[Music] the border of County Commission meeting here today on July 23rd 2024 we are going to start our afternoon session we will begin um with our first presentation which is going to be employee service and retirement recognition with Miss Christina brandolini if everybody would be kind enough to silence your cell phones any other electronic devices you have out of respect for all the presenters today thank you Miss brandolini good afternoon chairman and Commissioners Christina brandolini Human Resources Director this afternoon we have the pleasure of recognizing employees for their years of service to seal County we're actually going to start with the Fire Department chief Kenley will come down he has several employees so I'll let him take the floor Chief good afternoon for the record Matt Kinley fire chief s County fire department and I'm very honored here today we've got some significant years of service here with some very high performing individuals um we'll start off with 20 years of service uh firefighter Mark Bishop uh firefighter Bishop is a lifelong that got loud really fast as a lifelong resident of Lucha County he started his career with semal County Public Works storm waterer division as an equipment operator in 2004 he attended Simo Community College in early 2008 for the emergency medical technician and minimum fire standards classes he was hired by Seal County Fire Department in October of 2008 where he has been part of many initiatives including the burn team tanker team and many special projects such as new apparatus outfitting at the seal County fire training Center he's currently assigned to station 34 as a tanker operator uh Mark is married to Chief Brenda Bishop of the Orlando National International Airport so she feels my pain sometimes which is great and they have three adult children and one grandson and he went to high school with [Applause] me we got a lot of good people um next is len Ransom she is a 58-year resident of seal County attended Lake how high school and seal State College Lan worked for the economic development Commission of Orlando prior to coming to suo County Fire Department in 1999 as a senior staff assistant for transport billing my dad hired her lne was promoted in 2004 to Public Safety EMS Performance Management as a program coordinator along with being the Department's special needs contact for Emergency Management during hurricanes which sitting next to her up there is a very very busy position she also manages the public access AED program for the county besides her role and EMS Performance Management she also assists an oversight of SEMO County's FD transport billing lene is married to a retired lieutenant Mitch ransome they have two adult children a grandson and a granddaughter on the way [Applause] congratulations next with 25 years of service Lieutenant David Yates graduated from doto County High School in 1989 and later moved to Orlando to attend UCF Lieutenant Gates joined the timot Springs Fire Department in 1999 and completed paramedic school in 2001 in 2012 he started teaching rope rescue at the sunel County Fire Training Center later becoming the lead instructor promoted to Lieutenant in 2008 he he's taught thousands of students in Rob rescue and fire training Lieutenant Lieutenant Yates earned his master M degree from the University of Massachusetts in 2022 and currently works in the Training Division developing programs and training new firefighters he lives in apaka with his wife and son congratulations other fun fact he's into martial arts and he can catch you from across the room in your throat with a flipflop flipflop chief you're dating yourself with the flipflop I have not received it so that's a good thing lot of antics in station 12 uh 30 years of service Lieutenant Shane Masari graduated from the central Florida fire academy in 1991 after obtaining his EMT certification from Valencia Community College the previous year he started his firefighting career on May 4th 1994 and was promoted to Lieutenant in July of 2004 he is a graduate of seminal State College where he obtained his paramedic certification as well as his as degree in Emergency Medical Services during his 30-year firefighting career he has served primarily at stations in Winter Springs Altamont and Ido he was the recipient of the lieutenant of the Year award in 2019 is currently assigned to station 29 Shane is married with two adult sons and we also just like that thank his wife for making him come di I'm sorry [Applause] congratulations thank you chief next with 30 years of service Tammy Roberts procurement administrator and uh Lori Bailey Brown will recognize her good afternoon Tammy Roberts has 30 years now with simol county in our purchasing division she actually started a little bit before purchasing in our Library Division and as well in the building department um in her career she has become a certified professional public buyer and a certified proc procurement professional she's held in high regard by her peers in simal county and by others outside our County for her longstanding achievements and purchasing I know um I was able to talk with our budget director this morning and he remembers being trained by Tammy in his first days in procurement and there there's plenty of other stories of people who've had opportunity to learn from her and um have really enjoyed working with her congratulations I know you all are going to come down and uh do pictures but before you do uh we would like to recognize um some of the folks that couldn't be here today so I will read those into the record Jesse Cruz 20 years fire department Maria Kasha 20 years fire department Jackie Holly 25 years fire department Javier sari 25 years Information Technology Robert castlin 25 years fire Steven La 25 years fire 30 years Kurt Thompson fire and Adam bringle with public works and if you would come down and take pictures with these folks Mr chairman thank you congrat before you do that I just wanted to recognize one other group that's coming up that's got a 50 Anniversary and that is our fire department on October 4th they're going to be 50 years old yeah amen great let's assemble for photos folks no com [Music] n [Music] oh sit oh sorry talking I'm going to be the attorney today oh this this ought to be real good I can really do as long as she can be the county manager you should see what commiss to her and I did while you were gone oh my I haven't briefed you on that oh boy as long as you had a good time I'm good with it we do even if you had a good time my expense I'm even better with that all right folks we're going to move on to our public hearing agenda this afternoon I will ask that the uh County attorney Miss kit Lor read into the record rules for public participation if you're here to speak on any of these items in the afternoon public hearing agenda you will need to grab a yellow sheet hand it to the clerk right here with the item number listed on it with your name if you want to give a written statement for the record not to be recognized at the podium fill out a green sheet and give it to the Madam clerk right here miss m Monique with that said I will ask the County Attorney to read the rules while the board welcomes comments from all persons with an interest in these proceedings Florida law requires that the board's decision in quasi judicial actions be supported by competent substantial evidence presented to the board during the hearings on the applications competent substantial evidence is such evidence as a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion there must be a factual basis in the record to support opinion testimony from both expert and non-expert Witnesses persons presenting testimony May rely on factual information that they present information presented by County staff information the applicant presented or on factual information included in the county staff report to support their testimony all persons who present rent materials to the board for consideration must ensure that a copy of such materials is provided to the clerk for inclusion in the board's record of proceedings and official minutes Mr chairman thank you Mr Lor I will uh ask for proof of publication motion second motion second all those in favor I oppose like sign see none motion carries I would ask uh each commissioner to disclose any expar they've had on any of these items mine has been submitted electronically chairman I have none I have none I have none I have none very well our first item up will be item 202 24-6 N4 item 59 Mission Road rezone consider a rezone from A1 agricultural to r1aa single family dwelling for single family residential home on approximately 0.545 Acres located on the west side of Mission Road approximately quarter mile north of Chapel Street this will be presented by Miss silway we will have staff give us a presentation if the applicant is present they'll be invited to give a brief presentation it will go to public input we will ask if the applicant desires to have any rebuttal then we'll go to board action miss silway good afternoon um I will be presenting the mission rezone my name is Annie silway with development services the applicant is requesting a rezone from A1 agriculture to R1 AAA single family dwelling in order to construct a single family residential home at 347 Mission Road that is to be in compliance with the R1 AAA zoning District which permits single family dwellings the existing A1 zoning classification allows for single family dwellings however require a minimum lot size of 1 acre and a minimum lot width of 150 ft at building line the vacant undeveloped site is approximately 45 Acres with a lot width of5 ft therefore it does not meet the minimum lot size requirements in A1 agriculture the requested R1 AAA single family dwelling zoning classification requires a minimum lot size of 13,500 ft and a minimum width at building line of 100 ft which the subject property does not meet the zoning requirements of the R1 AAA the the R1 AAA zoning is consistent with the future land use of medium density residential that allows for low density residential future land use zoning the site has direct access onto public RightWay Mission Road the property is located in the city of Ovito utility service area and has water capacity to service the site for a single family home and an enhanced nutrient reducing septic system will be installed by the owner the request is consistent with the simal county comprehensive plan and is compatible with the surrounding area which consists of single family detached and two family residential development a community meeting was conducted on April 4th 2024 the Planning and Zoning commission met on July 5th 2024 and voted unanimously to recommend the board of County Commissioners adopt the proposed ordinance and acting the rezone staff requests that the board of county commissioner ERS adopt the ordinance enacting a rezone from A1 agriculture to R1 AAA single family dwelling for a single family residential home on approximately A45 Acres located on the west side of Mission Road approximately a/4 Mile North of Chapel Street and that concludes my presentation thank you very much Mr silway any questions for staff seeing none is the applicant here and wish to make a presentation our statement to the board of County Commission yes sir if you'll come forward please give us your name and address of the record good afternoon uh Shay Smith the applicant um I agree with staff good job awesome hey that's that's pretty good all right good job Madam clerk do we have any speakers on this item no sir seeing none we will we'll close public comment and move to board action uh this is my District I will move to for a rezone from A1 agriculture to R1 AAA for a single family dwelling residential home on approximately 0.45 Acres located on the west side of Mission Road approximately qu Mile North of Chapel Street second motion second any further discussion see none all those in favor I opposed L sign see none motion carries unanimously thank you very much sir for being here our next item we'll move into our legis lative items this is number 60 Land Development code Amendment second reading consider an ordinance amending chapter 2 definitions of chapter 30 zoning chapter 35 subdivisions chapter 60 Arbor and chapter 90 uni building numbering system of simal County Land Development code Maya Aus athenus will present this Miss Maya good afternoon Maya aanus senior planner Planning and Development Division um this is a request to consider an ordinance amending chapter 2 definitions Chapter 30 zoning chapter 35 subdivisions chapter 60 Arbor and chapter 90 uniform building numbering systems of the seminal County Lane development code this is the second reading for this item staff presented it on June 25th 2024 when the board voted to approve the first reading with requested changes the requested changes were to remove the proposed revision to the definition for guest Cottage in Chapter 2 definitions and to add language to section 3.6.4 point2 special events to include that the seminal County Sheriff's Office can recommend um private security Personnel be hired to staff special events when no off-duty officers or deputies are available these changes have been made to the ordinance since the first reading minor changes have been made to correct scrier errors regarding the footnote numbering in the permitted use table in section 30.5 point2 in Chapter 30 zoning I will summarize the proposed changes that were presented during the first reading but a more detailed summary of changes is attached to the agenda this amendment corrects typographical errors and emissions and provides clarification in certain sections of the Land Development code identified after the adoption of the LDC rewrite which was approved by the board of County Commissioners on January 9th 2024 and went into effect in April of 2024 in Chapter 2 one new definition was added for nominal roof overhang changes to chapter 30 include updating code section references reinserting and updating code sections updating the permitted use table to reinsert the pl zoning district and adding a section to establish a defined process for UNC combining platted Lots changes to chapter 35 include upda dating position titles and changes to chapter 60 include updating position titles design references and reinserting and updating the authority to impose fines and changes to chapter 90 include minor text edits updates to position titles and the removal of the alternate subdivision naming further as presented during the first reading this amendment will also revise the special event permitting process including removing the permit exemption for churches and schools requiring that security Personnel be Off Duty Officers or deputies unless none are available to staff the special event allowing repeat special events heard by the board of County Commissioners to go through staff review only if the special event Remains the Same as the event previously approved by the board and the special event permit application and security plan will be sent to the Sheriff's Office for review and comment the attachments within the staff report include the summary of changes spreadsheet the order a private property rights analysis and the economic impact analysis statement and with that that concludes my presentation myself and other staff are available to answer any questions staff requests the board of County Commissioners adopt the second reading adopt upon the second reading of the ordinance amending chapter 2 definitions Chapter 30 zoning chapter 35 subdivisions chapter 6090 60 Arbor and chapter 90 uniform building numbering systems of the 7 County Land Development code thank you thank you and we promise we'll try not to make that any longer for you next time any questions from the board seeing none are there any public input forms submitted for this item no sir seeing none we will close public comment and move to board action move approval of the Land Development code Amendment second reading second motion second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor I oppose like sign seeing none motion carries unanimously thank you all very much we appreciate it next item is item number 61 chapter 258 Urban bear management s old county code of ordinances consider a proposed ordinance amending section 28.2 Simo county code of ordinance to require bare awareness residential signage this will be put on by Miss hammock good afternoon again good chairman and Commissioners for the record Rebecca hammock development services director uh item 61 is a proposed ordinance to amend chapter 258 of the seminal county code of ordinances to require bare awareness residential signage and new residential developments including single family residential subdivisions and multif family apartment complexes that are in the County's Urban be management area new residential development within the urban be Management Area will be required to install and maintain be awareness signage at the community's entrances and exits which will notify residents of the potential for Bear encounters the proposed ordinance requires all new residential development to include two signs at each Ingress egress location one sign will face Vehicles entering the property and one will face Vehicles exiting the property if applicable a minimum of one sign is required in a common area within the de development which for example would be um near a park or a storm water Pond the location of the proposed signage must be shown on the final engineering or final site plan as proposed in the ordinance the plan must also include the verbage and a typical sign DET typical sign detail which will be reviewed by staff as applicable a homeowners homeowners Property association property owner or management company is responsible for owning and maintaining the required bare awareness signage here are two examples of FWC signs um that they consider their bare aware signage so what we've written into the proposed ordinance is that a developer can use the FWC signage as a template as a basis and then the ordinance also requires that the sign include uh verbage that the subject property is subject to chapter 258 seminal county code of ordinances which is the urban bear management regulations within the code so with that staff requests that the board of County Commissioners adopt the proposed ordinance amending section 28.2 of chapter 258 Urban bear management of the seal county code of ordinances to require bare awareness residential signage and this would be applicable to new development and I'll be happy to answer any questions great any questions for staff seeing none are there any comments or speakers on this item with one speaker Linda raidon M raon excuse me chairman I'm sorry I did receive one email um in support