regular uh board of county commission meetings. Today is Tuesday, May 13th, and it is 900 a.m. This meeting is called to order. Invocation is will be led by Steve Bowski of the Open Door Church of God, and pledge allegiance by Commissioner Harvey. Please stand if
you're able to do so. Good morning, commissioners, staff, and guests. It's an honor to be with you today, and I come as a pastor with deep appreciation for the work you do on behalf of the county and its people. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 11:14 that where there is no guidance, a
nation falls, but in an abundance of counselors, there is safety. Your role as leaders and counselors is vital to the well-being of Putnham County. As you deliberate today, I encourage you to see this gathering as more than just a meeting, but as a calling to serve with
wisdom, fairness, and a heart for the common good. May this time together, excuse me, may this time together be filled with respectful dialogue, clear purpose, and a shared desire to see our communities thrive from our smallest towns to our largest
neighborhoods. Let us turn our hearts to God in prayer. First, let's take a moment. Father, and recognize the tragedy of yesterday, the family that suffered the houseire, but a greater loss than that. We ask you, Lord, that in the
coming days that you will bring peace to this family, those that love them, provision for every need that they have and guidance in the days forward. Heavenly Father, we come before you today with grateful hearts, thankful for the blessing of living in this
beautiful county and serving its people. We ask for your guidance upon this board of commissioners as they deliberate and make decisions that shape the well-being of our communities. Grant them wisdom beyond their own, discernment in every matter, and clarity amidst
complexity. Help them to listen carefully, speak thoughtfully, and act justly. Where there is division, bring unity. Where there is uncertainty, bring peace. Bless all who labor for the good of Putnham County. our public servants,
first responders, educators, business leaders, and every citizen. May this county prosper not just in material ways, but in spirit and in the strength of its people working together. We ask all these things with hope and faith in the name of our savior and lord Jesus
Christ. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. So, I'd also like to remind
you that agendas are on the at the entrance room when you're walking in on the wall along with uh blue comment cards. If you'd like to speak, please turn them in to Miss Ashley at the front. All right, commissioners, we have approval of the minutes from the meeting April 8th. Madam Chair, I'd like to move
approval of the minutes from April 8th. We have a motion, second and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. All right, we're going to recess the B the um port authority. I'm sorry. We're going to recess the BOCC and call to order the Port Authority. Madam Chair,
like to move approval of the Port Authority regular minute meetings, April 8th, 2025. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Motion passes. Item B, lease
extension. Good morning, Mr. Sullivan. Good morning, Madame Chair and commissioners. Uh you have before you a uh lease uh extension uh request from Victoria Marine. Uh they were their original lease on the warehouse. This is the warehouse closest to the water uh
was approved by the board on July 11th, 2023. Um the uh clause included three one-year extensions. They are requesting at this time to activate two of those one-year extensions at one time. uh their lease expires in just July. Um if
you have the opportunity to go by and visit them, you will see it is a uh craziness of activity. They are they have parts of boats. They are constructing uh vessels uh for many local and not so local partners. Uh this
is uh what the port is supposed to be in some part ways and uh they have been fantastic tenants and uh staff recommends that we authorize the extension. All right. Um, are there any questions for Mr. Sullivan? All right, I have one question. So, um,
if we were to extend this lease, it would not, um, impede what we are trying to do as the county moving forward with as far as timeline. Absolutely not. This will not impede any of the improvements planned. U, we work with them on that. Uh, as you know, we are about to start
the design and engineering for the bulkhead um, and, uh, construction. Uh, this would not affect that at all. They work with us and they've been good tenants. Correct. All right. Back to the board for for a motion or discussion. Madam Chair, I'd
like to move that we authorize your signature and grant the extension to Victoria Marine lease until 2027 per the terms agreed on in the original lease agreement. I second that motion. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
All in favor say I. I. All right. Motion passes. Thank you. Do we have any public comment on port authority items? Public com comment on port authority items only. All right, general discussion from the board or is there any general discussion from the board? All right,
with that um we'll close the port authority meeting and reconvene the BOCC meeting. Um presentation by Commissioner Newold. Good morning. Thank you. um have some representatives from uh various historical societies in the county and
they have a proclamation to bring before us that uh I guess I will come down and and participate in the reading of. Thank you. Okay, how about that? This one does not adjust, does it? Can you guys hear me? Okay. Okay. Putnham County Proclamation
number 2025-028 recognizing May is historic preservation month. Whereas local historic preservation is an effective tool for revitalizing neighborhoods, fostering local pride, and maintaining community character while enhancing
livability. And whereas historic preservation is relevant for communities across the nation, both urban and rural, and for all Americans of all ages, all walks of life, all ethnic backgrounds. And whereas it's important to celebrate the role of history in our lives and the
contributions made by dedicated individuals and helping to preserve the tangible aspects of the heritage that shaped us as a people. And whereas the Futland Peninsula Historic Society, the Putnham County Historical Society, the
Interlockan Historical Society, Historic Melrose, and other community groups are participating in historic preservation month during May of 2025. And whereas the Putnham County community as a whole has embarked upon numerous
commitments to preservation, historic and archaeological surveys, nomination of significant cultural resources to the local, state, and national registers of historic places, the protection of traditional neighborhoods, the integration of
historic elements with redevelopment, and the recogn recognition, rehabilitation, and restoration of historic properties. Now, therefore, the Putham County Board of County Commissioners proclaims May 2025 as
Historic Preservation Month and calls upon all the people of Putnham County, Florida to join their fellow citizens across the United States in recognition and participation in this special observance. Dun ordered and adopted this 13th day of May, 2025.
presentation for you guys. Just formally, I guess I need you to make a motion. Oh, I guess that's up to me, too. I move that we accept this proclamation. I second that. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I.
I. Thank you. You're welcome to say a few words if you would like. Hello, my I'm BJ Lori from the uh Fland Peninsula Historical Society. I'm the vice president. Our president is actually right here, Commissioner Newold. Um but I do want to thank you
guys for this. This is our fourth year um celebrating na National Historic Preservation Month here in Putham County. Um and this is Nicole Grace from the the Putham County Historical Society. We've been working together on things. We were really excited this this
month and this year that we got to present or unveil the first historic marker in Crescent City of a new program that we're going to be doing every year um in May putting a new historic historic marker out. We were recognizing the Hubard Morris House and it's a
beautiful marker that we uh we had the unveiling of and so it's really exciting. So we'll hopefully invite you guys down next year when we have a new one to put up. So, but um it's it's really exciting and I appreciate you guys. Oh, very good. That's exciting. All right. You are welcome to come up
for a picture. And we have there's some other people here. Yeah. Anybody who's with the historical society, please come up. Come down here. Make me Come down here. Make me look short. All right. All right. Next presentation is
Proclamation 2025-028 presented by Commissioner Pelisier. Mine says 29. Oh, 29. Yes, sir. If we could have veter uh representatives from veteran services
and any veterans who would like to participate to please come forward. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, if it wasn't for our veterans, where would we be? They are very important to us. Putnham County Proclamation number 2024-029, Memorial
Day 2025. Whereas Memorial Day is a day of solemn remembrance for the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our nation. And whereas throughout our history, brave individuals have answered the call of duty, placing their lives in harm's way
to protect the freedom and the values we hold dear. And whereas on this day, we honor the memory of those who gave their lives in defense of our country and reflecting upon the courage, selflessness, unwavering commitment to duty. And whereas we express our deepest
gratitude to the families of our fallen heroes, recognizing their sacrifice and resilience and offering an unwavering support of solidarity. And whereas we as a nation, we renew our pledge to never forget the sacrifices of our fallen heroes to uphold the principles for
which they fought and strive for a world of peace and justice for all. Therefore, be it resolved that the Puthton County Board of County Commissioners proclaim May 26, 2025 as Memorial Day in Putham County and call upon all cit citizens to observe this day with reverence and
respect, honoring the memory of our fallen heroes, reflecting upon the profound debt of gratitude we owe them. Done ordered and adopted this 13th day of May 25. Board of County Commissioners, Chairman Leotaa Wilson. Madam Chair, I move that this uh
proclamation be approved. Move. Second. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. If anyone would like to say anything, you're welcome to come to the podium. I think Mr. Donley wants to say
something. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Commander. Thank you. Uh on May 26th at 10:00 in the morning, we're going to have our annual Memorial Day parade in Palaca. The parade will start at 11th Street and go to the riverfront.
Uh we have the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign War submariners, the 993rd Army Reserve coming into the parade along with Qi Roberts band from the high school. So we should have a nice parade. After the parade, we will
have a ceremony at the memorial down in the riverfront like we do every year with the speakers and stuff. And then afterwards, if anybody wants to, the American Legion Post 334 uh 45 Bird Hodge will have open house. The Veterans
of Foreign War post 3349 will also have open house starting at 12:00. There'll be uh food at both of them and the public is invited. Uh thank you commissioners for uh all you do for the veterans. Thank you sir. We appreciate
you very much. Would y'all like to come forward with for a picture? All right. Three, two, Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Commissioner Palisier, and to all our veterans. We hope that you can participate in our um
Veterans Day parade. Um the next item has been pulled. Um the sheriff deputy is not able to be here today. So we go on into item D. James Moore presentation of our fiscal year 2024 audit. Good morning. I'm Brendan McKitrich, a
director with James Moing Company. Brendan McKitrich, they're gonna help me load the presentation real quick. Hi, good morning. Um, so I'm Brenda Mkhitrich, director with James M Company. I'm accompanied by Zach Shafor. He's the partner on the engagement as
well. Um, he presented last year. He's given me the opportunity to present to you all today. Um, the I'll be using the present or the PowerPoint to summarize the items we're talking about today. Um before we get into the presentation, I did want to thank the commission for the opportunity
to perform the audit again this year. Also want to thank the constitutional officers and their staff uh for all their help as well as Matt and Ryan and the clerk's office. Uh there's a lot of work that goes into these financial statements. So really want to kind of give them credit. As you may remember,
we were late with the audit last year really wrapping up procedures in July. There was a big push this year obviously to get it done. So we were able to finish our procedures in March to issue in April. So obviously again want to give them a lot of credit for getting us to this
point. One thing I like to remind the commission is that these financial statements are your financial statements. However, there are some reports that we include in here as audit reports. The first report being the audit report in the front of your financial statements. This was where we express our opinion over the reliability of those numbers in your financial
statements. We do have what's called an unmodified opinion or a clean opinion. and it's really kind of the best opinion we can provide over a set of financial statements. The second report, the single audit report and internal control and compliance report, since the county did have expenditures related to state
and federal grant, uh over $750,000 were required to do additional procedures um and include an additional report. You can see here that there were no findings with regards to that report. The third report, the internal control and compliance report. Um, so as part of our process, we're required to look at your
internal controls and understand it with respect to the financial reporting process. And again, if we had any issues that we had identified, we would communicate that in this report. Again, no no comments in that report either. And then the the fourth report, the chapter 10 550 report or auditor general
report. Again, some more required communication that the auditor general asked that we communicate. Um there is a section in there if we did find issues that maybe weren't internal control issues but recommendations for improvement we can include include in there as well. Again, no recommendations noted in there. And then the fifth
report, the examination report um just indicating that you're in compliance with specific state statutes. So I mentioned earlier uh the constitutional officers and you know how much work they put into it. Um, you know, did want to remind you all we do issue six separate reports that are
included in the set of financial statements and this is really a summary of any comments that we had with regards to those reports. And again, you can see that we didn't have any comments with regards to material weaknesses, significant deficiencies or other recommendations. This is a summary of your general fund fund balance uh over
the last four years. And again, your general fund is your main operating fund for the county. just showing the different kind of categories or classifications that you all have. Uh biggest change here is that assigned fund balance again that's more related to your budgetary process. Um and overall the total fund balance did
increase if you're comparing to last year. Um about six or seven million again mainly related to some of that adalorum uh dollars that increased this year. So looking at this, what we do is we take those assigned and unassigned fund balances and take a as a percentage
of expenditures and transfers out. And what we'll compare it to or benchmark it against is the government finance officers association recommends a minimum of two months or 16.7%. Think of that as a floor. So you don't want to go below the floor. Uh you all are at about 40.1%. And the other
consideration we like to, you know, talk about is just, you know, we are in Florida. We do have hurricanes. Obviously, in the event of emergencies, you want to have some funds to be available to, uh, address any of those emergencies. There are FEMA dollars out there, but, you know, if you're familiar with FEMA, it does take some time to get
that money back. So, again, that 40.1% is kind of in line with what we would want to see as well. Moving over to your enterprise funds. So this again just looking at your unrestricted net position uh for the four funds obviously the new fund being the St. John's Harbor Water. Um, but just kind of looking at the the
changes from year to year. Again, no big changes here. What we like to say for enterprise funds is this is half the picture. The other half is, you know, making sure you all invest in the infrastructure for those enterprise funds. That being said, you had about $9 million in capital asset additions. So again, in line with what we would want
to see as well uh with regards to the enterprise funds. And then some other highlights, your other governmental funds, uh overall fund balance of about 46 million, uh up from last year of about 8.4 million. And kind of noting on that third bullet, just indicating we had an we didn't have
any exceptions with regards to any restricted funds, you know, as part of our our testing that we do over those funds. And then lastly, the net pension liability. So there is a rather large liability that's recorded on your financial statements rel related to your uh Florida retirement system. Again, we
like to highlight this because there's no budgetary impact related to that liability. And really, when we think about the budget, it's just the required contributions you have to make from year to year, which you obviously do as well. And with that, I'll stop and open it up to any questions. Madam Chair. Yes, sir.
