e e everybody and thank you for being here today it's Tuesday June 11th it is 9:02 uh this morning's of vacation will be led by the Reverend Allan bagot with connect Church Mr bagot if you'll make your way up sir and the Pledge of Allegiance will be done by commissioner Leota Wilkinson All Rise if you're able to do so let us pray father God Lord we thank you Lord for this day for Lord this is the day that you have made and we will rejoice and be glad in it Lord God we give you honor we give you glory today for Lord you are worthy we thank you God for this great nation Lord in which we live we thank you Lord for this great state of Florida and we thank you God that we can call putam County our home thank you God for each commissioner which serves and Lord we thank you Lord for the individuals Lord who have helped to facilitate this meeting today we ask you Lord that you would be with us during this meeting we pray God that you would direct each decision that is made for your word tells us to trust in the Lord with all of our heart and not to lean on our own understanding but in all our ways we are to acknowledge you Lord and you will direct our paths we pray father all these things faith believing in your son's most precious name Jesus amen amen please join me in the pledge I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Reverend bagot and thank you commissioner Wilkinson next item on our agenda is our approval of the minutes the chair will entertain a motion Mr chair I move approval of the minutes of the board B County Commissioner regular meeting dated May 14th 2024 we have a second we have a second any further discussion on the motion hearing that all in favor signify by saying I I oppose like sign the eyes have it I'm going to turn the meeting over real quickly to did you do both of them in one motion no we were at the regular board we're not at the board got you I'm going turn the meeting over to commissioner leot Wilkinson why the room is full of people to explain the fdot new truck maps that are going going to be happening so commissioner Wilkinson you have the floor thank you uh chair good morning and thank you for the point of privilege um today uh we're going to have a public service announcement Paca has a dedicated truck route thanks to a collaborative a collaborative effort between multiple agencies and led by state representative Bobby Payne fdot County city and law enforcement have been working on this project for several years and the purpose is to deter large truck traff traffic from going down Krill Avenue through the residential neighborhood um of course that's still State Road 20 and the truckers have have over the years continued to go through there but we're going to be making a Consolidated effort to um to let everybody know and um who the companies who receive products and will be targeting truck companies in the next few months um we will have an official unveiling today at 1:30 at one of the large signs on State Road 19 in front of the wind Dixie all are welcome uh the orange line that you see on here of course is the Krill Avenue and that's what we're going to be trying to prevent and and deter and have the large truff truck traffic stay on the the blue lined uh road that you see on your map today everyone's welcome to attend our um unveiling today and I appreciate your time I just wanted to put this out there like I said we'll be working on a big large media campaign get the information out to the right people thank you thank you commissioner Wilkinson and I know for years that's been some some of our residents have had a problem with that so Kudos go to representative Bobby Payne and every other agency that worked hard to get this done this is a this is a good move for putam County and safely for our citizens uh it is 9:00 so we're going to recess the board of county commissioner meeting go into the Port Authority meeting uh call that to order and and the first item of business is the approval of the minutes Mr chair I move approval of the minutes for the regular meeting March 26th and May 14th proper motion have a second yes all in favor signify by saying I I like sign the eyes have it is there any public comment on Port Authority items only this is your chance to talk about Port Authority and seeing no one running up there'll be other topics later along Mr sugs you have a comment yes sir I just wanted to uh uh give a update to the board on the port itself you know we've con we've hired a consultant to help us with our uh Port development plan we have a meeting this morning I believe it's at 10:00 Mr Solon will be attending a meeting with our local stakeholders and the consultant to help get some more information to move that project forward once we get that project to a point there where we can bring it back to the board we will certainly do that for you for the public that doesn't understand that why putam has an inland Port we do have an inland Port it's been designated by um Florida that we have a port and once the Shan's Bridge gets larger than it is the new bridge goes across the St John's river we'll see a lot more availability to use our port with higher ships that can come in so uh it's exciting times it's going to take a while to get there but it is an exciting time for putham County to be in the port business uh is there any other comments is there any general discussion amongst commissioners seeing n we'll end our Port Authority meeting reconvene our Board of County Commission meeting and our first presentation uh I've asked The Honorable Bill Pickins to read the proclamation Mr Pickins if you and your staff will come up I'll meet you at the podium president Pickins read about me before I read this Proclamation I would just like to say that um this is special for me uh a lot of people know um you know Joe is my brother and um a lot of people don't know that our father Bob who's been gone for 30 years was a trustee at the college he was actually the chairman of the board back in the 70s uh when it was St John's River Community college so for Joe to after the legislature session he was in from 228 to be appointed to the board as chairman or excuse me as the president is special and the work that he has done there has also been special with the staff that he has put together from whether was flow Arts to regular educational classes to increase the offerings and bring it to a state college I think it's something that um is is pretty special uh for putam County Joe was a tremendous athlete we both played football basketball but in the spring he went to the golf course and I went to the baseball diamond Joe is a True Believer in education through Athletics and so the athletic program that he has put together with the help of a lot of citizen and corporate sponsors I think speaks volume here so thank you for allowing me that time and I will now read this Proclamation putner County Proclamation number 2024 059 lady Vikings Champion day whereas the St John's River State College lady Vikings have achieved the remarkable feat of winning the National Junior College Athletic Association Division 2 Softball Championship whereas entering the tournament as the number nine seed the lady Vikings secure the championship with an impressive five-game winning streak whereas the lady Vikings concluded the season with an outstanding record of 55 wins 79 home runs earning the NJCAA title on their first ever trip to the tournament in school history whereas in the addition of this incredible Victory coach Joe pound was honored as the fcsaa division 2 Coach of the Year sophomore center field Fielder shortstop Kendall catherwood received the player of the year award Jenny biller Kaylee Elder Carolyn Lasser Olivia Hansen elsid ballad and prcess Arondo were all named for the first team while pitcher Brook Strickland was the second team whereas putam County commends the lady Vikings for their exceptional teamwork athleticism and sportsmanship and the sport of softball there now Forbe it claim that the putam County Board Commissioners that June 11th 2024 is declared lady Vikings Champions Day in putam county and all citizens are encouraged to participate in recognizing the hard work and dedication of the lady Vikings done ordered and adopted this 11th day of June 2024 Mr chairman I'm honored to uh suggest that we adopt this Proclamation second we have a proper motion proper second any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify bethan I I pose like th the eyes have it congratulations [Applause] so um so the first thing I want to say is that I know that the vast majority of you didn't come here to learn about the softball program at St John's River State College you're here for other commission business and I'm going to be respectful of that but at the same time um this is a this is a once in a-lifetime occurrence for for the college and for putam County and um for those of you that don't know me this should be one of your worst nightmares which is me with a microphone in front of people and um I've enjoyed my post legislative career um settle in as Bill pickin's brother and that's been just fine with me um but today I am indeed proud to be the the president of St John's River State College and more importantly I'm proud to be your president from putam County um born and raised in Crescent City and moved to the big city when I be became an adult and so let me tell you what we're going to do I'm going to introduce a few people um and I know that you didn't come here to watch a softball game and so we've done you the favor of reducing it down to about 4 minutes and 20 seconds so for those of you that when we turn the video on and you're wondering oh my my gosh how long is it going to last it's only going to last about 4 and a half minutes but it really is important for you to understand not just that these young ladies won but how they won and imagine being there and for me and for Carol having 22 daughters um and they're all participating and you're watching this excruciating thing happen right before your eyes and as a president or as a father or a mother or a grandparent you would say that's just not fair who who cares who wins or loses this game that shouldn't happen to people shouldn't happen to a young lady um and so that's why I asked um Larry the chairman for the permission to show you a condensed version of the seventh inning of this game so before um I do I want to mention a few things the first is um two of my trustees two of your trustees at St John's River State College are here and I want to recognize them specifically and individually and that's um Jim Reed from Palaca and our chairman and our board chair Rich Commando second I'd like all the members of the athletic Association to stand up and be recognized they support the college and Athletics in many many ways and we appreciate you being here and the last of the commercials is this this is an expensive Endeavor to have Athletics um but going to the World Series is frankly is very expensive and rightfully so the achievements of the boys baseball team have been overshadowed by the girls accomplishments and rightfully so when you win a championship you deserve First Billing but the boys also went to the NJCAA World Series this year for the second year in a row in EN and Oklahoma and took a five to3 lead into the bottom of the ninth the winner plays for the national championship the next night and we ran out of pitching and LSU Unice the eventual national champ champon won the next night 9 to3 to become the national champion um but they scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth and beat us 6 to5 and what was really heartbreaking for us and for Coach Jones but with a six players contributors three starters lost for the season to injury um this was certainly um I think Coach Jones most remarkable coaching effort um in in taking this team um with the injuries that we've had um all the way to the brink of playing for the national