e oh you're fine you're fine good morning everybody and welcome to our meeting I will call the meeting to order it is Tuesday April 23rd 2024 this is the putham County Board of county commissioner regular meeting at 9:00 um today's invocation will be led by Sandra Gillard who is our chaplain at the hospital and the Pledge of Allegiance will be done by commissioner Terry Turner All Rise if you're able to do so miss gilard please come to the front thank you first I just say good morning to each of you and God's blessings upon you let us pray father in the name of Jesus God we come humbly before your presence we come with praise and with Thanksgiving God realizing without a shadow of a doubt that we can do nothing without you God we thank you for these men and women that dedicate their lives God to making sure that our County our communities God run as smoothly as possible God we thank you for all that you have entrusted them with God we pray for their families because we realize God that many times the family uh may not necessarily take a backseat but certainly give way so that the Affairs of this community will be handled God we pray for wisdom we pray for knowledge and understanding and God help us to listen to one another God to do things with our heart and asking ourselves God what is in the best interest of those that I serve now God we just continue to Humble ourselves before you and we trust you to lead and guide us in the way that you would have us to go and we'll be ever so careful to give you praise honor and Glory it's in the mighty matchless name of Jesus that we pray amen amen please join me in the pledge a pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Reverend gilard thank you so much for your prayer and um commissioner Turner thank you next time our agenda is the approval of the minutes so the chair will entertain a motion Mr chair I move approval of the board of county commissioner regular meeting minutes of March 26 2024 proper motion do we have a second second any further discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose like sign the eyes have it item A2 Mr chair I move approval of board count commissioner Workshop meeting February 20th 2024 second proper motion we have a second any further discussion on that motion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I pose like sign the eyes have it uh presentations real quick shandelle Gard you have a presentation real quick you want to introduce somebody to us come on up morning chairman put that microphone right to you thank you good morning chairman Commissioners fellow staff I just want to introduce this will be uh rep pay's new District Aid this is Amanda Hayes and I just want to make an introduction uh she is with our current staff now and I will be leaving the position um on Friday so I just want to make introduction to you just so you have a face with the name thank you thank you sh Amanda you have anything you want to say well welcome we we'll see you in the audience then if you need us give us a holler uh next on our item is 3A proclamations mental health awareness I've asked commissioner Wilkinson to do that so commissioner Wilkinson you have the floor thank you chair puam County Proclamation 202 24-37 a proclamation to recognize May 2024 as putam County me Mental Health Awareness Month whereas mental health is a part of overall health whereas mental health sustains an individual's thought processes relationships productivity and ability to adapt to change and whereas the consequences of not addressing mental health and psychosocial development for children and adolescen extend to adulthood and limit opportunities for leading fulfilling lives and whereas increased empathetic responses reduces the stigma of those incarcerated and struggling with mental health illness who should be given the opportunity to restorative rather than punitive treatment whereas through public education and Civic activities putham County remains engaged in the promise to address the challenges facing people with mental health illness and whereas mental health awareness month is an opportunity to increase public understanding of the importance of mental health and to promote the identification and treatment of mental illness and whereas communities understanding and available supports and services can greatly impact a person's ability to handle their stress and struggle and move forward and whereas promoting mental health and wellness leads to higher overall productivity better educational outcomes lower crime rates stronger economies lower health care costs improved family life improve quality of life and increase lifespan and whereas each business school government agency health care provider faith-based organization nonprofit agency and citizen shares accountability for the community's mental health needs and has a respons responsibility to promote mental health wellness and support preventative efforts now therefore be it proclaimed that the putam County Board of County Commissioners proclaims the month of May 2024 as mental health awareness month Mr chair I move approval of proclamation number 20 24- 037 second we a proper motion we have a second any further discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor for signify by saying I I POS like sign the eyes have [Applause] it yeah three two one thank you commissioner binson next item is our Proclamation for historic preservation month I've asked commissioner Pickins to do that Proclamation you have the floor sir okay thank you chairman Harvey um Sheree Danny youall want to come forward with your group ham County Proclamation number 202 24-38 recognizing May is historic preservation month whereas local historic preservation is an effective tool for revitalizing neighborhoods fostering local PR in maintaining Community character with enhancing livability and whereas historic preservation is relevant for communities Across the Nation both urban and rural and for Americans of all ages of all Walk of Life and all ethnic backgrounds and whereas it important to celebrate the role of his history in our lives and the contributions made by dedicated individuals in helping to preserve the tangible aspects of the Heritage that has shaped us as a people and whereas the Fruitland peninsula Historic Society the putham county Historic Society the interlockin Historical Society historic Melrose and other community groups are participating in stor preservation month during May of 2024 and whereas the putam county as a whole has embarked upon numerous commitments to preservation historic archaeological surveys nomination of significant cultural resources through the local state and National register of historical places and protection of traditional neighborhoods the integration of historic elements with Redevelopment and recognition Rehabilitation and restoration of historic properties therefore on the behalf of Larry Harvey chairman of the putam County Board of County commissioners of Florida du by Proclaim May 2024 as a Tor preservation month and call upon the people of putam County Florida to join their fellow citizens across the United States and recognizing and participating in the special observance done ordered adopted this 23rd day of April 2024 Mr chairman I make the motion that we approve this Proclamation we have proper motion we have a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I oose like sign the eyes have it thank [Applause] you yeah I just wanted to say thank you guys very much this is the third year in a row that we've celebrated um historic preservation month and the Fruitland Peninsula Historical Society um we have some activities going on all through the month one of them is you'll see signs out in front of a lot of the historic buildings that say this place matters and it has a QR code on there you can shoot the QR code with your phone and it'll tell you all about the history of the building behind you and so it's a really kind a neat project we've been expanding it every year so we'll have I think like 60 or 70 sites on it this year so um we appreciate your support and we appreciate you guys celebrating historic preservation month with us I just like before we take a picture a couple of comments um sh Nelson register her mother was margorie Neil Nelson who was a town historian for years and the families go way back and she is taking on her mother's tasks and uh we are so grateful for that and we have Dan anny Miller with us one of the Miller um family and their family goes back to operating steam ships on the St John's river correct Danny so these people have um taken a great interest in the history of putam County and especially in South puam and I just want to thank you for all your effort so I'd like you to say a couple of things if you would okay please well first of all most importantly than thank you for your support uh putham county is really the heart of old Florida and the growth is sure to come and while we all have an eye on that growth uh it's important that we keep an eye on our past and uh do what we can to integrate that with the growth that has coming and doing so maintain the wonderful character of our home thank you again for your support thank you Mr Miller I also want to just thank y'all for your support that we've got it my mother left me a a great heritage to pass on she sure did so I've got to find a home for all that uh we are going to start working on the Florida Citrus Trail if y'all know anything about that we uh had a program on it last week and I think that's going to be a project that we take over as far as South puam but they grew oranges in a lot more places in South partum yeah Nicole you want to say something from the so my uh history with the county although it's been quite intense since I've gotten here um only goes back to my high school days of Cross Country meets um which was six years ago when I came up but it's certainly with a passion my family and I came here um just about 10 years ago and it's beautiful it's beautiful in uh the memories that we have and the support that we have for one another so um um I'm currently president of the puam County Historical Society and being able to work with uh my friends here because they are now my friends um to further our um the historic elements of our community and share those and expand the offerings to our community is is wonderful but thank you very much for your support I know you guys are here every single time and we appreciate it because we know it's diligent work on your part thank you once youall come up and we'll get picture we're going to stay in the back come right on up here you're doing good you're doing good thank you thank [Applause] you see in the audience representative Bobby pay's here welcome to the puton County Chamber I always wanted to do that like the Florida house I'm sorry about I just couldn't resist representative pay it's always good to have you in our presence and thank you for all your hard work you've done for putham County Mr Sam car waterways and trails if you'll come up you said you can do this in six minutes so no we're going to do it in six minutes well thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of the uh putham County waterways and trails committee um I was asked to present to you basically the the status of the bartum Trail in Flor by Trail here in putam County as you know this is the week that starts the U the eighth annual bam Frolic here on the front on the uh on on the river front and we'll be um we'll be frolicking on Friday night especially and uh all day Saturday and Sunday as well so uh hope to bring um several thousand people to the riverfront and um and all so this all started in at the waterways committee with Nancy Harris um she uh we were asked uh in one of our meetings did anything important or historical happen in the riverfront in patka well I had just finished a paddling trip with my friend Dean Campbell and um found out that there was a guy by name William Bartram that actually lived here for a while and he wrote America's first literary Masterpiece called travels and right there in the pages Pages 100 or so there's patka unbelievable and it was really an inspiration to us all at the time so I mentioned it to to uh to Nancy and so she said Sam you're the chairman of the Bartram trail in putham County committee so that's how this thing got started and um we started inviting people from out of town into here to tell us was it really true and it and it turned out to be very much true so the county and the city took us on as a project and so the county uh and the city uh sponsored us