
Number three, please consider the major site plan requirements that have increased the cost, specifically parking, firet truck access, retention pond, and the burm that separates the surrounding homes from the community center where they have had long-term
access to the property. This is due to being a commercial property in the middle of a residential area. We plan to answer all your questions that you may have today and we look forward to your partnership. Thank you.
And Danny Watson. And then after Danny is Chip Demo. Good morning, county commissioners. Um before I go home with my message, I just want to commend the county board for honoring the 4H club this morning. Um
both of my boys were raised up uh in the 4 and they turned out to be real good gentlemans. One is a doctor and one is a graphic designs. Okay. My name is Dannon Watson. Uh I was born and raised in Claremont. I heard a lot about Claremont
this morning. Um in the 1950s, so you know, I've seen a lot of changes around here. I attended Lincoln Park High School first grade through 11th grade uh in which I go home every once in a while and I see that the school is still
standing and the name also have been changed back to Lincoln Park. So I commend you on that. Thank you. Uh I'm a part of history of Lake County. I'm one of the students that in segregation time was
integrating the the schools during segregation. I'm one of the students that had to make a change from going to one school to another. And I'm also a a veteran of the military. I went in the bet uh military right out of high school
and I served one tour duty in Vietnam. When I come from Vietnam, my fell in love and married my wife from Oklahoma. So that's how I got involved with the Oklahoma Community Center. Uh when I first moved there, you know, it
was just a building being used for community service. Um then we renovated and we made a a senior citizen site out of it. Uh then we turned it into a meal on wheel site and
then it sat idle for a while until the Lord sent us one angel which was Chip Domingo. He was looking for artifacts. So he wanted to use the community center ground to look for artifacts underground. But as he looked up, he saw
a artifact on top of the ground, which was the old school. And so we've been working on that, working on this situation for a long time. A lot of the members who wanted to see this happen are all dead and gone now. I'm about the last man standing. So, I'm pleading with
the county to fill our hearts of what we're going through to try to make this project, you know, successful. And uh we thank y'all for your uninvited attention and uh we hope y'all make the right decision on what we need to do to move forward.
Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that and appreciate your service, sir. Um, Chip Demo. Sorry, Pete does it to me every time. Um, I'm Chip Demo. I am a retired law enforcement officer from New York State.
Uh, I spent 20 years wearing the badge and followed in the footsteps of my father who was 25 years on the job. I learned how municipalities function and develop a deep respect for the responsibility of the public leadership like all you have commissioners. I was
raised to help and protect the elderly and those who can't protect themselves. To speak for those who have no voice and to give people a hand up, not a hand out because a hand up will help them for life. A handout only fosters continued
dependence. There will be those that say what we are asking for tonight is a hand out, including some right here in this chamber. The community club is trying to give a hand up. Oklahoma needs a lot of things to raise it out of the Lake County's dark
shadows. They have no municipal water or sewer. They have no dirt roads in places where fire trucks still can't get to in certain homes. I'm sure of that. They there are many elderly people, many who don't have air conditioning or a
safe place to go in a storm. Beyond basic trash collection, there are really no municipal buildings or services to support them. What Okahumpa and Lake County do have is a national landmark. They have the restored Okaha Rosenwald
School, 98% restored, coming soon. Um because this historic school needs the community center. The historical significance of the Rosenwald School is immense. Since 1938, Rosenwald
funds schools and the story behind them is probably the greatest American story that no one has ever heard of. A private citizen developing a program and helping fund the building of 5,357
schools and related structures. That's a long time. That's a lot of schools. Over the 20-year period, he did this in 15 southern states prior to uh 1938. Today, 85 years after the Rosenwald
program ended, there are only around 4,000 accredited universities in this country. Um, this is not a fake news. This is real history. It's right here in Lake County
in Oaha. Um, the people that live in and around Oka are Lake County residents who need a hand up. Help them have a place to exist to learn, to teach, to talk to visitors about the rich history of Oklahoma, Lake
County. Julius Rosenwald, Rose Booker T. Washington, and Virgil Hawin, Okanka's own citizen. Um, I am a transplant here. I am doing my best to help.
You are Lake County. You are Oklahoma stewards. Please cut through the red tape, extend deadlines, and uh help us bring this worthy project to completion. It benefits everybody in Lake County.
Thank you. And I'd like to respond to if I may. Yes. I mean, I think the key is if you're are offering up like a path of maybe a particular recommendation. Um Barb Nason recommended what our comp our
community club is hoping that you will do. um extend our deadline on the uh CDBG grant because most of that is nothing that we can do about our own
self. It's always delay, delay, delay. You have to bid, you have to put it out, you I have to send the things through the state and the state does know about the National Trust grant. Um, they also know about the other grants that we've
gotten, small grants for like the interior and stuff. Um, I have records all over the place back there. If you need me to look them up, I'll find them. Um, I have a big box back there. Um, we've had
many delays right here with just the county staff. She mentioned meetings. Some of those meetings were three, four weeks called for three or four weeks later. Um, we have a new architect.
Our original architect I had to let go because he dragged his feet so long that it was costing our funding. Um, we can't we can't as a group move any
faster than what the people around us are doing. 18 months to build to restore a community center or to restore the school and build a community center. That's impossible. I mean, it's just impossible.
I've had the state grant since n since 2021. It's at the time it was enough to do both. We didn't we didn't ask for COVID. We didn't ask for building expenses to go up 600% like he just said. I mean,
every step we got more money, the costs went up and it's just going to keep climbing like your road problem. We can't raise the money fast enough to jump that hurdle.
I understand. Okay. Appreciate it, Chip. And we've got two other cards. and Joe Brandom and um Ray Alfraza White. Um if you're speaking in favor, let us know if you want to.
Okay. Hi, I'm I'm Joe Brandom from Okaumpka. Okaha became my hometown in 1940 when I moved here from Washington DC as an 8-year-old
Yankee. I was the first Yankee that ever been in this in the Okahaba Consolidated School, which was the white school. And I didn't understand what a Yankee was. I wasn't at all aware of the
war of northern aggression as it was called here and I didn't understand segregation. I lucky luckily I have Mug Springs in my front yard and it was the local fishing
and swimming hole. And when the white kids weren't there swimming with me, I was pleased to have friends in the black community. I didn't understand why they didn't come to the white school. Of course I do now.
But the the the thing has that that issue has struck me all my life and I have been concerned about developing a a not understanding of the importance of Okahka. The black students
went to the Rosenwall School that it was founded strictly be by public support rather than state support and it was a change in the life of the
young people in young black people in Oklahoma. Many of them succeeded. You just met some of them. One is a retired FBI agent and others are very have have
prospered and done very well because of the Rosenwall school. It's been a goal of mine for a long time to restore that school. I my family used it as a community
center during the time when people went for meals on wheels. The building fell into into disrepair and people like Danny Watson, who just spoke to you, did a great job of
building it back into a community building. It it deteriorated and uh our efforts to get money for it didn't work until Chip Tobico arrived from New York to
get us a nice grant. the store the school itself has is is almost completed now but and and I think it's very important that it become a museum to explain to people that don't understand how serious
segregation was in this part of the world the uh forgive me for pausing old age is has you're doing great clouding up the birds a little bit, but uh the uh the school the the school did
a great job and and when Chip showed up and got us the grant to get it repaired, it's now pretty well done, but what we need is a community building to go with it to serve as an entrance
way to the school. Now, Chip from New York got a cigarette for a whole lot and he has devoted 247 hours all his all his time here. He's only
been here a few years, but he took this job on and did a marvelous job, and we're so proud of him. But what we need is help in getting the community building so that the
the community will be here despite the fact that the villages is just about to surround us. I hope that this museum will be an attraction to the people in
in in the villages and and and the center. So this this really important old community doesn't disappear. Incidentally, OA Okahunka is the oldest community in this part of central
Florida. It was founded in 1911 1913 when Florida was still a Spanish colony. 1813 it was a chief village for the seven old
Indians and therefore it was a a port of important place. It was the home of Mkenopi. Mkenopi was an owner of 160 African slaves.
They were removed to to Arizona in the trail of tears and the black people that went with them are buried in places like Bracketville, Texas. the
the ones that remain became the Buffalo Soldiers and heroin. And these some of these people are their descendants and they they deserve a a museum to recognize the importance of this
community. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate that. [Applause] and Ray. Yes. Good afternoon. Um, my name is Ray Alfasa White. I'm a private citizen
who's here to uh express my support for the present for the preservation of this very important piece of history in Oka Humpa, Florida, located in Lake County. I'm of the Jewish faith. And interestingly, today is Rashashana, the first day of the Jewish New Year,
meaning the head of the year and a time to make efforts to make the world a better place, which is also known in in Hebrew as Tikon alum. Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish man, demonstrated the true meaning of Tikon alum. He was the CEO of
Sears and Robuk, in case anybody in this room besides me is old enough to remember that. and the catalog that came out every year that you flipped through the pages and lovingly wished you could have all those things or maybe used it as a booster seat in like we did in my house.
He and Mr. Booker T. Washington, a man of color born to an enslaved mother who became one of America's first uh foremost African-American leaders in the late 19th century and early 20th century to form a partnership to build the
Rosenwald schools. These were schools offered to built to give children who otherwise would not have an education in the south. You've heard the background of that. The school in the Roseall School in Oklahoma is only one of a handful of
schools still standing that this group is diligently seeking to restore and preserve and your continued partnership is desperately needed. In Lake County here, the Anka Humpka school served thousands of students. And I'll reference my Jewish faith here again and talk about very briefly that
in the Jew Jewish community, we've worked very very diligently to preserve Holocaust history. And much of that involves getting oral histories from survivors. And here we are today with very few survivors uh still alive here with us. and like that. Similarly, here
in Okaha, you have very few students still alive who were part of the uh Rosen Weld School. I think it's critical that you preserve their histories while we can while we can have them here to tell us um what they experienced. And
I'm asking for your continued participation and support. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay. So um Maria if you want to help us understand if if it's a extension that we would grant if I think a request was made I
don't the public dollars was that different than CDBG dollars was that the difference between the total amount needed and to finish the project. So the total amount that's needed I believe is significantly more than what has been awarded. Uh, and I believe that
there are still some items that are outstanding with the planning and zoning department. Uh, the director of planning and zoning is here. If you have any specific questions for him, I think they'd have to overcome those obstacles before we could um reach out to our HUD representative to see about an extension.
But that would be that would come from us, the county, as the applicant for an extension versus what you talked about in your presentation, something about reapplying. This would be try to keep this this particular application alive.
Yes. To keep this allocation alive, uh we would reach out to HUD. Uh if there was an instance where they needed additional funding, we had requested that they then reapply for funding in the spring when we reopen the application. Normally projects that are close to a half a million dollars, we do
in a phased approach. That way it doesn't affect the county's funding with other projects. So there's an opportunity to for them to apply again in the spring as well. You had mentioned before the possibility of doing something like a bathroom facility so that it could be used for the museum and then you do the next
phase to complete the community building. Is that something that you that was some of the discussion that we had? Yes. In our last meeting. Uh but again I think that there's an obstacle uh with where they're at currently and what's needed in planning and zoning. and what's needed in planning and zoning
are site plan related issues. Is that I'm just trying to get this narrowed down as much as we can to understand what it would take to get it across the finish line. Hi, good afternoon. For the record, Mike Fitzgerald, the office of planning and zoning director. Uh yes, Maria is
correct that there are still outstanding items for the review of the site plan for the community center. And I'll say that the planning and zoning staff appreciates and respects the heartfelt interest the community has for this project and the value that they hold on
it. Nevertheless, the the staff must take an objective approach in reviewing the site plan for its compliance with uh Lake County regulations. So, we have a staff comment letter that the their engineer has in his possession that
lists I won't bore you with the details. The planning and zoning department has 11 comments that are outstanding for the site plan to be in compliance with our regulations. Landscaping review is still outstanding. We have not received a landscaping plan. The public works
department has 10 comments that have gone uh unanswered and these all relate to parking, storm water, ADA accessibility, impervious surface area, all the same stuff that we would uh review and
approve on any other project that we would have uh before us. uh the capacity encumbrance letter for any uh impact fees associated with it, additionalformational comments, environmental review, public worksformational comments, building
servicesformational comments, and it's my understanding that the uh building permit for the museum portion is still underway and has not received a CO as of yet, but it sounded like we might be getting
close to that. we might be close to the CO based on what was said today. Um I So issues like uh landscaping requirements and like paved parking. I mean is that something like that we
could they could use grass parking? Are there ways that we could lower the site development cost? I mean I understand storm water becomes an issue because if you build a new structure you got to have room a place for the storm water runoff to go. Um, but if you has anyone considered using grass parking as
opposed to and does our code absolutely require it be paved and is that something that we could wave or they'd be interested in doing? We can we can look at this as creatively as possible, but we still need the engineer to
submit the plan for us to review. For example, the landscaping plan is still absent from our review. And as you could see from the timeline that was before you, this has been going on since April of 24 and we have yet to have a complete
package before us that we can approve. May I? Yeah, maybe you could help us with the landscape issue or it's quite a bit. Um, and this is more so speaking to timeline and just loss of time. So, this is my first time
submitting with Lake County, and my uh understanding was that you guys have a digital permit portal available. And so, I originally went through the building uh portal. I received a note back saying that I need to go uh submit a site plan amendment uh application, which we did
the initial site plan review as the preapp stated when you saw the timeline. So I went into the zoning portal and then I tried to submit there and then I received another notice saying you need to do the actual document and then email it off. And so then I coordinated with
the Oklahoma Ok Oklahoma Community Club got all the necessary documents. Now my understanding that was just simply for the site plan amendment review. Now I I did uh uh fail to include the landscape plan in that initial submitt. However,
that was in July. I never received any sort of confirmation of receipt of our submission of our packet, which typically I would assume I would get something like dealing with other municipalities, I've at least said, you know, I got an automatic message. So, I
called quite a bit trying to get a hold of planning and zoning department and every time I got either got voicemail, actually every time I got voicemail or I didn't get a voicemail, just rang for a very long time. Uh, one day I finally got a hold of somebody in the building department and I can't remember the woman's name, but she was very helpful
and she was able to go over to the planning and zoning department and then that's when I was told that, oh, it's in review and you would be getting some comments within the next week or so. And then that's when we actually end up getting a response in September. So, mind you, got it in in July and then we
got the litany of comments in September. Um, and but not only was it site plan comments, but it looks like it went through every department, which also then further confused me because my understanding was just for it was a site plan amendment review because I would have submitted all the drawings at the
same time if I would have known it was going to every department. So that may be on my naivity and understanding how Lake County operates, but it was a little bit difficult just to kind of figure out the proper, you know, steps forward and then also just not to hear back anything in July and I had to wait till September to get the list of
comments. It just it makes it difficult to move forward in a, you know, quick pace. Okay. All right. Any you got a comment or suggest? I have Well, I have just a question. Um, yeah, and you sort of touched on it. you know what what can we do as a board uh
to wave the burm requirement for landscaping seems pretty excessive um could add to the cost I know you and I and I and I wonder whether they'd be satisfied to use grass parking or at least a something like that and then I also wonder about this whole
concurrency thing. It just seems I know that you've got to look at every application like every other application, but seriously, I mean, it's like concurrency. I mean, it's a community building of people that are in the community going to a building in their community. I I find I mean, the we
ought to be able to help get through these these kind of things. I feel like, madam chairman, I can jump in on that. So, as far as the landscaping and the parking, um the code allows the staff, and might correct me if I'm wrong, but they can do up to like a 25% variance
administratively on landscaping parking, they cannot. So, if they want more than 25% on the landscaping or they want significant parking variances, they have to apply for a variance which goes before the board of adjustment. Um that process is, you know, from the time you
submit it to the time you get in front of the board is, you know, three to four months. Could it be expedited by the staff potentially? Um as far as the storm water, as you know, with all of the flooding issues we've had in the county, I'm not sure that the board of adjustment would approve any type of
storm water variance. Um but, you know, they could certainly apply for that. And and the the key with the variance is they have to show that they're meeting the intent of a of the code in another way. So if there's some other way to do the storm water um or the parking or whatever, they would put that in their
application. Madame Chair, we did have some residents online who would wish to speak on this too. One other quick question, too. Um I've got a question if you don't mind. um the what was the diff the cost difference between the what they got versus now what it's going to take.
So I can jump in on that. The information that's been provided I believe Commissioner Campion obtained the information. Their bids were coming in between 900,000 and 1.1 million just for the community center. Our our funding right now is at about I think
283 287,000. Not sure what they would have left over from completing the renovation of the historic structure. So you're looking I'm assuming about seven. Mr. Diamo is giving me fingers there.
410,000 left after the restoration that you need is also for one other quick thing along. So does this if there's some commitment from the county to make up some delta on that is
it it's going to come from general fund or it's going to come from can it come from tourist development tax it cannot come from tourist development tax even for a museum for a museum you would have to do a study to show that this museum was going to bring in
x% of tourists and then you could percented you know do a percentage allocation out of that. Um, we've done that on other projects, not museum related, but other projects. And typically those studies don't come in showing a very high percentage of tourism use. This may be different because it is a historic structure, but
we would have to we'd have to have a study to decide what percentage of tourism tax you could use for that, but it does sound like you could get costs significantly lower with reduction of some of the site plan requirements. Okay. Well, I I'm a little maybe I'm a little confused on some things. When this was
first brought to us four years ago and Maria maybe you can help me out was this was just for the historical refurbishing of the actual school. Correct. It was for the Yes. the restructuring of the school of the school. So when did this
community center come about? It was combined. It was in three separate phases but that was uh initially spoken uh initially listed as part of the application. We reviewed the application. and it was for over a half a million dollars initially at that time
and um we because it didn't have any additional funding tied and we're always looking for uh in our applications some additional source of funding to carry these projects through so that they're not um you know with cost increases left
uh without being able to complete the project. We were not able to fund it at that time due to the amount and no additional funding. So we re uh so they reapplied again for the 23 24 cycle and did have those additional um uh sources
of funding through the two additional grants that they had received and for that reason the amount then was reduced to the 287 I believe or 284 um uh that we were able to award and um just for clarification
um because the project has started uh this wouldn't be considered a phased project approach. So what we awarded in this specific funding if they've started the project which they have um we we wouldn't be able to um award additional
funding for the completion of the project. We would have to look back at the application and look at the scope to ensure that everything was completed under that scope before we can uh before we could address awarding any additional funding for a second phase of the project.
