##VIDEO ID:YN7HUgspGQk## again on property located at 6785 Thomasville Road all of the information is presented before you staff is recommending option one and we have no speakers on this item thank you Mr County Administrator uh Commissioners I'd like to entertain a motion to accept option one so move is there a second thank you is there any discussion what how does how does density uh we have the form yes thank you thank you we' got already here that can answer any questions thank you is there any discussion from any commissioner my question was oh Mr um commissioner proor Madam chair excuse me briefly how what what's the density impact of what we're uh accepting uh Commissioners uh this would be a uh a slight up zoning uh it would allow an additional four residential units above what is currently allowed so we're talking you know four units or about 6,400 square fet of non-residential use so it's it's not a massive up zoning but it's a it's a little bit of okay okay thank anything further no District commissioner is pleased with it I'm okay I'm sorry what if the district commissioner is pleased I'm pleased you're pleased thank you no other comments all those in favor let it be known by saying I I I commissioner command I I with commissioner Maddox out of chamber it passes thank you Commissioners Mr County Administrator thank you madam chair Commissioners this uh two item number 26 is a the first and only public hearing to consider an ordinance amending the official zoning map to change the zoning classification from light industrial uh to single family detached uh again the uh recommendation is before you we have the developers representative here should you have any questions however again staff is recommending option one thank you Mr County Administrator Commissioners I'd like to entertain a motion to accept option [Music] one move by commissioner minor second by commissioner Welch is there any comment comment mam chair commission Pro mam chair um staff can you give us a report uh as to the environmental cleanliness of uh this area and whether or not um humans would be susceptible to um any uh ailments um respiratory any other type um and I raised that I raised that question um in light of the fact that um Attorney Ben Crump had a case uh I believe over in the Port St Joe area um few years ago and uh the place was was uh and they put affordable housing there and the houses began to sink uh because it had been uh God I don't know if a Landfield or something but some industrial purpose so transitioning an industrial piece of property to residential uh uh is there any Brownfield this uh related to the current site and will it be treated uh commissioner thank you um as of now uh the analysis that we've done doesn't indicate that this would be a problem of course as the development goes through the process and they would move from this is the resoning looking at the actual use uh to doing a site plan that would show exactly what they're proposing to build they'd have to do more detailed analysis on that and so at this point uh don't have any concerns but um just rest assured that there are additional analyses that would have to take place before any residential development could occur what um specific in in ter terms of the parcel 4 4767 Capital Circle where where is that specifically uh that is south of tram Road uh on Capital Circle it's not touching tram Road uh but it's basically one property down from the road uh property that touch it's in the elbow of the turn it is okay and is it on the um inside of Capital Circle is it on the outside of Capal it's on the outside of Capal okay that area down there now is isn't and this going to turn that to residential uh yes commissioner and what's sitting there now exist uh it's pretty much just an empty lot at the moment uh but it is next to other properties that have gone on uh similar transition so we see a general Trend away from light Industrial in this specific area to more uh commercial residential and Retail uses and office uses okay so this whole area is uh basically changing the character from industrial to more neighborhood like uses very good just concerned about toxic factors and uh human safety thank you very much Madam chair thank you uh commissioner any other comments all those in favor of the motion on the floor let it be known by saying I I I any opposition hearing none thank you Commissioners Mr County Administrator Madam chair I'm sorry made record reflect that I voted in the affirmative and the and item 25 yes ma'am thank you item 25 will you show an affirmative for commissioner mads thank you number 27 Mr County Administrator thank you madam chair Commissioners item number 27 your final public hearing is the second and final public hearing on the federal fiscal year 2023 small cities Community Development block grant opportunity uh again we are recommending options one and two to conduct conduct uh the the final public hearing uh to receive comments uh from the public on the Draft application and also to authorize County Administrator to submit the application for cdbg to fund uh housing Rehabilitation activities with that we're happy to answer any questions you might have move staff recommendation thank you Mr County Administrator I'd like to entertain a motion for staff recommendations so move commissioner Ms so move yes ma'am commissioner Miner thank you so much is there any discussion commissioner Proctor M chair mad chair um I watched the uh the debate the other night and um um um Democratic nominee for president said that she intends to bring four million um new houses in particular for uh affordable housing and to see uh this particular cdbg Grant uh that seeks housing rehabilitation um I want to encourage our exploration of um uh new grant opportunities after January 20th of next year uh in monies that will assist firsttime home buyers in the programs that uh have been mentioned to come down the pipe to establish 4 million uh new homes uh I wanted to encourage staff uh to be mindful of any policy changes and particular if those that have been projected by one of our our um candidates for present um there should be a pipeline that opens so and then I think also speaking of the southeast uh part of our County that it stands uh as a great area uh for further development for affordable housing and all of the federal properties that we have uh um president the next president has a vision for affordable housing I think a part of that uh the president could um convert Federal lands for that purpose to be fulfilled and uh when I see her um I definitely intend to uh share that thought and to make that request uh for Leon County thank you madam chair thank you commissioner Pro any other comments all those in favor there's a motion on the floor let it be known by saying I I I any opposition same sign hearing none unanimous thank you commissioner so much Mr County Administrator we're back on Journal business item 22 thank you madam chair item number 22 is a request to schedule the first and only public hearing to consider adopting an ordinance amending chapter 4 of Lyon County code to prohibit retail sale of dogs cats and rabbits uh and to schedule that for December 10th 2024 Commissioners you may recall that before going to public hearing uh you requested that that staff provide an analysis which is before you uh we are recommending option one we do have one speaker on this item thank you the speaker is Kate McFall Kate McFall is Miss McCall here okay have having said that uh there are no further speakers on this item thank you Mr County Administrator I'd like to entertain a motion Commissioners to staff recommendation commissioner caban made the motion second by commissioner made the motion made the motion commission' Kee made the motion second by commissioner Maddox is there any discussion commissioner ke thank you madam chair um and I want to thank uh Kate McFall who is here from the United States Humane Society for bringing this to our attention um um I'm looking forward to seeing this go through it's uh good for citizens who are consumers looking for pets here in leyon County it's good for Humane conditions for pets and dogs and cats and rabbits it impacts lowering the population of animals that may end up in the shelter um and so I'm looking forward to this um as an aside part of this uh report was just update on the animal shelter transition and I want to give a shout out to the animal shelter staff who are working hard on their Foster program and encourage anyone um who's thought about it to sign up to Foster from the animal shelter you can do it for an afternoon to give dogs cats a Break um or a few days uh or longer um so far my house has got through three or four dogs uh to homes to new homes not Farms um and so I'm looking forward to this ordinance and um taking care of our pets in the community thank you thank you commissioner Kei there any other comments to commissioner kab thank you madam chair um commissioner Keef I support the spirit of the motion um I have a question for the um the County Attorney um Madam chair please what um if this ordinance if this motion passes we'll have a um a public hearing and then the ordinance will go into effect correct if the board adopts the ordinance yes ma'am if the board adopts the ordinance yes it will go into effect and so my my concern with this overall is that there's one business in unincorporated Leon County that's currently operating has there been any infractions against this business like legally um you know recently do we know Mr count I have no knowledge or information about that so so my concern here is this is that right now we have a business in unincorporated leyon County that's operating legally and has had no infraction and um we are now proposing an ordinance which will change the way in which that they can operate right I support the spirit of the I support the spirit of the motion um my concern here is that now this is a blind side to it to the business right and so I would like to be able to give to some kind some sort of you know measure or um I I guess a heads up we would say to let them know that hey this is changing you know and and hopefully this is something that we can add a respect you know for how they operate if that makes sense sure point of information if you want um if you don't mind on it um we have uh in the report and staff has already contact with that uh one company organization uh they've already talked to him about this and they are if it's voted on improved I believe it goes into effect in February and so um staff has already contacted and uh talked about working with that one supplier um that sells a lot more than just rabbits it's a a pet supply store to work with them and rescue organizations to transition between a possible passing of it in December and um the enactment in February okay thank you um Madam attorney do we have any legal implications if they um if we pass this ordinance on the business if they want to take you know I don't know like legal action against the county because we passed an ordinance that now changes the way they operate yes please no um local and state and federal governments change business regulations all the time and prospectively businesses have to comply with those that happens regularly okay thank you thank you uh commissioner comman and it does indicate in the report that they have been in contact with that one business in unincorporated Leon County any we're on our um Jour business number 22 public hearing on an ordinance um amending chapter 4 to prohibit the sale retail sale of dogs cats and rabbits this is uh to be on the agenda in December for the first public hearing why we doing that I mean what's this purpose it was raised in one of our previous meetings we we voted uh to have staff look at it and bring it back and that's what they've done that's what they've done today so so the public hearing would be scheduled the first one uh in December so we're trying to encourage the giveaway of dogs and cats versus the sell of dogs and cat no prohibit the sale of those just quickly want to gift them if if you'd like I could mam Madam chair if I might commissioner pro at our last meeting commission wait hold on hold on a second I'm let I'm going to let the County Administrator respond to that thank you just broad overview uh commissioner brocker if it's helpful and i' certainly defer to commissioner O'Keefe I know who brought this up at the last meeting the board uh gave us direction to bring this back uh the issue I think which is supported by the humane society is intended to have the ethical sale of of animals uh take place and um so this would not prohibit breeders from from selling animals this is uh only geared toward the retail establishment sell retail establishments assoc um selling dogs uh cats and rabbits in the unincorporated area of the county our analysis indicates that there's only one such retail establishment that only sells rabbits currently so again this would simply prohibit that specific use and as it stands today for that one business that that performs that one activity and so that's what it uh that's what it does and um again happy to answer any questions that you might have and this would ual that ordinance uh for a public hearing as the chair said in December so we're just picking Mr County we're just picking the rabbit retailer to put the rabbit man out of business just because we want to is that what you want to do so why we putting the rabbit man out of business mam chair okay Comm thank you commissioner Pro commissioner mads commission commissioner PR I I don't think it's necessarily Madam chair if you don't mind me address please commission P I don't think it's about putting a rabbit man out of jail what's happening is is that um there's a right way to breed and there's a wrong way to breed what's happening is a lot of these companies that are that are doing it for retail is that they're they're they're abusing animals while breeding and so what we're trying to do is to keep that from happening so you know if they're doing it in an ethical way we're not trying to stop them from doing it but a lot of these companies are doing it unethically uh and that's what we're trying to prevent so it's more about the E how ethical they're they're actually breeding these rabbits cats dogs things of that nature thank you Comm Maddox any other comments okay all those in favor the motion on the floor let it be known my saying I I any opposition hearing none unanimous thank you so much uh Mr County Administrator agenda item number 23 thank you madam chair uh Commissioners this item seeks the adoption of a resolution to establish the Jr Alford Greenway citizens committee uh again as you may recall from uh the establishment of the The mikasuki Greenway Comm committee uh this is consistent with our Land Management plan uh to convene this committee to review our management plan every 10 years uh the item seeks the board appointment of a commissioner to serve on the committee and so we are recommending options one and two uh that are before you with this item thank you Mr County Administrator I would like to entertain a motion for staff recommendations then we can hear comments if there are any so move thank you commissioner will is there second commissioner Miner uh any comments hearing none all those in favor of the motion on the floor for the adoption of options one and two and number two SE seeks the appointment of one commissioner Ser to vote on that yes okay so before I carry that motion then Madam chair I nominate commissioner o second okay Madam attorney I've got a motion on the floor do for options one and two do we need to amend option two for the appointment of uh commission o right will the maker and second of the motion agree to amend to provide you did I will yes ma'am okay awesome I made I made that yeah I got and and who second it you agree to Amendment okay awesome okay thank you madam attorney so we have motion on the floor accepting option one and exception accepting option two with the addition that commissioner o'keef served as the county commissioner's appointment to that committee any further discussion here you accept correct commission o I accept after this I'm going to want uh Greenway commissioner certification thank you okay okay all those in favor of the motion on the floor let it be known by saying I I I any opposition hearing none thank you so much it passes unanimously uh we are on General business number 24 Mr County Administrator thank you madam chair item number 24 seeks board Direction on the nomination of eligible applicants to the governor for the appointment of to three seats uh for the CSC of leyon County the Children's Services Council of leyon County there are current there's currently one vacant seat on the C and two upcoming vacancies due to the expiration of terms for Paul Mitchell and Mar o Bryant on December 31st first uh of 2024 both Mr Mitchell and Mr o'briant are eligible for and are seeking reappointment the item before you provides 35 eligible applicants for your consideration as you may recall the board is required to nominate at least three people for each vacancy in this case it would be a total of nine the last time the B the board sought uh to nominate candidates to the Cs C uh the board elected to forward all 20 eligible applicants to the governor for the three vacant seats uh at that time this item provides both options for the board uh either to nominate uh nine or to nominate all 35 eligible applicants or whatever uh the board seeks to uh whatever Direction the board seeks to provide uh with respect to the number of nominations again we're seeking board direction we're happy to answer any questions and we have no items on this or no uh speaker cards on this item thank you uh Mr uh County Administrator uh Commissioners we have options one two and three I'd like to entertain a motion to accept option uh two considering we would have met a mandate of submitting a minimum of nine applicants but we don't have a maximum so consistent with what we did in the past when we submitted all names I would like for us to uh consider that this time and accept option two I'll make a motion for option two thank you commissioner Welch is there a second commissioner caban is there any discussion well Madam chair commissioner o'i first then commissioner Miner then commissioner Proctor thank you madam chair um I'm just going to for the sake of orderliness um I'll just suggest this and if it strikes the motion maker fancy um they can consider it uh otherwise um we just move forward but I think um it'd be a bit a good bit cleaner for everyone who has already been on this list and been before the governor and rejected once or rejected twice I think it would make more sense to send only all the new applicants but um it's six of one half a dozen the other just something I want to mention thank you commissioner o'keef commissioner M Maddox thank you madam chair um I we could sit all 35 I I kind of like the idea of sending nine but I I I can go with the motion on the floor uh I do I do see some names to hear that are that are probably uh ones I would I would desire uh to to to send forth more so than others but I I I agree with uh commissioner o'keef as well do we know who has been sent and rejected and do we want to filter those names now like I said I can go with the motion on the floor I do have my favorites here that I think would be very good for for the uh CSC uh knowing the board and understanding the balance of it uh but I can I can go where we are but I did want to ask the question of Staff do we do do we know who's been sent well actually I I can see who's been sent already of those names who've been sent the previous nominated CSC applic applicants um all of those were rejected or just they they've given us separate list of new applicants and the old ones right so those old applicants we can we can say they've been rejected I guess or they just weren't chosen I think they just weren't chosen perhaps you know he can only select so many positions we have two new uh individuals on the council that were just recently appointed within the last 6 months you know what on second when I think about it in the past we've sent some and they sent them back it might be a better deal for us to send all 35 so I will I will support the motion on the floor but I uh specifically um because she's she's one of us and I know she do a great job job I I really do advocate for for Alli Richards to be uh a part of that Brenda Williams is someone that I think would be very good for us as well Dr Bellamy of course I mean again there are some names on here that that I think would be very good and you you being on the board you can understand how that balance works it would be be very good to balance perspective But ultimately I know it's up to the governor thank you madam chair thank you uh commissioner Maddox um I'm going to go to the County Administrator for a comment as well do come thank you madam chair just if the if the motion could um be explicit to include uh the two uh members seeking uh reappointment to be included in that that list then um I just wanted to make sure that that was explicit in the motion yeah they would be part of the 35 yeah I counted all of them those two would be they make up to 35 thank you who was it commissioner Proctor yeah you made the motion and it was second commissioner Proctor I think you had a m' this is um um no no offense to you madam chair because you are rep on the board and were you not our rep on the board you probably not be on the board and it speaks to the preemptive uh posture of a governor's office to name and to reject the names which we sent the last time uh like our recommendation is not good enough to make nomination uh for those persons our County that would serve but that ultimately we are just children and our opinions and thoughts of who could be the leaders for this um we're supplanted and our governor has a speak for us and preempts us on who is appointed so this is a capitulation to the recognition of the governor's uh supplanting of us that we really don't count so we're trying to give the governor's office enough people is this one good enough this one good enough good enough can't sell cats and dogs nothing like that but we offer a whole bunch of people and sell them up before for for the U government this is frustrating and um I was not a initial supporter Children's Services Council because of its structure and that um in a committee that uh the state's government puts no resources behind but 100% % of the monies that fund this comes from Leon County Citizens and yet the governor approves and super rules and the state puts no money in something that 100% of the money is come from our taxpayers and we getting like we get the right to nominate enough people for them to CH pick who's good enough so it's just the point of the democratic um the absence of democratic uh processes in this but we're grateful that we get the chance to choose you uh otherwise you know so so I I I I want to um I'll be voting um but I'm voting with uh with reservation and uh would want for our scribblers to capture that um this is a vote of protest on my part is with great disdain and protest that our vote is not sufficient to name uh our citizens to this important board thank you thank you commissioner proxy and let me just make one point of clarification the last group of individuals that we submitted to the governor he they weren't rejected in the sense that he sent them back it was a time before that when we sent a group and he sent them back saying you know submit additional names what we did is we submitted additional applicants but we sent the ones back to him that he had rejected remember so we sent all of them back to him it's ultimately uh his decision we just nominate is ultimately going to be the governor's decision pursuant to the statute to select select six people which is why um I I wanted to accept option number two to just send all of them back to him and and let let him make the decision decision we just send entire County voting list to him well they didn't apply though we send all 200,000 voters and let them decide they have to apply we we only can send him applicants okay all right so we got a motion on the floor to accept uh option two with the understanding that the two members that are on the board now Paul Mitchell and Mark O'Brien are part of that 35 all those in favor Let It Be know by saying I I I any opposition thank you it's unanimous thank you Mr count uh County Administrator is anything we have uh thank you madam chair we have two citizens to be heard on non-agenda items first Speaker uh Mary Misha Mitchell oh okay Miss Mitchell yes good to see you I am here tonight because I want okay get to the mic yeah okay um Mary Maisha Mitchell 10009 Ellington Court in the Springfield Griffin Heights area and I'm part of the neighborhood first planning process we've been working with several of our communities in the Frenchtown area in the bond area and in Griffin Heights to implement a neighborhood plan and part of that plan had to do with food and security each of those communities have that same issue and many of you have been working U to capacity with that issue already and I recognize that and I've been part of the work you've been doing I am part of the greater French toown rization Council which is a front porch Florida initiative established in 1999 and I'm working with the Tallahasse Food Network which talks about providing affordable sustainable clean and environmentally health safety food for people who are in our area so tonight I want to speak to you about several things one is about the um ir and the in justice 40 initiative that has been put forth by the um Governors not the governor necessarily so but for the people who are in our neighborhood they want to see more of it and so we went to the Biden Administration just as for the initiatives to see how we can get money coming into Leon County so we are very excited about that I want to share some of the