championship and I'll also say that and Bill mentioned it the term student athlete is much maligned and rightfully so rightfully so but at St John's River State College it's always going to be meaning F at least as long as I'm the president here and to that point the average grade point average um of a non-athlete student at St John's river across the entire College Palaca St Augustine and Orange Park is about 3.1 the men's baseball team's grade point average is 3.28 and the girls softball team's grade point average is 3.67 wow out of four I hope coach pound has um the list of the academic all-americans but we had um eight I think academic all-americans 10 academic all-americans along with a team that was a national championship team on the field sending the girls to Greenville Spartanburg and the boys to Enid Oaklahoma at the same time was expensive and I want to specifically thank a group of local folks who when I called stepped up and helped pay for the cost um two are here um but Joyce Oliver um obviously who's been frankly more of a supporter of the softball team than the president has in the past and I need to recognize that Joyce and for those of you that ever go to a game I recommend that you take a look to the right and notice the Joyce Oliver batting cage that Joyce was responsible for um getting started but Joyce Oliver Ben and Benji Bates bre Sloan representative Bobby Payne and Bill and Holly and Carol Pickins all contributed to um help defay the cost of sending the boys and the girls to Oklahoma and to and to South Carolina so let me show you how these girls won and I'll set the stage in this way we had to go to Alabama to win the region for the opportunity to go to the the njca World Series and the girls lost meaning they had to win five games in a row to win the region and go to the NJCAA World Series and they did just that and then they draw a nine seed now this is a team from Florida and it's a team that has won 50 games at that point and half of our 15 losses are to division one teams yet we draw a nine seed well the privilege of the nine seed is you get to play the eight right off the bat and we beat the eight well you know what if you beat the eight your prize is to play the one and so when we beat the one and then on our way to the national championship game we also beat the six and the four and the five we were the visiting team every single time every team we played during the entire tournament was seated higher than our girls and the girls knew that they were disrespected frankly I think on the championship rings that they get there's going to be nine fingers and in every picture that you might see going forward you'll wonder why are the girls I did too why are the girls holding up nine fingers well it was because they went into that tournament understanding that the little team from Paca Florida was disrespected from the beginning and that they wore that chip on their shoulder all the way through um nine fingers and so we go to as you can see we go to the top of the seventh inning girls play seven Innings and there are two outs and we have a 4 to one lead so I've made my way down to the Dugout so I can go out on the field to congratulate the girls on the college's First National Championship with only one out to go and Watch What Happens one one that drops for a base hit run scores [Applause] 42 Kirkwood now down to his last strike [Applause] that one's hit in the air G to be caught by overo dropped [Applause] it one run game that one is hit in the air that's gone you cannot believe what has just happened hate to rip it off did we just see what we think we just saw wow right at jagie Yello throw to aier Kirkwood has so at that point we're just sick um so Alyssa vad and we have permission from Alyssa vad to tell you that the Young lady that dropped the ball in left field a catch of which would have won us a national championship was in tears and Carol was in tears and half of the stands were in tears and we're all thinking who cares as I said who cares who wins that shouldn't happen to anybody and so I pause to tell you that coming up in the bottom of the 7th now down 5 to four and us trying to regain our composure I was frankly I looked at Britney and Joe pound and they were acting like it was just a another game and I think that being able to set the tone um for their players in that regard was really a remarkable feat of composure but coming up to bat is Kendall catherwood who you heard Bill mention who is the national player of the year so our one bit of good fortune in in that regard was is that the top of the lineup was coming up and so Kendall catherwood was coming up first batting second is Kaye Elder Kaylee Elder is the pitcher who gave up the home run to go behind after Alisa Alysa valad dropped the ball and coming up third is aiss of alad and watch this probably taken the lead with a 4run seventh inning now St John's River State needs a run to extend it and two runs to win it this is the NJCAA division two softball world series of the NJCAA Network bottom of the seventh and if you told us about 20 minutes ago there would be a bottom of the seventh I think a lot of people would have said you were crazy but such as the nature of this Kirkwood team they never give up and now St John's River State Trails Kendall catherwood lays down a bunt Paul has trouble with it and [Applause] [Music] catherwood on it first tying run aboard winning run now comes to the plate count one and two outside catherwood going going for second and she's in there the tying run is now at scoring position two two hit well in left field that goes over vek head they're going to wave Cather wood H home we are tied list a lot who of course drop would have been the game clinching out now trying to write her own goat to Hero moment goat to Hero imagine being her parent and listening to [Music] [Applause] that bad since that in the air the swing of her life has there ever been a go to hero story like [Applause] that what a way to win a National Championship and St John's River State shows that sometimes the new kid on the championship block is indeed the best final score to over Theo [Applause] [Music] [Applause] fin for Vi with seven n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hit vict [Applause] [Music] Hollywood would have a hard time coming up with a script like that so we actually we actually think that if Hollywood came up with a script like that nobody would believe it and we'd say that's a bit much you know that's just a bit much and so that is actually how our young ladies won a national championship they just absolutely refused to lose I'm going to surrender the mic thank I'm going to surrender the mic um by echoing something that that Bill said or alluded to when I got to the college um we hadn't won even a conference Championship in any sport of any kind in 35 years we had sports but we didn't they didn't matter and so we made the decision that if we were going to have Athletics then they were going to matter and we were going to give our student athletes an opportunity to compete and obviously um that's what happened it happened with the baseball program frankly thanks to Coach Jones a long time ago and it's happened with the volleyball program and and frankly it's happened overnight um for us it looks like it happened overnight um with Britney and with Joe pound but it really comes with three years of hard work and this is the culmination of that I learned way more participating in athletics than I ever did being in student government or anything else frankly uh about life and about teamwork uh and about sacrifice and I hope that y all thank you for indulging me in this I hope you have an understanding and maybe you'll share it with your neighbor um of why and I'm quoting others why St John's River State College some say spin some say waste so much money on Athletics it's because giving these young ladies the opportunity to work hard and experience what they've experienced and our young men too I think is worth it the next president may not believe that that's the case but for me and for putam County and for patka and for St John's River State College where our Athletics have always been Athletics are always going to be an important part of that campus as important as the Florida School of the Arts and as important as our other programs and um and this is really a you know a culmination of of of all of that work I'm gonna ask Joe pound and Britney to come up and neither of them um neither of them talk much um just to talk to you just a minute about the achievements of the girls and um and what was going through their minds and then then we'll be done and I do I had also asked Larry if it would be possible for us to have in our County something like that sign so that everybody that comes in to putam County from the north the south east or the West knows that this is putam County Florida the home of Champions and so I thank Larry for that and I'll look forward to seeing um those out there so Joe and Britney um come on up and can I get a round of applause priest for the national championship coaches well one thing I would say is that was Alysa bad's only error on the season she made one error in the Outfield all season and it was it was that play so um it's kind of funny though the whole situation because Britney will tell you I'm a hitting guy so winning four to two on a Fly ball to left field is kind of boring in my book right we we hit a lot before game she wants to do defensive work I'm like if we can't fi a ground ball and catch a fly ball right now we're going to lose anyway right so it kind of worked out for for what we believe in and that kind of stuff with how it ended especially with Alyssa being able to do that you know she was one of four all-americans on the team this year and she's also one of the 10 academic all-americans that we had um you know it just a a big season right historical season right that's been kind of the word that we've talked about and every record that this programs had was broken this year from the total wins I think the previous record was 33 wins we ended with 55 we had the most hits most runs most doubles most home runs most stolen bases pretty much every single offensive category our pitchers broke the record as a staff for the most strikeouts in a season and defensively we fielded 970 on the season with 58 errors in 70 games which is pretty good for those of you that don't follow baseball or Southall um so it was it was just a historical season great great kids it was the first year of a full team of recruits that Britney and I had which helps a lot as well um but great families president Pickins can tell you I think 17 of our 19 families the entire families were out in Spartanburg when we were there we have a girl from Canada whose family came and two girls from Chicago whose families were there so it was you know we're getting a lot of support the support we get from the community here with Miss Joyce Oliver and others is you know really appreciated and it's nice to go out and do something to say thank you right and and make you guys proud I'm Britney by the way I'm the assistant coach um I want to thank everybody who supported this program because we couldn't have done it with all of you guys um on the other hand I want to talk a little bit about the mindset of this team um and pick and said it great he said they refuse to lose and I think we said it all year they we'd be down and I think we were down in the sixth or seventh in about 15 to 20 of our games this year and we've come back and win every single one except for one okay um and it just goes to the mindset of the team and they just they battled they competed they they knew what they were capable of doing um and we had one girl her name was Olivia Hansen and she we were playing in a a game that would clinch our conference she goes up and she ends up hitting a grand slam to win the game that wins the conference for us