So, so I have absolutututely zero problem with fixing up historical Rosenwald um building the way it was originally presented to me by Chris. Uh you presented just a school to me and so I
was I was in favor of preserving history. However, when we start talking community centers, I believe there's one in down in Four Corners that needs this community center. Bassville Park needs a community center. And we're talking doing quick math over $600,000.
And Madam Chairman, just to clarify as well with the variances, and Maria, correct me again if I'm not stating this correctly, but if they get variances, I believe CDBG rules are going to require them to rebid. It's not a matter of negotiating with who they currently have. They have to, I believe, start
that bidding process over again. It's this whole CDBG process that makes it so much more complicated than if it was just a um you know grassroots and but when you've got the CDBG involved it's like you can't do
anything differently without getting them to authorize it and doesn't this affect all of our grants? It affects our the county's funding. Yes. So whenever a project is not within its time uh frame uh it will be flagged in the HUD system, the IDIS system and
currently it is flagged because it was due to be closed the end of December of this year and no funding has been uh reimbursed or uh expended. Um so so that would continue until the project is completed. Keeping in mind then that HUD
during our review will look at those projects that are flagged uh because it does determine whether or not the county is doing a good job or being a good steward of the funding. Okay. Chip, do you have something really helpful to add? As for over a million, you were just
handed a copy of part of my application. I did not. It asked for $287,310 exactly what we got. Application a check for community center and historic building.
So, so just to clarify, ask for both community center and so it was on that application application, right? But just just to clarify that the over a million dollars I think was a reference to the bids. Um Maria didn't say anything about them asking for a million dollars.
Yes, application was for over half a million. The first application that was denied was for over 500 uh close to $600,000, I believe. Okay, so here's here's a thought. Okay, we as much as I think we all would want to do variances to help
lower site plan cost. Um, it sounds like if we do that, even if we could give all the variances possible, it would affect the CDBG grant itself. So just getting an extension is isn't going to unless we stay the course and build it the way
that you know per code no variances um then that would be the only chance we could keep this application current application alive. One other possibility would be you you do something like you you reapply. We make
the we get the variances. We get the price down as low as we can. Then we reapply for the CDBG grant. Yes. And it would have to be for a different scope of the project because the project has already started. So an environmental review would have to be conducted for that new scope.
Okay. Um if they were to do, for example, the bathrooms as part of uh the facility upgrades and use this type this funding source, we'd have to start the process again, but they would use this award for that specific uh bathroom facilities,
for example. and then in the spring reapply for whatever the new scope would be on that facility. Okay. All right. Last last comment for one thing that the planning and zoning seems to be not
Y. One thing the planning and zoning seems to be not um following is the uh secretary of the interior's uh guidelines on the treatment of historical properties. Um they allow for
specific guidance and changes to be made to keep the historical reference of the property and the building. This was a schoolhouse. It was all schoolyard. That's all it was. school to schoolyard. It's going to now have this huge
landscape burm. It's going to have a a big hole in the ground where for rain water that doesn't exist there. It it drains away as it is. It never floods. Um and um but I but I think what you're hearing is that we're immuneable to like waiverss
that would address like a burm that really shouldn't be there or if the storm water issue it's not about the old school house, it it's about building a new structure, then you have to have a place to put runoff. um if you don't have parking and it's grass park parking then arguably the storm water area goes
down in size. So, we're just trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B. And in the interest of time and everybody's um you know, everybody else's time, um I I would ask if maybe your group that came today and anybody that wants to be there, myself, U.
Maria, county attorney, county manager, let's set a meeting this this week um and all get together and try to come up with how we can get from point A to point B. Um because it is very complicated with the CDBG side of it. And while the National Trust grant or
the state grant that might allow a certain amount of leeway, if CDBG doesn't give the same leeway, then we can't use that to our benefit. Um, so let I I think it would be smart because we're not going to figure this out here. I understand. But but I think you hear that you've got
a lot of support for trying to get this across the finish line. I appreciate that. There is something in our contract, the CDBG contract that says that the monies can be extended if they were in our hands. If the money was in our hands, they've got a they've got
a mortgage on our property and the money isn't in our hands. The CDBG program is a reimbursement program and uh typically during our workshops we emphasize that so that all of the applicants understand that you're supposed to pay the cost upfront and then the CDBG grant will
reimburse you. But that's where that rub is, you know, unless Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Um Yeah. The only other, you know, and you can't if from a reimbursement standpoint, it's a
county can't say, "Okay, we're going to pay for it, then we're going to turn around and get ourselves reimbursed by CDBG." Uh no. What we when we met with them at our last meeting, we had discussed uh payment to the contractor directly, right? uh as the uh costs were incurred.
So, we can do that, pay the contractor directly. Okay. All right. So, that could be a potential solution. Um and but as far as doing waiverss, like if the site plan changed, you're saying that the CDVG application would change. I mean, yes, we'd have to look at the scope of
the initial application to ensure that it matches and meets the uh what was submitted to HUD. Every application or project is then submitted to HUD so that they understand where the funding is going. So, yeah. I'm just wondering though if what was submitted to HUD didn't go in such great detail that it showed where a
retention pond was or where landscaping was that that would give us some leeway. Good. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you everybody. We're going to Our goal is it's Tuesday. Let's see if we can have a meeting by the end of the week if we can
get everybody together. Um and then we'll go from there. Thank you for all your time and support. And I I think you've heard from all of us that when we people on the phone. Oh, we do have people on the phone. Do the people on the phone want to weigh in? I'm going to give you the option.
Cassandra Brown, please unmute your line and state your name for the record. Thank you so much. Good morning, commissioners. Um, I thank you all for being in agreeance to um continue this project. I do want to say that I am actually the niece of Virgil Hawkins um
from Lake County and it's through his uh hard work and dedication I am a proud graduate of FAMU Law School because of the work that he did and um as far as getting uh black people admitted to law school. So I I really do appreciate the
fact that you are uh willing to do whatever it takes to uh make sure that this project goes forward. that has served our community well for many years. And so any red tape and those things that we can try to get over, we appreciate your uh your your efforts
here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Is there another caller? No. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. So, this will conclude this this item and we'll move now to our our next item.
Thank you all again. Appreciate it. Let's see. We're going backwards now to to 24. Okay. All right. And I have a whole lot of cards here. So, let's give everybody a chance to clear the room here.
But just to be clear on this item, I think we should I'll make the motion. I think we have a discussion. Then we hear the cards. I don't think it's good to start with an enormous amount of comments before the board even discusses the item. Is that how we go back and
forth on how we handle it? how it's hard to know what's the right way to to go. But yeah, I mean I obviously I think everybody can agree something as simple and as good as this totally uh deserves to have board discussion,
comment, motion before there is a be, you know, public comment because public comment if it's I don't necessarily disagree that it doesn't hurt to have some um it it doesn't hurt to have a board discussion
and then call for comment because it as to frame the issue from the standpoint of the board of county commissioners. Um so we have a lot of cards and what we're going to do is we're going to um we're going to open up we're going to
open up discussion by the board first and then we're going to call on speaker cards. Um, but I did I did in in preparation for for this um agenda item, I I did have something I sort of wanted to preface a discussion
with that I think is important because I think that it's important to say a few things. Um first um there's a phenomenon in American partisan polit politics um that has
become the norm and that is essentially at least it feels like the norm. If one side characterizes someone else on the other side as one of the really bad labels, they call them a racist, a misogynist, a bigot, something like
that, then anyone who tries to have a discussion about that person, um, or to bring honor to a person, um, then they're labeled. Um, and even worse, you know, this idea that if you even have a
discussion, then you're being divisive. Um, and it's a really effective way to shut down a dialogue by saying if you even talk about this, how could you even talk about such a thing? And I just want to lay the groundwork with that that we should be able to talk about these
things and we should be able to talk about them calmly and we should be able to express our feelings and our positions. Um, and it shouldn't be that we're not allowed to have a discussion because if we even have such a discussion, then therefore we're doing
something divisive. Okay. Um, so I just wanted to sort of lay the lay the groundwork um with that. So um, yeah, if I could since it's my motion resolution clap. Yeah. And I think it is really important that we don't we we've said it before in
our board meetings, we do not clap. I if if we have clapping, we're going to ask you to to stop. And if you don't stop, then you have to leave because we just we don't we don't this is not like a a rally. Um so, um you you Commissioner uh
Sabatini brought this up, so I'm going to turn it over to him. Thank you very much. So, as you all very well know, something very horrible and tragic happened in this country two weeks ago. arguably one of the most famous and respected members of my generation, Charlie Kirk, who's one of
the greatest Americans who's ever lived. Uh, and is already just within hours of his death been announced as a recipient, soon to be recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, something that only 680 Americans have ever gotten. I think
it's only appropriate that he deserves national recognition at the state, local, and national level. Uh and so he has, if you don't know, and a lot of people don't know who he is if they're much older and they're not involved with sort of civic life at a younger generation, the largest youth leader,
I'll just leave it at that. Largest youth leader, I would say, in the history of the country. Um certainly the largest amount of um he's led the largest civic revival of any American in the last 50 years without any without
any comparison. He's registered more voters uh to um vote in American politics than anybody in the last 50 years. And these of course are the qualifications of why Donald Trump has awarded him already the presidential medal of freedom. Uh 1,200 high school
chapters of the Turning Point USA, 900 at the college level. Uh he's somebody I knew pretty personally. I spent quite a bit of time with him. Um, and so I don't think that any normal sane person would ever speak out against naming a
significant road after somebody as great as Charlie Kirk. It's not even a debate. If the if the debate if the debate is um which road, I'm obviously more than happy. We have thousands and thousands of roads in Lake County and I think a debate about geography and which road is
obviously a healthy one. But I think it's very sinister that we received through our emails, the five of us, because we were copying most of them. Um, emails from a coordinated radical left political campaign who sought to
defame this young man who was slain down based on his political views, mercilessly killed, assassinated, leaving two children behind literally days and weeks after he was killed. I I think it's I just have to say because today should be a positive day of remembering somebody great. Somebody who
just on Sunday had I think what's now recorded as the largest funeral, largest memorial gathering in the history of the country. Had 90,000 people there, 20,000 in a nearby stadium, 20 million watching. Uh it's only appropriate. So
the question of what road we name after Charlie Kirk, obviously I think there's going to be some more discussion on that. I chose a prominent road. But I chose a prominent road that many people in Central Florida uh know well and travel every day. And the reason why is because Charlie was at one point a
Floridaian. Had an enormous effect over Florida um and started dozens if not hundreds of college chapters of Turning Point, even some here right here in Lake County at the high school level and changed the lives of countless Americans. On top of that, additionally, he's one of the greatest evangelical
Christians of his time. brought more people to Christ and led a larger spiritual revival than anybody. Again, I I can't I mean, I mean this sincerely. I'm not trying to be sensational. I can't see how anyone All right, listen. Listen. I I I don't
want to interrupt, but we don't do this. And if you're going to blurt stuff out and you're going to, you know, carry on like this, I'm going to have to ask you to go. Um if you want to just sit here and listen and then you have a chance, you can say what you want to say. Um but
this isn't the way that things are supposed to work. Again, I just it has to be said um how a person could be opposed to naming a road after somebody of such national significance, one of less than 700 people in the history of the country to
receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It's announced, but it's coming in the following days is beyond me. Um especially when you have thousands and thousands of unnamed roads in this county and throughout the state of Florida. Um, he was a great American. He was a great Christian. He was a great
leader. Uh, obviously he's more than deserving of this honor. And, um, I'm hoping every county steps up and I'm hoping every city steps up to name some place or road after Charlie Kirk. He truly was, in my opinion, the greatest
member of our generation thus far. Uh, an absolute American hero. uh who whose life will never be forgotten and whose message will never be cut down because of political violence from the radical left and and that is just absolutely disturbing that anyone could be opposed.
With that said, I would move to approve this resolution. All right, we have a motion to approve a resolution. We don't have a road though designated well in this way. Okay. And if somebody wants a different road and they want a second for discussion,
more than happy to have that conversation. Madam Chairman, if I can just clarify, the road's not actually going to be renamed. It will remain Wellness Way for addressing and title purposes. This would be a memorial designation, which is like the brown signs that you see on the side of some of our roads.
Okay. Uh I'll second for for the discussion. The Scoffield Road though is the would be preferable. Well, yeah, happy to have the discussion. I like both roads. Obviously, I choose the more prominent road uh because I think it's more
important uh as a road. I think it'll get more eyeballs, people from around the state who can look and see that this is a county that stands up to embrace and honor great Americans who were slain down mercilessly. And uh just more people, more eyeballs,
more attention, more more people realizing that this is the right thing to do. Uh and that's what we do. That's what we do here in Lake County. We're a statewide leader. This is a county that loves American ideals, American patriotism, and embraces it, pushes it
at the forefront, and never backs down. Never backs down despite a loud, angry minority that's willing to mock a dead person literally days and weeks after they die. Um, and so obviously I think this is very appropriate.
All right, we have a lot of speaker cards. Um, and um um me personally, I would have done this handled this differently. Um, I I and I
I'll probably get people saying nasty things about me, but uh I've been following Charlie Kirk for a really long time. when he was 18, he came on the scene and his big focus was was uh talking about American exceptionalism and what makes America great. And what
he did was he went out on college campuses and he debated young people. And he actually tried to instill in them an appreciation for all of the good things about America. He didn't pretend that we didn't have blemishes. He didn't pretend that we didn't have problems in
our history, but he he focused on the fact. See, and I'm going to keep talking. I'll just keep talking because I have a right to talk just like you have a right to talk. And and I I feel that this is important and it needs to
be said. His his approach to working with young people on campuses, high school and college, was really important. My kids were about that age when this was happening. And so I watched the impact that he had on young
people and and now since and I think it's really important to note that that at that time our textbooks, our professors, our teachers were really trying to make people feel bad about being Americans. They were trying to make you feel bad about America. And
this was that push back to that movement that was going on in our country. So I can appreciate it from the standpoint that this was going on when the kid was 18 years old and here he is 31. And one of the things that he did all throughout this time was he would go on college
campuses and he would face to face meet people that looked at things differently than him and they would get into it, you know, and they would have it was almost like a Socratic method where they would ask questions back and forth. And it's really fascinating because it forced
people to think about why they believe what they believe, how they got to the place where they believed it, and whether they could stand that belief system up with reason. And this is this is very important and this is part of being an American is open dialogue and actually analyzing why
we feel how we feel and what we believe. So when I started to and then jump ahead to the and now he did get into podcast and stuff like that and I've read some of the stuff that's been out there and I did cringe at times because I knew things could be pulled out of context
and I knew they would be and they have been and there are memes all over Facebook. There are memes all over social media that completely completely pull out of context things that this um man said. And so, um, and and it's and
it's really disheartening to watch what has happened on social media because it's been, um, it it it's it's too planned. I mean, it's like the information that's been put out there, the memes that have been put out there
just to incite um, you know, hatred and anger after a man had just been shot because he was speaking on a college campus. How can anybody think that it's okay that an American was on a college
campus speaking about the issues of the day and he was shot and then we all started to see what was happening on on social media. People were actually saying things like, you know, just terrible, ugly things. Um, so, you know,
me personally, I probably would have waited six months and said, "Okay, let's talk about let's let's let's talk about, you know, should we name a road? Should we do a memorial? Should we do something? I mean, I like I've seen a statute that somebody put together that was actually uh young people sitting at
a table talking. Um there are ways to, you know, to honor people and and while apparently some of you in the room and some people that have written emails to us disagree that he should be honored, I am one that believes that somebody like that should be honored. and and the fact
that you talk about policies that you may believe are racial policies that are actually somehow make someone racist because they bring up a topic. This is America. You should be able to talk about policies. How do we get better as
Americans if we cannot talk about what's wrong with policies that we have in place that we may have had in place for a really long time that need to be discussed? or how do you talk about some of the issues that are impacting um us nationwide? Um
and then you I do want to mention the fact that he was a devout Christian and some of what and some of what he was able to do was actually inspire people to become more connected to their religion. Um, so I I
you know, I'm not the I'm gonna I'm gonna do what we have to do, which is open up the podium and and and you can get up and you can say what you want to say, but I it it blows my mind that I could say that a man is a
devout Christian and then somebody who also considers himself a Christian shakes their head as if they did get to make that judgment. That blows my mind. But that being said, um I think that I think that there are a lot of people in
this county who want to honor what this what what this man did, what he stood for, what he was able to do by having dialogue um with young people. And I think there are a lot of people that want to honor him. And I know that there are people obviously here and that
don't. But it shouldn't be that one group, you know, gets to say, "No, we're not going to do this." And and we have we we then ignore the many many people who want to see this young man honored. Um so I think that um that that's that's
kind of where I'm coming from. Commissioner Smith. Uh thank you, Chairwoman. Um I I am like you. I I think I'd have done this 100% completely different. I would have waited a little bit. To me, when this first came out, it seemed like more of a
knee-jerk reaction. But thank goodness there was weeks, you know, involved in this. Uh Charlie Kirk was a devout Christian most of all. Uh he spoke the word of God every time he spoke about
anything and he was as truthful as someone can be. I I was just I'm just upset that some of the emails that we have received, first of all, they're form emails
and they take his word so far out of context that it's not even recognizable, which is absolutely despicable to my opinion. Um, if people would listen to the entire conversation instead of taking what they hear from somebody else
off of Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or whatever and do your own research, you would see this guy was a true Christian, just trying to help America. That's all he was doing. So, that's all I have to say. But I
would have done this, as you said, a little bit differently. comments. I when I first saw this coming to us um it was a reaction and I don't think that
that we need to react. We should act. So I agree that we should have waited to to see the flavor of what needs to be done instead of reacting to what happened. It was a it's a tragedy. Okay. Just absolutely a tragedy. The other thing is
I don't think from this disas we need to be doing political things. I don't want I don't want to do a Republican or a Democrat thing. You know it we need to do what's best for everybody. So that's that's my take on it. I mean you
you look at Martin Luther King died the 1 of April 1968. The first road was named the same month in Chicago after Martin Luther King. And there's over a thousand Martin Luther King roads, 37 in Florida. So I see both
sides. Well, right. And Martin Luther King, he was a Democrat and he was a partisan. So was Ronald Reagan. He was a Republican and he was a partisan. So the fact that someone's a partisan doesn't disqualify them from being a great American or being honored by a community to say,
"Hey, this guy was doing some really important work." And to me, the most important things that he did was he talked about the greatness of America. And despite all of the problems, it's the greatest country in the world, the greatest system of government in the
world. Are there things we can fix? Yes. But we can't fix them if we can't talk about them in a civil manner. And to me, that's what he stood for. And then his outreach as a Christian, wanting to spread um the gospel, um he he was able
to inspire people who hadn't been to church for years. He was able to touch hearts in ways that no one has done in this country, probably since Billy Graham started his big evangelical movement. So I mean
there are a lot of really beautiful things that have come out of of his life. But I see him as someone who really most importantly stood for the first amendment. And that is that is that is a right that we have as
Americans. And the idea that we would try to uh not even have a discussion here today because we're afraid that someone's going to be offended. I mean that's that's like two deaths. you know, it's the assassination and then let's shut down his legacy. No, let's talk about
his legacy and let's talk about what he really stood for. And and as Commissioner Smith said, if you look at the whole context, you see that some of these difficult issues, while he might have gotten a little rough at times, and I guarantee you if he could go back and he could fix a few of the things that he
said, he probably would. But he was delving into issues, issues that are important issues, issues that we can all agree that we might disagree about, but we we should not shut down public dialogue. And to me, that's what he stood for. And uh and I think that he's
worthy of being honored. All right. You ready? Yeah. Okay. All right. um Jacqueline Art and then Janet Mailor. Before I begin, my name is Jacqueline
Orange. I'm uh live in Mount Dora and Lashana Tova. Since this is also a Jewish country, not only a Christian country, I'd like to express serious concerns about Commissioner Sabatini's proposal to name a road in wellness way after
Charlie Kirk. It will set a troubling precedent contradicts the principles that should guide our community's approach to public honors. First, consider the divisive nature of this choice. Road name should unite our community, not divide it. Charlotte Kirk
is polarizing political figure uh whose rhetoric frequently inflammatory and exclusionary, but public infrastructure should reflect shared values and broad community consensus, not partisan politics. When we name streets after
controversial figures, we risk alienating significant portions of our citizenry who use these roads daily. Second, we must consider the standards for such honors. Traditionally, communities name roads after individuals who have made direct positive
contributions to the local area. Longtime residents, civic leaders, veterans, educators, those who served the specific community. So, what does you left out national leaders? Please don't misrepresent the ordinance. I do have the floor.