and it says I'm in support of having bare signs posted bare human conflicts are result of people not securing their trash nor being bear wise and this was from Linda raom so Linda Rams made a email and she's here to speak is that what I'm understanding do you want to do both ma'am yes okay please come forward yeah Cindy Hower also is in support of this she said she was going to email the Commissioners did she did okay we got it do I have to name my name we your name and address for the record please Linda Raiden 657 Lake Drive Alon Springs I am in support and uh ask for your approval of the bear awareness signs countywide um bears are known for foraging for food and garbage containers and other sources and to prevent human bear conflicts I think this is a great idea reminding residents of the possibility of encountering with them and um to secure their garbage Etc this will also hopefully prevent bears from getting killed unnecessarily and prevent injuries to people and pets thank you thank you and if you don't vote for it I'm going to be really mad yeah we get that way often too thank you um we also have a written comment from a Lisa R and I can't make out zatan or zatan zani zani okay uh her comment is I'm in the support of a countywide bear awareness signage thank you so we'll give that to make sure that's no no it's not countywide um any other comments no sir seeing none we'll close public comment and go to board action commissioner her uh we just mentioned that it's not countywide and that's because it's in the urban bear management area so I do move to approve the um uh the uh ordinance amending section 2 28.2 of chapter 258 for the urban bear management of the seminal county code second motion second further discussion commissioner conine and commissioner lockart thank you uh just just quickly I I I am in full support of this and um during the conversation that I had with the staff I I did suggest and we talked about this before about when new developments come in actually having bear proof containers for each of the homes and I you know the suggestion uh I would like to see is that at least the staff bring it up or talk about it and we talk about it that for the next round um with the Land Development code because our program has been so successful but many of those cans are now you know years old and they're deteriorating and many people are looking to you know whether they have to buy another one looking for help from the FWC from us whatever the case but one of the things that would be very nice and it would not had uh anything practically to the to the mortgage is that the homeowners uh developers as they build these homes put in a a urban bare trash can um that would you know be given with each home just a thought commissioner lockart know that we need to put a garbage can on credit but um folks we don't need to amortise a garbage can over 30 years probably but um I didn't mean it that way oh you said add to the mortgage so add to the cost of the home I don't they um should be amedi separate but related um conversation with staff again to add to the next um round of up potential updates even if thinking multif family even if we have um dumpsters that are bear proof uh in these areas if a resident living in an apartment puts their trash on the hood of their car their trunk of the car thinking that they're going to remember to put it in the dumpster on the way out in the morning and they forget and the trash gets strewn all over the Bears still have access to it so I'd love to have some something that um that either is a a reminder or I don't know I talk with staff about what that might look like but we have we have an opportunity to have it not just be on the responsibility of the original developer but the residents who are there particularly for um rental communities not just single family homes because there's a lot of trash being generated from those communities as well that could be their attractant so try to hit both very good well my thoughts are and I will I will be supporting this but I just did a little bit of background search and learned that there's actually more alligator encounters than there are bear Encounters in seol County there's been more alligator and coyote Encounters in The Last 5 Years in seol County than there has been be encounters um with the exception of the Year 2022 I don't know that we may not want to consider having staff adopt alligator signs coyote signs Bobcat signs any other signs I know we've we've we've focused on bears for any number of reasons um and I agree with that but the question for me is what about the reality is there's more encounters by other Wildlife than there is from bears just a thought sure I don't disagree with you at all and from the perspective of especially in in the more urban parts of our County coyotes are a significant problem um I will also say that one of the attractants of the coyotes in the urban areas are the released cats that we are apparently doing a lot of now so um there's a lot of conversation to be had there for sure okay we have a motion and a second all those in favor I oppos like sign seeing none carries unanimous thank you Miss hammock okay our next item of the agenda will be number 62 code of ordinances amendment to chapter 20 animals and foul consider an ordinance repealing ordinances 2016- 22 22 and 2018-20 and deleting part four backyard chicken program in its entirety chapter 20 animals and foul of the simal county code Miss hammock thank you uh good afternoon again Rebecca hammock development services director um as the chairman stated the purpose of the proposed ordinance is to delete um two or repeal two previously adopted ordinances that amended the county code that created the original backyard chicken program and then was later amended to create a permanent program and after that we have now amended the Land Development code to include um backyard chickens as an outright permitted use within single family residential um development and so because it is now within the Land Development code does not require a permit um but there are regulations that govern it um we are now deleting the language that was in the code of ordinances so backyard chickens are still permitted within the county um this is just deleting language redundant language within um chapter um four of the code of ordinances so staff requests that the board adopt the ordinance repealing ordinances 20-6 or 26-22 and 2018-20 and deleting part four backyard chickens program in its entireties entirety chapter 20 animals and foul of the seminal county code and I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you Miss hammock any questions for Miss hammock I do have one bit of humor we always refer to them as backyard chickens is there difference between a chicken in the front yard side yard backyard they're only permitted in your backyard I understand that and do we allow them to cross the road and if they the oh thank you very much thank you uh any any folks here from the public to speak on this matter no sir we seeing none we'll close public input and go to board action Madam chicken commissioner would you like I I guess I should do the honors um and just to reiterate chickens are still allowed in backyards as a right and I'm really glad because I've got a few so um make a motion to repeal the ordinance 201622 and 2018-20 and deleting part four of the backyard chicken program in its entirety chapter 20 animals and fowl of the seminal county code because we don't need it anymore because people have the right to have chicken Motion in a second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor I oppose like sign seeing none motion carries unanimous and thank you to my colleagues for being so longsuffering talking about chickens for years number 63 is the next item this is adopt an ordinance to create the Twin Lakes Lake management Municipal Services benefit unit also known as mspu adopt the associated initial variable rate assessment role required for funding the requested public services and approve the interlocal agreement with the city of Longwood this will be put on by Mr Michael een Mr een how are you this afternoon good how are you sir great thank you for being here good afternoon uh border County Commissioners item 63 offers board consideration to adopt an ordinance creating a municipal service benefit unit assessment District to provide funding for Lake Management Services on behalf of Twin Lakes which is located within commission District 3 the request for establishing this msbu was initiated by Community application the standard petitioning process coordinated by the msbu program demonstrated a 69.2% response in favor of the BCC creating the requested mspu thereby exceeding the required 65% threshold uh the assessment boundary of the proposed mspu consists of 26 Waterfront Residential Properties with each being assigned one benefit unit 24 properties are located within unincorporated Simo County with the remaining two properties located within the jurisdiction of the city of Longwood this msbu will consist of only Phase 2 Services which are known to be ongoing and indefinite the estimated annual assessment for phase two services are $260 76 uh cents per parcel and this amount is based on a 5-year cost projection for contracted Services phase two is a variable rate assessment that is subject to change annually according to site conditions and budget expenses and the estimated assessment uh will be levied via the annual tax bill following public input the action request is for the board to adopt uh the proposed ordinance creating the Twin Lakes Lake management Municipal Services benefit unit the initial variable rate assessment role for phase to msv services and the interlocal agreement with the city of Longwood this concludes my introduction of this item thank you thank you very much sir any questions for staff seeing none are there any public speakers on this matter Madame Clark we have one Pamela Hendricks Miss Hendricks if you would come forward please and if you would just give us your name and address for the record and pull the mic close please uh my name is Pamela Hendrick and I live at 127 Eastern fork in Longwood so as a history to this I've lived um on Lake Twin Lakes or Lake Woodlands um since 1976 and at that time originally we had some problems with a Drilla and we we had a big meeting with our all of the people in the lake we decided that we wanted to take care of the lake and keep it up so it's been ongoing that uh it's been voluntary that people have paid for the lake not everyone has paid but we had enough money that we could continue to have the leg sprayed and you know so it was a nice it was nice and then um we ended up not having enough money to do that so the lake really got a lot of weeds in it a lot of algae and um I I've had the county come out several times over the years and they've been very helpful with what we should be doing with the lake and then I approached them to go ahead and maybe do this and so we had our petition and it did pass I would just ask the Commissioners to please let us have the msbu I it would be more Equitable if everybody paid and not just a few people um in keep increasing what they needed to pay to upkeep the lake and then others paid nothing so anyway that's what I'm asking so thank you thank you very much any other speakers on this item no sir I do have one r WR comment uh is there a Tracy AMX here uh she wishes to have read into the record on this item uh she is in opposition to this in regards to the ordinance being proposed I oppose in having a mandated tax assessment of approximately 9% increase for the next 5 years whereafter the assessment be reassessed and potentially increase that is the comment thank you very much for your written comment it is in the record no further comments we will move to board action this is commissioner Constantine's District commissioner thank you sir um and yes as as typical of these um programs it seemed you know we we went back to the citizens uh we put together uh a budget um there were 19 responses 18 for um one against uh seven no responses which comes to 16 9% well above the uh percent that we require to do this so it seems that a vast majority of the citizens in this area wish to have uh this uh Lake management Municipal service benefit unit and so therefore I will move that we adopt the ordinance to create the Twin Lakes Lake management Municipal Services benefit unit adopt the associated initial variable rate assessment role required for funding the requested public services and approve the interlocal agreement with the city of Longwood second motion second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor I oppose like sign seeing none carries unanimous thank you all very much I would only say to Mr Mrs AMX who appear to be here um I've been part of one of these myself I think some of the other Commissioners have been as well it it often is a daunting consideration of the addition taxation but I think you'll find at the end of the day I think you will be well pleased in the way your your lake is managed and maintained and enhance your property value so good luck to you and thank you very much for being here thank you all right next we will move to our um county attorney's report Miss Lor thank you Mr chairman I have two matters I need to briefly address with the board this afternoon um first relates to the Past class action lawsuit you may recall that the county is party to a multi-district litigation that Consolidated thousands of cases against the manufacturers of past Laden aquous film forming foam I practiced that during say can you say that three times fast um the federal court approved settlements against Dupont and 3M several months ago totaling billions of dollars uh of um funds to be allocated amongst various Public Water Systems including the county the County's a qualifying sement class member and its Phase 1 public water system settlement claim was due to be filed on July 12th against 3M and Dupont and after many months of the county Gathering data on its water supply with the utilities department and in conjunction with outside Council we did submit that claim on July 12th that was the the deadline and uh I signed that claim on behalf of the county given the meeting schedule the board meeting schedule there was no board meeting prior to doing that so what I'm asking for today is a motion ratifying the County's submittal of that claim move to approve second motion second all those in favor I oppose like sign seeing none you have your approval thank you very much and I will keep you posted on the outcome of that of course um and the second issue is related to a discussion that um has come up a few times over the past few meetings in public comment in the afternoon yesterday I circulated a memorandum to the board addressing questions that you asked me at the conclusion of your last meeting related to um alleged election or voter fraud or irregularities and you asked me to look into whether the board could be the entity that identifies these sorts of irregularities um to the supervisor of elections and also whether the board could allocate funding to the supervisor of elections for the purpose of investigating this sort of fraudulent uh registration or possibly IL legal voting activities and uh in short the statutes do provide for the board to be able to provide this funding to the supervisor of elections as part of your budget process specifically for the supervisor to conduct investigations into fraudulent investigations and illegal voting however this board does not have independent investigatory Authority um in and of itself the majority of the responsibilities for investigating these sort of activities in Florida followed to the Department of State and the supervisor of elections in each County so if you were to receive this sort of information from your constituents my recommendation is you may pass it along and and please pass it along and and those entities the Department of Elections and the supervisors are the entities charged with the authority to conduct investigations um in fact in 2022 the Department of State created this new office of election crimes and security that entity maintains a voter fraud hotline and they also accept written complaint forms related to voter fraud uh or voter registration irregularities um if you have any questions about that information I'm I'm always available to discuss that with you further any questions along that line commissioner Lockard I would just say so far the um the feedback that came to my office when I was chairman and I believe the feedback that the chairman currently has received has been forwarded to the Secretary of State and the division of Elections so from that perspective we have done what we thought was the appropriate thing to do when there were concerns I just wanted to put that on the record that that is correctly memorialized in anything that's come on my radar as the chair um from a constituent or anybody in the public has been forwarded through the county attorney's office to the Secretary of State and some cases to the governor himself um so that it's on the appropriate individual's radar so thank you very much any other inquiries on that I do have an inquiry sort of in that same vain um last week we received notice of a lawsuit filed against seal County as well as the supervisor of elections um C can you give us any information on where the county is in that and in my struggle is that is a separate entity U as a constitutional officer and the allegations that have been alleged are against that individual but yet the county has been named in the law suit um Insurance where does that place us as the county and and what what should we be or not be doing well chairman we did receive that lawsuit like last week we were served I believe on Thursday so it's still being evaluated I don't want to get into too many details about the lawsuit we were named as a defendant just the same as the supervisor of elections and you know we're evaluating that we're going to respond accordingly um you unfortunately we can't prevent la suits are being named in lawsuits for maybe things we don't think we should be named for but um you know we're evaluating it and we'll proceed accordingly um but it's still pretty new so we have a we have a few weeks left to to get a response out there okay fair enough commissioner her just want to point out that if that's not been shared with risk management it needs to be oh absolutely it was all right County Manager reports and or any staff reports reports you may have neither on both no reports I do all mine in the morning nice well let's move to District commissioner reports commissioner lockart oh am I first do you want me to go first and it's okay