with a Florida Humanities Council Grant and um and by by doing that we were able to develop the baram trail in putham County as we know it today uh the city provided uh help with writing to Grants and um and the River Center and those kind of things the county uh provided us with meeting space and really support they just enabled us every time we needed to get something done you know Nancy was there stomping her foot and getting it done it was great and we appreciated all of that uh and so L on beh we came up and we made it a trail we had a brochure and the National Park Service found out about it and they came to town saying we'd like to make it a national park National Recreation trail and I said as long as I don't have to do anything fine uh but they did and within just a matter of um of a year or so we became a national Recreation Trail and uh that kind of started the bartrum Frolic because we did it as a as a celebration for the national Recreation Trail so the um the actual first Frolic was here in 2017 and um we had a uh Symposium at the larer as part of the uh what as part of the uh Humanities Council Grant and uh we invited folks and we didn't know how many we' have we had room for 75 and we had a 100 show up and I asked them how many of you from putam County and there was about 20 that were from puam County the rest of them were from not from putham County and that's really how was the inspiration for us to to do this thing so the Frolic started as a celebration of St John's river and Barton's Heritage here and in 2019 the the committee transformed into a 501c which became the bartum trail Society of Florida and then following that year we had the uh the uh St John's River Keeper and the putam county uh School District started an education program and so that education program starts tomorrow morning again and so we bring in second graders and every second grader in putam County for the last five or six years has been treated to a boat ride and to learn about the St John's river and Bart stuff we've educated over 4,000 second graders on that river front and then of course we start the Frolic out uh this T this week will be Friday at 6 o'clock you've all received invitations to our VIP Frolic and we hope that you'll be there because uh we'll have a have some bartum food and uh and U and some entertainment from our living history folks uh prior to that at 6:00 we're going to be celebrating the city of pla is celebrating their Trail Town designation their Gateway Community designation and their uh blueway Community designation will be at six o'clock there with a whole bunch of bicyclers and so forth so we and there are also celebrating the opening of The River Center and the uh reopening of the River Center and the the uh the walkway underneath so a lot of stuff going on and um we appreciate it and we hope that you'll be be involved with it uh but I don't spend a lot of time here in puton County anymore and the reason is because we got another bunch of counties that have taken up the ass the idea and they're doing it so on the 13th of of April I was at Nassau County and we had a big celebration it's part of their historical week up there and uh with the BART launching the bartum trail of Nassau County uh last weekend we were in Clay County uh with the pars and rec department at Camp Cheno we launched there the Clay County bartum Trail up there uh today we're are this week we're doing the Frolic here on May the 3 and 4th we'll be at in ela County launching the ELA the Elo County Bart Trail St John's County is May the 11th so so it's it's really amazing and all of this is to recognize that this is the 250th anniversary of William bartum paddling here to patka he stayed at Stokes Landing what was called the lower store and uh made us travels Up and Down the River from there and then he wrote the book and the rest is history and it all started here in these room so we thank you we hope you'll come and participate with it thank you s have other members of the society here with me too so yeah thank you and you did well you did it in six minutes as you you said so you did good uh do want to recognize real quick Colonel Joe Wells he was a man of the year with the American Boy Scouts the other day uh and U we appreciate you thank you couldn't be more deserving for somebody like you to get that so I appreciate it and all the hard work you do with the Boy Scouts in this region uh Nancy Russo SMA Healthcare a cttu update good morning good morning it's hard to believe that this is the sixth year I've come up before the board to give this report but it um in your packet is the final numbers for the grant and um the ability to meet all of the deliverables as they were expected except for we did miss one um CIT class this last year due to scheduling conflicts with the with the college so um otherwise all of our numbers have exceeded or met what was required when you look at um how many adults we were required to serve for the year it was 263 which is 159% of what was required and for um I'm sorry that was the adolescence the adults served was 732 which was 183 3% of what was required so we had a really um Good Year of being able to provide services to our um targeted population so over the six years I wanted to just give you all a glance of what this Grant and the partnership with the county has been able to do so as far as uh law law enforcement hours saved in 6 years it was 2940 hours we we were able to divert 92 Baker acts which means if someone came to us instead of having to place them under a 72-hour hold we were able to provide those Services right then that was able to give them the stability they they needed instead of going to that higher level of care we transported 1,77 adults over that six-year period 25 Adolescent and we were able to transport 458 people back to to the community to keep them engaged in treatment and then every time um one of the deputies or anyone from law enforcement brings us somebody to transport our number one question was could they have been arrested had they not um been placed under a Baker Act was what they did um for somebody who didn't have mental health issues something they would have been arrested for and out of all of our transports 423 people could have been arrested so that shows that number one Health First Aid and CIT are working because they're able to distinguish the difference between something that may be a true criminal act and something that could have been mental health related so when I spoke to the Sheriff's Department about that they said if somebody is incarcerated the um average length of stay has been 39 days and if you multiply that by how much it cost to be in jail per day we were able to te you know in some way shape or form a percentage of it could have been $1.7 million if those people had been arrested and stayed that average number of days so we think the program has been very successful and we have appreciated the partnership and um as of March 31st the grant was over we are able to provide limited services for the sheriff's department um Monday through Friday at least until the um end of the year the beginning of 2025 as we continue to look for funding to get a back up to a a better level of of um service thank any questions any questions commission thank you very much we appreciate you coming our next item on the agenda Mr Lorie Parker uh you have a employee of the month good morning good morning Miss Park um the employees the month for March is Amanda Gabriel Amanda is the gis analyst too for IT department um in addition to her excelling at all her job duties she actually is the GIS mapping genius for the Department um James is going give you some more information on her accomplishments and what she has done to help the county and the Sheriff's Office sure good morning Commissioners and staff uh Amanda is definitely a shining star in the gis division Amanda's dedication and hard work have made her an invaluable asset to our team as an outstanding analyst and researcher she has created numerous GIS applications both for internal and external use meaning for internal use for staff as well as our citizens up here in putham County displaying her commitment to Excellence Amanda's quick turnaround time and responsiveness has been critical like when she quickly provided paper mats for a critical and crucial uh search and rescue operation down in Waka just a few weeks ago uh helping with the Sheriff's Office and uh Department urgency Services her current project the county reference map uh promises even greater impact when it's released here in the next couple of weeks Amanda truly you are um exceptional I really mean that from the bottom of my heart and we congratulate for you congratulate you and are grateful for all that you do so congratulations as well deserve recognition all my I'll come on probably ought to stay up here congratulations all right next on our agenda Planning and Development Zach you have a rezone good morning Commissioners for the record Zachary Baker planning and development services I am going to turn this um this presentation over to Jennifer in just a moment I do want to remind you all uh due to the requirements of Florida statute 12566 5B uh this is the first of two public hearings for a rezone because it's larger than 10 acres so that being said um Jennifer Gaz so Zach real quick explain to the audience uh who's watching and who's here what that means because go ahead certainly so um Florida Statutes anticipates that um citizens of the county may want to be interested in rezoning of land and uh for that reason anytime there's more than 10 acres of land being rezoned the statutes require that the board of County Commissioners specifically the board of County Commissioners not their uh design um conduct two public hearings for the consideration of a rezone so for that reason um since the property that we're referring to is 224 Acres um we have to do two public hearings so today will be the first public hearing more or less to inform the audience of what's uh what's occurring uh down in Georgetown area um and then at the end of this public hearing uh depending on how the chairman so cares to conduct this board portion of the public hearing um we will decide when the second public hearing will be conducted yes the only thing we'll do today is take a set a date and time U as a board so good all right Jennifer you have the floor I'm sorry yes and there's another public hearing at that point good morning everyone Jennifer gazelle for the record this application is to men the zoning map from plan unit development and agriculture to residential estate the applicant is David Pepper the subject property is all 224 Acres of Hog Island totaling 22 parcel ID numbers future land use is agriculture current zoning is PUD and agriculture this proposal is to amend the zoning map to allow development of a private luxury Community the purpose of the requested zoning map amendment is to rezone all 224 Acres of Hog Island from plan unit development PUD ordinance 1997-04 and agriculture to residential estate to allow for development of a private luxury residential Community which would be reviewed and processed as a ploted subdivision dependent on the outcome of the subject request based on this supplied conceptual plan of what could be developed the community could comprised of a total of 22 single family Waterfront Lots ranging from 5.9 to 14.6 Acres lot sizes are subject to change when the plot is reviewed by the development Review Committee the island is currently encumbered by a PUD development agreement aisle of St John's ordinance 1997-04 which expired 5 years after being approved in 199 7 as no development occurred consistent with the phasing schedule of said development agreement Additionally the island is also encumbered by a platted subdivision Hog Island subdivision mbook 4 page 108 in which road and drainage improvements were not completed our aerial view of Hog Island zoning map future land use the conceptual subdivision that the applicants provided the residential estate zoning district is implemented traditionally for larger one acre or more depending on the residential density Parcels located on navigable waterways and to implement residential policies of the Agriculture and Rural residential use categories the re zoning district is is compatible with the current future land use category assigned to Hog Island the proposed rezone also provides an assured use that the lands on Hog Island can only be used for single family residential development other lands on the island are zon agriculture which allows