You purposely You purposely left out the ordinance. Yeah. Yeah. Do not misread the ordinance. What connection does Charlie Cook have to Lake County? What local contribute contributions warrant this permanent recognition? Third, this sets a concerning president. If we
approach approve political figure namings without clear criteria, we open the door to endless partisan battles over our public spaces. Every election cycle could bring new demands to rename roads after favored political personalities. Our infrastructure would
become a revolving door of political messaging rather than a stable community assets. And then finally, consider the irony of the location. Wellness way suggests health, community, well-being, healing. Associating with a divisive
political figure fundamentally contradicts the peaceful therapeutic connotations and name currently evokes. Lake County deserves leadership that brings us together, not initiatives that create unnecessary division. I'm sure
there are many worthy local heroes. Teachers, first responders, veterans, community volunteers who would be more appropriate and less controversial choices for such honors. Yeah, I respect I respectfully request that
you vote against this proposal and work toward naming policies that truly serve all local county residents. Thank you. Okay. All right. I' I've already said it like a hundred hundred times a day. No
clapping, please. All right. Janet Mer is next. If I could, chairman, just real quick, can we please come up with a board or board policy right here that if somebody is disrupting the meeting more than twice that they are removed by our
deputies? Because at this point, this is just out of control. I've been here for a year. If this was Tallahassee, let me tell you, this was the state capital. One time, one time you interrupt a meeting, you'd be escorted out one time. You cannot give respect to respect. You
interrupted. We're going to have about Stop it, please. All right. We're going to have a discussion. Everyone has a chance to talk. All right. Use your time at the podium to say what you want to say. I'm going to use my time at the podium and I'm going to ask that I not be
interrupted just as we did not interrupt you. My name is Janet Mailor and I am a native of Florida. I am new to this area. This is my very first meeting and I'm tell you not I am in total shock and awe as I listen to what's going on here
but I would like to share a thought about the proposal to name a street after Charlie Kirk. Street names are permanent markers in our communities. They become part of our maps, our addresses, our children's sense of place and because of that we
need to take great care before attaching a public honor to any one individual. Mr. Kark is a figure who inspires very strong feelings both positive and negative. Some seeing him as a leader while others view his words and actions as deeply
divisive. This division itself is reason enough for us to take pause. A street name should unite not divide. It should represent values the whole community can take pride in like service, compassion, contributions, and
uplift everyone. There's no urgency here. Our cities will always have streets, but we only get one chance to name them well. Time will give us perspective, and perspective will help us choose a name
that reflects unity, shared history, and the best of who we are. So, my request is simple. Let's not rush. Let's slow down, take a breath, and readjust, reress this after our tense
climate has settled and our heads are more clear. Let's honor people who bring us together. Let's make every street name one that future generations can walk down in pride. Thank you.
Thank you. All right. Uh Jim uh my CJ Blanchett. Jim, is Jim gone? Okay. Good afternoon, commissioners, fellow citizens, and members of the community.
I'd like to first preface this by asking all the citizens here to review this video and recognize tyranny whenever you see it. Elections, they have consequences.
My name is CJ Blancet. I'm a resident homeowner, business owner in Lake County and I am the chairman of the Constitutional Party of Lake County. I preface my statement with this. I've met Charlie Kirk and I presented at the
Turning Point event a few years ago. I personally feel that some of the statements made about him are a tremendous disservice. However, my statements are not about Mr. Kirk, his beliefs, or his political views. It's about the actions of our commissioners
in our county. I stand today to remind each of you, you were not elected to serve personal interests, special favors, or outside agendas. You were chosen by the people of Lake County to safeguard our resources, represent our values, and prioritize the welfare of
those who live, work, and raise families here. The responsibilities of a county commissioner are not ceremonial. They are rooted in governance and stewardship. Commissioners are entrusted to ensure fair taxation, infrastructure maintenance, prudent budgeting, and
protection of the rights and freedoms of the people who elected you. Every vote you cast should reflect the needs of Lake County residents, not outsiders, not lobbyists, not individuals who hold no stake in our community. The special recognition for individuals who do not
reside in Lake County may appear harmless, like a symbolic nod or a street renamed, but symbolism in government carries weight and it sets precedents. When a commission extends honors to a non-resident, it risks three dangerous outcomes. erosion of trust,
dilution of identity, and gateway to favoritism and influence. Recognition should be reserved for the men and women who invest their time, labor, and love in Lake County. Every county, like every family, has its own culture, its own struggles, and its own victories. By
elevating outsiders, we risk diluting the very identity of Lake County. Our recognitions should tell our story, not someone else's. Today it's a street renamed. Tomorrow it could be preferential treatment, political
leverage, or resources diverted from Lake County residents to outside interests. And once the door of recognition is open to non-residents, it can be walked through by those with money, power, or political motives. Commissioners, the people of Lake County demand your loyalty.
that loyalty must be demonstrated not just in budgets and ordinances but in the very symbols and recognitions you issue in the name of the county. To honor those who do not live here, who have not contributed here, and who are not accountable here is to betray the trust of your constituents. Instead, I
ask that you lift up our teachers, veterans, farmers, small business owners, first responders, community volunteers that are the true heartbeat of Lake County. Thank Thank you. In closing, I urge the commission to remember your oath, your
duty, and who you serve. Lake County's voice belongs to the people of Lake County and no one else in God for freedom. Thank you, Ron. Okay, come on, Ron. Um, Mr. Van Sych I guess this afternoon. Good afternoon.
Uh, Mr. Sabatini, want to commend you for bringing this forward. I don't know that I agree with it. Uh, I want to say a few things about it. Uh, you know, obviously you're you're definitely a a strong right Republican. Uh, I am independent now. I've been Democrat,
Republican. I don't really fit in either party very well. I am uh socially more liberal. I am fiscally conservative. So, I fall in that more independent area. Uh as far as this country goes, you know,
uh my ninth greatgrandfather arrived here in 1632ish roughly, what is now known as Battery Park. Uh it was one of the first 500 people West Indies uh company that came down to what is now lower Manhattan, New
York. My seventh and sixth greatgrandfathers grew up in Pennsylvania. Then we moved from Pennsylvania to Iowa to Colorado. my third great-grandfather or fourth.
I've I lose track when on the numbers, but grandfather settled in California. I grew up in Colorado. I lived there for 52 years before I moved down here. Uh why I came here to Central Florida was
to learn. Uh I grew up in a county that was totally white and Hispanic. Uh we had no African-Americans in our county. We may have had a few m maybe maybe a hundred Asian people in our county.
County is about 12,000 people uh in Colorado. So I had a very narrow view of the world and came here to learn about diversity and to learn about people that
were different from me and where I grew up. And I commend Char Charlie Kirk. I've never heard of him until he unfortunately was assassinated. Shows my generation age. I don't pay attention to the internet.
But this fella is somewhere between the extreme left and extreme right of what you hear on the media and things. Um I am open for debate. I love debate. Healthy debate is good. But extremism
and fueling fire and agitation is not healthy. So I would say that I'm against naming this uh road for this individual. uh maybe in a year or two when emotions are
settled in the country and things come back and look at it with uh a more wise perspective of of his real impact on the country and see if it makes sense to move forward in that direction. Uh but I think right now the emotional state of
the country we need to just wait and pause on it. So I would say push it down the the road a while. Thank you very much. Thank you. and good luck. All right, the next card is Gavin Brown. And what are the odds of this? The card
after that is Gavin Rollins. So, two Gavins to think growing up we couldn't even find a keychain with our name on it. Uh, I would like to thank the commission for allowing us residents to be here today and have a say on this matter. I think
and I hope we can all agree that hearing out the voices of all the people is what the bedrock of this great nation is all about. I do take a little aim at one comment though. I do like factchecking. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a Democrat or a Republican. He was just a
great American leader who worked to not divide us to unite us. Let me let me just start off by saying that I believe what happened to Charlie Kirk was truly appalling. I hope we can all agree that political extremist violence from either side is not the
answer to political disagreements, nor reflect the American values representing our freedoms of expression and free speech with regards to our God-given constitutional rights. I feel terribly for the Kirk family, just as I did for the family of Minnesota State Senator
Melissa Hortman and her husband, who were fatally shot inside of their home by an extremist gunman in June. Both of these cases were equally as tragic and both should be remembered as such. These types of incidents, while higher in profile, sadly have become the norm in
today's politically heated society. Both of these could have been preventable with better understanding of common sense gun control laws, which do have broad appeal across the political spectrum when discussed in such a manner. I'm sick and tired of hearing thoughts and prayers and deeply concerned. When you pray, move your feet
is an African proverb popularized by civil rights leader John Lewis. Meaning that prayer is not complete without corresponding action. What we should be doing is trying to stop these senseless political acts of extremist violence and hate from continuing happening daily in
our schools, places of worship, and public places. These deaths are as equally as tragic, but sometimes get for forgotten the next day. So, I'm here today because I believe that we should be focusing this memorial for something more focused toward Lake County and its
residents. Charlie Kirk already has plenty of other areas around the country already planned for such, which included a prime time television uh televised national memorial ceremony. Why not take why don't we take this moment to be more localized with our county resources and
history and put up a memorial to show what makes Lake County great again? This is why I propose we focus our time and energy with this proposal to instead honor a truly beloved fallen hero who was killed in the line of duty and who called Lake County home. That person is Lake County Deputy Bradley Michael Link
who was also a US Army Reserve veteran. He had served with the Lake County Sheriff's Office for 4 and a half years and had previously served with the Pulk County Sheriff's Office. Just like Kirk and Hortman, he left behind a loving family, community, and fellow comrades who still mourn his loss to this day.
Deputy Kirk died while honorably serving this county in the line of duty and should have just as much attention and praise from this commission and community. Wouldn't it be more suitable and ideal to have a memorial to honor someone who fought to serve and protect us? Have a true actual Lake County
resident who was a brave American hero. I hope you believe as I do in supporting we have three minutes and I and our local law enforcement and let me just tell you this in these dark dystopian times let's remember deputy link and let's look at we had three
minutes unite and not divide us and that includes you Mr. Sabotage. How dare you use that deputy's name for your petty political argument. How dare you? All right. How dare you? All right. Disgusting. You're a disgusting person.
How dare you? Unbelievable, man. All right. All right. I got I gota All right. This is ridiculous. Um All right.
putting this on. No, no. Everybody's to blame for that one. Um, all right, let's let's go to the next speaker. Um, Gav Gavin Rollins. And, um, I agree that Deputy Link should be memorialized.
I think uh, the Marine Unit out at uh, Hickory Point Park would be a great place for that. I know he loved the water and that was um um a part of uh his career and service and I I attended his memorial and I definitely wholeheartedly agree that he should be memorialized. I don't think it's an
either or. I think we can um hold up and lift up people who have had an impact on our community. And I think there's this misconception that just because Charlie Kirk was not a Lake County resident that he did not have an impact in Lake County. um at uh I attended a vigil um
recognizing his life where we peacefully sang and remembered and talked about the impact he had. And I looked around and there were students from all across Lake County there. And I remember one particular parent posting on Facebook how she didn't really even know who
Charlie Kirk was until one day she noticed a difference in the lives of her son. She looked and her son's friends, she looked around and her son was dressing better and wanting to be more respectful and wanting to honor his parents and things like that. And those were some of the things that Charlie Kirk talked about, honoring your
parents, having civil discourse, stepping up. He called the men specifically of our country to step up to the plate and be men. And and one of the things that I think is so tragic about all this and has gotten lost in such emotion is the reason Charlie Kirk
was on college campuses and the reason that when people would come and ask him why are you on college campuses? He said because when discourse ends, violence begins. And he was cut down violently trying to have civil discourse. And that certainly
whether you agree or disagree with everything Charlie Kirk said. I happen to know him. He was a friend. I He was an honorable man and I agree with a lot of what he said. Not everything but most of what he said. But whether you agree or disagree, agree with the idea of what this name Ming Road stands for, which is
the idea that we have to have discourse. We have to discuss with people we don't agree with. And and that's how we do things as Americans, not violence. And I encourage you to name this road after him and honor Deputy Link. Thank you. Um Trisha Nicholson and then
Danielle Olivani. Right. Good morning. Don't think you can. Thank you for letting me speak today. Uh I want to respectfully urge this body to reconsider the proposal of renaming or
uh honoring Wellness Way after Charlie Kirk. When we name our streets, we are not only giving directions, we are making a statement about who we honor and what values we uphold as a community. Mr. Kirk is a national political figure best known for as the
founder of Turning Point USA. While some may admire his work, his record is deeply polarizing. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Turning Point USA has repeatedly promoted divisive content, including
rhetoric targeting LGBTQIA individuals, communities of color, and immigrants. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported on Mr. Kirk's dismissal of systemic racism as a myth and his labeling of diversity initiatives as
poison. Major outlets as the Associated Press and the Orlando Sentinel have documented his opposition to protections for transgender youth and his spreading of election related misinformation. These positions do not foster unity.
They create division and leave many of in our community feeling excluded. If we're renaming things, we should honor people who built this county with courage, service, and inclusivity. Fortunately, we have remarkable local
figures whose legacy of service embody those values. Virgil Hawkins, a Lake County native who spent nearly 30 years fighting to desegregate Florida's law schools, paving the way for future black law students.
Clara Hed Teague, an early citrus pioneer and civic leader who shaped our economy and community life. Henry Hulcom Duncan. He introduced the bill to create Lake County in 1887
and served as the first clerk of courts. Gail L. Ash, the first woman to be named mayor of Claremont and is recognized for her contributions to the quality of life in Lake County. Any of these women, the 40 women on that
wall would be better option. And if it is to honor gun violence victims like Charlie Kirk, why not use names that have been impacted here locally? We could say Parkland Avenue or Pulse Boulevard.
I respectfully ask that the commission to honor one of these local heroes in uh or locations rather than a national figure whose career has been defined by controversy. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Marilyn or
and then Susan Paleno. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Susan Paleno and I am a retiree and homeowner residing in Lake County for 20 plus years. I am a very patriotic adult
child of two World War II veterans. My father flew 60 plus bombing missions, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. Both I and my parents stand for the America of yestery year where
differences are tolerated and respected. Where people are not disrespected, illegally dealt with or discriminated against because of their race, creed, sex, sexual preference, religion,
nationality, or ethnicity. I am so very sorry for the death of Charlie Kirk. But the problem I have in affirming his life is that he simply did not affirm the life or have empathy for the lives of
all Americans. And I noticed Mr. Sabatini carefully left the room. His speeches were full of bigotry, intolerance, exclusion, and stereotyping. For example, on January 23rd, 2024 on
the Charlie Kirk show, he definitely said, "If I see a black pilot, I am going to be like this. I hope he's really qualified." That cannot be taken out of context.
In 2025, he said, "America has freedom of religion, but in reality, large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America." He also advocated for the actual stoning of gays. And I simply
don't support the renaming of a road for someone who didn't respect and value the rights of all Americans, not just those who supported his beliefs. And I know I can vouch for my deceased veteran
parents in not being in favor of the renaming of this road. So I ask you commissioners to please rethink the renaming of any road after Charlie Kirk. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon. My name is Marilyn our I oppose the naming of the road in Lake County for Charlie Kirk. I read Sabatini's statement when he said the dedication is meant to honor the life of
a great American. Charlie Kirk is not a great American. He spoke racism, bigotry, and divisiveness. He spoke to all white colleges. He never went to a black college and had a word
or advice to any of them. He didn't go to Florida&M, FSU, University of Florida, because they didn't want him on campus. He spoke violence and separation, not of
peace, not of harmony. He was not Christlike. Christ spoke of love and kindness. This man didn't. Christ never bullied. this man did. No one's life should be taken away by a shooting like
his was. And that was wrong. But Kurt spoke of living by the gun and dying by the gun. At the same time he was shot, children were shot and no one is naming a street after them. A Minnesota congressman and her husband
was shot and no one is naming a street after them. So, I oppose the naming of a road in Lake County, a place that I have lived all my life. I grew up in Lake County. I went away to college, came back. I'm here in Lake County. I taught in the
schools in Lake County. I will not not ever be able to look at a sign saying Charlie Kirk. That's not what I was brought to Lake County to be. Jim Mc Teague and then May Hazelton
there. Jim if not Jim Mik. Oh I'm Jim McTag. Mct I hard g mig. Mct t i ge. Anyway, I can see I'm not
preaching to the choir here. Anyway, Simone Biles, the great American gymnast, the greatest American gymnast ever. And she had a problem with mental
illness and she was made fun of by a certain somebody that has no empathy. That empathy is not a word in our language. I believe empathy is a word in our language. It should be used. And then in uh
1933, they had a change of power in Germany and they had a white supremist take power and that didn't go too well for everybody forever.
the uh they had a they had a constitution, they had a Supreme Court, but that didn't matter. The guy got to do whatever he wanted to do. So, we had another American hero.