Thank you. Could you go back to the general fund uh where the 40.1% u and you made a comment there that the floor is 16.7 but based on her and then you made one comment and I didn't catch that that that's kind of what you
recommend funds for hurricanes I think you mentioned yeah so so with the what we do is the GFOA which is the government finance officers association provides a recommendation for that two-month floor Um, generally what we like to say is that's again that's the
floor. We don't want to go underneath that. But we also want to acknowledge we are in a state that experienced hurricanes and we do have instances where we need funds for emergencies. Um, obviously there is FEMA that's available to get funds to help with disaster recovery. Unfortunately, FEMA is slow to
generally p push those funds out. So, we want to make sure with all of our clients, we're not pushing too close to that two-month threshold. Again, just to make sure that you're able to address any of those needs that you might have. I just don't want the public to think that we're holding on to money that we should be spending. Even though it looks
like a large amount of money, it's really there for us to be very mindful and very uh cautious with the public's money. I remember when I first got here, we were in a I don't know how many years into it, but we were borrowing money from our landfill.
waiting for FEMA reimbursements to come in and that was it was very slow. So, yeah, it was and thank God we had some reserves in in there, but you're right, it it took it. And one other thing I'd like to ask, if you don't mind, um this
net pension liability number, I mean, I face that in every organization I belong to in the region, and we all know that $69.4 4 million that we're carrying is not an accurate number. It's just a number that if everything blew up that
they would ask you for this back, but we'd blow up too at the same time. So, it's not a true number. So, I don't want anybody to think that that's a liability that because some of these other like the regional council, they're carrying it, but it's not a real number. It's
it's just a I mean, it's a number, but Well, and that's why we like to address the fact that because Again, if you were to look at the financials, you see that rather large number. Again, it's more of a practice of what the standard setters tell us to do. Again, we don't always
agree with it either. It's just one we want to address that again, make sure Well, I mean, everything would have to go haywire. The whole system would blow up. And how do you expect the reimburse that happen? It just would not take place. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Are there any comments
or questions from the board, from staff? Clark Reynolds, would you like to say something? Uh, yeah. Just real quick, I'd like to say thank uh Brendan and Zach and Allison and Farah, their whole team, as well as my team, Ryan, and and the entire finance department and all of
my staff, as well as county administration. You know, we worked really hard this year to um to bring it in on a a better timeline than last year, and we did, and I'm very proud of that, and I'm very thankful to to James Moore and staff for that. So, yeah, I am too. I wanted to say thank you to staff
and to um to James Moore and Associates because we this helps us make better decisions earlier on and so not being pressured so much to to try to make them at the end and that's never the best kind of decision making. So thank you for that. Um also just real quick I'd
like to point out you know the zero findings for all constitutional that is something that uh I am very proud of. my office didn't have any, but that's also something that other constitutions as well as the board should be very proud of. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. I think we've come a long way and I'm very proud of our everybody for that.
Commissioner Alexander, uh, this is my first exposure to this and as Brandon was saying, the 16.7% being the floor and with us sitting at 40.1% that makes me feel very comfortable. Um, I the worst thing you can ever have being in
business is playing catchup and not having the um readily available funds to be uh uh have the ability to act quickly. Um granted, you know, we all understand FEMA's there, but that that's pretty impressive, especially in today's
economy and what we see with other municipalities and other counties. So, I'm I'm really happy with that. Yeah. And to Commissioner Harvey's point, um it wasn't that long ago that and it wasn't on our side as much as it was on the state side that we were waiting on federal dollars. Was it up to like 18
months, Administrator Suggs? It was It was a while. And whenever you're out millions of dollars waiting on that refund, you got to have it available to spend for our citizens. Yeah. We We have a responsibility to maintain that agility to be able to act for our citizens. That's absolutely right. Because they're the ones that are going
to suffer ultimately and it's our job to protect them. Yes, sir. You're right. All right. With that, thank you for your presentation. I don't think we have any other comments or questions. Thank you so much for being here today and for your update. Thank you. Thank you. and we appreciate the the the rapidness of this.
And then um Clerk Reynolds, did you want to mention that we also have have done the financial report? Do you want to mention that now? I know it's probably in your closing marks, but since we're here, so the financial report to the state, the AFR. Yes. All of that would have been submitted when they when um But we have them available for anybody
who wants to look at this. Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah. These these um are printed and uh will be posted to our website. Um, I'll make sure the county gets it and gets posted to the website. I believe there's a statute that requires us to do it. So, yes, ma'am. It'll be open to the public. That's not
the caffer that, right? The ACT. Yeah, they call it the ACT for they changed the name. Yeah, the ACFR, not the CFR. So, yeah. Thank you. All right. Next, we have up Rick Paul from Small Business Development Center with an update on the Small
Business Development Center activities. Good morning, commissioners, staff, folks. Rick Paul, Small Business Development Center, 1100 Reed Street. I just wanted to bring you up to date on some of the things that we've been doing. Uh in your packet, you should
have a blue email that looks like this. This happens to be the state's totals for last year. Uh if you look down toward the bottom um in 2024 over a 100,000 hours of consulting time uh
through the small business development center in the state of Florida over 300 million in capital secured over 700 million for government contracts roughly 20,000 jobs 3.8 billion in increased sales and over a
thousand businesses. The state of Florida has been number one in small business creation for at least five years. And I think these numbers, I don't have the other states yet, but I think we're probably right up there um if not number one still. Second up would
be a University of North Florida regional uh report uh for last year. Uh this includes this is an 18count area that runs from Nassau County to St. John through Putinham over to Cedar Key and
then up the east side of the Swany River to Hamilton County and then back to Nassau. Um so 32 million in capital raised, 191 uh new businesses, 38.4 million in taxes. Um
and that uh is pretty good numbers. Then I'm not sure, do you guys have this one here? You've got that one there. Okay. So there actually a mistake or two on here, but this is a fiscal year. So it started October 1st through
March 31st uh of this year. Uh and then that just shows the work that I've done here. So uh for me it's 2.55 million during this time frame. Um as far as capital raised, lots of events I've been holding. Uh actually they missed one on
here, but we will actually have the Small Business Administration uh again uh very soon and I'll get into that. But they've been here twice so far this year. Uh and they're missing the second one on there. So we've held or I've held seven workshops already this
year and I got two more I want to talk to you about uh soon. The next up is what all these numbers mean. You should have what's called a success story and this is a really cool deal. these uh uh three gentlemen, a a father, a son, and
then a a trusted colleague um got together and and formed Sunshine Rail uh service rail cars. So, they repair rail cars, and they do that here in Putnham County. Uh they have a a contract with Simol and in this story, you'll you'll
find out that they started with zero sales. Right now, they're up to 1.3 million and 10 employees. While I was writing the story, they got another contract with Seminal for 2 million and they're in the process of buying a 100 acres with rail spurs and expect to have
50 employees um within five years and those employees will be very high wage employees because they're welders and welders are in demand. So, right now at this point in time with a uh reemphasis on manufacturing in our country, um I
was just talking to our regional SBA administrator on Friday about a potential loan for them and this qualifies nicely. So hopefully that will go through soon. Um a couple of the workshops coming up. One is the SBA is coming back to town. Um the SBA's been
spending a lot of time in Putnham County. Uh so that's a good thing to uh you know help our our small businesses in the area. Uh you should see a flyer for SBA disaster uh prep. Um we all know it happens. Thankfully it you know knock
on wood it doesn't happen to us too hard uh versus the coastal communities and so forth. But uh that would be a a very good one uh for the public to attend and small businesses. Um, the pista resistance is going to be the last flyer
that should be in there, and that is a small business social. I've been holding these uh throughout the time since I've been here. Uh, I had two of them last year. Uh, this will be the the the big one for this year. Uh, very excited to bring together what I consider uh
everybody in the corridor. So, if you look at the corridor, we're east to west traffic mostly, not north to south. So, uh, we have the, uh, county, uh, has agreed to show up to this. The city of Palaca, Hastings, Crescent City, town of
Waka, and Interlock in I was hoping would be here, but I don't think they will. Uh, along with lots of supporting and business resources. So, we have attorneys showing up, we have lenders showing up, insurance agents, real estate people. Um, we got the SBA coming
back again. uh lots of marketing and so forth. So, this should be uh promoted as a one-stop shop for small businesses to encourage the small businesses that are already here to stay here and to grow and to encourage other people who are thinking about moving to uh Putnham
County to, you know, that we've got a great business environment here and to welcome them. So, uh hopefully we'll have a a really good turnout on that. Uh, the last thing I would like to mention is, um, I don't know what ever happened, but it would be nice if
somewhere on the county website that we had a link to the Small Business Development Center. I don't know if that ever got put forth or not, but that would be very helpful to where people could click on that link and then see what our latest events and offerings
are. And fact that, you know, I'm here to help with all the business consulting that you can send my way. That sounds good. I'm sure we can get that link down link loaded up. Not sure what happened, but um first let me say Mr. Paul, thank you for your presentation. Um great
story about the rail service. I didn't even know that. So this is news to me and and um this is the kind of stuff we should be working on and I appreciate the collaboration between you and the and the chamber and the county and the city and everybody working together. I have been to one of your networking um
events and um they are very helpful. There were people in the room there that day that I had never met and you think you know and you don't know, right? And so, um, I appreciate everything that you're doing. Um, can you tell the audience and us where your office is now? Sure. I'm at 1100 Breed Street,
which is the Putham County Chamber of Commerce. Yep. Okay. Just making sure. Are there any questions for Mr. Paul or any comments? Thank you. All right. Very good. Thank you. We appreciate everything. We did not get that one slide that had the the uh pie charts on it, Mr. Paul. I
didn't we didn't get the the one that had the pie charts on it. So, if you'll just give that for We'll get some copies. That's the only one we didn't have. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Up next, we have um Ride Solutions. Mary
Carmen, we're just looking to get an update since the last time when Mr. Thompson was here as to what has what what you guys have been working on since last time because we had asked him some specific questions. First of all, thank you for having me here. I apologize boy couldn't make it today. So, this is me,
Marie Carmen Beltran. I'm the director of operations for right solution. Been with Right Solution now for over five years or almost five years. So since the last time we were here, we are proud to announce that we have resume a partial
service for city boss which was very much needed. uh thanks to the uh a small appropriation we received from the city of Palatka, we are actually being able to resume the transportation within the
city two days a week for four hours. Uh it's not even close to what we used to have, but at least it's much better so people don't have to walk. Uh our first month of service uh was a high success.
we were able to reach 50% of capacity if we compare it to the last uh few months where we had full city bus service. Um the city of Crescent City has approached us to see how we can work with them to
resume the intercity service that we had before running from inner lacking all the way to Crescent City. We have made a short story uh study about how to resume state road 17 corridor from Palaka to
Crescent City. Um it's a little bit more expensive and more uh difficult to reestablish just because that route just because that route is probably four times as long as city bus in the same amount of time. We're still going to
continue to work with them and hopefully uh depending on what happens when the state legislature resume session are uh appropriation is still open in in the in the Senate. So, if we can find a way to
have uh that appropriation approved, that was the one where you so kindly uh gave us a letter of support the last time that will allow us to resume full service in the city of Palaka and the county. Um we have also been working in
the redesign of our boss depot. That was a project that was actually approved by the by the state approximately two years ago. And I do want to thank Mr. Alexander for actually allowing us to contact Scott Nolles in this uh county's
engineering team who has been working with us in facilitating uh some of the technical uh issues uh with our appropriation and with our design uh contracting. Um, so that's what we have
for today. If you have any other questions, I'll be more than happy to respond to them. Sure. One of the questions I think that we had asked last time was, did you were you able to start a voucher program yet? No, we don't have a voucher program yet. Right now, we're still charging $1 per trip. Uh, we do
have bus passes that we make available for those that want to buy them. and we're considering uh discounting some of them for like Heart of Putnham and actually uh some of the other organizations that may need to supply transportation. So that was one of my
questions. So if like somebody wanted I uh you guys are working with a homeless coalition. Yeah. Yeah. So somebody wanted to sponsor somebody so to speak. If we knew that there was somebody in the community who had a need to get back and forth to work or get back to their doctor's appointments, could an individual or a nonprofit or a business
come down and buy a bus pass for somebody? Yes. And actually, some some organizations do buy them. Yeah. So, you can do what, like a $30 one? I mean, you can put any dollar on it or how does that work? Our service is $1 each way, right? So, uh a month pass will uh will
really not be the best way to handle it. Uh what we're doing is we're just selling the $1 bus passes uh on a per day basis and uh we could discount them for those organizations. So we can't prepay for somebody is Yes, you can. Oh, you can. Yes, you can. But we will give
you passes. Okay. So, um each time that the person boards the vehicle, they will just give one of the bus passes to the driver. Yeah. Okay. All right. I just would think that's a big Excuse me. I think that's a big opportunity for not only your organization, but for the people that need services actually does
buy them. Okay. And there's another organization in Crescent City, I'm sorry, I don't remember their name right now, that actually buys bus passes for for some of the homeless in the South Pnam area. No, that's very good information to have. All right. Thank you. Um, Commissioner Harvey, you're recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. Last
time Boyd was here, we had that conversation about the voucher. I went back to my church and talked to my pastor about it out in Interlockan and um you know our church would be willing to put up some money to buy
vouchers and even go as far as to say maybe put up a sign that you know sponsored by our church whatever if we needed to there at the Hitchcock's Plaza. So, I think that faith-based organizational that's out there would be
really beneficial to your organization. I mean, I'm sure if our church is willing, there's many more that would be willing to do that to help out the less fortunate get a ride back and forth to work and and and then help somebody else down the road. So, I think that's
available. So, if you want to get with me later, email me. Absolutely. I'd be glad to get my pastor and you together and but I think that's a good way to sprout out and get those vouchers going. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Um, Commissioner Alexander, you're recognized. Good morning. How are you?
Morning. Good to see you again. Um, have we given any more consideration to I know it's a bad word. It's probably a four-letter word, but uh increasing the rates. You and I had talked about that previously, and you know, my big thing is seeing organizations that are moving
towards more self-sufficiency and not relying on appropriations from the government. So, all costs have increased and we can't continue to carry those increases. Um some of that's going to have to be pushed down the line and to to and to better serve, you know, our
folks in the community. Yes. As a result of having um resumed city bus service, we have considered it. Um the first step will probably to resume fairs in our intercity transportation into St.
Augustine and Gainesville. Uh which right now postco has been free. Um that is our feeder route to Greyhound. Um and we service those areas 7 days a week, 365
days. So once we resume that, we will consider to raising probably to a $2 fair each way for both city bus and for transportation disadvantage, which is probably one of the services that some people in the community do not
know about. Uh we receive a grant from the center for transportation disadvantage which allows us to provide transportation for people that qualify for disability, low income or over 60 years
old and probably more than 50% of the Ponam County residents do qualify in one of those categories. Uh those trips right now are $1 each way and we will consider to raising them to $2 each way.
So you're saying the fair on the feeder route um is free currently or was free at the time? Inter city. Inter city but to travel to Gainesville from Gainesville St. Augustine. Yeah. To get on the Greyhound bus and Jacksonville. Yeah. to get on the Greyhound bus at their
terminal and they we connect with the main Greyhound location in the in Jacksonville and then we also go to what used to be the old Greyhound depot in downtown St. Augustine and the new depot in in uh Gainesville. I'm just trying to
understand that, you know. So I I assume that their their Greyhound ride is not free. No. Okay, that's all. Thank you. We do sell Greyhound tickets. I I understand. But we're providing them a free service to
get to a bus that they are paying for. Well, if they buy a ticket through Greyhound, we do get reimbured from Greyhound. That's what I wanted to know. That helps me a lot. Thank you. So, it sounds like the bus passes is a good option for people to help u with those in the community. I know one of the
things that Commissioner Harvey mentioned and the other time that uh Mr. Thompson um spoke was putting up some kind of a a sign or pickup and drop off sign at the bus terminal at the bus locations because um like out in Interlark where he's given an example if
we and I know the the times change. I get that. So if you put it up today, the board could change it another week from now. So that's probably why you don't have a time up. But what about um I know that you can pull up your website and when you pull up your website the bus schedule's there. Yes, it is. Is there a link or a QR code or something that
maybe we could put the even if it's just a plastic card that says scan this and it gives you the bus schedule or something because I feel like there's a missing link between the people who need the rides to know when and pick up and drop offs are throughout the community. I'm not criticizing. I'm just making a
suggestion. I fully understand our website needs probably to come to the 21st century right now. Yeah. Well, and I saw I I found the bus schedule online. It was no problem. But then if you're somebody just coming up to a bus stop, how do they I mean I don't know. I just feel like there might be a link there.