the development of mobile homes and several other uses to the approved special use permit the subject zoning Amendment proposal is an effective down zoning which limits development to those compatible with the re zoning District the proposed zoning map amendment is compatible with the surrounding uses should the Hog Island rezone be approved it will then move forward through the type 1 subdivision replat process there will be three hearings to review subdivision development and plat approval one preliminary hearing before the Planning Commission and two hearings before the board of County Commissioners once the plot is approved the applicant will then submit to development Review Committee to satisfy additional development requirements the DRC will review plans to ensure the development is compliant with local state and federal development regulations agencies including but not limited to Florida Department of Health putham County Public Works Emergency Services St John's River Water Management District will review plans to ensure the development will not adversely affect surrending properties staff finds that the proposed rezoning is consistent with the goals objectives and policies of the adopted comprehensive plan and meets the locational requirements of the residential estate zoning District provided in the Land Development code and the comprehensive plan staff recommends approval of the request to amend the zoning map from plan unit development and agriculture to residential estate the Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the rezoning application at the scheduled public hearing on March 13 2024 questions commissioner any questions okay thank you very much is the applicant here and wishes to speak Mr Kennedy if you would state your name and address for the record please good morning Patrick Kennedy 126 FAL Avenue pona Park Florida this yeah if you could put that microphone right to you there you go I don't usually have to move the microphone up so usually that way uh I'm here on behalf of the applicant the peppers um don't have a lot to add the staff report is fairly comprehensive the presentation was fairly comprehensive obviously we agree with the recommendation of the staff and the Planning Commission to rezone this uh hog into residential estate zoning I would only uh reemphasize some of the points made that this is the most conservative uh rezoning uh that the applicants could request and still remain compatible with the future land use and the uh in the surrounding area and I think it also demonstrates their intent to do large lot residential only on this island so we ask that you keep that in mind as you consider this matter um we are kind of in a situation uh where we have to reone this property nobody wants to recognize the prior PUD and that leaves the property in limbo and your own Land Development code says if we're not going to recognize or renew the Pud then we need to reone it to something compatible with the land use and surrounding uh properties and that's what we're asking for here today uh the applicants are here to answer any questions regarding the vision you may have or if you have any technical questions staff or or myself if I can help we'll be glad to answer those Mr Kennedy I have a question for you yes when I first looked at this and in islands are not uncommon in putham county and services for those islands are very complicated we don't have fairies and we don't have certain things fire suppression being one of them um you know you're going to sell these lots and put people over there who are going to expect certain Services we can't provide there's just no way we're going to do that so I guess during the DRC that'll be brought up of how you're going to accomplish the fire suppression the trash the maintenance of Roads things like that because it's I don't think it's prudent for us to put that on the on the backs of the taxpayers of puton County who don't live on the island and that'll be a more expensive proposition you know I mean I hate to say taxes aren't fair but they're not but in this case they're really not fair when you choose to live on an island so that's just the concern of mine I just wanted to say that be mindful of that's a concern of mine I don't know what it means to other people we've already had some preliminary discussions with staff because they they share your concerns they've already and I think uh we're on the path to to providing answers to all those issues we also hope that the uh the nature of the development the taxes that will be derived uh from the development I we're not I'm not saying it's going to pay for all the issues you brought up but we hope it'll be consider considerable value to the uh the ad revenue for the the county any other comments Commissioners yeah chairman Howry those were those are some of my concerns and I guess we'll talk about maybe those a little more at the second meeting is um you know I understand the tax base there's no question about that but you're still there's not a road to get there so it's going to require if we don't have the equipment to purchase equipment um to be able to provide those people with the services they're going to expect I think it does say in the packet that the garbage will be taken over um by by barge or something um to a piece of property but that's my biggest concern because it will fall back on the county not providing the services if they don't get provided if you see where I'm coming from oh yeah absolutely same same thing we understand that the development uh can't happen until we come back through you guys with the the plat for approval and hopefully all those questions will be addressed at that time okay and that will be through the we've already started down that path but there's there's there's options and we want to work with staff to figure out what those best options are okay all right thank you any further questions okay we don't have any of the applicant want to speak or are they satisfied okay all right all right thank you Patrick is anybody in the audience for this project you got some blue cards or against this project and we so let's go through the okay Mr Bruce McCutchen you will have H three minutes to um and time will be kept on that my name is Bruce McCutchen I reside at 123 Georgetown Landing Road Georgetown Florida I think most of the Neighbors in the area are not concerned with the actual uh resoning of the uh Island uh it's more or less When you mention like the garbage service and stuff uh transported by barge to where you know and parking and Marina facilities for the island where do they where do they exist materials transfer to the island these the concerns that uh I'm adjacent to the to uh Mr Pepper's property at uh one uh 119 121 uh which is where I would assume uh the transfer of these materials and and such would be at and I think that's more the concern is that this hasn't been referenced at all it's simply been uh put down to the rezoning of the island itself but it's the peripheral situations that I think most of uh the local residents in the area have concerns with thank you thank you sir thank you thank you Steve Norman and uh Jerry Wilson if you'll be up on Deck Jerry Wilson here okay if you'll come up and be next in line good morning Mr Norman good morning um Steve Norman um one of the owners of idol Resort uh located at 120 Georgetown lyion Road in George Town Florida um being new to the area a few years ago when we purchased the old Porky Landing um I faced um many more hurdles than I expected at at the time of the purchase and um when you look at the puds and development of property I'm I support the development of Hog Island I do understand the residents concerns because we talk about it on a regular basis but um I think that development with the increase in tax base and bringing um new Revenue to the area can only help the southern end of putam County so from a business owner standpoint I think allowing um the rezoning I think is a is the way to go thank you Mr Norman thank you Mr Norman Miss Wilson and then Judy York if you'll be up on Deck please start making your way down good morning my name is Jerry Wilson my husband and I live at 103 Georgetown Landing Road our property is adjacent to 121 and 125 Geor geown Landing Road behind the two lots to the Northeast our property has been in our family for over 20 years we are doing our best to preserve the peace and quiet and the small town atmosphere of Georgetown on page 31 of today's agenda the Lots on Georgetown Landing Road are mentioned as part of the Hog Island resoning project to include parking docking and trash removal for 22 residences this would require a major land use change and will negatively affect Georgetown Landing residences and homeowners in fact 125 Georgetown in Road does not have any Frontage on the road on the paid Road and is nestled in between our property and Mr and Bruce's property and uh and that his property is on the paid Road turning the two lots into commercial property and docking facilities not to mention the barge for trash removal will impact the peace and privacy of all the neighbors there are notice of public hearings on the property sign on Georgetown Landing Road so last week I was trying to obtain more information about the hearing luckily I was able to consult with an attorney and he was able to provide me with the agenda to give me this information I am not against reone in a beautiful island so people can enjoy life however when it comes to the expense of others it's time to litigate I know this hearing is not about rezoning Georgetown Landing Road but since it's part of the plan maybe an alternate plan needs to be considered I found it interesting that one of my presentations at today's meeting was the pro Proclamation for May as historic preservation month many communities were mentioned to include Fruitland Melrose Etc it would be nice to include Georgetown on that list I appreciate you giving me the time to talk today thank you all for your time and your service thank you thank you Miss York and then meline Wilcox if you'll be up on Deck good morning I'm Judith York I live at 142 Drayton Island Road I've been an full-time resident of island of I life I support this change I support David Pepper's projects every he's touched is first class he's taken in account of all aspects of what the county would want he's actually even taken a historical landmark in Georgetown the schoolhouse and revamped that uh I also an assistant manager for the Basin that's over that a lot of the residents of drton Island stay at as well as some of the other marinas I hold 39 vehicles plus and it's a small area but we can control it and there isn't this ton of noise or anything as far as trash pickup it can be very coordinated with the dumpster I'm sure Mr pepper and they're all thinking about it they may actually have incinerators whatever there's modern technology out there so I support this resoning and whatever happens on the mainland I'm sure it'll be addressed appropriately thank you good to see you again thank you Miss Y and Miss WL Cox please I will have to move this up hi my name is meline Wilcox I live on 266 Drayton Island Road um I am I grew up in North Central Florida Central Florida and it's been a lifelong dream of M to live on the St John's river which I just recently moved back from California and I um have been there for the past two years I also live in a historical home I'm a huge fan of Bartram trail um so considering all that with the H the hyos and the environmental impact I actually spoke to Mr pepper and as I understood it it was 10 homes on 10 acre Parcels so minimally I mean the environmental impact I think would be minimal whereas the economic in Impact would be substantial potentially and I think our County could definitely use that and in regards the taxes um having just moved from San Louis abiso County Florida I can tell you mean California I had twice as much acreage and my taxes were just reassessed and I paying double what I was in one of the most expensive counties in California so I can't imagine that this would not be beneficial and that we would be able to figure out a way to provide services um I'm sure I'm confident that that could happen so um yeah so I am basically I am for the rezoning as a local and and and I have empathy for the Neighbors on Georgetown Landing Road but I'm confident that something can be figured out with that as well thank you m thank you anybody else want to speak in favor or against this project all right we'll close the public hearing part of that and Commissioners we need