Go over there in 1936. Maybe you've heard of him. Jesse Owens, JC Owens, James Cleveland Owens went over there and got his gold medals. So, what happened over there? They were not pretty happy with that because they just wanted
the great white people to winning all the time, the great Aryan nation. So what happened after that? Normandy, I had family there. They went over
there. Many of us had family go over to Germany and fight there. Some came home, some didn't. And we defeated defeated that fascist nation, the Aryan nation. And then we had we didn't do it fast
enough because there was a Jewish girl that wrote a diary and she didn't make it. She got sent to a death camp. And I would rather see her on on a memorial
than some people that did some good things, did some bad things, but that's how things are. And I would vote for somebody else getting awards than somebody that was good and bad.
Sometimes really bad, sometimes really good. Some people like them, some people don't. But that's not the person to memorialize. I'd pick somebody else. Thank you. Good morning. Good afternoon, commissioners and madame chair.
As a Christian, I did not have to grapple with how to respond to the murder of Charlie Kirk. Like the majority of black people I know and every single one that I have talked to in and out of this county, in and out of this state, I will continue to speak out
condemning the violence and declaring Kirk's murder was unjustified. All acts of violence are horrible and must be condemned. However, I have to balance sympathy with the truth. I have listened to Charlie
Kirk's podcast from beginning to end. He mocked and dismissed diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as anti-white. He denounced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a huge mistake. He even reversed
his initial praise on Martin Luther King Jr., calling him awful and a mythological anti-racist creation. Recent statements and reports from 2023, 2024, and 2025 indicated that he
continued to express views about blacks that have been widely condemned. He created a professor watch list for faculty he accused of spreading propaganda. Based on documented information, there's no evidence that Charlie Kirk changed
his views on the least among us that Jesus preached about. This is the moral and Christian ground I stand on. My faith in God allows me to have sympathy for him, but it demands that I tell the
truth. Historically, the United States has seen youth movements of larger scale and impact than the one created by Kirk. These include the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, the antivietnam war
movement of the 1960s and 70s, the March for Our Lives in 2018. The historical scale and societal impact of these three movements are considered to be measurably larger in terms of participants, scope, and lasting change.
Finally, a central part of Kirk's work with the Turning Point USA was to go to college campuses and engage in debates, often under the banner of prove me wrong. Prove us wrong today that he did not use
racial and hateful language. Prove us wrong today that he did not perfect language that was not nonviolent in character. Prove us wrong that we just missed the contest context of some of the things he said. Prove us wrong that
though it is left up to God to judge him, Kirk's own words prove that he would not have been the 13th disciple. In his view, the first amendment protects solid speech. And I agree with Charlie Kirk's view. Those Thank you,
Michael Watkins. And then Susan Warren. Suzanne. Oh, excuse me. My legs don't got stiff. Oh, boy. Good afternoon.
I've been a pastor in Lake County for over 30 years and I have attended many of these um county commissioners meetings um leading in prayer. I've had to come
and speak against some things I didn't agree with. I spoke uh four things that I did agree with, but I have never got on Facebook or in people's face disrespected them
the way that I hear things being said by our sitting commissioner, uh Mr. Sabatini. You know, I've learned this. You ought to respect people if you want respect. It's not a one-way street.
If you show respect, people will give respect. We can disagree but yet still respect each others. Calling people scumbags, cursing. Why do we do that?
I don't I don't understand it. But I will say this. I am against in every form of fashion any type of violence against anybody. I would not support a group or a people
who would hurt someone. This man had a wife and kids. I did not agree with everything he said. But this is what's hard for me. There's a lot of things I did agree when he talked about Jesus being the savior and that family values
meant something and that uh dialogue is important. I I agree with that. I share it every Sunday. I believe in the fact that God sent his son to die for us. I believe in that. I
know my life was changed when I accepted the Lord. But there are some things he said that is troublesome and it ain't taken out of context. It's taken right from his mouth where he said he was unapologetic about
it. The Bible says this about our mouths in James chapter 3 verse 9-10. With that we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been
made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessings and cursings. James says, "My brothers, things are not to be so." These things are not to be so. One of the things that
really troubled me that he said he said this about black women as a as a husband of a black woman, as a son of a black woman, as a father of black girls,
he said about black women, you don't have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You are taking white people jobs. He said it. And I just challenge all of us.
Let's don't make excuses for people. If they said it, they said it. I guess I got to ask the question. Do we agree with it? Do we think that that's okay or will we stand against it? God bless you all.
Suzanne Warren and then Lisa Benitz. Hi, thanks so much for the opportunity uh to um share my views in opposition of this memorial. Um listen, you've heard a lot of great things said from a lot of
people that oppose this and I appreciate that. I'm not going to beat a dead horse, so to speak. Um, I do feel very strongly um along with a lot of them that this is not who we want Lake County to what the person we want Lake County
be to represent. I I I feel like he was very divisive. I mean, I have a daughter who is gay. I don't I drive down that road almost every day as does my family and I would hate for her to see that and feel less than or my black nextdoor neighbor who feels less than because of
his words. So uh again I I ask you kindly to please oppose this. Um thank you. Thank you um Lisa Benis
and then Mary Ness. There's not Lisa here with us then Mary Ness. If Mary's not here then Sheila. That's me. Sheila
Ramos. Yes, ma'am. Sheila Ramos. Here we go. So, I just moved here to Lake County. I'm from Ethica, New York. We don't go through this kind of stuff
cuz black, white, yellow, green, purple, we all live each other. We all hold each other's hand and sing Kumbaya. Okay. This is new to me. This whole cultural thing is all new to me. Okay. Um, I know about Mr. Charlie Kirk
because I do watch the internet. I listen to his podcast. You know, he's neither good or bad, but he's not my favorite dude. Okay. Um, I wrote something. Oh, yeah. I reject this proposal because
it sends the wrong message to people of color in our communities. H this disgusting initiative to commemorate a man who made millions speuting hate against anyone that did not look like him or believe in his
antiquated ideologies will make Lake County an unsafe space for long-term residents of different cultural backgrounds. If the county feels like commemorating someone, it should be a local hero. It
shouldn't be someone that isn't from here that has done nothing for us. You know, that means nothing to this community. It should be someone from here. Oh, and I also want to say I agree with everything all the other people here
opposing this proposal have said. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Donna Farnsworth. Hello. I pretty much agree with everybody. I um I would just like you to hold off and think about it a couple
years and see how Charlie Kirk sits in history and then name the road. Thank you, Vivian Mitchell. And then Joe Fam Joe Famazi Vivian is Vivian here. Okay.
Good afternoon. My name is Vivian Mitchell. I'm 82 years old. I was born and raised in Eustace, Florida. I'm here to speak today on the opposition of a man
that has done absolutely nothing to represent me. I don't come over here often. When I come over here, I come over here because I'm concerned. I'm concerned that this board want to
recognize a man that said the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. Can you believe that? A mistake. I don't have any respect for a man that would make
derogatory remarks against great women such as Mrs. Michelle Obama, Mrs. Sheila Jackson Lee, who's I'm who I'm related to, our Supreme Court justice.
These women, Joy Reed, these women have done everything to represent us. There are many, many, many great Lake Countians that we can honor. And I'll tell you this,
Charlie Kirk ain't one of them. Thank you very much, Joe Famazi. And then Choice Edwards. Good afternoon, commission. Uh my name is Joe Famasi and I live in the wellness way area. I'm here to speak that I
appreciate the uh sentiment to try to honor someone that lost their life to violence. I'd like to point out to the folks behind me that you maybe disagree with this individual, but can we agree that
the spirit that this has brought forward of trying to bring both sides together to be able to shake hands, say that they still love each other even though they disagreed. If you can't understand that, I would
like to point you to the widow's speech where she gave grace and love and forgiveness to the person that took the life of her husband, the father of her children. So today in this sentiment why can't we
say can we come together and say we might disagree but that we can do it without being disrespectful or rude or violent to each other. So why can't we show a little grace
ourselves? He he stood for to me he stood for love of God, love of family and love of country. And now that's more people are being
brave. I can come up here. I might be outnumbered today with the people that disagree with me, but I can still get up here and speak with the courage to say it regardless of what they think. So can we call this sentiment today? That's
what the spirit of this is. It's not about the man's life. It's about what it stood for of trying to bring both sides together. Charlie Kirk went ham and Mike to these people and give them their 15 minutes. So, can we do the same or do we
have to keep going down this road? You're not showing any respect by coming up here and saying that you can say you can disagree with him, but you don't have to be hateful. You don't have to make comments. and we need to give each other the same respect. Thank you.
Choice Edwards and then Jesse Clemens. Madame Chairwoman and members of the county council. I empathize with Charlie Kirk's family with all of my heart.
I am a 80 I'm in my 84th year on planet Earth and in my 24th year in Lake County. I am a registered no party affiliated voter for decades.
During the 60s, the major civil rights initiative, I didn't have the guts of a John Lewis, but I still participated. I decided to become an elected official. So, I was
successfully elected to both my school board and my state legislature. Carly Kirk said the civil rights law was a mistake. What do you think? Does modern Christianity teach hate?
should constitutionally protected though it may be. Should we teach hate? Malcolm X, I do not memorialize. Why? I don't think it was appropriate. Because Malcolm X taught hate.
I deify Elhaj Malik Elshabz. Because he, the former Malcolm X, like Jesus of Nazareth, taught love. If Kirk taught love, I would approve of such,
but he did not. Do you want to perpetuate hate or love? Kirk believed in freedom, the freedom to hate. And like Supreme Court Justice
Potter Stewart, and I'll paraphrase him, said, referring to pornography. I know it when I hear it and when I see it. We need no memorials to hate. Be it Malcolm X, the Confederacy,
Willis McCall, Black Nationalist, White Nationalist, the KKK, or Charlie Kirk. And Madam Chairman, perhaps this is one that you might want to have a referendum on. I
thank you, um, Jesse Clemens. And I just want everyone to know it's really hard to sit here and hear certain things said because I've spent hours going back and watching some of these podcasts. And I had been on the internet and seen so much garbage right after he had been
shot. And so some of the stuff I'm hearing repeated today aligns with stuff that I saw that I went back and fact checked. For example, the Civil Rights Act, um, when he talked about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, what he said
specifically was how it is being applied today. It's gone outside of its original intent. He 100% agreed with the purpose and intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He says it very clearly and I will
take as much time as you want on another day in another venue to walk through some of these things because he never said that he was against the original purpose and intent of the Civil Rights Act. So I think that that's really important because some of my black friends that are here today, I just want
you to know that I wouldn't support a guy that didn't support what that original attempt was about. Okay? So, so I just I just feel like it's really important to state that and you know what he said it he said there were
three reasons and I'm not going to go into them but one of the primary reasons he said that the Civil Rights Act was being misapplied. It was being used to say that you couldn't require voter ID in 2025 in the year 2025 to vote. We all
know everyone has a voter ID. This is an important discussion that our country needs to have. Should we really What? Oh, true. Come on. You're going to have to be removed. You can't yell things. You You just can't yell things. If you're If you're If you're going to talk, you
have to fill out a speaker card. Okay. When we're going to get there, but if you keep yelling from the back of the room, we're going to have to have you go. So I I just felt like that particular fact needed to be addressed because he was not that that's not what he stood for. What he stood for was having a
debate about whether we should allow we should require voter ID today. So that's a perfect Excuse me. Okay, we're going to we're getting really close to having people removed. So why can't anybody else just speak? You you have your chance. You can come
up and say whatever things you want to say and we've heard a lot of things that have been mistruths, but I I wanted to correct. Okay. All right. What's that? Well, I mean, look. All right. I I really don't want to have a spectacle of somebody being removed
from from from here. Are you Do you have a speaker card? Okay. When you get there, you can talk. If you're going to yell anymore, then I'm going to have you removed. If you're going to yell anymore from your seat, you're going to be removed. Okay. All right. So, we're going to move on.
We're gonna move on to Jesse Clemens. What's that? Jesse. Uh, Ronnie Merchensson Rivera. Good morning, commissioners. How you doing today? Uh, my name is Ronnie Merchesen Rivera. I'm a Democrat, Mr.
Satini. I live right down the block from your office, don't worry. Um, and I'm also running for US Congress here in Florida 6th district. Okay? And I'm currently a law enforcement officer. I serve I live in my community. I live and I work here in our community. and I'm
here standing before you today that I oppose the uh this thing that he brought to you because it's it's sad. But let me be clear, my opposition is not about politics. This is about common sense. It's about respect for our community and about preserving what a memorial is
supposed to mean. See, Charlie Kirk has no connection to our county. He has no family here, no roots here, no record of giving back here. He never lived here, never worked here, and he never served here. And many people in this community only know his name because of the tragic
accident or killing that happened last week, not because of anything positive that happened in Lake County. And at the same time, I want to be clear that none of us condone gun violence that ended his life. We all agree that that kind of act has no place in our country and our
county. But condemning the violence does not mean elevating his legacy. It does not mean giving him a permanent place of honor in a county he didn't serve. And contrast that with our true heroes, our deputies, our police officers who never came home, the firefighters who run into
burden buildings, the veterans who wear the uniform, and the teachers and neighbors who give decades servant to our children, our community, and the families. Those are the people who deserve a memorial in Lake County. And just last year, and I can say this cuz I work with him, so yell at me. Just last
year, this community came together to honor a deputy that was killed in Lake County. And I'mma say his name, Master Deputy Link, who was ambushed and killed in the line of duty. That's who deserve it. And guess what? He got one on Highway 27 because what he did was he served this community. He sacrificed
here in this community. His family is a part of this community. And that's what a memorial uh should mean. You want to go beyond that cuz you saying he don't live in here? Well, let's go beyond that. Just a few days ago, four US military people was killed in a in a helicopter crash. Three police officers were shot and killed at Pennsylvania
while protecting their community. But I don't see you proposing a a real way for them. Okay. If you give this honor to everybody, the meaning of such honor will be diminished. It would decimate the values that memorials were truly meant to preserve. And with that, I'm going to say I oppose.
Thank you, Cynthia Ramsey. And then Lauren Salter. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Cynthia Ramsey, and I really appreciate the opportunity to speak. I come before you today as a Lake County resident who cares deeply about the
values and unity of our community. For that reason, I respectfully urge you to table Commissioner Sabatini's proposal to establish a memorial for Mr. Kirk. Several of you have already said you would have waited recognizing that this
is not the right time. Public memorials are powerful symbols. Ideally, these memorials should bring together the people in our community across backgrounds, across beliefs. as the comments today show or I'm sorry
um as a comments today show establishing this memorial at this point in time risk deepening divisions rather than bringing us together as many of you have acknowledged Mr. Kirk's work has generated passionate and sometimes vicious and spiteful responses
on both side of the political spectrum right here in Lake County. In fact, when I attempted to engage in a civil discussion on a Lake County social media site, probably not something anyone wants to do too often, complete
strangers spewed profanities at me and told me I needed to leave Lake County. I simply asked what the county criteria was to establish memorials and if this would impact prioritization of any county needs. That's where we are.
I hope we can agree all of us here today that memorials in public space should bring us together including minority v voices to the table to feel represented and heard. They need to res represent our shared values, inspire common
purpose and strengthen our community. I also asked the board to reflect on how this proposal would set a precedent of using public resources to elevate elevate political personalities. It puts us on a slippery slope that has potential to further divide us. What
message does it send that we are not here or we haven't already within weeks of the unfortunate assassination of Melissa Hartman already put a memorial in place. it has become a political issue and
that's not what our county needs. The timing of this proposal and how it could impact on the comm unity of our country and our county calls to mind the Confederate memorials pushed and established during periods of great division and anger in our history. Those
memorials continue to divide us in to this day. Tabling this proposal does not reject anyone. We're simply saying, let's take time to listen to each other and be thoughtful about how we want to strengthen our community for future generations.
You taking this small but very brave act has great potential to be a catalyst to help us all take a step back and do our part to understand each other. That in itself would be an incredible tribute to Mr. Kirk far beyond a sign in the road.
Thank you, Lauren Salter. And then Wilson Parker. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Lauren Salter and I am a concerned citizen of Lake County. I want to start by addressing a few things. Almost
everyone here who spoke before me spoke the truth. Almost everyone here spoke the truth and were very uh direct and clear. And so I don't want to go over everything that they've already said. But I do want to say a few words on two things. Christianity and context. I've
heard a few of you mention that Charlie Kirk being a devout Christian is what enables him to have a memorial made after him and that the words that fellow my fellow Lake County citizens have said that he himself is on record saying are
out of context. So I want to give you some context from the Bible. James 1:26 states that anyone who considers themselves religious but does not control their tongue, they deceive their own heart and have a
worthless religion. Any person who keeps a rain on their tongue doesn't have to run after every statement that is repeated from what they've said and say, "That's out of context. That's out of context. That's out of context." Clearly, Mr. Kirk did not have a rain on his tongue. And I would argue his
religion is therefore worthless. So let's count that out for why we're giving him a memorial. Secondly, this goes beyond left versus right. As a staunch liberal, I shudder to think that Charlie Kirk would receive
a memorial highway in Florida before someone like the honorable Senator John McCain, who fully fits the criteria for memorial based on LCC69. And I and I think many others here would argue that someone despite whether we
agreed with him politically or not, who served his country with genuine bravery, genuine honor, genuine dignity, and dedication, could justify Charlie Kirk, a a divisive shock jock podcaster,
receiving a memorial before a decorated veteran, a survivor and prisoner of war, an actual already receiving recipient of the Presidential Medal of Honor and a respected United States Senator. So, let's be honest to the commissioner
who proposed this, whose name I won't speak cuz I know he likes all the attention that he can get, good or bad. Let's be honest about what this is about. It's not about honor. It's not about dignity. It's not about devout Christians. It's about you trying to poke at people, trying to prod at people, trying to remind people that you
disagree with how much you dislike them. I would say hate, but I don't know your heart. Let's be honest about that. That we're wasting government time, citizens time, resources for a man who preached nothing but hate.