wonderful work that has been done so in the first part the EPA has uh several regions and we in region four Southeast the Southeast region has been severely neglected and still having problems as we can see today for many environmental issues and so we wanted to discuss that and see how might we bring forth some resources into to the community to address those things and we've established a partnership uh over the years with people who want to do similar work and collaborate on important issues that matter in our community and since food and security is a key aspect of the work we started out looking at um the community engagement grant that was put forth by um our organizations to bring um Capital into Leon County particularly um in the idea of uh resources that would address issues of pollution and marginalized uh communities uh clean water air um Quality especially any type of Environmental Education and assessments that need to be done so I just want to tell you that we're working on a community change Grant now I'm asking you all support to help us further our work uh around food and security is that my time oh that's more time okay I'm not done yet so one of the things we recognize I think you've talked about it tonight is that many of our people don't understand the nature of the environment they don't understand when to get uh educated around when to move is in case of a disaster so we want to help them learn that disaster plan and mitigation is what we're all about thank you thank you so much for being here we appreciate that appreciate it you know the speakers Mr County M yes the next speaker speaker is Michael Ladner good evening Michael Ladner 8689 Taff Road down in Woodville uh last time we spoke was about June 11th it was about our home new construction build and the uh failures of the the building code inspections and I'd love to be able to give you good news but we've uh been removing the windows and finding out that it's even worse than we thought uh we had an engineer look at photographs and the plans and we're still not sure and I don't think DSM is sure how the slab was ever inspected properly because the permit was issued after the slab was poured and then the inspection happened after the slab was poured but we're missing a grade beam which is a major portion that supports a load bearing wall so initially I think back in June 11th we were thinking it was about $275,000 in repairs on a $540,000 home and now we're pushing the limits of about $400,000 in repairs uh we're finding out the roof is improperly nailed also so the roof is probably going to have to all the metal taken off and the the sheathing is going to have to be riled properly and then reinstalled uh so we're we're in worst case situation than than we ever thought uh we actually talked to somebody who said you're you're beginning to be on the grounds of bulldoze it and start over but but I mean if I had unlimited funds we would have done that but we're we're reaching another issue so um that's where we are uh all all the sightings bad we could have understood maybe a couple of things in the inspection process being overlooked or overseen but when the slab is bad The framing's Bad The she's bad the siding is bad the roof's bad it's just compounding and we don't understand how so many failures happened on one home uh like the Hardy sighting panel it's a 4 by1 section of siding there's a pre-inspection before everything gets covered up each Hardy panel should have between 84 and 96 Nails uh ours have 12 nails that should have been something somebody should have seen immediately uh on a big span like a sliding glass door you've got three King studs and three Jack studs that are requirement it's in the building code it's black and white it's easy to understand we have three of the Jack studs but one king stud and that should be something an inspector walks in immediately sees and flag says hey this is questionable but I just wanted to give a update and let you know that you know we'd love to be paying County taxes at this point of time since it's going on 28 months on a 12-month build but we're still not being assessed because the home can't pass code pass completion so thank you thank you that concludes our speakers Madam chair thank you uh Mr County Administrator now we are Commissioners we into commission time discussion yeah um I believe they've this F has been here before we've had a conversation around it and do we have anybody in particular sta staff is working with this family correct yeah let me defer to our County attorney commissioner mat so the leners have filed a claim with the county it is under consideration by our insurer okay um their attorney has contacted our ins shurer as well so we consider ourselves to be in Pre litigation at this point would recommend that the board not discuss this matter thank you mam chair thank you thank you commissioner uh commissioner Maddox um Miss Madam County attorney other than that do you have have any other issues no Madam chair thank you thank you Mr County Administrator I have nothing Madam chair thank you thank you commissioner Maddox thank you madam chair um two proclamations Madam chair the first one is Capital City Chamber is celebrating its 30th Anniversary uh actually have already celebrated but I would like to present a proclamation to them on uh at our next meeting uh I'll make a motion for that second thank you all those in favor Let It Be know my saying I I it passes thank you thank you secondly Madam chair I like to ask for a proclamation um given our next meeting to all of the med week awardees um so if we could have that Proclamation that'd be my motion and that would be all the awardees for Med week thank you is there a motion did you make the motion commissioner M yes that's my motion it be individual proclamations for allio all the midweek yes ma'am including your daughter who was one of our young recipients congratulations okay is there a second okay all those in favor Let It Be know my saying I I uh thank you madam chair last but not least I did want to take the opportunity to congratulate my eldest Nyla Maddox on being Miss blue and gold she'll be honored at the uh halftime of the Ricker or James S Ricker's homecoming game I'm so proud of her and what she's accomplished also she was a awarde young entrepreneur of the year with for Med week uh she's doing big things and I'm so proud of her so hopefully her sister Falls in her footsteps I know she will she's already talking about how she's going to do it bigger than her sister did it so it's a special time in my in my household so so proud to to call her my my baby so thank you mam sh congratulations commissioner M she's a remarkable young lady we're very proud of her thank you mam thank you commissioner o' Keith uh nothing just happy Halloween for everyone thank you commissioner Miner thank you madam chair um couple things here first of all I wanted to congratulate uh Ricardo Schneider uh Dan turbo Corps is just announced a couple hours ago be a Tas Democrat he's retiring uh so I know he's been a tireless advocate for the magnetics industry here in in Tallahassee and and my hope is now that he's retired he'll be able to devote even more time to that um but um but I want to wish uh Mr Schneider a great retirement uh he's been an incredible uh advocate for the business Community here in Tallahasse and uh we're going to miss him in that capacity but hopefully he will be Contin continue to be active with u with Leon County um next I wanted to let everybody know this is just I think it came out about an hour ago Milton hurricane Milton is now a category 5 again as it is going to hit uh the West Coast of Florida um I'm sure you all have had the same type of thing a lot of people in Leon County have reached out to us asking for ways they could help um last week um Allison tant the Greg Tish show and the Sheriff's Office put together a supply Drive uh for those affected by Hurricane Helen and uh so I imagine they're going to be doing something like that very similar Second Harvest is working on something now um but as you get requests to help and that's one thing that's great about this community is that we uh we look out for each other not just here in Leon County but also throughout the state and and Country so um as we get more information about ways that people can help with the people that will be affected by Hurricane Milton uh we'll need we'll just keep an eye out for that that's coming out soon but um if you have family and friends in that area if they haven't left yet please tell them to leave tonight uh it's going to be a very very devastating hurricane um and then um I just I want to thank again we talked about it in one of our agenda items but I wanted to uh really give a a shout out to our leyon County staff and our emergency management team CMR team Public Works everyone else that was um uh helping to coordinate preparation for and then response to Hurricane holine we really do have among the very best people in this Leon the mayor about this earlier today but I wanted to share it here as well I want to thank the city of Tallahassee the utility Crews and the the city that helped coordinate um multiple utility Crews coming from all over the state and Country to help us here after Hurricane Helen was is a great coordination and they did a good job they did a really good job and I want to make sure that they get their uh their credit too Madam chair that's all I have thank you thank you commissioner minor commissioner caban thank you madam chair um first off I want to thank everyone for your support on the the cost and feasibility study for the storm shelter in Woodville really means a lot to have um all my colleagues support as staff goes through that um Madam chair um I spoke to the County Administrator earlier um I have some questions in regards to a um septic the sewer um in Woodville if I may address to the County Administrator yes pleas Mr administer um I know oakd Road yes um there's been the road's been closed I believe for I think since early this summer um we know where we're at on that process sure uh thank you madam chair commissioner comman let me ask Brent to come forward he's ready to address uh those questions and provide any information that you'd like Brent yes sir hey Brent um so I know that in emails we've had that there's a there's a a rock formation or something that we've kind of found somewhere along under oage road is that accurate yes sir between uh Old weville Highway and wiel Highway they found a a very hard rock formation that did not anticipate for construction uh we are waiting on some specialized equipment which should be here to beginning of November uh to complete that segment of the project hopefully within two weeks okay so we don't need board Direction need to hire any outside okay cool sir awesome um when how far off does that put us on our initial track from being done with the first phase they were able to go other phases to continue to work so it's not going to affect us we should still be uh complete May perfect so everything else is in motion just holding up here okay um is it if do we know if it affects any like any of private roads or businesses no sir okay awesome sweet I appreciate it thank you so much thank you that's all I have mam chair thank you thank you um Commission command commissioner pro thank you m chair um this Mya Mitchell uh addressed us moments ago and uh her ask uh as I understand it is that uh the greater Frenchtown um revitalization Council desires to partner with Leon County in their application for EPA Grant uh to deal with food insecurity and and um underserved areas um their ask is that we in the partner ownership would be a uh Fiscal Agent uh serving and assisting there and federal government would need um a um agent uh much like a municipality like ours and that's the ask and I I don't know if do we need to agenda that or do we just make this motion or what how do we handle it Mr County Administrator thank you madam chair commissioner Proctor I don't think we would need any further direction if that's the direction from the board if there were any Financial impacts down the road which we took a look at this we don't believe that there are we'd certainly bring that back to the board but for the purpose of of applying for it and supporting it I think that's all the direction we need okay so just give the cter administrator authorization to assist her so we can entertain that motion so move Commissioners is there a second thank you commissioner o'keef all those in favor let it be known by saying can you repeat the motion no okay the motion is that the county partner with the uh greater Frenchtown uh uh revitalization Council to apply for a $3 million Grant through EPA I think that's Environmental Protection Agency uh and that we would be serve as Fiscal Agent uh for this grant that's motion any other comments it's a partnership with that instiute to pull down the grant give the County Administrator The Authority you know to communicate do what needs to be done with uh Miss Mitchell and he says if it's any fiscal impact he would bring that back to the board okay all right all those in favor let it be known by saying I I any opposition hearing none it passes thank you commissioner Pro anything else yes ma'am um and I also want to give a shout out and and make sure that back in 2019 U we we took undertook the task of looking at 32304 that Miss Mitchell was one of those um um persons at the table every step of the way uh and everything and I want to um note her work and I don't think that um Miss Mitch you your name has been lifted up in that regard or celebrate it but um we do thank you again for your work with 32304 Commissioners I've shared um well no I haven't shared with this side for this have I shared with youall memo get that sorry about that Commissioners I offer and share with you copies of a memo that I've just shared with our County Administrator um I cannot remember the recent report that I've uh reviewed but it dealt with the hamda um information Home Mortgage disclosure act uh of which our area banks are required by law to file to keep on file uh applications for persons who are seeking home mortgages uh this information is cified by um various demographic race um I think income and where they turn down uh were they approved and historically uh the HDA or home Home Mortgage disclosure act information uh demonstrates a higher rate uh when all of the factors are are line um Apples to Apples oranges to oranges income to income uh more typically than not uh blacks will turn down three if not four to one um some banks are um higher than others given the fact that uh one of the candidates has said they want to build 4 million new homes um Tallahasse in order to help be a part of the solution uh we need to make sure that the climate uh that the uh uh whatever the new improved uh qualifying standards might be uh and there's going to have to be new qualifying standards for home ownership if we're going to move the needle the old school oldfashioned old of Standards is still locking people out so there has to be modification and I would like to ask um it's been years uh Mr administrator since we have sat down and looked at that information that we've looked at the areas of 14 or 15 banks that we have in our County uh and it's not that we have any oversight of United States government banking Authority but we have heard uh from uh area Financial Leaders with respect to policies how they do things uh why is this rate this way uh why have you turned down five times uh more than another bank uh why are you rejecting people five 5 to one I mean it's just and I think that it um it helps to set the climate and it also helps us to understand the banking practices and what will close the gap of um reaching home ownership so my ask tonight um in light of um I've written this thingy uh memo to the County Administrator but I thought that um as opposed to just sending to him and copying you uh it it was such significant weight and weighted uh buying a house and US pushing forward to help more people and us to set a climate for home ownership in particular after January 20th of next year uh I'm asking that we workshop and somehow other staff look at some of the variables I've mentioned in this memo and that we have a sit now to understand um the temperature of Home Loan in our community that makes uh accessible um home ownership so I would make that as a motion that we would have a uh a uh workshop on this issue is there second I'll second for purposes of discussion thank you any further discussion commissioner caban um aren't Bank isn't aren't banking regulations um managed ferally so so let Mr count can you let the count administrator yeah so thank you madam chair Commissioners just a couple of things uh yes and uh we have provided this type of information to the board uh in the past as commissioner Proctor noted we'd be happy to update that information and provide uh that to the board it could be uh again whatever the direction of the board is I want to step on the motion whatever the direction of the board is we' be happy to do it but it we um would be happy to provide that if the board was interested in that prior to a workshop setting or anything like that we could provide that information to the board and I just wanted to note too of course we will the the the U obviously the the policies that have been discussed are are very are still speculative uh however we would still be positioning ourselves um to take advantage of any programs that came down the uh the pike ultimately it may just again at this time be a little speculative to to to assume what those might be um but again happy to provide that information uh to the board if that's what the board would like or um uh you know engage in a workshop or whatever the board whatever the interest whatever the um the direction of the board might be thank you Mr County Administrator commission thank you madam chair um so just this thinking of um in processing what kind of what you were saying commissioner Proctor um since we are very limited of what we can do as a board um legislatively in regards to banking I was thinking of an alternative maybe we do um you know I don't know the right the right the word of what we call it but you know a Saturday event where we we get folks in the first-time home buyers coming out and we can kind of give some educ you know walk them through how to apply for you know a loan something more educational like that commissioner Proctor um that's kind of what I'm what I'm what I'm thinking you get what I'm saying um so just I'm I'm trying to I I know where I'm trying to go with it but anyways yeah also do an event okay we have that exact event coming up on October there there we go there we go he's really good y there you read my mind thank you thank you 19 okay and it it really is commissioner Comm commissioner minor it's a great event thank you madam chair um commissioner Proctor I think you bring up something important uh in terms of home ownership um the the point that you're making about um discrimination possibly possibly discrimination based on race um if that's taking place that's illegal definitely illegal um one thing I would one thing i' i' I'd want to have us consider is is what the County Administrator has suggested which is maybe updating some of the numbers that he and his staff have produced in the past about home ownership in leyon County barriers to home ownership which might in which would include race but also some of the other criteria too income down payment um credit ratings that type of thing something that will help us get a sense for the barriers to home ownership in our community and the reason why that's important now and I'm glad that you brought this up is because probably in in January perhaps we might have something from the federal government being developed as you mentioned um I thought it was 3 million but maybe it's four uh in terms of that policy um and so I think it'd be helpful for us to have that type of updated analysis that we can take a look at figure out of our Leon County residents what are the main barriers toward them closing that Gap and and and getting to a point of closing on a home right I think that's important because then that helps us get ready for whatever fed federal policy might come down the pike in the coming months after the election so I would I hear what you're saying sir I would I would I hope you would consider doing something a little bit different which is to get that information that updated um analysis that the county administrators has talked about getting that first and then figuring out what our next step is after that thank you madam chair thank you uh commissioner minor uh commissioner maners thank you madam chair I'll be brief um so I think it's a good issue that you bring up commissioner pror I think Mr administrator you say we've dug into this in the past I think I remember us looking at it um but one thing I don't I don't know if we have dug in is is kind of a public private Partnership of sorts um H how do we work with our banks to create um different programs to incentivize home ownership um what what are Best Practices out there if there any that exist that we don't have here in Leon County it seems like I remember I was having a conversation a while back with someone they were talking about how banks have come together to create some kind of trust where where they were uh assisting with home ownership where it be down payment or something like that but it wasn't it wasn't as mainstream as I think you would you would normally hear about but it was it was a group of banks in a certain area County that came together to to help out with stuff like that and so you know commissioner part I like the road you're going down I'm wondering if there's some some public private Partnerships prior to to any policy being uh created that we could explore uh that our our local uh Partners may be willing to get into with us um what I think the biggest barrier that I've heard and the field of work I'm in is is one um you know especially when it comes to when it comes to renting is three times got to make three times the the rent you know when it comes to to owning you got to save for a down payment interest rates and things like that so um Mr administrator I know we've done exactly what kind of what commissioner partner is talking about but have we ever looked at maybe it's a status report of what are Best Practices out there Innovative things other uh cities counties states are doing to address this problem that we have with with home ownership mam chair if it's the direction of the board we'd be happy to include that in anything that that came back to have we done it before there in terms of public private Partnerships I'm not sure I'd have to look at a guys I can promise you if something like this passes there'll be ample interest in the private sector in uh in in exploring all potential Partnerships with us so commissioner par I I'd like to go down just kind of you know first to see what's out there and if we get the report back we see some things that are interested interested then we want to bring it back for a workshop or agenda item we go down that road that's and and and and and I failed to mention that the one of the presidential nominees is saying federal government is going to boot I think $50,000 down payment or 25,000 I forget the amount now that right there gets a whole lot of people ready and at the starting line and if you got $50,000 to help people put down on on a down payment of a house even if your credit is um you know low as mine you know that $50,000 change the dynamic and alter um I mean I'm just saying that that kind of speculative thought is as County Min say speculative is there but if you you got a $50,000 partner coming to put some money down um that's got to bring you closer to to the U the $25,000 excuse me $25,000 that's why I got a age y'all I'm looking at my age saying shaking her head say 25,000 but if a $25,000 money which probably be amateurz over the duration I put on the back end of a 30y long I imagine um this is helpful but we've got to in my opinion prepare ourselves to be a partner and then the other component for which listening to the language of um what's communities that are ready that's that's got a program that's ready they're going to be first out the Block in the federal government is going to be looking for partners to partner with communities that got their stuff together there's no reason for us not to have hours together uh and we certainly come Friday morning probably going to have some of the lowest property value in the in in in the southeastern United States and going to need a hell of a lot more housing come Friday morning okay but commissioner Proctor why don't we do this the motion on the floor is for Workshop right well so why don't we look at an agenda item coming back to see where we are they've already brought one and maybe amend it up to date yes ma'am okay and then once it comes back we can always look at public private Partnerships will know more about the political State whether or not U there's going to be something coming down the pike to to deal with over a million 7 million doar in affordable housing money to the various States but right now I think an agenda item would put us in the posture that you're talking about very good so will will you uh who made the motion yeah I accept your advisement Madam chair and commissioner Miner's um advisement okay will that public private partnership piece be in part of that agenda item please absolutely and I just wanted to assure the board I know you've seen this before with how quickly we're able to stand up programs oh absolutely keep that in mind uh commissioner o'keith thank you I believe I was second this want to make sure that that information thank you as the the second on this motion I just want to make sure the information will include application and denial rates by race and ethnicity what the H the data has that it is required by