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Okay, good evening everyone. It's 4 o'clock. We'll start this June 17th county council meeting. I call to order. We barely have a quorum down this year. Okay, good. We're going to start the uh evening off
with our invocation which will be led by Angelo Para from the Central Florida free thought freeought community uh followed by the pledge of allegiance and a roll call. If you would stand for the invocation. Thank you. Good afternoon council members, county
manager, and all of you who keep Felucia moving ahead. As a resident of the land, it's an honor to be here again representing the Central Florida freethought community. And yes, it is a mouthful. This past weekend was auspicious. Saturday was Flag Day, which
commemorates the adoption in 1777 of the American flag as a symbol of freedom and of all parts of this land as one nation. Sunday, of course, is Father's Day, dedicated to expressing appreciation of fathers and father figures and their
crucial influence on American family life. Flag Day celebrated the unity of our nation. Father's Day acknowledge the importance of family values. Your work here today shaping the future of Valuchia County recognizes the fact that our community is what you, our
representatives, make of it. Therefore, we, your constituents, ask you to honor evidence over assumption, seeking solutions grounded in facts and fairness. We ask that you listen openly to each other, avoid
avoiding easy division in favor of constructive dialogue. And we ask that you uphold justice by ensuring all voices are heard, especially those often overlooked. I'll close with a brief quote from the
late great baseball star Jackie Robinson who said, "Life isn't significant except for the impact on the our impact on the lives of others." Thank you. To the republic for it stands one nation
indivisible with liberty and justice for all. George, did you have a comment or before we got started? Okay. Before we call the role, uh I will point out we'll be followed by public participation.
Um, anybody that uh submits their request to Carissa Green over here to my left, your right, uh, the yellow forms that need to be filled out, uh, you'll have three minutes to talk about anything, uh, not on the agenda, preferably something that the council
can address. Um, and please, uh, recognize the fact that, uh, to keep it clean. I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much, Chrisa. Would you call the role? Mr. Mr. Santiago here. Mr. Dempsey here. Mr. Johansson
here. Mr. Kent here. Mr. Reinhardt here. Mr. Robin here. Mr. Brower. Okay, we'll roll into public participation. Do we have any? Thank you. The first one, public participation is David Hill.
Mr. Hill or anybody, you do not have to specify your address, but you if you would just let me know what town you're in so your individual council person can uh know where the comments coming from. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Uh David Hill, Miller Road, Orange City, and uh Don
Dempsey is my representative. Uh another two weeks has gone by. No action or communication to the Miller Lake taxpayers. The asphalt millings still remain on the sides of Miller Road. Wash outs, ruts,
no grass and millings, border boulders is what we see every day. I can't cut my grass or yours as lawnmowers can't cut the millings. We truly feel abandoned by our elected officials. You probably have no idea
what it feels like to be dumped on and left to deal with other people's water that you didn't agree to take. Miller Lake has never been this high. The water is above the county drain pipes leading into the county retention
ponds. If we get a major rain event, we will flood. When the county gave their letter of no objection in 2017 to receive Royal Oaks Professional Center water, the county agreed to take Big Lots Plaza water and Tmont drive water. That is 30 acres of
rooftop and asphalt water runoff. One inch of rain in our area will equal a 2-in rise in Miller Lake in a typical summer thunderstorm. By the county agreeing to take this water, you opened our our lake up to
hundreds of acres of commercial properties water runoff. Lake Wawwa being adjacent to Royal Oaks exfiltration system has a direct path to Miller Lake during a major rain event. Miller Lake used to be 25 to 30 acre
lake prior to 2017. After ca after the county gave their letter of no objection in 2017 to Royal Oaks Professional Center runoff water, we are now a 50 acre lake. It has expanded and will continue to expand
unless the county stops this water from coming into our lake. I used to be 300 ft from the lake. I now have the lake in my front yard. We need action. You expect me to pay my property taxes and I expect you to fix a problem you
created. Please do something or at least communicate to us. We You say nothing to us. None of you all. You You literally say nothing and you do nothing. So all
that says to us is that nothing's going to happen. And this is not a problem that we created. you brought this on to us and didn't discuss it with us. So that that water is not our water. We're taking water from properties that
are two miles away and that's not right. So So you guys, you don't know what it's like. I never used to talk about the rain, but now I talk about the rain because I know what's coming. Thank you for your time.
Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Uh, chairman, uh, county manager, do we have an update, uh, that we can give these folks, uh, on the status of Miller Lake? I know there's some litigation pending, but there's any information that we can give, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.
Well, being there is litigation, I'm a little hesitant to say much, but I will say uh we have met with the Department of Transportation. We have met with uh St. John's Water Management District and I think plans
are in place uh should the lake uh receive uh heavy rain that we will act similarly to what we did in the last record rainstorm. Thank you,
Peggy Hill. I understand you have photos as well. Good afternoon. My name is Peggy Hill. I live on Miller Road in Orange City. We live across the road from Miller Pond, also called Miller Lake. The first photo here is from 2017. This
is what Miller Pond looked like and should look like now. That is until the county gave the go-ahead for the Royal Oaks 2017 storm water permit. Notice that it's a small pond just like its name. The second photo is from this past
weekend looking across the lake from the road. It's still full and will flood it with a rain event. We won't need a hurricane or a flood. The third photo is looking at the lake near a culvert under Miller Road. This culvert is still completely full of
water. Again, notice how full the lake is. The fourth photo is my front yard, which is across the road from Miller Lake. There should be no water in my front yard, yet it's still there. We currently see very slow reduction in the
water level. This is very slow, and the law the level goes up when it rains. The US drought monitor for Florida shows we're in moderate to severe drought conditions in our area. Since the amount the lake is dropping is so insignificant during drought conditions, imagine the
increases we will see with normal daily rain or a hurricane. We need your help now. We don't have time to wait for a study or wait for it to overflow again and then decide to pump it out. The lake needs to be pumped out now before we
flood again. The lake has never been this full and the flooding will be worse when it happens again. In the past, we've been told by St. John's River Water Management District they're willing to help the county. So, let's get the pumping restarted. Also, the 2017 Royal Oaks permit needs to be
revoked. Please tell St. John's River Water Management District to revoke this permit. Modifications were made to the permit and no monitoring was done and so you can ask to have it revoked. Also, please stop any new storm water permits that are sending someone else's
water to Miller Lake. Please remember Miller Pond is a wildlife corridor. As I was leaving my home yesterday, I saw a beautiful mother deer with her baby standing on the edge of the road looking across the road at the water. So much of her habitat is
gone. Along with the residents of Miller Lake, the animals need your help, too. Now, not after it floods. Please do something. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comments. Next up is Katherine Levenson.
And you have photos as well, Miss Levenson. Okay, thank you. Hello everybody. How are you guys today? Thank you for listening today. I appreciate it. So, Katherine Levenson and I'm Miller Pond in Orange City. And I say that because
Oh my goodness, my picture's little. Um, this is the area. Oh, thank you. You can't see it, but up in the right left hand corner is uh the dates. And this one, I believe, is 2008. And it shows you that the pond is two
separate ponds. We have two springs there, and it made two little ponds. And that's what this is showing you. My house is the one with the red around it, the little red uh rectangle. So, it shows you that it's completely dry. In fact, you can walk from my house to the
property across this across the water there, which is there's no water. Um, you could walk that in 2008. Okay, next one. So, here's another one. This one, uh, I believe is 2017.
Uh, this is before the, uh, the permitted, uh, waterway was placed in, uh, gosh, I'm losing all my words. say permanent water was faced. So the water goes into Miller Lake from the other place, Royal Oaks, across the street.
And you can see the water's starting to come in. You can't walk across anymore. That's in 2015. And then the next one. So this one is Oh, they're all mixed up. I think this one is 23. This one is uh after Hurricane Ian. You can see the water how it's completely a lake. It
took over all the way up to Miller Road on the top. And my house now has some of it underwater. Next one. Uh, this one is after Milton. Uh, you can see where all the red lines are. The water is everywhere. It came up to the
next my next door neighbor's house all the way into her yard almost to her home. It came up to my back door. You see the rectangle came up to my back door. Went all the way to Miller Lake. And these photos, what's interesting about them is they're all off the county website. All of them. That's where I got
them two days ago. So, you guys have this information. And you see the water was not there all the way back. Actually, you can go back to 2006 and see that there was no water there every single year. The pipes were put in in 2017 and all of a sudden the water's there. And then the hurricanes came and
the water was sent over to us and the water is drowning us. So this is Milton and uh you can see that that's January. I can't. So this is another one. Hold on. There's only five of them I think. But anyway, the point is is that they're
off your website, so you can actually get these photos yourself and see how much the land has just drowned. So, okay, here's the earlier one, how dry it is. So, you can see it's work. It's happening. You're the pipe that you guys approved is working. It's pushing the
water from Orange City. You're saving Orange City all the way up from Mil Lake all the way from Target. You're saving Orange City, but you're drowning us. And that's what's happening. So, please stop it. You guys have the power. Please do
it. Thank you. Next is John Nicholson. John Nicholson, Daytona, uh, Beachside. First, uh, why don't you get the permit to empty the lake? We were told they had the permit. They were emptying the lake.
the permit ran out. They're still flooded. So, we've had two months to ask, can we continue to empty it because there's a problem and we're going into the rainy season and they're still flooded. So, obviously, we should really
ask and I don't know why we're not asking. Uh secondly, uh I didn't know we could not ask uh make comments on the agenda, but uh we we always did. So, uh, on INJ, when we donate land, Daytona Beach has a problem with their
affordable housing. Uh, the one they just put in that and you all contributed to, they're having problems with the, uh, landlords supposedly. Um, so I'm asking you to look at your affordable housing, to look at who you donate land
to, to look at who it is that's getting it. Is it seniors out of state? Daytona Beach had uh housing that we built homes and the first house that we gave away went to somebody from Jamaica who had been in the country two months. So I
would ask that you look at it, get all the stats, who, what, when, where, and how, and then make your decisions. Uh I know Don keeps saying, "Why do we need for the affordable housing?" Well, know what you need to know before you make the decision. And lastly, I know um
normally I have two people absolutely opposed to what I'm about to say. A third person sort of kind of maybe almost opposed, but I think most of us county would say yes to the half penny sales tax for flooding. The community absolutely knows we have a flooding
issue. There is nobody in the community that does not know it. There's no one in the community that does not want you to kick the can down the road again. All right. I ask you to ask George, can we get all that we need free and from the
government and that no money will come out of our general fund? Then we will have never to have matching funds. I don't think that's going to happen. At some point, we taxpayers are going to have to put money towards it. So, I'm asking you, if
we're going to do that, it's taxpayer money. So I'm asking to share that taxpayer money with a tourist whether it's 30 or 40%. And make it an issue on the sales tax can only because that's the one that heard us the last time could be spent
almost anywhere. It can only be spent on flooding. So I ask you again to think about the half any sales tax. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next up is Mark Karstens. Hi, how you doing?
Hi, I live in uh Orange City and uh 2772 North Thorp. I'm getting to my uh just had it a minute ago. Uh yeah, it's it's loading.
Yes. Uh yes. On uh June 25th, 2025 at the Thomas C. Kelly Administrative Building at 2 PM, there's the uh historic preservation board meeting. And I am I'm the chair of that of the board. And I would encourage all the people
that are behind me, I really really encourage them to uh come to the meeting because we're trying to get the seats filled. We'd like to get as many people coming to this meeting and and I feel like it's my responsibility as the chair to to be a cheerleader for the historic
preservation board and make sure that try to encourage people to come. Also, uh being I I am the the the the chair of the board, I'm also uh unemployed and also I'm seeking work. So, if anybody
has any kind of positions or anything like that, I'd be willing to share my resume with you because I uh I'm I'm trying to get uh a job and I'd like to to be employed if I could. Uh thank you very much. Bye-bye. Thank you.
Next is Jennifer Culage. Good afternoon. Jennifer Kulage, executive director of Atlantic Center for the Arts, and I'm here to invite you to a project that you supported to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Florida's sister state relationship with Wakyama Prefecture, Japan. So, for over
30 years, we've implemented cultural exchange and supported economic development, sent delegations to Japan and then back to Florida. We have an exhibition that opens on uh Thursday uh June 26th. We have a Japanese harpist
that will play the co coobo. And um we're doing activities throughout the exhibition all summer long at Atlantic Center with our summer art camp. So our kids are learning how to make sushi uh do origami and learn about uh our our neighbors and friends in Wakyama, Florida. Um Wakyama, Japan. So you have
this scanned in your ebox and I hope you'll come and join us as well as the public. Thank you. Saki going to be there. Okay. See, might get more people. It's a great program. Uh, last up is James
Roger. Apologize. I'm a little late today, but James Rogers 2850 Lena Terrace, Edgewater, Florida. I'm here on behalf of my mother and father-in-law. Been trying to pull a permit to move a mobile home from Port Orange, which they had to
move out of there because the the park went defunct, to another one. It's been six months. George is familiar with what's going on. Six months it took to me to get to this point. We still haven't got them electricity.
They were there today. Everything's final. They told me everything's good to go. Now here all of a sudden the air conditioner is an issue which I sent him all the information. I sent that to the inspector today. Let's keep moving forward. I don't want to lose my three minutes here. I'm here to ask for the
seven or the $9842 that we had to pay for a variance that I feel was unjust, not needed. Could have been an administrative variance very quickly because their trailer was 40 square feet. It was manufactured in 1977.
It's been paying taxes in Valuchia County its whole existence in Port Orange and they held him hostage for 98442 for a variance plus another two months of waiting time to go through the PL DRC
which Emily Bush stated we should have never been there in the first place. Period is what she said. They had him research it at the at the hearing that land development code has not been updated since 1988
and it's all on record. So I don't know if there's a possibility for I mean my mother and father-in-law are 72 and 73 years old. They're they're at their wits end right now. I mean, he's taking medication again just to keep him level from doing something dumb
over a moving a trailer. It's ridiculous what you guys have been putting people through. And it's not just them. I saw it repeated. I've been over here eight times since the first of April. Eight times myself to try and get this problem
fixed. It's ridiculous. And I think you guys have hearing it loud and hard. And something's got to be done. I mean, what about tiny houses? Somebody wants to put a tiny house in, they can't
do it. You got 740 square feet or 720 ft minimum you got to be at. That wasn't brought into code at 1988. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And who do I see to get my check? Not George.
Mr. Chairman, we done with public comments. We're done with public comments. Yes, sir. May I May I take a moment if I Absolutely. Mr. Santiago. Um, since the gentleman is still here, at least for myself, I don't know if the rest of the council, if if staff could provide a synopsis of what occurred along the lines of what he described
just for our purposes. Um, and go from there, but at least a a staff synopsis if that could. We'd be happy to. Thank you. Thank you. First item item one for approval of the agenda. I have a motion to approve the
agenda. To approve Johansson. So I have a second. Second by Mr. Robbins. First or motion made by Mr. Johansson. All those in fa or discussion Mr. Santiago. Any discussion? All those in favor say
I. I. I. All those opposed? Nay. Motion carries. Moving on to the consent agenda. Any items that a council member wishes to pull from the consent for a vote? Separate vote. Mr. Dempsey.