and uh we it was another come from behind win to win it and she was getting interviewed by the newspaper and he goes you know what are you guys thinking when you're down you know you're down by three runs you going into this and what are you thinking she goes we're down but we're never out and that stuck with me I was like all right I like this mindset this team's different and we knew they were different from the minute they walked in the room and you could tell that they wanted it that they cared that everything that they came to the field to do meant something to them so it's it's a testament to them because we can't create that mindset that's something that they come in with and we are just so grateful that we were able to bring those kids in because they made the difference here we we helped them and we worked things but they did it we can't play for them so um grateful for an amazing team and again grateful for everybody here that came to support and and supported us along the way so thank you so the last thing I'd like to do is we could get the Commissioners up I'd love to get a picture with Victor and the coaches um in front of the sign that y'all had created but before you do um Let me let me have one last thank you to the Commissioners and to the audience um Coach Jones knows this um Coach Jones is from Paca coach Coach Jones could be coaching in the SEC right now if he chose to and he's chosen to stay home and he's chosen to stay home because it's home Joe is here because it's home and Britney is gonna one day make this her home we hope what I want to say to you is that um being the president of a state college in Florida is a really good job I highly recommend it being the president of a state college in Florida in your hometown your home county where you grew up where you've lived all your life where you have chosen to contribute whatever it is you're going to contribute in your lifetime is a is a is a job of a lifetime and so I want to thank the the Commissioners and I want to thank you for indulging us and me for the opportunity to be in front of you at my college in my county in my hometown and celebrate this wonderful Victory with you I hate it that the girls have all scattered for the summer um but they will be back for the ring ceremony uh in the fall and um that will I'm sure be at the college but I would invite any of you that are interested in anybody that you might share it with to be on the lookout for a ring ceremony um at the college in um late August or early September to celebrate the girls when they are back um to get their championship rings thank you very much [Applause] okay on behalf of chairman Harvey the board of County Commissioners administrator Suggs and all our staff it's my honor to um present this sign to president Pickins coach pound and all the uh staff at St John's River State College and commissioner Harvey chairman Harvey said that these will be put at every entrance uh major entrance to putam County and I think it's just fabulous um of what has taking place here and um just so proud of everybody so congratulations can we get our okay and I will promise I will not speak as long or as well as my brother but I felt I I needed to do this um we have one of our staff a beloved member of our staff Miss Julianne Holmes Young Who in alumni St John's River Community College you know when I was chatting down some stuff last night I was wondering when I if I said that if you were going to say that so anyway it's been a great hire I might add too so I reached out to Bailey Akin and Bailey said I think that's a great idea we wanted to get you a signed softball but the girls have scattered as my brother said but we'll get that softball for you in the fall Julianne played on a scholarship for St John's for two years I'm not going to go back how far it is um but I think her passion for sports is what brought her passion to the county and she is chair I'm the chair of parks and wrecks and she's over the parts and wreck we made tremendous improvements there it's her passion she took that to uh ston college and graduated there Julianne has just been a tremendous asset and I want to thank Bailey um for doing this we've got a couple of items for you um bayy did text me back later in the day said do you think we should tell president Pickins that you're going to do this I go might better do that so Julianne if you'll come up here we have have a signed picture of all of the girls um at the championship game for you and I just want to mention that two of these young ladies America's Council she is from Pearson and Ava Ramos America council is one of my best friend's daughters and it's just an honor that she's at my brother's college and AA Ramos is also from Pearson her mother Tanya is a volleyball coach there my wife was a coach of volleyball and teacher in Crescent City for 34 years years and had the UT roast respect for Miss Tanya Ramos the way she runs her program so I'm sure her daughter is the same way so Julianne we have that for you and we also have a visor and we also have a jersey a okay a all right thank you very much for [Applause] I guess it was it was such a great well thank you everyone for allowing that to take place I think it's a well I'll say I've always said since the time I've in here this is some of the favorite parts of our meeting that we get to acknowledge exceptional um people in our community and the athletic association the board trustees president Pickins and um the athletic ladies Vikings softball team and also the boys baseball team uh really can put putam County on the map and from what I understand the phones ringing off the hook for people to come to putam County and play and any anytime we can get publicity like that uh you can't buy that kind of publicity you're fixing to hear about another event that you can't buy that kind of publicity with but it just makes puam County shine in such a wonderful positive way and we all want to move putham County forward in that process so Commissioners thank you for allowing that to take place that was a long presentation but I'm going to tell you it's worth every moment of our day to do that so thank you um we'll move down to Dana Jones with the Chamber of Commerce and GNA bring us up to the bass master elite event WRA up Miss Jones you have the floor don't you hate following Joe yes thank you Dana Jones putham County Chamber spent my career trying to avoid speaking after president Pickins this is the second time that's happened at this meeting so I think I need to make better friends with the agenda coordinator maybe I believe I have a video That's supposed to start maybe oh there he is I it's not really a video I just need to scroll yes ma'am okay so normally I come before y'all after the best master elite and tell you all about the millions of dollars they drop in the economy which they do and the Thousand hotel rooms they spend which they do um and all the great economic impact that brings but today I want to be a little different and talk to you a little bit about what we call by the numbers so here's just some pictures um and I don't know how he made that work because I'm obviously not able to I'm going to tap okay this event was um Rick Ken's 500 Bassmaster Elite so there was a special setup for him which Drew hundreds of fans to the booth which was very exciting he has won the elite in POA twice so those who weren't cheering for Cliff Prince were certainly cheering for Rick Clan these are just some of the local pictures and a couple of things I wanted to point out before we get to the numbers this was the second time in the history of Bassmaster they did a special workshop for women to teach them how to get into the competition their first try they had eight people register in putham County they had 38 we almost couldn't accommodate them in the room they were extremely pleased and happy with that it was a full day workshop an 8 to3 Workshop we're getting there I promise is it just local pictures here we go so what this is is a little breakdown of by the numbers and what it shows you is over 900,000 people tuned in to the television Saturday and Sunday to watch the live broadcast of this fmas Elite that was an exceptionally large uh viewing audience largely um a contributed to we had a Canadian in the lead so Canada markets picked up and carried so it was a far reach um 900,000 people viewing not only the event in puttenham County but our own commercial to visit putham County so those that weren't watching the television were streaming we had over 600,000 people streaming on bassmaster.com the page views were over six million the live streaming those 424,000 people who were live streaming stream for over 12 million minutes I think that averages a person staying there about 20 minutes incredible opportunity for putham County lot of viewers you can see on the social media the impressions are equally impressive at 13 million the video image completion rates were astronomical and over four four million of those the on the ground attendance hit over 8,000 and if you were out there you know how hot it was so to hit that number we were extremely happy and so was fmas officials as were the Fox Sports folks on the ground y'all know that plays a big part in the event is getting people there the cameras like to see the big crowds if you've seen the televised Edition they Pan the crowds a lot covering a lot of putham County and we looked great so um basically wanted to show you the media numbers I don't know the dollar value of that but it easily hits over a quarter of a million dollars easily I want to thank the sheriff's department while they're here they were a big help for us in this event as as our other partners um and I just want to finalize and say that you know poam County really had an opportunity to to shine in the National and international Spotlight and I thank everybody for their participation and help happy to answer any questions but I'm trying to be brief um and again I didn't know I was following president Pickins the heads up next time I'll bring a mascot and maybe a pitch speaker or something so that's it for me if you don't mind I want to say thank you for all your hard work um I know you don't sleep for a week ahead and probably a week after and or you it it's a lot for you the week after I do sleep well but to put this on in in downtown Paca putam County and for this many viewers to see our our weather our environment our River our water not everybody has this in in the world not everybody has has what we have and I think sometimes when we we take it for granted that we have it and I was looking over the river yesterday afternoon in the evening and just thinking how blessed we are to live where we live um because I'm a water guy I like water and it's important to me and for us to be able to showcase our community and for you and your staff the few staff you have to pull this off with the volunteers that you have the people that get up at 3:00 in the morning to go and park boats and you know trailers and guide people it's a lot of work and it's a lot of logistics and I just want to say on behalf of me and the board of County Commissioners thank you so much and we greatly appreciate [Applause] it to your point Larry we we couldn't do it without a great staff and a great group of volunteers we had probably over 30 volunteers and I don't mean volunteers that come for an hour I'm talking volunteers that come every day like us 3 and 4 in the morning Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Wednesday for set up Monday for takedown so it is a lot and our volunteers are awesome our community is awesome and thank you thank you thank you all right next on our agenda Miss Lori Parker if you'll come forward you have an employee of the quarter good morning good morning Lori Parker Human Resources during this presentation I'm announcing the employee of the quarter for the second quarter of fiscal year 2024 and our employe of