to say everything's perfect no I can do it I can do it I got it I got it I got it Patty Patty got it um attend to the fat conference with a a lot of you it was a a really well attended conference had an opportunity to see a presentation from an organization called freebie which is a microtransit u private agency that our staff has since reached out to and had some good meetings we the bat phone nobody's there yeah it was Robin you have no idea how hard it is to stay focused oh I do oh yes we do so you look this way we have to look that way true you're not wrong you got it over there that ain't me okay you see my point I do I do I'm another day Paradise oh God sorry commissioner are you okay over there there it is it's for you I'm not going to answer it this time okay it's not my end so freebie is fabulous um I hope they're not watching we just if they wanted our business they no longer do like these yahoos no we're a fun group though oh gosh so anyway great many thanks to our staff members who have had um great conversations with them as well as um following up on conversations with Lynx as directed by this board in previous meetings um I sounds like those conversations are going very well and and I've got a lynx board meeting Thursday as well as a commuter rail commission meeting and so it's just good to know that there are conversations being had the information is being compiled to come back to the board with all of the options that are on the table for us and so I just want you to know I'm I'm keeping up with all of that very closely um I also had in the realm of microtransit discussions um had an opportunity to go um on a field trip with Tom oan and ride H drive drive his autonomous Tesla um so I just got to sit there with my hands near the wheel and case and I it was just an unbelievably um unnerving somewhat experience and uh very cool um if if that's your gig I don't know that it's mine but it was very it was a great experience so thank you to Tom um who is also our metrop plan Orlando citizens advisory committee appointee and so he's having conversations as um as we all are about things related to Transit um also pulled together uh Martha r as the representative on the commission on homelessness the that uh the CEO of that organization with our staff dealing with homelessness as well as our state lobbyist to talk about pending legislation or legislative priorities that may be important for us to take take up depending on how the um sleeping in public uh rule making develops um there's still a lot to be learned about that but many thanks to our our lobbying team for coming and meeting with us so that we could try and take somewhat of a regional approach if possible um the semal hobnob I'll let others talk about that but it was great congrats to the seminal Chamber of Commerce for another great hobnob it's been going on for like 45 years in Seal County did you know it's been that long I had no idea that's unbelievable um back to SunRail the grand opening of the DeLand SunRail station will be August um 9th very exciting to have that final well at least the final Northern leg of that opened up and then just to put every on everyone's radar on October 26th the first ever um Emerald Awards in some County are going to be held and that's in partnership with um uh radiantly Black Magazine um I am one of the honorary chairs of that event and it will be held at Lake Brantley High School um working on getting sponsors right now but the the idea is that it's a it's a honoring successful um black individuals in seol county in a variety of um areas whether it be educ ation or medicine or um Commerce there are a variety of of awards that will be given um and then the Ben the money the proceeds from that will be given to a charity that benefits homelessness in seol County what makes this Awards event unique is that it is the first ever event honoring black seminal County residents um everything else is very Orlando Centric in the region and this is specifically just for seminal County so I was very excited to be asked to be a part of that so that's again October 22nd 26th October 26th and that's all I have all right District Five commissioner her you know what time it is when I I'm going to do a pair down report today in the interest of of we've had a really effective meeting and I'm going to keep it that way um if I know that there's been a request put out by the local Teen Challenge men Center for Commissioners to tour it I did do that if you haven't done it I would highly encourage you to do it it's it's really a a a learning opportunity that we shouldn't pass up and I'll leave it at that they're doing they do amazing work um and it's probably not what you think they do commissioner delari district one thank you Mr chairman you know so many times we have such wonderful County staff people it's hard to recognize all of them uh and it's hard to keep track of so many of them because there's about 1,400 plus or minus and they're in so many different aspects of the county I spent a good part of the day uh a couple of weeks ago about a week or so ago with the watershed management team Thomas coun and Chad day and uh we're on barly lake lake pette and deep lake and uh it's nice to see it from their side literally in a boat it's nice to see all the wonderful things that they're doing and a couple of those Lakes are shared with uh Orange County uh Lake Pet's one of them deep Lake's another one and uh there's a significant difference when you cross that line and I want to thank our team and so many of them been doing such hard work and staying on top of it and uh you can definitely see see the difference going across the county line uh Thomas Chad great job yes do end of my report thank you next is commissioner conin District 3 looks like we're all going to be brief today um that be a good thing I think that uh I want to just congratulate all of our various areas that had their uh this July 4th event or you know I know that um in my district the red hot and boom was the largest they've ever had during the weekday and um it was uh you know sometimes you just want to stay home during that thing because you can't get around either before or after in Altimont Springs but uh I usually ride my bike there so I so I can get there s uh and get out of there faster the um Legacy Point is having the U their opening tonight the the the UCF Center which is in seol county and uh it will be um it's the first big project as we all know um but for those that don't first big project the UCF has done right across the street in seol county and uh it's uh something where a lot of folks are looking to have a great second life and uh I'm I'm I'm excited about the possibilities there the uh the seol County Chamber talking about the seol County Chamber on July 29th will have their state of the schools and U I know that's something that's uh always uh a lot of folks come out and to hear it just before the the new school year and on August 1st um I did want to let you all know at uh the Advent Health Hospital in Altamont Springs the Statewide Council on opioid abatement uh will have its first uh inperson meeting with of course the uh the sheriff uh uh in lie of the Attorney General uh leading the meeting as her representative and I also did want to give a shout out a well before I do that also commissioner lart mentioned the Florida association accountings meeting uh a week and a half after that the National Association accountings had their meeting in Hillsboro County uh well attended um typical Florida weather that all of them were not prepared for um all of them um melting in the humidity but they it was a great meeting I brought a number of different things to our staff and to our County manager that I think that we U might be able to um to use and I have some more things that I'm going to be bringing you also also want to give a shout out to um Commissioner of Al Springs Bob o Ali who uh received the Roger Penn another citizen of seol County award for career Excellence from the Orlando area chapter of the Florida public relations Association and our own Andy wter uh from public where is she is she here here oh too bad um uh but I do want to give a shout out to her for the public information division uh who received the impress award for the professional achievement from the Orlando area chapter of the Florida public relations Association and with that um that's my that's my report thank you commissioner Constantine well in the interest of moving this along because we do have a at least one commissioner that has some tight deadlines this afternoon I will forgo any report on the Chairman's side or on my district I think everybody's pretty much covered everything um nothing real important happened we had a a great sabatical I think everybody had a good time off family and so forth and was able to come back and focus who's that well I had a vacation I don't know about theal me constraint of course of course mine started out three days late because of but I did get to tour six Native American Indian reservations on the way um which was quite interesting but um we'll move on now to public comment items not related to the agenda these are items that are not on the agenda this is for public input to be done at the end of the meeting I will go to our clerk to see if we have anybody that wishes to speak and if there is public here that wants to speak you will need to fill out a yellow form and get it to the clerk right here so if you would call how how many do we have so far I only have one okay we have one if you will call that person up and we will get them underway it is T Harris T Harris speak myself I Dennis chepner wait a minute I'm gonna say what not here I don't know guess not okay is there anybody else that wants to speak here on non agenda item seen none yes do we have do we have one now still Yes Dennis shefner okay and the first one you read is not here anymore correct so let the record reflect that individual is not present so we will move on Mr shefner your name and address for the record my name is Dennis schepner I live in Winter Springs 1167 Oak Creek Court so uh good afternoon Commissioners I had planned to present four public testimonies with people uh one of them is late in arriving so my backup and my backup to my backup both had emergencies and and weren't able to be here so what I'm going to do is I am just going to provide a testimony myself and refer you to the full script that we were going to provide so I'm now uh probably towards the end of that presentation my slide is up so what we were going to present was additional information regarding the right the registration of the voting violations what we had planned to present were numerous detailed examples with public uh publicly identifiable information redacted across five different categories and you'll see that information is in is in the handout that you have so that was going to be presented we were going to walk you through all the engagements that we've had which has generated very little to no uh response and then I was going to provide the following asks which are on the slide the first one is moot since the County Attorney already addressed those questions from the last time the my second ask is agreed to accept the full list of apparent violations from me and formally submit them to the supervisor of election for investigation and action my third ask is knowledge of legal awareness first understand the legal principle from recoy 127 us 7331 from 1888 stating that an election official who fails to follow the law for any reasons including ignorance his commits election fraud secondly acknowledge your role on the election chasing board under Section 102.1 141 Florida statute and consider not certifying election results if there are any unresolved questions about legal registrations and violations third note that under Section 104 091 sub paragraph 1 aiding or advising in the violation of election laws carries penalties equivalent to those for the principal offender uh last under legal awareness is if nothing is done regarding these apparent 2022 general election violations after all these efforts to alert County officials the S soe and the county may be vulnerable to lawsuits if the same violations particularly the voting uh violations are identified shortly after the 2024 general election the fourth and last askask is that the election system and procedures and lack of due diligence that allow these apparent violations will likely yield even more violations in the upcoming 2024 so the ask there is time urgency in acting so those are my ass in closing these items will not go away as long as we have elections your actions or interactions are being closely observed by voters some of them a couple are here today some of them are watching live streams some are recording uh watching the recorded video of the session many voters are talking about this in between you know this is the third time that we've been here and talked about this talking I'm going to ask you to try to wrap it up here pretty quick yes sir so many many people are talking about it in between these sessions so this is this is important to many people throughout the county thank you so much for your time and attention I appreciate it thank you so um we have no other speakers is that right correct okay we'll close public input um I I will look to the board and I'm going to have a statement I'm going to make to the county attorney in light of what she has disclosed to us is the board comfortable with the county attorney taking the video of what was just presented to us along with the things that were just presented to us and just send those to the the appropriate entities that were identified by you in your letter um and Analysis of the election uh laws and and the individuals and departments that are supposed to oversee that are we okay with that I'd like to include the data that we received at the last meetings of course okay make sure that if you would be kind enough if if we've got consensus to include what was presented to us today in Mr sher's name as a constit itu and the previous documentation that's been given to us and forward those to the appropriate entities which sounds like it would also be the supervisor of elections um so that we have done everything that our constituents have requested us to do that we have the power to do as far as the canvasing board I will be sitting on that canvasing board as the chairman um and we also have canvasing board attorneys that are employed here at the county that will be accompanying me uh to also help oversee and ensure that things are being followed accordingly so commissioner her would it be appropriate to also forward the information to the canvasing board individually I'm asking the attorney I don't know that the cing board has the authority to act on the information I think it would be informational only and so if I were sitting on the canvasing board and not knowing all of this was happening I would think I would be at a deficit so I I think from an informational perspective they should know it there was a request of Our member of the canvasing board not to certify the election I I think it's fair and this is a public forum we know it the public knows it but they may not know it I know it's hard to believe but not everybody watches these meetings I think they have a it would benefit them to know as well sure if that's the direction of the board I'm happy to do that as well sure and as the person sitting on that board I would I would be looking to our legal staff to give me guidance right whether we are certifying or not I already took note of that yeah commissioner lockart um I would like to add to the packet that you're compiling the previous communication that was sent to the secretary of state from the last election because when I served on the canvasing board as chairman during the last elections um there were some concern and observations that I had that I shared with the secretary with the division of Elections with this board and um I feel like that's that maybe should be included as and oh by the way this is what we already sent you last year um just so they have the complete picture if that's correct no I think that's I think that's appropriate and fine I mean it just re at least refreshes the memory of those entities that have already been put on notice of of the concerns from constituents um that said I would make sure that we include like I said the video from from these hearings that we've had or our public meetings as well as the speakers names and addresses um of our constituents that have come and and uh made these statements so that those entities are able to reach those folks uh reasonably if they need further interaction or or further information so Mr chairman great Mr dard thank you uh I want to make sure the county attorney's done writing first I I am listening I can do two things at once I know you can but I just wanted to make sure you have my full attention so we're sending it to supervisor of election I get that are we sending it to the State of Florida Secretary of State correct okay I just want to make want to be crystal clear that we're doing all of that yes I'll probably direct it to the Secretary of State's office in the division of Elections office specifically and if I can find a contact for the office of election security and crimes I think is what it's called then I will send it there as well thank you I'll copy everyone I just want I just wanted to be clear commissioner her commissioner Constantine did you have something okay this is your chance to wrap it up I think he's talking to you but I'm going to do it no I'm talking to you oh you were talking to me I thought you were looking over there um I I just want to say how much I appreciate the past chair and the current chair sitting in these roles and dealing with all of this in your leadership um during those times and continuing with with you chairman zimbauer but I I think with regard to this package that's now being sent parts of it being resent I would appreciate it if it would be reviewed by both of you before it's sent so the all of the onus doesn't fall on the county attorney who hasn't been here through all of the the we need your three sets of eyes on this to make it as complete a package as it can be and maybe it can stop there I would hate to think that we would be building on it the next time so I'm going to not think that so the board's okay with commissioner lockart and myself reviewing what the County Attorney puts together prior to it going out yep it'll be shared with everybody's office of course fair enough commissioner lockart you're good with that oh absolutely great very good anything else good for the order commissioner lockart separate but related um back there