I and J for a vote. Yes. Mr. Chairman, motion to approve the consent agenda as presented by staff absent items I and J. Second motion by Mr. Kent, second by Mr. Robbins.
So motion and second has been made for the approval of the consent agenda minus items I and J. For Mr. Dempsey, all those in favor say I. I. I. Oppose say nay. Motion carries.
Okay. First item, item I. Yes, sir. So, this is uh approval to donate properties identified uh for affordable housing. As you remember, I've given you a synopsis in an email last night, but when we brought these and 23, the council direction was
to um try to sell 18 of them. We were successful with seven of those. We came back in January of 2024 with the 11 that did not sell. This council then approved us to put them on the affordable housing list which was then put out with this RFP. So that's these are the results of
that RFP and council direction of January 2024. Happy to answer any questions. Mr. Johansson. Yes, Brad. Uh I see Bright Community Trust and Habitat for Humanity or Greater Via are the two recipients. Uh have we ever had a problem with them
or has there ever been a complaint? Yes. So there's actually there's three recipients, two two habitats and one uh land trust. And no sir, there has not been any complaints. Thanks, Mr. Dempsey. Microphone.
Dr. Bar, I don't know if we have any aerials. I know you put them in the agenda packet. I don't know if we could put them up actually of the location of these properties. I Jenna's going to pull them up for Okay. And basically they're all infill properties, correct? Yes, sir. They're
basically vacant lots within neighborhoods, established neighborhoods. Yes, sir. Okay. Um guys, I'm sure you've all seen the uh while we're waiting for it, but I know you guys have probably seen all the maps. Uh my thoughts, you know, I've said this
consistently, I think it was brought up even by um John that uh you know, I'm not in favor of more incentivized development, especially on the west side with all the flooding. Um here's another example. We're talking about building 12 more
houses. It's still development. I don't care what label you attach to it. It's development. It's more impervious surface. My thought I think I've got a way of killing two birds with one stone here. If you recall, I've been um pushing for
more parks for our kids to play in. We need little league fields. We need uh football practice fields. We need um just more areas for kids to get outside and do more outdoor activities. I think there was a study that was brought up about 6 months ago that said that we
need that the west side has a small majority of the um youth outdoor sports like little league and soccer and all that, but we have less than half of the playing fields for these kids to play on. So, there's a deficiency I think a
recognized deficiency on the west side of areas for kids to play. Um, I know we looked at the place in Orange City, but that's more economic driven. What we don't have enough of from what I've seen in the area is sand lots for kids to play on in neighborhoods. Um, I always
remember growing up there was always that one vacant lot in the neighborhood where kids would go and play football or go play um, baseball or whatever. It's just a spot within the neighborhoods for kids to play uh, after school. And I
talked to Dr. Burbal earlier today. He called it a pocket park park and which I think is a really good um name. Apparently, it's been done before in other areas. I'd like to send these the staff back to look at these areas because I looked at them and it looks
like a majority of them at least are vacant lots that are located within neighborhoods. And in these neighborhoods, there's no place. There's no empty lot for the kids to congregate after school and go play tackle football
or go play whiffle ball or kickball. More questions for Mr. Provol before we get No, I just But I mean, would you say that these properties could also fill that void? That that's a policy decision as I mentioned today as the as the council's um the current direction from council
was to you know put these out for affordable housing. Um, if the council wishes to go in a different direction, we certainly as staff will do that. So, we take direction from the council through George. Yes. Uh, Mr. Mr. Robbins, do you have
questions? Yeah. Real quick, I don't see any of these lots that are too big. What's the square footage of these residential lots like 50 by 100 or so? Um so I have acreages is the so um they range from you know one of the the one
in dand I'm so sorry so orange city are about a quarter acre lots on average um and that's the vast majority of them there is um one one of the ones in dand is a almost half an acre but all quarter acre to halfacre lots so not nothing
that can really be be used for a baseball field I mean Um, but could they be you can if we look at these or one or two of them if they can be used for a small children's park for the neighborhood is that have you
seen that done before? If that's the direction of council, I will say that these are all wooded lots. So, it would require, you know, this is basically taking on a new park into our portfolio of management and the operations of that park. Um, you know, I've had I've asked
Tim Bailey to run some numbers for us if council would like to hear those on, you know, what it would take. Um, but again, as a policy decision. Thank you, Brad. Uh, Don, real quick, uh, instead of just throwing out like a blanket, we we've given them direction
two or three times, I want to say, in about three years on this. Uh, they've come back, they've done pretty much everything. And I understand your standpoint of where you want to be at and I'm I'm I understand. Um did did you have any specific properties in mind
that that uh you wanted to target in those neighborhoods? That way we can narrow this down and keep it moving. Well, the ones with the numbered streets, I mean, there's numbered addresses on I think maybe a third of them. The rest of them are just
basically they say they're on a street but doesn't give the actual street address. But the ones I was able to find, uh, the vacant lots and it seems like even just looking from this diagram here, they all appear to be infill for neighborhoods like the numbered streets
in Orange City, right? I mean, there's again, we got to get these kids out of the houses, off their phones, off the Nintendos or whatever they're doing these days and get them out in areas that don't require driving to a facil just somewhere where the kids can congregate and play ball. I get it.
Do we have any numbers on those, Brad? Uh or Tim? Sure. Or example examples? Yeah. Yeah. Good afternoon. Tim Bailey, parks recreation and culture director. Uh I was asked to just put together some uh estimated cost
to to get these uh lots into a shape where you can recreate on. Right now, most of these lots or I think pretty much all the lots are are wooded, right? So, if we're looking to grass those, which I think that's what you're heading, um, probably have to remove the trees and add grass. So, now you've got
you can play kickball, you can throw a frisbee, you can hit a baseball and play catch, right? Those are the kinds of even walk your dog. So, the trees would have those wooded areas would have to be removed. We'd have to identify if there's any, you know, permit issues, if there's a historical tree there that we
got to work around. Uh, but in general, you'd probably have to clearcut the lot. Um, I'm estimating that cost. Uh, the startup cost, which would include clear cutting. Uh, estimated sod costs are about a quarter acre. I'm looking at
about 27 pallets of sod to cover that quarter acre. And I'm looking at Baja, not St. Augustine. It'll be Baja. Once it's established, it'll take care of itself. Uh, we'd have to get it established, right? So, there's some costs associated with that. Plus some signage. Uh, some a trash can, a dog bag
station. uh looking at around $24,248 for startup costs. And then from an operation standpoint, we're looking at a 0.05 FTE and that would include uh trash collection, emptying the cans. Uh you're going to have some dog piles that you're
going to get rid of. You're going to have to do that every week. I'm estimating about an hour and a half a week. Plus, we would contract out for mowing. Contract out for mowing is $45 per cut at 31 cuts per year. about $1,395 for mowing. And then uh the staff
cost for trash collection at the point 5 FTE is about 23 $334. If I calculate all that out, it's about $5,189 per year. Sounds good. Thank you, Mr. Santiago. Thank you. Was that per
lot? That's per lot. Yeah, per lot. Um so, um Brad, these I'm looking at the the image here with the red dots and the blue dots. Um, are these all ready to build? Buildable lots. No, no, no problems with them. Yes. Yes, they are
buildable lots. Okay. And are we restricted in any way from if we wanted to sell them? So, these were issed to us through taxdeed. If they remain on this list and you sell them, the money has to go to it's your march for affordable housing
because the state statute I think you're missing uh but they've been out for sale. Okay, good question. Several times, right? Twice. Yes. And nobody's buying them. I apologize. Yes, twice the count we we put them out for
auction twice. These were not Do we have a reserve on that auction? Is that what's happening? I'm sorry. a minimum. Oh, when we're auctioning these off, are there a minimum? Clay's team does it for us, so I will let him answer. I'm trying to figure out why wouldn't somebody auction
$500? I don't know. I'm just throwing a crazy number, but Good afternoon, Claire. I'm director of growth and resource management. When we go through this, we identify if these are buildable lots, if they can be used for affordable housing. We look at what uh the minimum tax rate is. In other words, what is
owed on these parcels. That's usually setting the minimum. and we look at them. We trying not to discourage the purchase of them, but we do want to make sure that we can cover the costs that were associated with the past due taxes.
Do we know what I know you may not be prepared what what are we owing on t know on average? It could range anywhere from five grand all the way up to I don't know 20 $30,000 that's identified as part of our process. And what we do is
we do identify a minimum on some of these parcels. On others um where it's an astronomical amount at that point we just want to get them reused. The number one the number one goal is to get them back into use.
and and Brad can uh add to it, but the the whole mechanism that's in place where a list of these properties come to you that are buildable to designate for affordable housing, that's just a requirement in state law that that you do that you do
at least every three years. So, that's how they ended up on this list. Okay. Okay. And we've been we've been at this Did I hear that? Years. Three almost three years. Well, actually longer than that. Uh we've been doing this same exact situation for the nine years that
I've been here. And what happens is that we identify those that can be used for affordable housing. Those that are not, we put them out to bid. As we just said, these were put out to bid because this council directed us to do so. These are ones that have come back. We've offered
them twice out for bid. So now they're at this point where in order to get these parcels which are infill and this council has given us a direction to utilize infill development as an incentive to prevent green field development. So we're in here trying to
follow through on that so that that way we put these parcels back into active use. And I'll just say this, Mr. Chairman, I'm not opposed to Don's idea, but we don't need six eight pocket parks, right? I we and and and I would support an idea that maybe made two
pocket parks in there because I think the concept is great and then maybe the other six we put it out to this u affordable housing a legislatively required process. So, I like the concept, but I think we should move give staff uh direction to move forward with
the other two. Maybe for me, I'm just speaking for myself is pick two that you'd like to keep for pocket parks. And I'd support you. Um maybe spread out amongst this map. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Um the only comment I had is it was relative to what was just said
shortly after we came on as a council. These are the properties that we identified and we and I made reference to at the last council meeting that we had the 20 acre property that we pulled from that. Thank you for that. That was a lot better for that type of design that you were talking about. When I look at this and I don't think I don't see
anything contiguous, anything that connects to each other that we could make a a larger I haven't really seen too many parks that are a quarter acre in size. Um I love the concept. I do love it. You're right. We we need more outdoor activity areas. Um, but I also understand the need for uh what this has
been designated for. Um, the fact of the cost, you know, we're all conservative and we look at what the cost would be to do a park, you know, at $5,189 a year per lot on average is what I overheard or what I wrote down. So, um,
I like the idea set, but um, I'll be interested to hear what the rest have to say. Um, Mr. Dempsey, are we at comment now or? Um, is there any other questions? And we do have one member of the of the public that would like to talk about this. We'll ask Brad a question. Brad, how many of these have
existing structures on them? I know the one in Seville. Yeah, there one in Seville. That's the only one. Yes. These are in essence all quarter acre lots. Is that right? Quarter acre. There is one that's um the one the land which is not not on this map. Correct. Is larger.
There is um looking at Orange City, the largest one is um.34 acres. There's two of them. The one's on West Faluchia into land. So the one is on 18th Street is 34 and the
one on 20th Street down below. Okay. You can put Orange City back up. That's what we're talking about. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. No, just a comment. All right, Mr. Kent questions. No. Mr. Johansson questions. Mr. Robbins. All
right. Well, if you guys would entertain, I'd like to hear from the the want to hear from the public first. Would help with that or Okay. Mr. Sealcop. David Sealup. Hopefully, I'm pronouncing that correctly. Thank you.
Good evening, gentlemen. My name is David Silcop. I am the executive director for West Feluchia Habitat for Humanity. And if you want to see what we do in the Dand area, you are all welcome to come out to our open house dedication
on the 25th at 517 West Garrison Avenue, which is one block over from the property on Valuchia. And if we did receive the property from Valuchia, we would be able to build two more affordable houses on that. If you come
out to Garrison Avenue next Wednesday, you'll see that we have built three houses on Garrison Avenue and we have transformed that street to into a very nice place to live. We would do the same thing for the Valuchia County.
The reason I wanted to speak, Mr. Dempsey, is one of the properties that's already brought up, one of the properties is in Seville and there's a house on it. There's an abandoned house on it. I've been up there and um these pro most of the properties that we're going to receive are not the most desirable ones. This particular property
is in Seville. It's on a dirt road. It is um behind another house actually and to get volunteers up there. We're actually going to, if we receive this property, we're going to do a partnership with Magnolia Tree Farm and they're going to supply the volunteers
because they are up that way because it is going to be almost impossible to get volunteers to drive up there every week, every Saturday to help build a house. So, these are not always the most desirable locations for these for these properties. And also the property on
South Orange Avenue that's also in a little bit more remote as far as having a park. It is not near anything. There are there's only I believe only one other house on that street. So these are not the most desirable properties. We would love to have them. We will um put
very nice houses on them. Lori Lori and I we build nice houses using lots of volunteers getting the community together. Um, we're gonna have an a nice community bash on the 25th of um of of next week and we're gonna have the whole
street there. It brings the whole community together to build these houses. We have people coming from all over showing their love to somebody they don't even know to help us build these houses. And then the last party we had at Garrison, the whole
street came to meet their neighbors. So, this is a community event. this people notice when this stuff happens. So, if we could have these lots to build affordable housing, it does bring people in the area around to level on the people that they don't even know that
are going to become their new neighbors. So, I I I implore you to um approve this and um let us do our thing and build affordable houses, you know, for people who are deserving. And to address the point that who's buying these houses, we have a
2-year waiting list of people who live in land for these houses. We do not have enough dirt to build these houses. And we have a minimum two-year waiting list. So, thank you very much. Thank you. We do have one other member of the public. Three guesses. First two don't count.
Mr. Nicholson. John Nicholson, Daytona Beach side. To answer your question, uh the city of Daytona Beach has six pocket parks throughout the city. Uh we have one four blocks from my house. It's on 1/8 of an acre. All right. Uh they are popular.
They are all over. Pocket parks in New York are constant. All right. Uh it's not unusual to have pocket parks. You do not have to pay play baseball in all the pocket parks. Most of them don't. All right. But they are used. Um secondly,
uh Daytona Beach has a similar program for affordable housing. Uh unfortunately, we use it for the surrounding five counties. Five counties can use our affordable housing. I don't want
Valuchia County to have housing for Semol County or Lake County or Flaggler County. We have enough need and that's why I'm asking to find out who we have who's in these affordable housing because if it's not going to Valuchia
County residents then we should make sure it should be Valuchia County residents. Do you understand why I want you to know what the stats are? Because we in Daytona Beach goes five counties.
What is Felia County doing? Thank you. Thank you Mr. Nicholson. We do have one more member, uh, Miss Lori Gilli. Good afternoon, uh, gentlemen. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm Lori Galuli. I'm the CEO of Habitat Free Many
of Greater Valuchia County. Uh, last July, um, this county of Valuchia offered an RFP to affordable housing developers for these properties. And I just want to talk about money a little bit.