the quarter is Sabrina Southern Sabrina Southern works at emergency services and if she could come up just a couple words about Sabrina um she came to us three years ago from St John's College another good hire in my opinion um she goes out of her way to research save this County money every day um I throw things at her to purchase um and she'll come back to me I found this somewhere else much cheaper um so she's always looking out for the county she also has to deal with all the volunteer Fire Chiefs and ordering and supplies that goes on to keep the fire service running and just her attitude every day no matter what kind of mood I'm in she will cheer me up every day I come to work so I'm proud to work with her her and have her work for the county thank [Applause] you y'all don't know what a blessing she is to me but she is an amazing employee I love all my girls but to have her as employee of the quarter she's earned it she deserves it because she works herself into a fre busy a lot of times and she is so appreciated good deal congratulations let's get a picture two one she she pushes the button early next on our agenda Mr Matt Reynolds Clerk of the Court The Honorable Matt Reynolds with an employee recognition good morning Mr chairman and Commissioners thank y'all for giving me just a moment to um to do this this special recognition and and this is a a very special recognition for a a very special person um Mrs Sherry Jones if you will make your way up um it's with great sadness that I inform everybody that Mrs Jones will be retiring after 35 years of service with the cler office I know most of you probably know Mrs Sherry and she is probably one of the most selfless people I think I've ever met and um she again like what Lori just said about um Mrs Southern Sherry goes above and beyond for the clerk's office she her whole heart is in the clerk's office and um the things that she's had to endure personally over the past few years now um has been truly tremendous and I can the one thing I can say is um I've had to tell her over and over again don't worry about the clerk's office you know we've got it but it never fails um something happens in her life and the first thing she worries about is the clerk's office so um I just want to tell her thank you for the bottom of my heart thank you thank you thank you for all of the years that you have dedicated to this County and to the clerk's office you're welcome to say something but I know that you're a per not a person uh few words so if you'd like let's make sure everybody come up and and get a picture so we have a lot of people here to for this so want with again thank you Commissioners thank You' all so much we're going to take a two-minute recess e e e e e e e e we reconvene our Board of County Commission meeting again thank you for indulging us we have a lot of things to be proud of in this County uh this is our Planning Development public hearing our first item is item a the Pud 24- 00000000 12 Valentine ordinance 2024 -010 um we've heard this before uh so there's no sense rehashing the whole thing unless you want to but I'm in it is a public hearing so we will if the applicant is there anything you'd like to share staff we're going to bypass you just for a second okay if you will state your name and address for the record it's my name is Keith Val Valentine 165 Willis Road Hollister um anything changed since the last meeting yes sir only thing that changed I just needed to say behind the college two things I know I need when make a quick decision but I want to tell you two things and and confess one thing um I love the college I was there when I was a little boy playing basketball and I was at college going so I'm alumni for that so it was neat to be able to have the college here for that uh one quick thing is I want to confess they used to have a vending machine out by the gym there and it would pop down a plastic cup and you put a dime in and you'd get you cold drink I'm the one that did the pennies and made them look the size of a diamond so I just wanted to apologize for that all right you can write a check the the deputy standing right back there he'll take your money from you and that's fine but that was me the other thing was I just wanted question not always good for the soul okay that's right it or your wallet one it helps it helps the other thing was that um um my dad um means a lot to me and of course he grew up here and I love him and um miss him he's gone but one thing I want to say about that is these hearings I don't assume anything at these hearings because I don't assume because we have maybe nobody here to complain that I appreciate y'all even considering this and I don't assume it will go through I don't assume it will you know pass but I just wanted each of you to know you know I still get emotional at these things because things can happen and I love my farm I love what putam county has done especially the Bass Masters coming in we had 25 of those and that's neat to be able to have and they keep coming but I want to leave one saying about that about being emotional my dad was I think I got his jeans because he would say son he says I get so emotional the older I get he says I would cry at a Walmart opening so again I appreciate y'all doing this and I I I get scared even though everything looks good but I appreciate all of you I think what the what my park has has done for me is it is helped us out and I've put so much money back into it and the good thing about it is we've built it without owing anybody anything and so the only person I owe is in this one of this audience here's the tax collector Tim Parker so I uh property appraiser M that's right and and Linda she's not here but I just wanted to say if if y'all would really consider letting us continue on like we're going we're only asking for two things and that's a 10-ft setback and the additional units and we put our money back in putam County camping just like my dad taught all of us being from this County thank you thank you Mr okay is there anybody here in the audience that would like to speak in favor of this application anybody want to speak in opposition of this application I will close the public hearing portion of this PUD I'm sorry do you need to ask for exper yes is there any exper commissioner Adams at I have had exper with the applicant as well as the neighbor and it will not affect my vote thank you Mr Turner I had a communication with the applicant but not since the last meeting and it will not affect my vote Mr Pickins had phone conversation before the uh last meeting and I had a conversation with him in the fory this morning it won't affect my decision Miss Wilkinson I've had conversation prior to uh this meeting with the applicant and also visited the site it will not affect my decisions and I've had I've had conversation visited the site and it will not affect my decision do you want to re tell you that staff recommends approval the Planning Commission recommends approval Commissioners what's your pleasure yes sir Mr Turner I move that we approve um see PUD 24-0 z0000 Z1 is that correct 5 Zer yes sir 12 1212 I left a two off the agenda item okay ordinance okay good deal we have proper motion by commissioner Turner proper second by Commissioner Adam act Mr chairman if I may real quick it was a typo it's PUD number one so it's one yep okay not one two okay good all right so we clean that up but we're on the right PUD so any further discussion amongst the board on the motion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I posos like sign the eyes have it thank you thank you Mr Valentine thank you Mr Mrs Valentine yeah and Mrs Valentine for putting up with Mr Valentine teasy next item is our LDC revisions um Zach you got that thank you Commissioners um I'm in a bit of a pickle because I didn't prepare anything um so before I strike out on spacing too much I will defer to the consultant and let him come up here and Pitch to you all what has been proposed thank you I do want to Mr sford if you don't mind draw your attention Commissioners to page 394 of your packet that's where a change was made at the last meeting we now it's going to be the committee the administration deviation committee will be comprised of two Deputy County administrators the executive director of Planning Development Services executive director of Public Works in the senior division divisional planning manager I think that was one of the changes we made at the last meeting and I want to bring your attention to that and staff is uh agreeable to that change that's correct that is correct um in your agenda Chang go ahead sir uh in your agenda packet page 80 there is a one-page summary of all the changes that were made from The Joint planning and County Commission meeting uh there are three categories there the first category at the top is the changes that were made at the hearing based on uh staff and my my notes and then in the middle there are some additional changes requested by staff then at the end there are some additional cleanups that uh that we have identified as a consultant okay commissioner any questions for Mr Turner uh yes um on the uh second category following list of revisions that are requested by staff I understand what we're doing there but I guess the question that I would have on it would be does that mean they still have to have a minimum of the 20 acres or whatever that it called for somewhere else or can it be done under the Pud on a smaller area of land with this change so the acreage requirement did stay the same however that would not prevent any applicant from requesting a waiver from the board of County Commissioners to reduce that acreage requirement from 20 that would be in the Pud process not a separate requirement to go before zb8 make the change before they could submit or P yes sir that's correct they could do it all through the Pud process okay that's the only question I had the other question would be Ray have you already Incorporated the changes on the top part of this in the were made at the Planning Commission joint meeting yes everything on this page uh has been incorporated into the draft that's in your packet okay so basically it's an outline of the changes that were made that's right okay that's all I have Mr chairman thank you any other comments from Commissioners okay it is a public hearing so we will open it up Miss Ashley do we have any cards okay you do not have to have a card to be able to speak but it is very conveniently placed in the back of the room we will give you 3 minutes to address it and uh you if you go over it's not a big deal but we're just ask you to try to keep your comments to a minimum Mr Michael Woodward if you will thank you thank you Mr chairman you'll indulge me for a moment while I uh organize my notes and uh I apologize and Advance if I accidentally hit a key I should not on the laptop that's open here it's okay you Michael Woodward 517 South Francis Street interlocking uh I'm here today to offer three specific suggestions that could possibly head off some confusion arising from the implementation of the new procedures for appealing decisions from the administrative deviation committee uh the relevant section is section 45- 836 subsection 12 which reads decisions of the committee may be appealed to the zoning Board of adjustment within 30 days of the decision decisions of the committee may be appealed by any County Commissioner to the board of County Commissioners within 30 days of the decision uh first I notice that uh section 45-10 82 subsection F says that appeals of su decisions including Su decisions made by the ADC shall be to the Circuit Court this appears to be a conflict uh so my suggestion would be to replace the last sentence of section 45-18 2f with the following two sentences appeals of special use permit decisions rendered by the Zoning Board of adjustment shall be to the Circuit Court appeals of special use permit decisions rendered