And then um one of the things that the county has done for u for your organization for many years apparently is been providing uh some subsidy or some funding every year. Um and so what I'd like to see in the future is that we work together on what the deliverables
deliverables will be for that. um uh some kind of a an agreement in place to where at least you come up once a year and give us an update how many people you're serving, what you're doing in the community. Um I'd also like to see um some community outreach as much as you can. I know you guys are small. What do
you have like four people in your office? Uh there's six of us in the office plus the drivers. Yeah. Yes. So, I know you have a small organization, but getting out to um you know, like Bread of Life and some of the organizations where people are um really I mean they have 50 50 to 100 people
show up every day to get food there and so it'd be nice to see if you guys could help connect with them or other organizations in the community about the bus schedule. So, just some ideas that that I had. Um, but yeah, so we just want to work with you in the future and and see what we can do to help you and
then uh you'll work with Julianne or somebody on our staff to come up with some kind of an agreement for the future. Perfect. We'll be more than happy to come next month and give you writership information uh on a more formal basis if you would like us to. Um I think maybe I I mean I know I think
that's what Mr. Thompson did earlier a couple pre a couple meetings ago. So, we don't have to have you every month, but maybe once or twice a year would be great. Not a problem. All right. Thank you. We appreciate you. You're welcome. We would like to present you.
Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Get down. Three, two, one. Thank you. All right, thank you for that. Next, we have uh Lori Parker from HR for employee of the month. Good morning. Good morning. Um, the
employee of the month for February 2025 is Hannah Fowler. And Hannah is the customer service rep for public works. Um, JT. So Hannah, as soon as you come into our office, she is immediately on your right. She does a fantastic job with all of our citizens that come in to pay
their water bills. Um, I've heard her up there before calming residents down, helping residents answer questions, helping them with their bills, getting them on different payment plans. She does a wonderful job as always a smiling face. Um, appreciate everything she does, including, uh, helping with my
Reeba. So, uh, again, just congratulations. Uh, you do a very good job for us and I wouldn't want anybody else at your desk. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. Thank y'all. Absolutely. All right, let's
go here. Some of y'all gonna have to scoot down a little bit. Are you sure? Hey, it's Hannah's moment. That's right. Check out the money. All
right. Thank you for um your patience during these times. Um there's a lot of great information that we were able to share today regarding several organizations and things happening in our community and we appreciate that. Um next we have the planning and development public
hearing. Um commissioners, I would like to request that we pull item B. Um I just don't think this ordinance is ready for uh this LDC text amendment is quite ready for um prime time yet. I'd like to pull it and I'd bring your attention to
page 65 where it talks about staff requce received a request to include some provisions within the proposed amendment addressing temporary seasonal RV occupancy. Staff respectfully cautions the BOCC from adopting such such measures as the implications to the
individual and adjoining property owners may create nuisances andor health and safety hazards. So I feel like um there's a couple things that need to happen before we move this forward. One is I've asked Zach to look at if what other counties are doing regarding this
situation and RVs uh on public on private uh vacant land and also to also I think we all need to look at the code book to see if we are utilizing our current codes to the best of their abilities. So I'm just not ready but if you're ready it'll be at the board's
pleasure. So that's my uh that's my thoughts on Madam Chair. Do you need a motion to withdraw that or just Yes, sir. Uh, Madam Chair, I make a motion that we withdraw the LDC text amendment part of our uh, packet today. Then we'll put it on another board item. It's not that it's going away. It's just moving
it to another board item. I second that. I don't have truly feel that it's not quite ready. Okay. So, I have a motion and a second. Any comments from the board? All in favor say I. I. Item B has been pulled from the agenda and we'll be moved to another. With that, are you ready for
reszone item A? Uh thank you, Madam Chair. This uh for the record, Michael Graves, Planning and Development Services. This is Rez25-0000001 uh for a reszone for Miss uh Kathleen Kelch requesting a zoning map amendment from Agriculture Estate Plan Unit
Development and Residential One to Agriculture Estate on an 18.14 acre parcel located at 205 St. John's Drive in Palaca to establish consistent zoning that allows for development. The zoning uh the surrounding zoning is a mixture
of agriculture estate and residential one. Currently uh the subject site has a future land use designation of rural residential and according to the national wetlands index uh wetlands layer and the FEMA flood zone map on the GIS reference map lands do not appear to
contain any wetlands and is located primarily in FEMA flood zones X and X500 with a small portion of FEMA flood zone AE. Uh should the applicant's request be approved, the parcel will be eligible for uh building and site work permits consistent with single family residents
adhering to the agriculture estate zoning district as well as any other developments allowed by right in the agriculture estate zoning district. Here you can see an aerial overview of the property. Here's the future land use. Here's the
zoning. And it is staff's recommendation to approve the requested amendment from of the zoning map from agriculture estate plan unit development and residential one to agriculture estate. Staff finds that the proposed resoning is consistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the adopted
comprehensive plan and meets the location requirements of the agriculture estate zoning district providing the land development code and comprehensive plan. In the March 12th, 2025 meeting, the Putnham County Planning Commission unanimously voted to recommend approval of the same
request. Any questions? This is our second reading. Is there any questions from the board? Are there any public comments regarding this resoning? All right. Seeing none, back to the board. Madam chair, I move that we approve the reszone
re25-0000001 kelch ordinance number 2025-011 and reading by title only. Second have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose like sign. With that we're going to take a threeminut recess.
Ed. Um, we'll be going into our consent agenda items. Um, public comment on consent agenda items. This portion of the agenda is designed to allow citizens an opportunity to bring matters to the attention of the board. It is not reasonable to expect that the board will engage in debate or deliberation about
matters on which the board has received no prior information as part of the agenda. Please limit your time to three minutes. Public comment cards are conveniently placed at the meeting room entrance and should be submitted prior to the meeting to the deputy deputy clerk who sits to the right of the podium. And Madam Chair, yes. Just
because I may have heard you wrong. I thought you said public comment on consent agenda items. It's public comment on all agenda items. Okay. Public comment on on all agenda items. Thank you for that correction. So, um, with that, do we have any, um, commissioner who wants to pull consent
agenda items? Starting with Commissioner Pelisier? I have none. Commissioner, um, Harvey, I have none. Commissioner Alexander, I have none. Commissioner Newold, I don't have any to pull, but can I get a quick question on one? Um, this is the first time I've seen the
unclaimed monies list and that's a doozy of a list and could somebody just let me know what falls into that and what happens to those funds? Sure. I think that would be Clerk Reynolds. So, um, we're required to do this for
the state of Florida. So, anytime um we have unclaimed money, say for example um we write a check, uh it could be a host of different reasons like uh clerk checks, for example. Ours are typically like juror checks. You know,
people that come in for uh jury duty and they get a $15 a day. A lot of those checks can go uncashed sometimes. And um after an extended period of time, a certain amount of time, if that money goes unclaimed, you know, that that person doesn't come back in and make the
claim to our office to to claim those funds. Um then we're required to remit that to the state of Florida and that's when you can go to fltreasurehunt.org, I think is the website. You can search for your name and you can find any unclaimed monies there. So, um, all entities that do
this, utility companies, everything like that are required to do this. Um, so, yep, it's just money that is that is owed to people that never claimed it. Yeah, it was. I was I expected to see lots of small figures like that, but when you peruse it, you know, there's,
you know, it'll surprise you. There's five digit numbers in there that that surprise me. But, so it's housekeeping on our part that all this moved to the state. Thank you. But it's more it's more than just housekeeping. It's a whole host of things. It's utility deposits. Yes, it
is. Is it abatement money as well? It would be any any sort of money that that you guys or clerk's office, you know, because we we manage both, but any any money that is owed that we have issued a they call it a warrant, but a payment um
that we've issued a payment for. Um as once we've issued the the payment, it's it's you know, an outstanding claim if they don't cash that check. So, I misspoke. So, not not utilities. Oh, it is anything. So, it could be if they were getting a a refund on their deposit
from the utilities and say they moved and the check came to the address and they never got the check. It goes uncashed. That That's unclaimed. Yes, ma'am. Unclaimed money. Y Okay. Thank you. Um, so nothing being pulled. I would like to pull item G. Item D. G as
in good. G is in good. Today's a good day. Madam chair, since no other PE commissioners pulled any items other than you, I'd like to approve the consent agenda items A, B, C, D, E, F, and H. All right, we have a motion on the floor. I'll second that. And a
second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. All right. The reason I pulled item G is for discussion purposes. Um, so this was um Go ahead. Come on up, Mr. Stout. He explained it in his
summary. Uh basically there was a problem with the billing system and unfortunately water meters were read seven days later than usual. Correct. Right. For for the month of March and that's just caused a problem um in the billing and I know that I got some being
in St. John's Harbor I got some calls. Um so could you just tell us a little bit? Yeah, we're just we're in the middle of a transition in our billing system to a new system with Neptune 360. Um, Neptune 360 and AS400 didn't communicate as well as what we were hoping that they would. They're working
out those bugs, so it's working out fine. Uh, it just caused us to read the water meter 7 days late. Unfortunately, what happened to many people is the reading of the meter 7 days later may have caused citizens to trip the
2,000galon mark or the extra 1,000 when they wouldn't have if we' have read them on time. So, in an effort to be as fair as we can to all of our citizens, uh we would like to reimburse the water and the water sewer customers what could have happened in their bill. Okay. Very good. I think that I think that's the
only right thing to do in the situation and I appreciate that. And um but I wanted to say that I don't this is the kind of stuff that I don't know necessarily needs to come to the board other than for information purposes. I feel like this is something that could have been administratively handled, okay? But we've never given our
administrator the authority to do that that I know of. And so I don't know if anybody wants to comment to my left, but I'm I um we're both jumping at Okay. All right. Go ahead. I I'll defer to Miss Young, chair. The fee ordinance is
something board passed and so it as we do next year's fee ordinance for those divisions for which you would like to allow for administrators to have the authority to make the adjustments. we can write it into the ordinance, but as the ordinance stands today, it is a
board fee set by the board and controlled by the board. Yeah. And and I don't mean for for purpose, for clarity. I don't mean just you can just change it at any given point. This was a there was a reason that we needed to do this. This was an error on our part. So that's what you would say even that would have to go
in ordinance. Yes, ma'am. Wow. Okay. You got to love government. All right. That's all that's all I have with Yes, ma'am. with that. And this will be um if approved, this will be moved to a credit on each account. Uh not sending out an actual check to each citizen, but just a credit on their next bill for the
amount. Yeah, that makes sense. The calls I were getting from St. were St. John's Harbor, and they thought it was just for St. John's Harbor, but the reality it was countywide. Everybody was on our our county public system. All right. Very good. Madam Chair, I move approval of consent agenda item G.
Second. I have a motion to second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion passes. If I misunderstood, I apologize, but I filled out a speaker card to speak to item number nine specific. Yes, sir. We just haven't gotten to that. We're on
item seven. And I wasn't sure whether during your public comment since the title says it's as agenda and non-aggenda agenda items. If I was supposed to speak now or wait till 9. Yes, sir. I'm I'm was about to ask I'm about to ask for public cards. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, sir. You're just getting
ahead of me, Mr. Mr. Holmes, are there any p public are there any public cards? Public comment cards. We haven't got to um let me see. I think you had two. There was another Okay, there was
miscellaneous. All right. Yeah. Item number nine. U Mr. Holmes two. Yeah, you're welcome to come forward. I can speak now. Yeah, you can speak now. We'll go ahead and make that happen. My name for the record is Don Holmes. Holmes and Young, 222 North Thirdrd
Street, Palatka. I'm here on behalf of a property owner uh who together with his family owns all of the property that borders the parcel that the county proposes to purchase
under item nine. Uh that's John Browning and the Browning family. Um, I'm here to specifically ask, my purpose is to ask that you continue this matter, item nine, or at least that portion of it that authorizes the actual purchase or
execution of a contract to purchase the property. I'm I'm not fully versed with the entire uh resolution at issue. I was only asked to appear in this matter very very recently late because of and that
that codes the grament of my argument. My client didn't get notice or didn't have notice until only very recently. So I'm going to ask I would ask that you continue any portion of item nine that resolution that requests authorization or grants
authorization to actually execute a contract for purchase. Be very brief. I only have three minutes. I think this is a matter that may may require more than three minutes to discuss, but I'll try. First of all, I don't know exactly when this item was posted to your agenda, and
I would like to ask when it was posted to the agenda and when that was communicated to the public item nine, resolution. It was last Wednesday. Okay. So, last Wednesday. So, when and it was communicated the same day.