Your staff member shared with you that these properties are wooded. A lot of times I think people think like you just get a property and you just start building, right? There's I know some of you have been involved in land development. It's involved. So we're
going to if you allow us to have these properties I can speak for Habitat for Humanity and I I believe I can speak for my colleague David we're going to come in and we're going to spend at least $8 for every dollar that you're giving us. So, our
investment, okay, say let's say for argument's sake that the property has a value of about $25,000. We're going to invest another $200,000. We're going to take that property from being
paying minimal taxes to paying property taxes, buying utilities. Also, most importantly, it will be housing people who hold essential jobs in this community. At Habitat for Humanity,
our homeowners hold jobs as certified nursing assistants in the skilled nursing homes and assisted living facilities. their home health aids, their licensed practical nurses, their patient care technicians in the hospitals. We have a registered nurse
who was able to finish her RN degree because she had the stability of her habitat house. She was a CNA when she started with us. They work as radiology technicians. They work in other jobs in the community. They're school bus drivers.
They're bookkeepers, member services specialists. uh they some of them work for the school board, some of them work for insurance companies, manufacturing, restaurants. The affordability in this community, in
this county, is beyond what they can handle and yet they're working, productive people of our community. And someone mentioned, who are they for our programs at Habitat for Humanity? They have to live in our area or work here
for 12 months before they are even eligible. These are people right now in your community. We will take that property and we will turn it into an investment of eight times what you're giving us. Please allow us to have these properties. We've been waiting a year
with this RFP. Your staff is wonderful to work with. We appreciate them. We want to invite you to every dedication of every house that we build on this property that you allow us to work on. Thank you. You first off, before I call you, Mr. Kent, my
apologies because I went from a question right into a comment. So, my apologies, Mr. Kent. Go ahead. Thank you, Chairman. Gentlemen, I just I want to be transparent and tell you where I am on this issue. I have always been a fan of pocket parks when they make sense. I'll
give you a quick example. years ago in Orman Beach, there was a a push to give riverfront land to each adjoining property owner on either side. Just give it to them, not charge them anything, just put it back
on the tax rolls. And I advocated for turning at least three of those into pocket parks where you can actually go a passive park, not throw a ball, but you can sit and watch the sunset
and, you know, enjoy a quiet moment on a park bench. And I'm pleased that we did that. I said I'm an advocate for it when it makes sense. For me, with the map, I would have to see how far away another another park is from these locations.
And um you know I I I appreciate staff did exactly what we asked them to do. You know, we we sent this back and we gave you marching orders and and you've come back with it. Um I also appreciate Mr. Dempsey, you know, um advocating and
trying to get more more open space. Uh I'm not saying that I'm only a yes if it's on a waterway. That's not what I'm saying. But if there's a park nearby, do we need a do we need a a passive pocket park next to a park that we already
have? Just something to kind of float out there. And then I'm glad chairman that you brought it up. There is a cost associated with this. So, every time you do something like that, you're you're adding to um the bottom line in not only
uh taking it off the tax roles, but then the annual maintenance that goes along with it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kent. Mr. Recall. Yeah, I just it occurred to me uh during this discussion uh of you know uh I hear
the uh desire of of at least part of council to uh look into this pocket park. I would say these properties go through an extensive uh process that includes uh they're also reviewed by the cities uh
when because often these are in cities. They're also reviewed by our public works department who look at them for drainage and use for drainage uh uh facilities which often uh can be made park-like. And what what I was thinking
is because I think you hit it right on um Mr. Kent that some of these may make sense and some of them don't make sense and we don't really have you know we never really analyzed it in that manner. So my thought would be if you want to add pocket parks to the list that we go
through when we get these properties, which we'll have more, right? I mean, these things come in uh uh we get several lots or more a year. Uh we could then add that to the analysis where then Tim uh and Brad's team would have the
ability to really look at this and does this make sense? we could establish some criteria of, you know, what would make good sense to have a pocket park. Some of the criteria you just talked about, how close are to another park? Uh, is it an area that could be maybe well lit and
maintained because I'm sure neighbors might have a different opinion right now uh of a pocket park for kids to go hang out in. Some would be fine with that and some may not. So, we we really need to, I think, go through a little bit more study before we put it in uh into a
pocket park. So, uh, I'd be happy to add that to our list going forward and we could put together the program and analyze it and properly budget it, uh, and and pick up some, uh, pocket parks through this manner and, and my
suggestion would be then to, uh, move this item forward with, uh, folks that are here, uh, who have gone through the process and are here to, uh, put their projects on this on these lands. Thank you. Mr. Johansson.
Thank you, Chairman. Um, couple things. Number one, I I would hope, George, that the staff would uh if they don't in the future bring forth all options for anything that comes up, this being the the land piece, uh I would like to know
the the ones that make sense and and if they don't, tell us why they don't your in your options. you know, we consider this, this, and this, and this is why they're not being presented to you. Um, uh, cuz I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff out there that we didn't even talk
about that you could use at quarter acre or a little bit more for land. Um, you know, I I like the pocket park idea. We we have them in Port Orange. They're all over the place. are a pain in the neck because they're a quarter acre each and and you got to get to every one of them
almost every day or two times a week to get the garbage and if you don't um the the neighbors will let you know about it and and when you have 10 or 15 of them it's uh um logistically tough right especially well I think we mow our own
so so you got to bring the trailer and the truck um but but I do think it's a good idea. Having said all that, um there is I've I've not been involved with
Habitat, but when I was a city manager, we we dealt with uh Lori and her team and and I've been to a few of the openings on the west side and the east side and and for the the neighborhood in Daytona that I've that I've been
intimately uh um um not associated with but I've been to a bunch of them and and the energy and the community that you see at those things I would say do you want to park
at park or do you want this feeling of community in a world where we may not even know our neighbor that doesn't happen for Habitat for Humanity and and I imagine the other company that's that's doing these. And and so
the the value of that and the value of knowing your neighbor and maybe getting your neighbors together to go to the big park to to ride your bike or whatever is is probably for me in this world right now
worth more than not knowing your neighbor and having a pocket park. Although the the pocket park might might breed the same thing. Um, so I I think it's important that we move forward with this for all the reasons
presented pre previous to that and and that we uh uh that we allow this to go through as as presented since we did we did tell them to to move forth in this direction. Um, the last thing
I'll say about what I do know in Habitat for Humanity, we're we're not giving people homes, they're building their own homes with Habitat's Health uh, help. And, uh, it's it's amazing. Uh, Lori mentioned the the the type of people
that are getting these homes, and she shared a story about somebody who who's a a reservist that isn't available to get her home yet. Um, so they're going to wait for her and and she's going to get it when she gets back. So, it's helping the military, too. And you guys
know what I think about the military. So, um uh I'm going to be for this as as written. Uh and then and then um entertain the the pocket park and any other options in in future in future uh
land uh opportunities. Thank you, Mr. Robbins. Motion to approve item I as presented and also give direction to staff to uh incorporate or looking for pocket parks uh when available. Second motion made by Mr.
Robbins, second by Mr. Santiago, Mr. Dempsey. Any more discussion? Your name is still up there. Yeah. Um, just again if I could I would uh I'm going to be a no vote as Danny presented it only because well one I still think there's this overwhelming
sentiment from the Orange City people more so we have them here every meeting the hills and everybody else talking about uh it's just the flooding problems down there and here we're adding 12 more uh developments for a lack of better
words it's impervious surface whatever you want to call But um more and more and more development. I don't care what name you attach to it. Affordable housing, whatever. It's still development. And um I don't know why. I mean, if if and
Habitat for Humanity, I know Mr. Silkov's brother very well. I'm assuming you're Chris's brother. You're a spitting image of him. You are. Okay. And I know what you all do and I've seen their work down there off of Boston, I think it was, or not too. um great great organization. Uh but
again, I think the the the feeling of the public is no more development, especially in the Orange City area. So, I don't know why Habitat doesn't bid on these at these auctions. And if they bid on them, then more power to them and building on them. But, you know, I don't
know where they're getting their wood and their materials. I'm sure that costs somebody money, but I don't know why people aren't bidding on these parcels as opposed to us selling them. I guess the ones we did sell, we made nearly a half a million dollars on them. And I think a lot of people would like to see
these auctioned off and have that money go to road improvements that Danny keeps pushing for or um strategic buyouts of floodprone properties. I think a lot of people would be in favor of that, but we're doing more giveaways and we're
using taxpayers potential money to do more development, which is the last thing they want, especially in the Orange City area. So, I just I don't think the timing is right for more development. I thought by doing these little pocket parks. Um, we'd be able to
kill two birds with one stone because we'd leave um we we wouldn't be creating impervious surfaces, giving the kids a sand lot to basically play on. I'm not asking that this be a lit field or anything like that. I've been pushing for more parks since day one on this
DAS. I'm into my third year now. And no disrespect, I know wheels of government turn slow, but they do turn slow. I'm just trying to find more places for kids to get outside the house and play. I don't care if it's an economic generator. I don't care if it's lit or not. We have all the community help in
creating the houses for habitat, which is awesome. But I bet you at Dollars to Donuts, you'll have just as many people in those neighborhoods, just as many dads who are willing to go out and cut the grass and do what they can do and mow and take, you know, clear the land
so that their kids will have a place to hang out and play in their own backyard in their own neighborhood. And I believe that creates a sense of neighborhood, too, when the families are taking care of the the kids hang out. I know when we built Freedom Playground, I think Chris was there. I don't know if you I don't
remember, but the Freedom Playground, which is out a couple blocks from here, you talk about a a neighborhood builder. I mean, the whole community turned out about 30 years ago to build Freedom Playground, which is still a central port, central park for kids and families
to come out and hang out and play on the playground. So, I don't think it's far-fetched that these little public parks, pocket parks, would create that same vibe. I mean, I the Freedom Playground's been a huge success and that was built by the community. So,
that's just what I think is better. I'm not trying to completely wipe out what there the Seville property makes sense actually because it's already got a building on it. You're not creating more impervious surface and flooding doesn't appear to be much of an issue in Seville. But in Orange City where you have the constant reminder of all the
flooding problems down there, I just and I'm not saying all of them, but at least look into these pieces. I know the numbered streets in Orange City. Um there's some troubled kids I think that maybe come out of that neighborhood. I just I want to just see
kids get out and play. And I think we need to give them some spaces to do it. That's all. So I think if we could direct staff to go back and look into that area, see what they can come up with, and then just bring it back for a vote, that would be my preference. Well, the motion's made right now. I understand. I'm just saying that's why
I'm No. Thanks, guys. All right, Mr. Santiago. I'm gonna, if you may be, Mr. Chair, I'm going to yield to Danny and then I'll go after him. Fair enough. Mr. Robins, Don, trying to keep this thing going here. Should I uh modify my uh motion? I'll be
more than willing to do so uh to exclude uh two parcels that you can coordinate with uh staff and let's keep this uh uh keep it moving here. Uh would you be open to that? I think we're all on board. The problem is is we've given direction on this over and over and
over. And you may not be on the prevailing side, but still the majority, you know, and we can't take some of this money and put it towards roads. It has to go uh into this this program. So, we're very limited on what we can do with some of those funds as I uh
understood it. But would you like me to modify ma my motion to exclude two properties out of what was presented that I just don't know which two properties Danny but I'll leave I was going to put up a map with that same recommendation so we're thinking alike yeah but you know we can't hash this out
obviously right now it it wouldn't it wouldn't work but just leave it open coordinate with staff on what properties that may work for you or what may not if they can make it work great if not but I I can adjust my motion just maybe I can first um Danny along the lines if if
staff could put up what what I'd thrown out there and I was going to suggest something along those lines but still which still moves us along. Um, and I I just looked at this map and I circled those two properties only because geographically they look like they're in between both sides of that kind of
little community. And it takes one from Habitat and it takes one from bright Bright Community and then my thoughts uh Danny was to uh approve the remaining suggest to approve the remaining ones as presented to staff to those
organizations as uh as lots for affordable housing. the the the unknown is we don't know if these two lots are even viable. So the caveat is that with the motion that we can modify say that we will
withhold these two sites um uh until staff looks at them to see if they're viable for that concept and to give us a concept and a budget for this council to approve or deny in the future. If nothing moves forward with it, then we put them back on the block
and give it back give it to uh um Habitat for Humanity or Bright Community. So, it gives it a shot. I love your concept, but it's kind of premature. I think this gives you something to move forward, a possibility. Um I think otherwise, I think we have the motion to move
forward. I think this is your that's my I'm reading the tea leaves. That's my I think and I think Danny's idea to possibly give you something in your community there for that. So if if that's acceptable, I think we should do that. Uh Mr. Santiago, um I'll
I'll go ahead and re re uh track my motion. You can package your motion and and I'll go ahead and support it. Don, are you okay with that? Could Could we make it four lots? I'm not saying I just want to give us No, I just If not, I got to stay with my motion and I'm not gonna gota
got to keep before we go any further. Um and my name's up there, too. Like Mr. Johansson said, "I I like your idea. I just think we're ninth inning and what we're doing uh having these individuals show up here. They've done what they said they were supposed to do. I like
what Mr. Rectald had the recommendation he gave uh for future reference if we want to do that." And I and we're this is not the end of the properties, guys. This this there's going to be more. I just think that we move forward. If not, we're just doing what I hate and kicking
the can down the road. So motion remains as stated by Mr. uh Mr. Robbins. Still the same seconder. That being said, Carissa, would you call the role on this one, please? Mr. Santiago, yes.
Mr. Dempsey. Mr. Johansson, yes. Mr. Kent, yes. Mr. Reinhardt, yes. Mr. Robbins, yes. So the motion carries 5 to one.
Is there any other I think staff has do you need a a vote on for future reference, George, or do we have direction for future? You have direction for future reference. Correct. Y okay. You do have the next ite next item up is is similar and that's the uh approval of
the award for federal grant funds for Bright Community Trust for development of affordable homeowner housing on infill lots. Motion approved. Second. Motion by Mr. Johansson, second by Mr. Robbins.
Any discussion? All those in favor? I don't think we need a a roll call motion. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. I. Motion carries 5 to one. Thank you. Thank you, staff. All right.
Now that we're getting out of the consent agenda, moving on to item three. Uh this is an open open public hearing uh for budget resolution and resolution authorizing imposition of special assessment against non-public hospitals.
Ryan, would you Good evening, county council. Um what you have here is the hospital uh directed payment program uh specifically our local uh provider participation fund. This is a program
that by levying a special assessment on hospitals, which they through their consultant have asked for, we can then send that money up to the state to be the state match to federal Medicaid funding, which then ultimately makes its way back to hospitals,
uh, ultimately benefiting the hospitals that paid for this. So, they've they've asked for this. This is a little bit early this year related to the timing of some federal legislation, but this is the same program we've done for this will be the third or fourth year now.