law that they keep that on race and and and gender and blah blah so and also for the question that was raised that we're not the federal government we're not but the home Ownage disclosure Act is required for local banks to have that and any citizen private can go and request that at any time from a bank and um it's for the local advantage and knowledge it's it's it's a local um uh policy effort to Spur review and in that review that communities hold accountable institutions so it set that that way and I think it comes out of the um 1977 um Community reinvestment act uh which Congress pass uh to revitalize uh Americans inner cities okay I think we got it commission Proctor any other discussion hearing none all those in favor Let It Be know can you just I'm sorry commissioner can we just repeat the motion like what is we got we had a lot of chatter in regards to it can we just repeat the okay we commissioner Pro is asking for an agenda item to come back uh at first it was for the workshop but now it's amended and second by commission o' for an agenda item to come back to look at uh local financing with the banking uh institutions here in Leon County whether it's redlining any indication of discrimination based on uh prohibited factors age race six um national orange and I just say prohibitive prohibitive factors and uh it was one other aspect commissioner thank you madam chair I I think commissioner proor U I hope you'll consider also the the barriers to home the barrier absolutely so this is address barriers to homeowner so this is just like a St ownership so the whole nine yards for the so this is a status report basically yeah okay yes that's an agenda item that's I'm sorry you say it's an agenda item Madam chair yes an agenda item to come back and then from that I think we would be well form and then we'll know what next step to take and by that time we might have some all informational right purposes okay all pertinent information we know that they're totally qualified to do that okay all those in favor Let It Be know my saying I I I any opposition hearing none thank you commissioner Pro anything further further um I have a request for resolution uh recognizing Florida M University for the I think six year it six year in a row being the uh nation's number one HBCU oh okay and um and included in that motion I mean in that resolution to uh recognize Proclamation uh their ascending from number 91 to the number 81 ranked uh public uh University in nation motion your Proclamation second thank you any discussion all those in favor let it be known by saying I I any opposition hearing none thank you thank you very much I say to our citizens of Leon County we thank God for sparing us another storm uh we thank God for the break that we received last last week uh with Helen and we thank God for what hopefully will be sparing our community from the storm called Milton and for the citizens of Florida who are facing grave dangers uh are our prayers thoughts um our community is open uh to sharing what we can in this time and uh we just encourage everyone to stay uh prayerful and um empathetic supportive of of our friends our neighbors our relatives uh in various parts of the state um this really is um a time for prayer thank you very much thank you uh commissioner Proctor Vice chair Welch thank you madam chair I just want to congratulate the president of the United States he got to meet you this week meet him and I'm sure sh went home and told the first lady he did I met a magnificent lady in Tallahasse Florida when I got off the plane and I thought to myself man I'm a lucky guy um second uh I do uh Dr Robinson Dr Temple Robinson reached out to me from Bond Community Health Center uh they're going to be celebrating their 40th anniversary at Bond uh coming up in the next few weeks I think it's early November and in 2019 when they celebrated their 35th Anniversary the county sponsored them to the tune of about $3,500 this event I forget how our policy I know I'm been the one that's like been mean about it but like um is that how do we got how do we go about that if we want to consider that just count administrator sure Madam chair uh Commissioners I think the way and the attorney can can help me out here too I I think the way you would do that is you you would give us the direction to provide the the sponsorship and the amount that you all determin to be appropriate to give the County Attorney uh to give the County Administrator uh the authority to execute a budget amendment from contingency yeah uh to but to also include in the motion to give me the uh authorization to execute a budget amendment from general fund contingency in that amount and I believe it would probably have to be uh unanimous yes so um I would I'm normally really cautious about this you guys understand but this is the bond Community Health Center this is an established organization this is an amount that we this board has approved previously 5 years ago for $3,500 sponsorship so I would I mean I'll make a motion y'all can chew on it if you I stand up on this to get a drum roll what I don't want to put anybody in a bad spot though okay so like I'm going to I'll make a motion to give I need to film this go ahead I got you Proctor is an antagonist um I'm going to put give make a motion to allow the County Administrator the ability to uh do that $3,500 sponsorship should the board want to do that thank you is there a second raise this man is there a discuss religion Commission of minor thank you madam chair I support the motion I support the motion um and uh uh I think it's I think it's a worthy expense there's precedent for it it's the bond Community Health Center um we did though set a a process though that I'm voting for it but we did set a process that request like this would have to come back as an agenda item at a subsequent County Commission meeting with the analysis and you know the basically the evaluation the staff on it the maass was 2500 right anything over 2500 I believe it was I don't remember what the threshold I think we said a threshold okay wait wait wait wait wait wait too many people talking at one time please pleas okay commissioner Min I'm voting for it I'm voting for it but I just I wanted to recognize that I don't want us to to leave that process aside I think that was a commissioner Welch you proposed that and I I agree with it I just don't remember what it was and I think we need to stick to that um 99% of the time right but I'm going to support the motion because I think it's it's it's Bond as you said but I I don't want us to forget about that policy that we rightly set forth which I think is helpful for us to make sure we have you know proper written up things for our agenda items to come back for um expenditure requests so I'm voting for it thank you madam chair thank you commissioner minor mad I mean listen uh I just don't remember if we set a limit on it or what this is has to come back I mean this this November 8th or something like that so it's before we meet again if we want if we if I advocated for a policy that we had to have an agenda item I want to stick to that policy more than anybody so if it can't fly it can't fly it was brought up to me like in the last few days so it's before the next meeting so I do not want to go against my own suggestion as a precedent uh I'm just saying this because the bond Community Health Center is an organization that we all know we we know this m where this money is going it's not something we're not familiar with or anything like that so and it's been done before there's a precedent for it so if we have to wave the rules because of those mitigating factors I don't know but I do want us to be consistent and I want to be consistent and I want to be up up above board so thank you ADR Mr County Administrator want to make a comment please quick quick clarification uh yes you you did review this issue you reaffirmed an existing policy you didn't change you didn't establish threshold your existing policy that's been in place for a long time requires that you have an agenda item unless you do what you just did which would require it to be a unanimous vote at a board meeting tonight under the existing policy the amount is not 2500 it is zero so the normal policy is to have an agenda item no matter the amount unless the board does what it's doing now there was there was a discussion of changing it but then there was a realization the policy the current policy already requires it at zero there was no movement on that thank you madam County attorney uh commissioner caban then commissioner o'i I just want to let the record reflect everyone in this room has gotten a freebie here and I have not used my freebie I have not used that card yet just so yall know and so when I pull that for an event in Woodville I'm looking at all you guys okay thank you commissioner Comm commissioner key this is a worthy cause but I want to start by let's just be clear in my opinion there's no policy we did this for like 6 months we finally pulled it back for a few meetings we're going to wave policy we W policy our prac is this and I think that's fine now I can't I've come around to it and in fact some sometime earlier this year um in an effort to try to re it in I um I voted against a request that was a good request it was just to try to re this in it was Madam chairwoman and I now that we're basically we're going to do this I want to apologize for that because this is what we're going to do this is our practice it's world it's worth worthy causes um and so that's fine um I do um it's a it's a worthwhile cause I just want to um it's not exactly the same but a month ago I sat up here and took it hard as benevolent commissioner O'Keefe for trying to do something in my district I'm still going to support this uh this motion thank you commissioner o'keef commissioner Maddox last comment thank you m chair um I think it was slightly different though commissioner o'keef because you was trying to use your your yeah but we we we going to go there um I I think is is this meeting a journ no we all make good points but I do want to say though y'all I I I believe I do believe the policy is the policy I like the the road we're going down and this is an established organization and an established event and we know what's going on with it right I do believe that we do have a limited amount of money in contingency I we'll say that first point second point is we do have to be somewhat considerate of the organizations that we're dealing with and the amount of money that we're talking about before we come here and don't and want and want to approve something U without having an agenda item Bond 3500 okay right I can get there but let's say Bond at 35,000 then I may be looking at something different so I I I think I'm glad we have the flexibility to do this but we only got $250,000 one and that is that is in case of any emergency we got $250,000 that's what contingency is for and two I I think we should we should be very careful about the organizations that or the requests that we consider when we do this all right uh that's all I got Madam chair but I will I will support motion thank you commissioner Maddox I'm sorry somebody was saying you said I was the last speaker so I sh if you only talk one minute I'll let you talk only one well I want to um nominate um commissioner Welch to become a deacon at his church now that we know he has a heart sitting up there I commend you for uh this motion and uh great call all of that absolutely great you going you going to sleep well T night really going to sleep I'll sleep well every night thank you commissioner wel she certainly a great cause a great a great organization and they provide services to the Le Medical Services to the least of these in our community so it goes without saying that I will support it but all those in favor of the motion let it be known by saying I I any opposition hearing none it passes unanimously thank you so much anything further commissioner wils uh I don't think so Madam chair um I don't think so yeah thank you thank you uh commissioner Welch uh Commissioners I'd like to um ask for a proclamation for recognizing Veterans Day that will be be presented to the veterans doing operation thank the operation thank you breakfast you know we always uh feed the veterans in November okay it's been moved and second for the proclamation any discussion hearing none all those in favor let it be known by saying I I I any opposition thank you I'd like to also um commend um the county and Mr Jalan marks and he's here in audience for having received the state award for our affordable housing housing program uh and that award came after our last meeting but today so I think himla and we know that we've got a great housing shortage here for those in the low socioeconomic status uh for rental housing and so great job and we just have to keep up the good work mam chair he's a district 2 Resident I also just want to say that M mam chair if I might just I just I can't I can't let com yeah I won't let this I can't let this pass he's done a great job with our um affordable housing committee and everything he's he's been absolutely excellent but actually wanted to break up too um just how extraordinary it is that we time and time again bring young talent in develop that talent and they become leaders in the state when it comes to uh government and and public administration uh just to just to just to show you just by folks here in the crowd uh how many people in the in in our in the crowd today started their careers right here in Leon County look at all those folks this right here in Leon County and our government started right here and now they're amongst the Brads of our of our organization and I've watched some of these folks grow from intern to to now leaders in our organization and they're not just they're not just giving these roles they are legit so I wanted to um uh commend the County Administrator for being able to recognize talent and bringing it here and keeping it here in Leon County I think that's an extraordinary thing without blowing up his head too much but then the development of the talent once they get here uh is absolutely tremendous and last I'll say Madam chair is I I don't know if this is normal but I know in my line of business what I do you don't see folks uh join your organization and stay long enough to become leadership the the the the the best part about it is these folks join our organization as young people and stayed around long enough and trusted the system long enough in order to be developed to be now leaders that's a that's a huge Testament to the kind of leadership that we have here we've had here for a long time thank you madam chair thank you commissioner madam and I detto everything that you said so and having said that I also want to commend our County Administrator for having been selected by Florida State University as one of its outstanding graduates outstanding alumni from Florida State so I think we deserve to give him a round of applause as well he's very mod thank you evidently they didn't check the transcript but uh okay and I lastly I've got and I'm going to pass these around if you I only I only have three if you will look has three earlier this year uh Commissioners we approved renaming the Leon County Courthouse for honorable Judge Augustus Ain in November now it'll take place in November I don't have the actual date but I think it's 22nd the 22nd hold on that's Thanksgiving Ain it it is that in November the 22nd um and I recently received a rep proposal from Ken casiah he's a sculptor and he's a former United States Attorney and he actually a clerk of Judge Hatchet at the 11th circuit uh at The District Court here um and he he he makes bronze bust of judges and what you've got is a brochure that shows what President Reagan and different ra uh presidents and he actually did a bronze bus of Judge Hatchet judge Joseph Hatchet and it's sitting if you go in the federal courthouse that's named after judge hading Hatchet is in the federal courthouse house well anyway he's also sculptured six of the last seven president sculpture as well including uh judge federal judge Hatchet so what I'm doing is bringing a request before the board tonight commissioner wels I I would like to have uh an unveiling of a bus for judge aens who is the longest Ser serving judge in this circuit okay and I would like to have a bust of him unveiled at our November ceremony naming the courthouse the Augustus G Ain cour house so move now this is not agenda and I know our policy that it would need to come back as an agenda item okay and I and I think at this par it would need to be a unanimous vote however what I'm asking for is a motion to authorize the County Administrator to provide funding from the general contingency fund to support this bus and the dollar Mount wouldn't exceed a base on Mr cide wouldn't exceed $20,000 it would be somewhere between 18 and 20,000 however it could be situated in the retunda down downstairs on first floor it will be an everlasting I think commemorative um sculpture from from the county and like I said this just came to my attention no if I had known it back when we voted I would have raised it asked it to come back as an agenda item but I'm prohibited from from doing so so what i' like to do is give the County Administrator the authority to Pro provide funding for this from the general contingency fund uh Mr Kasai has assured me that he could have it completed and it will be part of that ceremony in the unveiling and the naming of the courthouse next month in November Madam chair given the so moved uh I think I think it's a worthy thing that you're asking for it's not for an organization it's for a a bus that's worthwhile for this this Courthouse that will display um Augustus Akin and and represent him and and his name in his courthouse so I I'll make that motion Madam chair thank you commissioner madx is there second and it will be bronze it's bronze so it's Everlasting yeah is there is there a second all second okay thank you commissioner command discussion Madam chair can you repeat the projected cost of this somewhere it wouldn't exceed 20,000 between 18 and 20,000 for for the bus and of course he'll be working on an accelerated process this is October to have it completed and then we would do the unveiling in November when we Nam the the courthouse after J a uh commissioner I'm sorry any other questions commissioner M Madam chair I'm I'm willing to listen to what my colleagues are saying but I I would like to speak again towards the end please if you don't mind okay I can come back to you commissioner o' Kee Thank you thank you madam chair um I'm all for uh a bust honoring judge Akens it's uh uh certainly deserves all the honors we can give him my concern here is I don't know how much a bronze bus costs I don't know if we would be overpaying I don't know if you know it costs I just don't know I have no idea um I mean I'm over here just Googling it but I don't like to make decisions based on that and so my concern maybe it can be dressed addressed somehow is this artist may be a fantastic artist but are they the highest price artist in Tallahassee or that so I think a bronze bust is due I just want to make sure we're responsible in who we use and and and how we pay or how much is it the right is it the average Market type price is my issue oh thank you okay on point commissioner matters I think I think I can I think I can split the baby on this one if we committed to it today jenda item comes back at our next meeting um with bids for it I guess or we can look at the ad no okay if we looked at the cost and and all that kind of stuff it came back but we committed to doing it today but we talked about the cost later at the next meeting could a replica or a model of it be placed there for for for folks because what I don't want is I don't I don't want this to be a 34 and and not pass or even a 61 and not pass because I think we all think that J judge Akin deserves that a bust or something to that nature in our retunda representing the fact that this is a courthouse that's name in his honor but I do understand some of the reservations I just spoke on it myself of of okay this is this is 20,000 this ain't five grand I think that the difference that I'm I'm I'm seeing here is that this is for a piece of art that's going inside of our courthouse is not given to an organization for an event so that's why I can get there but if others can't get there we we see the ain't going the way you wanted to I don't I don't want to I don't want to vote where this doesn't pass is what I'm saying so it as we get through this conversation I may get to a point that that I want to amend my my uh motion to get us somewhere else if if I feel like if anyone feels like they're not ready to move on this today thank you commissioner Maddox the commissioner Welch and then commissioner caban surprised Madam chair I'm I'm not going to be able to get on board with this uh not like this um here's my problem personally I think that's it's an exorbitant amount of money to pay for something like that without a bid without a process we have a master Craftsman Studio at FSU that does all of the sculptures you see at FSU that is done by students and by led by very experienced faculty I know Mr Sakaya is a former attorney and this might be like a side Hustle but $20,000 a lot of money I cannot and if we want to go back and pull the 3500 so I'm consistent we can do that but I cannot I cannot support a $20,000 purchase of a bust when we're naming the courthouse after the gentleman which is pretty distinct honor in my opinion now if commissioner Maddox wants we go down the the the the idea of let's bring back a agenda item with bids let's get a bid from the master Craftsman studio and see how much if we're even comom Me Maybe $100,000 from them and $20,000 is a deal I don't know but frankly I think some of these are you know I mean that's Donald Trump I think so um that ain't Donald Trump it is supposed to be I I can't support it in its current form commissioner Maddox if you wanted to make a amend your motion to bring back an agenda item in November that we could then you know you could put it up at another time represent it somehow I I'm going to have a hard time supporting it if if you need a unanimous vote if you need a just a majority vote then I can vote no but I can't I can't support that matter thank you commissioner W commissioner um commissioner Maddox good idea um we have a workshop coming up o October 22nd why don't we just add it as an agenda item to the upcoming Workshop still gives plenty of time we set the agenda Madam attorney yeah um you do not allow public comment at your workshops so you arguably if you know you're going to be voting on this should not put it on a workshop agenda knowing that you're not going to get public comment on it it would what if it's just on a regular meeting agenda you don't have a regular meeting in October 22nd it's only a workshop oh no no I thought he meant next month didn't you mean our monthly our November meeting no I meant I meant the workshop see I see for Madam chair let me just thr idea out there I mean previously commissioner MX had a special meeting uh when he was the chair last year you can hold a special meeting um with this as the agenda item whenever you'd like as well um I'd be happy to you know show up and and be there to support for you just an idea on point did I understand the chair say that there's a there's a statute of um I'm sorry commissioner madx did I understand you to say there's there's a bust of um judge Hatchet at the federal court at the federal court okay yes sir yeah okay they got more money than us but what what I would what I would do uh would like to do commissioner uh Maddox and I appreciate your motion if maybe you'd amend it for just an agenda item to come back uh allow the County Administrator to maybe look at cost the point was to try to unveil it at the time we named the courthouse but if we can't do that we can have an unveiling ceremony at a later date once we're all informed and I certainly understand I I just received this you know recently since our last meeting so I couldn't bring it up last month at Madam chair where did the request come from Sir where did the request come from Ken casay Ken casaya made a request of us absolutely okay I I'll amend my motion uh to to bring it back at our next regular board meeting is in gen idem okay and if Mr County Administrator second okay thank you any more discussion commissioner Min thank you madam chair I um I'll vote for the motion to come back so that we have a chance to take a look at what the what the market price is for a bronze sculpture um and listen there there are two items here one is the reverence and the respect and the uh admiration we have with judge Akens that's separate from what this request is yeah right um and and I I'm I'm supporting the motion now because I I think of us trying to vote on this today was a self-imposed urgency to try to get this vote done so that we can get it done for the unveiling right that that's a self-imposed date that we've given us and and I I I we have to be responsible with $8 to $20,000 of taxpayer money that don't belong to us and uh I I'm I'm very when I hear about that kind of a cost I think about the opportunity cost of how that money could be applied elsewhere in this community to help people that that really need it and again these are two separate entired things our respect for judge gens and our in our need and desire to to to to honor him and we have with the courthouse naming that's an entirely separate thing from whether we should spend $20,000 a taxpayer money on a bronze sculpture so I'm very I'm skeptical about this I want to I'm going to vote for the agenda come to agenda item to come back but when it does come back I'm going to take a look at what the County Administrator and his team have done to take a look at what the real cost not saying that that the sculptor's amount is is off or wrong but I want to have some something