Yes. In what fashion? It was emailed to all the board of county commissioners and then it was posted as well on the website. On the website, I believe that my client is an adjoining property owner. He believes that his interest both as to enjoyment and value will be adversely impacted by this proposed
purchase if we understand the intended use to be to facilitate the expansion of the capacity of your wastewater treatment plant. Now, I understand that there are issues as to exactly what the property will be used for. Some of those
issues may require a zoning change, but if I understand right now that it's only to be used for a spray field, that would require only a special use permit because the property is already zoned uh in agriculture and your code under special use permit for a allows for a spray field. The importance of that is
twofold. First of all, if you decide and you authorize the purchase of that property for in excess of a million dollars, that will be your last opportunity. This is my last opportunity. This is his last opportunity to have a public hearing in front of you regarding the use of that property as a sprayfield because if you
purchase it and it's already zoned a, the next public hearing will be in front of the zoning board of adjustment. And that hearing will not even come to you in an appellet capacity because if there's an adverse ruling there, it goes to the circuit court. So this is his this would be his only opportunity to
speak to you his elected officials his elected representatives about his belief that this use will impact his property adversely. It's interesting to note that if this goes for a special use permit the the zoning board of adjustment has to make written findings. one that the
use will not adversely impact the economic value of adjoining properties and two that it won't adversely impact or affect the use and enjoyment of adjoining properties. Those are huge huge questions and criteria which the ZBA is going to be
required to make written findings about. But in that undertaking, you're going to be the applicants in front of and to an appointed board and a board that you appointed. And any appellet review will go to the circuit court, not you. So why shouldn't my client have the opportunity to address those same questions to the
elected representatives who he trusts to make decisions that impact his property? And that's what he's looking for. I said I only got late notice of this. I was called yesterday. It's important for a couple of reasons. First of all, as I advise Mr. Browning. I have a relative who works in county government. As long as
she does, I vow that I would never sue Putnham County, county government. So, I told Mr. Browning the same thing when he contacted me yesterday morning. I won't sue. He said, "I understand, but I'm in a bond. I'm out of town. I need somebody to at least come up and preserve my right to, you know, to to talk about
this matter in front of the county." So I agreed to do it with understanding that some matters do have to be preserved and whoever he might go to after me if this matter continues might not like or might feel that the things that I preserved weren't the appropriate things to be preserved in order for this matter to to have a full review in front
of the next body that that might look at it. Now let's not misunderstand anything. I'm not here to threaten anybody. But I was looking at my John Deere tractor this morning and on the exhaust stack it says hot. It didn't say I'm going to come over and burn you. It basically was telling me if you touch
this, you it's hot. You're probably getting burned. All I'm trying to do is tell you that there are property owners whose property directly abuts this property. My client being one, there's one to the east. And I would submit to you that I don't think they have had an adequate opportunity to inform
themselves about what this matter entails and to to address you with regard to their concerns. So, I'm asking not that you postpone. You're you're as I understand the resolution, you're asking to have various studies done to decide whether or not this property is appropriate for the use that you want to
put it to. Why shouldn't my client have the same opportunity to have studies done or to gather expert opinions as to whether or not those uses will impact the value of his property? I think it's only fair play. We talk about due process. Mr. Holmes, I mean, you what you're saying is not true. That's not
the reason for him at all. Well, tell me then. Help me. Well, I mean, if you called me ahead of time, we could have talked about this, but I mean, the bottom line is not down until yesterday, but my client's out of town and he didn't get any kind of notice. He didn't look at your website. You could call me yesterday, night, day. You've got myself. But what was I to ask? Well, if
the questions you're asking now, I mean, you had three minutes, but you're way past that. Let me just help you out. Anytime a county purchas a piece of property, I advise all my clients to make sure that you do your due diligence to make sure that it doesn't undermine the value of the property. So, it's not being done for the determined for the
future use. It's being done to determine what the value is. And you're talking about making a record. What's being done to determine the value? Mr. Holmes, we're not going to debate this right now. You've had more than three minutes. I feel like I'm just trying to answer your questions. Okay. Well, then I'm just going to interpose my objection that my client hasn't had an adequate
opportunity to be heard. I understood that you were authorizing contract for the purchase of the property in excess of a million dollars. Maybe my misunders Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe there would have been time to have a more a more uh thorough vetting of this, but I was tied up in commitments all day long
yesterday. So, my client called me yesterday morning and this is the first opportunity. I understand the the predicament you're in, but I mean, this has been talked about at various commission meetings where the need to expand that property in multiple meetings, even to the point where our chair was delegated as the point of contact just to look into it because at
that point, we didn't know if the property owner was even willing to sell. So all of this has happened in public with a pretty good amount of notice since last Wednesday, long before last Wednesday. Okay. Well, unless my understanding is that unless you can
show actual actual knowledge of my client, then you have to rely upon the public notice. I'm simply going to lodge objections. I understand you won't you don't want to hear additional arguments. So my objection simply is the matter shouldn't be considered unless it's deemed an emergency item because there wasn't sufficient notice. Secondly, I'm
objecting to the amount of notice that was provided. And thirdly, I'm objecting because of my client's belief that his property interest, both value and and uh enjoyment, will be adversely impacted by the county's decision to spend a million dollars to buy something, the stated
purpose of which is to expand a wastewater treatment plant on property that immediately adjoins his. All right. So noted. Thank you. Commissioner Paliser, do you wish to say anything? You know, we want to be good neighbors to our constituents and nobody wants to
be bowled over or run over like a bull in a a small pin. Um, I think it might be uh a good thing that we uh table this for now until we can look forward, look through it and and look at all the parameters um of who our neighbors are
on all sides and before we um impose a hardship on them that is going to maybe possibly devalue their property. Well, I appreciate that. I think that we should at least hear this this case. We haven't even really heard it. We I we haven't presented it. It I mean we u Mr. Holmes
got up to speak first and we have not presented this publicly and I think we should at least this my opinion I think we should at least go through the discussions and then if we want to still pull it we can or if we want to table it or if we want to whatever the the board pleases to do but I think we should at
least get to that point. Um with that do we have a uh Mr. SGS do you want to present anything or do you want to make comments on item nine for our new business? Madam Chair, if it pleases the chair and the board, I'll wait till we pull the item nine up for uh further discussion. All right. All right. Let's
get through um we're on item eight. We'll get through our code enforcement um fine reduction request. Morning. Good morning. our very first case. We actually have two cases with the same owner and he's
here. Um, if we could do both of them, do the first one and then do the second one after that. I guess whoever you'd like to proceed, Madam Chair, is is the is the applicant
here? All any applicants for Yes, sir. For which one? The one um the Michael Edinfield. 797 and 663. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Well, 797 and 380. 380. Okay. They're not in order, which
is A and G. Yes, ma'am. A and G. Is that what you said? Yes, sir. You can present those together if you want. He's looking for you. I understand you're looking to me, but is the applicant want to speak about this? Yes,
sir. Okay. So, go ahead, I guess, and present it, right? Yes. Thank you. And let the applicant speak. All right. The address is 302 Oakwood Avenue. Property owner's name is Michael Edenfield. The violation was unpermitted
work. Uh, permits required. The original fine amount was $67,643.50. The Total cost of enforcement action is $1,619. Property owners recently purchased the property. It's now compliant and requesting a fine reduction. If the board approves, we
recommend the reduced fine to be paid within 120 days. Okay. Go ahead with the second one. Does the applicant wish to speak? Mr. Edenfield. Hi, Mr. Edenfeld. Hi. Okay. I bought the
piece of property and before I did, I checked with the county which I've been trying to get something done with this piece. It's next door to my property. I've been trying to get something done for years on this piece of property and I kept I was told over and over it's going to be 30 days, 90 days and nothing
ever happened. and I've dealt with homeless and I've dealt with feral animals. So, I finally purchased the piece of property and I did talk with the county before I did and it turns out there were some hidden cases that I didn't they didn't know about. It's
nobody's fault. It was so old that no one it but when the case come up then this come up. So, I'm looking at way more than what the propertyy's ever going to be worth just to get it cleared off and to get rid of the homeless people.
and the feral animals that I'm dealing with and the trees falling on my property, destroying my fences. So, I've cleaned the piece of property off. What I couldn't get done in five years, I did in two weeks. And now with these higher costs
that's even that I wasn't even aware of or Mr. Moore wasn't aware of that come up, it's just way more than it's absorbent. And I feel like I'm being punished for trying to make things better instead of being appreciated for
making something better. You and you know and really that's you know what I have to say. That's I've cleared the property. I pulled the permits in two weeks. I got everything done and I would like to move forward with it. But this is going to hold me back. It's a
considerable amount for somebody that lives on way less than what that is. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question. Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh Mr. Moore, the code case number ending 797 is for work u permits
without without work without a permit. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. He remodeled the home without a permit. Okay. Um Mr. Edfield did. No, sir. previous owner and then um in 2018 it burned down. 2018 it
burned down and there was another So then that was another code case um for the burnt structure and so it he didn't pull a demo permit and it just sat there you know burnt for years um and then
finally Mr. Edenfield bought it and he pulled the demo permit and he cleaned the property. So, Madam Chair, if I'm understanding right, we're hearing both cases 797 and 380 at the same time today. Is that correct? Yes. Yes, sir. Okay. Madam Chair, I move that we on
codes case 380, ending 380 that we accept staff recommendation of $2,36 if paid within 120 days. And on Do you want to take that in one motion? Yeah, I take in one motion.
Okay. Okay. So, I make a motion of that. I'll second that. Okay. Motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. And Madam Chair, on code's case ending with 797, I recommend zero enforcement action,
$0 because of the other one being as large as it was. All right, we have a motion on the floor. Second. We have a second by Commissioner Alexander. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Thank
you. All right, moving on. Is there are there any other applicants in the room? Anybody wish to speak against anything? My apologies. Madam Chair, seeing no one else is in the room, we'll go through pretty quick. On codes case ending
663, staff recommends $1,512. Uh, actually there's a surplus, so still owed is $14.89. 8905 if paid within 90 days. That's my recommendation. All right, we have a motion on the
floor. Second and a second. Is this C? I'm sorry. B. We're on B. We're on item B. We did A and G already. We're on item B. All right, we have a motion second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Motion passes.
Madam Chair, on case number ending in 289, uh staff recommends 2. Well, this one's a little tricky. $2,84. There's some tax surplus lead. Mr. Thomas, you want to recommend Mr.
Moore, you want to Yes, sir. I was recommending that this be wiped away because we received Can Can I address that? Go ahead. There was a there was already a tax deed sale that occurred three two
years ago back in 2023 and as a result of that we received $7,988.99. It is we are past the point where we're talking about returning money to anyone that would have had uh a claim during that surplus deed. So at this point Tom so we really should make
that a zero. Yes, madam chair. I make recommend on codes case 289 ending in 289 that the action is zero. Second motion a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Madam chair on the code case ending
21 staff recommends three. Here's another one. Is this the same? No, we but we did receive a tax surplus. So they got Okay. Staff recommends paying $2,4646 if paid within 90 days. That's
my motion on case ending 000021. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Thank you, Madam Chair. On codes case ending 291. Uh again, this is still another one
still due at $2,31722 if paid within 90 days. Is that correct? Yes. Okay, that's my motion. Second motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Right. Moving forward.
380 is done. Madame chair on codes case number ending in two 291. The last one was 291. So for clarification, case number 2017- 000291. Thank you. Go ahead. We have two of them. Yes, sir. But I
just clarified it. Okay. So staff recommends $2,268 if paid within 180 days. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. That's my motion. Second. We have a motion, a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I.
We done. We did 38. Now we're on H. Yeah. Okay, madame chair on codes case ending with 0000008 Stephen Coen staff recommends that we requesting approval for crime
reduction uh from the tax surplus. That's going to it would pay it completely. Yes, sir. We received $5,649.30 and the total cost for enforcement action was 2012. So the the the rest we would have to send back to
the court. So we accept that we accept the fine reduction of $2,12 out of the 564930 that was already we already have. Yes. That's my motion, Madam Chair. All right. We have a motion. Second and a second. All in favor say I. I.
Sorry. Was there any discussion on that? Okay. Go ahead, Madam Chair. Ending in 673 case number. Uh this is a simple one. 1926 is recommended if paid within 90 days. Second. Have a motion and a
second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. U. Madame chair, this is um codes case ending and 631. This is um another tax surplus. So we'll be taking our 1740 out
of the 259437. Is that what I'm reading? Right. It would pay the total and that money will go back. Yes, sir. And the rest will go back to the Yes, that's my motion. Second. You have a motion. Second. Any
discussion? All in favor by saying I. I. I. All right. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Going into item number nine, new business, administrative purchase of property adjacent to the wastewater
treatment plant. So, um what we had previously discussed was moving um having discussion with the land owner and we did that on March 6th. Um we went up and discussed some options and um
they've given us a a purchase price based on a subject to an appraisal. Um seller shall pay its attorney fees and expenses to clear title. Buyer shall pay all closing costs. Everything's within your within your um packet on page 260.
Um this is not the purchase and sale agreement. This is the terms of which the this adjacent owner this adj this adjacent owner would be willing to move forward. He this property is surrounded on two sides. It's contiguous to our
current plant on two sides. Um Mr. Harvey, would you like to speak first? Yes, I would. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few questions about this. Sure. Number one, I really I'm I'm glad that we have entered into a conversation. We all know how important
expanding our wastewater is in this area. I do have a couple questions though. On the offer that was the email that was brought back to Mr. Suggs, it says number one line was subject to the approval by the Rineer SE senior management. Um I think we need to know
if that has happened on the purchase price. still a little confused on subject to the appraisal. What does that mean? Um and then I don't like some of the 75% of surface mineral rights. I don't know all that. So I would ask Mr.
Commando um you know what are we getting? I I like to buy the car and know that I own the car. I think that's just how I feel about it. But um we do need this area. Um it's very important to our expansion
and I have well go ahead Mr. Commander, I don't need to. So, some of the questions I have are that so there are a number of times where property owners when they sell a property will reserve the mineral rights. You see it actually all through
our county, Klay County, Baker County, Bradford County. Um there are generally provisions that prohibit ejectment, meaning that they can't come in and tear down your buildings in order to um avail themselves to whatever property rights are. But um it's just one of those
aspects of a purchase and sale that are often negotiated. Sometimes they can be bought out. Um but you're correct in observing that it's not complete fee simple ownership of the property. Okay. Okay. To follow up a little bit on that, the um the purchase price when we get to
that point, right now we're looking at spending almost a million dollars of of county money to enhance our facilities out there or 175 acres approximately. Right. Exactly. But um when we do our due diligence, what if
we find that some of this area isn't suitable for what we need? um what goes on I mean are is is this going to come back to the board at that point after we do our due diligence and see what our footprint looks like or what do we want
to use it for? Is that the area the time frame that the public has to speak when they're doing due diligence? What tell me more about that process if you don't mind. So the public can speak at any point in the process. I mean they can speak at meetings even when it's not on
the agenda. They can come speak to you personally. They can letters, emails, phone calls, but if there's something that comes up in a due diligence aspect, then at that point it comes back to you because then you would decide whether or not it still serves a public purpose as to whether or not you wish to purchase
you as the county wish to purchase the property. So, if if let's say for example that just uh pick a pick a number of one of these bullet points that a commissioner or all the commission didn't like. Um is that something that would be tied
up in our due diligence at that point? I I'm sorry. I don't know what you're asking. Well, I guess what I'm saying is we're going to go forward with it today or we're going to talk about this. This is the first time we kind of got this out there. So, we're going to talk about it. My question is, is this going is
this ever going to come back to us and say, "Yeah, the 75% mineral rights, that's going to go away. It's going to go down to 35%." Or is this the offer now on the table and we can't counter off it offer it during our due diligence? This is the offer on the
table. You could counter offer. Um I don't know what the seller would look at at that point. Well, I mean, they're they're subject to approval by their management, too. So this isn't the final final that they're offering us. Correct. Correct. Okay. That's correct. So yeah,
if if we were to enter into a purchase and sale agreement, of course, it would be subject to an appraisal and to approval by the board of county commissioners at a future date. Um the appraisal subject to appraisal is standard procedure for um purchasing public lands. That's that's pretty
standard in in um purchasing anything and just into industry of course. Um Mr. Suggs, you're you're recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of things uh to address a couple of the comments that were made earlier
today. I verified that the agenda went out at 3:42 on Wednesday afternoon and prior to that, it also gets uploaded to the website. So, notice of the uh intent to put this on the agenda went out as early as 3:42 last Wednesday. Okay. So,
just just for clarification and secondly, as we were uh over here discussing looking at the GIS map, staff pulled up the maps and it would appear the way the property is located in the potential purchase of the 175
acres, the majority, if not all of the property surrounding would still be owned by Rayaner. uh we're cutting a piece out, right? We're not buying all the way to the property line. So, there's still quite a bit of property that surrounds that purchase that is still rear property. All right. And can
you um we didn't have really a presentation, but could you or or Mr. Grimes or someone over there explain to us and to the public what the purpose of this is? Give us some why is it that we need this? Sure. So, uh, as we were
challenged by the board, um, as we were starting to reach capacity of the sewer plant, we were or wastewater plant, I shouldn't say sewer, wastewater plant, we were given the task to try to figure out how we could expand. Um, we don't have a current reuse system at all inside the county. So, I mean, that option is kind of off the table at the
moment. You have to have an enduser for reclaimed water, which we don't have. Uh but we have been asked to expand capacity whether through approval of you guys by development orders that require us to increase capacity in this in the sewer or wastewater facility. So we
started exploring um options. We are um currently in our facility are limited to 300,000 gallons a day of treated affluent. Um um I talked to Mr. Jackson last week. Um he had seen 180 to 200,000 gallons a day that had flowed into it.