Um, I'll take any questions if you have. Motion to approve. Oh, you beat me. Motion by Mr. Robbins to approve. Second Joe Hansen. Second. Second Joe Hansen. Any discussion, Mr. Robbins? You're good.
All those in favor say I. I I. All those opposed? Nay. Motion carries. 6o. Thank you very much. Item number four, contract amendment for solid waste collection and recycling
services with FCC Environmental Services of Florida LLC. Mr. Bartlett, happy birthday, by the way. Ah, thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, council members. Ben Barllet, public works director. Wait for move to approve.
Oh, I thought you were done. Is it not working? Sorry. Ah, here we go. Okay, next slide, please. Okay, you got like 10 seconds left from the
time allotted. Well, I can just start without Oh, there we go. All right, so we got two things uh here. One is the uh adjustment CPI rate adjustment for the uh FCC collection contract. They collect all the household garbage in the
unincorporated area. uh their contract allows them to request a CPI adjustment based on uh CPI index for garbage collection which was slightly over 5%. It's capped at five. They are requesting 5%.
Um and they've also requesting another increase to account for the uh disposal fee costs uh at the landfill that have gone up. Uh next slide please. Okay. Um, and then because of the uh increase to the waste collection, we're also
recommending uh an increase to the non-avalorm assessment for households within the unincorporated area. Uh, last year's uh assessment was $288. Uh, we're recommending an increase to $297, a difference of $9 for the year or 75
cents a month. I would request a motion that uh increases or allows for the CPI adjustment in the contract amendment and uh tipping fee increases as well as the at theorum nonavalorum assessment at 297. Happy to answer any questions. Mr.
Santiago move to approve. Motion made by Mr. Santiago to approve. Mr. Robbins. Second. Second by Mr. Robbins. You have a question or Ben. Um did we just increase the tipping fees? When was the last time we increased those? uh that earlier in the year we
increased the tipping fees on on a CPI uh CPI plus one and we have to how much this is not the tipping fees this is just the waste collection okay for the unincorporated area thank you Mr. Johansson,
uh, failure to approve this, it'll come out of your reserves. Do you know the cost of that for a year? Uh, well, if you don't approve the contract amendment, um, FCC could choose to not continue the contract and we'd have to go out for bid. If we did not approve
the nonavalorum assessment, the $800,000 would come out of uh, the reserves into the fund. Thank you, Mr. Kent. Thank you. When was the last time? Did you already say when was the last time that we gave a rate increase? Last year. How much was that? Uh it was
uh slightly less than that amount I believe. Right. It was right around the same amount because uh uh FCC had requested the same 5%. Right. And and you all have heard me say it and you're holding my feet to the fire with it and I appreciate it. I'm for small incremental increases every year and not
hammering people where you go five, seven years with no increase and then all of a sudden it's, you know, a massive hit to people. I don't like that. Um, to me, I just want you to know as far as my comfort level, this is like I'm on the edge with like $9. Even
though it's $9 for a year, you know, it's to me it's like the max for me. Yes, sir. Just so you understood. Any other questions for staff? Just like to let um Ben know that my limit is 925.
Very close. Mr. Johansson. No. Okay. Motion's been made by Mr. Santiago, second by Mr. Robbins. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed? Nay. Motion carries 6. Thank you.
Thank you. Moving on to item number five. Authorized acceptance to ratify the Federal Aviation Administration grant at Daytona Beach International Air uh air airport for security systems upgrades. Mr. Cyrus, Motion to approve. Motion by
Mr. Robbins to approve. Do I hear a second? Second. Johansson. Second by Mr. Johansson. Would you like to at least say hi or I was going to say good afternoon, gentlemen. It's a pleasure to stand before you. Is that going to include facial recognition stuff? Just ask a question.
only if you have access to the sida area and secured areas. There are some biometric components that are included in this this software. So, good to know. Yep. All right. Motion's been made by Mr. Robin, second by Mr. Johansson. All those in favor say I. I like sign or all those opposed say
no. Motion carry 6. Thank you, Mr. Kellen. Appreciate it. Item number six, contract with Danis Utilities Incorporated for the LS7 Master Repump Station located along Rhode Island across from the University
High School in Orange City. Mr. Bartlett, approve. Oh, second. Motion by Mr. Robbins, second by Mr. Santiago. Are there any questions or re real quick I just want to say this is a yes giant
lift station to move wastewater around in the Orange City area. Uh it's much needed and uh we're going to get it built. Um hopefully soon we'll be coming in with a grant agreement to offset some of these construction. Thank you to uh Mike who's working the phones hard on
that one right now. Thank you very much. And before I ask for the vote, just so people know, we're not just arbitrarily just passing through. We've all had the opportunity to hear these presentations by staff beforehand, so I didn't want to make it look like we were just pushing it through. So, thank you very
much. Was that a quasi judicial disclosure? No. Okay. All right. Motion made by Mr. Robin, second by Mr. Santiago. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed? Nay. Motion carry 6. Thank you, Mr. Bartlett. And again,
happy birthday. All right. And he's back up again. Item number seven, contract with Waterfront Property Services LLC Gator Dredging for finally for the Rattlesnake Island dredging project to help our citizens down there
in uh southeast Felicia County, those beaches. Motion to approve. Motion by Mr. Robbins to approve. Johansson. Second by Jake Johansson. Any questions for staff? I would just like to note that this is uh $25 million which will be funded from
the grant that we've received earlier. Same funding that's doing the current sand project north of the inlet. This will go south of the inlet and uh we're putting more sand on the beach and replacing those dunes that were damaged in the storms. Thank you very much. And and so it goes uh I know Mr. Kent always
refers to uh uh best in the business clay Irvin. So best in the business for our beaches is standing right there. That's right, Jessica. So, we appreciate all the hard work and I'm glad you brought up the one point with respect to uh the funding that's coming from grant funding. So, thank you very much. So, we
have a motion by Mr. Robbins and a second by Joe Hansen. No questions for staff. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed? No. Motion carry 60. Thank you. Moving on to item where we at? Item number eight, amendment to loan
agreements for South State Bank for capital improvement revenue notes series 2017 series 2019. Motion to approve. Motion made by Mr. Robbins to approve. Do I hear a second? Johansson second. Johansson second.
Any questions for staff? The agenda item covered it well. So, yes, it did. All right. Hearing no questions. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. Motion carries 6. Excellent job. Item number 10. The same
for this one. Okay. Consideration. Item 10 for consideration of triparty interlocal agreement for firststep shelter operating support. Oh, I'm sorry. Skip the Oh, I was ready to go right to you. They were sitting here. I I just felt it. All right. All right.
So, item number nine, five-year forecast uh for the general fund. No wonder I wanted to skip over. Uh so, go ahead, Ryan. All right. I I sense the mood, so I'll go as fast
as I can. I'm not even going to cover these revenue assumptions or expenditure assumptions slides. Just going to go straight to the forecast. We have the library fund presented at the roll back millage rate estimated at uh 3694 mills. Uh this fund uh has been
at roll back for five this will be the fifth out of six years that this fund will have been at a full roll back. Uh presuming that that is the rate that is adopted. Uh we do estimate in 27 that it will need to stay at a flat rate because all those years of roll back are catching up as far as covering your your
your uh inflation and personnel changes. with another roll back in 28 and another flat rate in 29. Um this fund can can cover uh under those scenarios. Sales tax trust fund. This is a fund what we typically would not present.
It's more of an administrative fund. But I do want to point out the total impact of some changes that uh in the budget related to sales tax. We are seeing decreases in the sales tax. It started in FY24. Our budget for FY25 was actually based off of FY23
um because you're budgeting in the middle of the year. Uh when we saw the decreases in 24, we're now seeing that what we estimate will be another decrease in 25. So you had a a big divergence between an expectation of increases but then the reality of
decreases. So that translates into an FY25 budget of nearly $30 million for sales tax where the estimate is now 27.1. In all future years, including the 26 budget, basically we've used the state
revenue estimating conference uh as a guideline. Uh there's a group of people that in Tallahassee because the state, you know, sales tax is very important to the state's budget. So they have experts that get together and project what sales tax is going to do. They did that in March. They had 3% increases basically
for the next four state fiscal years. What the state revenue estimating conference did not know is that the state was going to do some changes to the sales tax this year. Most notably the corporate rent uh uh exemption. The value of that is estimated to almost
negate the 3% increase that the revenue estimating conference had in place. Therefore, the 26 budget is almost on par with the 25 budget. But each year outyear is estimated to go up by 3%. The transfers are done based off of the percentage of the tax that comes in
related to the unincorporated area versus the incorporated area. The incorporated area is spent countywide. The unincorporated area is transferred to your municipal service district, the district that provides services to the unincorporated area. Law enforce Oh, and stop me if you have
any questions. Uh law enforcement fund. This is a little bit different. We do not present a 5-year forecast in this one because it's a little bit unpredictable. Um, in this budget, we have it presented at a flat millage rate. Um, if you may recall, last year the millage rate actually had increased.
So, this is um an improvement from a taxpayers's perspective as far as rate being stable. Uh, the sheriff's budget total request went from 140 million to 154 million, a little over a 10% increase, but it can be covered with the with the flat millage rate. um the
transfer from the municipal service district, the municipality contract, schoolboard contract, they're all going pratta up the same amount that the uh sheriff's budget is going up. Um the transfer from the municipal service district is for the police like
services. It is uh in in past years, especially when we were talking about how much we the sheriff charges municipalities, we we uh we heard some things like maybe is there double taxation here? Well, you look at how much is being levied countywide, 101 million. And you look how much is being
levied in the municipal service district. It's not double taxation. It is different taxation going to fund a total budget request. So there is a different level of service in the unincorporated area. The sheriff responds to 911 calls like a police
department would in a city. That different level of service is paid for by a different level of taxes. So that's what that is. Uh, one other thing I'll point out here, uh, we did move, and this will become important on the general fund side. We moved, um, sheriff's office facility
management. It's the second line under expenditures. That's a $800,000 budget. We anticipate that in the future that will carry on. Basically, when the sheriff makes requests through the budget process of the facilities division, in the past, we were paying for that out of the general fund. We're now moving that to the uh, law
enforcement fund. Do you have a question, Mr. Santiago? on on the law enforcement uh fund. Um I should have known this answer, but I'm going to ask in case anybody does know. Um I understand that there was a potential in play there for a budget
allocation from the state for the shurers building. Do we know if that's in motion still? The um it's in motion. Uh we didn't as of today we didn't have it. It wasn't in
the budget. Not this year's budget. Not in this year's budget. No, no, no. Let me make sure I jump. You're talking about the state budget. The legislature just said, we did not receive it. We didn't get in there. No, not this year. No, we do still have um it's not a fund
that we're presenting today, but in the um sheriff's I don't remember the exact name of the fund, but the fund that we're setting up the the building for the sheriff, something I mentioned last time, rather than transferring $30 million over the course of two years from the general fund, we are estim or
we are recommending to take out debt for that. So, that fund has a budget of debt proceeds of 30 million and expenditures of 30 million. The 10 million that you're referring to did not make it into the state budget for this year. I do understand that the sheriff's office is going to try again next year. Okay.
Yeah, I wasn't aware of and I was going to ask if if if it was where is it allocated here or projected. Thank you. Yeah, that would actually if if if we got it. Grants typically are done by budget amendment. They're not done by the original budget anyway.
All right. Municipal service district. Uh this fund is presented also at a flat millage rate across all years. This fund was at a roll back rate, a full roll back rate for three out of four years between FY21 and FY24.
After the rate was adopted for FY24, but before the budget was set, council began the uh process of unwinding the communication services tax. Communication services tax was around $3 million a year for this fund. um three
roll backs in four years plus that tax being gone was effectively like five roll backs at that point. So this fund is now in a deficit position and that's what that blue line shows you. Um not a deficit overall, a structural deficit
from like a year to annual revenues versus expenditures. It still has a lot of reserve. Let me be clear. It's not like in a negative cash position or anything like that. We'll see that on the next slide. But the blue line where it says prior year fund balance, that's the estimated amount that we'll be pulling from
reserves each year to make this budget balance. So we are spending onetime money on recurring expenditures. It's not the best practice, but that's where we are at this point. Staff has not ahead. No, no. I'm sorry. I was just
I was going to ask you how much was that communications tax? How much was that? Three million a year. Three million a year. Okay. Um, Mr. Santiago, so you're presenting this with the just
make sure I understand the numbers in front. You're you're presenting this as if everything stood equal in the expense side too, right? So before we look at what changes are being proposed by George or anybody else? Well, this this includes the budget request that the sheriff's already made and all the
departmental requests to fund current staffing levels with current service levels. So this is this is all in there if we are looking for feedback from council on all these forecasts if there's a desire to address uh service levels or funding.
Uh what you're saying is to keep the service level I don't want to put words in your mouth but I'll say this what you're saying here is keep service levels the same in the municipal services district we have to subsidize that from our reserves $3.5 million this year. Yep. That's what you're saying.
Yep. Good. Thanks. But and there is a Let me just skip to the slide. Oh, the reserve slide did not Oh, I added it to the PDF. Okay. The reserves in this fund, I know them off the top of my head. I just wish I could present them to you. They're in the uh the agenda that was posted to the website. They're
around $30 million. So $3 million a year gives you a long time before this actually becomes a problem that has to be addressed with either uh an expenditure reduction uh with for service level reduction or a millage
rate increase. I would point out that look at the first line of revenues and look at the first line of expenditures. First line of revenues is how much we're levying in adv taxes. The first line of expenditures is how much is being transferred to the sheriff's office for unincorporated area patrol.