in writing that shows me what the cost of a bronze sculpture is um and then I'm going to weigh that on the idea that this money does not belong to us it it belongs to the taxpayers and what the opportunity cost of that $20,000 is uh and what that $20,000 could do to further this community does even does a can even want this he might want to have that money spent on something to help further the community and I don't know that because we don't have an agenda item so I'm voting for the agenda item to come back when it does come back I'm going to be very I'm going to review it with a very critical eye because this is a lot of money to ask to come from taxpayer dollars uh for something that um we we need more information on thank you madam chair thank you commissioner uh minor commissioner Proctor Madam shair um uh Sunday not yet yesterday day before yesterday but last Sunday judge aens was on the front row of uh front Pew bethl Emmy church when I spoke there uh of a sermon titled the politics of God and uh he's usually always either there or inside the uh altar Rail and it's hard to vote no against somebody you've seen a Sunday school teacher but I'm also reminded of um of uh Miss Mitchell you've heard me say before and thou shall make no no graven image aliken this of me you've heard me say that before in church um every student that attended Howard University you walk in Founder's library and there is a picture of General aliver Howard the size of that screen when you walk into the library and takes that wall and uh everybody knows that picture that went to Howard and that picture is more endearing to me uh and memorable than um um a statue which is cold bronze like dead I'd love to see a huge uh picture or at least look at a comparable cause cost to commemorate judge aens and I think it's very important that judge aens is a black man um actually um pretty handsome fell his wife thinks and um you know if you don't look that good you ought to go down in bronze you know if you ain't got it you just ought you know everybody look about the same even the good-looking guy look look at Clinton right next to that dude who's that right there Obama but that don't do nothing for him you know I mean yeah so this bronze ain't going to do nothing for judge aens in terms of but there are more kids that would look up coming in this courthouse and people coming in his Courthouse if they saw a photograph of Judge Akin they really see how good looking he is and it would be there for the ages and um when you go into the Howard's Library you look for General Oliver you who just like that he's a big old pitcher and I think that emotionally uh the distinction of who he is what he represents in our 200th year of uh this County uh I would love to see the consideration of a portrait uh of a meaningful portrait because uh you don't know these you don't know Obama from um Trump if neither all of them look the same dead you know in this picture and I would love to see something that's realistic and makes a greater impression on children and everybody coming in the courthouse and a bronze statue just does not capture nor convey the hystero of a man from Madison um in his life Legacy and being uh the person he's been and I understand your heart cuz you you clerk for him didn't you I work with him I didn't cler you didn't clerk you work with judg yeah wonderful wonderful and I'm not talking against it and if if the deal come down um and that's what you want bronze I'm going walk with you but uh that which makes that indelible impression for me is not a statute but a photograph thank you thank you commissioner proxy and I think you may raised a a good point as well so perhaps commissioner Maddox if we could also add the authority of the County Administrator to check into maybe a beautiful portrait as well as an alternative you know and we can look at it to be appropriately hung in the retunda in the courthouse on first floor I'm partial to the portrait but if you want to bring both back bring it back let the agenda item come back okay that includes that as well for three hours and wait thank you for your for your for your discussion no other comments all those in favor of the G item are coming back next month let it be known by saying I I I any opposition hearing none it passes unanimously is there anything further from any other Commissioners for the good of the order Madam chair you've done a wonderful job awesome look at you you killed it and you've uh met the president of the United States and you a jolly good fell I declare amen thank you commissioner proor hearing nothing else the meeting is adjourned thank you all all so much [Music] --------- ##VIDEO ID:fw-UquXZe_A## [Music] [Music] I know is that what good afternoon good afternoon good afternoon everyone I am now calling this meeting to order may I have your attention please may I have your attention please we are now calling the Leon County Commission meeting for October 2024 to order it's a delight to see all of you all here thank you all for being here and we will get started uh Commissioners we we have commissioner Maddox on the phone he would like to appear this meeting by phone he has uh the nature of an emergency so I'd like to entertain a motion for him to appear by phone so move second it has moved and properly second that commissioner Ms be allowed to appear by phone is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor let it be known by saying I I I I any opposition the motion carries with commissioner Proctor out of Chambers at this time I'd like to call on commissioner Miner to introduce our invocator and then to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance thank you madam chair today I'm proud to introduce Trinity Whitley associate pastor of Faith Presbyterian Church I've known associate pastor Whitley for many years not only is she an excellent pastor at Faith but she's also very committed to serving this community she's a member of the governing body for the Council on the status of men and boys uh she's a member of this year's leadership Tallahasse class 42 which we'll we'll talk about in a few minutes um and she's also been a resident of Tallahassee for 12 years serving for seven years as one of the pastors at Faith Presbyterian associate pastor Whitley thank you for your leadership and for your service to the people of Leon County we're honored to have you with us today Commissioners and uh and to everyone else here please give a warm welcome to associate P pastor Trinity Willie thank you commissioner Miner thank you chair Cummings and it is delightful to be with you all this uh afternoon I would love to open us up with the word of prayer I'm going to pray in my tradition which is in the Christian tradition but I encourage you to Center yourself in whatever Faith tradition feels right for you loving and gracious God We Gather today in the spirit of unity and service recognizing that the strength of our community is from the leadership that guides us forward as we begin this meeting we hold in our hearts all those who are recovering from Hurricane Helen the individuals families and First Responders who are working tirelessly to rebuild their lives and homes we pray a special prayer for our neighbors in Taylor County may they find resil I hope and support through the compassion of their neighbors and the resources of this community we give thanks for our local leaders especially the members of this commission for their dedication to public service and their commitment to the well-being of all who call Leon County Home may they be guided by wisdom Justice and a spirit of collaboration as they make decisions that impact the common good in this season of life where divisions run rampant let us be reminded that we are stronger together may we set aside differences and find Common Ground focusing on what unites us as a diverse yet interconnected community may our conversations be filled with respect and our actions rooted in a desire to uplift every resident let this meeting be a place where Solutions are born from cooperation where the voices of all are heard and where we can work handin hand to build a future that is inclusive sustainable and just we pray this with gratitude and humility asking for guidance courage and unity in the work that lies ahead amen am amen [Music] of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you um commissioner Miner and we certainly want to thank Pastor Whitley for that very appropriate invocation Commissioners we have proclamations and we have two proclamations that have been pulled postponed for a later date as the proclamation recognizing P View Elementary Bond Elementary and Nims Middle School for successfully achieving AB School grades for 2024 by commissioner uh Maddox and also the proclamation recognized in Bishop julus Julius mallister who was elected Bishop Bishop of the bethl am church and that will be done at a later time so right now I'd like to call on commissioner O'Keefe if you will to present your Proclamation recognized and chair's Little League Allstar baseball team as runner up at the state championship come on up everybody if y'all want to gather up over here coach if you want to hang with me all right this is this is fun for me because based on my athletic ability it's the closest I will ever get to a state any state championship um first I want to recognize everybody when I call your name just raise your hands coach Brian Garber Alex McGee AJ Simpson Brooke akos Bryce Garber Cole Duncan Connor tigerina Cooper Bishop dresen Gilbert JD belflower Logan Faulk Michael vulpi and Nicholas vulpi all right whereas in June 2024 the chair's Little League Allstar team clinched the District 20 championship title by defeating Fort Braden and whereas by becoming District 20 Champions the chairs Little League Allstar team earned a spot in the sectional tournament defeating nville and whereas by becoming the section one Champions the chairs Little League Allstar team earned a spot in the state tournament for the third consecutive season and whereas the chairs Little League Allstars team took on Lake Mary little league in the state championship game becoming the first chairish team to play in the state championship game and whereas leading hiters for the All-Stars were Connor tigerina and Bryce Garber batting 562 Cooper Bishop batting 526 and Logan Faulk batting 478 and whereas leading pitchers for the allstars were Connor tigerina Michael vpy Nicholas vulpi and Cooper bishop and whereas Michael and Nicholas vpy were the winning pitchers in the state tournament Cooper Bishop held Lake Mary in check for a little over four Innings and whereas the nucleus of this team goes back to 2021 with six players and 2022 with eight players 2022 was the first year this group went to the state tournament and continued this Quest all the way to 2024 now therefore be it proclaimed by the board of County commissioners of leyon County that we celebrate and honor the achievements of the 2024 chair's Little League Allstar baseball team and congratulate them for making it all the way to the state championship game in Def fiac Springs dated this 8th day of October 2024 signed by the chair Comm commers and County Administrator all right how about how about if we have the team line up in front of the Das and then if all the Commissioners want to join oh and anyone will make comment commissioner Wilt thank you commissioner O'Keefe and I recognize a lot of you guys and a lot of you coaches and and um I just want you guys to know we're super proud of you you represent Tallahassee so well we know you love that chairs park over there that beautiful County facility but I just want to let you know next week we're breaking ground on a Northeast Park and we will have a Northeast Little League team to compete with these great chairs teams going forward but we're super proud of you guys so happy for you you represented us so well and you guys you don't realize this but you represent your families you represent your your neighborhoods and your teams but you really represent Leon County in Tallahasse and we just could not be more proud of you know y'all y'all played the uh the winners didn't you the ultimate eventual winners and and played them well from what I understand so uh we do good baseball here in Leon County and just want to commend you guys thank you for showing up and all you represent you want to and know Commissioners oh we stand careful did you like you're still here okay sorry if we can have a few more of you all going on that side just even it out yeah that's good yeah you can stay there stay there Cole perfect see everybody so yeah okay everyone want to take a look at this camera few more pictures going on good thank you [Music] [Applause] all next we I'll call on commissioner o'keef to in a proclamation recognizing the St Augustine Plantation assisted living facility for efforts to ensure the safety of residents after the May 10th tornado commissioner Oki thank you very much here we have with us Megan Griffin executive director Nicole German marketing director and tenia Anthony Director of Business Administration from the St Plantation Senior Living Community whereas on May 10th 2024 a series of three devastating tornadoes touched down in leyon County causing millions of dollars in damage to homes businesses government buildings and institutions of higher education and whereas among the many locations that sustained damage was the St Augustine Plantation Senior Living Community home to 103 residents in both their memory care and assisted living units and whereas tornado warnings as tornado warnings were being issued by the National Weather Service night shift team members began following tornado drill protocols escorting residents from their beds and apartments to a designated safe area in the memory care building and whereas three residence beds that were occupied only moments before had trees and debris covering where the residents had been sleeping and whereas in the hours after the storm employees who weren't on the schedule for that that day came to assist climbing over down trees and debris to get to Residents to safety and to ensure a sense of routine which is especially important for memory care residents and whereas when all total the St Augustine Plantation s sustained more than $3 million in damage to their facility with significant roof damage to their memory care unit and trees hitting an above ground water M leading to severe flooding inside the unit now therefore be it proclaimed that the board of County commissioners of leyon County honor and recognize The Bravery of both the staff and the residents of the St Augustine Plantation Senior Living Community for their quick and decisive actions on May 10th 2024 which literally saved the lives of many at their facility dated this 8th day of October 2024 signed by the chair Commissioners and the County Administrator thank you commissioner Keef I'm we I accept this Proclamation on behalf of the assisted living and the Memory Care community of St Augustine Plantation we hear so many times in the news you know very negative outcomes you know when when disasters hit and we had our emergency plan in place and and I'm very thankful for the staff that put the residents above themselves and we were able to safely evacuate 27 residents from a very very dangerous and difficult um situation to our Assisted Living to safety and on behalf of all the staff who came and helped and was there on that day thank you for the proclamation and it really means a lot only little kids get to go all the way around the all right conr ation thank you I'll let everyone know I want to move in where youall are thank now commissioner Miner we'll have a proclamation recognizing Miss Barbara boon my cup Madam chair as a member of leadership T classy class 26 it is my distinct honor to present this next Proclamation you know um Tallahassee has its share of great Community leaders those who helped move Tallahassee and leyon County forward in some way in many cases though these true leaders ruff a few feathers along the way Miss Barbara Boon however is one of those people who seems to be universally loved by everyone who knows her yes yes and uh Madam chair Commissioners as you can see some of her fans are here today and cousin these are and our cousin uh these are LT alumni leader Tallahassee chamber co-workers and many others who like me have been inspired by Barbara's leadership thank you all very much for being here would you all please stand if if you're here for barar you please stand now you know I think there were a couple people that maybe didn't come for Barbara boom but they decided to come up anyway right you know who you are um listen I I think this incredible support is because um Barbara everything that she does everything that she does is for the service of others right it's to help other people in fact as tasi magazine has said Barbara Boon is a leader of leaders uh Barbara uh Barbie Maro from lt28 the second best class she put it well saying that Barbara is one of those rare humans who can simultaneously see your potential celebrate strengths and then discuss your opportunity for [Music] improvement and you feel validated the entire time now for anyone watching uh the proceeding tonight if you haven't yet had a chance to join a leadership tassi class I hope you'll choose to apply uh it's a year-long life-changing experience that helps you become a better leader it helps you appreciate the richness of our community and it helps you make some lifelong friends um as for this Proclamation I I want to make sure we give credit where credit is due a while back uh Miss Virginia glass who by herself is an incredible great Community leader yes she is she reached out to me and she said you know the county commissioner should honor Barbara Boon for her outstanding service to this community and I just want to say trer words were never spoken Virginia thank you very much thank you and now I'm going to read the proclamation uh whereas Barbara BR grew up as one of seven children in a tight-knit family in Neptune Beach Florida and whereas after graduating from Florida State University with a bachelor's degree in social work Miss Boon worked in the Duval Duval County school system connecting parents with programs for children with disabilities and whereas after shifting her Focus toward parenting her three boys Miss Boon was approached by leadership Jacksonville to work part-time and whereas Miss Boon graduated from leadership Jacksonville and thereafter became the associate director of that organization and where as Miss Boon and her family relocated to the Tallahassee area in 1999 and Miss Boon was hired by the Tallahasse chamber to direct its leadership Tallahassee program and whereas Miss Boon has served for the past 25 years as the executive director of the leadership talasi program and is serving her 18th year as a vice president of the greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce and whereas Miss Boon is the driving force be behind leadership Tallahassee a year-long program that prepares participants for Community leadership through leadership service the program is celebrating its 42nd class this year over 1,800 people have graduated from leadership Tallahassee since its Inception in 1983 and around 1,000 have participated since Miss Boon arrived starting with class 17 and whereas another achievement of Miss Boon was the creation of youth leadership Tallahassee a program that brings together a diverse group of high school juniors from public and private schools in Tallahasse who have demonstrated leadership potential youth leadership Tallahassee prepares them to become ethical leaders committed to active Community involvement almost done whereas Miss Boon was named one of Tallahasse 25 women you need to know for 2021 was deemed a leader of leaders by Tallahassee magazine in 2023 and was awarded the 2023 unsung shirou award by The Oasis Center for Women and girls and where and whereas Miss Boon's 25 years of servant leadership and commitment to empowering others has made her one of leyon County's most beloved Community leaders now now therefore be it proclaimed by the board of County commissioners of leyon County that today we recognize October 8th 2024 as Barbara Boon day in recognition of Miss Boon's enduring contribution to the people of Leon County and for her dedication to community empowerment and Leadership dated this 8th day of October 2024 signed by the chairwoman uh Carolyn Cummings and the County Commissioners as well as our County Administrator okay everybody who knows me knows I do not like like public speaking and they also know that speaking off the cuff can be dangerous for me so I went ahead and wrote some remarks but now that I see this crowd here I got it there's so many people I I have to thank that I can't thank you all um but I'm going to thank a few I'm going to make an attempt um so special greetings to our distinguished elected officials especially commissioner Miner lt26 the ever gracious Virginia glass lt21 Sue dick I think is here she's my boss she's the chamber president lt16 my colleagues at the chamber especially especially Lily chry WT director lt39 I can do this forever guys and then our newest um uh colleague is Stephanie love I also want to recognize the LT Board of Governors who who are here and Elizabeth cowbell Emanuel lt31 who's the chair and all you LT grads and community members who've honored me by being here friends and especially my family forest forest my son Forest my husband Forest my son racial my daughter-in-law Shannon my daughter-in-law who may be coming in late Matthew my son who's actually in new orle New Orleans right now and my baby brother Phillip so I stand here today humbled and deeply grateful to God for his guidance and strength and Grace in my life I also want to acknowledge all the individuals who've been working diligently with recovery efforts as a result of Helen and our are currently working to prepare for that next hurricane Milton bearing down on our state I can't begin to say how overwhelmed I am right now to have a day dedicated in my name is something I could never have imagined can't wait to tell my sisters they know but they they don't know and I stand Here With My Heart full of gratitude for this honor I also have to recognize my dear mother who passed away 3 weeks ago at the age of 98 she uh has always been so proud of me and if she could have she would have been here um just want to mention that and anybody else who made this possible so I got to say this honor is just not about me it's about the community and its leaders who represent all the sectors of Tallahassee leyon County it represents the shared vision and Collective impact that you all have had and will continue have in creating a better future for our community and again thank you very much I'll cherish this moment always and I'll continue working to live up to the values and hopes that this day represents thank you so much oh yeah uh we have a comment Miss Boon we have a comment from commissioner Welch I don't think she go yes commissioner Welch hey Miss Barbara I want to say thank you I you are the personification of leadership Tass I mean if it were a person and if it were a spirit it would be you and and I tell people all the time if they don't like me as a county commissioner they got to blame you because leadership Tallahassee was pivotal in my uh ability to do this and really you are such a behind the scenes you don't like you don't like the spotlight right and I know we all know that and and so I imagine this is very awkward for you and and a part of that you know is is what's so Charming about you and and you know when I came to leadership Tallahassee is just a little old school teacher that thought I could do more in the community you know you put your hand on my shoulder and said yeah you can you know you that so that encouragement and that instilling of belief in yourself that works for school teachers the same way it works for nonprofit Executives and government Chiefs of Staff and business owners and bankers and and Auditors and everybody across the Spectrum and so um I just want to reiterate to you how much I appreciate the role you've played in my journey I hope every day to make you proud as I know most of the LT graduates do and I want to give a shout out to LT 36 all right uh commissioner Miner at lt26 you know he's 10 years ahead of me in LT um but the guy looks like he's 10 years younger than me in life so um thank you commissioner Miner for for doing this I think it's great thank you Miss glass for bringing this to our attention and and Barbara thank you thank you commission thank you commission Welch any other commissioner and now we will have Proclamation recognizing October as domestic balance awareness month and commissioner Proctor has graciously allowed me to present the proclamation so those of you that are here to receive it if you will meet me at the podium want come coair coair do this coair both sides thank you all this is the proclamation and it reads whereas October is annually recognized as National Domestic Violence awareness month and whereas domestic violence affects every person in leyon County Florida either as a survivor of domestic violence as a family member significant other friend neighbor or coworker and domestic violence affects people of all gender sexual orientations ages racial ethnic cultural social religious and economic groups and whereas domestic violence and intimate partner violence can have lifelong consequences emotionally mentally socially spiritually and physically and whereas although progress has been made toward preventing and ending domestic violence and providing support to survivors and their families there is still a need to provide resources education awareness and understanding of domestic violence and its causes an important work remains to be done and whereas policy makers and communities must work together to transform the conditions that cause domestic violence and support Survivor centered Solutions and whereas