by the administrative deviation committee shall be as provided in section 455-8303 6 subsection 12 provides for Mr wibert hang on a second Mr Turner has a question for you yes sir did you get that Ray okay thank you sorry for interrupting you and hang on a minute Zach is did you get that also I heard it I'm still writing it down but I I understand okay because I think that's where you and I were kind of talking yesterday today not in that depth but yeah okay go ahead Mr over I'm sorry uh second while section 45836 subsection 12 provides for appeals of administrative deviation committee decisions to the Zoning Board of adjustment or the board of County Commissioners it does not specify whether those appeals will be heard denovo or if they will be limited only to a review of the record made in the adc's proceedings if as I think it is the case what you all have in mind yeah can you explain that to somebody from San what you just said I'll I'll I'll be glad to take another run at it okay thank you I think the noo I'm not being smart I don't know what you're meaning okay I I apologize I'll I'll give it another try here dumb it down a little all right uh so we have section 45- 836 sub subsection 12 providing for appeals of administrative deviation committee decisions but it doesn't say what kind of appeal it's going to be and essentially you have two choices you can have an appeal that will be heard denovo which means a full evidentiary hearing denovo is some kind of Latin term that means from from the beginning or or from from new so it's like a the equivalent of a new trial uh the other option is you're just going to review the record that was already made by the administrative DV ation committee and this with no new with no new evidence with no new evidence yes and and some of us may remember the time 15 20 years ago when the board of County Commissioners tried doing those kinds of appeals I think from the Zoning Board of adjustment at that time and and nobody seemed very happy with that process so I was assuming I'm assuming you were looking for a denovo appeal a full evidentiary hearing and if that's the case then I would suggest adding the following sentence to the end of section 45- 836 subsection 12 appeals of decisions of the committee shall be heard denovo if you had something else in mind then you know you'd want to specify that personally I didn't I think it we want to do a a full to no a full to noo hearing too much stuff could come to light after the fact by the time it comes I think that's what they ran into into before when you were talking about it just too much new information was there that couldn't be heard but it completely changed the case I remember some of that so yeah I I I remember the board as well as the public were pretty frustrated by trying to uh do that as a record limited review of previously submitted evidence that just didn't work out well in the context of a public hearing thank you Mr Commander do you have a problem with that no Mr chairman I would certainly recommend both those changes did you get that right okay Zach you're good okay go right ahead you got one more okay got one more and that's a little more complicated but not much uh also what's unclear in section 45- 836 subsection 12 is the relationship between the two different appeals that are described there uh or that are mentioned there uh there would be appeals to the Zoning Board of adjustment which presume presumably would be appeals brought by the applicant or some other adversely affected agreed party and appeals to the board of County Commissioners which could be made by any County Commissioner and when you think about it there are a lot of questions that come up about what an appeal by any County Commissioner would really mean in practice would that mean that the county commissioner becomes the appellant in fact an actual party to the appeal if so does he or she recuse himself or herself from hearing the appeal when it comes before the BC or is the county commissioner not really appealing to the BCC but instead accepting jurisdiction on behalf of the BC of an appeal that the party agreed by the adc's decision has already initiated Mr Wilber I had that same question yesterday so if you don't mind I'm going to turn it over to back cuz he might be able to go ahead and clarify that and yeah they we did that yesterday for a while so maybe he might be able to give you your answer and we move on or it might not satisfy you well what what I'm suggesting is that whatever answer you come up with whatever answer your staff has ought to be in the text of the ordinance so that people know what the deal is don't disagree hang on for the answer and we'll see if we can make that happen that thank you Commissioners and thank you Mr Woodward for a very thought-provoking uh suggestion I do believe the intention was that a commissioner would be the appellant uh AG grieved by the person's request or deviation that may or may not be granted um I think that it could get kind of into a a tricky situation of governing if if a um an individual say from District Five comes to the commissioner for that distri district and says I got a real big problem with what the ADC just granted and then thereby is more or less using that commissioner to take their appeal in front of the BCC whereas that citizen who is AG grieved would have the ability to appeal directly to the zboa um so I and I I know it can be tricky to try and have a burden of proof on commissioner how was how were you Agri by this person's request believe that was the intent um that's all I have to say on on the other side of that discussion though and the reason that it was put in like it was was that to make it to where somebody doesn't have to go hire an attorney and go and S Sue through the courts for an administrative deviation we all know that no matter how hard you try you don't know what's going to blow up we don't know what issu is going to get we think is completely benign but a month from now it turns into a a big issue and it's been like that forever and will'll never change and so I think that the commission being a commissioner being able hopefully a commissioner will be strong enough to to bring it to the board that if if he wants to bring it to the board but it needs to be for a reason other than somebody complained that something happened in their neighborhood and then even if that's the case the other commissioner ERS would would would be there to to make the decision it's not one commissioner making the decision the one commissioner only makes the decision to appeal it to the board so um I kind of think that needs to be in there I really do just for no other reason than you'd never know which one of these need to come to the board well I I have a few more questions that might come up that maybe we to think about ahead of time and then I will make a suggestion for what might fix the problem or some of it at least U chairman I know that he's up on his time but I'd kind of like to hear what he has to say if you with you right ahead Mr chairman before we move forward can I just clarify commissioner Turner did did you um in your response did you imagine that the BCC member that raised the appeal to the rest of the commission would they recuse or would they be involved in the vote well I always thought they would be involved but I need to talk to my attorney about that yeah no I mean they wouldn't recuse because they're not a adversely affected party it really sounds like you're taking the input of a citizen or somebody that is affected I mean a technical sense they're really the ones who would be the appellant but like commissioner Turner said you're trying to skip the step where they' have to actually go out and secure legal counsel to take those steps so um it's more I would say it's more akin to an appell Court accepting a case as far as what the role of the board would be so no I wouldn't say you'd recuse yourself in that I agree so are we looking at a situation where we could have two different appeals going on in parallel at the same time where where someone is appealing to the Zoning Board of adjustment because that person the applicant or other agreed party uh thinks that decision of the ADC was wrong and we also have an appeal uh that that a commissioner is bringing to the board of County Commissioners uh would they both be going forward or does the filing of an appeal with one of the boards the zbo the zboa or the BCC somehow automatically divest the other one of jurisdiction if a county commissioner appeals an ADC decision to the BC and the the Agri party is is relying on that what happens if that County commissioner changes his or her mind and decides to withdraw the appeal from the BCC and then the 30-day appeal period is has run and uh what what then is the agreed party to do and we also have to think about the the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies a well- advised person who may be having a beef with the outcome of an ADC decision is going to have to be using every available remedy that the county provides before in order to preserve his or her right to go to court later if he doesn't get the result he likes from the county through the county processes Mr W let me ask you this and I feel like a supreme court person right now but wouldn't if let's say a commissioner was involved with a citizen and made the appeal and then they changed their mind or they they had a difference of opinion I think they still would have the opportunity to go to the zboa at that point and file their appeal I don't think the clock would I don't think a commissioner could go 29 days and sit on it and exhaust the time limit I think that would be un unwise so I think that you know if the commissioner did change his mind once we're informed I don't think the clock starts right then but I just think that there's a remedy there and the remedy is if the commissioner changes his mind they can do the zbaa so maybe what it needs to say is they can do one of the one of or what they can go to commissioner or zboa but they can't do both at the same time yes sir Mr could I ask Rick to pitch in on this um I'm in agreement that they don't need to do both they need to do one or the other and I don't know how to make it to where you can do one and not and not use that against like uh Mr Woodward just said if somebody was wanting to be a lot of these a lot of these issues that you run into or neighbor disputes and when they turn ugly then they'll do anything in their power to keep the other person from being able to get the remedy that that we were trying to give them in other words we want to build safety in here not punishment so do you have any suggestion on on that so in a circumstance where a decisions let's just say what Mr Woodward saying there's two potentials for appeal running on Parallel tracks the zboa is an extension of the authority of this commission anyway I would say you're just going to end up either pulling it to the commission or the commissioner he or she would let go of of the issue and let it be decided by the zboa so one or the other is going to happen based on the position of the commission and I have a suggestion along that line prepared you you hang on just a minute Mr Turner had a follow-up question well so we could leave it like it is because it's going to happen one way or other it still could they could still file both appeals but really only one of them is going to be heard you really couldn't have two appeals against one another I mean the board and the zboa can appeal something at the same time can they no so the answer first question is yes second question is no and so what you see happen in pellet cases or even in um in lower tribunal cases is you see them Consolidated so hypothetically if they over in one area you would just consolidate or like I said the commissioner who was seeking to take jurisdiction over it either he or she would decide to forgo that to