This cycle is never going to end. You get this memorial up, it'll be something else. I promise you, Commissioner, this is not the way to go about it. Make the right choice. Wilson Parker and then Julie Keane
or Kenny name is Wilson Parker. Um, so we're saying it's a roadside memorial. Roadside memorial markers may be permitted to commemorate those who have died as a result of a vehicle related accident on a county road located within the unincorporated area.
Now, did Charlie Kirk die in a car accident in Florida? Because I'm confused as to how that would make this official. I mean, I'm I'm really just confused. And then just furthermore on car Kirk, the guy is completely deplorable. He
spreads white nationalist propaganda. He hates those that are not like him. Yeah, what happened to him is disgusting, but like why in the would we propagate and put up someone like that? That just shows divisive divisiveness.
Why would we do that? What sense does that make? Sabatini, he's a joke. He's like your little child. He can't take any criticism. He removes people's comments from Facebook. He blocks them if they do not line up with
him. He's absolutely a child. I will make it my life's mission to make sure that he will not be a district one representative or any district representative. Like that's all my time. Y'all are a joke if this really goes through.
Julie, is it Kenny? Hi. Thank you for your time. Um I love that we want to honor local people. I think that's really important and I think it's powerful. But to oppose honoring a national leader because they were national, then we
should stop honoring Martin Luther King, we should stop honoring George Washington and we should stop honoring Abraham Lincoln because they were national and they were not local. You see, national means that they've influenced all of us.
It doesn't mean that they lived here. And so today we're talking about do we honor somebody for what they did and for who they were. You see my story is in 2022 during the pandemonium I had a 19 and a 21
yearear-old both daughters and they said you know what we're locked up we're going to speak about our faith and we're going to speak about our country because a lot of the things that are taught in our history classes aren't actually accurate. So they started a social media account and unfortunately yet
fortunately the thing blew up and the result of that was the people who came against them, people who mock things like this, they threatened to kill my daughters. We had to hide in a room because the police said these are
credible threats. They were global. They were national and they had our address. They canceled my daughters. They canled my parents random found them canceled my brother and they said we're going to come and
kill you and then they described it so we had to hide. In that time they had to change their names. So on their social media account they were known for other names besides their real names. And unfortunately people thought that was their names.
They lost 80% of their friends because the friends believed lies instead of discovering for themselves what the real truth was. They were kicked out of their church. It was a mega church. And the church said to them, "You cannot stand up for Jesus and politics." What would people say when they came in and knew
that you had a social media account that spoke something like this? So, they were asked to leave the church. But you know who didn't ignore them, who didn't push them out was Charlie Kirk. He found them. He heard about them. and he said, "I want you." Do you guys know what that
does for a young adult who said, "You're valuable." So, he took them under his wings and he taught them how to have good discussion. My girls were a little rogue. So, he taught them how to have good discussion. He invited them to his TPUSA events. And at those events, I had
to go with them because they were bombarded because they were very well known. Speaking on CNN, Fox News, the BBC, God TV, speaking at the at the uh in Washington DC, very well known. So, I had to go and I had to protect them. And
when I did, I learned some things. I learned that there was an event where thousands, tens of thousands young men were coming together, young women were coming together, dressed in suits, dressed in professional clothing, learning to be good citizens. I learned that and I saw them change lives and
teach faith, family, and country, and that should be respected. Rita Lewis and then Reginal Green. Is Rita here? Yeah, Rita. Uh, Reginal Green.
Good afternoon, commissioners. I simply want to say this, leadership matters. We talked earlier about leadership. Leadership also leads to legacy. What
will be your legacy? You got to consider that every time you make a decision. And if your legacy is going to be on the right side of history, a referendum, an opportunity to let history define
what happens matters here today. I think that a knee-jerk reaction to what has happened. Nobody here wants to see any violence would even condone any violence would go along with
any violence. We always believe that somebody has a voice in these United States. To have that voice means a lot. And what
it means is we chose you guys as leaders. Now, that means you have a responsibility to listen to us and to do what your constituents would have you do. Personal things and vendettas or whatever you have, put those aside. You
are a servant. And if you're going to be a servant, act like one. Serve this community. Serve in whatever capacity you were called to do. not personally but serve. That service
should be simple enough to deal with truth. I'm going to say this. I could have could have came up and bashed them. First of all, I'm against it and I'll let you know that. But I want you to understand that sometimes we think there are three truths. You
think it's your truth. You think it's my truth. And you the only thing that matters is the truth. And the truth is determined by God Almighty. All right? When that truth comes out, give it time.
Right now is not the time. So consider being the leader that you were called to be. My vote is no. What your vote should be should represent not what your personal opinion is. It should represent what the people. And if you
don't want to make that decision, put it to a referendum. Let the people decide what should be done. And the people will come out and then you can follow what the people say. And if you don't want to do that, give it time to give yourself an opportunity to poll and survey the
people that you serve. I thank you for an opportunity to stand to speak before you today. I didn't get into personality things. And if you want to debate, I'm open to debate. Three minutes won't do me anything. I'm a Baptist preacher. Three minutes won't do anything for me.
God bless you. All right. Um, thank you, Autumn Janssky. Jakanssky and then Cass Cassie Murray. Hi. Um, I apologize for not knowing the proper etiquette because I have never
spoke at one of these before. Um, I do know a few of you and a few of you know my son. My son very specifically asked me to thank Commissioner Sabatini for making sure that everyone knew that this
was actually going to be spoken about today. Because of you, my son wrote a letter and that is what I want to read. This is from a 16-year-old. I hoped I would have I hoped I would get
to meet him one day, but that the opportunity has been taken from me and millions of kids like me. I don't know what Charlie Kirk meant to any of you, whether you agreed with him or not, but let me explain to you what he meant to me. When I was young, I was described as
the smart kid. I did very well in school and I was given a label. I was told that I was gifted. I started figuring out my place from a very young age. I knew where my moral compass pointed. What I wasn't told was that just by being me,
my life was going to be more difficult. I spoke a lot about a lot of things that my peers didn't understand. I found myself being friends with teachers and administrators because they would at least laugh at my jokes. Charlie spoke about things that people don't
understand. He made a pathway for a younger generation to ask questions and to be open-minded. He gave us a voice and told us it was okay. He gave me the courage to speak about what I believe. I value what I learned from him the same
as I value my education. In two years, I will be a voter. In 12 years, I will be coming back from college. I will continue to grow as a leader because of the example of Charlie Kirk. I have never driven down the road where you are considering the memorial. But when I do
come back home, I hope I am able to drive the road and smile when I remember the legacy that he left all of us. His voice made an impact and one day I hope mine will as well. That comes from a 16-year-old.
You guys are all charged with being responsible for the people that sit in the room, the ones that were here earlier that have left. But what I think a lot of people don't realize is you guys are also responsible for kids like my son who in two years
will be your voting force. They will be the people that come back here to be your leaders. They are the ones that are our future. Charlie Kirk might not have been local, but to say that he did not affect us locally is absolutely
incorrect. Go to the local high schools and ask the kids He did affect people locally. My son very specifically who might not have been brought to God by Charlie Kirk, but
he was at least brought one step closer. Thank you guys. Cassie Murray. C I know I've got the Murray right.
Okay. um Carara Groves and then Greg Wilmore. Good afternoon. So, I already sent you an email last night. Um and I thought, you know, I could just stand behind the email and not come here in person. Um but I decided, and I don't know if you remember or not, Commissioner Sabatini,
but we did go to law school together. and as an attorney in this area, I will be back before you. And so I I am here to say, you know, I come in peace to some extent, but I do want to at least um speak in what I wrote in my email. I know you folks have read it, but for the
rest of the folks here, so I respectfully request as a member of commission 4, uh, district 4, um, that the commission alternatively consider, um, dedicating county funds to a debate program or similar community engagement
activity which seeks to bring people with from different walks of life together to discuss important issues. The attempt to name a roadway after Mr. Kirk seems like a slap dash response to the current events that I think Mr. Kirk would agree is not well thought out or
reflective of his work. First, based on the documents attached to the agenda, I don't think LCC69 is the appropriate provision for this. LCC69 is entitled naming county facilities and placement of memorials. Now, I appreciate um Attorney Marsh's clarification at the
beginning of this that this is not a renaming of a road, but to the extent that any commissioners or anyone in the town is going to actually be calling it the memorial highway, I think it's a distinction without a difference here and that you would be required to go through the Office of Public Safety as you would with any other road name
change. Um there are notice provisions that have to be um reflected um in in in that process under section 18105. Beyond that issue, if the commission is truly looking to honor a legacy of free speech and debate to Mr. Kirk's ideals, uh it has the opportunity to allot county
funds to a forum for its adolescent and young adult population. Using county funds or resources to name a road after him feels like the local government's attempt to gain easy brownie points with the federal administration in a manner that I think because it is an empty lip service effort that Mr. Kirk would
disagree with. I was personally not a fan of him. Um, but I do not think that he deserves such a tragic and violent end. We are at a time when the country could use more thoughtful local government officials to deal with continued violence in our communities. As someone on the other end of the
aisle, um, please consider doing something that can be seen as further encouraging that discourse instead of a, you know, blanket stamp on his ideology and all of it. Um, and I'm happy to, you know, be part of the discussion of having the community and and and
adolescence engaged because we both come from a great school that that encourages that. So, go Gators. Thank you. All right. And I do I've heard LCC 60 is it reference, but I don't think we have
that's in our code. It's a board policy. It was part of your agenda packet. Um, I know it's come up a couple times. People have cited the roadside memorial marker section, but that's not what we're doing this under. This is under subsection C, which is statutes, plaques, memorials, and busts.
This says the county may erect or install permanent statutes, bus, plaques, or other memorials to honor. And there are five categories, one of which would be a person or group which has achieved significant recognition historically on the county, state, national, or international level level.
It allows it to be brought forward by the county manager or any county commissioner. Commissioner Sabatini brought this forward under that section of your board policy. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. I think that's helpful. Um, Greg Wilmore
and then Charles um Bolonger. Greg Wilmore, right? Charles Monger. longer. Hello, county board members. My name is Charlie. I'm a resident of Claremont. To be clear, Kirk did not deserve what
happened to him. There's no room in America for political violence. However, physical violence and hatred are not the only kinds of violence. Kirk promoted violence through his words, and naming a road in honor of this man is a slap in the face to every other recipient of
this same honor. Kirk was a divisive individual. He spread hatred, racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia with every speech. You can call these engagements debate. However, in reality, it was a
professional debater relying on bad faith arguments and logical fallacies to win his debates. Now whether you agree with those statements I just made is irrelevant. Half the country or more holds the views that I hold.
We do not need to memorialize divisiveness. If you want to honor him on private property, that is your choice and right to do so, and that is the appropriate venue to do so. Honoring a man whose organization Turning Point USA was directly responsible for transporting the January
6th insurrectionist to the capital is despicable and shows the moral character of the people who vote in favor of this. Any sane in any sane world, Kirk would be alive and rotting in a federal prison for aiding in abetting an assault on the United States capital and attempting to
overthrow a democratically held federal election. I've also heard multiple members of this panel bring up religion. Per the constitution, religion has no place in the government. The separation of church and state is sacresent.
For those of you voicing religious opinions up here on this panel, you are in violation of the separation of church and state. If you want to compare him to MLK, MLK was a champion of human rights for all and not one trying to take them away
from marginalized communities. Any board member who votes for this motion, let me make it abundantly clear. We will vote you out. Bigotry, hatred, and religion have no place in government or on our roads.
Those of you who bring this motion cannot even be bothered to listen. You spend the entire time on your phone, probably posting hateful comments, and you can't even be bothered to stay in the room for the duration of your own motion.
And when you are listening, you swear at your constituents, which is abhorrent. I yield the remainder of my time. Jason Kellerman and then Jesse. Okay.
How you guys doing today? I'm a uh Lake County resident. Uh, I was born and raised in Pine Hills, Florida. I live in a mixed household. First and foremost, I'm a Christian. Thank you for the opportunity to speak
today. I'm in favor that we honor Charlie Kirk and the values of Christianity. I believe that this dedication would serve not only as a rec recognition of leadership but as a lasting symbol of the virtues that unite
and uplift us. Charlie Kirk in his life life exemplified a commitment to civics's engagement to free speech and to mobilize the next generation towards responsibility and purpose. I'm all for it, guys.
Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Jesse Clemens. I stand under Regginal Green. I'm a Baptist minister. I come here today to say this.
The memorializing of a highway is reserved for first responders, military honores, me being a Marine myself, uh, also those of distinguished
representation of the United States of America. There's nothing distinguished about what Charlie Kirk represented. There's nothing distinguished about who he represent.
Charlie Kirk has no place in Florida. Myself, being an elderly, having a young Caucasian friend, I stand on both sides of the fence. But
I don't stand with Charlie Chris. Uh Mr. Smith, I don't expect you to vote for him being a district street. I'm from Eustace. Mr. Sabatini, have you heard half of what went on here
today? You spent most of the time in the back. If you got to name a road or highway or name Charlie Chris or Charlie Kirk, go see Mr. Gilmore. He may have a road on
his cow farm that needs a name cuz we don't need it here in Lake County on public highway. And I yield the rest of my time. Do we have anyone online? Cynthia Doyle, please unmute your line
and state your name for the record. My name is Cynthia Doyle. I feel an honor like naming a street should be for someone like John Lewis who fought with all his might for civil rights and voting rights for all. Or if
that's a bridge too far for you, I'm sure there are great men and women who live in Lake County and were involved in our community. Don't we have a fallen hero? a citizen who really fought for our country or maybe a beloved teacher.
Charlie Kirk only appealed to a certain segment of our population. Why should those who oppose what Charlie Kirk preached have to wse and feel bad every time they drive on that road if it's named after him? Charlie Kirk was a
celebrity podcaster for goodness sakes. He was a divider of many different segments of society. He should not be put in the same status as someone who's done good for all of society. I do not wish to minimize the tragedy of what happened. I feel for his wife and
kids and all who loved him. Even you, Mr. Sabatini. I have a special empathy as I have been personally affected by some of those in our nation who love guns over people, including children. My brother was
assassinated by a man using a 9 mm Glock semi-automatic. I believe we must try to stop all violence in our country. Maybe we should make tougher gun laws instead of expanding gun laws to allow people who are not well or mature enough to have a
gun with which to express their grievances. If we name roads after every person who is a victim of senseless violence, we wouldn't have enough roads to name. Mr. Sabatini, you stated that few fought harder for
our country than Charlie Kirk. Say that to the families of fallen veterans, wounded veterans, or any of our veterans of war. My father died as a result of exposure to Agent Orange after two stints in Vietnam. I don't see a road
named after him. And he actually fought for our country. Mr. Sabatini, please look to your right and look to your left. But you won't because you're looking at your screen and ignoring me. Look around the room. Install this
picture in your memory because soon, not soon enough, but soon, you will never be looking out to the public with whom you hold such disdain again from this dis. We the people see you for what you really are. We will be voting you out
the door. Those who hate a good half of society so deeply should never never have a future in governance. And Mr. Sabatini, just so you know, I am not a communist. I am not a fascist. I do not
belong to any political party. I am just a citizen of Lake County, Florida, who is fed up with the division in our society. Naming that road or any road after Charlie Kirk will only widen that divide and I believe you know that.
Thank you. Um David Cunningham. David Cunningham. Thank you Campion. I thought you were intentionally trying to forget. Oh boy. Yeah. Your card was over here on the left side of my Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Let's Let's move on here. Good afternoon.
uh chairman uh Campion and other commissioners to include you Sabatini. Uh thank you for our opportunity to speak. I want to talk about two or three things here real quickly. I'm a 42-year
resident of Lake County and I've been here long enough to have served in several positions. uh high school 1993. We had a very unique program in which we were training
students to take over a medical profession all the way from the people that do the bed pans hopefully the premed. And we had a very unique teacher. Matter of fact, it was the only one certified to do this in Central Florida. And we had a real good program. felt
real good about it. I was assistant principal at that time. This gentleman on some day strange day, he was in the basement of Eustace High School and the air conditioning was temperamental at best.
He made the tragic mistake and I'm a real person here so I'm going to say what I'm going to say. He came up and he went in the room and it was hot. And he said audibly to students, "Wow, I'm hotter
than a pregnant nigger." The principal tried to defend that, but I'm going to talk about one guy, uh, Jerry Cox. Jerry Cos was assistant superintendent and he came over and while the principal was trying to defend the program and trust me the principal was trying to
defend the program out of the fact that we had the only thing like that going in Central Florida and this guy was the only certified person to do it. But I distinctly remember Cox got angry enough. He pounded the desk
because the principal was trying to say that the teacher had made a mistake. Cox counted the desk and some of that yield time can come to me and said, "Jim, if it wasn't in him, it couldn't come out of him." So if it wasn't in Charlie Kirk, it couldn't have come out of him.
Move. Uh, decision number two. 1993 High School Chile Triyouts. Long story short, the pastor of First Baptist Church daughter didn't make the cheerleading squad. Serious kind of thing.
When I got to school at 7:04, the pastor of First Baptist was meeting with the principal. The principal directed me to come in there and that got to be a real big thing. Bottom line, Tom Sanders, somebody you can name a road after, uh, came to the school
and he said we had to make a decision and and and he he he went through the rotary thing. And I'm going to ask you if that if you all would do that. When making a decision, I yield and just give me a little second there.
The basis of the decision ought to be made upon a four test criteria that the Rotary use. Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Three minutes. Will it build goodwill and better
friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? If you will apply that in making this decision, I think you will make a wise decision. And on behalf of uh as a former educator and a former administrator at Yishus High School that
happened to be working up there when Sabatini, I apologize to y'all. I might have g you a check back. Your memory doesn't work as I was never there while you were there, buddy. Um, anybody else online? Okay, we've got some people online. Cassandra Brown, please unmute your line and state your name for the record.