was an ask that uh Mr schner had that is not listed in one of the four asks and it had to do with canvasing board and accepting our responsibility on the canvasing board and there are some there the statute is very clear about who is to be on the canvasing board and then when someone is ineligible to serve what happens next so there isn't there isn't expectation that there would not always be a county commissioner serving on the canvas Miss ing board that's just is this that's how the statute was written corre that understanding so that being said there was a time many months ago when I suggested that as a part of our Administrative Code we address how our board wants to handle serving on the canvasing board we don't have anything in our admin code that acknowledges that we acknowledge that there is a role for us on the canvasing board and that it that it is the Cy canvasing board um after maybe after your time serving in this next round you'll have a a really good grasp of some specific things that could be included but I think one of the tensions that we had with the with the community that was very concerned that there was no County Commissioner serving on the canvasing board in the past um was that we really don't have a a formative document that says this is how this is what we acknowledge this is how we will do it and when one of us can't this is what we're going to do and it's just not spelled out and so when there is a vacuum people fill it with their own thoughts and they're not always um they're not always accurate so I would love it if after this election cycle we could pick that up and look at that as an as something we could add I I've asked the county attorney in that vein to look at some very details about the County's canvasing board um as you know from serving and I'm not sure the public fully understands or everybody in the public fully understands you servicing on the surveying on the Cy board me service surveying on the we're not counting every vote that's not our job that's not our purview we are only looking under statutory certain things yeah that we look at um we have no control over really the outcome of an election other than the the mail-in ballots and the few ballots that are questionable that we have to review as a board uh folks sitting there which is a minute microcosm of ballots compared to those that are registered and are actually being cast um I have also um asked our our County attorney to look at the capability and and and get with the county manager about sgtv actually being there to video the process uh as it takes place so I will hopefully have reports from our County Manager of course that's staff time which means money which means but it is a public process and we pretty much televis almost every public process in this County already it's going to have to take coordination with the supervisor of elections um and how we do that but that's something I've asked the County Attorney to look into and and make sure if we're able to do it let's try to do it so okay with that said we will adjourn for the day thank you all very much for being here [Music] oh [Music] --------- [Music] n I the [Applause] oh [Music] morning everyone and welcome to the July 23rd 2024 border of County Commission meeting here in seol County I hope uh staff and and our commission and and everyone else had a a nice little summer break and and we're able to enjoy your family during the uh little vacation time and so as we get back to uh to business here on behalf of the taxpayers today we will ask uh Mr Pastor Robert Bradley from the bread of Life Christian Church to lead us in the invocation and we will have Mr Johnny Edwards director of deputy director of Environmental Services lead us in the pledge afterwards good morning let us pray our heavenly father we come before you this morning God thanking you for life thanking you God for a reasonable portion of health and strength thank you God that we yet live in one of the greatest countries in this world in spite of its challenges and difficulties we still get to experience Liberties that many uh don't get to experience so God we thank you for that this morning we thank you God for your word today that admonishes us to pray for those that are in leadership those the leaders of the land and as a result of that God we are told that we could live quiet and Peaceable lives so God in honor of your word today we pray for the leaders of this nation we pray for the leaders of this state we pray for the leaders of this County and father with that in mind Lord God we ask you to bless these leaders bless this commission uh bless them Lord God at the agenda that is set before them today Lord God that their hearts and their minds be guided by principles over politics and principles over popularity Lord God we're praying Lord God that the decisions today will be sound ones uh for the benefit and the good of this County so father we thank you for your grace your mercy your loving kindness and your tender Mercy that you so graciously spread upon on us daily and so father with that we give you thanks we give you praise and we give you glory and honor and let everything be done today for the vment of the of Simo County and its citizens in Jesus name we pray amen amen all right a pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you Pastor very much for being here today and thank you Mr Edwards for leading Us in the pledge I would remind everyone if you take a moment just make sure your cell phones electronic devices are silent so we don't interrupt any of the presenters and uh discussion today we very much appreciate that we're going to move into for our Awards and presentations of proclamations section next what I would ask we're going to have two proclamations uh before we move to our County investment advisor once we are done doing the proclamations we will ask the commission to join uh those recipients on the floor for photographs after the second Proclamation so if you'll just be patient with us we'll get through it first one up is going to be proclaiming Sergeant Lawrence Kane United States Air Force of semal County's July veteran of the month month this will be read by commissioner Constantine thank you Mr chairman and and uh ladies again ladies and gentlemen once again it's always an honor to do this um we have so many wonderful and deserving veterans here in seol county and so to be named the veteran of the month is quite an honor and so on this proclamation of the seol County Board of County Commissioners recognizing United States Air Force Sergeant Lawrence C for his outstanding service to the United States and to seol County I move where as the brave men and women of our army navy Marines Air Force Coast Guard and space force demonstrate a Resolute spirit and unmatched selflessness reminding us there are few things more American than giving of ourselves to make a difference in the lives of others and whereas throughout our country's history generations of service members have answered the call to leave their families their jobs and put their Futures and even their lives on the line to valiantly defend our nation and whereas for many service members the sacrifice has ended in permanent injury or death yet their Spirit remains in the continued preservation of our freedoms and the promise of Liberty and whereas there are more than 30,000 living veterans veterans in seol County who serve our nation in times of peace and War through their service they keep America strong and whereas Sergeant Lawrence Cain enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1975 and separated in 1982 he was a missile systems maintenance mechanic and was cross-trained as an instrumentation specialist he was the recipient of the Air Force Good Conduct metal with one Oak Leaf cluster the Air Force longevity Service ribbon and the Small Arms Marksmanship ribbon with Braun star among others and whereas Sergeant Lawrence Kane stationed in Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico he was the chief crew chief who was work who worked with the civilian contractor to redesign a 40 foot semi-trailer to be used to capture telary data in support of the MX missile program which which tested the durability of the nuclear weapons silos and whereas Sergeant Lawrence Cain moved to Ovito in 1992 he was a senior program's quality assurance engineer with science application International corporate with science application international corporation until 2000 he then transitioned to work with Compu computer simulation as the chief operations officer until he was promoted to president in n in 2015 in 2019 he opened his own business uh a consulting firm currently he is an active as a vice Commander with the American Legion Post 243 in Ovito and is the president of the Gary sinus Foundation Florida Chapter and whereas sergeant Lawrence Kaine has brought great credit and distinction upon himself the United States of America the United States Air Force and seol County now therefore be a Proclaim that we the board of County commissioners of seol County Florida express our gratitude admiration and respect for sergeant Lawrence Cain for his outstanding service to the United States Air Force in the residence of seol County be it further proclaimed that this Proclamation is presented to Sergeant Lawrence Kain along Ong with our sincere congratulations and recognition to SEMO County's Veterans of the veteran of the month second motion second all those in favor I approved unanimously congratulations Sergeant thank you very [Applause] much sergeant if you'd like to make a statement please go to the podium here and uh feel free to make a statement I just have a little statement here 12 12 [Laughter] pages okay on behalf of my family I want to thank all the Commissioners and the seminal County service office for this recognition it's truly an honor and a humbling experience as you said my wife Patty and I moved to seal County in 199 2 and made OVO our home for the last 32 years where we raised two children who graduated from OVO High School my time in the Air Force was very special to me my father was in the army aircore during World War II so I always knew I was going to be an Airman my goal was to outrank him and I did he was Corporal so I was a sergeant so that was my goal I have some great memories during my time in the service I made a lot of friends learned valuable skills and traveled the world my service began at the end of the Vietnam War and continued through the Cold War era during my time in Korea we were put on full alert two separate times meaning war was eminent and I was fortunate I did not have to actually see the war but we were scared but thankfully issues were resolved without further incidents I spent much of my civilian career as a defense contractor supporting the war fighter which gave me the opportunity to go back and serve these support these great Americans develop Technologies to help their jobs make their jobs easier I'm very proud to be an Air Force veteran and a member of the avido Memorial post 243 and I want to thank my fellow legioner for being here today it's it's an opportunity where I made new friends and share my personal passion for giving back my parents instilled into me at a young age the Golden Rule do unto others as you would have them do unto you and I've always tried to do as much as I can for others so this recognition really means a lot lastly retirement has provided me additional ised to be a servant Leader by my association with the American Legion but also as a president of the Florida chapter of the Gary s foundation and I'll finish with what Gary's tagline is while we can never do enough for our Defenders First Responders and their loved ones we can always do a little bit more thank you thank you sergeant and if you'll hang tight we'll get some photos taken here and and get you uh the resolution here in moment with your fellow legionaires next up is going to be the resolution recognizing under Sheriff Lou tomio for his years of service to seol County government and citizens I will read this into the record resolution of the seol County Board of County Commissioners commending Lewis Tomo undersheriff for 34 years of exemplary service to the seol county sheriff's office and the citizens of seol County whereas under Sheriff Lou Tom tomio began his law enforcement career in 1990 in the served his community with both both honor and distinction for more than 34 years and whereas under Sheriff tomyo started his Public Safety career with the alamont Springs Police Department serving as a patrol officer on the ready response team and agent with the city county investigative Bureau and whereas under Sheriff Tomo formerly became a member of the seol county sheriff's office in 1996 where he served in nearly all capacities of the agency including seminal neighborhood policing Sergeant SNP South Region commander and later Lieutenant over the Diversified Investigative Services Division and the child protective services division captain in the N SNP Specialized Service section where he led domestic security and major overseeing the Department of Law Enforcement and whereas under Sheriff tomyo served as a second in command and Chief Operating Officer semal County Sheriff's Office for the last seven years and whereas in the capacity of under Sheriff Lewis Tomo provide strategic direction to an oversight of the delivery of law enforcement Correctional and administrative services to our community and whereas in his service the community under Sheriff Tomo became known as the fixer always available rain or shine to take a phone call and tackle a challenge at any given moment whereas LS tomio has reached a well-deserved retirement effect of August 2 202024 to enjoy time with his family or his wife Kelly daughter Victoria and Sons Lewis Jr and Vincent and to cheer on the University of Alabama roll tide now therefore be resolved that this retirement resolution be presented to lisis Tomo accompanied by our utmost admiration sincere congratulations and best wishes for a future filled with continued success and happiness adoped this 23rd day of July 2024 second motion second all those in favor I I passes unanimously congratulations and thank you if you'd like to have a few words please come up and then we'll get pictures taken Mr chairman Commissioners good morning I have to say it's a little bit awkward uh being here today normally I'm here presenting something about Communications week or something we got going on at the office so it's a little unusual for me to be receiving even some public recognition but I'm humbled and honored by your your Proclamation today uh I'd like to quickly thank my family who's here today my co-workers my amazing co-workers who are here that all of you know as well uh the sheriff could not be here today but you know these are our remarkable person and a great leader and and this county is lucky to have him as our Sheriff uh lastly I'd like to thank all of you uh as mentioned I I get quite a few phone calls and uh and are called to duty quite often uh with with all of you and and I have known all of you uh the majority of you for a very long time and we have worked together over the years and you know I sit and watch these meetings and I I I see what happens here and um you know what you all do in this at the Das is a small portion of what really goes on behind the scenes and I've had the pleasure of working with all of you behind the scenes and I the one thing I noticed about all of you that I I stands out to me is your amazing compassion and dedication to serve this community as well that the majority of people never get to see but I'm here to attest to it uh on your behalf so um I I thank you for the work that we have done together as a resident and citizen of SE County for more than 35 years I'd like to thank you for the work that you have done and that you will continue to do to make S County the best place to live work and play thank you thank you thank you all right if the commission would join me on the floor we'll start with Sergeant Caine for photographs and then we'll move on to Mr Tomo [Music] a [Music] [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] okay Amy what number is can I go ahead and do it now real quick yeah I think so all right while we're waiting for Mr McIntyre Scott if you'll just give us one second we're going to shift gears here um we have a a resolution that have been a little further up the uh agenda we're going to go and move it us item seven on the consent agenda resolution honor and Life and Legacy of Bishop Dr Preston roll senior and this will be read by commissioner lockart thank you um Bishop rolls uh memorial service and funeral were held earlier this month and this uh was already presented uh to the family but members of the community are here and we'd like to go ahead and honor his memory um with the reading of this resolution so fellow Commissioners I'd like to move the following resolution of the seminal County Board of County Commissioners honoring The Life and Legacy of Bishop Dr Preston roll senior whereas Preston R was born February 15th 1931 to lemu and eleanora role in Old Brit Cat Island Bahamas he received his Early Education in old old bright and at the age of 17 moved to the island of Nassau Bahamas there he enrolled and graduated from the do Center trade school and whereas on September 8th 1949 at the young age of 17 brother Ro was saved and received the gift of the Holy Ghost under the leadership of Bishop Forbes he was called and chosen by God to go forth and preach the gospel he gladly accepted his calling and Faithfully went about the business of doing God's work and whereas as he spread the word about Jesus Bishop R dedicated time and energy into assisting with the establishment of the apostolic faith in the Bahamas he later immigrated to the United States to belglade Florida whereas after relocating to Orlando Florida Bishop R joined the Apostolic Church of Jesus under the Pastoral guidance of then Elder Bishop James mims in June 1961 Bishop R senior was installed as pastor of the Apostolic Church of Jesus in Altamont Springs Florida by then overseer eel shered and whereas through fasting and prayer God revealed a plan to Bishop R of how to get the finances for construction monthly r bake sales fish fries dinner sales candy apple sales were all a part of the plan and was followed Faithfully from July 1975 to February 1977 he built the church debt-free and whereas Bishop R was inducted into the Apostolic Church of Jesus Hall of Fame in 2002 and received an honorary doctorate degree of divinity in 2005 and whereas Bishop Ro was the pastor of the Apostolic Church of Jesus Inc Fellowship Ministries in Altamont Springs and in 2016 he was elected as the pr presiding chief Apostle of the Apostolic