[Music] [Applause]
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handing us out. If everybody would find their seats, please keep this. Please check your cell phones, any other electronic devices you may have. silence those, put them on airplane mode, whatever it takes so we're not disturbing speakers in the presentation
today. Welcome. Today's Tuesday, October 14th, 2025. This is the Semino County Board of County Commission meets approximately 1:30 p.m. We will start with the invocation and pledge of allegiance. Pastor Troy Peoples from the First Baptist Church of Chiliota is here
to lead us and I will ask uh Commissioner Constantine to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Please stand. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Almighty and gracious God, we come before you today with grateful hearts for the privilege of living and serving
in this community. We thank you for the beauty of this country, for the people who call it home and for those who labor each day to make it a better place for all. Lord, I pray today that you would grant wisdom and discernment and unity to these commissioners and all who
participate in this meeting. May their discussions be guided by fairness, compassion, a spirit of cooperation. Help them to make decisions that promote justice, strengthen families, protect the vulnerable, preserve the blessings
we all share. remind us that public service is a sacred trust, that every choice made here affects the lives of neighbors and generations to come. Lord, we ask that you bless this gathering and let peace and integrity guide every word
and every action. It's in the precious name of your son Jesus that we pray. Amen. Amen. Being the month that this is u breast awareness, let's remember all the women that have ensured that we have a
country, the great mothers of our country. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Pastor Peebles. We're going to first go into our awards and proclamations. And what we're going to do today is we will work our way through these proclamations. Uh we will read each and
every one of those. When we're completed, uh, we will come down to the floor and get photos with any and all of you that desire to take photos and receive your proclamation. And we would invite you afterwards to make a statement at the
lectern. So, with that said, we're going to move to the Chiliota Baptist resolution, and I will read that one into the record. [Applause] resolution of the Semino County Board of County Commissioners honoring the First
Baptist Church of Chile on their 150th anniversary. Whereas soon after the close of the Civil War, a number of families from Whiteville, North Carolina, seeking new opportunities and spiritual fellowship journeyed to Florida, arriving by boat in Melanville,
modern-day Sanford, then traveling by oxen and cars to settle northeast of Lake Picket. And whereas on January 8, 1875, these pioneer families formally organized what was then known as Harmony Baptist Church, becoming what now is
First Baptist Church of Trilota. And whereas the church's earliest worship services were held in November of 1874 in the home of WC Jacobs, led by Reverend R. W. Lton and George Gandez before the formal founding in January.
And whereas the original church building was a log structure located approximately one mile east of Chiliota near Lake Pickicket. And in 1883, meetings were moved to a schoolhouse near the southern part of Chiliota. And in 1888, a newer church building was
constructed and dedicated at what is now its present location on Lake Mills Road. Whereas the Sunday school ministry was established in November 10th n or 1889 reflecting the church's early commitment to Christian education. Whereas over the
decades the church has grown adapted and expanded including construction of a concrete sanctuary building dedicated in 1956 and the addition of education wing in 1961 always maintained a presence of worship, service and fellowship in
Julio. And whereas for 150 years, the First Baptist Church of Chiliota has been more than just a building, it has been a source of spiritual guidance, a community anchor, and a gathering place in times of joy and challenge. And whereas the church's heritage is woven
into the history of Chiliota and Semino County, shaping lives and inspiring ongoing generations of faithful service. Now th therefore be it resolved that we the board of county commissioners of seminal county Florida do hereby congratulate the first baptist church of Julota on their 150th anniversary
adopted this 14th day of October 2025 second motion second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor I passes unanimously thank you all very much the next proclamation will be proclaiming In October 2025, breast
cancer awareness month in Semino County. This will be read by Commissioner Herr. Commissioner. Chairman and board members, I read the following proclamation of the Seminal County Board of County Commissioners proclaiming October 2025 as breast cancer awareness month in Seminal
County, Florida. Whereas breast cancer remains the most common cancer among women in the United States and one of the leading causes of cancer related deaths. And whereas in Semino County, Florida, the age adjusted incidence rate for for female breast cancer all stages
is approximately 137.5 cases per 100,000 women. And the number of new breast cancer cases in Semino County averages about 408 per year over recent reporting periods. And whereas the Florida state
age adjusted incidence rate for female breast cancer all stages is about 126.7 cases per 100,000 reflecting Semino County's rate for cases of all stages is above the state average.
Whereas early detection through regular screening such as mammogs, clinical breast exams and awareness of breast health can significantly reduce morbidity and mortality. And whereas the Florida Department of Health in Semino County through its Florida Breast and
Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program provides free or lowcost screenings, diagnost diagnostic services, and education to eligible residents, ensuring that financial barriers do not prevent access to life-saving care. And whereas there are numerous
organizations, health care providers, volunteers, and advocates in Semino County who work tirelessly to support breast cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and those at risk, offering emotional, education, educational, and
financial assistance. And whereas breast cancer awareness month serves as an annual reminder of the importance of community education about risk factors, healthy lifestyles, heredity, symptom awareness, and access to advances in
treatment. And whereas promoting breast cancer awareness, increasing screening and early detection, ensuring equitable access to health care services, and supporting research into better treatments are essential to reducing the burden of disease in Semino County and
beyond. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the board of county commissioners of Semino County, Florida, do hereby proclaim October 2025 as breast cancer awareness month in Semino County, Florida. adopted this 14th day of October 2025.
Second. Motion second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I I passes unanimously. Fantastic. Thank you all very much. Chairman, yes. I actually would like to point out that
the Semino County rate for early stage identification being higher is a great statistic. So a higher statistic on early stage means that there are a lot of local employers, this being one of them, that have have leaned in hard to
make sure that screenings happen for their employees. We see a lot more stage one identifications and fewer stage fours, which means that people are staying alive, we're curing it early, and we're saving. So I will tell you that that is a great statistic, although
when I read it, it sounded horrible even in my head and I stumbled on it. So, I wanted to point it out. So, good work here. Thank you, Commissioner. Next up will be our animal services proclamation. Mr. Alan Harris will be here. This will be read by Commissioner Lockhart. Fellow commissioners, I'd like to move
the following proclamation of the Seminal County Board of County Commissioners proclaiming October 2025 as National Adopt a Shelter Dog Month in Semol County. Whereas every October, communities across the United States observe National Adopt a Shelter Dog Month to raise awareness of the
countless dogs and shelters and rescues awaiting loving permanent homes. And whereas millions of dogs enter shelters each year, many of whom are victims of neglect, abandonment, or circumstances beyond their control, and adoption provides them with a second chance at
life. And whereas adopting a shelter dog not only saves that animal's life, but also opens space for other animals in need, helping shelters continue their vital work. And whereas shelter and rescue organizations along with their dedicated staff and volunteers provide
critical care, rehabilitation, and placement services for homeless animals throughout Semino County. And whereas Semino County Animal Services provides compassionate care and shelter for thousands of homeless, abandoned, and surrendered animals annually while
working tirelessly to re reunite lost pets with their families and to place adoptable animals into safe, loving homes. And whereas the staff and volunteers of SE seminal county animal services partner with rescues, fosters, and community organizations to promote
adoption, responsible pet ownership, and the importance of spaying and neutering to reduce pet overpopulation. And whereas adopting a shelter dog brings joy, companionship, and health benefits to families and individuals while also strengthening the bond
between people and animals. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the board of county commissioners of Seminal County, Florida, do hereby proclaim October 2025 as national adopt a shelter month. Adopted this 14th day of October 2025. Second motion and second. Any
further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I passes unanimously. Thank you very much, Commissioner Lockhart. Next up, we will have the proclamation proclaiming October 12, 2025 National Farmers Day in Semino County. And Commissioner Lee Constantine
will read this. Commissioner, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I will move the proclamation of the Semino County Board of County Commissioners proclaiming October 12th, 2025 as National Farmers Day in Seino County. Whereas National Farmers Day celebrated
annually on October 12th honors the dedication, preserv preserveance and invaluable distributions uh contributions of farmers across the United States who provide food, fiber,
and resources essential to our daily lives. And whereas agriculture has historically played a vital role in Seminal County's development and continues to contribute to the community's economy, heritage, and quality of life. And whereas Seol County
farmers work tirelessly to cultivate crops, raise livestock, and steward the land with practices that promote sustainability, conservation, and resilience in the face of economic and environmental
challenges. And whereas local farms and agricultural enterprises strengthen food security, support small businesses, and provide fresh healthy produce to residents throughout through farmers markets, community supported
agricultural programs, and direct to consumer sales. And whereas farming is a profession of commitment and sacrifice requiring long hours, skill and innovation and its remains essential to
the health, prosperity and security of Semino County and the nation as a whole. And whereas National Farmers Day provides an opportunity for residents of Semino County to express gratitude for the men and women who devote their lives
to cultivating the land and ensuring that future generations can enjoy the fruit fruits of their labor. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that we the board of county commissioners of Semino County, Florida do hereby proclaim October 12th, 2025 as National Farmers
Day in Semino County. Second. Motion second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I oppose. Like sign carries unanimous. Congratulations. Thank you. Our next item is a presentation for
artist of the year by Mr. Alton Williams and assisted by Dr. Deborah Bower. [Music] Chairman, commissioners, uh my name is Anthony Arandia. I am the president the seminal cultural arts council and we are before you today to introduce to you the
award winner for 2025 artist of the year. At this time I wish to introduce to you as well to our new executive director Dr. Deborah Bowerer who will be speaking more on this topic. Deborah. Good afternoon chair and commissioners. We want to thank you for the opportunity
to share something truly spectacular with you. You may recall that over 31 years ago, a number of wiser gentlemen and ladies got together and in their wisdom decided to form for the benefit of arts and culture here in Semino
County, the Seminal Cultural Arts Council. Through all of those years, we are getting ready today to recognize the 21st individual to be named Seminal County's Artist of the Year. to tell you a little bit about the gentleman who
we've selected. I found it difficult to know where to start. Alton is someone who I first met almost 10 years ago and it was a very hot day. Not that all days in Florida aren't hot, but he was sweating. He was
at the Evergreen Cemetery in Castlebury and he was standing over a tombstone trying to pull weeds and clean up. And I had come out to ask him a question. and he said, "Hold on. I'm trying to take care of this. Give me just a moment." So, I sat there and I looked around and
found myself in a very beautiful, peaceful place that differed very much from when Alton and his merry band of volunteers had first started to work there. Can you advance the next slide, please? Oh, I've got the clicker. Yay. So, um,
Alton Williams, what do you need to know about him? Alton. I could tell you that Alton was born at Winter Park Memorial Hospital. He was born a twin. I could tell you that he grew up here in Semino County, a proud student of Rosenwald
Elementary in Altimont Springs. Or that he graduated from Lyman High School and later attended Seminal State, what was at the time Seminal Community College, now Seminal State College to study business. I could tell you that for almost 40 years he has been involved in
history, cultural preservation, and being a writer in addition to all of the very activism that he does. He published his first book, San Pine's History in a Shoe Box, in 2021, which has become one of the definitive works
for African-American history in southwestern Semino County and the county itself. But probably one of his most significant contributions has been his help to establish the Evergreen Cemetery Trust, of which he is currently chair and treasurer. And for every week,
almost every Tuesday, he's out there, if not for many other days in between, helping to care for the memorials and the graves that are out there. He is also most recently, I'm happy to say, founder of the Bronner House Museum History of Historical Facts, which he
opened after many years of working to privately fund raise. The museum opened last year on Junth, where many of you were able to join him and myself in that celebration. and he continues to work with his most recent goal being the establishment of a new research research
research library which is actually on the grounds of the Evergreen Cemetery. It's one of the fun facts that we actually do have a research library and and a museum inside a cemetery in Semino County. Not many people can say that.
And it's very special in addition to all these other things that I've shared with you because it was designed in a style of something called a Florida shotgun house which is what the workers of the ferneries in Castlebury and Alultimont African-American individuals who used to be those workers would live in those
shotgun houses. And so when Alden was a young boy, it was said that you could have the door open and the shot would go from the the front of the door out the back in the snap of a finger and that's how the name got its that's how the
house got its name. He is currently working on a new book about the history of Altimont Springs and and he lives in Altimont. Um, I think Alden said it himself when he said that he wanted the Bronner House Museum not to just be a museum. He wanted it someplace to be
where elementary school children could come and do their book reports, have field trips, and learn about history that was almost lost. Because, as Alden has often said, sometimes people have not been kind throughout history. And we do a disservice to all of those who have
gone before us if we don't remember the good with the bad. So to give you an idea, Alton continues to be, you know, for for more than almost four decades of of cultural preservation. We chose him, the board of of the Seminal Cultural Arts Council
chose him as 2025 artist of the year, and we know that he will continue to represent Semino County proud for all of the one many wonderful things that he has done. So without further ado, I'd like to go ahead and recognize Alden
Williams as 2025 artist of the year. Boy, you pretty nervous. Wow. Thank you. Wow. And I like flowers. My
welcome, Mr. Williams. And please feel free to have a few words. Sure. Um, uh, grace and mercy. Amen. That's what brought me here today. And you all as well. I say God took something negative and
made it positive. So, uh, if at any time you all wish to come and take a look at the museum, I won't stand here long. uh take a look at the museum. We do uh give us a call and we can bring you
through the museum by appointments only. And um I am that was a lot. I am so proud to uh represent uh that cemetery and the city of Castlebury and Simino County. And I've
worked on several boards with this county, the community block grant board and so forth and so on. And so I accept this with great pride and um love. Thank you. Thank you.
[Applause] Thank you for your leadership and your advocacy, sir. Okay. You're welcome. Thank you. And Commissioner Armadilla, my apologies for not recognizing you earlier, but from Castlebury, we are welcome to have you here today. Thank you. Thank you.
Beautiful. All right. Uh I'm going to call out we're going to come down and get our pictures with all the individuals that desire to from the Chiliota Baptist. We have Pastor People and all the deacons that are attending as well. Breast cancer awareness. We've got our firefighters with us as well as uh Paula
Rodriguez, the director of operations, Central Florida Breast Cancer Foundation. Alan Harris has brought some puppies as our special guest. And on Farmers Day, we have Joe Saucer, Clay Archie, Kim Mune, also from the Farm
Bureau, and the Yarborough family, JW and Bo. Please come down and we'll get you all queued up. [Music]
Hallelujah.
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What's [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
[Music] [Music]
All right, we're going to ask each of you to come to the lect turn and say a few words if you'd like. We'll start with uh Pastor Peoples from the Baptist Church. It's always dangerous when you ask a pastor to come and say a few words. Amen.