Essentially, the property tax doesn't even cover the amount we're transferring to the sheriff's office. We're actually using utility tax on top of that. Um, so in the future, what's happening is the amount that the advalone taxes are
growing by is not keeping up with the amount that the transfer to the sheriff's fund is growing by. So, in the future, you will have to address that, but it it could be um it's a matter of what revenues do you sign to what expenditures. It could be looked at as
increasing to fund the sheriff's office. So, uh an increase at that time, years from now, like probably six years from now, um to fund the sheriff's office budget. I wasn't done. Go ahead. Yeah.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um but the purpose of the the reserves is not to continue am I right? Is not to continue funding everyday stuff. That's typically for emergency or one-off things. It's not to
This is a problem. This is a problem. But we're not here recommending a millage rate increase this year when the amount that we're pulling from reserves is relatively stable. It's it's the gap is not actually growing. So if you were
to if we were to stand here in front of you today and say we need a military increase, but we're also sitting on $30 million of reserves, that's problematic from a taxpayers's perspective as well. I get that. I get that. But it's going to grow exponentially. So it's still it's a problem that whatever if we don't
address it or whatever we address is just going to continue to grow and red diminish our reserves year after year. Right. the the amount we pull from reserves actually if you look at the forecast does go down in the last year of the forecast it's down to 3.2 2
instead of 3.5. So it continues to eat into reserves, but the gap is not growing. So we add to reserves every year. No, we're we're pulling from reserves every year. The amount you're pulling from reserves is that blue line. So So that
still a problem then? Yeah. Okay. Yes. I I know you I I think you're trying to be an optimist. I get it. I don't have a problem with it. But I see that as a problem that we have to address somehow, whatever the decision is. Sorry, I'll let you continue. Mr. Robbins, thank you. Uh, Chair Brian, uh, real quick,
just backtracking, I I think I had some some questions earlier for the, uh, sheriff's millage rate. What is the cap um, or the ceiling for that? The mechanism we're using in statute, it's called the fine and forfeite fund,
right? And the statute was limited to 2 mills. What happens when we hit that 2 millillage rate cap that's the the where does the someday where does that uh excess um if the sheriff's budget
requests come in to a point where the two mills doesn't cover it anymore then the general fund would pick up the balance and is that that's capped by state statute right the two mills is capped by state statute yes is there any projections to raising that cap for our
law enforcement or is that something has to come from us? How how would any just so it doesn't affect our long-term general fund? I am not aware of any statewide initiative or anything related to that millage. So, it' be something that we'd have to prompt the legislature, you know, can we increase
this cap? Uh this is how we use the fund. Something if you if you wanted to do that, I think you'd pursue it through your um legislative uh agenda. Okay. Just something to think about, Mr. Johansson. And Ryan, could you explain to us um
how how that not not why it's so big, but how those reserves come to be? How did the reserves get to the point that they are in the municipal service district? Yeah. Even a dollar. How does that Oh, in general, reserves are are
funds that are levied in one year that are not used. So, you said it as an accountant. Can I say it as a politician that we overt taxed ever so little possibly
for the amount of excess reserves? But you need to have some level reserves. I sure have more than than we need apparently. Um so I know we don't like to use reserves for
reoccurring operational costs. Um uh but but we're a little in excess. I I know you don't want to go down to zero. Uh so what I'm understanding from you is that for now you're comfortable. However,
it it's still a bad practice. But but I putting my my politician hat on, can I say that we've already taxed people for this stuff that we didn't use, so now we can use it and feel kind of comfortable with
that for now. Um, but in the long run, we're either going to have to get rid of services or raise taxes. Those are our two options, right? And and at the trajectory we're on, and I'm not saying it's going to stay this way,
and I'm not going to blame anyone department, but at the trajectory we're on, uh eventually one day, we're going to use all our money to pay for, in this case,
sheriff. But but it could be any case. It could be infrastructure. or it could be personnel on the on the staff until we start getting rid of things. So in in in the in years and in the you know inside
five years I think we're uncomfortably okay. Um but but eventually we're going to have to we're going to have to do something here. Um so do we start doing it now and take a look at at where we're going to trim?
But but you can't trim down to, as they say, the bone if we're not there already. Um and and and I understand that there's a lot of people that that'll say there's there's always room to room to trim in government. Um but
but we might have to take a serious look at what we're going to start getting rid of uh to pay for the things that we want, public safety, infrastructure, and and the the other mandatory items. Thanks, Well, I you hit on one thing,
comfortable. That's the word that I took away from from that. It's it's not a good place to be using reserves on recurring expenses. But at least in this fund, we've got a four years worth of outy years that we're looking at. And the
amount that we're pulling, it's not going up. It's not like the delta, it's not like it's compounding exponentially. We just have a structural imbalance that would take $3.5 million a year. Um, if you start levying it now, then you'd
have the reserves stay where they're at. So, I got I got another question. I got your response there, but if we don't see 2324 there, we'll just use the first line on the expenditures, right?
and you look at 2425 and then 25 26 what's that going to be in 2627 if there's a trend there across then that number will go up we have a I don't follow you because there
is a 26 27 like you don't have to guess it's there well sorry I'll go to the following year it's forecasted I'm continuing from there right hold on let me just move down the thing you did think of that. Thank you. I don't follow but Okay. I I I removed
the section that was covering the right side of the graph. Okay. And um you my the answer to my question is yes. Okay. Thank you. Good job. I will I will move on now.
Emergency medical services. This is one of the funds that is a recipient of a general fund subsidy. Since this is a fund that depends on the general fund, the next two funds are both in that vein. Um we're presenting that in the leadup to the general fund,
which is our largest uh tax levy dollar-wise, of course, countywide. Uh the EMS fund is in a good place um to reduce the transfer. that that is our recommendation to reduce the the
transfer by a million dollars. Why is that? Um Medicaid, Medicare um the PEMT program and Medicare rates have uh increased due to um inflation. Medicare sets their rates related to inflation
and the Medicaid uh revenues are coming in from the PEMT program. This fund has been over the last five to seven years the beneficiary of extra money from that PEMT program. So it has built some
reserves along the way. We're also uh we reanalyzed the term I'll use uh the ambulance fee revenues that we've been seeing over the last few years and we've tred up our estimates to a little bit higher because these are this is in line with what we've been seeing.
So when the ambulance fees are coming in higher than we previously budgeted as you can see in the estimate then that means in the future years we can afford to decrease the subsidy from the general fund. That decrease subsidy plays a big role in the general fund budget. The
other piece that we've done that's new to this fund is the aggregate operational savings. You see a million half dollar negative number there every year. That's in line with what we've done in the general fund. In the general fund, we have $5 million that we count on savings every year to balance the
budget. In the EMS fund, where is that coming from? It's mainly coming from it's it's a mix. It's personnel and operating. But if you look at the personnel services budget versus estimate, there's a pretty big uh difference there. And that's based off of our our
our uh ERP system forecast out based off of current staffing levels and what's already occurred for the rest of the year. what is going to happen uh for the for the total for the year. Historically, there have been around a million half dollars worth of savings in
this fund every year. So, by taking that into account, you get a better picture of where this fund is really going to go. So, what I'm trying to stress here is that we're not shortch changing this fund by decreasing the transfer. It's because it's got more revenues and every
year it's had savings and expenditures. Oh, one more thing I want to point out. In the FY25 estimate column, you'll see something that's not budgeted for. We do plan on bringing that back to council as a mid-year budget adjustment, and that is $6.8 million transfer to the general
fund. Why that amount? That is the amount that council approved back in November of CDBGDR dollars that are going to be used for the renovation of the new EMS headquarter facility. They were previously earmarked. uh in this
fund to go towards that building now that CDBG DR is around to help pay for that. We can transfer that money over to the general fund and help pay some of the capital expenditures that the general fund has instead management fund. This fund is the only fund where you see
this slightly different uh document here. This is not our typical 5-year forecast because I want to make sure that what I I want something to follow along that typically we don't talk about budget versus actuals, but this time we need to uh beach access fees for 2024,
last year's full actual year were 5.5 million. at this point uh based off of the data through May extrapolated based off of our current our prior collection like our prior seasonality. I'm not saying that June is
going to be the same as January. Obviously June is in the summer, but how do we expect June to be compared to all the last Junes that we've had? How we we take that seasonality into account. We estimate that we'll end the year at $6.4 $4 million, which is an $881,000
increase over last year for parking uh off beach based off of the data that we have in through June uh sorry, through May. Um we expect to land around $2.9 million. That is $2.9 million we didn't have
before. But as a bit of foreshadowing for the next slide, we budgeted in the 25 budget $7.1 million. So, yes, we have $2.9 million of revenue. Is it where we thought we would be based off of the budget? If you think the budget is where we thought we'd be,
no, because we're short of the $7.1 million. Question, Mr. Santiago. Thank you, Mr. Chair. How does that correlate that that shortfall correlate or play a part in our expenses that we
projected to run the program as it is? Can I say my question? I think your question might be answered if I keep going. Okay. Thank you. Um I've taken all of I've used the exact same format, the exact same lines as we used on the five-year forecast. So you can see the
revenues and the different major expenditures. Those expenditures I think where you were going the expenditures for on beach collection and offbe collection, the fees, those are the expenditure lines two and three. in the fourth column where it says beach
fee related. Actually, let me back up. First column is 24. Second column is 25. Third column is the difference. Okay. And then I've classified the difference into three different buckets. So the difference that's related to beach fees, which is the new revenues minus the new
beach fee collection expenditures. The difference that's related to nothing else. Uh not the beach fees and not the general fund. It's kind of like the catchall column is that that middle column of the three that are below orange. And then the additional general fund contribution, I put it in a
separate column for easy totaling. So net of the new contract, we're collecting over a million dollar or not over nearly a million dollars more estimated for 25. And that's taking into account the new model where residents do not pay. That's
also taking into account the new contract. Under the new contract, uh there's increased cost because we're putting in equipment for automation which will lead to all the B tramps being open. So it's a higher level of customer service than what we have right now.
If we did not have that additional million, then the additional subsidy from the general fund would be that two uh that second column $2.8 $8 million that that uh middle column where it says non beach
fee related down at the bottom in orange the total of all the activities that changed year-over-year that aren't related to the beach fee. So the net of the million dollar of new revenue and $2.8 million of expenditure increases is $1.8 million of additional general fund
subsidy. So what does that mean? The general fund subsidy in FY24 was 15.5 million. The general fund subsidy for FY25 is estimated to be uh a million8 more than that.
It would be 2.8 million more than that if we didn't have all the new beach revenues under the new model. Sure. Go ahead. Mr. Santi, you may have said it somewhere in there, but where So where's the extra million coming from? expended
the extra you you said uh shortfall you said shortfall right the the 15 million I think what he's if you don't mind um we forecast 7 million to receive for off beach parking for off beach parking we only got a million or just under a
million we're thinking by the end of the year we million so that's what you're talking about the shortfall from what was estimated the difference between the budget of 7.1 answer your question and the estimate of 2.9. That's going to play into the budget when I get to the next slide. But for here, when you're
just comparing year-over-year, how did this year change compared to last year? We're up a million dollars of net. Yeah, but I'm talking about the the the subsidy, I think you used the word from the general fund, the 15 million or something like that. Can repeat that section of it and then I'll hone in on my question. So, the subsidy from the
general fund is the last two revenue lines. That's the 9.3 million and the 6.2. So the total was 15.5 or 15.6 actually it might round to the new estimate subsidies the 10.4 or
10.5 that next column over. Do you follow the lines that I'm talking about or I can I don't see the 15 million. All right. Let me see if I can actually make this thing draw these two lines put together combined. I was looking for a single 15. Okay. They're 15.5 for 24. They're going to be
$1.8 $8 million higher for 25 subsidy. Subsidy from the general fund. From the general fund. Okay. So, we're transferring more money from the general fund to support this particular operation. That's what you're telling us. To support the beach as a whole, which includes lifeguards, not just the
change that council made related to the tolls because but the tolls made money if I understood. Extra money. Yes. Here's your here's your extra money right here. These two lines. Okay. in.
Let me go to the next slide more. Let me go to the next slide. Ryan, chairman, do you mind? Mr. K, go ahead. Thank you. Um, just just to clarify that last piece, because of the new program we put in place, it's actually a million
dollars more that if we didn't have this program, the county would be needing to find an extra million dollars because the contract was up anyway with the beach toll vendor that was coming regardless. Is that correct?
We're earning an additional million dollars in revenue than we did last year while giving people free or giving residents free access to the beach and a new contract with automation that opens all the ramps all the time. So, are you saying that Troy was right?
[Laughter] Um, the million-dollar man. That's what I'm going to call you from now on. All right. Well, so so just Yes. So I I just w without if we had the exact same model last year, in other words, if the costs were
relatively the same, we would have a million dollars less in less in revenue. The residents would still be paying the $25 annual pass and we would not we would not be charging for beach parking for non-residents and we would not have the
automation that opens all the ramps. There there's other cost. I'll let Ryan explain, but there's other costs associated with the beach irrespective of the uh of the parking. I'm glad that was my idea. All right.
Trying to see if we can get the annotation cleared. I hit clear. It doesn't clear. Oh, if I just take the Oh, there you go. All right. Technology. All right. So, here's where the
budgetary gap comes in. So, you've got I'm I'm just going to skip to the off beach parking because I think that one makes more sense. 2.9 million is the estimate. Same number, second column. We budgeted for $7.1 million. It was high. It was based off of a
consultant. They they told us what to budget. Uh so, that is where the shortfall comes in. It's still 2.9 million of additional revenue we didn't have last year, but it's not as much as it was estimated to be. I have a quick question before you
go further, Ryan, if that's okay. So, we estimated it would be how much? 7.1. 7.1. We received how much? We estimate to receive by the end of the year 2.9. 2.9 2.9 that we didn't have, right?
Have we already allocated that additional money to something else in our budget to operate other beach functions? The budget for FY25 is balanced. You see the total operating revenue based on that 7.1 based on the 7.1. Thank you. That's where that's
where the you're you're hitting right on it. That's where the trouble comes in. We balanced based off of higher expectations. So when the revenue comes short of budgetary expectations although higher
than last year then we have to make a budgetary adjustment somewhere else. So where else is there to make a budgetary adjustment? It's the general fund subsidy. So that is going up related to budget but the amount that it's changing
related to budget is like $6 million. It's only like $1.8 8 million compared to last year. So it's the difference between actual comparing to estimate and budget compared to estimate. So I I I know it's can be confusing, but I tried
to put it out on the slides to to for for easy reference. That's really the main story of showing this fund. the the expenditures. If you look on the expenditure side, uh estimate versus budget and the estimate takes into account the new contract. The
original budget for on beach and off- beach fee collections did not. That's where your biggest change is between estimate and budget. If you look at the difference between 25's estimate and 26's budget, the total expenditures uh are almost flat. 28 million versus
28.5 million total expenditures. It's really the revenue side of the equation that is problematic from a budgetary perspective. All right, general fund. Oh, did any more questions
on the beach fund or we're clear? All right, the general fund. We have this presented at a flat millage rate and the revenues and external expenses are really the story of why that is.
Um external expenses, we'll cover it on the next slide. Revenues, the $6 million budgetary gap from our expectations for the beach is one piece of it, but there's additional lines you can see on this slide. I covered the sales tax fund and how we allocate that across the
county. Well, this is the general funds piece of it. It's a $2.5 million budget cap. State revenue sharing nearly a $3 million budget cap. If you're looking at the two pink uh or orange, whatever color they come across on your screen, those two different numbers. The next
line below that is hospital district Medicaid contributions. The reason that's going up is because our required state contribution is going up. The revenue is 79% of how much we have to pay the state because we allocate council allocates 79% of our state
required Medicaid contribution to the hospital districts. So if the state makes us pay more as a county then we're going to collect more from the hospital districts. So yeah the revenue is up but it's only because the expenditures up even more. Um I'll skip a couple other lines just
go to investment income. I will highlight that this is really the the best uh story in the revenue section is the investment income. We budgeted for 5.2 million. I can now estimate and budget for the future years of around 7.5 million. That's based off of where
the market's going. Uh our current investment rates uh we have scaled that down across the forecast. You could see it going down in future years and we use data from the Federal Reserve and their expectations of interest rates to do that. Miscellaneous revenues decreasing by
almost a million dollars. I mentioned this at the last council meeting. This is because the FCC previously allowed for commissions to be made on inmate phone calls. They're no longer going to allow that effective December 31st, 2025.