Church of Jesus Inc for over 55 years he dedicated his life to serving the lord and spreading his word to all who will listen whereas Bishop R established the Apostolic Church of Jesus churches in nasau Bahamas logos Nigeria and Davenport Florida and whereas Bishop R established organized food pantries and community outreach programs for the Apostolic Church of Jesus Fellowship min Ministries and local communities now therefore be it resolved that we the seol County Board of County Commissioners do hereby celebrate the Life and Legacy of Bishop Dr Preston roll Senor adopted this 23rd day of July 2024 second motion second all those in favor I motion is unanimous thank you very much commissioner lockart for reading that is there anyone here uh from the family or Community wishes to make a statement in this matter [Music] black good morning Commissioners good morning Community uh I am gerro blackshire I served at uh Bishop RS church as a member but he has three blood Sons here uh his eldest son Preston Jr is uh second eldest or third eldest son James R senior and his baby of all six children Michael R uh that's a big baby um and we're just grateful he he many times he and I came to this chamber uh um worked on the Rosen wall project unfortunately he won't be here to see its fruition but uh his health declined so the last meeting he missed but we he operates the operated the largest Food Pantry in simal County um last calendar year they served over 2 million meals from this one site and so we're going going to continue that work and we thank you for your resolution I just want to acknowledge those family and thank you so much commissioner lockart for always being there uh literally uh the first meeting we had with you the group of pastors about the Boys and Girls Club I won't go into details but literally he he he loved how much you she's she's a little lady but she's got a lot of you guys know she's got a lot of fight in her and uh we we thank you for that on behalf of the RO family Apostolic Church of Jesus we just want to say thank you again for that resolution and thank you for honoring his legacy this day I don't know if anyone else would like to have anything to say and there's some more grandchildren walking in right now but we thank you all God bless you all thank you if the family would join us on on the uh floor of the Das for a photograph please [Music] [Music] thank you all very much for your understanding as we shifted gears there now we will ask that our uh investment adviser Mr Scott McIntyre come up and uh we'll hear all the great news in the financial world and how well seal county is doing financially good morning I'm always humbled by the people you guys honor it always feels strange to come up here afterwards it always feel so antimima but again I am humbled good morning that you know I think there is some good news to share this morning uh inflationary pressure eased significantly a June it e significantly in May the question is what it's going to do in the next couple months which is going to determine whether or not the FED is going to wind up cutting rates in September they won't at the July meeting at the end of this month um but if inflation continues to cooperate I would expect that not sure how that happened I would expect that that would uh that would that would change there's a couple of inflation reports before that September meeting and given the fact that inflation has cooled the last couple meetings and we have two inflation reports ahead I'm not really sure what things are going to are going to do um we've gotten a lot of questions about the recent Biden recently stepping down and how that's going to affect the markets and I will say that there doesn't seem to be any indication it's going to affect the bomb Market I can't really imagine a scenario where it does stocks are completely different and the answer to the stock question is that the market does not like uncertainty interestingly enough at rally yesterday which tells me that that Biden was a bigger uncertainty than Harris is but going forward there there's no Clarity it's it's going to be really interesting to see what happens between now and the next six months which is when whoever is elected is going to wind up being president or being sworn in I guess I should say one thing I want to mention um and I hate to really step into politics but politics really affect the market so you kind of have to to a certain degree but uh Trump had said to um the FED chairman that he he warned him not to cut race before the election and um pal actually is expected to serve another 18 to 20 months before his term is over so if Trump were elected and uh the the FED chairman chose to cut rates in September I would expect that he would be replaced which is a kind of another level of uncertainty so I we've been telling people on my Monday Morning Call which I make in front of the folks that I work with expect volatility you know if you're watching the markets from minute to minute they're going to be vola um for the foreseeable future Okay so I only have one slide up here has been the case probably for the last 6 months because inflation is everything right now and the last two months CPI has fallen uh couple things I want to mention is that there's deflation in the good sector and that's going to likely continue uh unless there are big tariffs that are put into place next year but um so you're going to see that computers and tablets and new cars and used cars used cars are down 10% year-over-year the flip side of that is the service sector so the service sector is very labor intensive we still don't have enough workers that's not going to change that's a demographic issue and and primarily shelter costs which ironically enough shelter costs are high because interest rates are high but shelter costs have to come down for the FED to lower interest rates so it's a very strange situation I I do believe the FED is going to cut rates in September I believe they're going to cut rates in December um the fed and the market believes that there's going to be 100 basis points worth the rate Cuts next year um and part of that is because inflation right now is tracking near 3% and If the Fed has an overnight rate at at 5 and A4 to 5 and a half that's extremely restrictive so they have ways to go before it's it's not restrictive anymore so there's some there's some wiggle room and I think they'll use it I'm not going to go through this but you guys can look at this this is a very recent Bloomberg survey of 70 US economists Top Line is is um is GDP the the middle there is the overnight funds rate so you can see if you look at that highlighted section there's two rate Cuts expected by us economists this year uh and they expect the 2-year for what it's worth the two-year treasury note yield will continue to fall so um and you know the drill here I I try to put up the uh yields for the last three meeting so you can see the trend in yields and and focusing on the two month or 2ye 24 month you can see that it's come down meeting after meeting after meeting we're about 450 now um the threeyear got below uh 420 a couple days ago it's now roughly under 430 and those those overnight rates and the bank rates are not going to change significantly until the FED actually cuts so upcoming maturities there are a lot of them um I really tried to show between now and the next meeting uh there had been a lot there's quite a bit stacked up because you're in your drains period now you're not having revenues flow in they're draining out so a lot of the positioning of the maturities was intended to meet your expenses recent Investments um these Investments that were made since the last meeting that were that were approved at the last meeting they actually didn't settle until July but um there was 25 million worth of farmer Mac which is a government sponsored Enterprise that basically makes agricultural loans uh it's similar to the Federal homean Bank similar to the federal Farm Credit bank uh and they really had the best yield at the time so those settled on the 1st of July we also rolled over a palm term pool rate that had matured and after talking to the clerk's office and and talking about the budget and and what's coming up um the decision was that there is the ability to basically reinvest 10 million at this point in time so my only recommendation is to take the take 10 million of the maturing Palm term invested at a year which as far as they'll go I expect that yield is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 520 and you know the next time we have a meeting we'll talk about the next Investments to come up I I do want to mention that the portfolio yield now is up to 490 I expect that given the Investments that actually go into place in July I think that at the end of July it's going to be close to a 492 um that may be pretty close to as high as it gets If the Fed is in the process of cutting um I do want to sort of I know this is really hard for most of you to see but I think it's really interesting to look at the far left hand side and and see where that portf yield was at the beginning of 2022 and where it is now and obviously that has a tremendous amount to do with the fact that the FedEd raised rates but um I'm sorry Mr chairman I'd like to make a motion to implement the recommendations of a financial adviser based on the report submitted today and recommend the clerk to implement said board's recommendations second motion second any inquiries from Mr McIntyre from the commission seeing none all those in favor I oppose like sign carries unanimous thank you Mr McIntyre for much thank you thank and again our apology for holding you up a little bit thank you very much all right next we're going to move on to our consent agenda consent agenda items 4 through 53 I will have the County Attorney Miss Kate Lor read into the record the rules for public participation in the lobby you will find form forms green and yellow yellow one is for a verbal comment that you wish to give in the in the hearing today green is for a written comment only if you would give those to the clerk Dominique right here where hand up and we'll get those uh please delineate on that form which item you're here to speak about or which item you want to give a written uh comment about good morning everyone Florida law provides that members of the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on propositions before the board of County Commissioners except when the board is acting on emergency or ministerial matters or conducting a meeting exe exempt from the requirements of the Sunshine Law individuals shall be permitted 3 minutes each for public comment or six minutes when the individual is an official representative of a formal Association or group the chairman May modify the maximum time for public comment at his sole discretion when appropriate public comments on quasi judicial or other public hearing items will occur during the board's consideration of those items this afternoon public comments on pending procurement matters or on non-agenda items shall not be permitted at this time members of the public Desiring to make public comment must fill out a speaker form and present this form to staff thank you thank you Mr Tor Mr County Manager have there been any revisions to the consent agenda no Mr chairman no changes the consent agenda however I do have one to the regular agenda if you want me to do that now or if you want me to hold on that um sure go ahead just item number 56 under the regular agenda this morning that I would like to pull and we will uh bring that back okay for the record item 56 is being request to be pulled by the county manager's office all Commissioners okay with that yes okay very good thank you very much all right Dominique do we have anyone from the public here that wishes to speak on on any of the consent item agenda yes sir we have Marilyn Cate to speak on item six okay Miss Cate if you'd come forward please seen a good morning I'm Marilyn Cate I live at 150 Spring Cove Trail alont Springs first of all I want to tell you what a privilege it has been to serve on the charter review commission this year here I want to particularly thank the county staff who were superb in supporting us Melanie Cen particular did a great job and the county attorney's office was right there every time we needed them um it was um some of you may know that back in 1988 I chaired the original charter commission that wrote the first seminol County Charter so 36 years later it was very interesting to be able to again uh address some of the needs of the county and one of the things of course I was pleased with was to see how well the original charter has stood up over time and uh some of you may remember it passed with 58% of the uh voters in the county on the first time ever on the ballot and assured that we would have charter government in this County there are two amendments that are before you this morning which you will pass on to the supervisor of elections for the November ballot both of them deal with environmental issues of which this commission has been so supportive and I think that uh if they pass they will continue to enhance the natural lands conservation areas in the county and preserve the rural area as so many of your residents and you have indicated your support certainly it will continue uh seol County as the Natural Choice as we all love so much I do want to make one request to you and that is that the you direct staff to put some educational information on the website and in the county newsletter at a minimum to just inform citizens about what they will be asked to vote on I know you cannot spend any public public funds advocating for or against a ballot issue but you are allowed to present educational information and back in 1988 the county uh really did a terrific job in presenting actually in those days no website no internet so printing uh information that was distributed through the libraries and other means that help citizens understand what they would be voting on so I hope you will indeed take the opportunity to do that again this year and just make sure that people understand they're going to need to go through a very long ballot until they get to these issues and know what it is they'll be asked to vote on thank you very much thank you Miss Cate okay Dominique anyone else here to speak no sir all right seeing no others no others here to speak no forms have been submitted we will close public input on the consent agenda and move to the board for Action commissioner her chairman I move the approval of items 4 through 53 with the exception of item 7 which is previously been voted on positively uh in our previous session second Motion in second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor I oppose like sign seeing none motion carries unanimously next item up we'll move to our regular agenda item this is item number 54 millage rate for the trim notification to establish the fiscal year 2425 proposed millage rates and set the date time and place for the first public hearing to tently adopt the fiscal year 2425 County budget Mr Timothy JX will present this item morning Commissioners I'm Timothy JX with the Office of Management and budget today I'm here to present our annual truth and millage agenda item to seek approval for the fiscal year 25 millage rates and to set the date time and location of the first public hearing for we will tentatively adopt the fy2 budget the board held work sessions in June where we presented a budget based on the millit rates shown here for all three taxing districts the proposed millage rates are 4.875 1 Mills for the general fund 2.76 49 Ms for the fire district and 01107 Ms for the road district these rates are unchanged from the current year and are approximately 7% above the roll back rate which would generate the same Revenue as the prior year excluding new construction total adalum revenues generated from property taxes are estimated to be $354.00 million 65% of our adval arm revenues go to Public Safety services including the Sheriff's Office and fire department General government includes maintenance of our Fleet and Facilities other constitutional officers aside from the sheriff and our planning and Information Services departments Transportation includes road maintenance the linkx bus system and our SunRail commuter rail system none of our adalum revenues currently go towards road infrastructure costs this slide shows a 30-year history of our total millage rate which has remained unchanged the last8 years the general fund millage in green has been unchanged since 2010 and remains lower than the rates levied in 1996 seal county has the second lowest millage in the region we are 06 Ms higher than Lake approximately half a mil lower than Oola and approximately 3/4 of a M lower than Orange County this concludes my presentation I'm happy to answer any questions any questions for Mr Jack great job great seeing none any public comment Dominique request sir seeing none we will move to the board for action motion to approve item number 54 as presented second motion second all V I got a quick question if I may statement I know that we're going to have an additional work session potentially in August I believe that's what I would heard from the county manager I would hoping at that time we actually talk about projections for next year so we can understand what's going on for next year yes sir I can bring that to that follow-up item that's it okay any commission Lockard well just to clarify the clarification we're talking this is next year we're talking about the following year after next year year after that okay right that's all okay thank thank you for that clarification the next next year the next whatever it which is typically what we do during a work session I think we get projections several years out and and I know that's a lot of work Mr Johnson's assistance as the property Fraser working with our budget people so it's uh I appreciate the cor it's a good dive so anyway all those in favor opposed seeing none carries unanimous thank you very much Mr JX next item is item 55 item 202 24-10 110 resolution to opt out of missing middle property tax exemption consider resolution to opt out of certain multif family affordable housing advore property taxation exemption this will be presented by Miss Rebecca hammock hammock good morning for the record Rebecca hammock development services director item 55 is a proposed resolution to opt out of the missing middle property tax exemption for certain multifam affordable housing units as you know the 2023 live local act legislation added a new affordable housing property tax exemption in section 1961 19784 Florida statutes for newly constructed multif family projects of more than 70 units that