But I promise I'll keep it concise. Although I will tell you we could use a lot more of it these days. On behalf of the First Baptist Church Julio family, we just want to say thank you for your recognition today. And I will make sure that this is uh posted
for all the church members to see. and we thank you for your commitment uh to our church and to the faith uh community. Amen. Keep up the good work. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, I'll ask Miss Paula Rodriguez to come forward,
the director of operations, Central Florida Breast Cancer Foundation. Good afternoon, chairman and commissioners, and thank you for having us join you today. We really appreciate it. Um, the Florida Breast Cancer Foundation was founded by three women in Miami in 1993. And our mission is to we
are dedicated to ending breast cancer through research, advoc education, and advocacy. Um, some of our main programs are we offer grants each year to um informative research to discover effective ways to diagnose, treat, and possibly cure breast cancer. We also
give grants to direct service for or other organizations who provide direct services and um education to our residents. We have an end breast cancer specialty license plate, the only nonprofit organization with a license plate in Florida. We have a pickups for
breast cancer program which is a way that you can donate your slightly used household goods and clothing. Um and those funds help us support our mission. We have a virtual statewide support group for uh fighters and survivors. And we have a mass program which is um
mammograms after Sunday service. It's a mobile mammogram unit that goes out to places of worship and other community events that offers mammograms to women. Um we do have a big 5K annual race this Saturday actually in the Obito mall parking lot if anyone wants to join us.
Um and again we thank you for for having us here. Thank you very much and thank you to our firefighter support of this initiative. So very important to the health of our women in our community. Yes, Commissioner Lockhart.
Um just to point out, I don't want men to feel like they need to be left out of breast cancer awareness month. Um but there are a fair number of men who are actually diagnosed with breast cancer. It is rare. Um my brother is actually one of those survivors and so um if you
all would keep in mind as gentlemen it's it's not just a women's disease. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you for that. Thank you. Next we have Mr. Allan Harris with our animal control. And where are those dogs? You let them go already? Uh they're being adopted right now.
Hopefully in the lobby. Perfect. I don't know. Being delivered to your home as we speak. Yeah. I almost claimed that. Well, we have Constantine who already signed his his staff assistant was signing adoption papers out there. So, um we want to thank you all on behalf of
the Semino County Animal Services staff and volunteers. We have amazing volunteers that give so much time to uh adoptions, uh our dogs, our cats in the shelter, even our pigs. Uh Trisha got another um picture this after this
morning of a pig that came in that is potty trained, sits uh shakes paws. So uh but this is adopt a shelter dog month. Uh during this month, uh it is $5 adoptions. Uh so if you'd like to adopt an animal from us, it's $5 adopt don't
shop, please. Uh our shelters are all over capacity, so we really need your help. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, Commissioner. I'd just like to point out that Mr. Yarborough's face at the trained pig was
priceless. Just priceless. Can't believe it. Allan, if if it will help the initiative, um if it'll help the initiative, I will uh I will put uh $500
forward to help those people with the adoption if you can get those adopted. Well, thank you. Yes, that's wonderful. Thank you very much. Help help everybody out. I'll let everybody know. Thank you. That's awesome. We got to adopt a pig. All right. Next is our farmer's day proclamation
recipients. And this will be Kim Cune from the Florida Farm Bureau to say a few words. She jetted. Well, that leaves uh let's see, Yarboroughs or homes. Oh, here she is. She was adopting the pig.
Oh, are you adopting the pig? Yeah, just pull that right down any way you need to get it there. Well, um I want to thank um Jay Zenbower for coming to our annual meeting we had this um um this past Saturday. Um you know,
we're very proud of the work that Simo County Farm Bureau is doing these last uh few years. We've had a mission to really increase um agriculture education in our schools and we've gone um we've made great strides in that. So um just
so that everyone's aware um Ovito High School now has a roots to research program that um is funding uh biotechnology research for agriculture and both industry. And uh we announced at our annual meeting that Similar
County Farm Bureau is now um providing a special award for the uh Similar County Science Fair that's called Innovation and Agriculture where we'll be awarding a $1,000 scholarship for the high school winner and a $500 award for the middle
school winner. So um we give out teacher mini grants um to both uh local PTAs and teachers. Um, we've given out in the last four years probably $20,000 in scholarships to students. So, uh, you
know, as our footprint in agriculture land decreases in Simo County, it's imperative that our education and the importance of agriculture is really um, you know, incorporated into our public schools. Thank you for the recognition.
We really appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thank you very much. You know, it's soon lost on us, especially some of the the younger generation where our food and substance comes from. You know, I I get a kick out of you talking to some of my
grandchildren uh and grandchildren's friends who Oh, yeah. It comes from Publix. It comes from somewhere else before it ever gets to Publix, believe me. But, uh, you know, on that event, I will tell you, I was really impressed. There was a young lady that uh had received
scholarships that actually at a very young age has now applied for patent and is marketing for citrus canker and greening. Um that is now in I think it was two or three or four groves now
being utilized. Um and this young lady is how old? She's 17. 17 years old. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. So good work. Thank you all very much. We'll give you a few moments. You're welcome to stick around for the rest of the the
venue. Um, if you want some real brain damage, hang out with us. If if you want some entertainment, hang out with us. Um, but if you need to get on with your day, we understand. And thank you all very much for being here. Congratulations. We'll take a little two-minute break.
[Music]
Heat. Heat. [Music]
All right, everybody good? Touched. I can feel it. All right, we'll move forward with the rest of our agenda. Next up is our consent agenda. Uh, I will remind everyone if you've come in since we
started, please make sure your phones or electronic devices are silenced. Uh, I will first go to the county manager to see if there are any revisions to the consent agenda. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
commissioners. Yes, I have two changes under the count county manager's consent agenda. Item number 18 and 19. I'd like to pull and I'll bring those back at a later date. Okay. And that's all I have. County managers pulling 18 and 19.
Any commissioner desire to pull any individual item? 25 commissioners. Item 25 for separate consideration. Okay. Okay. Let's go to the county attorney for the rules of public participation on
the consent agenda. Good afternoon. Florida law provides that members of the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on propositions before the board of county commissioners except when the board is acting on emergency or ministerial matters or conducting a meeting exempt from the requirements of
the sunshine law. Individuals shall be permitted three minutes each for public comment or six minutes when the individual is an official representative of a formal association or group. The chairman may modify the maximum time for public comment at his sole discretion when appropriate. Public comments on
quasa judicial or other public hearing items will occur during the board's consideration of those items later this afternoon. Public comments on pending procurement matters or on non-aggenda items shall not be permitted at this time. Members of the public desiring to make public comment must fill out a
speaker form and present the form to staff. Forms are available in the lobby. Mr. Chairman, thank you, Miss Lour. Uh we will go to public input and comment. Who do we have if anyone to speak on any of the consent agenda items?
No speakers, sir. No speakers. Then let's go to closing the public input and we will go to um looking for a motion. Mr. Chairman, I will move the approval of the consent agenda item item number
six from the constitutional officers and the county managers consent agenda 7 through 34 with the exception of 18,1 19 and 25. Okay. Second. Motion and second. All those in favor?
I oppose like sign. Seeing none passes unanimously. And Commissioner Constine, you wanted item 25 separate consideration. Please proceed. there. I'm um I am not opposed specifically to this uh issue. I did
however vote against the resoning of this particular project and to remain consistent I will vote against the final plat. Okay. Chairman. Yes. Commissioner her move to approve item 25. Second. Motion second. All those in favor I
I opposed like sign I. Three to one passes. Thank you very much. Next item, we will move to our regular agenda items. Item number 35,
kickoff of the 2050 mobility transportation plan. This is going to be presented by John Slott, public works director, and Joe Lefaso, professional engineer. Gentlemen, thank you, Mr. Chairman, commissioners, county manager. We're here today to uh
present and ask for authorization to kick off the 2050 mobility and transportation plan. Uh we're also here and supported by our consulting partner Jacobs and Ddier Manard is here in uh in attendance to also support this
initiative. At this time I will turn it over to uh Joe Lasso to walk us through the presentation. Mr. Lasso, the floor is yours, sir. Sure. And by the way, thank you for the cookies. Whoever made these. They taste like
They taste like Trisha Johnson made them. Thank you. We're just Hold on one sec. Are we pulling up the presentation? Okay, we are sir. Want a cookie? I have some. They really are fantastic. They are good. Okay, now I got to try one.
There's probably enough that if each of us I scare I'm looking at everyone. I'm like we're talking about how great these cookies taste and everyone out there's like yeah great easy. I'm stingy with my cookies. I need to share next time bite-sized Trisha out like
communion wafers. Well, right since we recognized a church this morning. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Hey, you should really order order a bake sale competition. Okay, guys. Yeah, we'll have that list. We're great. I'll add that to the
Okay, you better hurry up because we are going to go off the rails. You need more time. We are off the rails. There it goes. All right, we got Thank you. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, fellow commissioners. My name is Joseph Lefaso with SE County Public Works, and I'm here to present the 2050 mobility
transportation plan kickoff. The purpose of this presentation is to request board approval for initiation of the 2050 mobility and transportation plan. Today's agenda will be project background, current status, scope, goals, benefits, next steps, and requested action. The background is that
this is project has begun as the 2045 transportation mobility plan in May of 2022. It is a $ 1.1 million planning project and it had the following objectives of collecting traffic and socioeconomic data, modeling existing and future roadway network traffic conditions and providing a needs list
for future transportation infrastructure improvement. The 2045 TMP final draft was completed and a public meeting was held in April of 2025. This project was developed in close coordination with our regional partners such as the Florida Department of Transportation, Florida Turnpike,
Central Florida Expressway, and Metrop Plan Orlando. The current status of the 2045 was slated for the board approval in April of 2025. However, we discovered several issues. The 2045 TMP was built on rapidly aging data, which could put it out of sync with Metro Plan Orlando's
2050 MTP. This would limit its effectiveness and its use for policy, investment, and infrastructure decisions. This would also potentially risk misalignment of transportation priorities and insufficient reflection of the ever exolving community needs and inadequate consideration of regional
growth dynamics. Uh the proposed solution to this will be the completion of the 2050 MTP for semol county. This will allow for the greatest opportunity for regional alignment and growth integration and continued collaboration with all of our regional partners. In addition, it'll allow us to incorporate the latest traffic and
intersection analytics as well as the use the latest data automation techniques such as seminal county probe data. Thus, the project scope is to reorganize the 2045 TMP into the 2050 mobility and transportation plan. This is a $533,000
planning project update to extend the planning horizon to the year 2050 to update to a 2030 existing plus committed traffic forecast model network. to update the crash data and travel time and delay data so as to revise the priority project list. This will allow us to achieve the goals
of synchronizing with Metropan Orlando's 2050 MTP for regional consistency to implement the goals and objectives of the transportation element of the seminal county comprehensive plan to inform the mobility fee study and land development code amendments to guide the county's transportation system
investment decisions through 2050 and to provide emphasis on equitable resilient mobility choices for all users. The benefits would be a modern actionable framework to guide the county's transportation investments through 2050, ensure alignment with regional and state partners, and position Semino County to respond
effectively to emerging mobility trends, economic developments, and infrastructure needs. Our next steps will be to return in January of 2026 to give an update on the 2050 MTP. Then in the February and March of 2026 time frame, we have an opportunity for a public meeting on this project. Then in
April of 2026, we're going to return to present the final draft and request the BCC approval of the 2050 MTP. Our requested action at this time is the board approve and authorize the chairman to execute the budget amendment request for contract amendment for the funding
of the 2050 mobility and transportation plan. At this point, I would like to thank the board for its time and we are prepared for any questions. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Foso. Any inquiries from the board at this time? I just have if you I have none but looks like county
manager may have some words. Yes. Just what they thank you uh uh Mr. Chairman and what we are also going to use that study for when we come back to you at the beginning of the calendar year is to prioritize the fourth gen transportation projects. We already have
a list uh established. However, we want to compare these to ensure that if the commission wants to bump a project or two. So, uh, we will have both of these, uh, come back to you at the beginning of the year so you can prioritize the projects. Great. And, and I would
summize that this also is going to have some input into our mobility fee update. Correct. That is correct. Correct. Great. Which I understand staff has been working on and uh, so we'll see that shortly thereafter as this gets
kicked off. Great. Thank you very much. Anybody? Commissioner, you're on for public. Go ahead. I first I just wanted to say that was an amazing presentation on material. Like I don't know how you got through that that fast and it appears as though you memorized it. That was amazing. Like
amazing. Um they Yeah, I mean we could have been all off the rails with this and you did a fabulous job. That's right. Very good. Thank you all very much. Is there anybody here from the public that has any comment on this? No sir. Thank you very much. We'll close
any input from the public. I will go to board action for direction. Chairman, I'm happy to move uh to approve and authorize the chairman to execute the budget amendment request for contract amendment for the funding of the 2050 mobility and transportation plan. Second. Thank you. Any further
discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed. Like sign carries unanimous. Keep up the good work. Thank you all very much for your time. Thanks, Chairman. Good stuff. All right. Next, we're going to move into our public hearing agenda. I will
move for proof of publication, please. So, moved. Second. Motion second. All those in favor? I oppose like sign. Seeing none, it's unanimous. I'll start with Commissioner. Work our way across. Exparte disclosures, please.
I'm handing it in in paper form. Okay. As soon as I locate it. Mine has been submitted electronically through the clerk's office. So is mine. Did I? Okay. So, all have been submitted. If you can hand this down to the clerk, commissioners, please.
Thank you. Thank you. All right. We will go to the county attorney, Miss Kate Lour, for the role of engagement from the public on these items. Thank you, chairman. While the board welcomes comments from all persons with
an interest in these proceedings, Florida law requires that the board's decision in quasi judicial actions be supported by competent substantial evidence presented to the board during the hearings on the applications. Competent substantial evidence is such evidence as a reasonable mind would accept is adequate to support a
conclusion. There must be a factual basis in the record to support opinion testimony from both expert and non-expert witnesses. Persons presenting testimony may rely on factual information that they present, information presented by county staff, information the applicant presented, or
on factual information included in the county staff report to support their testimony. All persons who present written materials to the board for consideration must ensure that a copy of such materials is provided to the clerk for inclusion in the board's record of proceedings and official minutes. Mr.
Chairman, thank you very much. All right, we will start with item number 36. If you're here to speak on this item, make sure you get a form filled out and bring it up to the clerk here and make sure that Dominique receives that so we
can efficiently get through this process. Our staff is going to give a presentation. Then we will go to the applicant and if the applicant desires to give a presentation, we will give them a few minutes to do so. We will then go to public comment. Um, we will
go rebuttal to the applicant if necessary and then we'll move for board action. Miss Abgar, you're up. Good afternoon. Caitlyn Avgar, Planning and Development Services. The applicant is requesting the approval for a
smallcale future land use map amendment from public quasi public to suburban estates for a proposed single family development on approximately 2.6 6 acres located on the west side of Markham Woods Road, south of Markham Road.