So we're starting to get into that upward capacity without any further development along the 207 corridor. Um some other projects that are happening in the East Palaca region. So we started um looking around uh it took us 6 8 10
months to get through the right chain to get into Rayanir. Uh thank you to the uh Chamber of Commerce for helping us get there and finding the right person to speak with. So we said and I talked to Mr. in his best guess at the moment would
take about 75 acres of land to make a spray field. Okay. The purchase of the 175 acres came from a couple different approaches, right? So, one of them being we don't have a lot of green space in East Palaca as a whole. um to
go from a sports complex you had to either travel to Triangle Park and north side of Palaca or to the South Putham youth sports complex. So it gives us a little bit of future use not only as a sprayfield or or um affluent, but we
also could use it for park space. We could use it for trail space. We could use it for multitude of things. I would never in the day one think we'd be anywhere close to that property line. I mean, the original goal that we tried to work out was using most of it underneath the power line that is um owned or
leased by Florida Power and Light. So, I I think we had already and from our staff level had already considered a buffer in the area. Um nothing's really going to be added to their I mean the affluent treatment if you were look at the aerial map if it was available.
Everything is designed to build away from that property. It goes the other way. So, this would only be a a spray field much like the city of Palka has. The city of Pala enter entered an agreement on a 200 acre spray field right off of Lundy Road. You haven't seen any issues. You haven't heard of
any complaints of that sprayfield. Uh and it's been in use for 10 years. Um so these things are they they use them regularly. Um the golf course at Palaca uses it to to to irrigate the golf course. The Oaks golf course and Futland
uses uh reclaimed water to water their golf course. There is a couple things as Mr. Nolles has pointed out. Some things you can't use it for. You can't use it for for dairy cattle. You can use it for sod production. You can use it for hay production. You can use it for beef
cattle grazing. There's a lot of things you can do with with the spray field, right? We can't put it on human consumed foods. So, there are some limitations, but I don't see us where we're going to have an obnoxious odor. I don't see where we're going to be a bad neighbor. The other thing we need to keep in mind
is that property since the inception, since the prison was put there in the 50s or whenever it was put there, that property that the current wastewater treatment facility on was a spray field. It was a treatment facility from the prison. The prison had an in-house treatment facility that they treated
their fluent at the prison and they sprayed it on the current property where we are. So the the use has been done on that existing land. So I don't see where we're going to make a huge impact to the neighbor. I wouldn't want it next to my place either. Right. So that's why we
said what 75 acres is all we truly needed by Mr. Nolles's um best guess at this moment. But we could see some future needs for this county. Whether it be green space, whether maybe it's maybe it's a campground, who knows? But that would give us enough buffering area
between the neighbors and honestly the rest of it for the next tens of thousands of acres belongs to Rayineer. Um and they were willing to sell it for that use and be our neighbor, right? And we own the other two sides. So that's kind of where we were at the direction of the board. We are kind of in a spot.
We are as large as we can get at the moment. We have a septic to sewer phase 4 conversion in Dun Creek that we have accepted money from the St. Johns River Water Management District to take this that is going to put us at capacity when those 400 come in. So if we don't move
forward with some kind of plan, my question to the board was be what would you like us to do? Because this was a direction from you guys to to have this. What is a step moving forward? And and to your point, um this if we were able to go forward with this, we would be able to then
offer more options for our citizens that are existing in our in that community in the East Palaca community and surrounding region actually to be able to take their septic off of the river, which would thereby reduce nutrient load. That is correct. And I mean, we've
got challenges out now by the D of nutrient reduction in Putnham County alone. um it's going to continue coming down to us. So I mean at this point we're just ask I mean from from the deputy administrator of that division is I'm asking for a plan you know what what can we do right because we're kind of
landlocked we're at a position now I don't want to kick the the I'm sorry for the terminology kick the can too far down the road because we're at a point now the bid's on the street we have a price back from a vendor to do septic to sewer phase 4. So, we are starting to approach some of our limitations that we have in it plus some other developments
that the board has allowed to come on that we're going to have to take some as a fluent. We're going to have to go back and change their PUDS and all that kind of stuff. So, just looking for some direction. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Alexander. Well, in my short tenure with the county
commission, I have learned to not provide you guys with an unachievable task that has been beaten into my head to work with us and let's work together for a goal. So, I agree that we we have to take action. We we have the expansion
coming. Um, as far as I did some research prior to coming in and the area that's highlighted underneath the uh the existing easement is approximately 50 acres. So based on any um no objections
from FPL, we can accommodate most of the spray fields in that area. So that leaves only 25 acres of this other area that we would have to dedicate. And I don't know what type of ancillary mechanical equipment that we'll need within that footprint, but I imagine
it's minimal at best. AB: Absolutely. So, if you we can take this one step at a time. So, I mean, truly what I would see honestly on that is a center pivot irrigation. Something very similar to what you see in the landscape that's in go down to Hastings now where they're growing potatoes and cabbage and vegetables, something very similar. So,
very low impact to the land. I mean, it's just the the reclaimed water that we have to get rid of. I mean, it's um it's sprayed at our college campus. that sprayed it. I mean, we've had a hookup as far as the Francis ball field. Yeah. I mean, so we've making many steps to where we're not in fear of the of the
the reclaimed water coming out. So, no, no, no. And I and I I think that's an excellent use of that otherwise valueless property property. I went so far as to speak with Zach prior to this and see what that property could actually be used for. And you can't
build anything on it. you really can't do much but just allow FPL access to keep it clean and nice or it's a perfect place for a spray field. So, I mean, I want to commend you guys on that. You're being very strategic with that planning. Yes, sir. And when we talked to FPNL, they they didn't have any objection as
long as they could still have access to get to it. That's kind of why we got away from the the the ribs, the raised infiltrator beds that are there is that doesn't give them a real good driving surface to go on. Otherwise, we could put some additional beds out behind there and have no equipment. Uh but but
getting them underneath their power line would have been difficult. So, we our ask was, "Hey, can we can we do some land application spraying?" And then they didn't seem at the time to have any objection to that at all. Yep. You know, that that was my other question with Commissioner Alexander, will you put that mic up closer? I'm happy people
can't hear you. Thank you. We can't hear. It's it's every time I'm going to have to speak louder. Yes, sir. So, but u no my concern was you know the corrosive nature of the affluent and if they would object to that but it sounds like you guys have overcome that task
and it's also my understanding that once we expand to that point we'll um surpass that million gallon threshold but push which would push us into a point where we'd have to have the property reszoned as a um municipal heavy usage which at
that point requires a 30-foot buffer and up to in addition a concrete barrier wall if deemed necessary. So I mean that might quell some of the fears of the adjacent property owner. So you know I've been
trying to do the research and make you know sure I agree with you. I mean I mean because nobody want you know I wouldn't want that next to my property if my kids were there and I was going to build a home. So, I don't know what his this particular property owner's future plans are for it. Um, I would just ask
that we were as conscious as we could be in making concessions to his future use of that property and we don't potentially devalue that or limit, you know, his use of it in the future. But I like what you're saying as far as the green space. And if I think if there was
some way that we could guarantee that that would be but I don't know how you know again this is legal ease and this would be a rich thing but how would you tie it in that you know the baseball fields or the sports complexes would be associated with that area and not the
waste treatment. I mean I would like to say one more thing as we as we talk about this futuristic right. Yes. So, we could talk about this as maybe I hate to say temporary measure. However, and we could also as time goes by, as impacts come into the system and potentially pay
an impact fee into the system, we start a reuse program where that we run a line out to a incoming subdivision or we're using it for that. And at one day, this potential spray field may become obsolete. We may not need it, but we have to have a backup plan for the days
that it's the wet season or a hurricane came through and the and the place can't take any affluent 100%. So, I mean, maybe one day there's a potentially a golf course in East Black and I'm just hypothetically there's no I've not seen anything, but maybe they could use that reuse or maybe I mean down the road if you think about it there's a farm that
just put a sod farm in on 11 or,200 acres that they can use it that they could use it but it just happens to be across our county line. If we can find a sod farmer right there in the area that can use we have to provide them with provide security desire dispose of that. Yes. No. And that's that's what I
commend you guys on. Every time I I say something about contingency, you guys have already pretty much thought it out. I mean, and the other day we talked about redundancy with this program. We have to have some type of redundancy. Even if we get to the point where we run an effluent line elsewhere and we are use a secondary user, we still need to
maintain that spray field because times change. we have to have the security to be able to provide the services for our client. Um, with that being said, um, we've negotiated this particular parcel that in essence is going to have to be carved out of two existing parcels
um, and the other properties surrounding that. Are we stuck in purchasing that particular area or could we shift it potentially? Because nothing's going to change. We're still going to take the usage of the easement because that's the
obvious place to put the spray field. So, I mean, the only thought when we when we originally thought the whole idea was if we don't include some land right there off of Gilbert Road, if we were to ever make a sports complex or anything else, the only access to the
property at that point would be through a um or through our wastewater treatment plant, which is not a good idea. No, we don't want that. So when we looked at it, their potential easement road meandered kind of back and forth between that that parcel. And that was one of the requirements that that Rayineer had
asked us is we still need to be able to have access to the remainder of the property, which is that that's truly how they get to a large portion of this track is through that road that kind of comes down just beyond the power line there and it it works its way through.
Not necessarily stuck. We just kind of put that L leg in it just so we could have access to a complex of some kind or green space for true road access. I mean because that's the last little piece that remained right there on Gilbert that we had you know them giving us access to. Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
And you know when we people don't know that so this is this is new to many of us commissioners because due to the sunshine law we're not privy to a lot of the discussions that we had. So I appreciate you guys
taking the time to explain that to us and explain it to the community because some of these questions you guys have already answered and know the answers to but we don't as commissioners and that may affect how we make our decisions. So, I want to make sure that I've done my due diligence and ask these questions
that may be presented to me from the community moving forward. Right. Thank you. Um, Mr. Suggs, did you want to go ahead and comment? I have a couple commissioners that have lights on. If I could just briefly, I would like to commend uh Commissioner Alexander for those comments because
he's absolutely correct. Um, and I appreciate the fact that you come in and meet with us and ask these questions. So, it makes it easier in here and you have the information uh that you can take back to your citizens because it does really uh it helps a lot. Uh, but to Commissioner Alexander's comments,
he's absolutely correct in the fact that when we're handled when your staff is given a project and a uh an issue to deal with, we look at all uh parameters of that. we as abstractly as we can. And
one of the reasons why this property uh was looked at in particular and the the layout and the cutout of this property was for those very reasons, making sure that we weren't impactful on someone else negatively and the fact that we would be able to have ingress egress not
only for Rayan Florida Power and Light, but also for future opportunities for your citizens here if we ever did something out there with some green space. So, I do appreciate those comments. Staff appreciates them and he's absolutely correct. We look at all of those parameters when we're trying to
solve a problem. So, thank you, Mr. Harvey. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I just had one question on that. So, if we're cutting and carving and we're drawing the lines, obviously there there's already a spray field. It's within a certain distance from the existing property. So,
do we reserve the right to manipulate that so that they could still maintain their access and potentially move our parcel a little bit further off? May I address that? I wouldn't call it manipulating the line. So, we started
with like um like Mr. Grimes said we started with something and then we realized we needed more um land um if we wanted to for the future of that area for some green space for some other things. And so I don't know that we're
going to how we I don't think we're going to have an opportunity to go back and forth with Rayanir three four times. I really don't. I think that that we pres we we presented something it came and now this is them coming back to us. And so um it does have to be approved. Of course, a purchase and sale agreement
has to be approved. But this is I don't know where else you would move the line, so to speak. So, so I think if we're gonna we either we either are okay with what we have in front of us, or if we're going to go back and say, "Well, we've changed our mind and now we want more or less." I think that's we have to do it
now. I think I'm I'm not asking to change the size. Okay. I'm just asking to move the square. Move the square. Where would we move the square to? A little bit further. Um, on the other side of the easement, I'm just trying to prevent heartburn for the county. You're saying south.
Yeah. Make me get my glasses. Get some googles on. Go ahead. Um, Mr. Grimes, while he's I I just want to I didn't know if we were just with a little caution. Okay. Because when we sat in the room with Rayanir, it was asked at that point, is
this the same piece of property that we've been contacted by from the developers? So the answer to that is yes. So I think at some point we have an opportunity that if we want to control the destiny, we can. At some point
somebody else is going to buy a piece of property that they know it's for sale and then they're going to hand it to us in a basket, right? So I just want to use that as a caution and then it would cost the county a lot more money and it would cost the county a lot more money because that question has already been raised was we were sitting in the office
with Rayineer. With that being said, if potentially this gets tied up in litigation, would that give the another purchaser that time and that opportunity to come in and offer a higher price than Putnham County has pending the result of
the litigation? Well, if you're in the middle of a purchase and sale agreement, the purchase and sale agreement states the terms. And so the terms, that's why I'm asking what the the terms are and if it spells that out. We won't have that in front of us. We'll have that whenever if we move forward today, the purchase and sale agreement would come back to
this board for approval. So, what this is is this is basically if you were and I were in a real estate transaction and I said, you know, this is what I want and you say, this is what I want. And then we say, okay, now we're going to put it in writing. So, we're going to put it in writing in a purchase and sell agreement. that then has to come back to
this board. So once it's signed, the terms of that purchase and sale agreement are then um their their legal binding contract. So if we approve this today, we are committed to this parcel. We are committed to a a written purchase
and sale agreement coming back to this board right here as it says shall be subject to approval by the board of county commissioners. So have have we done all the have we done a preliminary plan and per testing to make sure this is that's what you have the due diligence period for. So we still have to go through all of that. Yes sir. We
still have to go through that. We have well this is finalized. Yes sir. We would definitely come back before this board the terms of the purchase. So this is if you and I were in a transaction you saying this is what I want. I say okay now let's put it in writing and then that would then come
back. So we do not have a purchase and sale agreement in front of us. We have the terms of which Rayanir has responded to us and said this is what we we want and there are some things that it's subject to. It would be subject to an appraisal. It's subject to a due diligence period. We would do a a phase
one environmental site assessment on the property which is standard. We'd have to do surveys phase two. All of those things that have to occur um we would would do um our best to get done in that time frame. So, are you good for now? Okay. Uh,
Commissioner Harvey. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, what I'm hearing, and thank you for the conversation. I've got a lot of my questions answered so far. Um, Jr., Mr. Grimes, let me ask you this again, and and I couldn't hear the answer as well as I wanted
to. The U Well, no, it's not your fault. No, I didn't get it. I'll speak up, Larry. No, it's No, no, it's not you, Commissioner Alexander. It's um the here here's the thing, and I'll be very candid with you. I took I took a
resident that lives out there that that a few months back and we drove up there and looked at this property and just looking at the elevation, you're 52 feet above sea level at those power lines. Down at Yelington Road, you're about 31 feet. So, it drops off. We know it goes
uphill pretty good up there. Um, I need to know if we can use the land under those power lines. That's always been the question at hand. If we can use that without Florida Power and Light going, "No, you can't." We've got an agreement
prior to this purchase and sale because that's what we're after. We're after the top of the hill up there. That's where we know where we got good quality height up there. So, I need to know that. Okay, Mr. Grime, every indication I'd kind of
like if Mr. Nolles has an opportunity because I mean he's has a relationship in his past world with working with Florida Power and Light and a couple other. So I think I'd like to lean on him for the expertise in that particular question. My only concern is us buying something that we're not allowed to use.