to set a date a future date and time what is the date of the next County Commission meeting it would be May 14th Mr chairman I move that we uh have our next U our next meeting at on May 14th at 9:00 or soon thereafter as possible we have proper motion we have a second second proper second any further discussion on that motion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose like sign the eyes have it thank you very much now we're going to go into our public comment on agenda items this portion of the agenda is designed to allow citizens an opportunity to bring matters to the attention of the board it's not reasonable to expect that the board will engage engage in debate or deliberations about matters which the board has received no prior information as part of the agenda we will limit your comments to three minutes public comment cards are conveniently placed in the meeting room at the entrance and should be submitted prior to the meeting to the deputy clerk who sits on my left your right Miss Ashley over here so on the first do we have any public comments and I think I'm getting the cards now these are all new business okay these are all under new business okay so we'll go ahead and take up the um we're going to take up our new business comments real quick under the public comment section of this agenda so our first person is Mr creel Allan creel that's not you sir Mr yeah we're talking agenda items that are listed on the agenda please come up state your name hi I'm Alan creel U 4630 Apache Avenue Jacksonville Florida um grew up here in putham County um love the area the the mighty St John's river um is a wonderful River a lot of lot of great things that um can be done and um from fishing enjoyment and tourism that that the river brings um I come today to speak on behalf of the bridge lighting project and my experience with um lighting of bridges um particularly in the north Florida area um I've um been a part of the maintenance and installation of lighting for HART Main Street um Fuller Warren pathway bridge and uh all seven of the movable bridges in uh District 2 for DOT we've seen a a lot of benefit in the in the north Florida area with his bridge lighting um from tourism as well as the uh safety aspects of having the bridge peers lit um and then the the technology of the LED is improving over the lifespan from the time that we first started installing them you know 20 years ago until where they are today and the lifespan of these are um can get up to 100,000 hours which if you burn these at 6 hours a day you would roughly have 45 years worth of lifespan on these so um we'd love to um share all of our experience with that and um say that we're in favor of it thank you thank you okay Commissioners I'm going to do something a little different because I'm not we're going to go on to is there anybody else in the audience want to speak on any other agenda items other than bridge lighting on the new business okay we're going to close that real quick Commissioners consent agenda items commissioner Pickins uh item a item a commissioner w i mean commissioner adamac commissioner Turner Item B commissioner Wilkinson I have none and I have none commissioner Pickins you have first yeah there needs to be a correction on the on the number Julian you want to tell us what the number is yes sir the agenda item um there was a typographical error and so the actual uh payment there is going to be the job growth not the 80% generally do a comparison this year the job growth is actually less than what the 80% is so when we copy and pasted the recommended action um I just copy and pasted the wrong number for you so that number there is going to be the 3 Point pull it up for you 915 915 46 467 repeat that again please it's 3,915 467 no sense no sir okay so 3, 900,000 $91 15,45 70 yeah if you look up in your engine item you'll see year four it has an either or job creation um with a per job cost or uh value and or not to exceed 80% of the ADV valorum so when you do the math the job creation is actually less than the 80% and so the recommended action should read uh to remit the payment in the amount of the three 915 467 okay and this is a uh really quick this was a prior board decision to um to incentivize Georg Pacific to build another part of their plant here and this is I think year four of a fiveyear commitment of keeping Georgia Pacific uh in putam County which is a good thing commissioner Pickin if you still have the floor sir I'll go ahead and make a motion to accept um item a repayment to Georgia Pacific with a corrected number of 3 million 9 915 467 a proper motion we have a second proper second any further discussion on item a hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I oose like sign the eyes have it uh Commissioner Adam Zach are you that item B was that you that was me that was commission Turner I'm sorry I had to pull Item B because I have a conflict of interest and can't vote on it okay we duly noted so um I'll make I'll make a motion that we accept Item B uh the procurement for the Crescent City Library roof at 58833 uh I make that motion second proper motion proper second any further discussion hearing none all in favor with commissioner Turner abstaining from the vote I I I oppos like sign the eyes have it and Mr chair I move approval of consent agenda item C thank you commissioner Wilkinson okay proper motion proper second any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I iose like sign the eyes have it we're going to go down to new business real quick and we'll get back to appointments we're going to be moving the lighting up to um the main thing because that's most of our Mr KR thank you for already speaking about that and we'll go on to so this is under new business Memorial Bridge lighting and uh next on our blue cards Mr Elliot Kane please remind me to go back to S okay thank you good morning Commissioners morning Mr I'm Elliot Kane I live at 546 County Road 207a in East batka I'm coming today to speak in support of the bridge lights you know you talk about the bridge lights but the bridge has been lit before um they put red and green lights on it I don't think any of y'all were born then I understand it made the newspaper but I don't think I could read then but I did right over the bridge the old bridge they replaced the Globes with red and green lights at Christmas now can you imagine we go to 2024 and look at the opportunity for the bridge and I hope we have unanimous support on this because now we have all the different options that can be and the gentleman talked about the maintenance at 100,000 hours it seems pretty practical now we can have red and green lights in the entire bridge but we can also have red white and blue at um Fourth of July we can have green for St Patrick's Day we can have orange and blue when Florida finally beats Georgia yes and then of course we can have garnet and gold when Florida but I said I wanted to have a unanimous vote on this so but I can tell you every school child in putham County it was a huge project and I cannot draw a stickman but we all tried to draw our little things of the bridge so it's very positive but I think that recently um I was in charge of building grounds at First Presbyterian Church on the river and the question we came into was how and why why should you do this why why should that why why should you do this and we Face the same problem at First Presbyterian Church why should we light up the church on the outside but our um our decision was kind of tempered we had to pay for it it wasn't a gift from the state and the logic was we did not want the the church to look like the Hampton in we wanted the church to look more like the the courthouse that they've done or the um County Board of Education how they've done but that was very difficult for us so we decided to light it from the inside which made it even more difficult because you can imagine um we had to put molding on the inside of a 100y old walls that had plaster there were all sorts of complications now the congregation said okay we understand how you want to do it but why should you do it why should you spend this money forward what is the right decision for putham County and for our little church on the river we had just spent a lot of money we had an organ that was donated in 1906 we had taken the Bell out that the city put in in the bell tower 1906 and rehung the Bell so funds were kind of limited and it became the why well the why was because it was the right thing to do it something that even driving by it's a a fundamental part of the downtown and obviously you cannot take the Memorial Bridge that's not a fundamental part of of putham County you can imagine am I running out of time you're out I'm out you're out can I just say one thing that's I would ask you to uh be from the philosopher of that Hank Williams when he said I saw the wrong but I moved to the right but praise the Lord I Saw the Light sorry we're not supposed to clap but that was pretty good I I have to say okay your meeting Jenny Jenny Robins thank you I'm short so I have to put it down uh good morning I'm Jenny Robbins 104 Blanchet Avenue Paca Florida um I'm a lifelong resident uh frequently on that River and I love this community um today I'm here representing the puton County Chamber of Commerce as I serve as their uh chair board this year we would like to express our support for the moral bridge lighting we believe this project will enhance the growing vibrancy of downtown which will lead to economic impact resulting in Economic Development Investments and tourism these beautiful lights will boost Community Pride create positive uh coverage comments from the media and serve as memorable icon for putam County we thank you for everything you do and your time and consideration with this um lighting thank you thank Jenny thank you thank you thank you next up is colen Bingham and on Deck is Brick Sloan after that morning everybody uh Colin Bingham 113 Marina Road here in placa um I hear with my hat as the president of the Main Street Paka program that was recently reorganized um and through the Department of State we've declared the bridge as the gateway to Paca and they are 100% in support of the bridge lighting as are we and if we can help out in any way we are here to do so so again thank you and again we have 100% support thank you thank you Mr re Sloan thank you Commissioners and thank you for your service the Memorial Bridge Transportation the river the river crossing is at the core of our community p is founded in 1821 because it was named River Crossing I don't think we really understand and appreciate every day we travel that bridge a professional recently came into our community and shared with me blacka has a great ass at plam County's River and I said yes I agree with you and he said no what you don't understand is this community's blessing is that it has a dramatic entrance I go to communities all over this country I've never seen one quite so pretty you get to the crest of the Memorial Bridge and you look down he said and that's in either direction East or West they said and you say wow what a beautiful community and you know you have arrived this past week putham County was viewed on National Television all over our country can you imagine the eyeballs on the Memorial Bridge lit up at night and faced with difficult decisions I like to relate things analogies I'm a car person so I'm going to give you a car analogy if the state of Florida showed up at your door said I'd like to give you a car a nice one at that but the obligation to receive this gift is that you have to put fuel in it and you might have to pay some maintenance along the way if you use it I don't know many citizens in putham county that would refuse that gift I know this decision may be a controversial one for the this board and I'm reminded of a quote by Art Williams the only way to not be controversial is to be average and ordinary and I believe that putam county is anything but average and ordinary it's time to turn our front porch light on light up our dramatic stage to shine the light on our beautiful County for the the entire world to see it is our time I support the lighting of the Memorial Bridge thank you all and God bless thank you Mr Charlie Douglas good morning Charlie Douglas 117 North 2 Street Mr chairman Commissioners thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts this morning I rise in support of the lighting of the bridge it's a great way to make patka memorable visible and it will assist with the revitalization of downtown I Ur your support thank you thank you