The subject property has a future land use designation of public quasi public and a zoning classification of A1 agriculture. The intent of the existing public quasi public future land use is to provide appropriate locations for public uses such as schools, cemeteries,
safety facilities, and transportation facilities. Residential uses are not permitted. The applicant proposes to develop the site as a single family residence which warrants the need for the proposed amendment. The subject property is currently
vacant. This property is adjacent to single family residences on the north, east, and south. This property is also located next to an existing historical cemetery on the west side. Due to the historical cemetery being located directly adjacent to the site, staff
conducted research to validate that the subject site was not previously utilized or registered as a cemetery. The applicant provided a ground penetrating radar report that was performed on September 30th, 2024. The applicant also contacted the appropriate
state agencies and nonprofit and historical entities. These correspondences as well as the ground penetrating radar report are included in the agenda package for review. There was no conclusive evidence verifying that the site was historically used on a as a cemetery based on
information and reports provided by the applicant as well as internal staff research. The site is located within Semino Countyy's utility service area and will be required to connect to public utilities for water and reclaim water. Sanitary sewer connection is not readily available to the subject
property. Therefore, the site may utilize a septic system for wastewater. The property proposes access onto Markham Woods Road which is classified as an urban major collector. Markhamm Woods Road is currently operating at a level of service B. There is an existing
sidewalk along Markhamm Woods Road. The A1 zoning classification requires a minimum lot size of 1 acre with a minimum minimum lot width of 150 ft at building line. The permitted uses include single family residences and is consistent with the proposed future land
use of suburban estates. The suburban estates future land use is consistent with the proposed use of the property as a single family dwelling and the Wakiva River Protection area. Per the seminal county comprehensive plan future land use objective 1.6 standards of review land use amendments
are evaluated using the criteria as depicted on the slide above. In summation, the surrounding character of the area has become developed over time consistent with the sub suburban estates's future land use. This request meets all of the standards of review as depicted and further analysis can be
found in your agenda package. The proposed amendment to suburban estates is compliant with the Wakiva River Protection Area in the comprehensive plan by meeting the intent of flu policies 2.2.5,
2.3, and 2.3.8. There are no wetlands on the site per estimates from the national wet wetland inventory maps and any development on the subject property will be subject to the maximum impervious surface ratio of 60% due to being in the aquifer recharge
overlay. This request is compliant with the one dwelling unit per net buildable acre density and the intent is to amend the land use to serve urban estates for the purpose of building a single family home which is consistent with the Wakiva River Protection area.
In compliance with the Semino County Land Development Code section 30.49 community meeting procedure, the applicant conducted a community meeting on March 3rd, 2025. Details of the community meeting have been provided in the agenda package. The planning and zoning commission met on August 6th,
2025 and voted unanimously to recommend the board of county county commissioners adopt the proposed ordinance. The minutes of the meeting are also provided in the agenda package. Staff requests the board of county commissioners adopt the proposed ordinance enacting a small-scale future
land use map amendment from public quasi public to suburban estates for proposed single family dwelling on approximately 2.6 acres located on the west side of Markham Woods Road south of Markham Road. I'll stand by for any questions. Thank you very much. Any inquiries with staff at this juncture?
Seeing none, Mr. group. Do you care to make a presentation or statement to the board? If so, please come forward. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the county commission. Good to see you this afternoon. Uh, first of all, uh, I'm Lonnie Groot, uh, attorney from
Daytona Beach Shores representing Mr. and Mrs. Nick Nicolich, who I think I are traveling to see their a child who's they're supposed to be here. I think I forgot that they were traveling just because one of their children is going to medical school. So I think I forgot
that otherwise they'd be here. Uh really appreciate having worked with staff having worked here starting when I got out of the Jagore in 1985. One thing that has been truly consistent in my judgment is that you had a great planning staff in 1985. You still do.
and county commissioners read their agenda packets like and and uh they did mostly in 1985. No, there but I know that I digress. I know that I I know that unlike some
governmental bodies, you guys really are thorough and so I have put a lot of material on the agenda packet and I know you've read it and I rely upon that. Uh, aside from that, I'm ready to answer any questions, but I really am glad this meeting is filmed because as the father
of seven daughters, uh, there are cookies in this room and I have not stolen one. They nickeled my way to get one or whatever. And that is historically proven today. I Oh, don't ruin me.
I'm on a roll. But I'm really really Any questions that you might have, I'm glad to answer. Any inquiries for Mr. Groot? Seeing none. Commissioner Constine. Mr. Groot, thank you very much. Um, and since you're representing uh the
applicant, uh just just to uh request the um I think we have adopted the minimum state standards as far as septic tanks go and therefore I believe that if it was an acre or less, you would be
required to do the advanced septic tank. Um because it's over an acre, um unfortunately you're not required to do it. I would appreciate very much because you're in the protection area and you are near wetlands and you are near the river that you will uh put in an
advanced septic tank into this property. I've already talked to them about that and I I I will follow up again. I promise you. Thank you. Anything else? Hearing none. Okay. Make yourself comfortable. We'll call you up for rebuttal if necessary.
Madame clerk, do we have anybody here from the public to speak on this item? Yes, sir. And the first speaker has requested to show a video clip that was all sent to all of your offices if you would like. Yes. Um I think that's a what a four and a four four and a half five minute.
Yes, sir. Okay. Are they represented by an HO? Is he representing an HOA or single individual homeowner? Single individual. Okay. Well, we'll give him some latitude. Typically, we allow three minutes. Uh if we want to go ahead and get that keyed up, let's get it planned.
And if the individual would come up and give us his name and address for the record. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, sir. Your name and address, please. My name is Bill Clatt. I live at 1719 Cedar Stone Court. Great. I've been living in Lake Mary since 1988.
And the the video is 4 and a half minutes, but my wife and Ernie, my neighbor, they donated the three minutes, so that's six minutes. So, well, we don't that's fine. We don't we don't take donations. Um uh except for our animal adoption center. Um but but
that said, if they if they desire to speak, they'll need to fill out one of these forms. Have they already done that, Dominique? Uh yes, sir. Okay. We'll call them appropriately as as due. So you're going to dedicate your time to the video. Is that our understanding? Well, they dedicated the time to the video. I have three minutes. I would
like to just go for it. Thank you. Run it. Well, living here in Central Florida, we see all the signs of modern growth every single day. But most of us have no idea about the history, sometimes right under our feet. Now, one of our News6 viewers reached out to us
about a part of Seino County that has been disappearing through the decades. News6 reporter Katherine Silver explores Markham Woods. It's been here for a long time. It's a piece of Seminal County's history that's buried. It's really hidden.
Oh, yes. It's deep in here. stories passed on with few records that hold true answers. There's some markers there. Mr. General Gene Nelson, 1959. John Stanton, 1937. Bill Clatt only knew about it because he recently discovered part of it is just
beyond his property. How many people do you think don't even realize this exists? I think most of people don't even know. Not far from Markham Woods Road lies what was known as Piney Ridge Cemetery. This was a burial ground for the black community that developed lumber and
tarpentine here in the early 20th century when the town of Markham existed. What we do know about its history, we found at the museum in Seminal County. Answers here aren't buried in the ground, but in cabinets and files,
reminders of a reality years ago. where we're located is, you know, right in here. That's where Markham like the community is going to be centered is west of Polola because it was close to the railway. Yeah, it was close to the railway and also to the river. Bennett Lloyd is the museum coordinator.
All of this is Wilson Cyprus and uh you have little pockets of it Te Wilson. These companies really owned everything and the laborers who we see buried at Piney Ridge are the ones who did all the work. Yes. And it was grueling work. At what point did the town of Markham disappear?
Really, by the time we see it here in the 40s and 50s, it was only on paper. Today, it's only known as a ghost town. They would move the whole town and they would drop it on another uh little plot of land nearby and they would do the same thing for that land. And the cycle continued where there
would have been a church, a community. Here it was Oak Groves Missionary Baptist that was here until 1928 when it burnt down. There is now mostly pine trees. There are dozens of these cemeteries scattered around the county. Uh some of which have been lost to development already and we're working on trying to figure out what what parking lots
they're under. The only peak into the past at Piney Ridge are metal markers, some rusted or unreadable. Many were wooden and disintegrated through the decades. Do we have any way of knowing how many people could be buried here? I've seen estimates from 25 to 75, but
those estimates are also older. A lot of the families, they'll still have plots here. What we see here today is a cemetery that is small but still in use. It's what Clatt found just beyond the tree line. This collection of apparent graves that made him wonder just how much
bigger this burial site could be. It could be that uh you know it's uh poor individuals who still wanted to be close to the cemetery but uh didn't really have the money to purchase plots. There's really no way of knowing who's buried here and where unless there's,
you know, some kind of archaeology done. Sincere proposal future land use designation amendments. The owners of a nearby property have plans to build a home on their land. This letter is from a law firm. They paid for a ground penetrating radar report that was limited by the terrain
but found no graves. There was some concern that a cemetery was located on the property. Evidence proves to the contrary. Clatt says he just wants people to remember what happened long ago, what's been lost along the way, and to keep telling the story.
You reached out to us cuz you believe this is a story worth telling. Yes. For us to capture the essence of Markham Woods would be very important to restore this cemetery and also make it a historical site because here there is no story without
the people who made Markham in Semino County. Catherine Silver, getting results. News Six just fascinating. It really is. I did a story years ago. I think it was the Oakland cemetery and it's primarily African-American and had it not been for the people in that
community saying there are graves back here. They were trying to widen and put part of the turnpike over in that area. So, I'm so glad that they are. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh since I didn't bring cookies, let me read this statement. Before we
proceed, I would like to ask any commissioner has relationship with any of the involved parties that should be disclosed for the record. Nope. Okay. Ginger's comment at the end of channel 6 report clearly indicates that she's counting on us to preserve and not bulldoze the abandoned the
abandoned cemetery. In 2019, the University of Florida conducted a survey for Florida cemeteries and this missionary Baptist cemetery did appear in their list at the parcel in question. Looks like this cemetery was sold to
Price Estates LLC on 516 to uh 2016 for only $145,000. What a great deal. 2.6 acres of prime real estate. Land right across the street from Alra Elementary School now appraised by the county over $337,000.
Mr. Platt, but who would buy a cemetery? Huh? Mr. Platt, we're going to ask you to keep it on the topic of why we're here today. Okay. specific to this property, not the price of the property. None of those things really matter in our decision-m process. No problem. Let's move on. But who would like who would buy a cemetery as a real
estate investment? What type of investor would do this? Would any of you buy a property known to be a cemetery to build your house? I don't see anybody. Mr. Plat, I'm going to ask you one more time. Keep it on topic to the subject property. Okay. Now, let's go to the topic. Like
your the lawyer indicated competent Mr. Go ahead. I've been very gracious so far with your time, so I'm going to ask you to expedite it and try to stay on point, please. Yeah. Let's take a look at the details of the limitations encountered on the ground penetrating report. As your lawyer mentioned, com competent
substantial evidence, surface obstructions, not enough area to perform scans, area not accessible to be scanned, overgrown vegetation, and the last limitation they listed was other. As an engineers with a master degree at
UCF, I acknowledge that this GPR cannot confirm 100% that the grave is not present. The dialectric properties of utilities remain constant over time, but the dialectric properties of a burial change with the state of the composition affecting the
clarity of the signal. The company that performed the GPR is known actively tracing conductive pipes pipes tracer wires passively detecting power utilities but not for locating buried bodies as indicated by Patricia Meyers historic cemetery program supervisor
phone conversation. I never imagined that after living in this property for more than 17 years, retired and being a cancer survivor, I would be here trying to prevail to prevent a real estate developer and his powerful influential lawyer from bulldozing a cemetery adjacent to our backyards to make a
profit. Imagine if the contractors for the applicant begin the construction and start unearthed grave sites. the site work would become to a halt and the property now becomes the main subject of national TV especially after the Sanford versus Trevor Martin case that our
communities experience. Please help our community prevent this form happening in our backyards. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Next is John Spolski. Mr. Pski and welcome. It's been quite some time since we saw you in our chambers.
How lucky are you? Good afternoon. Much of what I was going to speak about has been covered already as far as in the uh presentation by the county and Mr. Clatt. Um first of all, John Spolski, 136 North High Street, Lake
Mary. Um this property, Missionary Baptist Cemetery, was given to them back in 1946 by the owner as far as use as a church and/or cemetery. Um then in 2016
it was sold in a tax deed um excuse me 2012 um taxdeed sale and then it was flipped um to the I think it's pronounced Nicole
family wrong I apologize. Um so they had their attorney contact adjoining property owners of which I am one and some of the obvious concerns were you was utilizing this property to build a
single family house. Um their attorney tried to appease us at the meeting by talking about this ground penetrating radar uh survey service. And that's one of the main points of contention that I
have because they did not meet the burden of proof. If you look in there as far as when it talks about the scope, all of the obstacles they had that they could not get around and then in one area where it was clear, if you look
down further, they talk about finding something that is of a major concern to them. So to sit there and tell the staff that GPR has been performed, uh, that's a fallacy because all of
those items in there that they talk about the obstructions and what have you, in order to do a thorough GPR, the property has to be cleared and you can't have more than 6 in of grass for them to run their equipment over in order to determine, you know, what's underneath
there. Additionally, the owners of the cemetery next door to it. I've talked to them and I don't even know, Commissioner. I know that they sent an email to you and it was late if you had even had a chance to read it, but they talked about several people whose names
are on headstones there that they have no record of that person being buried there. And what their thought is is that that person was actually buried on the adjoining piece of property. And since they couldn't pinpoint the location, in order to memorialize that person's
passing, they went ahead and put a headstone within the confines of their fenced in area. So I would hate to see construction take place and then all of a sudden you start unearthing caskets,
human remains and what have you. And then the county is embroiled in a in a real fiasco with the job being shut down. contractors, subcontractors, you know, looking for uh payment for loss of
productivity, etc. So, until they can sit there and tell the the county that there is absolutely no grave sites on there, this report does not meet the burden of proof.