this year's National domestic violence awareness month's theme is and I quote everyone knows someone in quote it personifies our commitment to serving domestic violence survivors by acknowledging invigorating and rededicating ourselves to the goal of eliminating the domestic violence for everyone and whereas the domestic violence coordinating Council the commission on the status of women and girls and the Oasis Center for Women and girls and many other Community Partners programs professionals and Advocates of nonviolence have joined together with Refuge house to support each other in our work and to provide Leon County and our citizens with a well coordinated Community response to domestic violence and whereas during the month of October the domestic violence coordinating Council and its many partners will be intensifying efforts to promote public understanding of Family Violence and increase sensitivity to survivors of Family Violence emphasizing the need for citizen involvement and efforts to reduce Family Violence through public education and changing public attitude now therefore be it proclaimed that we the Leon County Board of County Commissioners do hereby designate the month of October as domestic violence awareness and prevention month in Leon County Florida and urge the appropriate recognition thereof dated this 8th day of October 2024 signed by all of the commission isers and attested to by County Administrator Vincent long thank you congratulations we appreciate all of your hard work you like you don't have to she's our co-chair i n show thank you so much for recognizing October as domestic violence awareness month and thank you for all of your support and for every family that that it touches and it seen thank you so much thank you Comm any comment from the commissioner commissioner Proctor I was just asking did any Commissioners have any comments commissioner o'keith thank you madam chair um and thank you so much um when domestic violence is such a growing problem um it's something that's important for us that we have such growing support in our community led by all of you so just thank you absolutely okay you need to [Applause] take and I'll be present to you like turn okay so you want us to come up come up let's come oh here we me thank you commissioners and now we recognize commissioner proxer who will be presenting a proclamation thank you madam chair good evening Madam chair on the issue of domestic violence um um I guess I'm a Survivor um since Sunday I've tried to asked my daughter to please leave Orlando and she was born in the 90s and naturally she knows a lot more than her daddy and um uh I tried to respect she's a grown lady but um she was inflicting emotional distress upon her daddy and mama and um domestic violence and uh luckily she as I was coming here saying that she was in route to the Orlando Airport and I said I don't care where you go go you know go friends wherever you go go get out of Orlando but um domestic violence Works uh in a number of ways when your daughter don't listen to the daddy and just inflict intentional uh emotional stress I wanted to put that in there Daryl Parks come on man that you over there come on man we're glad to see brother Parks up in here wanted this time to ask if Mr Tim Center please join commissioner Welch's uh LT class not all that civil you you know that all that noise out there right I I know I saw Sheriff them have to go out in around that class that 306 Mr Senator I appreciate your being here um we have a proclamation to share we're very proud of the work uh your agency has done in this commit Community this Proclamation reads whereas the United States Congress authorized the establishment of Community Action agencies to offer assistance to lowincome families across the country and the Leon County tallas Community Action Program was established in 1965 and whereas the Leon County Tallahassee Community Action Program changed its name to the Capital Area Community Action Agency Inc in 19 79 and the Capital Area Community Action Agency provides a safety net for deserving families and children for those living in eight counties in the north Florida region and whereas Community Action provides Emergency Services Family Support Services weatherization assistance early childhood development services and programs and assistance to help families become independent of public assistance and whereas the Community Action is dedicated to people living prosperous lives by helping people and changing lives the mission is to provide a comprehensive seamless system of services and resources to reduce the detrimental effects of poverty Empower low-income citizens with skills and motivation to become self-sufficient and improve the overall quality of their lives in our community and where there are more than 1,000 Community Action agencies across the country serving 99% of All American counties the Capital Area Community Action Agency has a direct and real impact on people's lives in our community and the community area Community Action Agency say that real fast about six times in a row community area Action Agency um across the country these um agencies have advanced opportunities and strengthened community by coordinating federal state local and private resources and every family should have an opportunity for success to live a prosperous life our community is better because of the dedicated staff committed board members and valuable volunteers and resources made available whereas Community Action is recognizing 60 years Innovation impact and providing proven results for our community therefore be it proclaimed by the Leon County Board of County Commissioners that we do hereby thank the Capital Area Community Action for 60 years of service and Proclaim October 2024 as Community Action month in recognition of a hard work and dedication of the Capital Area Community Action Agency dated this 8th day of October 2024 signed by all of our commissioners and by our County Administrator uh um Mr Senator we say congratulations we do thank you for your services bless you thank you madam chair and Commissioners and commissioner Proctor especially thank you so much for this honor for 60 years more than half a million of our residents and neighbors have been assisted uh through Federal funding local funding and um and more from volunteers and others who have tried to help folks live more prosperously lives will continue and hope to be here for another 60 years thank you thank you thank you M Glass glad to see you thank you uh Commissioners for your presentation of the various proclamations to individuals and very deserving groups as well now Mr County Administrator we will turn to you for update on Leon County's preparation and response to Hurricane alink thank you madam chair Commissioners I I know that we inundate you with information uh on our uh storm preparations and our activations uh but given the critical importance of our activation to hen uh the FEMA assistance that's currently available in our community as well as the current forecast track of hurricane Milton um and its expected impacts uh we wanted to just very quickly provide uh the board with an update and with that I'll ask Uh Kevin and Matt to to come forward and provide uh that update good evening Commissioners and uh while I had hoped to only talk about one storm this evening unfortunately I have two to talk about uh but I will start with the rundown of hurricane Helen a storm that uh uh just two weeks ago affected the Big Bend of Florida um made landfall overnight on September 26th uh in Taylor County with 140 mph winds uh what appears to be up to 20 foot of storm surge uh in the area of the Taylor County coast and 7ot of storm surge along our West Coast of Florida here locally in leyon County we experienced wind gusts up up to 70 uh sorry 67 that's 67 mph sustained winds of 42 mph and rainfall of just over 4 and a half inches of rain so a very strong tropical storm did affect our community even though the track shift we were still severely impacted by the storm across the state damage assessment numbers came in with over 2,000 homes destroyed in Florida by Helen over 31,000 homes received major damage and 15,000 received over over 15,000 received minor damage this was a very impactful storm for Florida and if you recall to 3 weeks ago when we gave the briefing and I showed the map with all of the watches and warnings that were in effect all the way up to Tennessee um Helen proved to be that National Storm uh it was not just a Leon County storm um particularly in North Carolina we saw 9 to 20 inches of rain across the state uh and a community I I hope I'm saying this right it appears it's Buc North Carolina uh had nearly 31 Ines of rain I don't have a good grasp on all their damage assessment numbers and and honestly I'm not sure the state of North Carolina has it it's so widespread and and they will be continuing to work for weeks to to get that Community to just a a stable condition um but a very severe storm uh unfortunately we are seeing another very severe storm right on the heels of Helen uh going to affect many of the places that were just affected two weeks ago along the west coast of Florida right now Helen is a 155 mph category 4 for storm hurricane uh it's expected to maintain that strength as it approaches the West Florida coast um perhaps it will weaken to a category 3 a strong Category 3 at 125 milph pre- landfall um that's not going to make a lot of difference in this case it's still a very large and strong storm the National Hurricane Center has storm surge warnings up for most of the West Coast of Florida uh from Yankee Town uh in Levy County all the way to Flamingo I believe that's Coler County um with the highest storm surge expected in the Tampa Bay Area uh 10 to 15 ft above ground level could be expected in coastal areas of pelis County uh and along the internal Coastal portions of Tampa Bay uh and even down into Charlotte Harbor uh other other areas along our Coastline of West Florida could see five to 5 to 10 ft of storm surge as far as timing we may see the tropical storm force winds arrive around 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday with the eye of this storm making landfall uh somewhere in the vicinity of Tampa Bay uh at sunrise on Thursday morning uh this is going to be a tremendous storm uh we have watched as we've done all hurricane season uh we watched for all development we're close to coordinating as always with the Florida Division of Emergency Management uh and with our Emergency Management Association to be prepared to provide any level of support that may be needed uh to our colleagues and and friends in Central Florida I think with that that's the weather overview and I think Matt has some operational updates thank you Kevin Madam chair Commissioners we'll be brief um one of the things that we focus on uh in emergency management is also helping others so what I'd like to do is talk about our Helen response and then how the county is integrated within the state of Florida's emergency response for Milton so for starters for Helen right now we have ongoing damage um Disaster Assistance offered by FEMA at disaster assistance.gov and there have been nearly 2 applications for individual assistance from our County residents to the federal government they'll be dispensing those funds most likely beginning next week to provide critical assistance for our citizens here in leyon County they've already been dispensing those in the pre- landfall declared area that had been just days before landfall the in addition we have debris collection operations for Hurricane Helen active and ongoing here in leyon County those will be going through Sunday October 20th every address here in Lyon County as you've seen from our Communications on our emergency information portal will be serviced twice for debris collection any vegetative debris no matter the size brought to the curb will be taken away we in the unincorporated area will serve all of those addresses and in addition the Royal waste site service centers are operating to each day to collect any amount of vegetative debris that's brought to them but again I want to be clear that our attention now is obviously on Milton as we continue the recovery here in Helen at the Emergency Operations Center from Milton we're in close coordination with the state of Florida when it comes to direct assistance that direct assistance is Sheltering 140,000 is the capacity at the state for Sheltering outside of coastal storm surge areas Statewide 140,000 capacity right now there are 10,000 people in those shelters we anticipate that that number will rise tomorrow and this evening here in leyon County last evening we had opened up the North Florida fairgrounds is a evacuee shelter to assist anyone leaving the forecasted track they needed a safe place to stay outside of the storm's impacts we at Le County are hosting them in partnership with American Red Cross at the North Florida fairgrounds we have also notified the state that if the capacity is needed for additional evacuee Sheltering that we will make that ask of the state and make that available the other things I want to bring up too is that we're doing everything in our power to make Hotel availability and coordination both with visit Florida and then also the things that we control at the county such as rescheduling events and other things to make as much Hotel availability possible for people seeking evacuation here in Lyon County in addition to Mutual Aid workers looking for place to respond to Milton um After the Storm arrives and then the other component is we've provided critical Communications to uh the St Petersburg area in that starlink um and other Communications so they can remain in contact even if the impact is significant enough to elim eliminate their Communications and lastly like Kevin and I had done over the weekend in Madison County to provide Leaf to their emergency Operation Center We Stand ready to provide Personnel assistance to all those affected uh and to alleviate the burden of the continued response because let me be clear all of those communities that have been affected by Helen are now going to have some impact along the west coast by Milton and that'll mean that they've been operating at Full Throttle redlining for north of 16 days uh and we at Leon County in the depth of the bench that we have from the pictures you've seen on the screen and what the administrator continues to impress Upon Us in emergency management is ready to serve uh if asked for by the state of Florida and our peers so that's just a very quick update of our operations I'll turn it back over to the County Administrator thank you man thank you Kevin just very big kudos to our emergency management team obviously to all of our operational teams in the field for everything they do Madam chair just big thank you to you for your continuous availability throughout and for the overwhelming support of the board that concludes our update but we're happy to answer any questions you might have thank you thank you Mr uh County Administrator and I just want to say thank you uh Mr Cavell and Mr Peters County Administrator and all of those uh that work very hard Around the Clock doing hurricane Helen and we appreciate what you're doing now to to coordinate and assist those that are evacuating uh from from from down south can't say enough about all the services you all provided doing that storm and in the aftermath as well so I will entertain any comments commissioner o'keef from the commission then commissioner Proctor thank you madam chair um can't be said enough thank you um Kevin and Matt and for all of the public works and emergency staff and communication staff and EMS everybody just uh thank you for this um it's something that it's one of the public goods that only local state and federal government can provide in these disasters and the fact that you can do so well um does a lot to preserve trust uh that our citizens have for us um so I can't say thank you enough and so uh my next question is a very very very small part of that I want to make sure that the biggest picture is incredible response um I have had a number of contacts from commission uh constituents about debris pickup that um you know and actually some say they haven't they didn't get passed get a pass through from Debbie and Helen and still now and so I know that um we're using private debris collectors and there's lots of debris um but I wanted to see how we are able to make sure that our private contractors are catching everybody in their passes I'll ask Matt to respond he's got all the latest sure happy to so for starters again we follow the um waste proe residential collection model in the unincorporated space but if anyone is ever missed for any reason though that's absolutely never the intention uh they can contact Public Works and we will immediately respond and pick up at that location and we'll make sure that that location is marked I hate to have to say this but to make sure that it is never forgotten for any other collection evering it in the future thank you um I hope not too many people heard that so they don't call to get put on the special note Miss list that's fine they can Brent Brent will handle it it's okay thank you commissioner o'i commissioner Proctor thank you madam chair um certainly Madam chair uh uh kudos to our staff their prep uh they did an excellent job and in our storm management uh nothing warmed my heart and uh fostered um our palpitations um that on top of the work that I know had been done I saw the picture of uh you madam chair and our County Administrator meeting Air Force One on the front page and shaking the hand of the president of the United States who had come to look at uh storm damage in our region uh for some reason uh that photo uh for me said it law that from top to bottom and from bottom to top we communicate and uh interact receive and engage uh the forces and the sources that can grant relief as well as uh preparation I I will always cherish that photo and I think that it was accurate to the uh larger uh Service delivery uh that our County uh does I think also that this moment um speaks to our need for um I think we need um some storm centers and FEMA will not set up operations at the North Florida Fairground uh it has visited the fairground in years past but has left it because uh the structure is not adequate to withstand hurricanes uh not to mention technological deficiencies to accommodate its computers so we're receiving refugees if you will uh but the fairground is a far cry from being a safe place as those buildings are very very light almost mobile home structures um we do need also for federal lands to be relinquished to Leon County uh we need to build emergency centers that FEMA ought to pay for um FEMA has this money and as opposed to coming around on the back end of a storm uh monies ought to be invested by FEMA the Federal Emergency Management that we got got a million and some acres of land that the federal government so the dirt don't cost no money at all but if Florida is going to be the weekly uh latest hurricane which is the U trend line uh that meteorologists are talking about nationally um we ought to prepare and do so correctly and I um offer again the national forest which is the people of um United States land and we need it certainly this says one other thing to me um Commissioners um our legislature um ought to come up with a u a hotel um reduction in a hotel storm rate and the price of tickets to leave Orlando's airport this afternoon to go to to Atlanta instead of coming down is um is going I think it's gone up and uh for people who are evaluating and my understandings that our hotels are pretty pretty tight uh it's just people with um um lots of capital it reminds you of Hurricane Katrina uh in New Orleans and those who uh could uh and were could leave and those who were stranded and were left and possibly come uh Friday morning or Thursday afternoon the people who may well be all the dead folk is the the folk who couldn't leave uh when the mayor of tamper said that anybody all persons left in Tampa who will not leave are going to die that was the death decree by the mayor if it's this serious I'm just saying if it's this serious show up serious then we all have a response that uh facilitates movement in hotels that are attainable in price and we've just got to look at evacuation from a different level and I know it's not our uh role as state government but if we're serious about storms uh it also lifts up again that uh our emergency evacuation Road uh is Highway 319 Crawfordville Road and um it's it's a project that just seems not to be able to get a starting date and um this moment underscores it underscores that all people leaving coastal areas coming up 319 they ought to have a road that um um is wider than a bicycle path I appreciate the report that's been shared um I'm pondering what role Leon County will offer to those communities which may be get uh receive um um damages and will we be participants in their recovery uh and I didn't hear that part in the report but I know that we will extend a hand thank you madam chair thank you uh commissioner Pro I miss one thing m i missed one more thing okay uh I believe in our retreat I'm I'm asking in our Retreat uh in January once we get past hurricane season that we take a deep dive into our tree policy tree policy uh and trees and I could go on on that and I know we feel differently about trees but trees become dangerous when they old uh rotten and we just sitting there talking about the tree tree tree but I believe that this moment uh these weekly storms uh compel a serious look at trees our power their impact on infrastructure as well as um buildings and so forth so I was I I wanted to ask uh a review of tree policy uh at our Retreat thank you very much thank you commissioner Pro is that something Mr County Administrator you add or do we need to vote on it's generally something that we would seek a board direction to add to to your retreat oh okay so we're doing commission time we can entertain motions to do that anytime the the chair deems do you want to do a motion then for that to be I'd like to um offer the motion for our January Retreat that we would review our trees in particular uh in light and as they correlate to uh storm and preventing damage uh increasing the safety of travel uh and those things um for January that's my motion thank thank you any further discussion okay all those in favor let it be known by saying I I I commissioner Mattis are you there hi hi thank you uh so it passed unanimous you okay Mr County Administrator okay thank you commissioner proor any other comments uh commissioner caban thank you madam chair um first off I would like to give a very sincere thank you to the County Administrator Uh Kevin Peters uh Matt Cavell I know um and you madam chair I know that you all had some very long nights I saw pictures of you in the late nights at the EOC Madam chair um and I know that the storm did not give much much preparation time I know there's a lot of sacrifice that comes into to making sure that our constituents are taken care of so thank you all the staff members for the for the efforts um I would I would like to um ask director Peters a question if that's okay with you madam chair director what what were the top speed um wind speed and gust um from Hurricane Helen as it entered in the Panhandle not here but in the its most I guess prominant point so the the National Hurricane Center has estimated it was 140 milph at landfall that would have been on the Taylor County Coast uh there is no weather gauge that was able to actually record an actual measurement uh that's that's an estimate from hurricane hunter aircraft that were flying through the storm as it was making its its approach to the coast thank you what would that you know going into to Wednesday evening uh the eye of the storm was projected to go over Lake talin uh and West Leon County um from the maps that I saw I know could be a little bit different um what would 140 mph wind speed due to mobile homes in leyon County so FEMA advises it her hurricane or mobile homes are not safe in any level of hurricane so that would start at 74 mph that's the recommendation from FEMA that that mobile homes are not safe in any level of hurricane wind okay thank you um Commissioners my you know my my feeling toward hurricane Helen is first that we were you know sad sounds bad to say this that we are blessed right um that that hurricane would have had catastrophic damage as we've heard from staff to our community um you know I hate saying that we we wanted to go somewhere else because you know someone else Embraces that that damage and that catastrophe as we saw um just east of us my fear is this I vocalized this in our storm preparation um meeting that we had but Southern Leon County Woodville is only 13 miles from the coast of St Marks 13 miles and I think sometimes we forget about that because where we all you know live inland um if that hurricane would have hit directly to Leon County the southern part of leyon County with no question would be gone um we're talking thousands of folks in South in Southwestern Leon County that um live in mobile homes and commissioner Proctor what you said just a minute ago about um the mayor of Tampa you know with folks not being able to leave that happened in our own backyard with this storm um I visited the the fort Bren shelter it only had roughly 65 to 70 um evacuees from my understanding that is a very very small percent of folks that live in mobile homes in our community in the southern part of Leon County in in western part of Leon County now granted I'm sure some of those folks left um and didn't have to come to a shelter but the point I'm trying to make that is that Woodville the southern point of Leon County does not have a storm shelter and so it is a very lowincome population and some of those folks don't have the means to travel 15 to 20 minutes north of there to Rickards High School where the the next nearest