thank you and we have another card thank you Massy representative Bobby Payne good morning members uh it's a pleasure to be with you again today you know I just want to speak in favor of the lighting of the bridge I think I've spoken to each one of you individually at some point in time over the last year and over my time in the legislature in the last few years I vacillated on this decision it's a tough decision it's a risk reward decision for each of you I think for our community looking at the risk compared to reward to me it's very obvious that the reward outweighs the risk I can tell you that if we don't use this opportunity now some other community will use the opp opportunity to take this dollars and spend it somewhere else it will go back to F dot they will use it for some other community that's wait in line for this opportunity I think you've heard this morning of the growth we've seen along the river the opportunities that we recognize in our community that maybe the natives recognized 200 years ago that the river is certainly a place of benefit for a community but I believe also that if you look at the history of the last few years we'll soon have a we'll be that as a port city that Port City will enhance the value for maritime growth Maritime growth and enhancing the lighting and the safety that the lighting on the bridge can bring as well as the Aesthetics of Downtown Development for the community is worth the risk and so I would humbly ask that each of you consider this and vote in favor of it thank you so much thank you representative pay is there anybody else in the audience that wishing to speak for or against Mr Alexander did I miss you I must have I'm sorry I probably missed it oh it's okay Jeremy Alexander 134 Timber Lane Mr chairman Commissioners staff I'm here like everyone else today in support of the Memorial Bridge Project uh my wife and I own a very small business in downtown patka but we do spend quite a bit of time talking about how we as a community come out of the Shadows of our na neighboring counties um a lot of that time and energy is talking spent talking about how we get people to stop passing through um and we're not just the town that oh I know patka on our way to St Augustine or we're leaving St Augustine and we drive through Paca on our way to Gainesville every day so we believe this Memorial Bridge lighting project shed some light on how we encourage those passers by to stop to stare and to share so we encourage your support of this project we appreciate your time today thank you very much thank you Mr Alexander is there anybody else in the audience that wants to speak in favor or against okay Commissioners we're going to discuss this item right now uh Administration it's under your perview so do you want to take it or let us have it yes sir Mr chairman you guys go ahead and uh give us our directions you'd like for us to move forward with us here this morning thank you thank you commissioner wion you have the floor you just motion to me yes thank you um um I just want to remind us how we got to where we're at today um you know we started this it was originally brought to the board of County Commissioners on September 12th of 2023 under new business during that meeting uh we did not take a vote but we did discuss going and talking to other cities I presented the project to the city of Paca on January 11th again as a presentation no votes were taken however the city commission all Commissioners seemed like they were in favor of the project but stated obviously that the county had a much larger budget um we did uh take a vote on February 13th for which ended up with a 3-2 vote to move forward with the project but we requested our board attorney to communicate with fdot that putham County wanted to have the ability to terminate the construction and maintenance agreement as the county deemed necessary uh Mr Commando reached out to fdot and on April 2nd we received an email and the email basically stated that they had reviewed the request however um they would not make any changes to the maintenance and construction agreement just like they have not made any other changes to any other city or county in the state in speaking with fdot they compared it to the same as installing street lights and turning them over to local governments to maintain they said the terms of the construction and maintenance agreement needs to remain for fdot to move forward with designing the project which which is why we're here today in fdot's 5-year work plan a design build for US 17 Memorial Bridge lighting project for fiscal year 2028 is $17.7 million from State funds if approved fdot would handle the entire project from start to finish the estimated delivery cost of the $17.7 million is inclusive of design construction engineering permitting inspection and any other activities to facil it at the completion these dollars again are projected out to be delivered in 2028 with no cost to putham County the design is currently on hold awaiting this the decision from the board of County Commissioners um I do have some photos if we can bring those up I would appreciate that while I finish my discussion I would like to address a few concerns that were brought up at the last commission meeting um $20,000 is what we received estimated for the electricity the operating cost for from do and speaking with do that they are assuming the highest Max maximum amount of the project and they're also moving that money to 2028 with the lights Illuminating from daylight to dark 365 days a year sometimes when you review an agreement or a contract it's not only what it says but it's also what it doesn't say and in this contract or in this agreement nowhere in the agreement does it say how long the lights have to be on for so to the point that Mr that um Mr Krill made for Miller Electric we don't necessarily have to have it on 12 hours a day if you want to extend the life of it or lower the electricity bill you can certainly just turn it on on the weekend nights and on holidays so if the $20,000 a year is what's hanging this board up please consider that there we do have options of lessening the amount of time on the on the lights it's also worth noting that $20,000 from our current $56 million budget equals 035 of our budget it projected out 20 years from now of course our budget would be much more with the 15 to 20 year life expectancy of the light of the lights and a 1 to fiveyear Parts warranty depending on who the manufacturer is the LED Bridge lights are built to be waterproof and designed to factor in vibration water elements such as direct sun constant exposure to humidity salt from the river Rising water and more and in speaking with a gentleman from Mr from U Miller Electric he also noted that the a lot of the lights are the same kind of lights that they put in car washes so they're used to water being poured on them at a at a high speed it's also wor worth noting that the existing Paca Memorial Bridge was built in 1976 and in 2028 if the bridge lights are approved the bridge will be 52 years old the bridge lights are expected to last 15 to 20 years 20 years from the lights being installed the bridge will then be 72 years old the life expectancy of a concrete bridge is 75 to 80 years all new Bridges currently being installed in the State of Florida are built with LED colored lights it is reasonable to think that when the life of the Paca Memorial Bridge is up the entire bridge and light system could be replaced at the same time in the future using state and federal funds according to the fdot website just just a little note I found interesting the average daily traffic count in 2020 for the Paca Memorial Bridge is around 31,000 passenger vehicles daily the average future daily traffic in 24 2 18 years from now is 53,723 Mandate of a large amount of money and speaking with uh I've done a lot of research on this and and also with the city of Jacksonville when they're building and maintenance supervisor and I have some different numbers if we need to discuss those but I also want to bring up that according to paragraph eight of the agreement if a deficiency is not corrected there are three options only one of those options is that do will provide us an invoice if it wasn't paid another option in that is the county can remove the Improvement and restore the property to its prior condition so you know I know um a number was thrown out of $10 million in the future of a possibility of a cost however if it's not something that we could fund we do have the option in the agreement that says that we can remove the Improvement off of the bridge fdot currently has 243 million for putam County in their 5-year work plan the same state grants that are fin financing The Bridge Project are also supporting much needed repairs to the streets and sidewalks in downtown Paca and as Mr commissioner Pickins reminded us we are all putam County just because a lot of people are thinking well it just improves downtown Palaca but improves the entire County lastly I would like to say that lights are energy and I believe the new LED lighting will give new energy and animation to the downtown and Riverfront area Bridge lights will give people a new reason to get down to the riverfront and enjoy all we have to offer you know we have several people in this room that are that have put in millions of dollars and are going to continue to put in millions of dollars in downtown Paca we H you know the county participated in bringing gwent stter in about creating a vibrant downtown and to me this is just part of that vibrant downtown and that's all I have to say I'd like to move this forward thank you commissioner welome that your motion yes sir I'd like to make a motion that we move this project forward do we have a second I'll second it for discussion we have a proper second Mr adamac you have the floor for discussion I was on the fence the last time we talked about it and I I love the idea of the project and I I hate the idea that the money can only be used for the project but it is what it is there's nothing we can do about that um but I'm going to take the Liberty to just say this there's there's areas of this County that today look like a third world country and at some point this commission and the state and whoever else gets elected to replace Bobby needs to take that into account um with some of the funding and some of the things that go on here um I just had a situation yesterday where I went to a home um well a couple days ago then they they actually condemned the home and uh we just have things like that going on everywhere and at some point we got to start focus on those things that's all thank you Mr is that Mr Turner you have the floor sir uh thank you Mr chairman first I'd like to uh commend commissioner Wilkinson on a very well thought out presentation um using Mr Sloan's analogy um if somebody gives you a car if you just put gas in it and insurance on it and some maintenance in the future then um would you take the car well yes I would unless they wanted me to repurchase a car later on to pay it back and if I didn't repurchase that car when I paid it back then they would purchase one for me and send me the bill so that's the difference um I'm not against these lights I'm truly not what I'm against is is the unknown liability that comes comes along with the lights I don't have a problem paying the electricity for the lights like Mr Sloan's analogy putting Vass in the car wonderful um I don't have a problem with that what I do have is we don't know when these lights units are going to go bad we don't know you can say they're supposed to last forever doesn't mean they're going to last forever so at some point in the future we're going to have to make main I don't I don't even mind maintaining the light bulbs I don't it's changing the units out if the original cost was in the millions then then it's fair to say that it could not saying it would but it could and that's my whole point this is an unknown unfunded liability it's unknown we don't know what we're going to do if do was to come to us and say if if you'll put in $20,000 a year we'll put lights on your Bridge I'd be on I'd be on board a no problem whatsoever if they would give us an idea that somewhere in the future there wouldn't be a surprise at the end of the rainbow I wouldn't be against this project at all I'd be armed inarm with commissioner Wilkinson leading the charge I really would um I'm not against this project I'm not I'm just against the the possible unfunded liability that could come at us in the future so um I think that's my biggest problem