let it be heard before the CPA in that they're an extension of you as as you appointed them so if the commission wanted to hear it before them could they also decide to hear it before the commission yes you would pull it in either way right okay so uh one possible way to clear things up and and of course you all may come up with something better I'm sure but one possible way to clear things up so that people know going in what the process is going to be for them would be to have all appeals of ADC decisions filed initially with the zboa but then allow any County Commissioner to transfer an appeal to the BC and if that's if that's consistent with what you have in mind to accomplish that might be worded something like this uh section 45- 836 subsection 12 might be Rewritten as follows decisions of the committee may be appealed to the Zoning Board of adjustment within 30 days of the decision however at any time before the Zoning Board of adjustment hears and decides such an appeal any County Commissioner may elect to transfer the appeal to the board of County Commissioners which shall then hear and decide the appeal appeals of decisions of the committee shall be heard to noo you see any issues with that rck I mean basically it just means there's one place to file the appeal but a commissioner could still hear the appeal if they wanted to by just transferring I have one question I'm good with what you said I'm good would it be the commissioner in that District or would it just say they're mad at me and inin and they go to they go to Mr Pickins and South put no each commissioner represents the entire County so I wouldn't get so it doesn't matter okay that's fine so I think as by consensus we're probably good with that statement everybody got that Mr spord you got it okay good I I have it in writing if anybody wants to see what I have give it to Miss Ashley for our clerk right here and then she can keep it you know to make sure that the proper wording actually would you make sure that Mr Spofford gets a copy of it or whatever please good thank you and I I I just want to say whatever you decide to do I think it's really important to get it all in the ordinance so that people understand the process going in and the ambiguities are taken out of it and I can tell you from having litigated land use cases the things that you don't deal with upfront will come back at you and uh and and they'll bite you later Mr War thank you for your input on that and we greatly appreciate that thank you for the time that you spent to do that thank you yeah is there any anybody else in the audience would like to speak in favor or against then we'll close a public hearing part and Commissioners what's your pleasure I'm just looking for the resolution what page is the resolution we have a resolution or just an ordinance yeah 77 and Commissioners too if I may this is uh the first of two readings so we're aiming for a second reading date and time so all we need today is a second reading date and a yes sir for the adoption I thought the joint meeting with the Planning Commission and and the County Commission counted as the first but we decide it didn't so at that at that meeting unfortunately there was no date and time selected for the second reading by the BC it just the the quote was bring it back back to it next month all right all right I love and actually there there were material changes to ordinance which would reason why it's got to go back to First next time if we'll be directed to do that what we want to do if I may M you may um so what we want to do today rich is just say that date time certain we're going to hear this again okay first meeting in July good enough because we don't have another one this month is that a good enough the second Tuesday in July Mr chairman I move we hear this for the second reading on the second Tuesday in July at 9:00 or as quickly thereafter as we can second proper motion proper second any further discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I I supp like sign the ice habit thank you thank you for all your hard work Michael thank you for those suggestions I appreciate it we really do uh public comments this is on agenda items this portion of the agenda is designed to allow the CI opportunity bring matters to the attention of the board on agenda items we ask that you keep your comments to 3 minutes and uh there are cards in the back of the room if you want to fill them out is there anybody in the audience that's wanting to talk about agenda items a b c d e f and g and seeing no one running to the podium then we'll close the public portion of that Commissioners commissioner adamac any items you wish to pull I have none okay Comm commissioner Turner I have none commissioner Pickins I I have none commissioner Wilkinson I have none and I have none the chair will entertain a motion Mr chair I move approval of consent agenda items a b CDE e f and g second proper motion proper second any further discussion on the motion at hand hearing n all in favor signify by say I I oose like sign the eyes have it next item Mr Thomas Moore this is fine reduction on codes enforcement is there any anybody in the audience that is associated with codes case number 20 22-13 or case number 22-00 5185 is anybody in the audience for those what's number sir if you will just give Mr Moore your name Ruben okay that's 5185 the second one the second one okay yes so Commissioners what's your pleasure on the first item the cod's case ending with 13 Mr chairman I move that we uh take staff recommendation and and for $1,982 of paid within 90 days proper motion proper second any further discussion on the motion hearing n all in favor signify say I I oppose like sign the eyes have it okay Mr Moore you're up on the next item you actually want to speak is that what you're wanting to do all right Mr chairman I move that on case number um 22 5185 that we uh take staff recommendation and reduce it to $1,898 of paid within 90 days proper motion proper second any further discussion on that motion hearing n all in favor signify by saying I I pose like sign the eyes have it thank you thank you commission Mr chairman just a minute Tom I just want to thank you um and your staff for what you do uh we have situations like this all up throughout the county okay and each commissioner deals with with those complaints um but I had somebody call me Saturday and they actually live in Ohio and theyve bought a place in in South butam and and y'all took care of a cod's case uh there and he just called me to thank me so I'm thanking you and your staff I talked to Z yesterday because she was the officer on the case I just wanted to thank you in public uh for everything y'all do okay thank you every much sir thank you Mr Moore thank you Mr Pickins all right next item is our appointments I'll start with Mr Adams act do you have any appointments you like to make I'm sorry today okay thank you Mr Turner yes sir I'd like to nominate John tra for at large on animal services and by consensus everybody good with that okay that's fine thank you i' also like to appoint Marshall fulgram to the fair board when at the end of this term okay that's all I have today thank you sir Mr Pickins um I don't have any today but I do have a question that maybe lur can answer on your fair Authority uh District appointments do they have to live in that particular District or just live in putham County just anywhere in putam on which one fair board have to live within the district they do not they do not okay all right that's all I need to know we could change that but it would te fair board down everybody you have to redo the whole fair board it's hard to find people I didn't think they had to I just wanted that clarified so okay I have none right now miss Wilkinson do you have any appointments no and I have an appointment I am going to appoint Mr Raymond Ray Barnes to the fair board replacing Mr Doug Thompson and I have his citizens participation application right here and that's the only appointment I have so going now to new business item e Administration certainty gemson Grant agreement I guess Julianne you got that commissioner thank you very much um I am staff uh on that item however Miss Masters who is with certained um approached us with the re requests that are captured in your board packet um Miss Masters is going to speak about that and then if the board has questions I'm happy to answer okay I do have a question and we've already talked about it Julian um about is it an audible is this agreement going to be satisfaction to our Auditors and I think that's going to go to Matt now at that point have you looked over that agreement because I think the 941 would not work for them well I'm I recall the meeting that we had the other day but it was um specifically in regards to this one I not I didn't mean to put you on the spot it wasn't I'm I'm not aware of well then during the presentation we probably need to look at it and if it's something that you feel like we can audit to make sure that we give back to the citizen we we'll be fine so I'm sorry to put you on that spot okay go right ahead thank you any other questions by commissioner okay hi I'm Deborah Master the plant manager at certainty gypsum Paca and we'd love to have this amendment um entered and and approved it just allows us to um put a baseline start for our employment which we've you know with this Grant and thank you for that approval for the grant funding to help us uh offset some of our cost to this $235 million project but um we'd like to have as of q1 2024 a baseline year that allows me then to start bringing in new hires um to allow me to start the operations up as we uh begin construction of the new line and then that allows also uh to supply the document of the uh Florida State unemployment tax records that we file that allows us to have that Baseline year um number of people uh as a justification to say when the tax rolls in the property tax appra are complete and initial Years start to begin I can at least use my Baseline year q1 2024 to justify the number of employees that I brought on board I don't have a problem with the Baseline as much as I have a problem with the 941 that we normally use um but if that's something that we can get past uh I don't have a problem then at all so I think it's a good thing for economic development but you know again we have to be in a position of of auditing it to a to a standard and that's what we're looking at yeah and I believe um Miss Young talked to some of the legal team and uh I believe the rt6 which is the uh State unemployment tax records that we file are were acceptable any other comments commissioner any so not a legal determination Miss Young did talk to legal counsel about whether or not the Amendments being proposed meet legal sufficiency for the agreement um we have had some one-on ones and some back and forth about um the vagueness or the the lack of transparency in being able to validate that Statewide report to the Paca plant and that is where they offered some additional information which is in your um board packet for you to consider whether or not that meets your metric to some degree at some point this will be a board um decision as to how comfortable they feel thank you Commissioners any other comment Mr turn so basically what we've done here is we our original agreement was based on so much money per job for so many jobs and backs and so what we're trying to do is determine the best way to for them to prove Pro how many jobs that they have and the time frame if I understood when I read this they're trying to move the time frame up a little bit where they can go ahead and start hiring some of these jobs but they need those new jobs included in the process um just trying to make sure I'm understanding what's going on here correct so do we care as long as they prove how many jobs they have do we care if they use the N9 41 or the rt6 I mean do we care well that became the