That's a concern that I have and that's only that's a very minor one but that's in the past I have been successful in working with FPL in putting things like spray fields or um retention ponds underneath the their power lines as a
joint use agreement with their easement. Uh so uh not saying that it's 100% that we could use it but all indications are that FPL would have no objections to us using it. we get a joint use uh a joint
easement agreement with them. They allow us that use of that easement uh for those purposes as long as we're we provide them with the adequate access to their uh their facilities, they usually have no objection to it. So, for
example, if we did a spray field up there on underneath the power lines, whatever that looks like, and we ran we fenced it off and ran cattle, for example, somebody contracted with us and we ran cattle and put fence up and put a gate up, they could get through their
equipment. That would be I mean, that's allowed inside that easement that FPNL already has established with Rayaner. Absolutely. Yeah, that's done all the time, actually. That's done all the time. I mean, not to be rude. I'm not trying to be rude, but they what happens is so you have um same thing with the
water management and when they lease land and it it'sn't affected like that. They just have multiple keys on the gate and they're able to access it. But yeah, you can you we can work through that and and I think that would be through during our due diligence period that we would resolve those issues as well. So my
final question then, so the purchase and sale agreement will come back to us. Yes, sir. at a time. When that comes back to us, it's going to be subject to the approval by the Rayineer senior management and it's going to be subject to approval by an appraisal. If the
appraisal says the property is less per acre, then that will be we have to take that into consideration. That's all I need to know. Yes, sir. We would we would be and um Mr. Commander, if you want to chime in on anything um if I'm not speaking correctly, but yeah. So, there it says right here, purchase and
sale agreement to be prepared by Rayanir's legal department. Now, I can assure you that Mr. Commando is also going to review that purchase and sale agreement before it comes to this board to make sure that our best interest is in is is being handled. Do you have any other comments on
that? There's a lot of things that have been going on this point. So, u to answer Commissioner Alexander's question about whether or not we could ensure that it's used for green space or a park at the point where you own the property, yes, you can record deed restriction
that um makes it in perpetuity, a park or some other type of purpose that you see fit. Uh there was some talk about kind of adequate notice. You know, as as you all know, you sit in kind of two different type functions. you sit in the function oftentimes in a quasi judicial
where you make exparte disclosures and you're sitting kind of like a court or a judge would. That's not what this is. You the secondary way that you sit as a commission is in a as a legislative body. So your legislative decisions require reasonable notice which was provided today just so there's no
confusion about that. And then madam chair as you discussed it's going to come back before for final approval should we get to the point where there is a purchase and sale agreement. Yeah. And one thing I know about real estate, and I know all of you all have have had your own set of transactions over the years, if you don't do things in a
timely manner, the next buyer will. Commissioner Paliser. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I agree with you about the timely manner. U absolutely. Um, I agree with Mr. Holmes in that u in my opinion, less than seven days is not
adequate notice. That's I'm just sorry. That's just the way I feel about it. You can giggle if you want to, Mr. So, but that's the way I feel about that. That is not what that was intended for. So, I you know, I apologize if that's was context for what you thought that was. Um, but I think seven days is not less
than seven days is not uh adequate. Um, you say we already bound bounder this existing property by two sides. Is that correct? Yes, sir. That is correct. This is us right here. All right. Where's the other two sides? Is there is that a possible option of of a direction we might go of property that could be
purchased? Well, to say, excuse me, just a second. To say that I'm very familiar with Gilbert Road is a grossly understated. I know where Gilbert Road is and what arounds it. I can't tell you anything. Yeah. So, to
the be back be to the west side of it is residential property that the that I think the Gilbert family lives on. Um to the east would be the property that we're looking at. To the north is Gilbert Road. So I mean there's really unless we try to procure the land
between the Gilberts and the plant which I wouldn't suggest. I mean because that's I mean that is also held by Rayaner. Um a small portion of it. I mean we own some of it outside the fence but that's the only buffering between the residential neighborhood and the current plant. So I we are kind of in a spot where the only true access we can
get in is on that east side without coming through the plant. We don't have a northerly access because that is the road coming in. Right. Uh, so trying to go across the road, it gets in. I mean, it's truly almost some uh wet property, which would kind of defeat the purpose of trying to do any type of percolation
as Commissioner Harvey had mentioned that it was kind of rolling downhill there and that property does get a little wet towards the towards the Yelington roadside. So, we are kind of locked into that air that making access into that side without coming through our plant. All right. Um, next question.
Um, we're purchasing 175 give or take. Um, and we're only going to use 75 of that. Is that correct? Yes, sir. That was the original because we originally talked about there's a 84 acre track right behind the the the plant. And that's what what the original thought was. Um the but we said, you know what,
maybe we do need some green space. Maybe we need to think in the future of this piece of property. And that's where the additional 90 acres came from, which would probably be that piece on the east of the of the property. I mean, it would make much more sense for operational wise is to use the property coming out
of the south to be whether it's beds, whether it's a spray field, all that stuff's yet to be determined. Um, which one's going to work best in that situation. I mean, we turn that over to professional engineers and let us know what the best bang for our buck is, but I mean, I truly never anticipated us
having to talk about the sprayfield or affluent on the easterly portion of this property. That to me from when we started talking about it honestly today can stay in trees. It can stay green space until we're ready to do it. I mean my whole thought was if we could find
somebody that wanted to produce sod right there is let them start growing you know put some stipulations on them. Tell them say hey we want you to grow sports turf Bermuda right here on the side of the thing so when that day when the day does come that you want to put your sports complex in the the the grass is already there. Right. Right. Um I
think there's a long-term partnership we could enter. I mean, the farm does it right there at the city of Pala. They grow sod every day right there off the side of Lundy Road. Um, so I thought it was just a reasonable use of that property. My my next question, this is probably a question for the surveyor,
but how many feet are we thinking that beyond our usable 75 uh acre parcel is it to the neighbor's boundary? Um, just by just an eyeball look at the aerial map, Miss Young can probably put a quick
I mean, we can get you to a real close ballpark here in just a second, but I'd say well over 1,000 ft and and it's it's 3100 92 feet to the closest property boundary from where we'd start our spray field. 31 That's over a quarter mile.
That's over a half a mile and it's 2700 2700 at the closest. That's over a half mile above field to the actual property owner from what we would actually be using. Yes, sir. So yeah, based on what Scott was saying and the conversation that I had with Zach, that area
underneath the power lines is about 50 acres. So we're going to need an additional 25 based on Scott's estimate, just shooting from the hip of additional property. So, I mean, you could probably get it done a lot cheaper, but if we're going
to make provisions for future expansion and future green space for our communities out there, but you know, obviously the existing property owners have rights, too. So, we have to be conscious of that. And it doesn't matter if it was here, there, anywhere else. I wouldn't want that next to me right a
button on I understand Mr. Grimes and Miss Young's and you know if we had some way to make provisions that we could we could guarantee that I'm I'm good with it. I just I wouldn't want that but onto my property. Right. I understand. And so um like we've discussed the whole
property will not be utilized at first and it's surrounded by Rayaner property. It's completely surrounded other than the county's portion. the the best we can tell when Miss Young pulled up the GIS with a footprint that is currently on the on the agenda here
this morning. Rayire does call on the surrounding property. That's correct. So, um there's trees there now. And I would and I would say regardless of how this goes, please um I didn't do it until recently. Go out and look at this um facility. You will be completely
surprised at how well it's being run and what we have already in place. Yeah, they're doing a great job. And everybody up here at this das knows that we need the expansion. We got to make it happen. We just want to make it palatable for the community. M commissioner newbold, you're recognized.
Thank you. I appreciate the staff's um foresight and and ability to to um secure the possible purchase of the property. I think it's a a good fit. Um, I look at it from, you know, put my
county commissioner's hat on and, you know, I'm a property owner in Crescent City and and I'm sensitive to, you know, what could potentially happen next door to me. Um, so I I look at it both ways and it it seems to me
um the layout of of the footprint that we're proposing to purchase um just it makes good sense. It leaves enough buffer for adjoining property owners. Um, and we have to commit to that as as
as good neighbors, but it it gives us plenty to work with there. Um, I hear or on the campaign trail heard a lot of, hey, our our neighboring counties haven't planned well enough for growth. They're behind the eightball. Um, I
think this fits right into the to our mandate to to think ahead for growth for the future. um it makes a lot of good sense. Um I think we can achieve everything we want with with this kind of plan. So anyway, that's my two cents.
Thank you. Uh Mr. Mr. Grimes, I would just like to say we we kind of broke it down as what Commissioner Alexander said. I mean, if we added the additional 25 acres, if by your numbers that you talked with us, Mr. Baker was 50 acres under the power line and we
carved another 25 out. The closest at that point we'd be is 1882 feet from the adjoining property line which is well over a quarter mile um at that point if we carved out where would make the most operational sense right behind the plant underneath the
power line. I I think we got a lot of opportunity there and I think 1900 feet's a pretty good buffer. Um, you know, and if you guys put a restriction on it down the road that says, "Hey, we're not going to develop within, you know, the fluent spray fields are going to be within x feet of the property line." Okay. I mean, we're not there. I mean, by the time you max this facility
out, as Commissioner Alexander and the staff talked yesterday is we probably need to be looking at a redundant plant somewhere else other than Gilbert Road, right? So, where so you could have an opportunity to shift and maybe this isn't the final resting place for a long-term facility, but I mean, it's
what we have at the moment that works. that's functional, that's buildable, that you can still build on and has some room for expansion at its current location. Um, as times grow and we get bigger, I mean, your larger counties, municipalities, whatever you want to say, have multiple plants, you know, so
when one section goes down, they can divert the affluent flow into another place. you get much more than a million gallons a day of affluent flow, you probably need to be looking for somewhere else to send it in case something was to happen to that particular plant or a portion of that plant so that you don't hit that 100% capacity in into an area to where we
have the operational ways to move things. We have to plan for our future because the future's in front of us. Um, if we don't if we're not putting those moves out there, we're going to be like the other counties that made mistakes. And some of their mistakes were they let the developers put the the the the plants in and then the counties had to go back and overtake them as we've seen
in two instances in this county. Yeah. Um, I think that's a bad precedence to set to let the developers come in here and put the cheapest possible plant in there and then get the best use out of it and then hand the keys over to the county and then we're have required to go put a million dollars worth of infrastructure into it on the backs of
every taxpayer in this county and then then what at least right and then I mean I think we have to look at these things and I don't I mean it's the easiest thing today is said the developer to just buy the plant and just just you know here's the operation but somebody's got to take it and I think this board is well aware of what happens when somebody
walks away from a plant. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're still paying the price for that. Right. Commissioner Alexander, thank you. J, with what what you guys have told me regarding the ability to do, for lack of a better term, a deed restriction on the placement with the
site plan of what we're going to use the property for and where it's going to be put. That helps me out a lot. A lot. Thank you guys. And I I applaud you for the foresight. We all know that it's coming. We don't want to end up like Elatchua County or St. John's County and we don't want to assume the
ownership of the um the failing standard systems because um we've already been to those meetings and had to you know tell the client or the constituents why it's like it is. So it's not a good position to be in. Thank
you guys. All right. Um anybody else? I know we had some commissioner take a break. Um the only that I would say regarding our offer is I would like to if we were able to move forward do a due diligence period of 90
days if that's possible. If it's going to be a make or break then I would say that that's fine. We'll stick to 60 and ask for an extension. But I am concerned that the amount of due diligence that we have we might not be able to do it in a 60-day period. That's my com comments. But um I've got to get a commissioner
back to the board. So at this point we'll take a threem minute recess. Okay. meeting. Just for clarity, um this agenda item is on the website and electronically, but we're all old-fashioned and we like to see paper.
That's the way we roll. Anyway, um back to this uh item, administrative purchase of property. So, we have discussed this. Uh my comments are simply that this is good growth management. I know a couple of you guys have talked about that already and this is about building a future for our community. We have to
have opportunities for um expansion in that area. Um expanding capacity in that area for our wastewater is a necessity that we're going to have to have. So um with that
being said, back to the board. Any further discussion? Madam Chair, am I allowed to ask any further questions for clarification or make any comments? I'll allow you. Yes, sir. Very quickly, do I understand? Make sure. Do I understand
that if you vote to move forward today, that will not be final decision to purchase the property. It'll be based on whatever the recommendation is, whoever makes the motion. So, that motion has not been made yet. Okay. So, it Okay. So, the motion will determine whether or not this is your final decision. Yes,
sir. That was true. Okay. Um, all right. Then all I will say is that you had a great discussion up here. Very intelligent, very informed. I only wish that my client had had the opportunity to participate in that before today or even fully today, which he didn't. 3
days notice is not adequate notice with all due respect in in in our in our in our opinion. Having said that, um, we we hear you when you say that you're it's possible if you're only going to use 50 acres under the power line and 25 more
to use a small portion of this property away from my from my client's property. It's possible, but whole idea is that he has to trust you and all future boards to do that on your own. He doesn't have the ability to ask for any safeguards or
shities from his perspective or any any of the other property owners. And finally, I guess something that's painfully I think he may. It depends on what the what the motion is. I think he may. He may. And and what finally I'll I'll I'll say is that
uh it's it's painfully obvious that some more conversation might have produced some clarity in that. I just got a call from my client who indicated that he disagrees very much with the contention that he doesn't have property that borders immediately borders the track that you're buying. I don't know if he's
right. I don't know if you're right, but it is his firm contention based upon the map that he has of the property you're purchasing that he borders that property on its northern boundary. I don't know, but that's the kind of conversation that could be had, you know, had there been a
conversation before this reached this point. So with that I have nothing further to add. Thank you. Was there is do you have that map in front of you? I can only rely on GIS. I do not have legal property records. Um GIS refers
appraisers office is what you're looking at. Yes. So GIS um indicates that there is a 100 foot piece of property owned by um Florida Gas Distribution. Thank you, Commissioner Alexander.
um that is immediately adjacent to the parcel line that's proposed. And then on the other side, so that strip that goes through is the client's property line according to GIS. But again, I I do not
have legal property records. I have GIS mapping. All right, that's fine. Thank you for the clarity. Um Commissioner Alexander, uh to Mr. Hol's point regarding the u planning and use of that property. If we were to set in some
covenants regarding the property, would those be maintained in perpetuity or is that something that can be changed at any point at any time by future commissions? I guess that'd be a question for Mr. Commando.