storm shelter was um and so I just think that it's a it's a vulnerable um it's it's a part of our community that's vulnerable and susceptible to increase damage when there's a hurricane or natural disaster as we saw with the tornadoes Woodville was damaged significantly and there are still people that can't go back to their homes due to that damage and that was I believe roughly 80 to 100 m per hour winds so Madam chair um I've been working with the County Administrator behind the scenes and talking to him about a plan that I would like to have and I think we're at the point where it needs staff direction to kind of invest a little bit time in it I don't think that this takes um I don't think that this takes any um it doesn't have any fiscal impact I believe um because I want to direct staff to do it in-house first um but I would like to to make a motion to direct staff to do a cost and feasibility study inhouse um to look at areas for a storm shelter in southern Leon County second thank you any further discussion uh commissioner Keith um thank you commissioner kaban I just want to um uh I strongly support this it's a concern we have um over in eastern L County as well um luckily there we usually have Lincoln High School um which is pretty nearby so I absolutely understand and think that it would be ideal and necessary to have that for your community thank you commissioner proon Madam Shar I just like to uh State here that uh there's a lot of federal land in uh Woodville and if we were to uh move forward with building such facility I strongly believe that uh FEMA uh can be an agency and those Federal lands to put uh an emergency shelter for storms for citizens of the United States who reside in Leon County and uh I'd like for the scope of the inquiry by staff to be inclusive of uh of um that Quest and are making a forray into the thought of federal lands unoccupied being made available for emergency situations and uh buildings to house the sensory of uh of our country if that's okay with you as a maker of the motion uh I I want to can we have staff just do it first before we have them look at the federal lands and if that's a recommendation from staff to use federal lands if if that is the only land they find um acceptable then have them bring that back to us well you know our staff was talking to the president of theit could that be part or do we need to amend the motion to include that or would you rather bifurcate it if if would be whatever the oh sorry that it would be just whatever the direction of the board is in terms of your preference so why don't you just amend the motion to add that they also look at that as well let that be part of well Madam CH I don't want to add the federal land specific you don't want to add it to no ma'am but I just want to let them just do their evaluation and look at where they find feasible I know there is land that the county already owns um at the Woodville Community Center area um and mad Madam chair I forgot one point if I may real quick um one thing that's could be unique about this storm shelter is that I think there's an opportunity to maybe get some investment from the state and also um from Wakulla County you know Waka County evacuated and a lot of folks in Waka County came to our shelters in Northern in leyon county and so with the proximity from um Woodville to Wakulla County there might be some opportunity to get some investment from the state if not Waka County themselves thank you madam chair thank you um commissioner caban we have a motion uh on the floor to ask sta to uh bring back an agenda item to look at a storm shelter in southern Leon County what what color um I mean Woodville area all those in favor Let It Be know my saying I I I commissioner I okay any opposition okay hearing none thank you it passes any other comments Madam chair a point of inquiry uh I'm going to ask Mr Peters uh Matt if they know um and I just have a a random curiosity when does the public begin to take seriously uh storm warnings and in my mind it it starts around the 36-h hour mark uh 48 hours or something uh people don't hear they people we been told since Sunday to move to go to scat and they just don't listen and and it is a any studies that show when do people get serious about hearing I do not know of studies that that kind of show that human response to the message that has come out I I do know that that watches by their their definition they come out 48 hours in advance of the expected tropical weather event and then the warnings are typically 36 hours in advance um so I I know those facts U but but I can check there's a uh hurricane evacuation study that's conducted uh by the state of Florida on a it's not a set periodic update but they do frequent updates and I can talk with the hurricane planning team up there and and and grab I think they do some of that behavioral analysis I just don't have that at at at my fingertips and I wasn't prepared for that answer today sorry uh but there is a study and we can we can bring some information back uh make sure it gets to you and the Mystery of that for me is my daughter she didn't hear me uh she didn't hear mom she didn't hear she she didn't got serious today you know uh it probably varies by individual age absolutely I don't get it okay thank you mam sh thank you uh Commissioners for for your uh for your comments and thanks again to all of our Emergency Response Team at Mr Peters I count administrat I mean it just an enormous amount of sta if you if you're in that Emergency Management building on easterwood Drive I mean it's hundreds of Staff people there working around the clock to make sure we have upto-date information and that our citizens are safe and that they heed uh heed the warnings and I just I can't say enough Mr County Administrator my hat just goes goes out I know a County Administrator was overnight there I mean we just don't know until you in there the anorm of time and sacrifice they leave their families to make sure the greater public is safe so I just just thank all of you can't thank you enough okay Mr County Administrator we're on consent are there any items Madam chair uh just before we get there citizens to be heard on consent we do have one speaker in attendance Michael McBride thank you good afternoon uh things are happening here in Tallahassee and I want to make sure you our community leaders are aware of them as I brought to this commission's attention some months ago connection first is doing great things to make a difference using restorative justice this coming Friday from 6 to 8:00 p.m. they're hosting a restorative justice Forum I would specifically like to invite you each to attend this form so you can discover how the process works to make that difference and more importantly I'd like you to be there to show leaders support for this amazing effort there's a brochure on your desk uh that shows the details and there's a registration code on it additionally connection first is striving to make a societal difference they have part partner with L Mo arts and Dr David gusset from FSU art therapy to bring to Town the exhibit connections within and without this is an exhibition of works created by the men at Madison Correctional Institute the art program there an exhibit that demonstrates how betterment programs for those who are incarcerated can be transformative and can benefit the overall Society the exhibit opening there's a brochure on that one too the exhibit opening is Tuesday October 22nd but it is the panel discussion on Saturday October 26 from 11: to 12:30 that I would like to specifically bring to your attention this panel will provide the opportunity to hear from the people who are making the difference here too your presence would show that the leaders support these effort lastly I worked with Target print and mail on these flyers when I picked them up they said there was no charge this demonstrates how local business supports these efforts but more importantly this soundly shows that Community leadership is a verb an action verb please follow their example and lead with action and your presence I hope to see you there thank you for listening thank you Mr McBride Madam chair we have one more speaker just in Stanley S s Mr Sims Stanley Sims 1320 Avendale way um it's been a very exciting day it's Barber day so I decided to just do a little cut shot I don't know if you are aware but whenever I lch on to something I don't let it go easy I am very concerned for two reasons about the safety of our homeless population on Pensacola Street South Monro downtown because of this new law you can't even fall asleep on the sidewalk I do not want this issue painted in the wrong light y'all know me I'm extra so don't take it the wrong way but this issue with homelessness should be done with proper like we dealing with American citizens these are not immigrants these are not refugees that's being bust and when I hear that homeless people from Gaston County where I was born yeah it's personal and they're coming here cuz they need a shelter I don't have a problem with that because they don't have a homeless shelter in Gaston County and when I look at the numerous cars that drive in that keep my taxes low I need to look we we need to look at that now I've called a lot of you all some of y'all didn't call me back some of you did and I'm going to tell you some of y'all that didn't call me back I didn't expect you to call me back because this ain't an area that grabs your attention it wasn't big developers it wasen big businessmen these were everyday American citizens struggling which you are entitled to help as well you're not just here for corporate for business partners and and to to deal with homeless when it's convenient for you cuz it ain't never convenient for them walking that street there are no Public Safety on Pensacola Street they're flying up and down that road those people have mental disabilities they are people and not only are they people they are American citizens and that need to be Sav they're not immigrants they're not refugees thank you thank you Mr S I love you thank you Mr Sims thank you madam chair sorry about that one more speaker Jennifer Bay she's in attendance thank you m is actually on the toe okay agenda great it's on an agenda now would be the time now yes hi Jennifer Bay um 2000 dagle Lane I also have a business at 7511 Silver Lake Road so we were talking on and I thought we were going to come up after they did the status report so I just wanted to thank uh everyone for having the staff members that did the status report for us um based on the staff we've gotten a copy of it so based on that they do show that the fees that we submitted last month to you guys were in line with Lake County's charges that they were charging in 2018 John's County in 2015 and St Lucy County in 2018 and 19 so September 30th as you know minimum wage went up in the State of Florida we have right now our property taxes will be due next month and then we also have to do our renewal for the rotations in leyon County this month so I know we were told that it would probably have to come back but what we're asking is that once you guys hear that status report that you will go ahead and agree to come back take what we submitted last month because the rates are in line and go ahead and do that that the next meeting would be just the public hearing so that we can try to get those rates to go into effect November instead of waiting two or three more meetings to do that I think that's all I have thank you Miss B that's our last public thank you uh Mr County Administrator before we uh move on Commissioners to the consent agenda uh I see our great uh public defender Miss Jessica yearly is in the in the audience so we recognize her thank you for your for your presence I was comment when we do the jail needs assessment please next the next item okay thank you so much um Mr County Administrator are there any items pulled from consent there are no items pulled from consent thank you uh Commissioners I'd like to entertain a motion to uh accept the consent uh on the agenda is thank you any discussion hear none all those in favor let it be known by saying I I I I commissioner uh Maddox okay thank you thank you so much uh Mr County Administrator thank than you madam chair Commissioners uh this item uh seeks your acceptance of the Lyon County Detention Facility needs assessment final report which provides an analysis and recommendations to effectively manage population of the Detention Facility over the next 25 years before I hand it off to uh shankton who will introduce the Consultants that uh develop the report and make them available for a for a brief presentation I want to remind uh the board that following your uh 2022 workshop on the Detention Facility the board uh approved funding and provided the direction for us to retain uh the services of a of a consultant which went out and was procured um uh through a national uh nationally advertised um uh uh solicitation uh to evaluate and develop forecasts for the future population of the Detention Facility to review current management strategies and to provide recommendations on um uh the need for any need to expand the Detention Facility uh these recommendations are all detailed in the report before you Commissioners and and that will be presented uh to you in just a moment County staff and the Consultants will be uh available and happy to answer any questions you might have uh we do have two speaker cards on this item uh with that Madam chair I will hand it off to shankton [Music] good afternoon Commissioners um I am pleased to introduce um this afternoon Alan Richardson Alan Richardson and uh Patrick junky with Justice planners which developed the report before you today Allan and Patrick have more than 30 years of experience in analyzing the needs of approximately 75 jails and criminal justice facilities throughout the nation including arm and Miami day counties um but I believe they'll share with you that we were the best clients that they've had ever um this afternoon they will provide a presentation that highlights uh the stakeholders they engaged and the steps they took to prepare the report they'll then detail the data and forecasts in the report and finally they'll touch on the recommendations that have been developed to ensure the continued effect effective management of the population at the Leon count D chenson Center and so with that I will turn it over to Mr Alan Richardson good afternoon good afternoon uh thanks for the time to to speak before you this afternoon I would just like to start off to say that shington and Teresa have been the very best clients we've ever had before did I get that right okay uh there are 1246 beds currently uh at the Leon County Detention Facility not counting the annex which is which is currently offline uh with those 1246 beds really for the past couple of decades on any on any given day uh you've averaged well over a thousand inmates in there so operationally you've been full uh late 2021 uh that average daily population Rose to approximately 1,200 uh which is which is just about maxing out the total number of beds uh that you have and and that's what really has has led to uh to to you ask him for this study uh for us um coming on site uh we were on site um back in June of last year 2023 uh to to kick this project off and and really the the the purpose of of this is to really collect a lot of data talk to to a lot of of local stakeholders here uh to determine uh the future criminal justice population uh and the the spaces that are needed to be able to accommodate them like shankin set out for the next 25 years and with the goal of of giving you uh a lot of information so that you can make informed decisions about what direction uh the county needs to take in regards to uh not just the the the tition facility but the local Criminal Justice System uh as a whole uh like I said back in in June of last year we were on site for several days uh this is a listing of of some of the different stakeholders uh that we met with uh personally the we we collected an awful lot of data to be able to do these uh population projections but taking the time to meet with this with these stakeholders gives kind of color commentary uh to the data to find out um their views their roles in the local criminal justice system and how it impacts uh the population the number of people going to jail how long they stay in jail uh which is going to drive uh the the future needs there so that's that's just kind of the setup of of what prompted uh this study in the first place uh the the various folks and and individuals that we talked with uh whenever we're here um this point I'd like to give it to Dr uh jablonsky to talk about the data analysis that we did Patrick good afternoon it's an honor to uh be in Leon County I lived here 32 years ago when I got my masters at Florida State University I walked around campus this morning was utterly stunned uh it's awesome to be back uh shington got one thing exactly right uh when about the the nature of our engagement with Leon County when uh you engage Justice planners the first thing that we do is we give you a uh data request so that I can perform a number of analyses on the data it's a three-page single space request I'm guessing probably carries 120 130 items to it uh I've done 75 of these projects Leon County is the only uh place with whom we have worked that have given us absolutely everything that we asked for uh the staff here is wonderful to work with I wish everybody had that level of Engagement in response that we got here that said let's jump into the analysis uh as Allan alluded to the population of the jail of the Detention Facility uh went up in in 21 and 22 and so you have a trend chart here uh that really I want to call your attention to a couple things uh the the chart starts in January of 2009 you can see by my dotted trend line here that there was a a general increase over time uh for about 10 to 11 years uh obviously the the covid-19 uh pandemic had a a major impact on on the population but then the population recovered uh such that by 2022 there were over 1,200 detainees uh held on a a daily basis now since that time the population has dropped significantly as of June uh of this year the population actually went below 900 uh detainees and we'll look at some of the reasons why uh that is the the case some of that population growth since June is seasonal and normal a lot of large jails in the United States have larger populations in in August September and October uh than they would in January and December and so we're seeing some of that seasonality currently with the leyon County Detention Facility uh I will also point out that that thanks to the responsive of Leon County staff uh the some of the graphs that you're about to see uh go through last Monday uh previous Monday uh as we tried to get you as upto-date information as possible so that's the population Trend uh and really to understand the population it boils down to two main facts uh first of all the number of individuals coming to the facility what we call bookings and average length of stay which you will see on a lot of our slides abbreviated as alos uh average length of stay is something that we calculate based on how long everybody in a given month or year uh actually stayed it's just the simple average of everybody who was released and so we'll step through uh that at the appropriate time so our first factor of the population is the number of individuals coming to the leyon County Detention Facility uh bookings you can see on the left side of the chart from 2018 uh from 2016 through the start of the pandemic's first wave uh that we have really dis desite some variation from month to month and Seasons the number of daily individuals coming was about 2728 and then obviously the pandemic and some of the uh events of the summer of 2020 uh impacted the number of individuals coming to the facility again this is something that we see across the country uh just about everywhere that we've had the honor of working the number of individuals being booked into a Cy's uh facility dropped significantly during 2020 what sets apart the various counties is what happens after the first waves of the pandemic and so what we see here is a a bounceback of uh bookings in in 21 and up to 22 but you'll notice that it's not at the same level it was on a pre-pandemic basis uh when we used to average say 28 uh the average uh now uh hovers around 23 so we're still not back in leyon County back to the pre-pandemic levels however uh there is a gradual small increase in the number of individuals being committed to the facility on a daily basis my three bullets at the bottom right I think I show you that incremental increase is 22.7 2 years ago last year it was 23 and as of last Monday 20 24 year to date the number of individuals is 23.4 so we're seeing a gradual increase in the numbers of people coming in now the other side of the population equation is determined by how long these individuals stay in custody that's alos average length of stay longer stays generally equate to more people in the population again it depends on how many people are coming into the facility uh and we see prior to the pandemic the average length of stay for the leyon County Detention Facility is more or less 40 days uh for for individuals uh being released in any given month uh each little uh Spike or Valley on this graph is an average of the individuals released during these months uh as we have seen across the country the average length of stay for the facility goes up uh on a post-pandemic basis you can see that it it Peaks at certain times of the year and then it drops at other times of the year again it's that seasonality that I talked about a few minutes ago one of the key things to understanding the Leon County Detention facilities population however uh since that peak of 2022 is that average length of stay has dropped significantly uh in the county in fact uh this year year to date it's down by a fifth and the September average length of stay is the lowest that we've had since 2018 uh in in September of 2023 uh the the Leon County Detention Facility booked 32 fewer people than this year but the population was 76 people higher a year ago and the whole reason for that is the average length of time that individuals are staying uh is lower than it was before now uh one of the things that uh we do when we look at uh jail populations and try to forecast forward uh is that we have to acknowledge what it is not possible for us to do I use a hurricane analogy uh I used to uh live and work in Orange County Florida and in 2004 we had three hurricanes come across my house uh there it's Charlie Francis and Jean and we have a tracking map here of hurricane Gene I use this everywhere we work for one key reason the weather for pastors who told us initially that the hurricane was going to hit us uh didn't see a upper level trough in the atmosphere coming they couldn't possibly know that that was the case and the hurricane does a circle in the ocean and then it comes ashore about a week later than what they had planned is essentially the lesson here is this forecasters are only as good as what they know at the time they made the forecast and so where where it impacts our discussion today is that changes in public policy changes in laws Staffing another pandemic uh certainly impact our ability to forecast forward uh it boils down to this particularly in the State of Florida is I cannot tell you what the legislative session in 2029 will do or 2034 and so our assumption is that everything that is in place when we made the forecast stays in place as a uh from a societal and public policy perspective that said we look at our main forecast after after we consider one the number of citizens in the county is growing significantly the chart here uh has a the the bottom of the chart starts at 165,000 citizens uh and it goes up uh through uh the uh end of 20149 since 2009 the population of the county as a whole is up 9% uh what we do with our mathematical modeling is that we look at the population of adults uh in the county because that is what's predictive of who eventually comes to jail to an extent and in that case the population is expected to grow by 10% your overall population is expected to grow by 16% however that includes children it includes senior citizens that that rarely uh come to the Detention Facility so we look at the projected adult population of the county it's expected to go up by 10% the other thing is the the facility holds individuals from surrounding counties uh in other words somebody comes up from Wakulla County and they get a rested here they serve their time here in leyon county and so we have to look to an extent of the rate of growth from your bordering counties and so essentially the growth typically over time drives increases in bookings and so when we build mathematical models we look at how growth of a uh population might impact rests in bookings and we also look at criminal court case processing and how that impacts how long individuals stay in custody when we know all those variables we build a variety of mathematical models uh with the it intent of predicting what the future of the Jail's uh population will do over time and so we build thousands of predictive models and we select what the best performing one is diagnostically and that is this the blue line is our main forecast it looks like a a heart monitor because in the uh certain times of the year the population goes up and in certain times of the year the population goes down on the left side of the chart is the actual population uh of the jail it's abbreviated as ADP it's the average daily population and it it's identical to the very first chart that I showed you uh starting out at over a thousand detainees it drops during covid it peaks in 2022 and then it uh bottoms out before a slight Rebound in the past month and a half to two months uh going forward we project a slight moderate increase of uh the population uh going forward the gry line that's kind