Thank you. Question. And you're speaking to the church or the cemetery operators about the headstones that you mentioned that they believe they might have been placed there just to memorialize the passing and they believe they be over the property. Did they do any ground
penetrating radar or anything to determine if there's anything below those headstones? No. And that's a great point, Commissioner. When I was talking to Leroy Johnson, he said they wish that they had the money to where they could sit there and say and have that type of
of a performance done to verify if there are. But they told me, Mr. Johnson. Um that they have no record of a burial taking place there, but yet they have
several headstones there. And that's what has raised their concerns is that that person may actually be on the adjoining piece of property. Okay. And I understand that's an assumption. So, so I will forward to Commissioner Hur's
office. There is a grant program at the state of Florida that the owners of the cemetery, the church associated can apply for to help with that identification, which will probably be helpful if it's a financial situation. Okay. So, I'll pass that to Commissioner Herd's office so you can reach out to
them and maybe that'll be helpful to the church. So, thank you very much. Appreciate your input. Thank you for your time. Next person, please. The final speaker is Christopher Thurp. Thurp. Yes, sir. Mr. Thorp. Thorp. Thorp. Jim Thorp.
All right. Welcome, sir. My name is Christopher Thorp, 1713 Cedarstone Court. I'm lot three. If you look through your things, my property butts up to the northeast corner. I'm going to be real quick. There's nobody
more that wants to be able to do what you want to do with your property without government interference than me. But that ground penetrating radar report is very, very inconclusive. We just want the we we don't care if they build their house there. Just let's do it smart in the common sense way. If
the property's got to be cleared before they can build a house, let's clear the property and then do a ground penetrating report and find out if their bodies there before we start digging and desecrating graves. That's that's all we're looking for. We we we're not
against them building their house. We just want to do it the smart common sense way. Thanks. Question real quick. You say you you abut this property? I abut this property. Yes, sir. And do you abut the ones that's currently have headstones on them? Uh, no. I do not bought the one that has headstones on. I bought this property on
the northeast corner. Okay, great. Thank you. Any other public input? No, sir. Okay, we'll close uh public input and we'll go to rebuttal. Is uh Mr. Groot, do you desire to make a rebuttal? just very briefly and I really do promise
that I understand why the speakers are speaking and but that what is being said is true for any piece of property in Simol County or any other of the other 66 counties of the state. You can't it's
violation of law in chapter 872 to if you if you find a grave site to continue to construct. There's things you have to do. That's true with the the subject property. Now, if it was developed for the uses that are allowed,
and I won't necessarily go through them, but there's a bunch of uses that are allowed now as a if it was public quasi public that the same statutes would apply. So, the the the Piney Grove Cemetery is a
treasure. No doubt about that. That video was correct. I've walked the property. I don't hopefully I didn't trespass, but I walked the property. There's an area for military graves of black folks who served in the military
during times when they couldn't eat at the downtown drugstore. There's a little baby area that I guess there's certain areas that different that was traditional for churches to bury different folks in sunset, sunrise, south of the church,
north of the church. It's a treasure. There's no doubt about that. But when development occurs, and it can only be one house, the builder will comply with state law. And if there's any graves that are
located, it'll stop. Just like the convenience store development at the corner of what is it? Banana Lake Road, Orange Avenue on the entrance to the Heathro. That entrance on the southwest quadrant. That was going to be I don't
know if anybody remembers this. That was going to be a convenience store. Well, they found some graves there. There's nothing there now because of that that occurrence. My clients know they're bound by state law. I've filed the documents. I filed
the summary that the state puts in the on its website about what happens when you find the grave in in our applica in our application file. So, we know that. But there are private property rights that are these clients are entitled to
the the property appraiser. One last thing in 2012 changed the tax exempt status of the property because the property appraiser determined that the property had not been used as a church or a cemetery and
changed it and it became taxable and unfortunately the entity which I can't find that was uh Markham missionary Baptist Church Markham uh didn't know that and appar
and the property was sold after the property appraiser determined it was not being used as a church or cemetery. That's all I've got, but if there's any questions, please let me know. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Croo? Commissioner Constine. Thank you. Um Mr. Croo, then
what you're saying is as as far as preliminary development, you believe that everything has been done that according to the law and needs to be done from Okay. When you say a disruption of and I'm asking for my own personal
Yes, sir. U destruction of a grave site, are you talking about just where the um the layout of the home will be or the entire 2.6 acre property? If just the worst
thing that ever happened on the road projects that I was involved in for Simino County was to find a grave or an underground petroleum storage tank that stopped the road project right there.
Uh, so any any development, this this relates to the subdivision that's some of these folks live in. Any development, whether it's a shed or a swimming pool or whatever, and and whatever occurs on my client's property, if they locate a
grave, they have to stop. If they locate human remains, they can't move them. They have to call the appropriate authorities to address the situation. So whatever development, not just the footprint of the house, the driveway, a swimming pool, a patio, whatever,
state law says stop. Including the septic tank, commissioner, including the septic tank, the heavy duty except which may take a bigger footprint of your request. It doesn't including the drain. Chairman, I can I can add to that if I
if I may. So that's where I was going. I don't have questions for for Lonnie, but I do have questions for our lawyer. Yeah. So, the process is that if humor worker, deputy county attorney for the record, um if the process is if human
remains are found, excavated through any through anything, if they're found, uh law enforcement needs to be contacted immediately. Law enforcement comes out and contacts the medical examiner. The medical examiner then starts their investigation. They have certain time
periods under the Florida statutes to determine whether or not the medical examiner believes that the person has passed away within the past 75 years. Um, if it was before that, then it goes to the state archaeological society and
and then it's transferred to the state and the state investigates and does a report. If not, then it stays with the medical examiner and they do their investigation and their report. So that's just generally I can get into more specifics on what happens if human remains are found. I'll also note that
in our comp plan, if there is an area of concern, for example, on this property where the ground penetrating radar report showed that there was an area concern on the driveway, then the county can say, "Hey, this area has got to remain um, you know, undeveloped, right?
It can remain as an access point, but no development can occur over this area of concern. Um, that can be limited also." Thank you very much. That's the same briefing I got from y'all last week. So,
thank you, Mr. Lockhart. In terms of access, is there a state law or something that allows um who the Island Lake Cemetery Association to allow burials on property that it doesn't appear that they have legal
access to? It appears to be landlocked. You're talking about the Piney Grove cemetery that exists there now, correct? So, what what I had seen I was refreshing my memory because when we had talked about it before it I was trying to figure out if there were so many recent burials there, it doesn't look
like there is a legal access or maybe there's an easement or something that's recorded. I'm just wondering how are are these owners going to have to provide access through their driveway for those it looks like a flag lot for
for folks to be able to access the cemetery behind them. So I don't know if there's an easement that's existing now to access that property or where where it's located. We we did not do the research of that. I can tell you that there is state law surrounding
cemeteries that requires access to that cemetery. Um I did research on this, but it was a few years ago, so I'm not exactly 100% sure what it is, but um there there does under state law there there needs to be access. Whether or not
there's access existing, I don't know. Maybe Mr. Groot, did you do a title opinion on this property? No, we didn't. And actually, Commissioner Lockhart, I had the same question. And that's why access when the house is built, it's going to have to be on the flag unless there's some resolution of the very issue that you
raised, which I never projected it to the cemetery, but that is an interesting question there. Yeah. Well, and it appears from public records that the cemetery association has only recreated itself quite recently. It was first established, it looks like, in 2013. So, at least under its current name and
and the current uh caretakers. So, This is extremely curious to me. I find it very fascinating. I'm I am a um a historical cemetery buff and I make my husband drag me around the country going to historical cemeteries looking for
ancestors. I am that weird person. Um so this it is not I will just say it is not uncommon to have um burials not be recorded in historic cemeteries. very very common to the point that I would even question whether or not some of the
adjacent properties might have had burials on them as well um for the for the neighbors who have concerns. So, but just for for our attorney's uh perspective from the county's uh point of view, whether or not that ground
penetrating radar was sufficient or eliminated all doubt or left doubt on the table, how does that impact our decision-m today? Can you tell us legally from the standpoint of what it is that we're here to review today and
what is before us with the information that we have? How would that change or impact our decision in any way? I'll let Na take it. Sure, I'm happy to I'm happy to answer that. So, um, we the county has to look at comp plan amendments through the
criteria that's listed in the comp plan. And Caitlyn had a slide that went over that. And we look at the character of the surrounding area, public public utilities and facilities availability, um whether the site can comply with
flood plane regulations and wetlands, whether it um the property will adhere to other special provisions of the law. And what that means is in this case the Wakiva special protections that we have on this site which it will it will actually be consistent with that at one
dwelling unit um on the property and whether it's um compatible with development you know in the area generally which it is because there's single family residents in the area. There is an uh comprehensive plan um
policy that addresses archaeological resources. That policy says that we have to require a survey, which we've done. It says you have to keep things, if there's any areas of concern, you have to keep those in open space areas as I talked about. Um,
and so we've checked those boxes. Now, you know, it doesn't talk about like do we have to go get our own or or something like that. We've it it's my opinion that the county's taken all necessary steps what we're required to do under the comp plan and it's your job
to review this application as the criteria goes and one of and and we've we've met the cr they've met the criteria for those purposes. All right. Thank you very much. Mr. Lockart, don't feel too weird. I took one of my daughters to the cemetery to get names for a short story. Ah, fun time.
Commissioner. Yeah. So the this is a I think in Florida more unusual situation than certainly some of the parts of the country where you've been looking at grave sites uh and where I
grew up. But but the fact of the matter is is that the county has done the work to determine what we could determine currently. the property owner has attempted to do the work to determine what they can determine
and state law and protection step in at the point that something is found and that's the next place that this goes. I've actually asked the question so Nissa I'd love for you to weigh in. I am under the impression that we cannot
require them to do additional uh ground penetrating radar at this point. First of all, the land needs to be cleared in order to clear the objects that are in the way of the ground penetrating radar. So, it's chicken and egg. And so, that step has to be taken.
We can ask that they do it similar to the way Commissioner Constantine is asking for the best septic system and we can put that in the motion. But to require it would also be problematic. Do I understand that correctly?
To be required as a condition of a comprehensive plan amendment to a future land use map amend amendment that we have here. Yes, that's correct. We can't condition a future land use map amendment. That is a legislative matter. However, we can require them to be
consistent with the comprehensive plan and that says you have to provide a survey on properties that are in the arch archaeological resource areas um that are not that don't have um flood plane areas or wetland areas on their
property. that um additional surveys conducted by archaeological consultants or other qualified surveyors that verify the presence or absence of archaeological resources can be required. And so we've done that. Well, I
is there something that we haven't done that we can do? Let me ask it a different way. Oh, at this point, no. Okay, commissioners. With that, I'm prepared to make a motion. Let's make sure Mr. Groot's done whatever. I'm through listeners. Any questions? Thank you. Nope. Thank you
very much, sir. We're not recognizing you. Your time has been and gone. Thank you. Fine. Bring that up. Give it to the clerk. 20 signatures of folks in the neighborhood that are against it. I think it's a statement. Is that what it says? Yes, sir. Okay. Enter that into the record if you
would. Yep. Okay. Commissioner. Yes, ma'am. Based on staff's funding and the testimony and evidence received at the hearing, uh, the board of county commissioners finds the request meets the identified portions of the
comprehensive plan. And I ask that we I move that we adopt the ordinance enacting the small-scale future land use map amendment from public quasi public to suburban estates. Second. Motion second. Further discussion.
I I will only say that I spent a lot of time looking at this. I asked our historical commission to dig into this. Went all the way to the state of Florida. I supplied those documents to our planning division out of concerns that I had. Um I happened to own a piece
of property with a actual Civil War um prisoner grave site uh on it. Actually several grave sites. And the federal law dictates that if that's the case and it is discovered and is graves on the site,
you have to provide reasonable access uh for folks to come to those grave sites. Um in my case, it's simply a 25 foot wide by about a 600t long easement um for them to get to it. Um, I've owned
the property 27 years and not a single person's ever come. Uh, except for, uh, Daughters of American Revolution and some others that come around once in a while and tidy things up and, you know, we show up on your doorstep every now and then and ring a bell.
U, but, uh, you know, I I will be supporting this because I agree. Staff has has done everything. The the owner at this point has done everything. there are state laws that dictate uh unfortunately if there is a discovery um that how that'll handle. So
with that said I will call the question. All those in favor I oppose like sign. Seeing none motion moves forward. Thank you all very much. Next item up is item 37. as Kathy Hamill will present this item.
Good afternoon. Kathy Hamill, Development Services. The applicant is requesting to construct an 1123 square foot boat dock, house, and walkway at 975 Lakefront Lane. The boat dock, house, and walkway is
located on Lake Brantley in which the applicant's property has approximately 160 ft of lake frontage. Lake Brantley is approximately 287 acres and has a mean depth of 12 feet. The 1123 square
foot um boat dock consists of 666 square feet of boat house and slip, 227 square ft of open deck, and 230 square ft of walkway. Our code requires that boat docks that exceed 1,000 square feet must
require board approval. The proposed dock meets the criteria listed in section 70.7 of the seminal county land development code in which they are providing a tidity barrier during construction. They are meeting the setbacks from the adjacent
properties. They have issuance of a general use permit by Florida Department environmental protection and not exceeding the 25% of the width of the water body so not to create any navigational hazards. Staff is requesting the BCC approve the 1123
square foot boat dock house and walkway at 975 Lakefront Lane. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Any questions for staff? Seeing none. Thank you, Miss Hamill. Stand by in case questions do arise. Uh
Hansen, anybody here to represent the Hansens? And do you wish to make a presentation or speak to the board? Uh, we don't need to make one. I'm I'm one of the two owners. Okay, great. Have a seat. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon. Thank you very much. Um, so I will Anybody else from the public
to speak on this item? One speaker card, sir. Jordan Majour, that was me. Okay. No speakers. In case there's anyone, we like things efficient. When somebody says they don't want to talk, I'm like, yeah, you're good. Oh, no. I mean, I'll need to talk. I
don't know if there's anybody here for rebuttal. Um I I am prepared to speak, but I don't need to speak if if we're going to submit things for approval, but if there is for rebuttal, I'm prepared to speak if needed. Okay, we'll give you a rebuttal chance if there if need be. Okay. Sure. Cool. Great. Mr. Chairman, I will ask him a
question since he's here. Yes. Um so from what I understand, the this is on the exact footprint of the previous one and you're just rebuilding it. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, that's all. Thank you. Stand by.
Make yourself comfortable towards the front in case we need you again. Certainly. Great. Thank you. Anybody else from the public? No, sir. All right, then we will close public comment and we will move to board action. This is Commissioner Constantine. Yes. District three.