I have to use Cassandra Brown and I am a uh Christian and I denounce violence in any form and about anyone's hands. I am speaking to you today as sane as anyone sitting on that commission and for uh
Sabatini to suggest otherwise is disrespectful as a commissioner. Uh the chairwoman just got up and and walked out. She's been there a while, so you know, maybe she has something to tend to. But not once did she tell him
that he would be removed from this meeting for yelling, cursing, and just all out poor behavior towards the constituents. It was complete, utterly disgusting the way that he behaved on
that commission today. Not once you all the threats went to the audience, to the to the people that voted you in there, but none to him. He was allowed to curse and call names and that is horrific. I am here today about the the thing that
he has put forward to uh memorialize a racist homophobic xenophobic that actually made a comment that black women in government and media lack brain processing power. He also stated that
gun deaths are worth it to maintain gun rights. My uncle was a victim of gun violence. His death was not worth it to maintain anybody's rights to carry guns. I am a proud graduate of FAMU Law. I am
a proud black woman and I do have brain processing power. So, for you to agree with these things and to go along with these things are a direct slap in my face as a Lake County uh resident.
As someone who has dedicated over a decade to civic engagement and community organizing, I believe our public memorial should reflect our highest aspirations for unity, healing, and progress. They should inspire future
generations and bring our diverse community together, not divide us. So before going forward with this vote, let's consider community input, have you all even spoken with your constituents
to see how they feel about this? We are the ones being most impacted. And it is not lost on me that not one nonwhite person stood in that commission meeting today to vote for this um thing that he
has put forward. Secondly, consider our values. Does this rem memorial align with Lake County's commitment to being welcoming and inclusive for all residents? Next, we will consider the
long-term impact. What message does this send to our children, our families, and visitors about who we are as a community? I want my black daughters to know that I they do have brain
processing powers. The relevance, what does this unalived person or his harmful beliefs have to do with Lake County? I've spent my career fighting for equity and justice. This work has taught me
that our public spaces and symbols matter deeply. They shape how people feel about belonging in their own community. Lake County has a complex history that we must acknowledge honestly. All right, I've got to cut you off
because the buzzer just went off. Um, and we do have a a speaker system so everyone knows if we have to leave to use the restroom, we actually can hear what is being said in the meeting just for your benefit to know that we do get
to hear what's going on. Um, and I did ask Mr. Sabatini at some point if he needed to take a pause just like I did ask other people to leave if they didn't stop outburst. So, um, so anybody else online?
Terry Lewis, please unmute your line and state your name for the record. Hi, my name is Terry Lewis. I live in Claremont. Um, I first of all, I just want to say I've never been to a board meeting. This is my first one I've been
watching since 9:00 a.m. And Mr. Sabatini, you are ridiculous. You are unbecoming of your office. You don't pay attention. You look at your phone. You're abusive. You're a bully. Um I I
so hope you're not um elected again. When is your election up? By the way, sir, I'll be elected again, ma'am. Trust me. When When is your reelection? When is your re-election? It's not a Q&A. All right. Yeah, we're not Q&A. Just
continue on. Okay. So, I first heard about this renaming of the road with Charlie Kirk in the news. So, it's already a national thing and I've lived in a county before where we had representatives that did
embarrassing things and it it really reflected poorly on the county and um I really like this county and I just don't want it to go down that road. Um it's a terrible tragedy what happened.
Nobody I know um has taken any glee in this. If anything, we or people like me, we have um we mourn every death. We are upset about
we I beg for solutions and there are none or there are politicians don't take them. Um so I just want to say it's horrible. is horrible that somebody was killed um for exercising his First Amendment rights. Is he a good debater?
Absolutely not. He It's rigged. I feel bad for the kids that try to go against him. Um he questions. He's He mocks it. It's It's not good. I do. I watch him all the time. No, because the first time I heard of him was when he wanted good patriots
to raise money for um for the man who um took a hammer to Nancy Pelosy's husband. So, I think that's pretty horrible. Um his words are divisive. Um I know that um Madame Chair, you have debated that.
Um, I'd love to go down that road a lot more because a lot of people have repeated his words just today and it I don't know if it's gotten through to you. Um, he and so anyway, I'm not a fan of his. Um,
he he doesn't espouse the Christian values that I grew up with. Um, and streets should not be named after people that have no connection to Florida. They should be named after um people local heroes um as many people more eloquently
have said um earlier today um or those with proven history of achievement. He's not really to some people he sounds great. Um I also noticed stop you because the buzzard has gone off.
Oh shoot. Okay. Well anyway I'm very opposed to it. Um he's divisive. He spreads false lies. Uh it's there's many people that have been killed and I haven't heard any of you propose to name things after them.
All right. Thank Thank you. Anyone else online? Yes. Cassandra G, please unmute your line and state your name for the record. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. You might want to speak up just a little. Oh, sorry. This is my first time. Sorry.
Um, good afternoon commissioners. My name is Cassandra Gres and I live in Claremont Lake County. Um, I'm here to express my concern about the proposal to place memorial signs honoring Charlie
Kirk um along a public roadway in our county. Even though this isn't a an official renaming, placing honorary signage on public property still sends a strong message about who we are as a community. um as a community who we choose to
elevate and celebrate and that message matters especially when the individual in question has no meaningful connection to this county. Charlie Kirk is a national political figure. Um and it was a tragedy that he was killed in the
manner that he was. But I just want to reiterate that he is not a local leader. He did not live here, work here, volunteer here, or contribute in any direct way to the betterment of our community. Honoring someone who has no ties to the area raises a fundamental
question, why him? More importantly, Mr. Kirk was widely known for making divisive and inflammatory public statements. For example, he has repeatedly referred to public schools as government indoctrination camps and has labeled
teachers rumors contributing to a national atmosphere of hostility towards educators. He has promoted conspiracy theories such as the racist replacement theory, falsely claiming that immigration policies are designed to replace American citizens, a theory that
has been linked to acts of political violence. After the January 6th insurrection, he praised the day as the most important day in American history since 1776. Though he later deleted the statement,
the sentiment was clear. This is not a neutral figure. Honoring him on a public signage risk turning a shared community space into a political statement, one that many residents may strongly disagree with. As you guys are hearing today, public roads should unite us, not
divide us. I do believe that this is coming from high emotions after a devastating loss. Um I don't minimize his contributions to society, although I do believe it had more negative than
positive. Um I just want to note that there are countless individuals including veterans, educators, community leaders right here in our county who have dedicated their lives to serving others. If we are to be putting up memorial signs, those are the people
that we should be honoring. People who reflect our shared values, our diversity, and our commitment to each other. So, I respectfully ask that you reconsider this proposal, maybe even just tableabling it when things are not
so um emotionally high. Thank you. Anyone else online? Kareem. Karen, please unmute your line and state your name for the record. Hi, my name is Karen Pearson. I wrote an email yesterday to all of you, but I thought if I had the opportunity to be
able to speak, I'd like to. Um, I would like to reject the proposal that we name a street after Charlie Kirk. I do give grace to and condolences to his family. This is a political stunt to show the power of the Republican party and we are
Americans first. I had no idea who this individual Charlie Kirk was. I was away when this all took place. And upon returning, I started to read up and listen to his speeches and debates. Not just little
mems, but actual speeches and debates. It is really sad that we are putting someone on a pedestal with such views that are unamerican. He is also twisting faith into his narrative. And we are all of God's people, not chosen ones, that
he wants to choose. Here are just a few disturbing remarks and beliefs. And this was said, this was definitely said out of his lips. I saw the videos going after black people that they are only in position because of their color and that
they are not smart enough to be a pilot or a surgeon. Black politicians stole white people's spots. MLK was an awful person. G George Floyd had it coming to him. 1964 Civil Rights Act was a huge
mistake. He said that December 23rd at the America First Convention organized by Turning Point. And he also repeated it in April 2024 on his podcast supporting KKK. Muslims only come to America to destabilize Western
civilizations in favor of the Nazi great replacement theory. Going after immigrants and all the less fortunate in our country. Going after Jewish people or their industry that they are involved in the
Palestinian people that they do not exist. Gay people should be stoned. You are allowed to love who you want in this country. Do not yet let a young kid tell differently, especially to our college
young students. He showed such rudeness in his debates. It scares me that he was going from college after college to use his ideology in teaching the young of our country. He was degrading women when they go to college that they should only
be taking the MRS classes to find a husband and not learn. a woman's natural place is under their husband's control. Lies about the January 6 insurrection and the election. Conspiracy crap about COVID and vaccines. Protesting mask
mandates. I myself had CO for 48 days. And to to see that he was saying that just just floored me. That guy that attacked Pelos's husband should be freed from jail, be a hero, and let him out. Gun deaths are acceptable in order to
have the second amendment. Losing people along the way is not a problem. Daughters should not be allowed to have birth control. I'm going to have to cut you off because you hit your time. Do we have another speaker? The user labeled smart. Please unmute
your line and state your name for the record. Can we just see how many speakers we have left? Can you tell from the computer how many Can you tell from your screen? That's this is should be the last one. Last one. Last one. Thank you.
I would just I'm not going to speak on John Charlie Ker. I don't have any opinion on him one way or the other. I would like to clarify Mr. Sabatini's proposal was originally he made a proposal under LCC69 which I find a little bit shocking that the commissioners weren't aware of. But
he made a proposal to install a memorial while simultaneously saying that he was going to rename the street. One of the women sitting to the left of you commissioners has modified his original proposal two separate times
since the meeting has begun. I'm wondering if there's any explanation for this. At one point, one of the women to the left very specifically stated that they were going to change it to installing a woodside memorial. She went further on to clarifying that she meant the brown and white signs. After
somebody got up and spoke that Charlie Cook did not qualify for that, she then changed it again. So, can we just please clarify what the actual proposal is? What Mr. Sabatini wants to install on Wellness Way? Is that it? All right.
Got it. Um, there's one more caller. Um, Clarissa Davis, please unmute your line and state your name for the record. So, there's no answer to the question, obviously. Yeah, we we don't do questions, just
comments. Good afternoon. You also don't modify proposals three separate times after the Clarissa Davis, please state your name for the record. Sure. My name is Clarissa Davis and I am a resident of Lake County, Florida and
I'm I'm calling because I am membership chair of Tri City NAACP and I would like to read if I have the time and option. I thank everyone. I thank the commissioners and the chair. I would like to read our letter from our
president, Miss Dedra Lewis. Dear commissioner, I am emailing you today in reference to tab number 24 in the regular agenda with the proposal from commissioner Sabatini district number one to discuss and
receive direction on the installation of a permanent memorial on wellness way from US 27 to the arch orange county line in memory of Charles James Kirk. Charlie Kirk may be regarded by some individuals while others including
members of black and brown communities in Lake County, Florida, and throughout the United States have a different opinion. Charlie Kirk's negative views and comments on minorities, our professional skills, our abilities, and
the civil rights movement have been problematic and derogatory to black and brown people across the nation. Charlie's consistent attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion along
with his belief that racism didn't or doesn't really exist shows that he was not a man who stood for all people. Negative comments have been heard around the world and have gone against the very things we've been fighting for here in
America and worldwide, which is equality, diversity, inclusion, and the pursuit to live in the American dream. The taking of his life was wrong, but it would be just as wrong to honor him,
knowing he didn't stand for all people, but chose a few. here in Lake County. I hope that the commission will stand for all its citizens when making decisions that affect us all. For these reasons, I am asking you to please reconsider and vote no and rename it any street,
avenue, boulevard, highway, or erecting any monument at the Charles Charlie James Kirk anywhere here in Lake County. By doing so, you will be honoring the citizens for all which you serve. Respectfully, Dedra D. Lewis, President
Tri City branch NAACP of Lake County, Florida, and all its members. Thank you. Okay. No more callers. Okay. All right. I I move to approve the resolution named Wellness Way in Memorial Designation after Charlie Kirk. We didn't we already have a motion in a
second for discussion and then we were in discussion and then we were taking Yeah. Yeah, let me let me make a couple comments because I second I seconded it and um I seconded it because this has been a a huge event in the in the course of our
history in the United States and I heard a lot of people from you know residents um wanted to do something. Um, you know, I I I I've heard I've listened to everybody. Um, I've heard a lot. Uh,
you know, I I knew I I'll confess I knew Charlie Kirk some and would would would watch occasionally and and listen a little bit here and there. Um, I watched for hours. Um, I'm not sure if I've seen everything. I don't know if I had that that kind of time, but watched for hours
and I I will say I never heard him suggest that he somebody should be harmed. I want to make that very clear. Um I think he said some things that were were were certainly um you know people aren't going to like. I mean I I get it. Um you know I can I can point out
podcasts and and people on the other side that say things that I don't like. Um I certainly would never ever wish this upon them and any any person that's out there doing that right now. Um, so I, you know, I I second it because I
think there's some, I think, you know, we could do something. I respect the comments about like maybe it wasn't, maybe we need a little bit of time. Um, I think there is there's something we can do. We can resolve to do that today. I think, uh, the the wording is going to be important. And I will say this, um,
as and I'm proud to profess I am an imperfect Christian. Uh but so I I I'm proud to say that first, but I'm I'm also happy to see that people were Christians were, you know, getting back in their Bible a little bit, studying
and want asking questions. I'm I'm just saying that personally for me. I hope that doesn't I mean, if it offends somebody, I'm allowed to say stand up here and say that for me personally, that is my personal experience. So I don't saying that I don't think that the
the monument if you will should be I don't and I don't think Charlie would want this. It'd be something about some long detailed thing about his life and his Christian faith. Um I I I can honestly say from what I've read and studied and listened to him that that he
wouldn't want that. I do think there's a message for all of us. everything that I heard from everybody in this room that could be displayed. Uh, and I don't know what that is and we're we're tired today. Maybe we need time to think exactly what that would be. But I think
the message is that this is a county. We're standing up. We don't want political violence. And I and I'm I'm saying that for the the Democrats that were murdered in Maryland. Uh, and or anybody. I think I think we should the statement the statement should be
because the words will be important that we would be condemning political violence and that we are promoting discussion. I think yeah I think you're totally misconstring what what was proposed was proposed as a road designation if you want I would I'm all about doing an additional memorial if you want. We're
not looking to do like a just like a big black roadside thing. I'm talking about like a road designation very simple Ross designation. We've done dozens if not hundreds non-controversial obviously. I think though that where Commissioner Parks is going is that he wants if if
this is to be done understanding that it has uh upset people in the community, some people in the just hear me out. All right. Um and yet other people who I've heard a lot from who love the idea of memorializing this because they they
really feel awful about how this happened. and um and and they feel that it is it is a positive thing. I think what Commissioner Parks is trying to do is come up with a way that we actually take this situation and we mold a message that is a positive message. And
I think and I I like I like the idea of something like never because Charlie Kirk said something like, you know, we should never stop talking. When we stop talking, that's what leads to violence. So something along those lines of not we
should not stop talking. So, I'm just a little confused. So, you I definitely don't think we need a giant narrative editorial that goes into details of what he believes and what we and trying to like subnote and put footnotes on it. The best way to honor a great person who is assassinated gunown is to name
something significant after him. So, just Charlie Kirk Memorial County Road, something like that. Simple. It's a simple honor. Sending a bunch of complex like words. Never stop talking. Something like that. that I mean no it's just the road
come up with something that that yeah the number one thing the number one way to honor somebody is take something significant and rename it after them we we definitely don't need more detailed arguments and words and trying to like contextualize you know well this is technically only because of this one
event just name something after him that's what the motion's for right that's what that's what's great now you keep talking to be real you know to be real I think there might be a minor debate about you know certain roads if if you have a certain road you you think is more appropriate. I'm all in. I'm all in
100%. But just naming a road is the best way to go. It's the tr it's the total honor that this county can get behind. In terms of an artifact with context and details that talk about his life and what the meaning of it is. I've already talked to people in the community, some
of which who are here, about doing a small monument at Lake Sumpre College because obviously he debated on campus and then you could have a little scroll that talked about elements of his his life and what he what he brought to American discourse. But that's not for us. That's not for the county. For the county, this is a proposal to name a
road after Charlie Kirk. 99% of normal people who aren't political activists are going to support it because he was gunned down doing something that we all should respect which is enga being engaged in civic debate. He was killed because he spoke his heart and his mind
in civic debate and that this motion is to name a road after Charlie Kirk. That's what it should be. Which road? If there's differences about which road, obviously more than happy to shift it to an adjacent road, but a county road named after him is such a simple honor that's doesn't need to be made more
complex. It doesn't need to be sit here needlessly debated. If there weren't political actors in the room who are literally screaming, shooting middle fingers, this would be the most simple motion in the world. The reason why we're here for 6 hours and 50 minutes is
you have people who are full of hate who are here. They hate Charlie Kirk. 99% of what they said would equally say about Donald Trump if he was killed in Butler, Pennsylvania. The exact same words would have been sent said if we try to name
something after Trump if he was killed. Just stick with common sense. Name a road after Charlie Kirk. move on with the rest of this important county agenda, including tonight's meeting, which is very shortly away. And let's just that's it. Please don't be reactionary. We talked about taking action. Taking action is doing something
good to honor a good man. Being reactionary is, "Oh, wow. There's 11 really left-wing political actors in the room. Let's let's write a message that's very very carefully worded." No. Name a road after Charlie Kirk. It's the right thing to do. No one will criticize you
who voted for you. I'll put it that way. Okay. All right, officer. We got to stop this. We got to stop this. Um, and if if the pref if the if the preference is Chafield Road from from the beginning of Wellness Way and 27 to the Orange County line, I'm fine with
that. Well, we're getting closer. If you mentioned Scoffield instead of Wellness Way, knowing how much went into I love Scoffield Road. I think it's great. It's also a commuter road that is an entry point for a lot of people who are discovering the beauty importance of Lake County and who see very quickly our
cultural values which is standing up for freedom and American Americanism. So with Sean's concern, I'm happy to amend it to shift it to Scoffield Road, which also I think is in some ways could be better because it's such a more it's a truly beautiful scenic highway coming into the county. So I would mo move to
amend my original motion for Scoffield. Okay. I mean, the second's fine, but but we're still in a discussion because I think we still have consternation here. And I mean, I feel like we took the internet and
everything really cruddy we saw on the internet and we see every day on the internet and we just like brought it in here and like we're inside of it, you know? It's really horrible. Um, and look, I don't see how anybody can not say that the internet is disgusting at
times. And I feel like a lot of all of that came in here. And it goes both ways. I mean, there's there's ugliness going lots both ways. Um, I and I just hate that. And and and again, I you know, I I um
I what bothers me the most are are my my black friends in Lake County because I feel like they believe that this was actually that Charlie Kirk was racist. And I don't think he was racist. And I wouldn't vote in favor of this if I thought he was racist. Um and and I
really firmly believe that. All right. Are we gonna have to have you leave the meeting? Because I I I'm I have the floor and I'm gonna say this and if you're going to burst out again, then I'm going to ask them to have you leave. Um I don't think he was racist.