like I said I'm not against the lights I I think they would be U an addition to Paca a better addition to Paca I'm just not convinced that I can make myself get on board because of the unfunded unknowns involved in this and that's my only my only thing against it thank you Mr chairman thank you Mr Turner Miss Wilkinson uh yes Julian a question for you um since we have to have a balanced budget we cannot set aside $20,000 a year can we for a Bridge Project sure you could we could we could maintain that and keep it up sure if the right you could do it in a reserve or an operational line for expenditures related to the maintenance and upkeep or in this case utilities um you could absolutely budget in a set amount of money um if so choose and then at your end when we talk about carry forwards which we do frequently if the balance of that Carri forward if the board directs that to be carried forward for the purpose of bridge lighting repair and maintenance modifications then we would start that budget for the following year with the funds left from the prior year plus whatever the board allocates for the new year thank you um I just want to say that in speaking with the building maintenance superintendent Public Works in the city of Jacksonville I did ask him oneon-one I've done a ton of research on this um what it what he thought it would cost to replace the lights and he said at the high end if he had to replace all of the LED lights on one Bridge he thought it would be around 200 to 250,000 000 um they also have four bridges in um Jacksonville and he said that they requested $60 to $100,000 annually for maintenance for all four of those bridges and if we did that that would equate to roughly about5 to $20,000 a year putting back um he said the newest uh lighting from the accosta bridge that was updated for color changing LED in 2020 2020 to date they have had an invoice for $3,600 so that bridge has been those lights have been installed for four years and they've had one um small issue that they had to repair for $3,600 so that helped me get a little bit um with uh not knowing the unknown as you said Mr Turner I I agree with that and there is nothing in writing that says that we're going to that the bridge lights to replace the light bulbs will be 200,000 but that was the closest I could get of another um municipality that had some experience in dealing with these Bridge lights I also think that perhaps our gentleman from Miller Electric if you want to ask questions I think you could help with some of these questions any other questions for the board Mr Mr P any question I'll make some I'll make comments my concerns are very similar to commissioner Turner's is you know the Unseen and to strap a board after I'm gone um with the the um liability of this um I do have some of the same concerns as U commissioner Adams act after sitting in a ride Solutions uh meeting where our funding has been cut and representative pay has worked tirelessly to try to get more funding for ride Solutions which is a public transportation service for this County but we've cut services and I sat in this room last Thurs for about an hour there were twice as many people in this room as are today they were signing up for ship money was a state Housing Initiative Program they got to get repairs for their house or uh down payment assistance or down payment assistance with some renovation this just goes against my grain I'll go ahead and apologize to everybody in this room and everybody in putam County but I can't move this one forward I appreciate Miss Wilkinson's diligence I appreciate her research but but I I just can't do it and I'm I'm telling everybody right here on camera thank you thank you Mr pick Mr Adams that yeah so it is unfortunate sometimes the way government is is financed or funded right it comes from different pools of money that unfortunately you can't use for different projects so I mean the one way we do have to look at it as a commission is this pool of money was going to go to lighter Bridge somewhere in the State of Florida um the issue to me is why not ourbridge that was the first question that ever came to my mind when it was first presented I think it was at a club meeting somewhere that someone said oh this is an idea that might be coming and and um I was really excited about it at the time and uh the unfortunate part through research we found out this money cannot be used for anything else if this community doesn't take it it's going somewhere else um that has to be part of our decision-making process on this I I I get the the detracting statements of the future costs the future commissions I absolutely against setting aside $20,000 a year there I would withdraw my second in a second based on that I just want to be clear on that um because it will be up to the Future commissions to decide if they're going to light the bridge three hours or just one day a month or whatever so that's where they have that flexibility I think that'll more than accommodate the the cost of electricity and things like that um LEDs are known to last for decades it's it's a fact of the technology um so I mean if you were to get a bad set of LEDs they're probably going to fail within the warranty period if some sort of burn out and um I don't think that happens very often either so um I just wanted to add that because just so the public knows it's not like this money because this has been out there in some news articles and different things where Well we'd rather use it for the roads we don't have that option I would rather use it for the roads too that is not what's presented to us um we can't do that if we wanted to and I'm sure even representative Payne and everyone else would love to use it for roads instead but that's not what the pool of money is for so I just want to make sure everyone understood that thank you thank you Miss Wilkinson the other Flor just a couple points I would like to make um thank you commissioner adamac for your comments and you're exactly right this money cannot be used for the ship program it can't be used for food or other social services if it did I would be the first one in the room standing up and shouting saying let's put it toward that but that's not what this this is allowed to do um I truly believe that by adding these Bridge lights that we're going to end up being better off because of two reasons we're going to bring funds to putam County we're going to revitalize this is going to be part of the revitalization that we're doing in downtown Paca and I believe it'll increase our tax base because more people will want to be here it creates um a community uh togetherness it becomes a focal point for downtown and there's just so many you know so many aspects of the re revitalization and this is just part of that and the other point that I want this board to completely understand is we need to maintain a good working relationship with fdot and the fact that they have $243 million in their five-year work plan for putham County if we turn this down my concern is what happens to some of those funds out five years out um do they get moved further out do they do we get taken off the list do we get moved to the bottom of the list my concern is that we need to maintain a a good working relationship with all the agencies in in Tallahassee because when we need things we want them to be supportive of us and so that's one of the main reasons one of the additional reasons that I think it's important to move it forward thank you Mr W Mr Turner you have the floor um well I agree that the do money can't be used for um anything but do projects I get it but the money that it would cost to maintain and do the upgrades or do whatever later on can be used for those other projects in putam county and I agree that we need to maintain a working relationship with do to whatever level that we possibly can I do agree that and I've fought pretty hard with myself over this for just that reason but in times past and I don't know that it would even be considered in this instance but in times past when do had money budgeted for certain projects and we've gone to do and asked them then they have allowed Us in certain situations to use that money on other do projects that we felt like were more important I can give you some examples one of them was when the Aton hour Bridge went out um do had given us money to use on another project and agreed to let us take that money and build thatt and our Bridge along with fund most of or the biggest part of the 310 Bridge because that was an emergency situation and that may not be an option here whatsoever but I would really like to at least ask them would could we take that money and fund 17 South to where we had to put it off two more years on the forlane uh from duns Creek down to Satsuma because they found a an area of muck that they have to now build a bridge over the 17 million would cover a big line share of that additional monies that made them half to put that project off for a couple of years so you know I'm I don't know that they would I don't know that this is is even an option to let that happen but I just if you if you if I've got to to pick between between the the very nice lights on the bridge that would make the community look better or have a road built somewhere if they would allow us to transfer that funding I've got to pick the road um over the decorative lights I just have to so that's all I got Mr chairman thank you Mr chairman I want to say I went to do last week for um for some of those explanations they had a life and death situation happening but truly the money is in silos and it doesn't it's not allowed to be moved over um so I do believe that do is still a good partner they still open the door for us we still get to walk in there and we still get to um to promote putam county is there not any more comments we are going to take a vote okay so all in favor signify by saying I I I oppose like sign I it's two to three if project fails no no a roll roll call no Ashley will you do roll call no yes yes no yes thank you three to two we passed thank you sorry I heard that wrong all right moving on to our next item would be our quarterly budget reports could we take a five minute we take a three minute break e e e e e e e e e e do what did a great job I could not hear that don't know what's with my ear was really we're going to stay in new business and we'll go back to 11 or we'll be done one of the others six and a half hopefully we'll be done all right we're going to reconvene our Board of County Commission meeting and go to item 8A our quarterly budget reports Julianne thank you chairman I'm here with your quarter budget report which also means uh as of the end of March we're officially halfway through fiscal year 24 um the re several funds are included reports are included in your packet um I will remind you as we go through them that governmental Finance governmental funding budgets they are not um they are cyclical in nature so you are not going to see an even progression throughout the year you're going to see some uh percents being the first one in the general fund we've collected 90 % of our adalum taxes that does not mean that at the year end we're going to have 180% it simply means um that as Ador and taxes are generally collected in that first quarter you'll see the majority you'll see us trickle in there uh for the remainder of the year um the intergovernmental funds also trending a little bit High these are mostly your Grant payments and the Cycles as they go your other revenues is a little above that 50% that's based on equipment land sales um is the the D the primary driving force in there so again you're not going to see that duplicate you're going to see it kind of continue um as it goes our general fund expenditures are trending at about 40% of the Year this is a more even distribution but still it is going to be cyclical in nature as well moving in the transportation fund you'll see our taxes are trending at about 47% those are generated from your 9th Cent and your local option we have seen over the last several years a small decline in those revenues and we're going to expect to see that for the next several years um your charges for services and your grants that's your interlocal um that's normal something we would we would expect to see at this point in the year again no concern in the transportation fund related to revenue your expenses are trending at 39% overall um which is on target for your 50% completion of your year in the fire fund your taxes much like ADV valorum in the general fund are at 93% again they're going to be