I'm prepared to move approval with the hope that this is the last one we ever see. All right. Looking for a second. Second. We got a motion to say any further discussion. We just want to let you know that's because we're writing new ordinances,
not because this has been so awful. I just because you were like, "What? What's happening?" It's because we're improving ourselves. So you don't have to come before us. People we're trying to get more efficient. Love it. Hence my discussion with you a minute ago. That said, we'll call the question.
All those in favor? I oppose like sign seeing none carries unanimous. Thank you all very much. Thought that we Hey, when somebody says they don't really need to talk, I'm all about it. Wish you would do the same.
Oh. All right. Next up is going to be our county attorney's report. Madame County attorney, do you have anything to report to us? Uh, one item. chairman. Um you'll recall a few weeks ago the board contributed to a letter signed by the chairman that we sent to um specific members of the
legislature regarding the county's concerns regarding Senate Bill 180. Right. Um that letter went out, you know, shortly after you all approved it. And I just wanted to let you know that since then there have been two separate lawsuits filed against various members of the cabinet. One was filed by
Thousand Friends of Florida and a resident of Orange County. And then the second one was the lawsuit with multiple municipalities also joined by Manatee County and Orange County. Um both lawsuits are uh styled as a complaint
for a declaratory action and injunctive relief and they're challenging the constitutionality of Senate Bill 180 on a variety of grounds. And if you're interested in discussing that further or if you would like a copy of the complaints, I'd be happy to send those to you. Um, otherwise I just wanted to give you that update and let you know
that we're going to be following both of these cases and we'll keep you updated as appropriate. Thank you. I would like a copy of the complaint to review. You got it. Mind. And just for full disclosure, yes, all of you know that I am a member of the Thousand Friends of Florida Board of
Directors. Um, it's specifically on the complaints that actually were presented in Kate's u presentation to us. It was a separate action that was already involved and was moving forward prior to us sending the letter.
Okay. Thank you. Any other inquiries on that? Seeing none, is that it? That is all. Great. All right. County manager report. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple items. Uh the first is Mr. Harris wanted me to mention to the board that the
National Weather Service forecast uh forecast that the St. John's River at Lake Harney will reach minor flood stage uh this weekend. We have looked at uh the Mullet Lake Park and we are looking to close that today that the flooding
has reached to the parking area. Um so we'll be monitoring that as well. And for the public's uh notice is that it's been I know it's been out uh we do have self-s serve self-s serving sandbag location sites. One is at the um Old Geneva fire station and the other is at
the city of Sanford public works facility. So just wanted to put that out there. Great. And as well and I don't want to steal uh Commissioner Lockhart's Dundre if it's in her report, but Scout is officially launching tomorrow. Even though you've seen vehicles all throughout the county,
they have been doing their training. Uh they've actually are learning the the county, a lot of them are local folks that are drivers. So, but it officially launches tomorrow, October 15th. That's all. Fantastic. Any questions or comments on anything from the county manager?
Commissioner Her, I'll make a comment with regard to scout. The logo is generating interest and generating questions. And you know, what does scout mean is the the single greatest question that I'm getting, which is exactly what we wanted. So,
hats off to the team that developed it. It's working. Seino County out, which answers the question, do we leave the county? Semino Countyy's outstanding. Uh
anyway, uh okay, Commissioner Constantine, District 3 Commissioner reports. Thank you very much. Just a couple of things. Number one, if you did not see all the both pre and post publicity,
that Red Bull tandem roller coaster was amazing. Um I I I was there. There were they didn't expect the crowd they got. They have over 40,000 people. Wow. And and because they didn't expect it, there was a lot of traffic jams and
everything that day. But those that were there, it was amazing. There were 30 teams of crazy bicycling uh two tandem bicycles and five folks actually made it through the roller coaster. So that was that was pretty
to the others. All in the all in the brink. All in the drink. And and I will I will also tell you that there was at least six, seven of our firefighters out there on paddle boards saving them and whatever else was in the bicycles
because there was a lot of different things. One of them had like about 50 u uh um donuts and uh bagels and all of them were being saved from the drink out
there. Um, and I remember Frank Franks made the comment said, "I would I don't even let my people swim in that water." So, it was what it was. Um, a good morning seminism
type of thing. And I I want to congratulate Gee and everybody else that was there and and pushing that. On the third, I had the opportunity to speak uh to the Barry University School of Law on a energy transitions and major workshop
on energy transition research findings. Excuse me. And there was a a number of other speakers over the course of that day. On the 4th, uh, the German American Society had their wonderful October Fest event. However, there was a lot of rain,
unfortunately. But good news, they always have one at the end of the month. So, October 25th, they will be having another October Fest, the second tap as they call it. And, uh, I would suggest anybody that missed the first one that
you would, you're missing a good time if you don't make it to the next one. Uh the also um just a couple of things also coming up. Uh the uh October 16th, the Florida Trust Board is meeting. Our
board of trustees is meeting. On the 22nd, the statewide council of opioid abatement is also meeting. And on the 24th, even though it's been a really, really tough year for Lyman High School's football team, um they are
having homecoming. and homecoming is tradition and it's great. So, we're just hoping that um that will be something wonderful for that school which has really had a tough time this year in in in their football program. I will tell
you that I was able to go to the Serbian Community Fest this past weekend and I was I've been before but as you know they came before us because they were expanding it. I will tell you that was at all the community fests that we all
go to that was second to none. It was just wonderful. The people were fantastic. The food was wonderful and um and the church was beautiful. So just want to let you know that that comes up every October and that was just a great
event uh this past weekend. Uh the air show is coming up which I'll let Commissioner Zimbau I guess speak on. And uh the uh pathway to cares soup bowl which you know goes and helps uh the homeless here in Semino County will be
once again this Saturday at the path at St. Mary Magdalene Church. And with that commissioner I um I'm done. Very good. Commissioner Lockhart district 4. Um so you never steal my thunder talking about scout. The more all of us talk
about scout the better. Um because as much as I think we have exhausted all of the opportunities to talk about scout, I still run into people who are like, "What are you talking about? What is that? I never heard of that." So you can never communicate too much. Uh especially with a new initiative. Um had
an opportunity this morning to be with the Fox 35 news team. We did a live with the vehicles out there and uh it was a quick twominut uh opportunity to to talk about scout. But the more we do it, the better. And I think I think our our friends in the
media are enjoying it too because it's something new for them to talk about as well. So that's right. Um things I believe are going quite well. Um so I had an opportunity to speak on um uh the barberhop conversation. Uh Mr.
Bentley and Mr. Simpson and uh Mr. Hampton and uh Mr. green um have put together the barberh shop conversation and and I know several of of you if not all of you have been invited to to participate as well. The idea was for me
to come and have an opportunity to share information about scout and I realized there were a lot of elephants in the room that evening. Um we had just had a visit from our state CFO and some other conversations that were taking place and so I said you know what let's let's go
ahead and talk about there's nothing off the table. asking what what let's talk about what's out there. We talked about Rosenwald. We talked about uh millillage. We talked about um utility tax and gas tax and and it was just um a really really good
conversation. And of course people can uh message through on Facebook and and make comments and ask questions. And so I think continuing the transparency and being um accessible to those in our community who we are accountable to is
so critical when there is when there's confusion. Um so that was an awesome opportunity. Appreciate those gentlemen immensely. Uh I'll let Commissioner her talk about the uh ROM event was fantastic uh rescue outreach mission. Then uh also in in the spirit of
transparency and accessibility spoke with the East Seminal Republican Club at the Black Hamish black hammock fish camp last week was fantastic. Thank you uh Chairman Zimbau for joining me and um Mr. Gray and Mr. J also were in
attendance. Talked about scout. See I just think I talk about scout everywhere. How can everybody not know about scout? Um and then also talked about uh what's going on with our our budget and um the perception that is out there right now
that um there is definitely uh another side to that coin and and I I'm sure we'll talk about that some more maybe later or in another uh environment. But again, another great opportunity for people to ask questions and um you know, we marinate in this stuff. We as
commissioners and staff and and the residents who attend our meetings regularly, but most people go about their daily lives and they are living them and they are not paying attention to the to all of the minor details of things that happen here. And so it is
not um it shouldn't surprise us when there's confusion and when people can be easily taken advantage of u by being given um dishonest information, information that isn't entirely accurate. Um it it's easy to have
happen. So um appreciate that group very much having the dialogue and the opportunity. I think we all learned some things that evening and um look forward to to being able to to go back and have a followup base camp children's fundraiser. I think Commissioner Her probably is also going to talk about
that. But the Golden Nutcracker, which is uh a fundraiser for um for children's cancer um families that are experiencing that. Uh those of you who remember Alice Weinberg who worked with the property appraiser David Johnson for years that is her passion project and her late
husband Jim Weineberg um she's continuing that and we were able to go and be a part of that and had a good time. Um the other event that I attended this last week um or two weeks ago they were
starting to run together um was private business associates of Seol. I am not a member, but as an elected official, they invite us as guests. And it was uh a great presentation. Shout out to the sheriff's team, and to Manny Gu, his um legal counsel talking about open carry
and what that means for businesses and entities in Semino County, and how um that will be approached. our county attorney, Kate Lour, was there as well. And um it was kind of fun to watch Manny and Kate interact a little bit because as we all know, lawyers have differing opinions on different things at
different times and and it was it was sweet. It was a fun interaction to just see how um how they complemented one another and um and their perspective on things. But definitely something that our our local businesses and we as government are going to be um pivoting
and and figuring out uh a new normal with that. And that is all I have. Thank you, Commissioner Lockhart. Commissioner her, District 5. So, I'll pick up where you left off on that and not and not repeat anything. Um,
I think the most remarkable thing from the PBIS discussion was the fact that there was a collaboration and a collaborative spirit between the sheriff's attorney's office and our attorney's office that is remarkably different from what it's been in the
past and remarkably improved. and that was noticeable in the room and I so worth mentioning. Um the base camp event was indeed fantastic and uh I will I'll give a shout out to Highland. Hillet did
did sponsor the table and we got Florida Blue to match the table and so the we think they did really well that night. um the rescue outreach mission gratitude and action lunch and this is their big
public fundraiser every year. It was the most highly attended and interestingly enough there were about 28 29 tables of 10 in the room and that's about the number of people that we anticipate
housing in the next year. So it was uh remarkable to ask everyone to stand up and look around and say this is about how many people will not only forget how many we we put in a bed with food in their bellies at night. These are the folks that we're going to move into
housing. So uh the outcome was good. The staff did an amazing job. They've come such a long way. And I'll give a shout out to the towers award winner. It was our own Chief Lisa Spriggs for all of the work that she did on the financials
to um get them from where they were prior to my time on this board to where they are today. I loved the new location and the new format. We agree. It was fantastic. We agree. It was well well done.
Thank you. I'll I'll give them that feedback. I've given them that feedback. Uh we're we're thinking the same. Um, I also did a tour of the supervisor of elections office recently. If you have not done that, it's worth doing. I think there's invitations out to everyone. There's been a significant amount of
work on a fairly shoestring budget, including donations from the the Sanford Mall at the point that they closed. Um, and lots of trucks and it's changed the entire storage dynamic there because of the shelving they they were able to secure. Um, but also a lot of work on
the the on streamlining the actual counting process so that things aren't moving around the way they were moving around. So worth seeing. I would encourage you all to go on a um bigger and much more expensive note. That was for the hides in the
back. So on a bigger and much more expensive note, it's not falling short on us that that's this is happening. The CFX board did vote to advance the 417 extension to the s to Orlando Sanford airport with the idea that there are
partnerships required. Darren and Michelle, so the two CEOs of the organizations are going to work together to build a plan to uh look for those partnerships so that progress can happen. So that was the putting the period at
the end of that sentence and starting the new stage of that process. And then lastly, at this CFX meeting, they did their landscape management program strategic plan presentation. And I know there's at
least one commissioner up here that's just going to love the document that's been sent to your inbox today. So there's no need for us to duplicate work. It's already been shared with our team. Uh, but this is the document that I thought might be helpful. And their
consultant is Dicks Height, our own little seminal county. They're not little, but they're a seminal county based business. And that is it. Thank you, Commissioner Her. Uh, District One is absent. Commissioner
Delari is on vacation, so we will go to my district. Um, October 6th was a fundraiser CEO build for Habitat of Humanity. We raised a great bunch of money even though it was raining most of
the morning. Um, we actually came together and uh helped build another unit. Um, I will tell you that some of the attendees that don't know me personally might have been a little surprised that I know how to work a saw and a a drill and
nail guns and those kind of things. U, it was a great event. It really was. Uh, we had a lot of CEOs from the local uh area as well as other counties surrounding that came in, donated, and worked with us. Uh, great cause and and
and good work there. uh Sanford Orlando inter uh international airport board meeting October 7th. Um happy to report record flight numbers uh for June and July. Um August is slightly down but we
intend to come into our busy season as things moving forward there. A lot of good things happen at the airport. Um there's uh UCF is coming to uh hopefully come to the airport. uh there's been a signature
penned and inked uh to the agreements. So, that's going to be a good start. There's other entities that are interested, but they are working also on long-term leases, which is going to take some governmental action um uh up at the federal level, and I understand that uh
Robert Utie, who's here today with us, is uh helping spearhead that initiative to get our legislators to understand that, you know, the the nonairway properties that could be used for commercial uh are going to need more than, you know, for big investment, more
than a 50-year lease term to get a return return on their dollar. So, that's moving forward. Um, sharing center, of course, uh, if you all saw the news, was awarded $342,865 from Big Nova Foundation to renovate the
Oasis showers in the facility. Big uh, big grant or big land there. Uh, I attended the Swana International event at the landfill this weekend. That was a that was interesting. Never knew it existed. Um, matter of fact, when staff
came to me and said, uh, you know, we'd like you to go out to the landfill on Saturday. I said, I don't have any trash to take out there. Um, they said, no, no, no. We'd like you to open the open the ceremonies and big boys playing. I'm like, what is this about? So, it's about competition for
solid waste employees, working bulldozers, track hose, excavators, uh fixing trucks, uh fixing equipment, uh running through obstacle courses with the equipment, moving debris, how quick
they can move it and get it back and all this. Pretty neat. It was like the the US championship. There was teams from all over the country there. Um, I think some were a little taken back that we have a lot of alligators and uh w wild
wild hogs and and other creatures that they may not see in Michigan and Colorado and places like that, but uh it was all good. Of course, our our beloved bald eagles, which are plentiful uh at the landfill. So, it was a great event. Uh had a little rain in the morning, but
otherwise it was they enjoyed the weather. Uh, of course, it's National 4 week. We talked about go resolution today celebrated from October 5th to October 11th and the theme this year is beyond ready. Uh it's delivered by our 4 cooperative extension a community of
more than 100 public universities across the nation that provides experiences for young people to learn by doing. For more than 100 years for has welcomed young people of all beliefs and backgrounds giving kids a voice to express they are who they are and how they make their lives and communities better. Great
great function for young people. Of course, the CFX board meeting, I was very glad to see uh many folks from Semino County there. Uh I did speak on behalf of the board as as I was directed by this board and uh the Chamber of Commerce was there and spoke in favor as
well as the Sanford International Airport board member, Mr. Frank Ayapollo. So, that was a great attendance there. Uh some other notifications. Uh we've got some events over in the Ovido Winter Springs area of the county. We've got
the chamber after 5 event uh which is next month on the 7th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. We will have the Viva Oto event this weekend the 19th at the Ovito Amphitheater and Cultural Center.