It Charlie Kirk's organization um and the guy shooting birds at me. Okay, could he please be escorted out? This is crazy. Crazy people. See what I mean? This is like we're in the dark web and now it's just all right
out here for us to see. Um I I think it's it's it's really unfair to to characterize somebody as a racist because he wanted to debate something like DEI. It it's okay to talk about it. Maybe it's not the perfect way to go
about having a policy. when he talked about the Civil Rights Act and he talked about the fact that we needed to be able to show ID to vote in 2025. That's important. These are important issues of the day. He never said to hurt
people who are gay. He never said to stone someone to death. Never. Stephen King had to come out, the author, and actually retract that statement. Okay, this is the ugly garbage that is out there and it's just not true. And you
know what? I I get it. If you believe it's true, then I understand why you're so mad and why you don't want us to do this. If you believe it's true. Um but it's not true. It's not true. Um for me, it's it's about being able to have open dialogue and open debate. And he was
doing that in mass numbers across this country. And so a lot of people didn't know who he was and then they realized who he was once this happened. But those of us who followed him, we saw I mean it was a massive effect he was having on college campuses. He employed people who were gay. He employed people who are
black. That is part of his organization. He has chapters of people that are are black Americans. So this idea that he was racist, that he was, you know, a bigot. Oh, and he was misogynistic too, right? because he believed in
traditional marriage. I mean, come on. I mean, you know, it's like, this is ridiculous. There are people in Lake County that would like to honor the fact that a man who who who spoke on college campuses, interacted with young people, was was was wanted to uh encourage
dialogue and and make our country better. Um, and he was gunned down and they want to have some sort of a recognition of that. and he touched people in Lake County personally because either their kids were at college
campuses where he spo spoke or they were engaged in the organization itself. They they have a right to be heard too, those people in Lake County. And that's what they'd like to see is some sort of recognition and this is a way to do it. And I think it's perfectly fine. But I
do like having I wish we could have a message or something about don't ever stop Yeah. talking because that's really what this is about. And and and and that's kind of what's what's happened today is people have tried to shut us down from even having the discussion because when I started
this today, I said you can't even talk about it because if you say the guy's racist, well then we must be racist. If you say he's a bigot, then we must be bigots. That's just that's how you stop people from talking. And that's gone on far too long in this country and we need to stop it. And so I out of principle I
just have to I wish it was going on later and I wish we could postpone it but I don't want to ever go through this again. So I say that we make a decision today and we go with Scoffield Road and we shape a very simple message about dialogue. I don't want to limit the other commissioners comments but I I move to
call the question. I I believe we should You can't. All right. Um anybody else want to say something? No comment. I I I would um I would prefer that that maybe there be more discussion on
the road. Uh not the naming of the road. I agree that that we shouldn't we should name not naming the road, but naming a memorial. Uh we have a lot of memorials up currently today that people from
Claremont drove by and probably never knew you drove by Michael T. Akens Memorial Highway or Leighton T. Baker Memorial Highway. Y'all didn't know that, but you drove right past it. Um, so I'm thinking that maybe there should
be not just any road. It's not a road. It's not any road. It should be major road. It should be, please. It it should be a a road that is
significant for the people down there. So, um I'm I'm okay with approving the naming of a road. I just think that there needs to be more dialogue on what road. Yeah. Can I just please I talked to staff.
Thank you for letting me finish my comment. Thank you. But please just I mean maybe because we're dwelling on assertions that were false. We're not focused on the things that matter. One of the things that matter is is this is my district. So obviously I looked at almost every single prominent county road in my district from the bottom at
474 down to Wellness Way all the way I'm sorry from four corners all the way up to Wellness Way. And my ideal version was um was Wellness Way. My colleague who's right next door has a preference for a slightly different road which I think is very slightly less prominent
but probably much more beautiful in terms of its into in terms of its traditional Lake County sort of features. I'm okay with that. I see this as a compromise. We're the two South Lake guys. I would hope that the board will trust our judgment on that and support the motion. It's not It was not a hasty decision.
So, are you not feeling good about Scoffield? Because they did bring up going to Scoffield. Oh, I'm I'm okay with whatever. Um I just thought maybe there needed to be more dialogue, but apparently y'all talked and you've got the road figured out. Yeah, he changed the motion to
Scoffield. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I'm Yes. Um well, because that road's that road's open now, too. That's the other part of it. Um, so again, I I you know, I didn't I'm not suggesting I didn't bring up the idea of
having a message at the bottom because um I mean I appreciate everybody's input, but I mean I genuinely thought there was something we could do to make a statement on that because I am concerned about political violence. So I mean I or the the lack of discussion
um you know that happens on internet with keyboard warriors and I think we do as a nation have to have more face-to-face discussion. I preached that all over the place even before this happened. Um so I that's why I was hoping maybe you could kind of
incorporate a message like that, you know. Yeah. At the bottom. So, it wasn't it's not it's not like um I'm I'm moved because somebody hates Charlie Kirk and I'm trying to compromise or something. It's those are genuine these are genuine concerns of mine. So, and I'm just
thinking maybe maybe is it an it's an opportunity for that message. I personally as a person who uses a lot of words know that sometimes more words means less. And I think that the single most significant thing you can do to a person who is probably the most well-known victim of political violence in literally decades in this country is
simply name something prominent, something beautiful after that person. I don't think we need extra words, extra pros layered on. I just think it's the single most significant thing this board can do to say we're against political violence is that in the in the in as a as a way of pushing back against
political violence in the country, naming something pro prominent and beautiful in honor of that person. That's it. It's a very simple motion. I think that's been made unnecessarily complex by partisan politics. I I please, if I could just rephrase the motion, I move to name Scoffield Road and Memorial Designation Highway. I
think the resolution is perfect. I would move to pass the resolution. The resolution just talks about the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which of course is now his greatest honor. Um, and and a few of his accomplishments. Okay. So, with the the accomplishments are in a resolution. Oh, yeah. The resolution is part of one
of the attachments. I know there's a lot on the agenda, so probably but but it's a beautiful onepage resolution that talks about the presidential medal of freedom, his birth, his life, his death, his Yeah, I was just clarifying for it's not on and for the sign I just a simple sign I think is what obviously I prefer. I
don't I don't prefer a giant, you know, a bunch of words that word that somebody driving can't. In fact, it makes it less less readable. Chairman, can I speak? No, we've closed it to public to just the board.
No, no, no. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but we we're we're done with public comment. All right. So, um, we had a a modification of of the motion and we were waiting for
Yeah, I I second that modification. I mean, I I I still think I mean I know we're we're I would hope there would be something else we could do for for that message. The message do more, but this is the bare minimum. I
think this happens to be one of the most significant things. Yeah. Since you say that you say less words are are better, why don't you suggest Charles Kirk Memorial Highway? It's just a plaque plaque up there. It's just a sign. You'll see you'll see Scoffield.
It'll be some grass fields. One of the most beautiful farms in the entire state of Florida is right there. And it'll say Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway. That's it. That's all. I think simple is good. That's it. That's all this is about. It's not Would you want to reference the resolution number on it? Did we do that?
No, just the Memorial Highway. Yeah. And people come in, they're gonna I mean, you know, people are going to stop. They're take pictures of it. They're going to be moved by it. We're going to inspire other cities and counties and states around the country to stand up and honor this great man. That's it. So, all right. Um, from my standpoint, I
guess I'll come up with my own wording. Um, that So, if somebody says, "What does this mean to you?" So, I will say this is what it means. Um, I would I would prefer to have something like never stop talking. Um, because I do think that that's really what this is about is that uh when you try to shut
people up and you try to not have dialogue and you try to label people so they're not allowed to actually speak about policies um because you've labeled them, then that's that's a problem. Um, and and I feel strongly about that. But,
uh, anyway, so um, all in favor say I. I did. Was there a second? Yes. Commissioner Parks on Scoffield with just the naming, just the name, road name. Okay. So, all in favor say I. All right. Thank you very much. Any opposed? Okay. All right. So, we're moving
forward with that. We have a couple more things on our agenda. Um, all the testimony, all of that. received. You still voted on dumb ass. Okay, let's see. Flood
insurance coverage. Jordan and Carl. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, commissioners. Um, my name is Carl Bersa. I am the flood plane administrator for Lake County and the public public works operations manager. Oh, little bit. Sorry.
Is that a little better? Yeah, that's a little better. All right. Sorry. So, um I'm here to today to talk to you about Lake Countyy's flood insurance assessment. So, our assessment is part of an annual uh assessment that is given to us by the
CRS program um through ISO and FEMA, letting us know what our flood insurance the state of our flood insurance policies in the county are, how many there are. Um, it's something that's vital for flood res for uh resilience and for us to um make sure that we're paying close attention to when bad
things happen, especially with the flooding situation, how we're able to bounce back from that. Um, so just really briefly, I'm going to be discussing the NFIP insurance program, the CRS program, the benefits of flood insurance, and then our current lake county assessment, and just a brief
discussion hopefully. So the NFIP, the National Flood Insurance Program was established in 1968. Um it does require that participants have to follow uh federal flood plane management regulations um specifically with building permitting um with evacuation protocols, national
natural hazard mitigation. Um and they're our flood insurance rate maps or firms are basically how we enforce this. people who are in who have property that is in the firms, they actually have to abide by those uh higher standards and higher regulations. Um Lake County
joined the NFIP in in 1982 and our last update uh has been a little bit now 2012. Um from what I understand, I've spoke with the region about a week ago and they said that we are on the list for an update, but they were not going to give me any sort of uh idea on when
that might when that might happen. So again, this is a the NFIP insurance is publicly available in all participating communities. So basically, because we participate and you have a property in and that's in a flood hazard area, you can get flood insurance. Also,
even if you're not in a flood hazard area, if you're in the next flood zone, you are more than welcome to buy insurance for your property. Um, as I about to show you, we had a lot of folks who took advantage of that. Um, it does have to be purchased separately. it is not part of your homeowners insurance policy. And this is something that we do
like to point out. Um just because you have homeowners coverage. It does not mean you have flood coverage. Um 99.9 times out of the 100. Um our community rating system is something that we participate in. It is a discount program that actually makes it so that folks can um get discount on
their flood insurance based on the rating the community has. We are currently sitting at a class 7 rating. We are completing our uh five-year annual audit. At the conclusion of that audit, we will be rescored. I am really hopeful that we will be able to improve at least one class. Um, if my if my
efforts go don't go unnoticed, I'm hoping for two. Um, but that's me being optimistic. Um, that would get us up to a 25% flood insurance discount for everybody who purchases flood insurance in Lake County. How much was that discount? It would go up to 25 if I can get us to to a five. Um, right now a six is the is
the six is the goal, but I'm like I'm I like to stretch. I like to like to reach for the stars with that one. But right now we have a 15% discount as a class 7 participating community. It'd be a 20% if we get to a six, 25% if we get to a five. You can see here kind of a
community map showing everybody who participates. And then in Florida, there are 244 participating communities. And if you'll notice that the lion share of our communities are kind of hunkered around that that 67 and 567 area. Florida Building Code has such a strong
um flood pre flood flood damage prevention section to it that basically to get a class seven rating pretty much all you have to do is participate in the C in the Florida building code. Make sure you're enforcing the Florida building code and make sure that you're uh keeping track of the paperwork.
So, general flood insurance information for Lake County, there are 3,712 insurable properties inside of the special flood hazard area in Lake County. that it basically means that those are your principal structures be they commercial or residential. Um you don't get to ensure stuff like accessory
structures, garages and such. Um the number of policies enforce you can see is 1353 in this is 36.4% coverage. Um we really like to see that get higher. Um one of the most important things with NFIP based coverage if you own your home
outright if you don't have a mortgage on it you're not required to carry flood insurance. Um, as your flood plan administrator, I'd like for you to reach out to your constituents and let them know that even if they own the home outright, it's always a good idea to have it. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
Um, this is just kind of a breakdown of the different um the different u building types and the different residency types and how they're how they're insured, how they're insured and the policies enforce. U you can see the line share of our property that is insured is the single family residents
basically taking up 90% of what we have out there. Um there are a couple of uh duplex and for duplex to forplex buildings that are insured and literally a couple too. And that's something that again we would like to kind of see that go up.
And this is really great for me because this shows you where the different areas where where we have flood insurance are. um the AH and AO AO zones. We actually don't have those on there. I'm I have to put that on there for the slide to get credit for it. So, I just wanted to let you know we actually don't have those
two zones in the county, but you can see we have a pretty solid uh contingent of the AE and Azones there. But I'm really I really like the fact that there are 721 XZone policies. That's great because 25% of our claims for flood insurance or
for flood damage uh during Hurricane Milton came from outside the special flood hazard area. So, this is something that even if you're not in a flood zone, floods can still happen just, you know, floods don't like to obey lines. Just because it's, you know, you're across the line saying, "Hey, I don't need flood insurance, but my neighbor does."
That's something to consider. And again, the policies, we have that large number of exone policies and that we've got a decent spread of the policies across the zones. Um, I do think that the the overall low number of policies, the 36.4%. Um, I really would like to try to reach
out to folks and help them to pick that pick that policy up because it's an important thing for us. It helps you out in the long run and makes things makes us more resilient. And of course the the low policy numbers for duplex and for duplex to forplex units that kind of s that kind of surprised me. Um but I do
think a lot of those are owned outright by and they're used for rentals. So so the recommendations from staff to help increase these numbers. Obviously increasing outreach uh that's something that I'm working on personally along with my staff. We're doing what we can
to make ourselves available. Um if somebody wants to have us come and give a talk we're more than welcome to. We're more than happy to come and sit and discuss the benefits of flood insurance, talk about flood plane policies and regulations. We do, like I said, we have we've been reaching out and doing the
strong social media campaigns. Um, that's something that we, especially during hurricane season, we're being we keep beating on that because right now, as I'm sure you know, we've got one storm spinning out there. It's heading over to Ireland apparently, but we have two other areas of interest that are sitting there that may develop still
along with another thing down off the Central American Peninsula that might be a problem. Um, but that's something, you know, it's always it's always something to consider this time of year. And finally, the we do want to increase our efforts to improve our CRS rating. Um, class 5 is the most you can get to
before uh the there's a there's a prerequisite for a class 4 that I'm going to be reaching out to try to move to. Class four is a really big jump and that's something that you know once you start talking about a 30% discount on your flood insurance that adds up real fast
and then so I'll throw it back to you folks for discussion and questions if you have any. Do we have to give you certain No, this is just literally just literally you can you can tell me what you want. This is for I didn't understand one of those
comments though about how many claims um or flooding situations happen outside of those that are in the in the special flood hazard. Yes, ma'am. So, we had 25% of the claims through FEMA. We we backtracked and got the
data. 25% of the claims that people claimed on for for flood insurance, they actually said, "Hey, I lost such and such during during the flood. I had my downstairs flooded. My house flooded. Something happened." 25% of all the insurance claims, the flood insurance claims in Lake County were for areas
outside the special flood hazard area. Oh, yeah. Like I said, floods don't believe is it because the zones aren't right, though? Um, so it's kind it's kind of a loaded question. Um, the zones have not been updated since 2012. And I always I I like to point out to people technology
has come so far. Think about the cell phone you had in 2012, what it looked like compared to what you have today and the capabilities. But then also beyond that, um the the development around here and the way that the topography is changing when people are going in and doing the mass grade events, we we've
got to we have to plan for stuff like that. We have to make sure that we're paying attention to that. And that's something that is another thing that they're asking. FEMA is asking us for more input on when people come in for LA for map revisions and for mass for large scale subdivision planning. Okay. All right. Any questions?
Yeah. Yeah, I've got a question. I'm just kind of curious. How does Lake County become a class 7? How do we become a class 7? So, we are a class 7 because the previous flood plan administrator did her job very well and we actually had when Florida building
code got adopted, you have to first adopt Florida building code, which we do every we we adopt the Florida building code every time it's changed. And then in addition to that, there are paperwork requirements that we have to abide by. Um there are a lot of points that were left on the board. Uh but again, she was
a onewoman show and she really she did a really good job making sure that we were getting everything that we were able to get to. But there were if you're only one person doing it, you don't have the you don't have a lot of people helping you. There's a lot of lift that goes in. There are a lot of uh documentation requirements and if you if you dig down
into it, I think that there were there were some points we left on the board last time and I'm looking to harvest those. So do you think we should be considered a class six or a five? I think based on my discussions with the folks who audited us that they think that a class six is a very real possibility. And um I
personally think that with the with some of the stuff that we've got going on, I'm going to reach for a five. We might fall short this time, but I can I'm going to all you got to do is say Aster and we'd be a class one. If I could get to if I could get Aster to a class one, that'd be awesome. Remember, class one is class one is
great. Class 10 is not so great. like getting Astro to a class one that'd be I actually don't think that we might have one. I don't know actually. What about Emerald? I don't know who we have as Emerald Leg. And Emerald Lakes. Yeah. Wolf French Road always floods. Yeah. Trying to trying to work with
folks who are in floodprone areas and trying to get them to understand the importance of having flood insurance and then building resiliently and when you when they have the opportunity when when a structure has been removed, having whatever goes back there meet the code. It's it's an important part of my job.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Is there the remember we had discussions about changing our ordinance? Yes, ma'am. And would that be an action that we could take that would help us with our grade? That would that would actually uh the the couple of things that we had
proposed um would have gotten us uh probably I think between 25 and 30 more points getting us toward the next class. Okay. Well, we're still working on it. And even if I mean we still have the option too of adopting it despite Senate Bill 180. And if we get challenged we get challenged. If we don't then at
least we've gotten it in motion. They got that safe harbor letter. Yeah. So I think that that we should just keep plowing ahead on that. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Appreciate the presentation. All right. Moving down to our reports.