It it depends on what the restriction is, but generally those especially ones that deal with parks, green space, those things are generally in perpetuity. And and when you purchase land for public use, it's for public use generally. Um and also, uh another
question, um Mr. Commando if uh since we see a need in this area for future expansion if we had to go down the road and I'm not recommending that we do but do we have the ability to do eminent domain and I'm
not saying that we are doing that in this situation however um do you understand my question I do I mean there's always an ability to proceed with eminent domain it's just at least in my experience it's um unbburdensomely
costly. There's there's not a benefit to doing it that way, right? And so we and that's not something that we want to do, but I want I just want to make sure that um you know, when we're talking about utilities, usually when you have needs for utilities, they have the ability to do some things in the future. All right.
So, with that, we're back at the board. Um is there a recommendation, Madam Chair? Yes. I'd like to make a make a motion to authorize the staff to negotiate the buyell agreement and engage in preliminary action steps needed to ensure the land is
suitable. Surveys, environmental studies, and other related services needed to fully vet the land to ensure its suitability for the county needs with a 90-day due diligence and bringing that back before the board. So, subject to approval by the board of county
commissioners. Correct. for the purchase and sale agreement. All right, we we have a motion on the floor. I would second that. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? All right, hearing none, we'll call for the vote. All in favor say I. I. I. All
opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. All right, moving on to public comment on miscellaneous items. This portion of the of the agenda is designed to allow citizens an opportunity to bring matters to the attention of the board. It is not reasonable to expect
that the board will engage in debate or deliberation about matters on which the board has received no prior information as part of the agenda. Please limit your time to three minutes. Public comments are conveniently placed on at the meeting room entrance and should be submitted prior to the meeting to the deputy deputy clerk who sits to the
right of the podium. Um, thank you um for um your um patience in this. Um, we'll hear from Connie Benham. If you'll come to the podium and state your name and address for the record. Thank you, Miss Benham, for
being here today. My pleasure. My name is Connie Benham. I live at 117 Musket Drive. Um, first and foremost, ma'am, you remind me of Lori Lori Ber and up in Jackson. She rocks.
Okay. Okay. Look, um, first, uh, I want to thank you for the VSO, the veteran service office that's over here that the county pays for. Yes. I'm grateful because they have really come through for me. They've made a difference in a lot of people's lives. Thank you. Do you know there's almost seven There's 7,000
vets in Putnham County. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Listen. Um, so I I live in the St. John's River Estates and and you guys probably don't know where that's at, unless of course you know Musket Drive and it has little to show
for the 50 years that it's been there. So I I want I want to ask I I have a brickandmortar home and I paid almost $2,700 in property taxes for a half acre one and a halfbedroom home.
Now, I'm aware of the other discounts that I can get or pursue. Some I'm not old enough for. Um, some I can do as a veteran, but at no time ever should a small halfacre pay $2,700. That is just crazy to me.
Part of um what I would like to talk to you about is there was an article in the Putnham County paper February 20th 2025 and it talks about the Senate unveils rural renaissance plan and I think
that's awesome. And somewhere in there I want to see Satsuma. I would like to see a grocery store in Satsuma. I would like to see you know it talks about the veterans with house Uh, you know, well, hospitals
and attract doctors. You know how hard it is to find somebody up here for the VA. Mhm. I got to go to Gainesville. I got to go to JS Ocala. Oh my god. Get them in. Speak for us. Do you use the clinic that's here in Putham? Um, I
haven't had the opportunity yet. Um, it says here to um do uh boosting projects, rural road projects. You know, I live on a country road. Dirt. Be nice to have even some sky. Um,
some lights, some, you know, street lights and some How about pavement? 50 years without nothing. 50% of it towards public safety. How about certifying our fire, our fire uh
volunteer? My insurance would go down if they weren't a volunteer fire department. Um, it says here in the article, envy, you know, Florida is the envy of the nation and we won't leave our rural
communities behind. I can assure you, Satsuma has been left behind. It is not just a place that exists between East Palatka and Walaka, you know, we we want some
attention, too. Yes, ma'am. And and in that, okay, you guys, in your due diligence, let's get rid of the property taxes because I could use that $2,700. Thanks for your time.
So, I will say on the rural renaissance bill that is being championed by um Senate President um Ben Albrittain and when we were in Tallahassee, we met with him fully supported his bill and um however, if you've been paying attention to what's going on in Tallahassee, it's
not going as usual. Um so, it's a little bit um contentious in Tallahassee right now. And I can tell you that all five of these commissioners grew up in Putnham County. We love it. We've all lived in rural areas uh on dirt roads ourselves,
family members on dirt roads in different parts of the county. And um we understand where you're coming from. That's why we're in the seats to try to help this kind of situations. Mr. Grimes, I I would like, you know, I'd like to address the fire rescue portion of that. Yeah, please. And the insurance
and the insurance. Insurance ratings are a five countywide. Okay. And I would like to point out that Satsuma wasn't left behind. Satsuma was the first career fire station in Putnham County. The sign still says volunteer and I and I and I do understand that. But that was
the first 24-hour station in the county was established in Satsuma. So I think you know as because that was one of those areas that is kind of very welled to be able to deploy to a very broad geographic area. It's pretty close to Dun Creek. was pretty close to Pomona
Park. It was pretty close to Waka. So they do they are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by an ambulance and a and a career fire engine in Satsuma. So um that really has no driving factor on your insurance rating um to be honest
with you. Um but we do have a countywide rating that that does play a factor in. Um because a volunteer fire department can get an ISO class one. Um it all is all all dependent upon water manpower and your communication system of which
we scored very well in all but water right as we've talked about this morning infrastructure the rest of it your fire department did well your communication center did well it's just we have struggle in the rural world with water right it's getting water everywhere and it's a very expensive task and we have more water opportunities down in that
area correct that is 100% correct yes ma'am yes and then we in that area we had bought years ago. What was the ISO rating? Do you know? Uh, Satsuma has always maintained a pretty good ISO even underneath the the volunteer system. U SATs Suma, just speaking of them as
general, was a um was a a civil four or five. I mean, it's maintained that delegation. Now, right up the road, and I'm not sure where the because a lot of times, and this happens even in the mail world, Dun Creek is considered satsuma, right? Um so sometimes when they see their bill or their insurance rating may
come as a satsuma address. Now there was a portion of Dun Creek um up till we did our ISO two years ago that was an ISO class 10 which was not even a recognized fire department. So so that may be a portion of what you potentially could see as a savings to your insurance was
when we went through that we went from a 10 just across the Duns Creek bridge down to a five countywide. Right. All right. Thank you for those comments. All right. Um, Susan Epting. Morning. Good morning. Thank you for being here. Susan Epting. I live at 117
Swany Hunting Club Road, which is a class 2 road. And that is why I'm here. When we had the two hurricanes u ended in November, the road was completely washed out. And uh I went to the public
works office. The girls are fantastic. They put in work orders. One work order to bring uh the roadway into driving condition, which they did shortly thereafter. The second work order, and both of these work orders were put in as
FEMA, the second work order was to do a drainage survey because all the sand that had been on the road, mostly all of it, washed off and it's in the culvert alongside of the road, it's still there
and it's blocking the the passageway of the water into Harvey Creek. So, I've made numerous trips to the public works office to find out about the work orders. I went in
February, no work was done. Sometime after that, the work order was taken out. Um, I went again in March. April, I inquired um with the supervisor and
uh he said that he wouldn't he would meet me. April 16th, I called. He said he'd be out of the office. April 21st, I went there, which is on a Monday. He told me he'd be back in the office on a Monday. I went there and I asked him if
he could come out and look at the road and see what I'm talking about because the water if when hurricane season is again, that water is is going to wash out the road again. It's already started with the heavy rain we had the last few days. So, he told me he'd be out that
week. He hasn't come out and he hasn't called me back. So, I'm here to ask if you can please have someone come out and look at the drainage along that road. I asked Steve when I spoke to him
on the 21st, I said, "What are we supposed to do? What's the resolution here? Do we just call up and you come out and you dump more sand every time it washes out?" And he said, "Uh, he'll come out and look at it, but I'm still waiting." That was April 21st. And, uh,
I need somebody to give me some sort of resolution for myself and the other neighbors because if it washes out I mean we have deliveries of just like anybody else you UPS FedEx god forbid an ambulance needs to get in they wouldn't
be able to because it I mean it was pretty bad so that's that's all I'm asking for clarity you're able to get in and out now right as it is right now yes it's starting to deteriorate along the sides because the water. It can't wash
through there. There's one drainage pipe, but all the water doesn't make it to there. It'll have to come over the roadway. So, I I'd just like somebody to look at it. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Donald
Barber. How you doing? Hey, thank you for being here today. Appreciate it. My name is Donald Barber. I moved to Putnham County in 91. I've lived here, graduated high school here, served in the Army and National Guard here. I
raised a family of two great children here. They also went to school and graduated here. I coached little league baseball and softball here. I currently own a small state contracting business based out of Interlockan that generates roughly 1 million in annual
income revenue. I hire local, I shop local, and I support local. Along with this, I'm in the planning phase for my next home, which when completed will be valued at approximately 500,000 or so. It will be a substantial investment in
this community for me. Several months ago, I came before this board to ask for a fine reduction on a property I purchased where I plan to build my new home located one street over from my current address. The fines levied were due to unpaid code enforcement violations accured by the previous
owner. My request was subsequently denied and I was left with no option except to pay the fines. So, I did my part as a citizen of this county. I paid the fines and moved forward with my plans, which brings me here today.
Meanwhile, as I continue making plans for my new home, someone constructed a tent city in the vacant lot next door to this property. Another individual constructed a hobbit house across the street of what will become my front gate location. What did you call it? A hobbit
house. Hobbit. They power these dwellings with portable generators that run constantly. And let's not discuss the issues faced with the call of nature on a daily basis. Our town has become inundated with tents, campers, sheds, broke down buses, tree
houses doubling as homes. The sounds of the birds chirping have been replaced with the noise of colar motors. The scent of the wild flowers have been blanketed by the smell of burning plastic from household garbage they set a flame once the stench from the mini landfill on their property becomes too
much for even them to endure. I do however commend the architectural genius it takes to design an outdoor shower from a hanging bucket and a used Spongebob's shirt uh shower curtain. It does add an element of pizzazz. As an understanding citizen of
Putham County, I'm fully aware that the code enforcement department is overwhelmed. The Putham County Sheriff's Office is inundated with calls of noise complaints from that delightful sound of generators. I have spoken in the past with Larry Harvey about my concerns.
It was a good conversation but did not feel there was an idea of resolve on the horizon. I also understand as a citizen it appears to not be a concern for this board and I understand that it is but it as citizens we don't
feel that. Okay. The problem isn't in your backyard or next door to your house. It is ours. And I've spoke with many citizens here in this county about this issue before I came here today. I also understand that this issue plagues many towns, cities, and states.
While I don't fault those trying to survive in an era where housing prices have skyrocketed, affordable housing is no longer a viable option. I do take issue with sitting back what seems to be little action to find a resolution for this ever growing issue that is plaguing our community.
And because of this, I have decided to relocate to Marian County to build my house and my business. However, I do have an idea today. Why not allow the people on these properties to have power? Charge $500 for an electric permit to provide a 100
amp power pole. The permit's only good for six months. And to renew the next six months, there will be another inspection of the property to verify that they have adequate service for waste such as portaotties or whatever the county deems sufficient. Verify living conditions are manageable. Ensure the property is being maintained
properly. Inspect to make sure that there are not six cars, four broken boats, and a golf cart hanging from a tree. With this permit request, a waste garbage tax would then be connected to the property to allow garbage pickup each week because that's also been an issue. This helps with the environmental
impact with while sim simultaneously generating additional revenue for the county. Use the thousand generated each year off that quarter acre and invest it into affordable housing options. If we can make this happen, at least it may reduce the
uh code enforcement problem that they're having. And let's not forget the sheriff's office will have time to focus on actual concerns instead of dealing with complaints about noisy generators singing all night long. This idea also allows a pathway for people to move
forward using their tax refunds. They can then get a permit for a well. They can get a permit for a septic. And then they can use that piece of property that they've bought the well, they bought the septic, they've already got that part done. They use that piece of property as a down payment and collateral to get a
manufactured home. Because the problem right now is people can't afford all of it at the same time in a package deal because the value of it doesn't reach the reach the finance portion of it. And and I know this personally, you know, I've seen people go through the same issue,
you know, but if they could work on it a little bit at a time and use their tax money, get the well, get the septic, then take and say, "Hey, I have this. I bought this. This is paid for. Let me use this as a down payment for my manufactured home." Now, the banks will work with them. You know,
um, it's simply about understanding the struggles that everyday families work through. I'm only one person. This is just one idea. May I ask you a question, Mr. Barber? Sure. Um on these uh ones that are in your neighborhood, have you actually called them into codes
enforcement? Why? Because that's the only way we can do something. We So the way the the Florida statute reads is they changed the statute and the statute says that a person has to make a formal complaint and their name and address has to go in the record because the person
who is is is owned the property owner has a right to know who their accuser is. I didn't make the rule. I don't like it. And I understand that. And I don't fault the people for trying to survive and for the people who who live there. That's the best that they can do. Yes,
sir. I don't fault them for that. And and I'm not upset with that part of it. Let's give them power, you know. Let's let's provide them with just a 100 amp power pole so that they can run a light so that the generator's not running all night long. Okay. That helps out with law
enforcement as far as the noise ordinance goes. And then it also gives them a place to live and it allows them but then it also puts inspectors county inspectors on their property every six months to make sure that the waste that they're using because there are there is a family out there they have a port they have a portaotty and that portaotty
service comes out to their house weekly for that. Okay, that can be a stipulation. If you want power, you know, and a $500 permit for six months of power, they'll pay it because it's cheaper than a generator. You know, let them get the power for that pole, you know, to power their tent, to power
their camper to whatever it is, but then also that gives them the ability to move on and say, "Okay, well, I want to do a well." Well, a well is $15,000. Okay, but they save up the money. They get their well. Okay, now that investment is done. Then a septic system. Well, now we have the new septic
systems. Those are going to cost $15,000. When you add that together with the purchase of the property and the purchase of a mobile home, it far exceeds the value of what can be brought in. So the bank's like, "We're not financing you $250,000 on a mobile home that's only worth $110,000 because you
had to add all this stuff to it. It's a pathway forward, you know, but at the same time, it allows inspectors to go out and say, "Look, we'll give you the permit for your power, but you got to clean this mess up. you can't have all of this going on or you can't have this. I mean, you can put the regulations in
there and say, "Okay, we'll give you this." And with that permit, now you can assess the taxes for landfill because right now the people are they don't we had that conversation, you know, about garbage pickup. Okay? Now, the garbage man is picking up garbage from these
people. Okay? They're not getting paid for it. They don't pay taxes for their garbage pickup, but their garbage is getting picked up. Okay? And I want their garbage to get picked up because what do they do with it if it doesn't get picked up? I know they burn it. Okay, how is that good for our environment to be sat out there burning
plastic bags of garbage and and milk jugs and you know it's it doesn't benefit us in any direction. You're not the people are not going to go away. The problem is only going to get worse. The only thing we can do at this time is embrace it, move forward with it, and come up with a plan to help them to
maybe move forward in the future versus just saying you're just not going to get no power. They're still going to have power. It's called generators. Thank you. All right. Are there any other public comments to come before the board? All right. With that, we'll go
into appointments starting with Commissioner Pelier. I I knew you were coming this way. Madam Chair, I No, listen. Mr. Commissioner Alexander always says I start with him for a, so I was trying to switch it up a little bit. Uh, Madam Chair, I have none. Okay. Commissioner
Alexander, quick question. On the, uh, library board, I have a vacancy there. Um, I have a person that has expressed an interest in taking that, but I know some of them they have to live in my district and some of them they don't. Is that one of those? I think that one
does. Laura, do you know the answer to that? I shall find out. Okay. Other than that, I have none. We'll go back to it. Yeah, we'll come back to you, Commissioner Newold. I'm afraid I don't have any. I am diligently working on my last two. I hope to have some progress there, but today I have none. No
problem. Commissioner Harvey, I have none, Madam Chair. And I have none, Miss Laura. We'll we'll try to get out and um look at that Swany Hunt Club Road as well. Um so that was one of the public
comments. Oh, really? Okay. Fantastic. I would like to um appoint Mrs. Oops. Lee Duran to the library board. Did she have any decision making?