you're going to collect them heavy on the front side and then a very small amount through the rest of the year your interlocal governmental fund there is showing 101% of budget that is a factor of Grant Revenue being posted so if we we go back to last year the grant expense was expended in 23 then the reimbursement came in in 24 they do not actually have a surplus in Revenue it is simply the two years are going to have to balance out for you to see that that fund work like it should um your personnel expenses in the fire fund are at 51% again very expected for the fire service because we do have overtime in that uh fire service that's required otherwise you're at you're about 22% of operating the sanitation fund is at 79% in their permits and fees special assessments collections 100% in their intergovernmental um overall 66% of Revenue is again very normal um their expenses are trending overall at about 29% Personnel being about 41% very normal in that fund as well the last fund that we report on is the 405 the East petam Water fund um you're seeing the uh 16% in intergovernmental these are again your grants so remember all of our grants work on a reimbursement basis we've got to complete the project before you're going to see the revenues come in your charges for service serves are right at 49% we should be at 50% of the year in charges for services so we're right on target there you're seeing a negative 33% other Revenue um very expected at this point in the year that's primarily your interest earnings which aren't posted into the accounts yet um your expenses are overall at 15% on average Personnel expenses being 60% and operating being at 42 the final report is new to this year it is on your board of County Commissioners capital outlay accounts for the five districts and you will see there um a breakdown of each district and what's been expended to date um as well as the current budget and the expense description any questions Julian I have a question for you and I I'm sorry I didn't call you on it and just I just saw it under under the allocation that I've got um the money I spent for the mail Road lighting it's under improvements other than buildings do we not have a l lights like we have for the other category no sir that's a function a finance sets up based on what's Happening um and where we have multiple projects going on on the same Sports field I.E South putham also has some Turf re refurbishment going there you need a distinction however at Melrose the only project we have going right now is that light project so it is um it does have its own project code so we have a we have a multitude of ways where we track the individual projects but um it's a generic fund that was set up up just for Melrose any other questions for administration all right thank you very much and we'll move on to Item B value adjustment board appointments Mr chairman yes sir Mr Turner um I thought I brought it to Miss Young's attention but unless I misunderstood something here last year this is incorrect last year you and I were on the board but that's because we we appointed this earlier in the year but then when the when it comes comes time for the value adjustment which is after the first of the year the chair changes so at that time we I thought that we had made a motion and passed it on the board that the current chairman and vice chairman would serve on the value adjustment board so this didn't even need to come back to us unless I misunderstood or Mis or did something which I'm prepared to make that motion today if that's the way it is because that's the way it should be that's the way it should when the chair changes in November which we have no way of know and who that's going to be for sure but it should just be the chair and the vice chair every year that's on the value adjustment board even though I would like to uh to before I'm done nominate Miss Masters to go back on it again I think she's interested and so uh I would like to toh do that I so I nominate Julie Masters as a as the position for the value adjustment board I'm on the value adjustment board that's correct y it doesn't take a second just to vote Mr chairman okay so do you want to answer the question on yes sir I think that this was just a standard process that the clerk's office goes through we receive the request as included in your packet I believe it's something they send out every year I will get with um them to determine if it can be modified or or just basically not sent and defaulted to um the elected positions that you guys direct that that was hope the V for it because that's when we changed it was when the chair changed in November and cuz uh uh Mr chairman and myself because last year I was chairman and he was vice chairman and so it changed at November and it made made him and vice chairman Wilkinson it made them members of the value adjustment board but at that time I'm almost certain that we made a motion and and we voted to just make the chairman and the vice chairman the members of the value adjustment board every year sure no problem I'll get with the clerk's office and see if we can update it to just include the nomination for the citizen okay can we vote on my nomination sir all in favor of the recommendation of Julie Master say I I oose like sign the eyes have it and do we want to go ahead and reaffirm that are you going to check into the vice chair and you want another motion yeah can you just reaffirm it yes Mr chairman I move that the chairman and vice chairman at the curent of the current chairman and vice chairman in place at the time serve on the value adjustment Board second proper motion proper second any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I iose like sign the eyes have it item D Planning Development evaluation and appraisal report Direction requested Mr chairman uh we can skip the presentation unless y'all want to hear it this something we've got to do so I I move that we just accept staff recommendation and and move forward with the reports we a proper motion we have a second I'll second it okay um I do want to clarify one thing on in your letter on page 40 140 uh commissioner Adams act also on the board of the Regional Council so um uh if there's no further discussion all in favor signify by saying I I oose like sign the eyes have it item e Public Works termination of St John's Avenue multi-use Trail uh we've already discussed this Mr chairman and this is just the affirming affirming it I believe is that correct that's correct move approval move approval to terminate the multi-use trail in St John's Avenue do we have a second a second have proper second any further discussion on that motion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I oose like sign the eyes have it okay we're going to go back up to appointments Mr adamac do you have any appointments that need to be made I have Mr Turner I have none Mr Pickins I have none Miss Wilkinson yes I need to um appoint five members to the St John's Harbor water St John's Harbor msbu Bill Thompson Jack gayon Ken Paxton Jerry Ry and Tom Worster and those are my four recognized uh board members all right good deal thank you and do you have any others I have the list lur I'll give it to you okay any other appointment no sir that's it and I have none next on our agenda is our public comment on miscellaneous items this portion of the agenda is designed to allow citizens an opportunity to bring matters to the attention of the board it's not reasonable to expect the board will engage in debate or deliberations about matters which the board has not received any prior information on uh please limit your comments to three minutes comment cards are currently conveniently placed in the meeting room entrance and should be submitted prior to the meeting of the Deputy clerk who sits to my left and your right uh our first card is Mitchell Atwell boat race Memorial Day Weekend okay did I mess up your name sir okay okay thank you thank you chairman board for hearing me my name is Mitch Atwell live at 144 Crest Brees manner in Crescent City um I've been in puam County my family's had a place in Pomona Park forever grew up watched all kind of exciting things go on the races in Lake Stella Z Festival I just bought a place in CR City about four years ago I was wanting to bring something back to putam County bring some excitement excitement back um I'm involved with a group called soda Southern Outlaw drag booat Association we do four or five races a year um I've been Welly um entertained by Crescent City the putam county tourism development but I'm having a hard time coming up with sponsorships and saying that my whole point here is we have to have an ambulance of paramedics on site when we're racing with the lack of sponsorships I'm just here to see if there's any way the board could assist in helping us with some paramedic for that weekend I'm looking at bringing three 400 people to putam county that only 95% of my cont contestants participants are not from putam County so I'm bringing nothing but people to putam County to show off our little County let me ask you a question how much is the cost of the ambulance services that that's being required sir what's the cost of the an ambulance services being I have no clue I I mean I know we got to have it for the 24 I've got to be there for the two days okay um the SAT we we'll start Friday testing but as far as our insurance that we carry we have to have paramedics on site Saturday and Sunday when we race from 11 which will be from 11: to 5: I'd get that number and you got tourist development uh money too yes sir but I don't believe I'm allowed to spend that for sporting on that okay you might want to check yeah I don't think you are either but so I mean that that's I mean that's my biggest well I think you need to know the cost and then I I think you're in the well I don't know if you're in the right venue but you're on TV and people are watching maybe somebody will have a benevolent heart to be able to pick up that cost for you okay well I mean I'm hoping like say I mean that we're doing it we're a nonprofit organization and all we're trying to do is just bring something back to putham County that's actually been a part of putham County for years I mean I've got a short from 99 from the uh Hotel house challenge in Lake Stella why don't you find out the cost and come back to our next meeting and we'll give you an opportunity to say it on TV again I will I will get with who I I'm I'm this is the first one I've actually try to do myself and I'm just trying to help my guys from down south um so yeah I'll find out what I have to do to get that number because I mean I'm I went there and they said well you need to go talk to the board about it so just here here's where I am so thank y'all and I mean next I just want to try to help out Mr Turner has a comment um then Mr pick is this a something we do for other people or do we always make people pay for ambulance services yes sir um I'm just going to use some other examples of such like the aelia festival the Blue Crab Festival and any other festival that happens whether Insurance requires it or the or even necessary municipality requires it nonprofit for-profit however uh we have to charge the um base rate of the ambulance for those events and but that's by the board's Direction and our fee schedule uh when we have to supply an ambulance um it's um I think it's $105 an hour it's 35 for the employee 35 for the or the two employees and then it's 35 an hour for the ambulance itself to be there U so those are the current charges that are Byer fee schedule but we have not had a area that we could wave them and I spoke to the gentleman the other day on the phone so we don't have the authority and staff level to wave it uh but I would error in caution because we have so many festivals and so many things that require that that is just part of the expense of putting on the festival you know this is this is our first time attempting to do this in Pam County and I'm our hope is that we'll be welcome back and maybe next time we'll have the money that we can pay the the ambulance and the paramedics but said we got you know you got to get your foot in the door before you can open it understand thank you okay thank you'all okay hang Mr picks I'm sorry Mr P chairman har I was want to say that you know I've known Mitch for a number of years and when he wanted to put this on he came to see me and one thing he did he listened and so I told him to go to the chamber and uh um two hours later he was sitting there talking to Julie Linton and Dana Jones at the chamber and explained