Then we've got the Central Winds Music Picnic Festival which is November 15th 12 to 5:00 p.m. and it'll be at Central Winds Park. That's always a big big event for the people on that side of town. The kids are running around all kinds of things for for the kids and
parents to do. So great outing. All right. As I move to my chairman's report, um, my office shared with you all some documents and I'll ask staff to hopefully bring
one up on the overhead or uh, this is a document related to the clerk of the courts. And for those who may be unable to see that, maybe you can blow
that up just a little bit larger somewhere between there and the offscreen version. So, I mean, we've we've all seen this before. We saw this during our um budget process and a lot of discussions went on and basically what this shows in and in
light of the CFO uh Mr. Blazing Golia being here this past week. Um as many of you know we were requested to share all of our documents with them in April early May which we did. um you know our anticipation with whatever work they did
uh would have been collaborative but they would have reached out to us and said hey we have a question about this we have a question about that can you answer this can we answer that so I checked with staff and found out none of that ever happened that we had no reach out for anybody to question us
what does this mean what does that mean you explain what this expense is none of that happened instead we had the CFO show up and knock seminal county I'm here Um, which brings us to, we know, we've all reviewed this. We've been
living this for well over a year. You know, this this budget cycle, our staff is probably worn out by now because we asked them to start working on this a very long time ago. And we forced them to go back and work through it. We forced ourselves to go back and work for it. We've we've brought people from
Florida State uh to do an AI run on this budget. We've also brought people from the outside to make a run on this budget. Um, so we've done everything that we think is reasonable and prudent uh to do that. But there is one area
first. Let me say I don't disagree with Mr. Angolia's mission to make sure there's not waste, fraud, or abuse. I think all five of the commissioners that sit here agree with that as well. But we do expect collaboration. If there's something more eyes are better,
if somebody sees something, tell us. Let's have that candid conversation. Um, you know, if somebody thinks we have one employee too many in community services or, you know, whatever it might be, let's have that conversation and help us understand. We don't know everything.
But the one that sticks out in my mind was the simple fifth grade math equation that was done was basically take five years worth our total budgets, apply CPI to it, which if you take a a
page out of President Trump's book is CPI is what's it really worth? What does it really designate? Um it may or may not be 100% accurate. Then we apply a population content to it. and we come out with a 28% number is
what the CFO comes up with. And I don't agree I don't disagree with those numbers. If you take that equation, those numbers are accurate. But that's like taking somebody's tax return and looking at the front page and the back page and you can answer what their income was in between and what
their billing was and their write offs. Can't do it that way. It's the context. But one that really stuck out in my mind which I was shocked because there's two budgets that the CFO has direct oversight on. That is the
county's tax collector and the clerk of the courts. Tax collectors actually has a state algorithm that must adhere to that budget. The clerk's not so much. But we
look at this document and what's so telling to me, we all know that, you know, the arms race for law enforcement and first responders, we're all aware of that. We've been living that for a few years. We look at the growth in the budgets based on the CFO's analogy,
2019 up through 2025. And we would think that law enforcement and sheriff's budget based on what we know would be the highest. Well, we knew it wasn't that wasn't the case. When we did our budget hearing, we
had a lot of dialogue. The clerk's budget has grown 90%. More than any constitutional, more than any department in this county. 90% growth. We've asked questions.
We get answers. Sometimes don't get answers. We have bonuses given out which we're told aren't bonuses. And yet the one of two items that the state CFO
has oversight on, this was never mentioned. a 90% egregious growth on a constitutional officer's budget was never mentioned by the CFO. In addition to that, the year prior, the
previous CV CFO did send a letter of approximately six pages, which you all have, which outlines some accounting concerns. I can't tell you if the new CFO has seen
this or whether he's reviewed this at all. at that time was the honorable Jimmy Patronis was a chief finan financial officer. So I just went on a little
practice run. We did talk about this to to some extent but if you'd bring up the next slide. So I sat with staff and I ran some analogies. So if you start with the fisc year
clerk's adopted budget was $3,230540. The fisc year 26 clerk's adopted budget is $6,137861. A2 $2,97,000 growth over that period of time. That's a 90%
growth. Again, not even our first responders and our sheriff's office have that kind of growth. The property appraiser, by example, his has grown 28%. Why did I choose the property appraiser
as a nexus? Both are pretty stagnant in what they do. There's been no state mandates. There's been no significant upheaval that requires them do a lot more work than they otherwise used to do, which is
not true for some of the other constitutionals and some of the other departments. I did afford a 5% increased workload because there was some cyber security that was necessary for the clerk to do that had to be enacted. So, I gave the
benefit benefit of the doubt and benchmarked a 33.2% 2% increase, which in my mind is a little more reasonable to allow a fiscal year 26 clerk budget to be 4,34,438,
which thereby reduces the budget by 1,833423423. You'll see the two things underneath there, which is the increased workload. That's a gasby 87 which is a little bit more lease accounting that the car has to do and the cyber security improvements.
So then I said well okay you know maybe maybe we're missing something. So I took it one step further and the next highest which we're not surprised about is the sheriff's budget which over that same time period uh has
grown 53%. And again, we know why. There's market pressures that have come to bear on that. And it's the arms race for first responders. In fact, you can't hardly find anybody who wants to be a police officer anymore. Even if we applied a 53% increase,
that would set the clerk's budget at $4,933 4,9335. A reduction of 1,204616. Now, ironically, if we take the 90% increase,
we know that the clerk has filed suit against the taxpayers of this county demanding another million dollars. You know what another million dollars does to this budget growth over the same time period? That's 110%. 110% growth in the clerk's budget.
I also learned as I dug into this, if you recall back in 2023 during the budget session, we questioned the I'll call them trust funds for for whatever purposes that that we're told we don't understand. Um I think I have a
pretty clear understanding now because I've spent close to three years talking to other clerks, talking to the state and doing my due diligence and staff's got up to speed on this. We were told then that one of those would be spent down to a million dollars
by 2024. Guess what the balance is today? 4,900 and change. Almost 5 million. So there are still two trust funds totaling almost $10 million. The same as there was in 2023, the same as there's
today. What I'm asking this board to do is take action to cut this budget to a reasonable amount. And I will say we're being sued for a million dollars anyway.
Sue us for 3 million. I am not okay with this budget. and I let it go during the budget session hoping that the state CFO would have focused in on it, ask
questions, and brought it to everybody's attention. That at least has not happened so far. Whether we have that conversation today and take action or we want to do it at a later date, I want to bring this to each and every one of you so you have all the
information um that I have and ask for your input. Commissioner Lockhart, we'll work our way down the I have questions uh probably for for our attorney and our
county manager and and team. Um, first of all, is the six five is the 5 million to use round numbers and you said 10 million total in two trust funds. Just shy of 10 million. Yes. Are those accounted for in those budgets
that are up on that screen? No, ma'am. No. No. So there is money that the clerk holds within his uh oversight that is not being uh transparently
publicly disclosed to this board as a part of their budget. Correct. Right. Now he um he did mention that during his budget work sessions you know about the trust funds. Um I think we asked him and he answered. I'm not sure that he offered. I think there was a question. And all I can say
is the county's checkbook is on the website. Any any resident can go look at basically any transaction that the county does. I can't find anywhere on the internet
where the clerk identifies the two $5 million trust funds or for that matter any other information within his office, employee salaries, etc., etc. Okay. So, I just want to make sure that I'm understanding that there there are
funds that so even if the CFO had done the due diligence that we wish he had done and if he had uh if we had provided him all of the information for the constitutionals and and the percentages of of funds allocated,
would those trust funds have appeared in what we provided the CFO or would that have been been something that only the clerk could have provided. Correct. Only the clerk could provide that in information because we provided information that the board of county
commissioners has jurisdiction over and we fund out of the clerk's budget board and finance. That's what our uh obligation is under the state statute. So, anything on the court side or the other uh is is the state's responsibility.
Well, we have article five responsibility as well. Correct. Yeah, we do. Yes. But but the source for a review for the oversight agency is from the oversight agency to the agency being reviewed, not an
outside agency that also funds. So, so we we could submit things and say, "Hey, help maybe some a second set of eyes would help here, but but the source should be direct and would include audited financial statements potentially
audited by somebody other than the internal auditor that is in the reporting chain." Right. Right. Exactly. And so I think that's what I'm just trying to understand is that while while we do not believe that our organization and the and and the the
information that we provided was vetted appropriately by the CFO's office. It would not have been this information would not have been something that we would have given them to to wave a correct but but it is this right but it is the CFO's responsibility to oversee
those all of those clerk's funds. Correct. including uh trust funds five trust funds and okay because I guess what I'm I'm I'm just trying to make sure that you know there's a this is so reminiscent of our currently
incarcerated former tax collector situation where we had citizens thought we were responsible for certain things and had oversight when in fact we didn't. and we asked and asked and asked for the state to come in and look and you know it I just want to make
sure we're very clear as we're talking about these very complicated topics that someone doesn't come back and say well if there was $10 million in a trust fund and you didn't catch it that's on you. I want to make it very clear that this is not under the board's purview by state law or okay
um and I'm not saying that the I'm not equating the that's a false equivalency. I'm not suggesting that someone else deserves to be in jail, but it's just feels very reminiscent. Anyway, um if if we were to take action um as the chairman is
suggesting that we contemplate and further reduce any constitutional officer's budget at this point in the process, what would that look like and can we do that? And to be clear, this portion of the budget is the BCC's portion
that we do have control over, not the article five and all the other things that nuances that run into there. I just want to know like before you ask me do you want to do something I want to know sure can we do it and it's under the board's jurisdiction for the the dollars that you allocate
that you have 100% control over that you can increase decrease you know if you've seen throughout the the year some constitutionals even internal departments are our bud our departments will come and ask for you know additional funds yes you we have control
over the board of county commissioners funds the general fund Yes. And historically, the clerk has come back for midyear bars, right? Increases and increases. And originally, they were not being counted, right?
If you all remember my first year up here, struggling with the math of that percentage is not the percentage because the BAR was being added almost immediately after the beginning of the year, beginning of the fiscal year. and we were measuring off of the BAR plus
the original budget for future increases. So that was always being left out. New documents don't do that which is why it changed the trajectory and it looks very different. Well, and and to your point exactly, the first time this came on my radar was the year
of CO and I remember after CO had been going for a while, the clerk came to me as the chair and said, I think I'm going to have a problem with funding in our department because of CO. We all get that. You know, the the c
courts weren't collecting money, fines and penalties weren't happen. So, rational. Okay, Grant, I've got it. what is it you think you need? And I think he asked for I don't know $190,000 give or take at that point. Um I went to the
then county manager, explained it to him. Uh we had a meeting and we determined that we would give them the $190,000 to fill that void and gap. Guess what we got back at the end of the year? Just shy of $190,000.
So I have one more question. When we have asked for the last many years for the source of the trust funds, how did they get accumulated and where what is their
initial source? Like how how does the clerk accumulate $10 million to put in trust funds if monies are supposed to be coming back to the board or being sent to the state? And I know we were working with Miss Bailey Brown at one point. She was trying to get that information from uh the clerk's office. Did we ever get
to the bottom of that? She probably can explain it if you wanted to come up. It's a 190 fund and the article 5 fund. Yes. All have specifics. Yeah. She'll explain. Yep. Lori Bailey Brown, um,
administrative services director. Both of those trust funds are in the clerk's financial statements and they are they are a portion of fees that are collected. There's the $1.90 fund and the other one I think is the $1.50.
It's some other amount. And they have specific purposes. One is for court technology, court modernization, excuse me. and the other is for court technology but I would aster that
and and modernization of records. Yes, moderniz records modernization. Correct. And one of those trust Oh, sorry. Did you re Oh, go ahead. I say one of those trust funds is what Miss B was mentioning is article five. Um and so as you know we get $2, they
get $2 where they get 190 and then go ahead. Um, so they do have article 5 funding that they get from uh collection of of fees and which goes into this trust fund and then our $2 we use to fund the rest of the court systems technology. Correct.
You know, so I don't want to so it's not like we're we're not funding technology. We we believe as you know all know that we have met the statutory requirement for funding. Okay. Thank you. It's my understanding from talking to staff, we're spending all of our article 5
money on the courts. Correct. Every penny we get. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. And that includes the state attorney, the public defender, the court administration, all the other court, all the other court uh activity. Exactly.
So, I guess I'll just I'll ask the next logical question in my mind is how much of the funds does the board does this board currently oversee that we're talking about uh potentially
uh reducing funds that were on that report. So, what what you're seeing on that spreadsheet are the are the funds that you directly oversee. this board does that you the clerk comes and makes a budget presentation and you finally adopt it general fund funding.
Yes. In the in the uh adopted budget which we just did last month. Right. But there are breakdowns within that. Correct. Are there not breakdowns within those budget? I want to make sure I'm looking at I'll have Mr. J if you want to come up
and uh you could explain that one better than better than I. Yes, I understand. But out of that 6.1 million, how much of that is what this board has oversight over? And how?
100%. All of it. All of it. That's general fund money. General fund. Oh, right. Okay. But how much of that are you suggesting we cut? Well, all I'm saying is I'm given two scenarios. I'm look That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the scenario.
Sorry, I've got too many. It says property appraiser. A million8 or a million2 are the numbers on that document that he's referencing that Commissioner Zumbau is referencing. Yes. So, you're suggesting we just we we
merely put him in line budget-wise with what the property appraiser or the sheriff would have been. Correct. That was two I went to two extremes. I went to, okay, this is what the state CFO believes. It should be 28.
I I said, look, he does some gasby 87, does some cyber security. That's got to be worth give or take 2 to 5%. I clocked it at 5%. Then I said, well, what's the next highest constitutional officer's budget increase, which was the sheriff's.