We'll have to get back with you on that. Well, we'll get back with you on that, Commissioner. Yeah. All right. With that, we'll move into comments. Um, clerk of courts, Matt Reynolds. Uh, thank you, U, Madam
Chairwoman. Um, I' just like to reiterate again, I very proud of, you know, the audit being presented, um, timely this year and, um, again, no findings from any of the constitutionals or the board. Um, can't reiterate that enough, stress that enough that that um,
that's quite an accomplishment. Very proud of that. And um again, thanks to staff, thanks to James Moore, thanks to county staff, county administration um for bringing that all together this year. Good job. That's all I have. Thank you. Good job. County Attorney Rich Commando. I don't have none anything,
Madam Chair. Thank you. County Administrator Terry Suggs. Uh yes, ma'am. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh great meeting today. A lot of good discussion uh on a lot of uh very sensitive items, but I think good discussion nonetheless. And also uh just just echo what everybody's already said as far as the
audit is concerned. I think uh uh James Warren and company did a great job this year. Mr. Reynolds staff, as he's he's already pointed out, has done a great job. But I want to also personally thank uh our side of the ledger over here. Uh you know, several years ago, we went back and and redid a lot of our
purchasing agreements and things of that nature, uh our policies, and I think you're seeing the results of those today with your second audit. and this one with absolutely no comments on it. So, uh, kudos to staff and everyone who does that. So, uh, I just want to say, uh, again how proud I am of our staff and
and we do have a good working relationship with Mr. Reynolds office. Thank you. All right, Mr. Grimes. You know, if y'all didn't notice, Mr. Grimes now has his own button up here. Oh, and so, so now we get to call specifically instead of just on Julian or Jr. That is
correct. And thank you for the opportunity. Um, Pastor Brunowski hit it this morning. There was a tragedy yesterday in East Palaca. Um, as we're praying for the family, I ask for you guys to also pray for our responders that went there. Um, that that those are
the ones that you don't never want to go to as a responder. I I can promise you I've I've walked in their shoes. That is not the one you want to be at. Uh, but as you pray for healing for that family, play pray for healing for them as well. Um, I would also like to thank all of
our community partners as that incident went down yesterday from our sheriff's office to our fire rescue folks to the neighbors to everybody um that made the best out of a very tragic tragic situation. So, um I would just like to tell you our folks did a phenomenal job.
Uh thank our hospital staff. They did a great job. Um I can't express how proud I am of our um responders. um how professional they handled that scene because that was probably one of you know just the ones you don't want to go to but as you could um just keep them in
your thoughts and prayers and um and um thank you. So um that's all I had to say but I just want to publicly tell them that super proud of them as a as a county department. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Miss Young, just follow just following up on the
audit. um want to say that it it is a collaborative effort between us and Ryan and I work back and forth and um neither side of the seesaw works unless both side of the seesaw works and so um Ryan sat out there the whole time and I just
want to tell her thank you and um we work back and forth and sometimes we both scratch our heads at each other and but at the end of the day we we try to make it all balance and so um it there's an equal importance on both sides. Yeah, we appreciate that. Thank you. All
right. Um, Commissioner comment starting with Commissioner Alexander. Thank you, Madam Chair. Back to A is for A is for first. Well, I'm used to that and sitting at the front of the class. I got to do a lot of that, too, as a child. Not because of a though, right? No, not because A. Just so I could be
within the teacher's reach. But uh um as you guys have heard me say many times, we possess a diverse skill set and diverse backgrounds at the dis. Currently, every one of us is from Putnham County. We like to call ourselves lifers.
And some of the questions we ask may be difficult, but I uh I would like to commend um our chairman with her real estate background because I feel confident in her abilities and her representing us in these real estate
um transactions that we are going to encounter moving forward. And I want to thank her for that. And also, Mr. Harvey, I know you've been working hard in Tallahassee regarding trying to secure the funding for our expansion and also thank you. So, that's where I'm at
today. Wow. Thank you. I appreciate that a bunch. Commissioner Palisier, uh, couple things that I'll piggyback on what he said. having you on the board with your real estate
background. Certainly a huge asset when it comes to looking at things like this. Thank you. That's a that's definitely in our favor. Um, one, I want to apologize for my absence uh at our last meeting. I had some surgery done and um I'm well on the road to recovery. I'm not ready to
run a foot race, but it won't be long. Um, you know, y'all hear me every few meetings. I like to when somebody steps up and really does goes above and beyond, I like to give them that pat on the back. And I want to give Putham
Community Hospital a pat on the back. I received class A5 gold star service there. And I'd get tired of people our hospital this and our hospital that. It was an outstanding experience. They called me the next day at home, wanted to check on me. Um, my doctor was
wonderful. I I can't say enough good things about those people. They really really took good care of me and and uh I have no problem going to that hospital in dire need. Um other than that, I don't have anything else I don't believe. Have they opened the second floor yet? I don't know. I was
outpatient. I was in No, but it's going to be a grand time when they do. Woohoo. If you if you did you get to view that? I took the tour. Yeah. Very nice. We're excited about that. Yeah. Commissioner Newold. Um just a couple quickies that you know we've gotten our comprehensive
financial report for 2024. We just had our our audit results. Um I appreciate the reviewers comments on their relationship with our staff. Um that is important. Um there are times when
staffs and auditors don't jive well and we're fortunate to to have that good relationship and we have seen other municipalities and communities having you know other financially financial reporting issues. We are and we are blessed with a great team and and a good
track record. So um thank y'all for that. Um, I couldn't have I swear I didn't pay Donald Barber to come here and talk about his issue, but that type of issue is is on my mind.
It ties in with this RV uh land development code um verbiage that we're trying to to pull into. Um, I just have a feeling we're going to have more people coming before us with similar issues. And I'm going to urge us as a as
a as a body to fully tackle these issues quickly, care of premises, um the capability of our code enforcement apparatus. I think we've got u leaps to make there and I I hope we'll keep that
front and center of our minds as we run forward. That's all I have. Commissioner Harvey. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um and Mr. Barbara was right. There's no doubt that we see this in every neighborhood in Putnham County.
The problem is they don't own the land in a lot of cases and they're just squatters on somebody else's land. And I I have talked to some of the legislators about changing that law a little bit, allowing for us to go out there and do
something about this because it it really does hurt all of the county. I'm very sympathetic to that. I realized, you know, we started in a single wide as some as y'all did, some of y'all did and moved to a double wide and, you know,
you just kind of grow up with it. And um but right now the prices are so high, I don't know how people can live out there. And but that's no exception. We don't need people uh living on somebody else's land or parking their places on somebody else's land. Do want to thank
uh Matt and Julianne and and Mr. Suggs and all the staff for the audit. A lot of hard years have have paved that road to get to where we're at today. Um, but I can tell you it's it's such a blessing to sit there and look at
all the unmodified opinions on all the constitutionals in our office. And Julianne, I think you said it right when you said I never heard that phrase that a seesaw doesn't work unless both people are on it. But you're right. if I'm sitting there and no one else is on the
other side, I'm sitting on the ground. And um and I appreciate that because it it is it is daunting. It's a task that the legislators throw different things at y'all and have to do it. And um but it makes us better and it makes us more
accountable to our citizens and that's what we should be about. So I I appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. The dialogue today that we had on the purchase of the property, I think was one of the best dialogues we've had in a long time. You know, we are bound by sunshine. We can't go in the back
room and we're not going to go in the back room and have discussions. So, we have them out here and we learn things as we go. We learn that this could be something more than just that. And and but the public doesn't hear that. They hear one thing. So, I was very
encouraged today to start this process and see what we're going to look like. We all knew we had to grow up out there. We all know that East Palaca is very minimal on high acreage property. That's elevation high. You know, we've all been
through the fields when the hurricanes came through and you're driving through water up in your door. We've all seen that. So, you know, this is a spot that we needed and this is a spot that we can grow in and I believe good things happen there at that that location. I also want
to say yesterday's tragedy is a tragedy. I gave a speech one time where first responders rush in when we rush out and that speech will always be a part of me for because I have family members that
rush in when I rush out. I don't know anything to do as far as helping you on the side of the road if you've had a heart attack, helping you in a burning building other than to do what I'm told to do. But I can tell you these men and women train all the time for these
scenarios. And no, they don't train for this. They don't train for what do I do afterward? Do I go cut the property because I need some tractor time or do I go how do I unwind from hearing or seeing what I just saw? How do you do
that? So yes, our prayers should be with those folks every day, not just today. Because again, that pager goes off and they drop that fork and they drop that cup. No matter what they're doing, they drop their family time and they jump
into that truck and they take off and their family's praying that they'll come home. So we should pray every day for our first responders in this county. And u that's the end of my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Um I am not going to reiterate some of the comments you made
um my fellow colleagues. Um but I certainly um agree with with everything that was stated today. A couple things I want to talk about. Um you know, we're going to have some more tough conversations. We're going to have some serious conversations and those
conversations regarding the RV, the tent camping, that has to take place, which is why I suggested that we just move that LDC out a little bit. And I would challenge each one of you to look at and read. It's tedious. I get it. I got the whole book in my office. Read and read
and learn about the code. Learn about what the current process is. Let's all do our homework as best we can to know what what what do we need to do about this going forward? Because it's it's a double-edged sword. So, you know, we kick people out of campers and all of a sudden they're in tents. We kick them
out of tents and now all of a sudden they're on the streets and we've increased our homeless population. So there's a lot of but then we also have to be mindful of the other citizens that are paying property taxes and what what what are their what's their effect and how are they being affected. So it's a
very very serious conversation we're going to have to have. Um I think the LDC is what sort of brought it up those changes, but we're going to have to figure out do we allow it? What's what do we allow now? and what do we want the future of Putinham to be be with RVs and
camping and and affordable housing and a lot of a lot of dialogue is going to take place when we go to have that further discussion. Uh so please look into that. Meet with your staff, meet with codes enforcement. I have to do that myself which is another reason why I said I need to need to just wait a little bit and take a breather on that.
And um I want to meet with codes enforcement and have a meeting and I hope you guys do too to see you know is there something that we can do in our current codes or make it stronger. um just do whatever it is we can do to make our county safer. Two things that we always um you know I asked uh Mr. Barber
has he called it in and that's one of the things that our code enforcement and really as elected officials were faced with. People have to call it in and they have to report it. Again, that's not something that we chose. That was something that the legislature chose. And so people call and complain and that
should be our first question. Have you called it in? Have you reported it? And if they're not willing to report it, then then that's a problem. And so then how is it? Codes enforcement just isn't allowed really to go out and arbitrarily pick so and so's piece of property and go on it. Unless, as far as I know, that
hasn't changed. Okay, that hasn't changed. I didn't think it did. And the other thing, same way with dog bite cases. Citizens have to be willing to sign the complaints. So, we go out there with dog bite cases and the neighbors mad as heck that somebody's dog come on their property and they ate their chickens, but that same person won't
fill out the form. That same person won't sign the form. And if I could send any message to our citizens, I would say, "Please, please help us help you." And the only way we can help you is if you're willing to sign those complaint forms. If you're willing to call in those codes, cases. I know nobody wants
to be a bad neighbor. I know it. I grew up in a community you don't tell on each other. I get it. But at the same time, if it gets that bad, please do it. Have somebody else do it. But it needs to be signed. And that's the only way we can help. We We have rules and policies in
place, but we can't effectively do our jobs as as a county as a whole if people aren't willing to sign those things. So, those are my comments on that. Got in my box a little bit. Um I just wanted to also comment on uh on April 30th we heard our held our
first safe state road safety task force uh meeting. It's of course an advisory board. You guys have heard about that. We're hoping to come up with a list of short-term and long-term solutions to bring back to the board of county commissioners for consideration. Um that
is an advisory board and anything that we do recommend recommendations would have to come back to the board of county commissioners. I am waiting on um FDOT. They have looked at our video and they've reviewed it and they've come up with um some things that they are
already working on. So, I'd like to hear back and have them come to our next meeting before and to be a and to be able to set that date. So, I have not set the next date yet for that reason, but we will be in the near future. And I also want to thank the Putnham County Chamber of Commerce. They are diligently
working on a community calendar and sharing of events in our community. And I think that's very much needed in our community. We should have a one-stop shop at the chamber for everything that's uh going on in the community. And they have definitely stepped up and are trying to work on those things. And
let's see. Do I have anything else? Oh, impact fees are at our next meeting. So, some more homework for you. Please read and read and read. Um lots of um comments will be made about impact fees, good, bad, or indifferent. Uh again, we have to plan for the future of this county and that's why that's why we're
having those discussions. So with that being said, is there anything else to come before the board? All right, with nothing else, this meeting's adjourned.