of flat that that is a little bit more prominent than the grid lines of the chart is the actual capacity the bed count of the the facility and so our forecast looks at the bookings uh the average length of stay the county adult population the prior history of the detention facilities population and average lengths of stay going forward uh bottom line uh is that we pro project with no other changes in society or public policy an average daily population in 2048 of just shy of 12200 detainees on a daily basis now that's the number of individuals held on a daily basis to understand what the reality is for holding those people safely and securely we have to take that average daily count we have to add two factors to that the first one is what we would call a peaking Factor uh essentially we have to remember that my numbers uh are in fact averages they vary on a day-to-day basis uh you might recall that I mentioned the population typically goes up in September and October and it drops in January and February there's also days of the week that are heavier in terms of traffic and population to a facility and so we have to take that into account you think about it if you only build to the average number if you were to build uh a facility that holds 1194 there's heavy days that you would not be able to operate safe safely and securely so you need that cushion to absorb those days when you're above average we built mathematical models that looked at what the PE peing factor is for males and females you can see it's about 12% for females about 6% for males that's one factor that needs to be added to our average number to understand what the bed needs are the second factor is what we call a classification factor or we could also call it an operational factor is basically uh there's a couple components to this you need to keep certain segments of the population away from each other uh codefendants rival gang members known enemies uh individuals who are classified with wildly different Uh current offenses in criminal histories in other words a a individual has never been arrested but is has been detained on say a DUI versus somebody who has a very violent uh criminal history you don't want to house those individuals together and so you need internal capacity to keep those populations separate from each other that's what we call a classification factor in this case we use a a rule of thumb of 15% so basically it boils down to this you add those two factors the male classification Factor the female classification factor and our classification uh factor in to get to the bed count a final note about our classification factor from time to time especially with an aging facility there are times you have to shut down a housing unit to conduct maintenance and so you need capacity to shift components of the population around so that you can conduct maintenance and repairs to housing units within the facility so to get from people to beds we have this table big potential for confusing everybody in the room with this so let's step through the the first line uh here for females in 2028 our best forecast model indicates an average daily population of 152 that's that upper left uh cell the peaking factor for females is another 18 so we start with people 152 to absorb the peaking requirement you would need 18 to absorb the classification the operational requirement you would need 23 and that gets you to a bed need of 192 we do the same exact thing for with males starting with an average daily population of 979 we add the peaking we add the classification we get to a bed need of 1187 the total average daily population that we forecast in 2028 all things being equal is 11:31 getting us to a total bed need of 1379 you drop to the bottom line of the table you can see a quarter Century out the average daily population of our best forast model uh indicates 1194 in terms of the people uh on an average daily basis but the actual number of beds that you need to house those individuals safely and securely is 1,456 now that's our main forecast there's a couple things that can defeat this forecast that we tried to uh look into and be be prepared for uh so we have uh a couple alternate forecast scenarios to explore the first alternate forecast scenario assumes that the criminal justice system can achieve an average length of stay of 30 days now you think about it when we talked about average length of stay about six slides ago I informed you that the average length of stay for September of this year was just a shade over 30 days so this is while it is a bold goal it is certainly achievable uh by the system if you can get the average length of stay down to 30 days from its current annual number of 42 days uh you blunt the increase that our main forecast uh here uh graphed in Blue uh would indicate in this case our new forecast our alternate is a green forecast uh it basically says you reduce the average length of stay uh and you hold bookings at the levels that were detected uh last year the 2048 average daily population now drops to 926 the bed need is 1129 there's the table that that gives you the math behind that I won't step through that again but you can see what my logic is here the next forecast model that we have assumes that average length of stay is dropped to 30 days but in this case what happens if Jail admissions return to where they were on a pre-pandemic basis uh keep in mind you're at 23 per day now if you go back to 2019 you're looking at six different individuals coming to jail which is about a 25% increase right so that means more individuals coming and so your population is going to be under pressure to grow we mathematically we phased that increase in across four years the the bottom line a quarter Century out is the average daily population would be 1060 the beds needed is just shy of 1300 you can see our blue line is is touching the gray capacity line the current capacity line but this new uh alternate forecast 2 the red line stays well below those those levels there's the there's our table with the bed need uh showing you our math and logic finally our third alternate forecast uh basically looks at our final combination between bookings going up or down and average length of stay going up or down in this case if you take the average length of stay that the system had back in 2023 up at 53 days you're currently at 42 but you're going lower right now and Jail admissions return to where they were pre pandemic uh you can see our orange line is well above the capacity and in many ways uh looks like a a worst case scenario for the county again we phased in the math across four years for this to occur the average daily average daily population a quarter Century from now is at 1679 when you do the math for the bed need you would need 247 beds to accommodate these individuals that's assuming again that bookings revert to where they were on a pre-pandemic basis and average length of stay reverts to where it was uh last year so we have our main forecast model based on on the the best performing Diagnostics that that we uh had uh given uh really thousands of simulations of of the variables for the future and we have our our three alternates and you can see uh the various uh uh varieties here uh for the main forecast and the alternates now in all the dat that Leon County staff provided us because they gave us so much data we could do a a whole uh ton of analyses with the data to try to figure out are there any opportunities for efficiencies uh that that the uh County and the criminal justice Partners uh could uh uh entertain uh our report forwards 11 recommendations and 21 actions that the the criminal justice system uh can take to further manage and reduce average length of day and as a consequence uh manage and reduce the population of the Detention Facility uh among them uh one of the things that that I I feel strongly about of course I am a data nerd so of course I will talk about this is that expanding the population data uh reporting that identifies uh individuals who can be appropriate candidates for release and forwarding those uh names uh and and and information and their charge uh and and case status to the key stakeholders I think is a best practice that can be taken care of for uh almost no dollars that uh could be automated and a variety of jurisdictions have done that uh continuing the use of the very fine uh sptr program the pre-trial release program in leyon County I think is also a great idea uh one specific example that we found is reducing the time of processing for individuals who are held on a violation of probation using some of the uh pract IES that for instance Orange County tried about 20 years ago I think would be an excellent idea for the stakeholders in leyon County to do as well uh establishing case processing uh benchmarks and monitoring progress regarding those I I think is a a standard best practice that a lot of jurisdictions across the country uh do I would point out Camden New Jersey for one uh runs a very efficient court system where all the individuals all the parties uh monitor the progress and uh the performance of the courts in terms of processing uh cases through the system uh several conclusions and key takeaways from our data analysis first of all the criminal justice system here has done an excellent job of managing uh the facilities population through a wide variety of strategies one of the things that excited me when we started working with leyon county is knowing that Leon County did a variety of things already and it was great to evaluate those uh for a county of this size to have a PTR program and to have a variety of the other strategies that are looked at is amazing uh and I I honestly I wish more counties uh were was were this Forward Thinking uh in terms of of how they approach the criminal justice system uh the other conclusion is this I think it's great food for thought despite an increase in bookings your population's gone down average length of stay uh has dropped and uh really as court case processing uh improves coming out of the pandemic we see the pressure upon the jail population uh has has lessened significantly in the last two years uh essentially if average length of state currently uh was back where it was two years ago your current population would be 1265 about 300 higher than it is now so the system has done an excellent job managing the population of the facility I think kind of the the crisis expectation that gave rise to us uh eventually being hired and standing before you today uh the system got in front of and did a variety of good things despite the fact that more individuals were uh coming to custody uh keeping that up in in furthering the reductions in average length of stay and case processing efficiency I think will uh help keep the population within the uh capacity of of the facility I'll turn it over to shankton you um Commissioners I'll just close by by um sharing that as you'll see in your agenda item what um the recommendation is to accept the report and what we'll do um as staff is working um with our stakeholders many of the recommendations that um Patrick mentioned really focus on our criminal case processing making recommendations implementations in that that area and working with our stakeholders like the public defender the state attorneys um through our pscc to um Implement those recommendations and then what we would also provide as you can see in the um is also the um option of was provide annual updates to the board that would be provided with where we are with those recomend recommendation implementing those recommendations Madam chair just to just to wrap up the presentation real quick I just want to thank Justice planners uh for coming in really what you heard here tonight Commissioners is is very affirmational uh given the programs that we've put in place over the years commissioner Proctor tell you in the mid 1990s and the early 2000s we talk a lot about this issue probably uh uh we did so very frequently and during that time we put scores of programs in place over the the programs that we have in in place today that were referenced so uh and Justice planners have given us uh new challenges uh to to and new strategies to to put in place here in coordination with our our pscc and our our judicial officers uh and so I just wanted to thank them uh for that needless to say all of this is enormously consequential when it comes to community safety and and and and uh County um operations and and budgeting needless to say but with that uh Commissioners uh before we go to uh questions and I hand it back to the chair we do have two speakers uh to be heard our public defender uh Jessica Yuri to be followed by Connor Basset thank you Commissioners it was an absolute pleasure to work with you all in getting this data and they did afford US the opportunity to let them know truly what was happening in the criminal legal system and in our courts and how that was affecting our jail population um two things I'm going to take this as a moment to truly Champion the work of my office and the lawyers in my office we are speaking to clients immediately upon arrest we are filing motions for Bond reductions for pre-trial release to try and get them out of custody we are litigating strongly for mental health resources and alternatives to incarceration instead of just ping everybody out immediately so very very proud of my office and the lawyers and our social workers and legal staff who are helping behind the scenes I ran the number before I came upstairs this today is at 971 people in the Lyon County jail so we have been brought that number down significantly some things I want to remind um the commission about first and foremost when we talk about managing jail population we have to remember this is people our neighbors mothers and daughters Fathers and Sons who are incarcerated and so I think it's important to look at at the data and I think that's a critical part of the work but it's more importantly in my view to look at the systemic issues the community issues that are happening that are causing folks to come entangled into the criminal legal system and I think that's important to remember first and foremost we have to continue to support Mental Health Resources one of the biggest revolving door that we see in jail population is people who are suffering Mental Health crisis I'm grateful for the support of appalache Center and for the continued funding for them to do the great work that they do but I'm coming to you telling you we need more um often times people you all see the booking reports every day it's people that are coming in who are gravely mentally ill with the same trespassing charges we need long-term safe residential mental health facilities for people to live in that also brings me to my next point which is affordable housing and homelessness um unfortunately we continue to see the criminalization of poverty in that way being arrests for trespass arrests for people that are panhandling um or are alleged to be you know standing on street corners so we need to continue to look work to strengthen not only our our emergency homeless shelters but also our plans for long-term residential one thing also that was important is the the report highlighted alternatives to incarceration to include supervised pre-trial release but also the diversion programs one of those programs specifically is the post arrest diversion program which is ran by the state attorney's office and I wanted to let you all know is something that I see would absolute be a deterrent to the progress that we're making and something that could actually increase jail population population is recently the state attorney Jack Campbell increased the fee for diversion so misdemeanor diversion free has now gone up to $250 and on felony cases it's now gone up to $500 so I see that as a strong deterrent for people that are entering the criminal legal system I'm sorry a strong barrier for people that are entering the criminal legal system that have an opportunity to get out of it with diversion when those fees are now I worry very much going to be cost prohibitive and something that we're already seeing impacting our client's ability to enter into the diversion program um lastly I also just wanted to Echo and support the re-entry resources that we're seeing in our community I would continue to encourage our local business owners and your constituents in the community to hire people that may have a felony conviction on their record to give those people coming out of jail a second chance in employment because we know employment public and safe housing is going to absolutely continue to decrease crime and increase our Public Safety that's all I have it was a pleasure to work with them um and I'm happy to answer any questions or sit down thank you she's open questions to ask one let's let's wait and hear other speaker very good the next speaker Connor Basset I believe it's a virtual speaker Connor Basset are you there miss Basset who we do have them on okay we can come back to that Madam chair uh if we're able to get them on the line okay with that that concludes our our speakers okay thank you thank you Mr County Administrator um I will entertain a motion and then commissioner Proctor I believe you wanted to speak and then commissioner Miner I will entertain a motion to accept staff recommendation to accept the report option one so moved second thank you commissioner Proctor thank Madam chair uh uh the presentation was a little bit sterile uh it I did not hear functionality issues and functionality would cover and I did not hear the word mental health and uh Consultants report at all and with um such significant um um amount of the population being mental health the management of mental health uh integrated with the structure and the functionality of a physical um space uh to maintaining the safety of those with different temperaments uh with different issues understanding of of authoritative orders uh that was missing I had hoped that this report uh could have shared um a little bit more about the current space and uh our need to modify or to augment uh our capacities to um maintain and uh manage the population with greater efficiency I missed that secondly uh with respect to how do we get the uh number of days now U Teresa I I don't know why the word 2 242 242 days as a stay why does that 242 days stand out in my mind but you shared that number with us at the PC a lot of time I didn't hear the numbers that I'm familiar with uh yes commissioner bror so um in our analysis we were using average length of custody right which is when we take the average of everybody who's in the Detention Facility how long they've been there um a better Aver or better means of of analyzing the data is the average length of stay um which Patrick might be able to explain a little bit in more detail than I could I'm I'm I'm a custom to like 242 days and maybe Miss yearly is familiar so the number that is presented here is grossly um unique and far off from the number that we are usually dealing with in this room yes commissioner so again we we represent the average length of custody um there's a different metrics that we can use a better metric which is the average length of staying Patrick can explain that um after he provides that explanation we are working to incorporate that into to the PC report that you get so we're working with the uh oit office to develop that report so from moving forward we will be able to present the average length of stay okay thank you very much Miss yearly i p Patrick you want to weigh in on that because you we operating from two sets of metrics and it's misleading it's confusing absolutely and I understand I understand perfectly why it would be confusing average length of custody you are accustomed to seeing is if you take everybody at this moment at the leyon County Detention Facility and average how long all of those individuals have been held uh which comes to 240 uh that is significantly higher than average length of stay average length of stay is how long everyone released during a time period actually stayed and the reason there's such a gulf between those two numbers if you think about it uh out of 25 people who come to the attention facility today about 13 or 14 of those individuals will be released the same day and so their average length of stay for those individuals will be a half a day uh they when we go and count let's say hypothetically we count at this very moment we're missing the stays of all the individuals who bonded out of jail before 3:00 today who had very short lengths of stay and so they're they're really apples and oranges the the um best metric to judge a facility population by is the average length of stay not the average length of custody and that was one of the very first things that uh we mentioned to staff when we were on site in uh summer of 2023 and I think that's a number that you will see going forward does your report capture the cost of um per person and stay and how do we relate in terms of the cost we're at um 90 90 almost $95 a night um and did you capture anything that could drive our cost down on a per day stay uh cheaper food uh cheaper toilet paper we we did not look into uh costs ours was simply a a population study uh I I think uh if you're looking at at finances reducing the population uh likely would uh reduce the the liability the the count county has on a financial benefit and and one other note if I may there's uh a few pages in our report devoted to individuals with mental health issues uh that it's a a significant uh component of any Jail's population and and we would be uh really remiss if we did not include that and so uh really the estimates that that we could develop statistically is uh roughly half the population uh of the facility at any one time uh has a mental health issue of some kind the uh public defender is exactly right uh on two levels regarding this population that that this population has a much higher length of stay and so they are very expensive population uh because of the levels of care uh and other things that are required the second component where the public defender was exactly right is the recidivism rate of the mental health population is significantly higher for uh and the population who do not have mental health issues uh the the rearrest uh component that she alluded to is is much more pronounced for the mental health pop did did you did you all note that um in some of the pods we have one officer per 90 uh detainees and was that problematic to you or what is an acceptable ratio and and and and under um National Trends Regional trends as one officer in part with 90 detainees acceptable respectable and how uh if you've seen that uh why is there no reporting that there ought be some modifying of relation of uh 90 detainees with one little officer uh yeah thank you commissioner uh we do address that uh in the report uh and why we talk about the total number of beds at 124 to 12 43 uh in the facility uh that doesn't mean that they're necessarily appropriate beds in in our opinion uh and to address exactly what you're speaking to I believe there's six of the housing units there uh with capacities of 94 inmates they were originally built with a capacity of 47 but a second bed has been added to each cell to basically double the capacity of that housing unit from 47 to 94 now since co uh has come along you're you're holding a different classification of of offender than than pre-o uh almost all of your nonviolent misdemeanant are out of jail you're you're not holding those folks now so who is left over is you're more serious you're more violent felony type charges having 94 of of those type of individuals in one housing pod it is a large number to begin with with then with a direct supervision model of having one officer in a housing unit with up to 94 potentially violent felony uh U uh offenders is is a high number and that that is is your report silent on the officer safety it does you you've spoken to that here yes sir okay good on page seven of the report um um I think Miss urle pointed out uh that the state attorney has uh up the fee for diversion uh 250 Mis meanor 500 for felony and over on um page seven uh you've you you've cited the U the 2023 Pew charitable trust study about the disproportionate number of blacks in the Detention Facility uh compared the white but it's consistent with national Trends and this is a very very disturbing paragraph uh that you've you know a narrative that you've used is nothing that uh your Consultant Group seems to be saying in first person but you're attempting to rationalize the over 70% black population that we have consistently at Leon County uh Leon County's uh jail is there anything particularly um um experience uh compelling that uh if no other County in the country can change these numbers of blacks representing uh disproportionate High rate of those persons detained and in particular you all knowe uh is this true in local in local jails are detention centers a little even more so in uh other facilities have you all noted any um state-of-the-art technique meth methodology messaging uh that could uh change this trend reduce this number this uh this habit and uh in terms of who's bringing people to jail or arresting uh have you all track who's who's who's arresting everybody uh that FSU bring them fam you uh PD bringham uh Department of Law Enforcement Sheriff uh tpd who's bringing these people uh consistently to the jail and for what offenses have you do you look into the population like that uh for Leon County with the with the data that we have we do have the arresting agency uh for for all individuals uh that came in uh I don't know that of of tracking that we did uh with with a racial breakdown by particular arresting AG agency I'm curious if agencies uh all agencies see quote crime uh as the same thing uh let's say like commissioner kanan's District or commissioner Minor's District um you know what is Laing uh well maybe FAMU police see it is something different uh you County Sheriff riding by see it is