I understand now. Thank you. I was just given I'm just given a picture of So So did you and I'm not stuck on either one of them. Commissioner Constantine, I didn't hear you. So if you'd like to go. It's all right. Okay. So there's a lot of things, you know, a lot of balls in
the air here. Number one, I would feel uncomfortable in talking and doing anything today. Agreed. Um that was one of the questions that you had. Correct. Number two, I think it's important that we have uh the clerk available for
specific questions before we did anything. Yeah, we don't want to we don't want to engia him. And number three, I I I don't take any reference to Mr. Angolia and what he has done and his uh bullying of the of the state budget of the local budgets. Um so
in that in that respect I don't you know I I I look at this as saying and I worked with um Tim on this a lot and the county manager during the thing and I actually I suggested
before we did the um advorum that we reduce many of the constitutionals. Um, and in this case, I believe that my recommendation was a half a million dollars that we would do for the clerk.
So, the idea of reducing the budgets is not foreign to me, nor is it adverse. I'm more than happy to look at that. Uh cuz I think that we need to be more prudent in our analysis
of the constitutional's budget and not just taking them and them saying this is what we could have especially in the fact and we all said this that we increased our budget 1.1%. Now, in looking at the budget, and I I
respect the five-year analysis because I looked back on that also, but in a one-year analysis, he was asking for only 6% additional. And in that case, you know, you've got a lot of non reoccurring dollars as well
as non-reoccurring dollars that we would have to analyze and have to look at before we did anything because the previous budget of the last year, which has already been fully funded, was 5.786 million. So, he's only asking for a $400,000
increase this year. So we would, you know, I mean the the the the problem would be we would have to do a real, you know, looks see at the reoccurring dollars that we have in that respect. But
any dollars that we have control over that we can put in more of a proper perspective as we have before. I would be happy to do this uh go through that exercise as I have already with him and and and the county manager. But I will
suggest to you that I don't want to do this based upon the CFO. We've done this. We did this. And I'm not saying you did. Please, please don't don't I'm not saying you did. I am saying as an individual, I do not want to do that
because a common index number as you've indicated. That's right. Makes no sense at all. Baloney. It's it is it's it it was as I said and was quoted it was a made for TV for his own personal um benefit. So I I do not want to do it that way. But if
we're going to have a clear analysis of this budget, I do believe that there has been aggressive, I'll use that word, increases in his budget. And I've been there when
he has suggested that we are the ones that haven't been spending our dollars correctly. No. So, um, and in fact was even at the CFO meeting, I believe, um, the press conference. Yes, they're supporting the CFO.
Um, so, so I mean that's you asked me a question. Would I be willing to do it? Yes. Will I be willing to do it today? No. Yeah. So, that's all. That's fine. Yeah. My my take on I'll go try to finish it up down here. Um, whether you want to agendaize it or
whatever is fine. Um, but to be clear, I've been asking these questions since the 2022 23 budget year why the increases were cons. We've all been asking the questions, Commissioner Zenower. Here's the here's the We just haven't been getting the answer. Most of the time it's you just don't
understand. Well, I think we got the answer in the lawsuit, right? Um, my perspective on this is that timing is everything
and that this isn't the time to do this. I think the time to start next year's budget is perhaps now and that applies to all of us to the five constitutionals as well of us. Some will have an easier time of it than others.
Tax collector, right? So, I think this needs to be shifted into that mode so that it's productive and collaborative and we're not making arbitrary cuts that could actually harm services to citizens. I would also tell you that I
don't and I al we all know that the denominator matters. So the starting point of the level of services that were provided by the clerk's office in a different era and a different time that
are no longer sustainable. But this starts in 2020. I just want to get this on the record because the excuse that continues to be used is that I had to bring it up to standard. But that started many years before 2020. Correct. Which year in fact was that? Was that 16?
16 or 17? I think it was earlier than that. Was it? Yeah. Yeah. Because I I believe he was elect either was the 14 or 16. Yes. Okay. Correct. So there's at least four years before
2020 where there was the budget probably if we look back to then it's probably gigantic which would not be fair. I don't know that we can sit here and say that they're not doing additional work. We're not in those operations every day. And th this is the same thing
I what here my mother just because Sally down the street is a jerk doesn't let you be a jerk. You need to be above it. So I'm going to live to that. She also did not use the word jerk and so I cleared that up. She used other
words and so I don't want to do what the CFO did to us to others. I don't want to have done right. I don't want to be non- collaborative with the clerk. However, we have built this pattern where the conversations are
not conversations. Correct. And that has to stop where we simply get beaten about the head. And when we don't get our way, then we say, "Okay, well, I'm going to go hire a lawyer, or I'm going to go tell the public that it's
the county that's spending money erroneously, and I'm going to public their I'm going to publicize their checkbook, but I'm not going to publicize my own because transparency is apparently only applicable to us." We we really have to get better than
that all the way around. And that includes us. So, I don't want to do this now. And I don't want to agenda agendaize. I don't know if that's a word, but I don't want to add this to the agenda as a singular item. What I do want to do is I want to continue to work
on the budget. We passed a millage increase that doesn't have to stand into perpetuity, right? The whole thing needs to continue to be worked on. This is one component of it. What I will tell you though is the benefit that the smaller
constitutionals get in the budgeting cycle is that well even in your largest number commissioner Zimbau it's a million dollars on a billion dollar budget and how much shelf space do we have for that we don't have shelf space for it well what we need to do is these
guys need to become Cheetos right there used to be only one flavor cheits there used to be only one flavor flavor. It occupied this much of the shelf. Now there's 79 flavors and we expanded the view of the universe. That's what needs to happen is that there needs to be more
transparency and we need to have more time on these alone. I don't think it has to happen exclusively in the budgeting cycle. If we were a business, I can tell you these damn meetings would be happening right now. That's right. So if that's what we're asking for, then
yes, we need to do that. That will also require that we are we acknowledge that the work that gets levied on to the county manager's office as a result of the work that has to happen. Not to mention, Tim is significant and we need to allow them
to have the time to do that. Yeah, I think we have to change the dynamic or we're never going to get out of the agree with a lot that was just said, but I'm not I'm not interested starting our budget session now. Uh I think budgeting budget work not the budget seen as an
ongoing daily occurrence um that our staff should be looking at. What I am going to say is we've been through plenty of work sessions, public hearings. We've had our constitutionals come in
and speak to us been collaborative as as as much as we can be. I have no problem with anybody else's budget of constitutional officer. I've vetted that process. I've asked the tough questions. I've got the answers.
Instead, what I get from the one that we're discussing now is, "Well, you just don't understand. It's diffic it's a difficult understanding." Well, what I do understand is this line item is for work that's done for the BCC,
not for the courts, not for anybody else. It's simply recordkeeping for this board. the minutes, records, documents, and that's it. Our finance and statutoily, I can find nothing going
all the way back to 2012 moving forward where there's been any legislation that says the clerk has to do this now instead of what they're doing. I can find no directives. What I can find is is what I would call good per business
practice, which is the new Gatsby regulations for for leases, which is take some additional accounting. Got it. That's a given. Uh cyber security, which we're all dealing with in all departments. I can I understand that.
Outside of that, there is nothing else. So I I if the will is to just let this roll at at the budgeted item until next year's budget session, I'm not good with that. Mr. Lockhart, somewhere between starting now and
waiting is where I'd like to be. I I think the time that we can use now is to gather more information so that we can better refine our questions that we can pose again. Um I I do think at some point in time
It doesn't matter how collaborative you want to be if there isn't a willing partner on the other end. There's there's not much you can do about that. The one of the questions that I'm I would ask if we could find um back looking at uh Jimmy Patron as former chief financial officer's letter dated
August 22nd, 2024. Um it it's actually uh the clerk of the court and controllers's reply to the CFO's audit um dated August 15th letter dated August 15th, 2024.
DFS recommendation alloc allocation methodology and I think this is part of where we're talking about there are there's a lot of money I believe in that budget that is BCC uh related that maybe isn't we may be
supplementing other programs and processes and this is where I think the the former CFO may have hit the nail on the head we recommend the clerk's office establish a method for sampling employees time and effort between court related and non-cortreated functions to ensure
the allocation of expenditures reflect an accurate appropriation of funds. The methodology should include a basis for concluding whether the budgetary calculations are accurate. We which leads me to believe that wasn't in place before. We also recommend the clerk's office ensure that their payroll is
allocated accurately according to employees established percentages. So the clerk replied acknowledged we will conduct a time and effort study for all departments that perform court and non-cortreated functions to ensure payroll expenditures are accurately allocated. Can we find out if that has
been done and if we could get a copy of that? Um because I think one of the things when we were talking about uh you know the current clerk was very uh proud to present a uh a type of homegrown
uh software program that he had hired staff to create. And we were saying, well, that's all well and good, but if that's costing you more than an off-the-shelf program and this is these are the funds you have, you may have to abandon that mission and do it another do it within the funds that you have
allocated to you. I would imagine that there's something akin to that happening here with with all of with that um group that's been created, but I don't Do you see what I'm saying? No, I absolutely agree. Uh, and if you
remember during the maybe 23 24 when I brought up the study done by the state of Florida of all clerks of all 67 counties, there were three accepted offtheshelf programs that all the clerks were using and the
state agreed those were the adequate for court administration. Correct. Um, the software was court administration. And I remember specifically asking why we didn't consider outsourcing or buying off the shelf and it was just because right and we wanted to sell it to other clerks
along with the t-shirts in for jury duty. I didn't know about the t-shirts at that time. And the other thing that you know I point out is what we've been talking about which is incentive policy. Best practices indicate that pay incentives should be outlined in an
employee handbook or other human resources policy guide. That's from Jimmy Petronis, the CFO. Having the policies document are vital to maintaining consistency within the clerk's office, training new employees, and controlling risk.
It goes on, etc., etc., etc. Um, so we've asked that question about incentives, bonuses, whatever the case might be. Um, and we're advised by our council, we can't give bonuses to any of
our employees. Um, and the AG's opinion is that supposedly we can't do that as well, unless it's outlined prior to being hired in a agreement of the hiring contractual agreement. Yes. Or a county policy.
Correct. As as we've done, it was was mentioned. In fact, I think the clerk brought it up um on that matter that it was a political attack and it's not a political attack. It's is what it is. It's all black and white for me. I don't care if it's who's running that office.
Is that if you have an incentive or bonus program, it needs to be outlined. Just like when we hire certain employees, they're either given a county car or not given a county car, but if they're expected to drive, they're given an
incentive mileage based on the IRS calculation, their give or take for the use of their vehicle. But yeah, as well as a phone, county phone, or if they don't want to use a county phone, we supplement the cost of a cell phone that is contractually agreed upon at the
time of of hiring. So I I think I actually think all of us are trying to get to the same end. Agreed. It's just a method question. And I do think a lot of these questions
would be answered by the next thorough audit. A followup to the original one from Mr. Petronis would be what was the outcome of that and have you actually adopted the new procedures that were recommended? So, should we be requesting
that to happen? I think so. That could be the action item because we're a year past this letter from Mr. Petronis outlining and the communications back and forth. I think it it would be valid to inquire
and say, "Give us an update. What do you know?" And we should probably ask to help with some information on the trust funds. Yes. Because what's odd to me, this goes all the way back to 2023,
2022, when those first came up, I think it was in 21 maybe that the trust funds first came on my radar, and I'd been here since 2018, just like Commissioner Lockhart, and and I'm going, "Wait a minute, there's $10 million of money laying somewhere that we just found out
about." Hm. So, I started doing my due diligence and going and looking at clerk reports from around the state. And there were other clerks that had those trust funds and fully reported online the balance at the end of the year, the
balance at the beginning of the year. And what was even more amazing, I couldn't find but one other that had any kind of money remaining in their trust fund at the end of the year, and it was minuscule. It was less than a million dollars. Um, which just begs the
question. And when I learned from our own internal auditor, which I I won't blame on staff, I won't blame on management at the time, that I'm told that the trust fund for technology
could have been utilized for technology in the new court annex, but it wasn't. But I think what we learned in 2021 22 going into the 23 there was this whole this whole shell
game between article five the 190 fund and we didn't understand it. I'm not even sure anybody understood it. But I'm smart enough businessman to sniff out something that's not functioning properly. So Mr. Chairman, I I I think I I I think
we all get what we're, you know, what we're talking about here, and I think we've all have a consensus that we agree that we're this is not the time or place to make a decision. I also think that with since we're getting into these a number of different questions
um and and an adversarial situation that I don't feel comfortable in in doing in the public um directly I although it should be reported in the public once we get the
information. I think this is time to turn this over to our county manager to get these answers um from the clerk and to bring that back to us. I think that would be the proper way to do this. What we do with it after
that is as commissioner her indicated wait until you know later on to do it within the ne the process of the 26 27. what Commissioner Lockard has done is and you you know we could cut it now and I've even suggested that I would be you
know amanable to that if if you know it it it is required. Um but I think right now we need to get the answers and we could sit up here and go all day. Absolutely. I think we need to give all of these questions. many of them have already
been indicated by yourself and I applaud your you know your your research because I know how difficult that research is. Oh yeah that's a lot of hard work that you have put out there and so I would say that we
give it all to the county manager right now and of course he'll give it to Tim and we work collaborative to get the information and to bring it back. Well, you'll work together, but he'll figure it out.
As part of that, should we not reach out to the CFO and ask for a followup on the work that was outlined in the previous Commissioner? Are we okay with that? I'm sorry. I'm No, I'm I'm saying in normal circumstances, I would say yes.
This is a mission. Okay. This what they're doing is a mission. It is not based on science or audit or anything else. And I don't think personally that asking them to do or bring them into it
is, you know, I mean, we can acknowledge that this is what we're doing. And if they want to I don't think that's that's not what we're asking. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. They're the oversight group. What is the status on the items outlined in this original letter? Oh, perfect. I'm sorry. You're
absolutely Yes. And is followup required? And is followup required? Can we advise staff to draft a letter for us to review? Sure. And I'll put my signature to it once everybody's okay. Yeah. And I I could go down the list and
I've mentioned this before, but we could go down the list all the way to the point that, you know, we could ask for, you know, an opa investigation of this thing, you know, ultimately because that's where the real process of the state of Florida
and so, you know, that exists now, right? Yeah. And we may have to do that, but that's the end. That's the, you know, down the line, right? Right. That's who we ask. I'm good with that. So staff's mission is to draft a letter
back asking the status of these items and the 24 letter. Staff's other directive is get with the clerk, get all the questions answered that you can get answered that have been put forth today to bring those back to the commission. Yes.