serve families with an annual household income between 80% and 120% of the median annual adjusted gross income the law allows a 75% property tax exemption if certain requirements are met those requirements include um obtaining a multif family Middle Market certification from the Florida Housing Finance Corporation uh the units must have rents and tenants in place by January 1st of the tax year and once a certification notice is obtained applied to the simal County Property Appraiser for the exemption no later than March 1st certification a certification notice must be renewed by the owner each year the resolution the proposed resolution will opt out all El eligible projects from the tax exemption moving forward however those multifam developments with the tax exemption and certification in place this year will be grandfathered in as long as the projects continue to meet the statutory requirements there are three apartment complexes that that currently receive the tax exemption and would be vested and these include integr Crossings view on on lakem Monroe and water View Apartments uh one one of the apartment complexes is located in Seal County and the other two are located in cities the 2024 live local legislation created the ability for local governments to opt out of the missing middle tax exemption if the number of affordable available units is greater than the number of renter households within the County's MSA according to the shimberg Center for housing 203 2023 annual report the number of 0 to 120% Ami Surplus units available is 799 in the Orlando CMI Sanford MSA therefore County qualifies to opt out of the tax exemption at this point in the presentation I'm going to hand over um the slides to uh the property appraiser so that he can go over the potential fiscal impacts of the tax exemption if the county does not opt out well for the record David Johnson th County property appraiser and we've been working with your staff and your legal department for the last uh number of weeks to come up the list and give you some potential impacts um if you decide not to opt out um as Rebecca indicated there are three complexes that are currently vested and those go forward uh they need to apply every year they could drop off if they decide not to apply or if they no longer qualify but they are grandfathered in for all practical purposes I think the importance of the next two slides is this this is kind of your population if you will um these are the properties that uh have been built uh the first slide is over the last 5 years that theoretically could qualify for the exemption as we said three now have it but this is the entire list of properties that are five years or years old um who meet that qualification and bottom line you're basically about 3,800 units now certainly we all know that not all 3,800 units would ever apply for that or get qualified for but it's a fairly large number of properties and that taxable value on those 3,800 units is almost 900 million okay so it's a significant amount of money um and so what we did we ran everything out um again this is kind of the worst case scenario it's not going to be there but theoretically um the the tax dollars that are generated from those 3,800 units for your general fund is over $4 million a year okay and so uh and for your fire fund it's over $3 million a year the road fund obviously is a relatively small number about 23,000 so it's it's real money at at some point okay the next slide are the properties that are currently under construction okay that would also meat the test of being obviously less than 5 years of old and uh meet the criteria as outlined by live local um currently you have about 3500 I'm sorry about 3 uh 800 units that are currently in the pipeline that are coming out of the ground as we speak um and the potential uh value on those um from a taxing perspective is again um value-wise about $847 million almost a billion dollars in value and not all of those are in the county uh only one of those is in unincorporated simal County but several are in the city of alamont Springs which also participate in your fire fund so um that can also be a significant amount of money uh your general fund would be impacted by um over $460,000 and your fire fund over $300,000 for those those complexes that um are currently under construction so it gives you some background about what your population looks like and I think one of the things that's important to understand is the Lial act I think is well intentioned the problem is it doesn't have a requirement out there to push that 75% reduction and assessment back to the renters that are occupying those units so I'm not sure it you know the the the emphasis is to try to build more units you have enough units obviously currently um you have about uh 9,000 units that are been built or under construction that meet that criteria so I'm not sure if the intent of spurring additional development for that missing middle actually is there okay so I think that's just the most important thing is that to understand that the exemption does not automatically get push back down to the to the renters so uh with that I am finished unless have questions for me specifically we certainly um are available uh as we go through this any questions for Mr Johnson commissioner lockart then commissioner delari so I want to differentiate the difference between missing middle and affordable why because I I was a little shocked to see that shimberg says oh we've got plenty of units right because we keep hearing from our folks that we have a dur of affordable housing so can you help us differentiate what this is as opposed to affordable housing yeah so there's a whole another body of law for low income tax credits that's a whole another body of law that I have to abide by when we do assessments and those are truly affordable housing projects uh those folks that are developers of those types of project qualify for significantly low State loans uh there is a special mechanism in place from my from the assessment standpoint so that the taxes are generated at actual rents which is significantly below Market rent there is a 15-year requirement that those developers sign up for that they have to lock those units in um and to be intellectually honest um the reason you don't have a problem with the missing Bill level as far as number of units is those affordable housing projects are much more expensive to maintain uh certainly the the return on investment is much lower um and that's why you're not seeing as many of those built and in this County where land is very valuable um and it's just not economically feasible so um that's the differential uh there's we can argue that there's not enough affordable housing I mean as you all know I sit on the habitat board as chairman I see this every day uh there's certainly enough there's a big gap in affordable housing um we can also talk about the missing middle um you know when we look at the income for a two family um income up to 120% we're almost $90,000 a year uh for folks in this County those are your employees those are my employees those are firefighters police officers Etc not saying that they don't need some kind of benefit and again if if the if the reduction in assessment was being pushed back down or forced to be pushed back down to the rent I don't think we'd all be standing here today and so U but there's a huge differential between affordable housing and the missing middle can I quick followup sure um the reason and thank you so much for for explaining that so well because there was a a quote in the Orlando Sentinel article about this topic that um made it sound like somehow we were sending out the message that we didn't want those people in this community and and that was just offensive to me to begin with but even more so to the point that this is not this is not addressing affordable housing that still stands and we have lots of incentives and lots of things in our County to try to incentivize affordable housing this is not that that's not that at all right exactly and I think the the reason you're seeing these 9,000 units having been constructed or currently under construction is nothing that the government is doing as far as giving exemptions or anything like that it's Market driven supply and demand um and again a reasonable investor I we just heard from your investment adviser he's going to recommend to his clients you're going to get the highest R rate of return okay that's where we're going to put your investment and that's what we see happening in this community but it certainly does not address the affordable housing issue um out there for sure thank you very Mr delari thank you Mr chairman thank you David very informative but I just want to make sure we're clear and I understand when you said push but I like to use a different word so when the Builder or the owner of the property receives these savings they don't get passed on there's no guarantee of them passing them on to the actual renter correct that is correct right just want to make sure everybody understands that that is correct and then the other question I have is that we're if we opt out and if a city doesn't opt out we're still protected from that correct right so you can only affect the millages that you control as the board of County Commissioners which is the general fund the fire fund and your road fund these cities and you see the list of where the properties are located in which jurisdiction and chairman zimbauer and I have had this conversation before a lot of these are in the cities a lot of them is are in the city of Stanford be quite Frank with you uh they will need to do the same action that you're doing in order to do something with their millage rate but this protects your millage the three millages that you control thank you thank you David thank you Mr any other inquiries seeing none thank you Mr Johnson we appreciate it very good thank you stay stay close in case we have questions thank you Miss hammock so with that staff recommends that the board adopt the resolution to opt out of the property tax exemption available to certain qualified multif family units housing persons with an annual household income between 80% and 120% which is the missing middle pursuant to section 1961 19783 Florida Statutes and just um a note that the resolution must be approved by a 2third vote of the board and that concludes uh my presentation I'd be happy to answer any questions any questions from Miss hammock seeing none Madame clerk is there anyone here that desires to speak on this matter no sir okay we'll close any public input and move to board for Action Mr chairman commissioner Constantine I move the approval of the resolution second motion and second um A lot's already been said I think uh our property appraiser has has pretty well summed it up um and I appreciate commissioner lockart and delari pointing out those things the reality is I think this is another case where simol county has been caught up in the the overall net for the entire State because there are jurisdictions throughout the state that are not doing some of the things this county has been doing to Foster this kind of housing uh and we fall into that category of what's good for one is good for all when necessarily that's not the case um and in addition to Shifting the burden and what everybody has to understand is when that Revenue stream does not come to the county those are services that are going to be picked up by the rest of the taxpayers and it's going to fall on their shoulders it may not seem like a lot of money initially but as this continues to grow it will be a huge impact which then affects our ability to do the things that we're already doing for obtainable and middle housing as well as our affordable housing so with that I will call the vote all those in favor I I oppos like sign seeing none carries unanimous thank you all very much item 56 has been pulled so we will not be hearing that we will now move into our work session this morning this will be the purchasing policy update presented by Lori Bailey Brown Mrs Brown thank you good morning chairman and Commissioners I'm Lori Bailey Brown the Chief Financial Officer and resource man management director and today we're presenting the purchasing policy revisions um for seol County the purpose of the work session is to go over the revisions uh that have been made to chapter 220 of the simal county code of ordinances and 3.55 of the administrative code to finalize these policies and bring them back to you for approval at the next meeting I'll go over the background on getting us here today uh and Steven CS the purchasing manager will go over the changes proposed for the policies and we will close with our recommendations background in the summer of 2021 then purchasing manager Diane Reed and her procurement administrators Robert Bradley and Tammy Roberts met weekly with bres Patel to go through the administrative code and the ordinance uh to update them revise them make them more concise uh rewrite them entirely uh they reviewed the county manager's policy as well for provisions and Consolidated those Provisions into the administrative code and the ordinance each week they went through extensive the extensive process of meeting to discuss a set of Provisions they researched and looked at Best Practices fores with then draft those Provisions send them back through purchasing for review and discussion and then the administrative code was ultimately reduced from 48 pages to 32 and we removed all of the provisions from the county manager's policy last fall the directors were provided a draft of the policies to review and make comments and we then met with each of you to receive your feedback and update you on our progress since then our purchasing manager retired and Steven Co has joined the team he has reviewed the overall policy and compared it to best practices and in June we went over it with each of you to discuss our progress and bring us to date I'll now turn the presentation over to Steven C our purchasing manager to present the proposed changes good morning chairman commissioner Steven Coons purchasing manager so what I'm going to do is go through four of the the major changes that that happened with the the the updates to the purchasing policy and I can stop at each each slide for discussion or I can go all the way through go go all the way through and then we'll I'll ask my fellow Commissioners just to earmark whatever questions and you can go back if you need to absolutely thank you all right so the first thing I'm going to go through are the threshold changes and so um you know again we've been going through a lot of changes in in the economy uh inflation uh a dollar doesn't buy what it used to you know 5 years ago go so as they went through this process they looked at the the the past thresholds and you'll see those in the in the current column and have recommended some some updated proposed thresholds uh for the uh for the purchasing policy so the first one and this is a statutory change is fixed assets moving from $1,000 to $55,000 uh again that's all the things that we're inventorying and having to take care of and and having to account for uh in the accounting system so moving that to the the $5,000 which matches what's with the statute um the next thing would be pecard limits uh right now it's currently at at just under $11,000 at $999.99 um The Proposal is to move that to $1,500 uh the next one is uh peard total transaction limits and moving that to $5,000 then we have um no quotes or like POS or blanket POS uh and that's moving up from a $5,000 limit to A10 ,000 limit um two quotes two written quotes would would move from to the $10,000 to $25,000 range then we'd move to the the three quotes would be the the $25,000 to $100,000 range and then um the formal solicitation process would essentially start at at $100,000 or greater um the purchasing manager will moving the purchasing authority of the of the manager to from 50,000 to up to 100,000 and also moving the county manager purchasing authority to the range between 100,000 to 250,000 and then there's also uh for unauthorized commitments currently it's at 50,000 that would go up to 250,000 for County Manager approval um those are things that that would have been done outside of the purchasing process and there'll be there certainly will be a process to review those uh with the county manager and if if it does require some kind of discipline or some something else that goes on with that um the the county manager would have that up to 250,000 after that it would be something that would need to go to the board uh for approval um one other note that I wanted to bring up that that's not part of our purchasing policy it's referenced in the purchasing policy um statutorily um continuing construction contracts were're limited to $4 million as of July 1st that has that threshold has moved to $7.5 million uh per the statutes and they are actually going to index that moving forward um so it'll be indexed um an increase from from year to year based off the the state uh posting that uh the next item is uh change orders uh currently in the um in the code uh it's uh 5% for up to $2 million off the current you know approved contract by the by the commission and 3% um over to million and those thresholds are what dictate bringing those change orders to the commission um what's being proposed with the new code is just a flat 5% for for all change orders uh based off of the the approved contract uh the next item is something that that we've discussed a a lot since I've been here and that has to do with the evaluation committees and so uh trying to uh you know take what was already in the code and what has been proposed we've added a few things to to try to to to give some confidence to this uh to this process again three or more County employees who are subject who are subject matter experts we're going to work real hard to make sure we've got the right technical expertise uh on these evaluation committees uh right now and what's being proposed is is $500,000 and above a department director would have to be on the evaluation committee uh a million or above the county manager or design would need to be on that evaluation committee uh there was a provision for marketing and advertising and the tourist Development Council and that was in the previous and and being recommended moving forward and then the last thing which is has been added is that the the Departments will um recommend uh who should be on an evaluation committee But ultimately the purchasing manager would review and approve that evaluation committee and as a purchasing as the purchasing manager I would certainly work through counter Management on anything that's high-profile or you know high dollar