So, our contract has to be modified and and the commissions will go away. The constitutional officer excess fees that is a blend of the three different offices that provide excess fees to to the general fund. That's the tax collector, the property appraiser, and
the supervisor of elections. Sheriff's excess fees go into his separate law enforcement fund. The big reason for the decrease here is the tax collector. He is um forecasting to spend additional money on buildings uh facilities
and when he spends additional money with his commissions being set statutoily when he spends additional money then we get less excess revenues back. So I'll boil it down. The tax collector spends more in his budget then there's
less to come to us. That leads to the difference in the two green lines, uh, two green numbers. So, other operating revenues down by almost $4 million. And that's with investment revenues to help offset it a little bit. And that's
counting a million dollars of hospital district Medicaid contributions that have a offsetting expenditure increase. Council member Kent, you had asked about capital last meeting and I took that back and I thought about what could I do to show you what we're doing with
capital that this section was mainly meant to address your your question and comment the last time about uh about our millage rate and setting aside money for capital. It still remains as we have so many funds difficult to do that everywhere. But I did want to show you at least in
our main operating fund, the general fund, how much of the money uh that we're levying for property taxes is going towards personnel and operating versus how much of it's going towards capital. And the amount does look like it takes a decrease in the last year, but that's just because the capital requests in the last year are also a lot
lower. I fully expect that the amounts you see as additions to reserves right now, as we get closer to those out years, they'll probably become part of the capital budget as more capital becomes known that'll be needed in FY29.
So, it's relatively stable the amount that we're putting towards capital. We're not uh we're not um avoiding capital obligations. So, I tried to put that out there to to address your concern. The inner fund transfers uh in the one-time revenue section, the $6.8
million, that's from the EMS fund. I talked about that before. The $10.8 $8 million. That is some projects that are left over in COVID funds that are related to corrections that we're moving back into the general fund because we're going to cover corrections projects out of the general fund going forward. We're
almost kind of trying to wrap up some of the COVID money and blend it back into the general fund. And then there's uh interest that that fund has earned that was never appropriated that we're also going to transfer back into the general fund as well. the blue line, use of prior year fund
balance uh or reserves uh use of prior year uh amounts that were set aside as reserves. You can see that the adopted budget was $48 million. That was all tied to capital projects. It's all what was adopted last year. We're estimating now $30 million. The primary difference
is related to the sheriff's office. Recall that I mentioned we're we're recommending a change in strategy. Instead of setting aside 15 million in each year of 25 and 26, recommending to fund that with debt. That means we have to use less of the general funds reserves which keeps them around and
I'll talk more about reserves when we get to that slide. Uh expenditures. The first section of expenditures is the elected offices, your constitutional officers and as well as the judiciary clerk and guardian adm programs.
property appraisers budget um he has submitted to the state based off of what he has submitted to the state. We enter that into our budget system. It's not just the general fund that pays for this. It's all of our taxing funds just like the tax collector commissions are paid by all of the taxing funds.
However, the general fund pays the largest piece because it is the largest fund. Uh his budget includes uh a reserve budget of $1.5 million for renovation of potential uh future facility uh consolidation. He wants to
uh look at establishing a facility in Port Orange that would consolidate his Orange City um I think it's Holly Hill officially but maybe Daytona and New Simrna offices. So he has submitted that to the state and when the state gets that submission they'll either approve
or deny it. Typically our experience is the state approves the department of revenue approves what the constitutional officers present with little modification. So we have to anticipate funding that request uh based off of that. The tax collector line here this is the
other side of the tax collector story. Excess fees are are where you really see the bigger impact, but that this is just the commissions that we have to pay that are set by statute based off of the percentage of tax uh advant taxes. The next line is capital project by
facilities. This year we had a one-time project for downstairs in this building required by statute for the county to pay for uh the primary location. So that's what that was. It is no longer an expense expected in future years. So it does help to decrease that but it's
related to capital here in this building. The elections budget is relatively stable as you can see across the forecast. Of note she submits a budget for 26. We forecast based on a growth rate for future years
on our historical growth rate. These are not her requests. Uh office of the sheriff. Those are a few expenses that we agreed as part of the amendment 10 transition. council agreed to to fund for the sheriff's office. I mentioned the fact that we were moving some sheriff's office capital projects into the law
enforcement fund. That's why you see this line go to zero for future years. And then there's the debt service on uh the sheriff's administration complex. This is related to the strategy change. Instead of using $30 million of reserves, keep those reserves around and
then just pay for it over uh a 20-year period which will match the under the public administration complex of intergenerational equity. It'll match the future users to the future expense. The guardian adidam judicial clerk line,
most of the increase there is related to the clerk's budget. She actually did have a $380,000 increase uh in her request. Her office is is in a downturn right now because she's primarily funded by recording fees and recording fees are
down. External expenses, Department of Juvenile Justice, Medicaid, Department of Health, Sunrail, and CRA payments are all things that are out of our control. They are state mandates, state amounts that need to be funded, and these are the amounts that we've been told by the state to expect
or extrapolations off of the current amounts into future years. That's a total of a $4 million increase. I have information on all these, but I'm going to skip past it to try to move forward on the county departments. I like to
think of these as the areas that George really has control over because the e he doesn't control the elected officials. He the the constitutional officers. He doesn't control the statemandated expenses or those external boards that are appointed by council. But these are the areas that really are within
Georgia's control. Skip to the to the headline, the green lines. This is where this the county manager's budget request is down versus the prior year. Not to mention, is it down, but there's actually nearly $4 million of personnel increases that are
baked in here with other offsets and still is down. A lot of that was the some of the inter fund transfer balancing that we did, the EMS fund, taking that transfer down by a million dollars. Some of it is capital related. That court uh core facilities
maintenance and projects. There was a courtroom project that was completed in 25. They're not going to have to budget for that in the future. Yep. Mr. I want to go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to digress about it 45 seconds ago because this stuck in my head. So, I
wonder if maybe you can clarify that. No, no. Still the same graph where we were. Probably this slide. No, nope. Nope. Where we were? Same graph. And I think you opened up with this is kind of sort of like the I'll use the word discretionary or operating budget for county operations that George manages
for us, right? And the recurring piece of that there is a capital slide coming later. Okay. So just operating basically and I think you said something along the lines that the other stuff is we really have don't have any control over it. Right. So compared to the other stuff,
the con I'll just say constitutional officers we're coming in proposed here $2 million less than last year 1.6 1.6 million less than last year and and that includes overcoming 4 million health
insurance increases retirement increases we have uh we mentioned I I skipped past the assumption slide but we have 4% uh uh wage adjustment in the face of all the union negotiations we have. So we have to overcome all of those and still present this lower budget request with
the exception of capital projects. Capital I believe it let me let me fast forward. Those are actually down versus the 25 budget as well, but the sheriff's office does skew that a little bit. I I think what I've learned just now is
that all the all the increases are coming from the constitutional officers. Your increases are on this slide here, the external expenses and constitutional officers. And then the other piece even bigger than the constitutional officers are the external expenses is
some of the revenue shortfalls shortfalls that we're facing. It's a combination of both. Yes. But from an operating uh government perspective, we're down. We we're proposing to spend less. Yes. this county council and if if we adopt this county council is
proposing to spend less than last year where every other county related government entity is spending more. I I want to make sure because we're going to get blamed. We're getting pressure. I'm gonna come out on my soap box here. We're getting pressure for
going back to roll back. That that's why the pressure is coming politically. Let's just let's just just just take the the elephant of the room and we we we are reducing but we're confined and restricted because of other forces that we don't control.
Is that a fair statement, George? Yeah, I mean you you you're correct. I mean we we're down uh some of the others and it's not just the constitutionals. I mean, you got this DJJ is the state itself, you know, that charges us. So,
you you know, Medicaid, uh, Sunrail, uh, other things that are good, they're all up. So, we're having to overcome that with with our our operation. I'm glad you added that because I want to make sure that the the source of where the
increases are should be clearly defined and the sources of where the decreases are happening should be defined as well and that's the area that we control. There's a couple things because I can
just foresee the future questions. This is the general fund we're looking at. We will eventually produce a total operating budget. I don't know. I haven't actually sat and tabulated all this stuff yet because we do the forecast first and then we work on the budget. We've got large capital projects
in the solid waste fund. We talked about the landfill expansion. There's other projects and other funds. The total budget might still be an increase, but within the general fund related to property taxes, the areas that George controls are going down and and that's
what most people look at anyway with everything related to property taxes. Thank you. Sometimes we get quoted on our total budget number. Well, yeah, the papers might, but yeah, but Al Iverson knows how to get it right. I seen him writing it down.
Um, the only other thing I'll highlight on this slide is the aggregate operational savings. We got to take credit for that. Every year we're basically planning on, okay, here's all these budget lines where we're decreasing. And on top of that, like we do every year, we're
anticipating that $5 million of it will either get grants for it. We won't spend it because of operational efficiencies or personnel vacancies or or whatever else. Um the transfers, uh you can see the different transfers listed out there. We
spent a long time talking about the beach, but there's the the impact. Uh the homeless initiatives, that's based off of council direction in January. It's actually the next agenda item. This is the amount of money that I estimate that we'll need to set aside. It's in that budget resolution. If that is
passed by council on the next agenda item, so we're taking that into account. Uh the group insurance fund, the health health insurance is an area of continual challenge for the county and we require an additional one-time transfer to make up for a for a $2 million gap that we're
currently budgeting for. That's an area where we we stay tuned because those costs are still rising. They're hard to control. Uh the airport fund and the impact fee administration fund, those are one-time
cleanups of things that were charged uh or balances that needed to be carried over. Uh council's already approved the impact fee fund administration transfer. Uh the air pack the airport fund will be brought to you at a future budget uh amendment. The capital plan was largely the same
items that were presented at the last meeting. So other than reminding that the sheriff's office strategy has changed, the first line, the only other thing that was not in uh that the only thing that's on here that was not in the presentation you got
two weeks ago is the set aside for road program funding of $5 million a year. We didn't have that in that presentation, but we put it here. This budget is balanced with that $5 million. The part of the balance I need to make sure that
you see it is the blue line on this slide. You know, we're using reserves as part of the balance, but you've got $19 million worth of reserves and $32 million of capital projects. So, it's a we're using onetime money for
onetime expenses. So it's not the same story as the municipal service district. The reserve summary is presented here. Uh one thing that we are that I'm putting forward on this slide and recommending is something that uh it was
a it's a council goal to have 10% emergency reserves in all the taxing funds. When we set up the law enforcement fund the very first year, the amount of the levy was expected to cover the sheriff's budget and it's continued that way. it doesn't have the capacity to build a 10% emergency
reserve. So, we're recommending to set aside an equivalent amount here because the sheriff's office in the event of an emergency that is a large part of our operating budget and they could have additional needs as well. And it's also just a way to acknowledge um the need
for additional reserves and some of the in the face of some of the things we're we're talking about with FEMA. I was covered well in the press last time about FEMA. So, what I said there stands still. The memo uh that that FEMA put out called actions to rebalance FEMA's
roles in disasters, it does say that it is discussion and not final. But we continue to see news articles out there about FEMA and the scale back of FEMA, the changing of FEMA.
If that if that memo were implemented and beach walkovers and beach ramps were no longer eligible under FEMA, part of how we recover from disasters is the public assistance grant. And I want to make sure that that doesn't get confused with the CDBGDR grants. The CDBGDR
grants have a totally different purpose. They they don't let you use them for the same purpose of the public assistance grants. So it's not like you can mix those two together. And want to make that clear. uh this t if we had to fund beach ramps some of our storm they're
typically if it's a bad storm that hits the beach side as opposed to an Irma which hit the west side it's about $10 million worth of beach repairs in in these storms reserves could only give us probably one storm the total cost of a
storm if FEMA were to just completely go away is 25 to $30 million on the on the typical size that we've gotten I'm sorry let me interrupt that's our typical ones we've gotten We've got remember we haven't gotten the kind of hits. Understood. Mr. Kent, you had a
question. No, it wasn't a question. I was just going to make a motion to approve the 5-year forecast. Wait, you can still talk by Mr. Kent, seconded by Mr. Santiago. Please continue. I'll make it super quick. The last one really we're just highlighting. This is a little bit
different. This is the one where I'm gonna hope that you guys give us some guidance in your motion because there's an option here. The option is a roll back millage or a flat millage. This is the fire services fund. This is the last fund I'm presenting. So, thank
you for bearing with me going through. And remember, we're going to be bringing the trim the very next meeting. So, that's why we kind of need to know. I mean, you still have uh plenty of time uh after that. you're really getting our our official budget and setting the trim
in July. Remember in August we can make adjustments uh down barely we can't really go up but the at the end of the day uh we're looking for that kind of uh direction to see how you want the
millillage uh uh to be presented uh in that July meeting. So, at a high level, the two different forecasts that you're seeing, you can almost see it as I flip back and forth between the slides, not much actually changes. What we're changing is the tax revenue and the reserves because we're
still funding the entire budgetary request of the fire department for personnel services, operating expenses, the amount that we need to set aside for commissions, and then probably one of the bigger items, that last line, interf transfer to the fire capital fund. These are the fire stations that were
identified in the capital plan two weeks ago. Yep. This is the amount of money that would be required to set aside to fund those projects and they're the same in both of these forecasts. The only thing that's really changing here is the amount of taxes that we're collecting and the amount of
money that we add to reserves. Reserves provide flexibility to respond to union negotiations, to respond to staffing levels, to respond to future capital needs. If you have more reserves, then you can
you can provide more of those things. But that being said, based off of the current amounts presented, the only difference is the top line where it says advalorum taxes and the gray line where it says revenues less expenditures and how that affects your ending reserves.
Mr. Sier. Yeah. I want to make it easy for him. Uh I recommend we amend to roll back on that one. Looking for guidance. I am looking for guidance. Just you were the motioner, right? Yeah. Um what does the rest of the council think you know
about that? Because you know um roll back we bring in the same amount flat millage rate. How much more does that bring in Ryan? Uh it's you see the two numbers here 47.1 versus 50.1. So another $3 million a year. Right. But for the fire fund for the fire fund.
Right. Right. And it it is for for the fire fund. I just am um I'm not a no to that right now. I I'm I'm would like to know where the council thinks on that just because you talked about negotiations and that's what
payraises and things and things like that. Um but isn't that baked into the contracts already? It we have a a raise structure already in place and that's already negotiated, right? I think well what's in the forecast is uh the same forecast we've applied across the
county. We're actively in negotiations with the fire union right now for a new contract. Mr. Tras, you had a question? Uh no. Yeah, we're in a negotiation right now.