Uh the county attorney is we we're is out of the room for a moment out briefly, but she can hear us. The only time, but she can hear us. So, [Laughter] um county manager, um just a reminder
that we do have our final budget hearing adoption tonight at 5:05 in in these board chambers. Okay. Commissioner Sabatini. Uh no report. Thank you, Commissioner Parks. All right. So, I had um I had uh wanted to add well I planned on bringing it up
in my report today about um Hartwood Marsh Road. So, we have the slides. Um can we bring this discussion up at a different time? I think I I think we can but um may do is there a time issue on this? Can we bring this up at the next Do you see any
time issue if we put actually just make it an agenda item? Both both I'll say this. I'm sorry. Um, but to make this an agenda item along with the 44B discussion because I just don't think we ever finished it when we were talking a month ago about transportation. So, if
we could add that to the future maybe next meeting, we can put it on the um October 14th agenda. Okay, that's our first meeting for um the first one's the the PNZ which is on the 7th. I mean, I think it's fine as long as uh there's no time frames that are going to
be blown blown by or anything like that for funding or anything. Yeah. So, okay. So, why don't we just do that then? Can I say thank you? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. You're welcome. All right. Okay. Anything else on your report? Uh, no. Nothing else. Commissioner Smith?
No. Commissioner Morris? No, ma'am. Commissioner Campion. No, I had just one thing I skipped over would benefit it. I I wish I could say it's a 10-second thing. It's really not. I at least want to make the motion. I think there's been positions everyone shifted a little bit
on the SP80 thing. I I think we should join the lawsuit. I know it's a huge topic. It's the worst time ever to bring it up, but I mean, do we not feel like we want to join the lawsuit? I I definitely do. So, I think that it's really smart though to let the other counties spend
the money. And I think that we should focus our efforts on how they can fix that bill and and push to get the bill fixed. And they have offered they have offered to bring you up to Tallahassee to meet with Perez to say what is wrong.
Well, they know what's wrong with it. But well, but but at least it gives you a platform that you can go in and say this is affecting us in Lake County, right? No, I want it to be heard exactly how it's affecting us. We just heard an example of how it's affecting us. I mean, as far as being able to uh change
flood plane rules. Um, and I I mean I'm all I I I guess I feel like if if we can get the benefit of a lawsuit happening, um, then great, then we're not coming out of pocket for it. Um, it also gives
us a chance to point out the things that could be fixed, which I I'm very skeptical about the fact that it would get fixed and that it would get fixed and this uh because I think all of us have probably had discussions and we
understand a lot more about, you know, about why this bill even happened to begin with. Um, I respect everyone's view, but for me, I really do see the political thing and the legal thing completely different. I know it looks like, oh, if you try to join laws, it looks like you're criticized in a severe political manner.
No, I think that there's serious legal issues with it. I don't think it's personally offensive to anyone to challenge it and say, hey, was this legally sufficient or not? I don't think they really are interested in defending it legally. They're going to do something uh on it, but politically, I think they're a lot more dug in than they're showing. Uh, so I, you know, I
do think we should be, you know, careful and, you know, smart about how we try to approach a politically. Fact. Florida Association Counties is taking a very cautious, intelligent, I think, approach, but I I just, to me, none of that works towards the idea of whether you sue or not. I think filing a lawsuit, which obviously isn't going to
cost them much money to defend, um, is something that it's not like a like a super offensive thing. That's why I I think we should join the lawsuit. But I I for me because I don't think it somehow like pulls away from the political side. I mean this is really it's just testing the legal
sufficiency of a pretty pretty important law pretty significant law and that's it. So I would I mean listen I'm not going to make motion if it's a 41 but well it's not on the agenda is it? Oh but it is something that doesn't require notice. It's just a ministerial and we could join a lawsuit right now just without any notice.
Thought we had to have agenda items to conduct business. It well they they want a resolution. Um, we have one prepared. I believe it's coming back the second meeting in October. We could certainly move that up to the um, first regular meeting of October.
And just so you know, I talked to a state rep from Valuchia. I mean, he's like, "Hey, I think there's some good things about the bill, but I don't mind you guys like suing." I mean, obviously you're talking about 160 members of the legislature. They all have different opinions on, but like a lot of them don't see a legal challenge as somehow a
severe political attack. I think it's, hey, I think there's some serious legal issues with the bill. That's it. That's why I support it. I mean, obviously, and I support facts, political approach on it. Sorry, sorry to add this on so late the agenda. It's just one of those things I keep falling through the we we bring it up at these meetings, but we haven't really What if we took the position that it
didn't if it didn't get fixed this session that we would pursue? Well, I think because it's not that many facts involved with the case, I think they'll have a decision on the case in the next six months anyways before the session ends. I mean, I heard that uh within the next
month, we're going to know pretty it's going to be pretty clear. Would they have some of their Okay. some of their um committee meetings. Okay. Yeah. Let them have the committee meetings and let's see what the actual discussion looks like. Yeah. No, really if there's really seriousness behind these statements of
we want to work on this, we want to fix. That's all. Sorry. Sorry to add that late minute. It's just one of those things I we bring it up, but I keep forgetting to formally put it on the agenda. Thanks, All right. So, um, do you have a Of course, I have words of Is it Is it like words of
wisdom or is it just It is Is it going to make us laugh? We'll take either one. Today is a great day because today is National Um, let's see here. Hold on a second. You know, you could just make it up and leave it now.
No, no, no. I've forgotten a word. Restless leg syndrome day. And I think everybody here has restless legs today. So just all stand up while we recess and come back down at 505.
It made us laugh, too. All right. We have a thrilling budget meeting coming up that everybody should be here for. All right. Um we are recessed until we
go back into session at 5:05. Hour and a half. Yeah. [Music] Testing. Testing. Test test Test This is the Lake County Board of County
Commissioners 505 budget meeting on September 23rd, 2025 in board chambers administrative building tofaries, Florida. recording in progress. Yeah, just I mean, we still have fun, but we'll go back into session uh this
September 23rd, 2025. And um I'm going to turn things over to Allison Tesla, the management and bud budget director to give us a budget summary. Good evening, commissioners. For the
record, Allison Tesla, um the director for the Office of Management Budget. Um the purpose of tonight's meeting is to hold the final public hearing to adopt the millage rates and the budget for fiscal year 2026. Um as a reminder, this is for the mill rates and budget overseen by the Lake County Board of
County Commissioners. And the public hearing information for the school board or any other taxing authorities in Lake County is available in the back of the room. Okay, the agenda for tonight will include the presentation of the proposed millage rates over the roll back rates
and the presentation of the final budget for fiscal year 2026. I'll then turn it over to the chairman to hold the public hearing. Following the public hearing, the board will have three actions. To adopt the final mill resolutions for fiscal year 2026, to adopt the changes to the tenative budget, and to adopt the
final budget for 2026. Okay. Okay. The proposed final budget as presented includes $7.6 million for road resurfacing. It incorporates the approved project list for the infrastructure sales tax. It fully funds judicial support, the constitutional offices and county departments.
It includes the $16 minimum wage and wage adjustments for compression. It reflects a general fund operating reserve of 28.2 million which is about 10.6% 6% of the operating budget and it includes 4.5 million special reserve for
roads and infrastructure. Here are the department position requests for fiscal year 2026. The majority of which are related to public safety, public works, and water resources. Here are the updated millates reflecting the general fund millage reduction that was set at the first public hearing.
Chapters 129 and 200 of the Florida statutes outline the procedures for the annual adoption of the tax rates and budgets which requires that I identify the proposed millage rates for fiscal year 2026 as well as any adjustments that the board will consider. By the state's definition, the rollback millage
rate is the rate when applied to next year's tax base excluding new construction which will generate the same revenue that was raised in the previous year. The proposed fiscal year 2026 rates are as follows. The Lake County general fund
operating millage is 5.024 sorry 5.0254 mills which is less than the fiscal year 2025 rate of 5.0364 mills and is a 5.58% increase over the
roll back rate of 4.7597 mills. The Lake County ambulance MSTU millillage is 4629 mills which is equal to the fiscal year 2025 rate and a 5.81% increase over the roll back rate of 4375
mills. The Lake County Fire Rescue MSTU millillage is 48 mills which is equal to the fiscal year 2025 rate and a 7.21% increase over the roll back tax rate of 4477 mills.
The Lake County Stormwater Parks and Roads MSTU millillage is 4957 mills which is equal to the 2025 rate and a 7.32% increase over the roll back rate of 4619 mills. The Lake County wellness weight MSTU
millillage is4585 ms which is less than the fiscal year 2025 rate of 917 mills and a 35.69% 69% decrease over the roll back rate of 7129 ms.
The proposed fiscal year 2026 Lake County water authority millillage is 294 mills which is equal to the 2025 rate and a 4.96% increase over the roll back rate of.2801 ms. The current year proposed aggregate
rate is 6.2371 and is 5.05% 05% more than the aggregate roll back rate of 5.937 mills. Finally, the fiscal year 2026 public lands voted debt millage is 04 mills, which is less than the fiscal
year 2025 rate of 0918 mills and does not figure into the roll back calculations since it was approved by referendum. Okay, I'll turn it over to the chairman for the public hearing. Okay. Uh, this is a public hearing and I'm not seeing
any cards. Has anyone turned any cards in? Do we have anyone online? Okay. All right. Well, then we'll bring it back to the board. Um, and um we have our um separate mill um rates and resolutions.
It's I know last time we we broke them out. We can try to do them all together. We might have some recommendations for changes tonight. So, I'll I think I made a statement I made a statement this morning that uh I thought we could take another half a
million out of the budget, but based on what our uh vote was this morning on the the gas tax, I'd like to take the 500,000 that I recommended out of the budget and move it into the road program. I'll second that. Yeah,
it's a good idea. So just to be clear on context, so last week we did lower it 0.01 more. I would be in favor of changing it to 0.012. Basically half a million last week, a half million more this week. I'd like to see a half million more, but looks like there were
some votes to stick with what we did last week or two weeks ago, but not not do more as of today. Is that right? Just I mean just No, we're going to the 500,000 that I was going to take out of the budget. Okay. You were going to make up the difference with the gas difference. Put it put it in the road budget. So the millage stays the same.
All right. You were going to support it as long as there was a gas tax, right? But you're saying you won't support it now, but you would rather take 500,000 that you 500,000. Move it over to Move it over to the roads. Resurfacing. Resurfacing. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Yeah.
Okay. Is anybody I mean I I'm I'm still in favor of what we talked about today and I would I I would support a an additional reduction to the budget. Yeah. I would move I mean listen, I totally think everybody's got a good idea here. I would make a motion to Well, we've already got a motion on the floor and we got a second. I went first,
but just wait a minute. Maybe I'm a little slow because today, but um we already made a motion. It was seconded by part. Okay. Thank you. I I helped you today. You helped me just now. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And I got discussion on it, too.
Okay. if after anybody else. Um the the reason why um obviously it's different if you as Commissioner Morris alluded to if you had to gas tax, we've we've been concerned about two things on this board for years. Um having to deal with
outside of having to deal with minimum wage being increased and trying to keep employees um our our pay competitive. um we would have had a chance I think with the gas tax um to to be able to use that for reserve which is one and one a is
reserve and roads. So we don't have that ability anymore but I I like commissioner Morris's proposal 500 grand more towards roads shows a commitment towards it shows fiscal cons constraint to to the other commissioners that may have questions. It shows fiscal
constraint to the public because we're not spending on we're spending it on what their one or one a item is on roads. And I mean I just look at these like this is too telling graphics for me and I I don't know if you want to put these up but these are the famous dollar dollar graphics. Can you put them up?
I'll Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's two of them and I don't just put them side by side if you could. Thank you. No discussion. So if you see if you see the I'm not wetted to any position yet.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's good. We'll have a good discussion. We can have good discussion on this and really fit. Yeah. No, that that I can that's perfect. So you see just in two years here this dollar figure this 29 the 29% out of every dollar that's for us for you know what we do. I mean we're
already down to now it's 27. we have this the constitutional and other issues. I mean other uh users of the general fund that keeps increasing. I mean we're cutting and cutting and cutting with these guys. We've only added our staff. That's who I'm pointing to. We've we've only added the only
people we've added basically are for public safety which is what everybody wants. So I mean that piece of the pie is getting smaller and smaller. So this would only I mean cutting the millage rate is not it's not just this year. It's it's uh it next year it's so it's
500,000 this year. Next year it's 550,000 that you don't have unless because I I mean I'm not gonna I don't want to raise the the mill rate at all. Um so you know and the new the new growth that's coming. Yeah. That I mean I suppose if it's a lot we might have a
a good problem on our hands but I mean that's going to continue to go. We've had good growth since 2022 to 2024. That incredible growth the 12 to 16%. and look what still happened. We're down to 27%. So, I'm just I'm, you know, that's my
concern about it. I I appreciate both sides of it. And um I but that's why I would I like Commissioner Morris's proposal. So, the only thing I I like it as well. The only thing I would like to know is where is that $500,000 coming from? Yeah. So, it's going to
So, we have a project that's not quite shovel ready that we would propose taking the capital funding from. Um, it is capital funding, though, so it's a one-time slug of funding. So, is it 500,000? I it Well, the project is more than
that. I would take 500,000 from that project. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, if you go down that road though and we take the vote and the vote passes to do what you just described, um, we still could have a motion to reduce the millillage. Totally.
Right. I'm just making first motion just It depends on where you want to take it from. You want to take it from live stream. You want to take it from the The first motion. No, we've got from I thought the first motion was keeper. The first motion is is to first motion is a fund transfer, my
understanding. Right. It's a fund transfer, which I I think I would support, but then I would just do a second motion. I don't know if it'll be supported, but a motion to decrease another half million, basically 0.01 of the of the millage rate. I thought the motion was um keep the
millage rate the same. That was the motion and then so I seconded that to keep the milit rate the same but 500 grand out of that's what current. So since they're entangled uh can we restate the motion so that way it's because I mean it's a it's a motion to pass the millage rate at at the the
rate that's proposed now plus a fund transfer. I would vote no on that only because I want the millage rate very slightly decreased again. at the motion was to keep the miller rate at what it is and to take the 500,000 that I thought we could could get out of the
budget and move it over at a fund transfer to the road department. So, if I could clarify the motion because we do have to approve the the millage rate first. So, what I'm hearing now, your motion is a status quo millage. Yes.
And then we'll vote on that and then you can have your other changes. We'll do the changes after the fact. Okay. Well, I thought his motion included both of them. Status quo mill transfer. You really need to do the mill separately separate separately. It's
state statute. So, if we could do the millages and then we can come back and address that change. But yeah, and Commissioner Smith, I mean, I'm going to be right there with you on the 500 grand grand. So, and if you want to do all of them at the millages individually, we we can do that
as well. Okay. So, we need you to amend your motion to just address keeping the millillage the same. Okay. I'll amend my motion just to address the millillage, which is what is presented. Second.
All right. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? I. All right. Now, we're going to the next millillage. Can you pull up the millillage presentation? Okay.
And you can So that was the general fund countywide millillage status quo and that was approved 3 to two. So the with the remaining millages you you can take them all together or you can take them individually, whatever the board's pleasure. I'm not going to vote for the
fire and rescue MSTU because of the um that's not that's that's different. That's the assessment. Oh, that's a different one. Okay. Move to approve all the millages unless somebody wants to discuss it. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor say
I. I. Any opposed? That passes 5. Now moving to changes to the 20 26 tenative budget. Okay. So, a summary of the changes that were made since the tentative budget was approved on September uh September 9th
includes the incorporation of the drug treatment court budget, rebudgets for capital projects, which the most significant were rebudgets. Um there's 5 million for the detention center chiller project, uh and 2.7 million in adjustments that were related to the
transportation improvement plan. It incorporated updated PO carry forward estimates, grant award adjustments, and other miscellaneous charges and adjustments. Okay. So, the next requested action, we're
requesting approval to adopt the changes to the fiscal year 2026 tentative budget totaling 15,71,35. So would this be the appropriate time then to make a motion in favor of the budget but to add the requirement that
that transfer happens that you initially requested? You can request that the the bottom line wouldn't change based on what you're saying. So the changes would still equal the the 15 million and change. Um and then you can give the staff direction to make that change to the 500,000
which would be out of the capital. Correct. I move to transfer all the drug court money to road resurfacing. You can't. Okay. I withdraw the motion. I make a motion to approve that budget.
Second. All right. Any further discussion? Is there I guess you've got the consensus that we want to make that transfer. So, I've got the consensus. You are approving the changes. 15,71,135
has been approved. And then we also have consensus to take 500,000 out of a capital project and move it to road resurfacing. And with the understanding that that road resurfacing fund if if we needed that for hurricane response that would
be something that would be brought back. We would bring it back use of reserve funds. Correct. Okay. All right. Any reserves would have to come back to the board before they were utilized. Okay. So we have a motion. We have a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. That passes. Um.
All right. And then finally, we're requesting approval to adopt the final budget resolution 2025-119 for the fiscal year 2026 budget totaling 1 billion52,83,591. All right. Do we have a motion? Move. Approve. Second.
Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. That is the end of our Is this the first we had a billion dollars or is that last year? We had it. Okay. Okay.
Yeah. Um, if you'd like to go back to the short reports that we had today and revisit your your reports. No, I don't want to do that. Um, I just wanted to thank the staff that is here, the team that's here. Um, as we
customarily do every year at this time, budget process is uncomfortable, I'm sure, but appreciate you all. Uh, Jennifer, Melanie, appreciate you. Um, thanks for working so hard and um, at least trying to help us look good. So, thank you. Yeah, and I I would like to echo that as
well. Thank you to staff. Uh, thank you for the sheriff's uh, support today. Um, we truly appreciate that. I know a few times I just kept looking back there at the back of the room to make sure that everybody was still where they were supposed to be. So, um, but appreciate
the hard work getting us to this point. Um, we know that, uh, you it's a lean budget. Um, and you guys work hard to keep it that way so that we can be responsive to the residents of Lake County and the taxpayers of Lake County. But we really appreciate the hard work
that you do and the customer service that you provide. It means so much. So, thank you. And I I would just like to say that um thank you for uh Jennifer and all the staff because y'all really put a lot of work into
um keeping our budget as low as possible and it gives you about a two-month break before you start it again. The budget is 12 months a year, sir. All right. Okay. Well, with that, we'll stand adjourned.
See you don't need to sign