something different tpd comes by and their sensitivities about the law uh is I see criminality uh some guy standing down on the corner of um Monroe in Tennessee Street um with a sign up no work for food hungry whatever please donate uh some agencies May treat this as uh criminal conduct um some other agencies do do you find that there's a equal um uh um uh interpretation of the law enforcement or interpretation of what's illegal what's criminal uh how do you view that uh and it seems that most of them are consistent with respect to their interpretation of black criminality these numbers in Tallahassee they're offensive uh to to the citizenry that pay taxes but the interpretation of conduct of um many black citizens is uh there just zero tolerance and what's your interpretation of that I'm not saying anything different from any sensible elected official in this nation but what is your sense and your expertise about uh law enforcement being hypersensitive and perhaps knee-jerk overreactive at times to Black criminality whatever that is I think those are all very good and legitimate questions um that go beyond the scope of what we were contracted to to look at um so far as getting into that level of law enforcement and arrest practices and interpretation as to what's a violation of Law and and what's not a great study to undertake uh but unfortunately to that level of detail that goes beyond what um what we were contracted to do in this particular study okay very good my last question commissioner I apologize I apologize but this is the one issue which you have um year after year assigned me to uh and it's just so much heart in this and so much time um so much detail this Broxton and all of that my final question um and um Commission is this forego some other comments uh Miss yearly uh I wanted to ask uh how do we get the number of days down that was the question presented by a consultant and um from my understanding The Plea offers if we had more uh tolerable reasonable pleas then the rate of of folk leaving Madam chair are accepting the offer from the state but when people are locked up and saying I ain't accepting that and they would prefer to stay locked up than to accept um uh a plea agreement that even to them is tortuous and not worth the risk of taking there's a problem miss miss miss jle is there something you could speak on because in my obs ation over the years the breakdown in this County and what's clogging up and what could greatly assist the courts is you are reaching uh far more uh plea deals and I respect uh the force with which you have uh protected and nobody in this community has a greater uh legal clientele at Leon County Detention than you you got the largest Cent mind tell than anybody in town but help us to understand a little bit for the Commissioners to know what's clogging the system and keeping folk in jail for 242 days sure I think the the one of the biggest issues is mental health and I wholeheartedly see a revolving door of the commun continued arrest and prosecution of people who are gravely mentally ill if we stopped doing that then that would help bring jail population down to answer your question specifically about plea offers this State Attorney's office is the one that brings a plea offer sometimes we can suggest what our client may do often times we say you know hey client would agree to this or could we do this but when plea offers come back that not only create significant harsh sentences of jail and prison convict our clients um and put felony convictions on them which is a huge barrier to any successful you know employment housing life after a conviction um but also when we see often times clients that will take a plea because they can't afford their bond or they you know can't get out right away will take a plea to something they didn't do because it's the easiest way to get out of jail and so we try very hard not to do that the solutions are continue to litigate pre-trial motions so to file motions to reduce bond to file our motions for pre-trial leas to get people out pre-trial because remember Commissioners that's what the jail is the jail is a pre-trial incarceration setting so the vast majority of Po folks in the leyon county jail have not been convicted of anything and are sitting there waiting their next court date so from our perspective we litigate those issues pre-trial what the state brings to us as ple offers and what we're able to negotiate with them is different I think it's having more alternatives to incarceration would assist but we wholeheartedly aren't going to agree to sign up our clients for convictions for crimes they didn't do or for convictions that are significantly harsher than anything they deserve for what the charge is itself right and that right that Commissioners is a difficulty that when The Plea which is offered often is more um um um exacting of a a harshal sentence rougher than what you would get out of out of the Court sentence and um I feel uh over time there my final comment I feel over time that the study that is needed probably from the Supreme Court um Vantage Point are the off offers per what is it 21 circuits or something 20 sir 20 20 circuits uh what are the offers circuit circuit circuit what are the outcomes that needs to be studied by the Florida Supreme Court then you will find uh person ex charged with babyc uh in our district another District another District how was it resolved that needs to be looked at because our public defender is doing a hell of a job um standing up for her constituents or her her clients uh but it's so hard when even the client just said no I can't do this I'm going stay in jail that's what's happened thank you very much thank you commissioner commissioner Miner please thank you madam chair um I want to Patrick I want to thank you for the report uh really well done I got my data fix today um and actually I'm not being sarcastic I I really did thank you I appreciate that um really well done I thought and and during the briefing with the County Administrator yesterday we got into some more detail about it too I want to ask a question that would help me understand some of the findings a little bit if you don't mind Madam chair may I ask uh absolutely um so if we talk about ADP and we look at 2023 going up to 204 it looks like there's a a 14.6 increase in the ADP over those 25 years but if as you say in the report the population of those 18 to 59 only increases to 9.9 so the the rate of the ADP is increasing at a greater rate than the population um I'm sure you got a reason for that can you explain it why is is it because the 202 380p level is still being impacted by the covid uh from 2023 the impact but why why would uh the ADP increase at a higher rate than population in in the same time period that's a that's a great question the uh historically uh for this jurisdiction as well as many other jurisdictions across the country uh is that uh the population of the facility is outstripped the population of the county in terms of growth uh and really the reason for that for the most part has been the average length of stay uh of the facility uh which again is you know operates independently of of County growth I I think one of the challenges that Allan and I have uh when we go to uh jurisdictions is that uh uh there's a perception often times of a a direct linear one forone relationship between population growth and uh uh facility growth and and population growth is a factor but it's not the main factor it impacts arrests uh and it it may impact uh certain aspects of Criminal Justice case processing but but really uh case processing and some of the issues that we just had an exchange on uh I think are are so important to really the outcome of uh any facility's population uh really average length of stay in in this County uh is the keys to the kingdom I think for uh staying ahead of the facilities population in the future okay great thank you and and thank you very much I I appreciate that and then lastly I just I want to thank the efforts of Miss Yuri our public defender's office and uh Jack Campbell our state attorney's office the Sheriff's Office and of course everyone at the Detention Facility uh for all their work and doing uh doing the work that they've done I um we've been hearing about some of the initiatives y all are taking to reduce to reduce the numbers and and try to stretch the facilities as much as we can and so I just want to thank everybody involved in doing that thank you madam chair thank you um commissioner minor commissioner o'keef thank you madam chair uh and thank you for this study I have to say that uh I believe the motion to to to instigate it was a little bit before my time and when I saw it I perceived it as a study to find out how big of a Detention Center we need to build and so when I saw the item come back and my heart tightened a little bit and when I read the report I was very relieved to see that that's not what we ended up with that's not what we needed um which I greatly appreciate um and and part of that is because in in both discussions I've had with our state attorney about what we need to see and what we've heard today from the public defender and others is we need mental health facilities for people and our Detention Center I believe I read is the number one mental health provider in our area and you know it's not a part of this report of this motion or anything but if we're able to save significant capital and not build an extended Detention Center perhaps we can consider a regional mental health facility that can serve long-term residents um for both the quality of life for them for everyone in our Detention Center or everyone in our in our community um so that was very good news it looks like in only one scenario would we have a deficit we estimate so if we don't make changes if we don't reduce our average length of stay through Court processing and things like that um then we could have a small deficit am I understand that correctly okay that's he nodded yes for the record um uh and so I'm hopeful um I'm looking forward to to seeing that especially when you know the solutions are increasing efficiency and things like that um and then um finally uh following up on the excellent comments and questions from commissioner Proctor in this report where under certain scenarios you provide that we could possibly go to the original design of let's just say single bed pods pods with the 46 or something original uh detainees um under a circumstance where we successfully reduce the average length of stays which sounds like it would be much more safe for uh the deputies for the detainees um and uh um so anyway just thank you and I was very relieved for the report and I'm very hopeful that we can achieve these improvements thank you commissioner o'keef uh commissioner madx thank you madam chair uh I was actually going to say the same thing commissioner o'keef did I'm I'm interested though that mental health piece I mean cu part you spoke a lot about um um pleas and stuff like that but the first thing you mentioned was the mental health piece how far is that outpacing everything else when it comes to L of Stay Well it it's add into the recidivism it's the it's the circle or recidivism Le to stay how far is that how much is that a factor oppos as opposed to everything else we have the uh average length of State differential in our original report I sorry commissioner I don't have it memorized I I want to say it's uh maybe one and a half times what the average length of stay for and that's that's specifically as a result of a mental health issue yes yes yeah just got handed back to us that that's enough the average length of stay is nearly twice as high as the overall average in 2022 and 2023 right right and so when we talk about about there's not nearly enough beds it's not just a Leon County problem it's not a Florida problem it's it's a United States problem right um I'm interested in knowing what Innovative things are are other counties and states or cities doing to address these things because the question I've always asked myself if you have a mental health issue do you belong in jail or do you belong in the mental health facility and how do we get you from a from a Detention Center where really is is it's not a mental health facility two-way mental health facility how do we start to change the narrative around um really thinking about the rights of those who have mental health mental health issues to say they don't belong in jail they don't belong to detention centers and we're doing them a disservice and Injustice uh by keeping them there knowing that's not that's not the rightful place uh commissioner you were you were not wrong um and and this is not a Leon County or a Florida uh issue this is what we encounter literally everywhere we work across the country uh and you're also not wrong that the the county jail here is is the largest uh mental health treatment facility uh in in the in the area and that's not unusual or unique either um how do we get people out to more appropriate facilities we need more appropriate facilities built uh we need to have a place to be able to divert uh and to deflect these uh these folks too now you you raised the question of innovative practices and what some facilities uh County jails uh have done is they have they they've designed it and built and operate uh at least sections of it to be a more therapeutic type environment where you bring those Mental Health Services inhouse uh whether they're housed there full-time that would be ideal or whether you have an outside uh provider come in uh on a regular basis to be able to provide therapy counseling uh so that when these individuals do get out you're not letting them back out and saying here's a card with an appointment for you to go to it's much more of a warm handoff you have F mental health professionals from the community in your facility they already have that relationship they already have that report right that's the piece that I was going to bring out you just you just hit on the head um our our law enforcement professionals are not Mental Health Counselors they're not they're not I mean some of them are probably trained to deal with it but they can they really adequately give the help those folks need and those detention centers to to to help them get better I don't I don't think they're trained to do such I think they do a fine job but but you're you're correct that's that's not their Prim I think they try they do they do the best they can and I and I applaud them for that but what kind of disadvantage are we putting them at by putting them in a position to have to do that when the majority of the population they deal with they deal with are dealing with these issues you know what I'm saying it's just for me it's a it's a whole different it's it's a bigger thing than us just looking at population it's it's specific population the largest population and how exactly we service them while they're in our facilities um I I do like the idea though of and I'm not even sure we can pull it off but of specific Wings where um it's more therapeutic uh and the Professionals in there are are ready and trained to deal specifically with the issues that that the mental health population that we have in our prison our jail is is dealing with um I don't know how are are you you said some some uh detention centers are doing that yes um in the detention centers that that are doing that what is what is the how how different is the I guess what I'm looking for how difficult would it be you know what that's a question how difficult would it be for our detention Center and I'm not all not at all trying to dictate to the sherff what he could what he should do but just just just for me to understand how difficult would it be for our Detention Center to create a pod of such given the population that we have on point on point on point hold on let him answer commissioner Pro on a second it's possible I think it would be difficult uh again with uh with half a dozen housing units at Double the capacity what they were originally designed for if you were to knock those back down to 47 beds as a 94 now you have a pretty big bed space deficit in in total numbers uh and so being able to set aside a pod or multiple pods to be able to do uh housing set aside specifically for those with special needs uh there uh would would become much more difficult because now you're crunching limited real estate real limited bed space right uh when I was when I was driving I was listening to you a little bit you talked a little bit about um segregation a little bit about um by and you called it something different but someone who has a violent past shouldn't be with someone who doesn't right um in my mind probably works a wrong way on this but I I I grew up as a kid in prty and one of the things that I hated the changed once my mom got Section 8 was uh when we lived in the projects everybody was poor right you got Section 8 we moved into this house and neighborhood the house right next do Mark and Matthew Carson who M who had a mom and dad or white kids I befriended them and I got a different view of what life looks like you know um I'm guessing that that doesn't cross over when it comes to Violent offenders violent offenders and those who when no I probably wouldn't I'm I'm talking myself out of it now I I would think that it comes in in mind of temperament not necessarily offense when it comes to being able to uh be around someone who could who could maybe uh help you mature or or become better or um get past that violent that violent past that you have or deal with those traumas that you may have had that led to to the violent past guess I'm saying is you put all these violent fenders in the same place at the same time but you respect them because a Detention Center in in definition is somewhere that you go to be detained but to also be rehabilitated to reenter uh Society right um so does it does it really I guess harm to put all violent offenders together and and what way does that help those who are really intentionally trying to be rehabilitated to be placed back into society I think what you're helping is your nonviolent offenders and your weaker offenders because the classification housing plan doesn't rely just on your current charge it it takes into account your your your age your mental capacity uh do you have any any mental mental illness or not violent past nonviolent past uh and it it doesn't have to be a razor Razor's Edge uh delineation between the two uh maximum and medium can be housed together some minimum and medium can be housed together it's when you jump categories minimum and Max that bad things happen so oh commissioner let me remind you all too we have a public hearing at six go ahead Commission guess I'm I'm wrapping up some other commission yeah I'm sorry I'm wrapping up um I have a family with an extensive background in detention um and so I understand it probably better than most uh so when you talk about that maximum minimum uh security stuff right I was just talking to a family member the other day he was saying he talking about the point system right so the question I have about the the violent versus nonviolent someone he said he said he said to me I had two points um 15 and below I can graduate myself s from medium to to uh minimum security right sure um and he said that's where things are a little looser for you when when it comes to working through that that chain MH can someone who's a violent offender work through that chain to get to minimum versus them because their offense always being maximum I can't speak to the specific process here in Leon County broad picture yeah that's possible okay Madam chair I I that mental health thing really gets me uh I think about you know the the folks that we have in our community that are suffer for mental health the folks that that Dawn the the homeless facility that that I that I run as far as and as Al also cury centers and others who like I said they don't belong into detention centers um I don't know how we get there I don't know what this conversation looks like I don't know if it's a workshop or not and I don't want to waste our time because maybe there's nothing we can do at this point but I would like to know uh maybe from staff what best practices are when it comes to mental health in our in our detention center and and how they're dealing with it and how we can we can talk about doing some different things to deal with the hear in Leon County thank you madam chair thank you uh thank you commissioner Maddox uh commissioner uh I think proa you had a short comment very short we've got a six o00 public here commissioner madx um his question went to the exact question that I was asking about functionality in the space and the efficiency of the space relative to the different temperaments of those who were uh detained and whether or not here at Leon County's Detention Facility if folk were being housed uh proportionate to the level of their U queued upness and so forth so he's talking about functionality of this space and I somehow didn't gleam uh a good look at that and whether or not uh mental health needed to be isolated uh paired with and all of that I think that those questions May well exceed Officers Training maybe just looking at men and women I don't know uh but one thing we commissioner Maddox that you strike is the fact that um uh the mental health population is adding to the days that when they get out absolutely uh they they recidivate they come right back through the Turn Style but what is not disclosed is that the word treatment came up somewhere there is treatment inside the Leon County Detention Center uh and as long as you're there you can be treated but when you leave you go into a Helter Skelter reality that there's no accountability for one's health and no certainty as to how you receive receive uh psychotrophic medications uh they're not available there's no um scale time you know what time you take this what time you take that that's the problem that mental health is so Loosey Goosey in uh America it's just like every other city in America we just don't give a damn about uh mentally challenged people that's the bottom line so the resources of all the things great stadiums that we have two great football stadiums illions of dollars but we don't have a midlevel uh facility long-term care for those persons who are suffering um U mental U challenges and and and maybe they need to join the boosters organizations or something thank you very much thank you thank you uh commissioner commissioner Pro I want to thank all of the Commissioners for your for your comments thank uh our public defender Jessica Yuri for appearing with us and of course I'm an attorney U I've represented defendants before and I certainly have a keen understanding of of what's going on but just one one little probative area that you all mentioned that one of the I believe the language you used was one of the Prime deterrence um that affects the length of stay was the period between a person arrest and then full adjudication uh of that process but it was and I kept reading and reading and I thought there would be some recommendation about um adding some more judges but you found in your report that the lack of of uh judicial attention wasn't a primary issue uh in the the length of stay of the inmates that it was other things that you mentioned in the report am I correct you didn't you didn't think that the fact that it might be um I guess full dockets I know sometime you go to docket sound and you can sit there a long time CU there all you know a whole list of of uh criminals on that docket but you didn't find that to be a deterrent a deficiency in the overall process well commissioner we we did not recommend that in the report but uh that is always very helpful if uh uh the state was able to create two more divisions of court that would move that would move for any jurisdiction uh any Court we wanted to look at something that uh recommendations that were more or less within the uh purview of the stakeholders thank you and if I can ask the public defender this looking at the percentage of the individuals that's following upon commissioner Proctor and commissioner mad the number of individuals that are in incarcerated that have mental issues I would think that the public defender you probably have a disproportionate number of individuals with those issues that you rep represent out of your office yes ma'am absolutely and I think the the two things just to your last point it's not necessarily more judges or more access to a courtroom but it's the things that we're waiting on constantly to set our case for trial we're waiting on Discovery we're waiting for the state to respond to something we're waiting for the state to review the case that's what's delaying things additionally when we don't have those things we can't prepare as the defense to get ready for trial so that's an issue but specifically to mental health to answer your question yes we could stop arresting mentally ill people and putting them in jail we can divert them to the mental health facilities we can give them the resources they need outside of the the Leon County Detention Center and I'll tell you the sheriff and I have had many conversations he's doing everything he can but his staff at the jail are the first ones calling us saying we can't take care of this person they are so Gravely mentally ill can you help us resolve the case and so criminalizing that and charging with them with crime is not helping so that's what my recommendation would be to you all is to continue to fund those alternative resources thank you thank you so much shankton you all thank you all for for the great report we know we can't resolve all the issues tonight but we've got Foundation facts to work on and perhaps at some point we can work workshop it but at this moment I would like all those in favor of the motion on the floor let me know by saying I I I any opposition hearing none the motion passes we will now recess until 6:00 for our public hearing [Music]