So, we just started uh we have the money that we would uh give everybody else and and that's really been always our our operating uh percent. That's not necessarily what they're asking for, but but we you know,
we're prepared to do what we've done for the rest of the organization. Yeah. That's why I think the So, that's already baked in the numbers. That's correct. that that number is the roll back is is sufficient. I I I would I would agree with you. So, yeah. So, I'll I'll withdraw my motion and now Well, we
got the first motion on the floor for You can withdraw. Oh, you can. Yeah, that's true. I'll withdraw my motion and then and then create a a new motion where the direction is to go to roll back for the um for the fire service fee. Second. Mr. Johansson, you had a comment?
Not anymore. So the motion's made for to go back to roll back for the fire fund. Seconded by Mr. Santiago. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed say no. 60. Go to roll back. All right. That was
the last forecast. Just two more items here. The final steps. These are preliminary values. They will change ever so slightly when the property appraiser gives us the July 1st values. We will be back at the July 22nd meeting to set trim rates. All the rates uh will be the ones we presented here along with
the roll back rate that council just voted on for the fire rate. Thank you. Any additional questions or anything? Any other questions from council? Good job. Yeah, just just a thank you to Ryan. Your presentation was very well done to the balance. Too long, too short. Sorry. You did it just right
compared to last year. Appreciate that. Thank you. Last year was we want to take a train wreck. We're still picking up the parts. All right, we're going to take a break at 6:15. Say 635. 640. That long enough
645. 645. That was weak. Yeah, I know. I had to reach over. testing. Here we go. Call back to order. Thank you. Moving on to item 10. Consideration triparty interlocal
agreement for SH first shelter operating budget five-year funding commitment with enhanced oversight provisions. Motion to approve. Second Joe Hansen. Motion by Danny uh Danny Santi or Danny
Santiago Danny Robbins. Second by Jake Johansson. Any discussion? No presentation. All those in favor say I. Oh, we do have a public comment. Man, I almost made it.
I almost made it. John Nicholson. Better up. Let's go. John Nicholson Bside. Uh, a couple of things at our last meeting. Uh, I know there was some controversy. Um, I also have a problem with it. But you got to
realize that I know that the largest beneficiary of the First Step Shelter is the city of Daytona Beach. I realize it's basically the east side of the county, but you also have to realize that the second largest user of that
facility is the county and you guys are the county. All right. Secondly, all 17 municipalities benefit by having that facility. So, there may have been some issues.
The issues may not have been handled correctly. Um, most of the problem was the two biggest supporters of First Step Shelter didn't get the answers that they thought they were entitled to. That's basically
where most of the uproar came from. But the shelter is working fine. It is doing what it's supposed to do. It is doing actually better than I thought it would do. And it's an area of those hardest hit. If we get them off the street, it
is better for them personally and it's better for us as a community. So, I'm asking you to do this. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Mike Baggio. Mike Pagio, Port Orange, Florida. And wow, thank you for your time today. And
I got to tell you, I've known John Nicholson for a while because of First Step Shelter, and you can't get much past John. No. So, we must be doing something right. Thank you, John. Um, I just want to just reiterate
how committed we are at the shelter, our board of directors, our executive director to doing things right. I'm big on statistics, you know, being an old basketball guy, everything's got to be statistics for me. And so, I
wanted to make sure at the shelter that we were we were very open and very transparent with our numbers. And I'm pretty proud of those numbers. Last month, 31 more residents
ended up in permanent housing. We're now at 971. And the the county gave us dollars, the city gave us dollars to do the job. We're doing the job. And I know that uh I know you all believe that it's it's
it's a beneficial operation. And I'm not going to say too much more except for that you're all invited pretty soon to our celebration which is not coming out of the budget is being coming out of this budget. Our celebration when we get
our 1,000th individual that we put into permanent housing. So with that, that's all I have to say. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you very much for your comments. Victoria Falberg. Hi, good evening. Um, first I want to
thank you for your vote in January. That was very much appreciated. And so during this time since then, I've had an opportunity to work with uh Dr. Burbal on getting the contract ironed out, which is what you're going to be uh
voting on tonight. And I really want to thank him and his staff. It was just um really nice to sit down and have such a a a really good conversation and I felt like it was good for everybody um
involved. So, I wanted to say as Mike said that we're going to be either this month or definitely by July housing our 1,000th person and we're planning on September 21st on a Sunday afternoon from 1 to 4. We're going to have a
shindig at the shelter. We're going to be inviting the entire county. Anybody's going to be able to come. We're going to have the current residents, whoever's there, be giving tours of the shelter. And we have former residents who are going to be there to speak and um other
people as well. And we would really like you to come because the county has been a a really vital supporter of the shelter just getting the place built. And you you may recall this or maybe not, but in 2020 there was a COVID
grant. the it was a federal funding, but it came through the county and um it was that we got and we were able to add on to the shelter. We were able to build a large quarantine area that we really needed. We've used it numerous times for
COVID outbreaks. Once when we had a lot of people with the flu, but it also just added really needed space to the shelter. We were also able to build a storage area which had not been built. So, it's these are the new things that
we have that you'd be able to see. You I'm guessing that most of you were probably out for the grand opening back in 2019, but it's changed and we would just love to have you there because you've been such a vital and important piece to having the shelter operate so
well over the last five years. So, that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Motion by Mr. Robin, second by Mr. Johansson. No further. Oh, Mr. Kent. Yes. Just just briefly to uh to Mike Paggio, I just
want to say publicly, I you and I might not always agree on everything, but man, I appreciate when you get behind something and you believe in it, you show up and you'll sit here as long as it takes and uh you talk from
the heart. And I app I appreciate that about you. Thanks, sir. You're welcome. Any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say I. I. Oppose say no. Motion carry 6.
Thank you. Moving on to item number 11. uh public hearing for ordinance 202519 revising the provisions of chapter 14 related to the classification of dogs as dangerous dogs and the subsequent
requirements associated with each approve motion made by uh Mr. Robbins to approve second by Mr. Johansson go ahead Mr. Chair, I just would interject. I know we had a detailed agenda item here. Happy to do a presentation if you like,
but this just is updating the ordinance to conform to the new state law that takes effect July 1st, which the governor has signed. You previously have changed the insurance requirement related to dangerous dogs that remains in this ordinance. Happy to answer any
questions if you have them. Mr. Santiago want to say that Danny cut again. He cut in front of you. You did. Appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Dempsey. Uh, yeah. What was the final insurance minimum requirement by the new state statute?
Uh, the state statute was 100,000 at least. All right. Thanks. Do you know what do you know the vote on that? How did it um if you know? Uh, I don't believe I have that with me. That's okay. All right.
Thanks. Any other discussion or questions? We have a motion by Mr. Robin, second by Mr. Johansson. All those in favor say I. I. I. Oh, just um you went by discussion just
like that. I just want to kind of I'm not going to rehash everything that we talked about last time, but now that it's actually the laws in place, I'm I'm a no on this because if you recall from the last meeting, um I believe there were 18 instances of dangerous dogs in
the county. There's been zero recidivism by these dogs. We have the minimum um enclosure and restraint uh in place. I don't think there's ever been an issue that once a dog is deemed dangerous, it goes out and bites again. And um I
believe the estimate before was the most we ever saw in any claimed damages from a dog bite case was under 100,000 or that generally it's under 100,000. So I just like I said before I think because we don't know what the premiums are going to be for a half million dollars
as opposed to h 100,000. I think because the legislature has vetted this out as well. They've debated it. The governor's reviewed it and they've deemed h 100,000 to be appropriate. I just don't know if there's any rational basis for us to go above $100,000 when we
already have a 100% success rate on confining and restraining dangerous dogs. The average I think the upper limits of any type of bite was $100,000. So, I just just for more rhetoric than anything, making it over
$100,000 is just doesn't seem to be rational. And my biggest fear is that this is going to cause a lot of these dogs that have been deemed dangerous to get the death sentence because the homeowners or the dog owners can't afford the extra $400,000 in coverage. And it's going to
cause them to have to get rid of these dogs that otherwise statistically are not going to reaffend. based on our the best prediction of the future is the past and I think we've got a really good program in place and I don't think we need to expand on it more than the
legislature has. So, as I said last time, I'm a no on it. I'm still a no. And just just to clarify, this proposal ordinance does not change the insurance amount because you've already decided that. So, the the sole purpose of this is to comply with the new state law,
which we have to do anyway. The other has been already discussed and voted on. That's not part of this ordinance. No, same. It's the same subject, Don. Just the dollar amount has not changed in this ordinance because you already have changed. We have already voted on that.
Yeah. And that ordinance has already been enacted at the 500. The the Yes, sir. The amount was already voted on in the previous meeting. This just coincides with what the state requires us requires us to do. Correct. And there's no at this point we can't
readress it or is that council can always readress their ordinances uh but the the decision on the dollar amount has already been acted upon. Okay. All right. Well, that's all I got to say about that. Thanks, guys. Thank
you, Mr. Kent. Thank you, Chairman. And um just a couple things on that, Don. If you were on the prevailing side, you could bring it back up for that. Um, but that's not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was I'm not saying you're the favorite councilman up here. I'm
just saying if we did a blind test at lunch time was I wouldn't want to go against you with everyone writing a a blind test of the name of who their favorite is because and I love how impactful you are, but I just wanted to say this before we voted on it. I love
how you're a defense attorney and I'm even feeling it up here for the dogs. Like you're you're a defense attorney for the dogs. Like you're gonna I I know you do. Um and I just wanted to say I appreciate that. Thanks. Thank you. All right. We'll revote just in case. Motion
made by Mr. Robin, second by Mr. Johansson. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries 5 to one. Moving on to item 12, ordinance 2024007,
truck parking aka Danny's Law. Motion to approve. Second. Joe Hansen. Motion made by Mr. Robbins for approval. Second by Joe Hansen. Any questions? Mr. Robbins, do you want to expand on it? No. You want to be David?
And we have public comment. Nope. Any nothing. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed say no. Motion carry. 60. All right. Moving on to comments. First
up, county manager, Mr. Rectim. Oh. Oh, we do. Never mind. I, you know, I tried. I tried. I didn't see it here. I tried. I knew I should have known better. Yep. I should have known that. Jeff tries all the time. It doesn't work. All right. John Nicholson, is he in the audience
still? Yes, he's still here. Uh I may be short, but I'm higher than the top. So, a couple of things. One, um I thought you guys had okayed an abundanceman, uh someone to help people get through the system. Did you all okay that? I
know Daytona Beach did that. Um because there's a gentleman that came by earlier and it happens often and there are enough people that come here and there enough people that come to the city of Daytona Beach that he said, "Well, I've been coming for six months and there's one thing there's another." And he's
still got things to go. So if if you've got one, let the staff know that they can send them to somebody to help him get through this. Uh it it just it happens too often not to correct it. Uh secondly, um
I had a feeling when you had those extra 11 lots or whatever that went out for sale and they weren't purchased and then guess what? You give them away to the same people that would normally purchase them and they know that if if
they don't buy it, they get it free. So is there a way of looking at that? Because if this has happened more than once and it has happened with our city, they sit there and they don't buy it. And I remember uh RT Dodi did not buy a
property that he wanted and he sat back and then a week before it closed, somebody else bought it. So he lost three million bucks on a house on a building on Main Street. So I I don't want us to lose on something that uh I I
believe we can see the writing on the wall. Um with the small parks, uh the public really does a lot of this stuff. If you recall in Orman, I believe you know, uh Rainbow Park where they came and built this park and it is extremely
successful. Our church had a what 500 x 500t lot and it told the parishioners go ahead. They put eight baseball fields in and they had thousands of kids all week long using the facility. So maybe we could do that. Just turn it over to the
public for a course to do whatever. Uh it's a it's a thought. Uh what oh last what's happening with FEMA? I think we have $13 million still for the lot on Beach Street when the building went down. Do we lose it if FEMA goes away? I
don't. That's something to think about. And lastly, we had a group sitting here for the whole meeting and it's happened several times. Remember the cultural council sat until like 8:00 at night before we voted because we had these meetings with our own staff. Is there a
way of moving it forward because it took very little to get them out of the building. So, if we could move when we see a staff report and something else following right behind it, can we just move them up? Thank you. Thank you for your comments. County
manager. Yes, sir. Thank you. Couple of quick items. Uh just some good news. The you know, recently uh the council passed the uh Milton action plan. uh we sent it to
HUD. If you recall, this is we followed what you guys had asked and most of the money is going to be in uh infrastructure and um and mitigation. So, uh HUD actually approved the plan 20
days early. So, uh the six-year clock uh started as of June 19th. So, happy to report that. Also, uh, when it comes to the CDBGDR monies, uh, I've been reporting when,
uh, a new city or a city, uh, adds a, uh, request for storm water master plan funding and, uh, Daytona Beach Shores has done that. So just about every city uh has now uh a some sort of a storm
water plan and study that is going on as we speak which will result eventually in uh I'm sure quite a lot of projects. And lastly, just to uh let everyone know, uh the end of the month here, uh June 27th
through uh uh July 7th, I'll be uh on a little family vacation, visiting my parents up in uh Western New York. And Suzanne will have the helm. Very good. Thank you very much. County
Attorney, I have nothing. Thank you. First in the order, Mr. Santiago. Thank Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just got one thing. Um, if staff could give us a quick synopsis on where we're at with the billboard
ordinance. Um, and the I think I I if I'm correct, we gave some instructions to look into the possibilities of a uh negotiating for opportunities for funding for the county as it relates to
a one for one. remember that. Mr. Santiago, I'll start and then I'm going to ask Mr. Sorya uh to be available to answer any questions. But as he briefed me, uh that ordinance is in the legal department's uh offices.
They're doing research on uh the ordinance and other ordinances in the state as well as looking at the swap down amount to talk with uh the company uh about uh negotiating that. We expect
this will be back to you in 60 to 90 days uh for a final presentation. I wanted to remind us I know there's one company and I I'll disclose it here. The the one of the individual the attorney for the company that was here reached out and said to me that he was looking
at options and it seemed positive. So and he didn't say you know go pound sand. So I think there's an opportunity maybe for a partyto- party agreement. However, there's two companies. Yes. So there there are multiple companies for billboard companies. um
uh uh clear channel think LAR and another one that starts with O I can't remember. Um yeah, right. Um so one of the concerns is because it's not a county asset, you know. Um could uh meander into that
unconstitutional exaction criteria. um because you know we're we're issuing a regulatory permit and exacting kind of funds and you know we'd have to prove that connection. So that's one of the the main stumbling blocks. So we are in
discussions with um the the previous uh the company that was here. They've sent a draft. We're looking at that draft over, you know, to see from a regulatory side and then looking if if you know a a onetoone swap and then additional
revenue is permissible from a constitutional standpoint. I'm with you and and I was sure because I get it. The forcing of it is where probably we have that constitutional question, right? But correct me if I'm
wrong. the it's a policy. It's legislative decision on whether or not we go uh one one 2 one 4 one that's all purely legislative. So is that we at our discretion whatever we want whatever we feel on that particular day. Um, and so
what what I would encourage staff to do is get all parties in the room. And I know this going to be some work, but get all parties in the room and saying you have a chance of a council of possibly going one to one.