That fair? Yes. Yep. That's fair. Okay. All right. Well, that was fun. What else do you have? Well, yes. Yeah. What event you have on Saturday? I I thought the clerk would be here and I hope they would, but I don't like to delay things as, you know, put it off
for another week, another week, another month, whatever it is, but we're getting the answers now from the county manager. Yeah. So, the county manager can move forward with that. All right. So, that's all I got for my report. Um, uh, public comment that's not related to the
agenda. Do we have anybody wants to speak to the commission not on the agenda? Yes, sir. There are five speakers. Okay. If you would call them up. First is Liliam Santiago, Jessica Saxton, and then third is Leslie Grubal.
Okay. If you all when you come up, give us your name and address. Tell us the topic that you want to discuss or bring to our attention, and then you will have three minutes to tell us what's happening. And thank you for your patience. Yes. Thank you. My name is Lilliam Santiago.
I live in Winter Park. My address is 1120 Park Green Place, Winter Park, Florida. Um, I'm a civil rights advocate and I need to provide public notice to Semino County. This is in accordance with USCS
rules of civil procedures as well as rule 17 and rule 20 of the United States Supreme Court. The Constitution for the United States is the overarching requirement that every state must follow. The fifth amendment states that
no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. However, the state of Florida has enacted an alternative
legislation that permits judges, law enforcement officers, and other officers of the court to remove children from living parents without due process of law. An imolment violation is when you pay a
public official to break the law. The Constitution has two areas that reinforce this. Article one, section 10 says, "No state shall create any law that shall impair the obligation of contracts." Your law enforcement
officers, your clerks, your judges are all under a contract. That is a contract to perform based on the oath or affirmation that they took to support and defend the Constitution. The 14th amendment is the other place that you'll
find this reinforcement of this issue and that is where the state that that states that no state shall create or enforce any law that shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the United
States citizens. The privileges and immunities of United States citizens are at a minimum those and excuse me enumer enumerated within the bill of rights the first 10 amendments. Unfortunately, the
state of Florida has enacted a law in its inferior constitution that permits public officials, judges, law enforcement officers whom you all pay to violate the Constitution of the United States. As a result, there is an exuberant amount of children and parents
being harmed by depriving them of their rights that are secured and protected by the Constitution. I'm here to notify you that if you continue to pay public officials to break the supreme law of this land, criminal sanctions can come
from that. I'm asking you honorable individuals to please take a look at amendment five, confirm what I'm saying is to be true and then direct your public officials to act in lawful constitutional manner consistent with the obligations that are cod codified in
the Constitution of the United States of America. Did you give us the statute that you're referencing? the Florida statute that you're referencing that is causing the concern. Florida statute. Yes. Yes. We're the county.
No, but I can't. Okay. The next one. Thank you. My name is Jessica Saxon. I'm a civil rights advocate and litigator from Washington DC. Your address, please. I'm sorry. Your address, please. It's 152 Wayne
Place Southeast Washington DC. Okay. So, I am here to provide notice as well. This is also in accordance with USCS rules of civil procedure as well as rule 17 and rule 20 from the United States Supreme Court. You have judges, you have law
enforcement officers, you obviously have a clerk of court that are paying people and enforcing people to deprive children and families in this county of their rights that are secured and protected by the constitution. If you look at title 18 USC 242,
it talks about the deprivation of rights under the color of law. And what that statute says is that any person who deprivives another person of any rights they're secured and protected by the constitution commits that crime. It's a penal code. That means that you have fines. You have prison. And in the event
that kidnapping occurs, i.e. children are being unlawfully removed or detained without due process of law like Miss Stomire was just saying, then those individuals could be charged with kidnapping.
The punishment or a punishment for kidnapping in the event that deprivation of rights occurs could be death. So I'm bringing this to your attention because I have evidence of five judges in this county whom you all are paying for the infrastructure to continue. You
have five judges in this county who are unlawfully removing children or have deprived these children and families of their rights that are secured and protected by the constitution. What I'm about to deliver to you today is in fact primaasy evidence in the form of an
affidavit under 28 USC 1746 which is a federal code that allows for people to testify, certify, affirm, state that the things that I'm going to be delivering to you today are true and accurate. Mr. Zimbau. Yes.
I definitely appreciate uh the exposure for the clerk of court, the trust accounts, the two uh 5 million trust accounts, $5 million trust accounts that that you exposed. I would like to talk a little bit about how I believe that that could be funded. And I would um suggest that perhaps you look into uh title
title 4. So title 4 B, title 4D, and title 4E. This is where the state is incentivized by the federal government to remove children from their parents regardless of due process, regardless of whether or not these these parents are fit and loving. I have thousands of
parents across the country that I'm advocating on behalf of at this point and I have um I have some affidavit that I can be able to to deliver. But but what I'm saying is that the state is incentivizing this county and the and
the judges in this county, the officers of the court in this county to unlawfully remove children. So I am here um to provide notice as well as service. These are affidavit of criminal complaints. And lastly, um it's it's interesting that Miss Her is talking about the clerk of court because we all
know that her husband is a judge. So, I think that would be a conflict of interest and she probably should abstain from this point. Counselor, did you give the statute? Oh, back here. Ma'am, you can come here. Can I You can hand it right here. You can hand it to me if you feel better doing so.
Does this have the uh case names on them that you're alluding to in this county? Yes, sir. Okay. It has all the names. We have the statute. Did you give the Florida statute, counselor? I don't have to name a statute because
the constitution is a supreme law of the land. So, I'm going to use article six on that. Thank you very much. So, you don't have a Florida statute. Thought that's what you were going to give us first out. I did that because this is a victim. This mother was a victim and I needed to bring her out of that situation. Thank you. Well, quite frankly, that's that's
your opinion, and I think that's what the courts are for to flush all that out. But I I I don't know that. First of all, this this board has no ability to do federal handle federal law
or state law. We don't make those laws. But don't say, okay, let's call the next one. Don't say anything. Leslie Griel, bless her heart, she waited around here all day to do that. She was mad. I know what this is all about.
Okay. Kate, good evening. I'm Lesie Gral at 1841 Misty Mour Place, Longwood, Florida, and been here so patiently waiting. Well, I was supposed to be on the agenda part, but I didn't fill out my speaker form properly.
So, I will speak in the past tense now. Thank you very much. Fabulous. So, I just wanted to say as a county resident, and I feel a little dizzy perhaps after all of this very serious conversation, very interesting and unexpected.
Um, anyway, I believe that uh it is essential to the maintenance of a well functioning and safe community that we support agencies like Aspire. They provide for mental health services, drug treatments, and drug court services. It is also essential to work
toward meeting the housing needs of our homeless by supporting agencies like Habitat for Humanity. So I hope that uh the agenda items 18 and nine reappear sometime. They will.
Also on the agenda are our grant agreements to help homeless services network and the Florida Department of Children and Families, Emergency Services, and the Child Protection Team Services with Kids House of Seol. These agencies work tireless tirelessly to
provide the neediest among us. I applaud the county commission for recognizing the significance and the value that these uh agencies bring to our county. So, it's been a tough day for you all and I give you kudos for the work that you did earlier. Thank you.
Thank you, Miss Kel. Mr. Chairman. Yes, Commissioner Lockart. if if we could at some point if if we could have a conversation about these NOS because I think there is a narrative that a a non-governmental organization that might be receiving funds from this county is
somehow superfluous and I I believe that we what we are doing is actually saving taxpayer money by partnering with private organizations to fulfill the responsibilities that the state has required of us. Correct. So there there is a there is definitely
a narrative out there. NOS's are bad. Why are they giving money to NOS's? And I think we need to talk about what each of these are, why we how much money they save us and why it is better than growing government. The same people who are complaining about NOS's are the same
ones who want us to have smaller government and that's how we do it is by partnering with NOS's. So in some at some point in time, it would be good to have a presentation maybe leading up to the budget, maybe a cost evaluation. Yeah, it uh and to that point, there's a lot of things
quite frankly government is incapable of providing efficiently or properly. We just don't have the expertise in those those particular fields and it's best left to those that do. Um you certainly don't want me psychoanalyzing anybody. I tell you that.
No. Well, nor do we want to pay pensions for b for operations that typically are not pension eligible businesses. So that's that's where the savings comes in. I I actually do think there's clarity
needed around the idea of not only whether they save us money, but what exactly it is that they do because there is an NGO issue in this country. That's right. That needs to be addressed. We don't think we have any of that, but
if we do, we need to find it and root it out and get rid of it. I think our community service people flush that out. We could do a work session on this and just re-educate. Yes. Non-government organizations. And I also before you bang the gavl need to request Kate an official opinion on
my ability to weigh in on a conversation with the clerk that comes back at some point that publicly gets announced that I do not have a conflict of interest. Thank you. Okay. Next person. John Stewart. Mr. Stewart.
Another patience. getting to be a frequent man around here. That's great. You'll see a lot of me. Good. My name is John Stewart. I live at 693 White Cliff Place, Winter Springs, Florida. Mr. Chairman, you've been in the news a lot lately and uh I watched
budget hearing, but I wasn't there and I was uncomfortable the way you treated our elected controller. Now I'm just disgusted. Okay, count his votes. We put him in his position two times in a row. And before
that, we elected him to be our county commissioner. And I still remember his platform from all those years ago. He said, "I'm going to represent my constituents, not unelected bureaucrats." Because let's face it, birds fly cuz that's what they do, and
fish swim cuz that's what they do. and unelected bureaucrats put out their hand for more money because that's what they do. Okay. Now, you know, Mr. Chairman, that uh when our
CFO does a fast a fafo, he excludes law enforcement and fire department. Okay? But that's not what you're saying on TV. All right. Now, let's talk about some numbers here
because I had AI just compare our budget with some of the surrounding counties that are bigger than we are. County manager administration budget, Valuchia County, $8 million. Bard County, $7 million. Seol County, $12
million. That's bigger than our our uh comproller, our bookkeeper's entire budget. Communications, Valuchia County, 500,000. Bvard County, 600,000. Seino County, $1.2 million. Strategic
initiatives. Valuchia County 900,000. Bvard County 1 million. Seol County $2.5 million. That's $7 million in less than three minutes. Now, you know, you can pick a fight with the
bookkeeper if you want to, but remember this. It was the bookkeeper that took down Al Capone. Just saying. Okay, that's all I really got to say. Thank you very much. Enjoy your day. Okay, anybody else? Gabrielle Milch. And that's our last
speaker, Miss Mil. I think it was Al Capone that took down Al Capone. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah. And I wish some of our costs were only Okay, thank you. 12 million for the whole budget. Hey, Gabriel. Hi. We live in interesting times. That is for sure.
Um I'm here today to tell you I've been doing some volunteering in the community uh for the Sierra Club, the Central Florida Sierra Club. And um there's a bear hunt that's going on in Florida in the in the in December. Um there's a lot
of people who are concerned about bear hunting in this, but I would like to pro propose that um me as a volunteer and getting a group of people together, we work on an urban bear aware issue uh program that would reduce human bear
conflicts. I live in the Wakiva subdivision and on our camera a lot we see the bears coming through. They look right in the window at me. they, you know, size up my bird feeders and all those things. And so, um, back in 2016,
we did a bear fair at the Wakiva Library and we set up different booths and we had, uh, a station where people could bring their garbage uh, cans to have bearproof uh, their uh, buckles that you put on. It's a much cheaper um and FWC
has uh assured that they've had it tested where the bears jump on the garbage cans and they can't pop them open. So, um I'm going to start with a pilot project at the Little Wakra Little Wakiva Brewery on um the 16th, which is
pretty close, but I wanted to let you all know. Um, and I'd also am going to try to put in some information um, for people to do private well testing and to learn more about their septic systems and kind of try to grow that in regards to that. Um, but I'm also looking for
volunteers um from the community to help us um do these bear fairs because not everyone wants to come to the little Wakiva Brewery and and you know pull up a beer and talk about bears, but um so maybe in schools and churches, uh the
FWC and several other environmental um organizations have curriculum that can go into the schools that can help educate kids. I know there's a lot of fear about bears uh when you're walking your dog. We've had several human attacks in Semino County. The numbers
are way down especially since the ordinance that you all put forward which um you know you've had in place and I'd like to use that as an example in helping other uh municipalities not saying they s you know adopt an ordinance but you know trying to use
those guidelines about you know when to take your trash out. And um I'm going to get some information from the solid waste division on your urban bearer program and and utilize that. Um hopefully we can get this to go statewide. I'm going to be proposing it.
I'm on the executive committee for the um Central Florida Sierra Club, which is Orange Lake, Seinal, and Oyola. So I don't know if we can get it to go larger than that. Um but there are bears. We live in bear territory. the Wakiva is,
you know, and the Econ, you know, we've had bears in oops, other places. So, I just wanted to come and inform you all about that. And on October 22nd, real quick, I'm doing the um like a volunteer fair where at the library, we're going
to um do a presentation and have people uh get a package to be able to go out and do their own bear affairs in in their neighborhoods. So, I hope you all have a good evening. You've had a rough day. I felt really bad. Chairman, thanks
Gabriel. M Mr. Chairman, uh, a couple of things. Number one, the county has some really good material already created on bearaware stuff, including postcards that that get mailed to people that move into the bear areas. Okay. I have a bear that hung out on my front
patio for about a month that drove my dogs crazy. That's how we knew he was out there because they could smell him. It was chaos in the house. I will offer to you, my firm does sponsorships at the Semino County Regional Chamber quite often and
we are often offered a table in the lobby and they have hundreds of people that go through that operation. We never use it. I will let you know when I have one and you are welcome to the table. Thank you. We'll put a Highland table cover on it and you can have your bear stuff. Fantastic.
You can have your bear stuff. And and people will wonder why Highland's in the bear business. Maybe maybe I shouldn't do that. Commission just to add to that, I wanted to congratulate the Sierra Club for coming up with a novel idea. you know, you can be for the hunt or against the hunt, uh,
if you want to, but with them buying, you know, a lot of the $5, um, uh, you know, initiatives, uh, which essentially said, I think one person even put up $200,000 or something to buy how many that makes the choice to get a bear hunting
license. Exactly. And I think that 40 of them went to people that were never going to use them. I just find that novel. and and such a wonderful idea. If you're against something, take action. And I just thought that was really great. Okay.
Thank you, Gabriel. All right. Always a joy to see you. Thank you for your work. Any additional speakers? No, sir. Anything else for the good of the order? No. But thank you for for raising a difficult conversation. I think we're well on our way to figuring out where we go.
Yeah. Broader than just this. Yes. Agreed. Appreciate it. Agreed. We'll be adjourned. Thank you. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]
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