to him about tourist development so he went through that process he was awarded some money there so he's trying to bring a new event he's done it right he's gone to the city of Crescent City and gotten it approved so I'll get with you and we'll get with Jr and we'll see if we can get some numbers of what you're looking at and and you know I'll see if we can find you some more sponsors but I I appreciate you doing it it is on Memorial Day so you know somebody will have an option of if you don't want to go to Blue Crab you can come down to Crescent City for that and I think there's some other functions going on that day too I think the farmers market is going on yes sir I think also so anyway so okay but I appreciate your efforts okay well Mr P also say it ain't from a lack of me not trying to get SP chips I have beat these streets down all right just thank y'all so much thank you sir thank you Nicole Grace keep putting in beautiful he was actually spoken to me too um good good morning uh Nicole Grace with keep putting beautiful our office is at 205 North 2 Street in PKA Florida uh I just wanted to let you know that we are up and running with our countywide cleanup uh we have been out at Flor home uh we found down at wak in fact I think we had three cleanups in Flor home uh waca we had girls who hike Florida took on Veterans Park so they were not only on Riverfront but they uh sorry crossed the bridge and headed over and did Veterans Park as well and I know um sanitation helped out with um picking that up so that was uh wonderful I was actually on a vacation during that cleanup so it was amazing we had such a great turnout and um you will not see one single selfie from me and it it's all those volunteers that came out so uh we're going to be going around uh all of the county and we're looking for anyone that is looking to participate it can be group group it can be municipalities and it can be individuals and we do have some very passionate individuals that do their own cleanup and we're open to that as well so thank you Nicole thank you next on our speaker lit Dan steel good morning my name is Dan Ste I live at 202 M Lane in West butam I'm here about the roads again uh in the past two weeks uh UPS driver got stuck right in the middle of twin LS Boulevard just west of akan up on top of the hill a lady was going to a she's a social worker was going to an appointment she got stuck there was too much sand in the at the intersection so she tried to go around it and she buried all the way to the axle I mean all the way the frame on the car uh it's getting worse and know it's dry uh we haven't had any rain but if those two incident would have been an ambulance what are we going to do about human life could have been a patient in either one of those times there uh it's getting kind of bad maybe we can uh hit Bobby pain up for a for a little bit of a loan here to get some of these roads done out there I don't know but uh also in pno County it seems like we do a mile here and a mile there okay it's been proven that if you can do four or five miles six miles in one area where the contractor doesn't have to move the equipment move the Manpower the dozers of the compactors the trucks all this stuff you can probably get a much better deal on doing these roads and when he doesn't have to move stuff from one side of the county to the other and I don't know if that'd be possible or not but uh also there's also been talk about the hills out there on Twin Lakes and Monroe and stuff like this I'm sure we've got Engineers somewhere in this state that can figure out how to drain that water down to Drought Lake and in a fairly good cost you know but I mean uh I'm sure it can be done and I'm sure if we you probably could buy some Lots somewhere L that are that are on the tax deed that people don't want anymore anyway could be bought to use as Reservoir to collect this water on the way down that Hill I'm sure it can be done and they talk about the water runoff off the black top well there's Clay on some of the spots on there and I've been up there several times the water runs off that clay just as much as it would off the black top and we still got a problem so but I'm sure it can be worked out but also I don't believe in putam County this is 2024 that anybody should have to go more than a quarter or a half a mile to go to a hard top Road West putam has been Mr seal 's up Sir okay we need some work in West thank you okay that's all of our cards is there anybody else seeing nobody else coming up we'll close the public portion and go to Clerk of the Court Matt Reynolds good morning Mr chairman I have nothing to update you with this morning thank you thank you Mr County attorney Rich Commando nothing additional thank you sir administrator Mr Terry sugs yes sir Mr chairman thank you uh great meeting today uh just a couple quick things uh one is uh again uh shout out to uh to you five as well as my staff uh for the last couple weeks as you know I left here at the last commission meeting and and ended up in the hospital for three days with pancreatitis and uh and I'll be honest with you I don't wish that on nobody and that was a a very difficult time for us but I want to say that uh wow what an amazing staff we have no calls no no no issues other than boss how you doing want make sure you're doing okay get back to find things are absolutely right where they're supposed to be so uh again just want to say thank you for those folks for for doing that for for all of us and uh secondly as you know I I do everything I can to promote putam County we got a uh uh last month we had a a family move into putam County bought a house over in Set uh Satsuma and this weekend was the Bassmaster Elite tournament and Julie and and her folks and uh Dana at the chamber done a marvelous job with that event I had an opportunity to do that and brought my niece and neph and her husband up from Port Charlotte pag Gorda to for the weekend to uh view that and he's an avid fisherman and and Joe Wells uh loaded loaded the family up on Saturday on a on his personal boat and we we toured to St John's river and I think they fell in love with it as well so uh who knows we may have more family moving in the putham county so uh you know it's a gorgeous area and I got to see things I hadn't saw before so uh what do you he be careful what you wish for yes sir and uh but no uh it was a it was a great event this weekend uh my my niece's husband actually had fish with some of the folks that were participating so it was a great time and but again uh if you uh I'll steal a phrase from Buddy Goddard commissioner Godard if you if you don't know what's going on the county sh FL because we' got something going all the time and it's a beautiful Community thank you Mr chairman thank you sir thank you Mr Adams that commissioner comment I me I'd like to start off with a question that I had posed you guys a couple weeks ago with regards to the ongoing investigation for HR with regards to I don't want to name names but just do we have a status update on that where where we're at and where we're tracking to be completed with that yes sir it is currently open but it is wrapping up so you should have a u wrap up here shortly okay and I've been getting several calls on that particular subject so I don't know about the other Commissioners um could I also get a copy of the latest PUD for hogwaller as well sent to me um there's just a little bit of concerns that I have around and I know that he has his own internal rules and stuff and that is a private thing but I I thought we did have something in there about helmets on Miners and I just want to verify that we'll get you copy of it all right and then uh obviously we have a ton of stuff going on this weekend um I haven't been talking about events forever because I don't know why but it's normally my belly Wick but I'm very excited about all the different festivals and stuff coming up and uh look forward to attending some of them thank you Mr Turner thank you Mr chairman um what is the current update on Land Development code didn't we set the date of when we're going to have a meeting with the uh Planning Commission we did set that yes sir we did has somebody reached out to them and made sure that they had whatever copy that they want whether it be electronic or rather it be written where they would have it ahead of that meeting the direction from the board was you wanted them to have it two weeks and ahead um a minimum of yes sir the con we worked with the consultant based on your meeting date selected and so there is a timeline for which we are on target for the consultant is finishing his revisions and then staff's going to review and we will have at a minimum of two week speaks to each of the bodies before that meeting okay thank you very much you know and I always said for since I've been here that it frustrates me how sometimes how long it takes for the government to get something done so I also think along that same line of smart comments that I make sometimes that I need to give the devil is due and for lack of a better term we've got a lot of good projects that are being started right now we really do um the uh the scale house at the landfill I think is already done the new office building is been going up and I think they've got trusses on I haven't been over there in the last week or so but um the uh animal services we started the site work on the S side out there to get it started I mean so finally we started the animal services building I mean actually shovels in the ground started it um the uh we've got several projects are on the street right right now for bid uh Matt's project to try and do his service centers on the street I believe and uh so we've got we've got a lot going on here too and so you know it makes me happy to see a lot of these projects getting started and and in actually in progress while we're going on so like I said I thought it was good that we also bring out the good part and it's not that it just takes even though it did take us 10 years to build animal services is started yeah so uh sometimes these projects take a while but we need to we need to give uh kudos to when we do get them started and being and started and what have you and that's all I have today Mr chairman thank you Mr Turner Mr Pickins thank you chairman Harvey um Echo his comments there are a lot of good things going a lot of lot of projects um just want to congratulate uh Dana Jones in the chamber and all the people that helped the bsss elite 100 uh it did bring a lot of coverage to Paca and putb County and it will Air a number of times I'm sure so um so just kudos to them um also I guess this weekend is the Blueberry Festival so I know you'll talk about that that's your home court this will be the first time that my wife and I will not be able to attend and and help with that festival and we're going to miss it so I'm sure it's going to be good and uh that's all I got thank you thank you Mr pick Miss Wilkinson uh yeah thank you um I want to mimic commissioner Turner in commending staff and administration for the amount of projects that we have going on I think um where we were several years ago and where we're at today is phenomenal and they've all worked really hard and we are getting a lot done in putham county and also thanks to the chamber uh for the bass Elite tournament um my brother was in Ohio and saw commercials for Palaca and he absolutely thought that was really cool um and of course I'm going to send him a shirt and then of course we have the Blueberry Festival this Saturday in Boss week starts at 8:00 a.m. pancakes start at 8:00 a.m. I'll be glad to take your $8 for breakfast that's my job at the Blueberry Festival this this year so come and have some wonderful blueberries and support your local community thank you thank you Miss Wilkinson and I do want to also thank the uh chamber and the bass Elite what a what a wonderful event that they put on a lot of hard work a lot of people get involved in a lot of volunteers and it's a it's a big event since I've seen you last we have had the save Rodman bass tournament that was a huge success one of our biggest ones we've had and the weather was just perfect for that and the um and the time is just really great uh again we'll be out at the blueberry this coming weekend and um animal we're going to do a a groundbreaking soon for the animal shelter so stay tuned for that that will be coming and we look forward to that and if there's no other fur further business coming before this board this meeting is adjourned we have a ribbon cutting at 11:30 par oh good job