uh making sure that we have the right people on the evaluation committees as we go through that process and then the last one is just uh making sure with the another big item and this is actually in the ordinance is the suspension and debarment uh the purchasing manager issues that written notification to the vendor uh of suspension or Department uh but uh the purchasing manager would not be doing that in a vacuum they would work with the county attorney and the county manager in order to issue that uh written notification and then ultimately the board has the authority to wave or remove that suspension of department and so um moving through that through those main items um and again this has been a lengthy process the the previous three documents were uh excess of 100 Pages uh We've made this very concise and clear and a lot of this will be um the devil in the details with implementation um there's going to be a lot of onus on uh training both within procurement and uh within the Departments to make sure that we can uh move this forward in a u in a good fashion but the idea is to finalize these policies um make whatever changes come out of the discussion today if there are any uh move that forward and bring that to the commission on the 27th um there'll be a res resolution for the purchasing admin code there'll be a public caring for the ordinance and then um just one other item uh there are some references to Parks and Recreation and Community Services in the previous code uh those are going to be separated out and put into their respective admin code sections and so I believe that will also come on the 27th so with that that's uh the end of of my presentation or of our presentation and look forward to any questions or discussion great thank you very much the um and I applaud you all for getting things more streamlined and and simplified in the code uh instead of having hundreds of pages that are not necessary in my opinion uh any inquiries by the board let's just start at this end to move our way down and I'll finish it up I guess commissioner her so have we done an analysis of the overall Staffing implications of the revised code go ahead uh overall Staffing implications no have not done a staffing implications could I encourage us to do that sure as you guys wrote it before we monkey with it because I feel like we're about to um and are you talking with Staffing when in the purchasing division or just Staffing let's just work through the the conepts here there's clearly a loosening of the RS that's proposed part of that is based on the fact that inflation has driven that we've actually tightened up the Reigns inadvertently by not adjusting them over the past 10 years right or longer or longer yeah well it's always longer um but the number of people that have to touch small purchases creat a staffing implication today and we really ought to know what the financial impact because this is a positive Financial impact for all the fear of cuz we're about to go down a fear of discussion and I might start some of that just to be clear so I think we need to know for every little thing that we ask us to let's do this and let's do this and let's do this and then we complain that it takes us too long to do anything or that it's too there's too many people involved we need to think about that as we're this is certainly an area that can be addressed um so I'm going to start on Slide page I don't know which you're looking at but it's the proposed monetary threshold 2606 in the book and let's talk about fixed assets because perhaps I don't know what they are does this mean that we're not tracking computers anymore because we don't have computers that cost more than $5,000 so so what this does is we we also have um anything that's considered an attractive asset which computers would be one of those small generators there will still be things that are tracked that are under $5,000 um we've got a little little more leeway I guess but but those things that are considered attractive assets we definitely would still continue to track so we probably need that to be delineated in some form or fashion if it's not in the code and then maybe spelled out to us because I support the changes and I don't want our stuff walking out the door and it's pretty easy to walk out the door I mean this this thing is to Grand that's sitting in in front of me it just can walk off I'm not suggesting that I'm going to walk off with it just for the record uh but I thought he said attractive asset yes anything okay anything is considered attractive asset and yes computers Pro is an attractive asset right right right we'll get you the list that we have um the board and then I do want to go down I I think the no quotes two written quotes and three quotes those numbers all make good sense to me what I do not understand is the range so I'll give you an example two written quotes obtained by the user Department proposed 10 to 25,000 is it so to me that would mean in my department it would always be 25,000 because I don't need two quotes on anything do you know what I'm saying what does the range mean are you asking our opinion or are you telling us it's going to be by department at County manager's discretion what are we saying i' let him if the item is between or what what the good or service that's being purchased is between 10 and 25,000 you only need two quotes for that so it starts at 10 starts at 10 225 if you go if it's going to exceed 25,000 you know estimated which what you're going it goes to the next one so those are just essentially thresholds moving down the line got it and because it says proposed at the top of the column we need to understand that so that it's clear on the record all right all right so those all look reasonable to me the formal solicitation process is reasonable to me as well um purchasing manager is reasonable um County manager is also reasonable and that's probably been too low too long it's been $100,000 for as long as I can remember it's probably been two decades probably I can remember a time when it was 50,000 but I but I it was Pro that was probably in the'80s which was a very fine decade by the way lots of fun had by all um so now I'll go to change orders and um I like the consistency because there's a ledge that you fell off at $2 million so there's a that I'm sure there was opportunity there is it so how many change orders can you put in at five if I put in 10 change orders at 5% I've upped the Annie 50% so it's it's up to the 5% so if it's a $50 million project you'd have $2.5 million in change orders at at 2,500,000 And1 that next change order would have to come to the board fabulous so it could be it could be a couple of change orders it could be but at that point it hits that threshold of 5% we would be bringing it to the commission yep appreciate the clarification and evaluation committees I think that what this is saying could be a clarification uh it's three or more County employees who are subject matter experts that's the minimum yes minimum would be and so you could have nonexperts on there if you wanted to correct generally I think to you could have more depending on the situation there are items that we purchase where maybe a nonexpert a user as opposed to an expert a right technology is the great one you don't need an expert but you need some users on that committee or you're going to end up with technology none of us can use right right okay that probably should be spelled out because just and I realize this is just the presentation but for clarification we're not preluding non-ss subject matter experts from coming on to these committees and that concludes my conversation at this moment commissioner darari thank you those are all good comments uh I'd like to talk about the evaluation committee we do talk about subject matter experts which is great but I'd like to have a definitive answer about and it' be a broad statement what subject matter expert would be is it x amount of years is it working in the field what is it well you know we have a lot of different things that we're procuring I understand that under under purchasing so um if we're talking about a u a utility project or a road project uh or you know CCNA uh that has to do with those um we'd be looking for engineers or um something it just needs to be defined whatever that is right then when it talks about the county manager's design if it's going to be an expert then it needs to have that definition of that expert okay I'm just trying to identify what that is so that we don't have someone that's being a design that has no past experience in that area and and if I could and what we were thinking um or recommending here when I when we say County manager or designate it would be someone from my office so anyone in the county like it could be our Deputy County Manager our assistant County maner be a nonexpert not necessarily may be an expert may be an it could be but it could also be a nonexpert and that would be uh in addition to the the that's that's what I'm trying to say it's in addition to those three and I just want to make sure that whatever those three are that we Define what those three are yes also looking at making sure that if we have a project that crosses departments that we have multiple departments uh being represented on that evaluation committee and and that's fine too but I'm just trying to give you as many tools as needed to make sure we have the right people on that evaluation committee thank you it now commissioner lockart um having been an employee at one point in time who tried to work within the County's procurement um guidelines three tiers try being a vendor yeah yeah um God bless Ray Hooper I don't know if he still lives here in SE County but love that man and when I told him I wanted to procure a stage in a band he laughed at me and ran me out of his office so um I think deductive change orders are just as important as additive change orders for the board to be kept in informed and it doesn't necessarily have to come to the board for a vote but for some of these really large projects um I think it's important to just somehow keep us informed all change orders are not additive correct we could do that absolutely um I also would like there to be some sort of language that does not allow a chain reaction on Authority for purchase approvals that's how we wound up with the poop study you all remember it's hard to forget that one but Define chain reaction yes okay so there were multiple con contracts under the threshold that were chained together each of them were under the threshold but added together yes we kept testing poop so no bundling no yeah whatever you want to call it yeah that I I don't know I don't know what that language looks like I don't know how that comes together but that was just a an experience that I had that I think we probably ought to just be in tune with somehow um I think it's all great I I think you've done an excellent job I am I am sorry that for any part that we played in delaying this coming back to us because I feel like there you know Lori did an excellent job of explaining what the timeline was she skipped over the part where we were holding things up so I really appreciate the fact that that it's here now and and and let's remember anything that we approve in this admin code that we find isn't working we can change it and that's something that we've not been real great at in this organization for years is changing things we've got codes that have been in place for decades that really need to be changed but for some reason we're change averse even when we realize that they need to be changed so I would I would support if after we've lived under the new rules for a period of time that we need to amend them that that's okay sure right that's a great Point um that's all I've got thank you commiss Constantine thank you very much um for the sake of time I'm not going to repeat anything that's already said so I'm just going to go to the things that haven't already been talked about I first want to say to both you and Lori that I do appreciate the changes um I have been one that sometimes had a lot of concern concerns about some of our purchasing um procedures and this consistency the streamlining of it the accountability I think are all good I think the idea of having an ongoing evaluation so that we do have a come back periodically just to make sure that everything's cons you know working in a consistent manner is great I think we do have to and I'm going to go toot page six which isn't we're not numbered but page six is the proposed changes and the change order they have that one um I'm glad that we put in the cumulative for everyone because I think that's extremely important the only one minor concern I have and I just wanted to bring it up to my my fellow Commissioners is the new proposed 5% on all change orders could be a great deal of money as it came up now we got the cumulative but we are looking at some major projects coming up and you know 5% of the 20 million is a million and you know as you that's a lot of money you know in in perception wise as well as reality and I don't know if we want to set in this proposed change the 5% change order is fine but at some point there's a threshold and you know whether you want to discuss it now or you know or say we don't need it uh that's fine but I to me I would just say that as far as accountability um having a uh 5% on all change orders I think obviously is consistent uh but at the same time uh we need to potentially look at a threshold as to when it gets to and I'm using the number million 1 million that maybe it does get reported and come back to the commission all right um I have a couple of comments I won't try to be redundant to commissioner H's point I think we decided I think we gave staff Direction maybe a couple years ago that anytime we went down this path of changing admin code or new ordinances and so forth that it would be accompanied by a fiscal impact statement uh so we know what the costs were going to be what what kind of impact this was going to have to our bottom line which is Staff time etc etc etc um maybe we should revisit that or or revive that if it's been forgotten or whatever the case might be so we understand you know we're making a decision based on everything but the cost analysis of of our decisions um I would like to to see us have a discussion uh amongst the board getting back to the the change orders you this I brought this up during the first phase of Five Points um and it was quite the heated discussion as everybody uh may recall and I requested during that conversation once it was uh moved forward that I wanted a copy of all the change orders from the time it starts the time it's finished I've yet to receive those um so I I still stand to have and ask for all the change orders uh of first phase of Five Points as it's now been completed um to understand and then share with my fellow Commissioners what that decision ended up really costing versus what we decided what we were originally going to spend um which brings me to a core value I have as an elected official official which is very clear in our in our Charter is that the job of Commissioners is to set Budget Finance uh and policy I think that we should be held responsible for making major decisions financially uh as a elected official whether you track that with a I think the the 7.5 million CCNA a threshold is probably a good one where we should be uh as Commissioners making those decisions uh and and my recommendation is have the experts subject matter experts and this again came up during the five points and I would argue all day long we have great Engineers here I I don't question their ability as Engineers but they do not work in the public sector on a daily basis building buildings building roads dealing with the supply chain dealing with the cost dealing with the employees that's a whole different animal um and so I don't know how you fix that um but I would suggest that that they bring anything over $7.5 million should come ranked to us or qualified to us and then this commission make a decision how we move forward from there and then we would stand before the voters on any money being spent based on our decision based on a presentation from those applicants that's my two cents worth on the change order can can you st there can you stop there for a moment sure so you say ranked or qualified toine qualified other words if an RFP goes out they have to meet certain criteria I understand if they don't meet the criteria then it doesn't matter who looks at it they shouldn't even be looked at but once they've been quote qualified um then they would go [Music] before three or more County Employees uh who are subject matter experts um up to a certain point the county manager and all that my my belief is if we're in in a significant number and I would say a good bar is the 7.5 CCNA which is going to have an escalator moving forward apparently according to legislature which would move that up that the subject matter experts should qualify them send to this commission for a final decision to be ranked and the decision be made that way we stand before the the officials who put us here or the or the elected or the the voters who put us here to be in front and center and have the spotlight on us is the ones making that decision and not somebody that's not accountable to the taxpayers when it gets to the 5% overage I think there should be um a maximum because to the point of commissioner Constantine if you do have a large project it is significant amount of money uh what that thresholder number is would determine what appetite this commission would have for if it was a $20 million project or a $40 million project you know again that's significant money million2 million $3 million overage at a 5% cumulative um I think we should be looking at that as well um my opinion commissioner lockart so I want to make sure I understand because I the words words have definitions and I want to make sure I'm not misapplying a definition to a word that you've used you do you want this board to review all qualified responders for every procurement over $7.5 million no what what what I would propose is is that the experts subject matter experts whoever they are and whether it's County managers involved of course at those kind of thresholds they would first make sure they're qualified then happens now right then they would put them in the top three five whatever there is how many ranked or unranked I would say they could rank them and then come to us so you want us to then have them present whoever the top people are three five however many of them responders make their presentations to this board and have us I'm just trying I'm trying to figure out exactly what the request is because so if you