What are you giving us? I know. I know. See, I see some smirks. Like county needs some potholes filled. Okay, you got me. But get them in a room. Okay, that's the best way to start because if you have pieces missing, get
them in a room. That's very, very lucrative. Very lucrative for them. I want to think outside the box. Thank you. That's all I got. That's all you got, Mr. Dempsey. It's enough, right? No.
No. I was just curious if we could um maybe have somebody I don't Ben I don't know if you're free back there but uh can we get an update on these basin studies that are being done like how far along each of them are? I'm sure a lot of people are wondering how they're
progressing. Thank you. So, I think we have um close to half of them underway. Um and we've uh the they're basically in the data gathering mode. Uh you've approved quite a few of them here at council. Some of them been
smaller than the amount that the so the manager could approve. But uh basically the the first steps are all the data gathering. It's it's establishing the existing model so they can model these storm events. We've got the big ones that the county is doing, the larger basins, we've got the smaller ones like
in Dand and Orand and places like that. So, um they're underway. Um we're hoping by, you know, early next year, we'll have some of them finishing up and and recommending a series of projects and and hopefully in time to utilize some of that money that uh Mr. Rectenwald just
mentioned with the Milton money that was just approved. Have we um undergone all the Westside basin studies? Uh there's a couple of Orange City ones that we're you'll be seeing here shortly to come through. Uh the lands are underway. Uh we're still working through Lake Helens
as well. Uh Deerry has not requested an one yet. Okay. All right. Thank you. Awesome. Mr. Johansson, thank you. Um, thanks for the update on on the billboards. I was going to ask that as
well. Uh, I would like clarification. I I just got it here. Um, poor Ben. He just walked back up there. But, um, I'm I'm I'm very um
I'm very interested in Miller Lake. We all are. We hear about it every every uh every other week. Um but but what confuses me is is the what we call it and and what the the
citizens are calling it. Uh I I would I would like it to be the same so we can have a a it means a lot to me. If Miller Lake is called Miller Lake, then I want to treat it like a lake. If Miller Pond is a pond, then I want to treat it like a
pond. If Miller Basin is a basin, then I want to treat it like a basin. If it can be all three, just let me know. So, um, in front of you, if you'll indulge, uh, this is a, uh, excerpt from a technical staff report from the water management
district from 2012 when we applied for the permit to, uh, increase the capacity in Miller Lake. They call it Miller Lake and they are the authority. I mean that's this idea that we can tell them to do anything. I don't know where
that's coming from. They they control the water. I I understand that and I understand the frustration and and I know they've I know the citizens have gone up and talked to St. John's as well. What I would like to just real quick is is the highlighted section.
This is from again 2012. This was in response. This is after the uh ' 04 storms and the '08. They talk about how historically it is basically dry. In other words, the wetland substrate was broadly exposed. They're telling you the land exposed,
but flooded almost to its banks in the early 80s and during much of 03 to 06, 08, and 2010. I want to point that out because that was before the situation that they refer to at Royal Oak. In the other highlighted
portion, the upper marsh edge is characterized by dead and declining live oaks following extensive upland flooding. Again, 2012. 2012, we've heard the folks talk about dead oaks. This is the rain total chart
y'all seen quite a bit. February 1984, a lot of water in that lake. 86. a lot of water. 88, it's drying out. 94, pretty dry. 99, a little bit of
water. 03, a little wetter. And again, I'm going to, you know, if you look at that rain chart, what the pattern you're going to see is a lot of rain in one year, full the next, little bit of rain and dry. February of 04. So that's February
before the 04 storms. May of '05. That's May after the '04 storms. You know, when they talk about how there's a lot of water in there and it's dissipated after the storms. This is May. A lot of water in that lake
after 05 or in '05, roughly 6 months after the '04 storms. November still pretty wet. Almost a full year later. Just tell me when the when the development came. Yes, sir. What year? Yep. 06 still wet. dried out in 07.
There's Fay, pretty wet we talked about. That's the event that also took out 1792. That's December. That's almost a year and a a full year after Fay. Still pretty wet. So, this lake drains slowly naturally.
This is that decade of dry period that I've talked about in a lot of my presentations. Dry, dry, little wetter. There's March of 17. So that's the year that the u the Royal Oak situation started. It's also the year we started to see an increase in rainfall.
And I'm going to point to that in a second because March of 2018, that's um after uh Hurricane Irma, we'd had Matthew and 16, Irma in 17, still pretty wet in 19, 21,
22. I want to look at 22. 22 is a lot drier. very dry. In fact, that area that was dug out, um I don't know if it'll let me annotate this area right here. That's where the county dug out and created extra volume.
Completely dry. And the reason I want to show that is one year later, just get rid of the clouds. Yeah. Look at the year 2021. right at our average rainfall. Y in 2022
it dried out and then 23 wet October 24 that's after Milton. So the point I'm trying to make with this is going all the way back to the 80s it's flooded before in terms of it's filled up with water before and those
always tend to correspond to increased amounts of rain on the average. I mean it corresponds right there. Um, and I know, you know, there's the pending litigation. I I think that's all I want to say on that. And that that's fair. And and I
would like to request and I'll request it of the chairman. I I guess I won't be here in July, but uh if we come back in August, if this hasn't been shown as as a uh a point of privilege after
comments before people all get up and leave, I not not because I want to say I told you so. Not I I just I want to make sure that that we don't get just a piece of the information. This is a yearly run
of what it looked like showing that that even before the the uh development that that it that it did have and flow and I and I truly believe that that our our weather patterns are cyclic to begin with and and it will be dry again.
People will be complaining that they uh that they don't have any water anymore. So um I I I really would like to see this right up front soon after public comment so we can we can kind of discuss
the reality of the history of of the of the events. Jake, quick question for you if you don't mind, chairman, if it's okay. I love that idea. My fear is right after public comments they leave. What What if we made an adjustment for one
meeting and did it right before public comments? It would have to be something that Mr. D made it an agenda item and called it. That's my point. We'd have to we'd have to make an adjustment and do that. We can make an agenda item. Make an agenda item. Agenda item three, Miller late
discussion and they'll stay for that and discuss it because it'll be an agenda item and they won't discuss it in public. I can I add something, Mr. Chair? Go ahead. I think I I think that's fine as long as we can uh uh self uh control ourselves. Be very careful in
what we say because of the litigation. Exactly what we're doing. Let's stick to Let's stick to what we did here today. What he just said? How about How about we don't say anything? We just let staff Good point. We just let staff do a do a picture shot. You can it be done as an item agenda item just for staff
presentation? No discussion, Mike. Or I could just post this on the website. Please do that at a minimum if it's if Mike uh No, I think you you can do it. We've been careful. I don't speak because their attorney's not here. Uh
I'm not going to go back and forth on threaten litigation publicly anyway. Mhm. But you know, everything that you say and Ben says or anyone else from the county on this, you will be a witness,
you know. So, I I just just just say we be cautious. I mean, Ben's already done it tonight and walked through it. Yeah. If you want to repeat that, that's fine. I Don, what do you think, Mr. Dempsey? Because of the litigation, I don't think we should do it even entertain it. All
right. No, understood. Well, it's it's out there in the universe right now anyhow. So, all areas that are publicly put it on the website. Yep. Thank Thank you very much for the the history lesson, Ben. That was good.
My last item uh chairman is I I I was confused, but I will not be at the Jan uh July 22nd uh meeting. So, uh, I apologize for that, but I'll bring everybody home some salmon.
Very, that's all. Mr. Kent, thank you, Chairman. Just a a couple of brief items this evening before uh before we leave. Um, Mr. Reinhardt, I just publicly wanted to say you nailed it tonight. You
did a really good job chairing this meeting. And you know, I know your first time doing that, it's a it's a daunting endeavor. And um if I didn't know it was your first time, I would have thought it was your 500th time. So, great great job. Is he your favorite? Now, listen,
don't make me write it down on a piece of paper. Um my next comment is to Mr. John Nichols in the audience. We don't always see eye to eye, but I absolutely agree with 100% everything you said tonight.
I felt like um you were on fire. So, thank you with that. George and staff, the weekly update. I'm appreciative that we're showing pictures because to me it's very important to see of the ditches being cleaned and
cleared. Um, we need to make sure that we are getting that message out to the news outlets because it's important for our residents to know that we have been working on this months before hurricane season. We don't wait for hurricane
season. We are prepared and we are where we can pumping down levels and water and we are clearing ditches and and we're making sure that our residents are safe in the event that any type of of huge rain event comes this way. So, um I'm
pleased we're doing that. Council, I agree completely with Mr. Santiago two meetings ago when I asked for your help and I needed help with more beach lifeguards up in the North Peninsula Orman Beach area. We all know there's two ways to get something done. Political pressure and media pressure.
And when I talked to staff and I wasn't feeling like I was getting the support I was asking for up there, I agree with you. We should not be controlling staff from the deis. But when you're pushed into a corner and you don't have anything any other way to get it done, I
brought it up and I'm not sorry I brought it up. I'm I'm glad that I did. And I just wanted to say I'm appreciative of this of staff's efforts. There has been movement. There are more lifeguards up on the North Pin. Suzanne Conchin is uh has her finger on the
pulse and she's involved in the discussions and that I'm not going to say that alone, but that puts me more at ease. Um because you're a task manager. I mean, you are hold people accountable
and I think you have really good ideas and I'm really appreciative of you being part of that. I'm sure George put you in that role, you know, for a reason. But I just wanted to give you all an update and say there has been more lifeguard coverage. You know, when when you have we can call it seven miles or nine
miles, but when you have one or two lifeguard stations and seven or nine miles, not okay. I wouldn't be okay in your districts if it was like that. And I'm not okay with it in mine. There's been an improvement and I'm appreciative of that. Um, last but not least, you
remember um a year ago tomorrow I um just wanted to tell my wife happy anniversary because it was 19 years but it only felt like 20. Do you remember that? Because I was reminded of it. So, I'm going to try to make up for that and just say tomorrow I
want to wish my lovely wife uh happy 20 years married and it only feels like 20. Made up for it. Thank you. And uh and with that um have a have a wonderful evening everybody.
Thank you, Mr. Kent. Mr. Robbins. Thank you, Chairman. Uh Carissa, do you have that council? A couple months ago, um y'all gave me the uh leeway to uh to speak up there in Northwest Felia when it came to
the springs. And in doing so, I met a group uh called Mighty River Recovery. uh the executive director Joe Balog. Um they're one of the only private entities and groups have an active permitting test sites uh and doing independent
studies on the St. John's and in some of the lakes uh in northwest Felucia. Pretty impartial group from what I've seen identifying issues uh with water quality in the St. John's. One of their main focuses is uh uh regrowing uh
vegetation, addressing management practices uh because honestly, you know, uh they haven't changed in about 60 plus years. Um, I included a uh just for staff, just for uh the council and the public, a little
bit about them. And uh what ultimately my goal is um to see if we can help them out in any way. And what I'm going to ask the council for support for and I think it would be very beneficial for for each and every one of us to uh to meet the the people in this organization
especially Joe very knowledgeable uh to have them come in in the next meeting or two for a uh 20 you know 15 20 minute presentation just uh showing people what they do and um I could put that in the form of the motion uh to have them come
in but unless you want just regular consensus That's the maker of the just presentation. Just a presentation. Could they keep Could they do it in 10 minutes? You think you saw my meeting tonight? So, it's
worth it. Maybe 15 20 tops. You guys good with that? Yeah, absolutely. Uh because uh ultimately guys, they're all self-funded and uh this might be something that that the county uh that we could partnership with
them uh somehow in the next fiscal year uh to uh help out with with with some of their test sites and whatnot. So, but I appreciate it. Are we good? Um consensus county manager, you think uh the next meeting is probably already
booked up, but Well, probably August would be August. Okay. Because you had do you have a preference the day or night? Say during the day. It's fine. So then we'll try to for the first uh meeting in August. Okay. And I'll I'll forward you his contact information. But
uh the slideshow guys just gives you just a little bit of uh touches on just a little bit of what they do. We don't have to go through it all now obviously, but you know and if uh someone wants to get a little uh understanding of what exactly they do, what they've accomplished, uh it's all there and
they're they're they're doing some great work. So uh other than that, I think that's it. Thank you. All I have is um just a couple of things. First off, um NCA NDA Thank you for that. The national dance,
national cheerleading, we won the contract for four more years. That helps out the Ocean Center. Um everything that helps them out. So that was a huge huge undertaking. So hats off to the uh our advertising authority.
They worked very very hard to to get that. Um there was some some competition out there for that. I know Vegas was talking about it. Some other areas were talking about it. All of which made presentations and Daytona won it. Yes, please. Thank you, Chairman. And I'll just say, you know, you're right about all of that, but people that have not
been to our ocean center, it is an absolute gem. The place is gorgeous. It it it serves the need of what they're looking for and they know that that ocean center, the money that's invested in there, the hard work, the right people that you've put in place there,
that is also one of the reasons why they made a good decision and locked it up for four years. And that being said, with respect to the ocean center, um having that item moved out of that uh TDT tourist development tax for this year's budget was removed. So there's no
threat of losing that this year. Unfortunately, we um when we talk about our legislative acts, Mr. Booker, we will address that for next year because I'm sure they'll be after it again. Actually, the person that was behind that movement up in Tallahassee has already made the comment that he will
try it again. which would severely impact us in a negative way for our operation of our of our ocean center. We don't want to see that go. So, and you you stand a potential chance of losing that. So, correct. I want to make sure that was mentioned. Um, talk about Danny
with regrowing ve regrowing vegetation. Um, we have started a project some time ago and I'm sorry guys, I had to bring it up. It's about the jail. Um we started a project in addition um to many of the other aspects part of the second chance initiative was uh growing
mangroves uh as you know they help clean the the water and uh they'll be doing a story on that um this evening on the news that hit and I'll be doing an interview with um good morning Orlando tomorrow morning about the the mangroves and some of the second chance
initiative. So, we want to keep that going. And uh that being said, thank you, George, for touring Marian County Jail. I told you Sheriff Woods was a character. He is very nice guy. He is. So, they have a very um a much smaller farm uh than Manatee does, but it was
perfect for them to go see. Um Brad, thank you very much for accommodating us as well. Lot of chickens. Lot of chickens. Um I will tell you what was it 2500 chickens egg laying hens free range and they lay an average of 1,400 eggs per day.
Imagine what the food cost savings would be a lot of scrambled eggs. Imagine and and imagine what the food cost savings. That's all I have to say. So um I'm very very happy. Thank you very much for accommodating me on that. So um and we'll see more more to come on that. So nice day out there. It was it
was they do have cattle out there as well. pigs, but a lot of pigs, some cattle. There's only four out there, and I think they have 55 at another location of head. Oh, yeah. The cattle, right? So, but they do also have a a full-fledged farm. The inmates work. It
keeps them out of trouble. Um, so excellent. That's all I got. I was going to say you're going to lose the favorite status. No, no, no. I I won't say anymore. And I I don't want to make it. With that being said, 7:30 we adjourn.