that's a decision for the board to make an rt6 is a Statewide report a 941 is a plant specific report so when you read that rt6 it it's its name its filing entity is actually an entity in Pennsylvania then the question becomes the difference in a 941 and an rt6 is just that what is the certainty that the Board needs to validate that the job growth is only and specific to the patka plant and not other operations within the State of Florida I guess my biggest concern would probably be um when they're not asking for an extension in how long this deal Works they're just wanting to move the startup and then get paid for the employees they're hiring now so I mean there's a time frame correct C so the original agreement calls for the time frame to the trigger to be the first year after it is fully assessed on the tax roles then the the Baseline year would be one year year prior so the what what Miss Masters wants to do is move the Baseline year up which may mean you have um a window where she's hiring and engaging employees for the project over two or three years and then that Baseline Year may be the initial year of the grant payout Year may be three years after the Baseline year because she's going as I understand it she's going to hire and train those people on maintenance or or different capacities of what the new line would be in the original grant that was negotiated it would only count those employes pleas hired within the 12 Monon period prior to that first designated initial year I kind I kind of get that but it's not where I'm trying to go there you get so many years I don't five five years are you wanting to move the Baseline up and leave the back year where it was or you want to move the whole program and still have five years but move it up to where you can start hiring people and getting paid for them before the plants operate we don't want to change the way we get paid so when the when the property tax appraisal starts and says the Project's complete and that initial year would be 20125 I just want to include the people that I brought in in 2024 because I'm starting up the plan asking for pre-tax relief you're just wanting to bring it to be able to preh the people ahead of time get them trained for when the plan opens and then count them in your same 5year window correct why would we have a problem with that I don't understand would we I don't know well are you done yes and then the difference was the the use of the 941 as a company we don't file a 941 so that's why I was trying to use another state another tax some other governmental in and and that's why we selected the rt6 which is the only thing my company could come up with me for use to substantiate the number of people that I'm bringing on thank you Miss Wilkinson and according to your certificate by your secretary uh your company only has employees in the State of Florida at this plant yes the the company called certained gypsum has certainty palaka LLC which is the only company in the state Florida with that entity name so your uh rt6 would reflect the State of Florida employees at the plant in putham County correct I don't understand what the problem is either okay I don't I don't have a problem with the form right now as long as it's audible I don't have a problem but I think the question is still on the table here is that person you're hiring you're hiring somebody from the public to go GO train for maintenance on that line MH are they only going to be dedicated to that line or they going to be dedicated to the whole plant how mean it doesn't I'm just asking the question it would it could depend I mean honestly to be to answer your question because I'll bring people in like I've hired three maintenance techs right now I'm training them I'm going to train them on line one so that they become familiar with gypsum operations and then I'll utilize a rotation of employees to to cover for line one and line two and likely I'll move people who have experience to work with less experience people to start up the line paint commission and I'm fine with that I am I just wanted to make that point Mr Pickins you have the floor so is um alluding to commissioner wil's question so with the rt6 that it will be only for putam County employees only employees right for gu aned Paka LLC which is the plant that I operate so you couldn't hire somebody that would be a a utility person that would go you don't have another facility in in Florida it couldn't go to another one but was based in based in puam County but also no not under that would not be called certainty palaka LLC yep okay yeah because sanco Ben operates other facilities in Florida but they are not part part of the entity called certained gypsum operating company which operates the plant certained Paka LLC which I operate all right any go ahead Mr Turner would the U sorry Mr Pi fine okay Sor you done yes would the rt6 show what the current people are and then it would show the additional people and then you would identify the additional people as going towards your minimum employee count for the first year of your of your uh tax uh deal that we have with you your tax rebate or whatever yeah so the rt6 has a number of of headcount by month January February March they'd Supply a a backup file from a payroll record and I can I had I have a back a payroll record with employee names and some redacted information on their on their uh wages that supports what that RTX says um at the bottom line say a million dollars matches the million dollars and then it it shows the list of employees and I could easily justify or provide any opportunity you want to kind of audit those people or at least Supply you that record as well thank you Mr turn anym Mr chairman I have no issue with this that I can determine I don't know how the other board feels so where do we want to go from here move it to the next agenda and put it on the or I think we can deal with it today I don't know that sounds a little more convoluted than the other form I mean the other form I think was pretty simple you had 100 employees now you have 110 and it was we saw that farm for other companies that have done it and my only concern is to as soon as we start changing process this would be a oneoff from what we've done with every other time we've done this then what stops the next person from wanting their own process and the next person the next person um I'm not necessarily for this um I would love to see the output that you're talking about before I decided so I'm I'm not for voting for it today but I guess if I saw the output I was able to talk with staff and they said yeah this output allows it to be real easy for us just like the other form I'd like to hear that from staff that they do you feel that way um the concern that staff has is that I requested that form in an original meeting and there were a number of employees assigned to a Tampa location and that is where staff said there's going to be a a concern and and I was told that they were part of a Salesforce and then I was told it was an error and then I was told it was a process that the local plant produces the report by which would be the validation and so that's what brings us here today was that we had some concern into if we're not going to use the 941 which is plant specific because they're not filing one and they have a number of umbrella corporations all rolling up into one umbrella which is following the rt6 then how does this board and staff and audit have some sort of legitimate validation to job growth in patka Florida not in the State of Florida so I mean unless the staff tells me that it's easily verifiable by them I'm not for this and I can tell you I work for a company now and I work for a division and I can go work for any Division I want I'm still get paid from the division that I work for I'm actually based out of Nashville today I was base out of Florida 6 months ago I mean it's it's it's all just a paper game in that case that's the concern about the rt6 that staff has every big company does that and it's I don't know I'm not saying I'm not claiming you're trying to do something to Super circumvent it I'm just saying every big company can and does do that well Mr chairman yes sir Mr chair my problem with this whole deal is is that I don't think it ever should have been tied to jobs to start with that it should have been tied to exactly what we were trying to do which is they put millions of dollars in expansion in putam County they expanded the tax base and we're going to give them a piece of the money back for them coming here and expanding in our County same thing we did to GP same thing we did I don't think we should ever tied it to job to start with I think we should have tied it to the amount of money that they put in our County we did it with GP and it worked out fine GP had a job creation component qualifier as did true trust so I have never been part of one or had one in the county where job creation at some level wasn't tied to the incentive now yall set the level right it could be low if the dollars of investment are high understand but there's no statute that says it has to be done for job creation we've done that in the past and 15 10 years ago 15 years ago it was a different ball game we were looking for jobs we were looking for jobs because nobody had work if you don't have a job today you're lazy because there's like 10,000 of them within 20 miles of the center of Paca right now and so if you don't have a job today you're not looking very hard I'm just saying so it's the environment's different so I think those were carryover from past times when it was all tied to job because you were trying to get jobs putham County doesn't need job more jobs they need better paying jobs and this is how you get better paying job is to bring in the bigger industry so personally I'm ready to move this forward today um because I think they have put the investment into putham County that we asked them to put into putham County and so just like GP did in their deal and just like whatever and I think they're going to hire the people these machines don't completely run theirselves and it would be to their benefit and as one of our partners in the community I believe that we need to help them to get their people trained for when the year that they actually open up they're ready to open up and they have their people trained so Mr chairman I move that we move this forward okay we got well you made a motion so let's go with that do we have a second on the motion I'll second it okay second for discussion Mr Adam Zach you have the floor I'll just say as long as I'm in the seat if it isn't tied to jobs there'll always be a no vote so but that's separate from this because this is still tied to jobs it's just how we verify them okay thank you Miss Wilkinson you have the floor um so you had mentioned that you could provide backup with your payroll data um I would say that that is an auditable um report because it certainly has people's addresses on it and so I don't I don't understand why that couldn't be auditable I guess that's a question for our cler of Courts but I agree with commissioner Turner this is a $235 million project investment and we are getting better paying jobs and I'm I'm all for it so thank you thank you Mr Pickins you have the floor yeah that that was my concern but if you have the addresses where you can confirm that they are from here but we're glad you're here glad you've been here and glad you're reinvesting in putam County um and the tax money that we we give back will be you know for extra tax money you all pay on the expansion so it's a win-win we just have to be able for staff to track it and show because we not only have to prove it to the Auditors we have to prove it to the citizens because we'll get questions on that too so so I'm I'm okay if you can guarantee that thank you Mr pick Mr Adams that then Mr sug I just can't get to and I'm all for the expansion in jobs and all that