follow and my experience has been we're talking large number projects high dollar value projects we we've always struggled since I've arrived here in getting more than three or four people to even reply to an RFP on a big ticket item uh there has been a few exceptions but it's usually and some we had to put back out because we had one or none um I would say the top ranked three or five who reply come to us for presentation and final decision-making process all right thank you for clarifying yeah okay Mr her so I'm going to start with the threshold I don't think we can hardcode a threshold into the policy but perhaps at the point that we're putting something out or Contracting we could put a threshold in at that point cuz it's going to vary based on the project it's not just a dollar amount so I'll use Five Points as the example where we are so far a significant number of those change orders weren't driven by the vendor they were driven by us wanting something different than we started out wanting and so if every one of those has to come back to this board and by the way in that example they were driven by a whole whole host of constituents that were going to move into that building that wanted things and so if we put this threshold on there that would drive I can tell you that if I were one of those I would want to be the first to get my change orders in and so that's going to drive a whole different behavior that I'm not sure we want as we're building out so these things so I think we have to think about that I like the concept of some thing there but I don't think one size fits all for all of our projects um with with regard to this board being the decisionmaking body after the decision the recommending body we already sit in that role but if you think we're going to get more biders when they think they have to present to the evaluation committee and then present to this board board and have this board make absolutely nonexpert we are not experts sorry to say on the overwhelming majority of the things that we vote on and I can simply tell you from having been a vendor Sigma United Healthcare I would just probably no quote your business because I it's a wild wild west I don't it is the Wild Wild West and and I've experienced it before where we had those decisions come to this board because here's the reality of it we can make any decision come to the board just pull the item have the discussion rerank it at the risk of being sued let's call that like it is um but we have to be able to to validate staff's decisions not invalidate staff's decisions that would require by the way folks all of us to read every one of those proposals which typically come and stacks this big which typically have this many attachments which typically require expert opinion and so I don't think that's a good a use of our time or B um overriding of expert opinions I think if you're buying health insurance you need health insurance the people that live in that space every single day to understand the Nuance of it to make a recommendation we're going to make decisions based on anecdotal information and that scares me I would be making anecdotal decisions if you ask me about a building project I don't think our team would be so I I don't I and I I think the overwhelming reason I would say that scares me is that we will be limiting the number of vendors that we get on responses if I'm a vender and I'm making a decision this is their decision making process which we would have to delineate in the RFP when it went out to Market which every vendor evaluates do I spend my staff time and my money on responding to this which goes through two decision-making processes completely separate of each other or do I do it on this I'm on this every single day and the cost to respond to an RFP is huge these days so those decisions get made inside of major corporations on their sales teams readily they have processes for it so that worries me I also think sorry I'm sorry I did take a breath but I also think we ought to be we ought to think about this idea of when we do ordinances and changes whether there's a period of time that we implement it and it automatically comes back for a look with a glitch a glitch review it happens at the leg legislature we have no Provisions for it I get why nobody wants to come in front of the five of us to change an ordinance I fully get it and support you guys and never wanting to come here but if we build a process we'll get better at it I promise you we'll be more practiced and we have Incorporated that in several of ordinances that has to have a look back commissioner lockart then commissioner delari well just real quickly I wanted to make sure all of these decisions that we're talking about do come to this board yes they they are not made at the staff level they we are the ultimate Arbiters and voters on these topics on these contracts that's currently and in these revisions right commissioner delari thank you Mr chairman and I'm not trying to speak for uh commissioner zimba the chairman but uh I would assume that one of the reasons why I mean I do read a lot of those books no matter how many books there are and there is a lot of reading that goes on with this job and I know we all know that uh and I'm not trying to uh insinuate what commissioner zimba is trying to say but it's we shouldn't be a rubba stamp so if someone's bringing a ranked uh uh proposal to us you know we shouldn't be just rubber stamping it what that would mean would that we need to be involved in the beginning part of it so we set the parameters and if we're not setting the parameters then it shouldn't go out on the street and part of those parameters is you need to have uh a master plan you need to have uh a CIP and we have projects right now that are not associated with Master plans or cips and there's a lot more input that's going to have to be put in from this board in the beginning to make sure that all the things that need to happen not just this year but in future years are going to be addressed so I can understand why commissioner zimba would want something like that I agree with him we've done it like that in the past and I do understand why the County Attorney wrote the uh memo that she wrote uh another aspect of it would be if we don't want to do it that way then significant projects of focus maybe this board can put a nonexpert commissioner on that evaluation oh no excuse me i' I've been I've lived under that at the understand no I don't know that you do because I'm just saying the board would have to make that decision on an as needed basis not just one person just automatically uh asserting themselves and it wouldn't be a rotation I understand what you're saying okay but you know if the board feels that it's an issue then of a significant project then the board could put a non uh expert so to speak on that commit committee that could be another way to address commissioner zbow is concern but I understand his concern I do share those concerns that you know we are the fiduciary responsibility of all of it and we should be looking at all of it and looking at understanding how this implements it in the field because I can tell you you know when you talk about some of the projects that we've looked at staff sometimes doesn't address the things that the board really wants as a whole and then when it comes in front of us I A ranked project it should not be just a rubber stamp and I think that's part of the concern and that's not addressed in this procurement process that's end of my statement Mr costantine you had your hand yes I did but I did you not okay it was just editorial okay um well I'm hearing some consensus so I'd just like to express that a little bit um because we are going a little bit around number one I do believe that all of us would concur or at least a majority that we should put a fiscal impact statement into this particular um as we would ask for all of our ordinances uh number two um that uh there be some sort of evaluation time period within this particular because I know that you're looking for you know what you what you need and I think there there should be some evaluation I think we do have a I think we have agreement that we all want to have some that we have a fiduciary and that we all want to have the opportunity to look at these things but you know I don't want to go back and I'm sorry I've used this so many times I don't want to go back to the piece of paper and pick one two 3 4 five I think that's just fraught with perel I do not like that I do not ever want to see that again and I think we have the opportunity commissioner and I do understand uh commissioner simow your concern about this but we have that opportunity if we don't like the ranking and it comes to us we have the right to ask for a full evaluation you did that yourself and I supported you with the sustainability uh when we did it that way and so I do feel that we have that and we don't and if we want to put it into to the ordinance that's fine but I don't think we want to um you know have that as a consistent every single time that comes back because I would not support that I I I believe that that would be um that would not be streamlining the process that would be complicating the process and I do believe that it would have implications and unintended consequences when we're talking about people that would want want to bid I do agree with that that has been articul ated by a couple of Commissioners the only other thing that I would say is I think that we all agree that that it it's not that we have to come up with some sort of system on the 5% in the threshold I'm not asking you know that it be okay and when it reaches 1 million I just thought that you know to go forever at 5% again has the throw with Peril you're right I would want to be the first one in I want to get my 90 Square in TV first before we go out and get anything else but but the fact of the matter is in this system as we're changing it I think that that would be helpful if we came if and I'm not trying to tell you how to do it I'm just suggesting we would like to see some thought process go into that and bring it back with it and those are the things that I see that we have consensus um and so I'd like to see us move forward with that I think the majority ofs are are pretty much on consensus with the exception the valuation committee and I and I can be urged to move on um and I just want to address a couple things that have been stated by my fellow Commissioners yes we do have the ultimate Authority when it's brought to us we've done that on two occasions both occasions of Ed up in litigation so I would ask our County attorney to tell us how we not end up in litigation if we are the final decision makers and we decide to rerank or not go with what our staff's told us uh and maybe that answer is there is no way around it is is just the nature of the Beast or Mr chairman how do we how do we address that so that we don't fall into that Peril in the beginning either way because I think that's a leg I share your concerns either way uh I'm fine with that um and and to commissioner her's point about the Five Points project um that away that that's probably not something we want to dig up old bones but I will tell you as the then chairman I sent a letter to every stakeholder in advance asking them if they had been engaged had everything they needed were kept fully apprised in the process and I got letters back from every one of those except for one that yes they were thankful they were kept in the loop they were part of the process and then all the change orders happen started again um and not all those were ones we wanted sure um uh some of those were contractual issues some of those were oh by the way we want this now and we forgot to tell you about that you know and we were all the stakeholders at the table um but then just defeats the whole purpose and I and I just have I just have a very acute issue taking that one as an example which is the one that continues to bother me to this day is that the money that the taxpayer spent to hire a design team to then bring it to us then to go to build and make a decision and then not follow the design guidance and then change all that with all the stakeholders involved spending more taxpayers dollars to then ultimately pull the trigger and then have all the change orders come in afterwards is something I don't desire I don't think we desire to go down path again no doubt and so it's important that we whatever it takes from a legal perspective from from purchasing perspective so we tighten that up as much as we possibly can because it doesn't make sense for us to spend taxpayers dollars if we're not going to follow the advice or if it's not good advice to start with why are we even hiring them um and then not be able to tighten up on the front end the possibility of change orders and I get it change orders it's the nature of ab Beast of any big project but not to the extent that we had with this first big project that I would argue in 25 years here in the county we need to tighten that up so Mr chairman can we ask the county manager and the County Attorney to to try to address te concerns and walk the third floor to see if they're being addressed I don't think we're that far apart at the end of the day think we are either tightening up sounds like we need to tighten up the 5% M for change orders sounds like we need to try to have an understanding of what action this board can truly take if something comes to us that we're not happy with or don't like or whatever the case might be because the last thing I want to do is if if something comes to us and we just say no we we don't like any of that now it has to be delayed for another 90 180 days go back out the bid find more biders that's a problem um and so I don't know what that answer is but I think we're going to have to look to our legal staff and our procurement people to tell us you know if if at the end of the day the answer is well just keep doing it like you've been doing it and if you want to rerank them you do it at pair of lawsuits then I guess that's the answer I don't know uh but I think for me that's the answer because at the end of the day when you're spending that kind of taxpayers money I still believe we are the ones regardless of us saying well yeah we ultimately make the decision but we don't know what decisions were made down the line that got us to the point of our decision-making process process um we've seen fire stations that have been a problem we've seen other projects that have been a problem that costs time and taxpayers dollars and that's that's my big concern so for what it's worth I think we're pretty close um it sounds like you've got most of your Direction with the exception of a couple of things I think yeah if if I could just add add a few things Mr chairman and Commissioners thank you um and as you know I have committed to this board especially to en enhance the communication with this board especially on very priority projects with you you know we've offered um and a lot of you take advantage of it quarterly briefings on capital projects I think it's very important for you to know where we are in any particular time in a project um what you said I agree that we're not uh far off we did not make these proposed changes out of a whim we actually looked at Best Practices we researched it um and so a lot of this comes from you know best practices and then what's unique to seminal County and we know we can tweak it what's unique to seminal County on the change orders absolutely if the proposed 5% on all change orders it would have to come to the board but we can actually provide you a report on all change orders so it keeps you up to speed and up to date on on all of them and I apologize I don't know if I was here at the time about the annex project about the chain change orst I will make sure you get that you will get that um Christian has heard that loud and clear so his team and get that for you know for all of you so you you all uh see that as we close that out so um and that's what my job I believe is is to keep that communication open to all of you and if anything goes off off track you know I need to be aware of that so then I can address it um and on top of that the fiscal impact statement those are required by our Charter as well as um I just checked with our County attorney too by Statute that will be coming in the ordinance so if we want it ahead of time I have no problem giving that to you ahead of time we'll we're working on that as we speak um so you know with that I could make a couple you know these adjustments when we bring it back for the final ordinance next month um and make sure and I'll be briefing all of you to to ensure that uh we made those appropriate changes uh regarding commissioner I I agree with you um because there's two ways we thought about this on this evaluation committee what I've heard loud and clear from this board that we do not sometimes sometimes have the experts on those evaluation committees so heard that loud and clear as commissioner lockart brought up her experience you can participate in this process there's certain ways that if all of you want to do it you just got to be involved in the beginning of it if you want to rotate from commissioner to commissioner and have a commissioner sit on these evaluation committees so they're they're well aware of everything we could do something like that we we know how your time is valuable as well um we proposed meet in the middle and that we'll ensure that we have those experts as well as those non-experts I uh thank you commissioner for bringing that up was our intent but we'll make sure we clar clarify that so we're open to that um but at the end of the day we want to make sure that we're communicating that we have the right process and that we have the scope right on these big projects and we review them with you so everyone's on the same page so we're not missing something U uh regarding that that aspect sorry that was a little long but everybody Mr her with regard to Five Points in the change orders actually is a document out there that delineates it John put it together at one point that and I don't I'm not saying that you we have it but but I have seen it that uh walks through all the change orders by the requester okay which is as opposed to just the change orders because I think when you have that many constituents involved in a process it does sort of distort the view of the number of change orders that happen in a regular basis that was a very unique project I think it makes us think they're all like that but that certainly brought Clarity for me anything else all right we will stay adjourn stand adjourn until 1:30 thank you all very much thank you for your presentation thank you [Music]