stuff I just can't get to a yes vote without hearing that the documents they feel are easily verifiable and auditable so I haven't heard a yes to either of those questions so till I hear a yes I can't get to a yes Mr SS yes sir thank you Mr chairman uh the staff over here wholeheartedly agrees with everything that the commission is trying to do today uh just we just want to make sure and Mr ryle's The Honorable Matt r have to ask a question at this point when we go down and go through this process and and and make these these uh changes today is it going to meet the threshold for which your office is required to audit us when we are looking at these type of situations where we got a grant to give back um you know investment dollars to puam County whether it's tied to a particular form or not I just want to make sure before we go down that road that there's some level of Confidence from your office as our as our financial uh uh fory sure you know absolutely um well I I will start off by saying it's the first time I've seen an rt6 form with the state I'm not familiar with you know companies that operate or are owned outside of the US and have to file this form so just looking through the form it does look like it is a state required form and it does look like they have to sign the statement on it that that information is true and accurate to their knowledge um but I without researching it further and and digging I I would have the same concerns that Mrs Young had brought up about um unless we know that that rt6 is only submitted for the entity that is operating in putham county that would be um that would be the determining Factor but Mr suggs's Question more so about would this form meet um standards I I think it would if if that's what the board decides that's the form that they want to use but those concerns about the numbers on the form could could still be there and unless I mean we could research further with the company but based on what she said if that rt6 is only for the entity that's operating in putam County then it should be fine but looking at the information that does look like what Mrs J was saying in that the umbrella corporations do roll up into that rt6 that has all of them that goes to the state I may be wrong I I I may just be interpreting that incorrectly but um I think the form itself could could be used as the metric to um audit the numbers it's just the substance of what's in the form thank you Mr Adam Zach you have the floor yeah I I just don't see why we don't want to take until the next meeting give time for people to verify that and you don't have to vote for it if you don't believe I'm just speaking my opinion sir I'm not that progress but all right we have a proper motion and a proper second we have no more lights on at this time we're going to take a vote roll call vote Miss Ashley if you will yes yes M yes no yes thank you very much all right thank you thank you next item on our agenda is discussion about sanitation Guess m Mr Tilton will be coming up for that good morning everyone good morning morning appreciate this opportunity to be with you today and to start a discussion on uh was Pro's contract Waste Pro the contract that we're in currently with was Pro um was adopted in 2015 um it was a 10-year contract with the opportunity for two 5year renewals um so the 5-year renewals don't kick in wouldn't kick in until October 1st of 2025 but we need to start having these discussions now the price of picking up garbage has went up um for everybody and so Waste Pro has came to us um with some uh prices um price increases for how they would like to move forward if we grant them the renewal if not then we would have to go out to uh for an RFP um and select a new company so before you today I bring to open the discussion of uh one that we look at the uh continue with Waste Pro um with the the prices that they've given us and then they've given us two different prices one is for continuing with the same exact service that we have now and then two is continuing with the same service minus curbside recycling um so just a just a couple of notes um other counties around us one in particular Clay County um their new contract kicks in October 1st of this year um they have gotten rid of curbside recycling they will no longer be doing that in uh Clay County now they have uh a couple of places that you can bring it to um throughout the county but they will no longer be doing curbside recycling so recycling is uh a Hot Topic just because of it's uh it's it's tough people have to remember you know the purpose in trying to recycling to try to recyclers try to make um those items reusable but it is still a business and with any business if there's not a place or wait for companies to make money it's tough so right now um in the recycling industry newspaper and cardboard are the things are the easiest to recycle but your Plastics and such things like that um it's tough to find a place for them so Mr Tilton I'm gonna go first if you don't mind yes sir um I have I have talked about this for a few years I like recycling but I'm not sold on it 18% of our our clientele at a 33,000 assess recycle and they can only recycle if there's a market for it and sometimes there's not a market for it so in my opinion we have three trucks a week going down our roads one truck particular for 18% of our clientel I think what Klay County did is is probably the right path is to put places out where people who want to recy recycle properly can do that but I don't need them coming by if you follow the truck in my neighborhood they never stop the recycling truck just drives right on by and I think it's time to face the facts that it's just not working and if we have we we do get a grant correct me if I'm wrong from the state of Florida for recycling small County Grant of $100,000 or 90,000 90,000 yes sir something in that neighbor but even if we did voluntary recycling we'd still get that Grant from my understanding correct there's some requirements we had to make but I mean that would be still try to make sure we qualified I think it's obvious that when 18% of our 33,000 assessments are recycling we got a problem there and it's not because people probably don't want to it's probably there's just no market and we get the mo the calls I get the truck slammed on brakes and made a made a mess on the road or or they mix the recycling with the regular garbage I get that but if there's no market then we're just store piling stuff up for no reason at all thank you Mr Turner you have the floor okay um I think it's very wise to consider not recycling curbside nobody's saying we're not going to still have recycling we're just not going to pick it up and and it's mostly numbers with me um we're paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to basically take the cans and cardboard out and dump the rest of it somebody else's landfill because there's no end use for the product now they basically told us that I didn't make that up there's just no place to sell the stuff um in at at the end of this year for next budget year we're going to have to go up $684 to cover what the increase is for next year and it might be a little bit more than that actually because I didn't fuel figure in fuel cost and in the current contract we have a 4% maximum uh GP uh GPI or CPI and then we have uh CPI and then next year we have a u and we have a fuel charge this year it was 4.4% which we're fixing to pay them we just had to go to mediation because the two sides didn't agree that on the the uh math for the thing so this is part of trying to settle that and get everybody on the same page but our current carrier still has one more more year in their contract and so it would go up again and we figure it's going to go up to another $684 per household well that's not the end of the world but in 26 when we when the new the end of 25 for the 256 year you're going to have a u an increase in your Solid Waste assessment of $284 and that's with recycling without recycling it's going to be $58 in one year if you don't eliminate recycling now I'm not going to be here but for you guys that are God help you for taking a a 60 a $60 a year increase in just that not only that we've been able over the last few years we've been able to drop the assessment because of the efficiencies in the Landfield and having funding partner bring in some trash to help us pay our expenses our number one funding partner that's been helping us over the years sold his business and waste management bought him out and they basically have thumbed their nose at us so we just lost that Revenue our other funding partner that we had which was another waste management thing that was down in armman they were bringing us some garbage that's pretty pretty much over too if not over isn't it Jay they bring us about 10 loads a week yeah so they're very bringing very very little and so our funding going out and Gathering fun small funding Partners to help us over the last few years keep the expenses down um we we've lost those funding Partners or they've really calmed down we Jay has his ear on another fund possible funding partner but best case scenario it's going to be at the end of next year and it's way up in the week I mean it's way up in the area December 25 don't even know what if it's coming so I think that if as long as we continue recycling at the facilities that we can still get our recycle Grant um and it doesn't cover recycling I'm telling you now it just covers like 10% of recycling so education of Rec yes yeah right it covers education of recycling but so you know another thing we could do is we could say let's just go ahead and go out for bid let's just put it out to bid I feel very confident in this statement um after the negotiations that have taken place between was Pro and the county I feel very confident that the rate would be higher if we went out for bid I feel very confident in that clay County came in higher than this and they have less Services than we do even with the decreased uh they they have you you can't pick up but so much so much trash at each spot I mean they have we have unlimited pretty much yeah that's so what you're seeing is a lot of the counties have now went to where they're buying the garbage cans um for the citizens and so the rate that you pay is for so like in St John's County they are um at 20 21 2122 is what their rate will start at in uh August 1st of this year you get 196 gallon cart if you need if that's not sufficient for your needs they will sell you another 96 gallon cart but it is a $150 extra per house a year wow for that second cart so um and then Clay County they're going to 1810 um per house per now this is per month y'all is what not per year but per month um they're going to 1810 and they just purchased three $3.8 million worth of carts to do the same type thing in Clay County and that's without recycling yes sir but they limit you to that to that one garbage can and then if you need something extra you pay basically a percentage of another uh annual fee basically they offered us Fe 1589 and it's 1810 in Clay County for Less Services because they they they uh don't let you give give as much garbage at the street they don't let you put out as much garbage they limit you so the only difference is in Klay county is their yard waste is weekly where ours is every other week that's the that's the difference in the prices so I don't think we're going to find a better deal for the citizens of putam County than the 15 89 and that's starting not this coming budget year but the following budget year would be 1589 without recycling um if for some reason the commission decided that they wanted to try to recycle again in the future they could always go back to Waste Pro and talk to them about it or whatever but I don't believe was Pro would be stuck at that $30 a year per household to do that you would just have to negotiate if they wanted to do that again um it's it's very difficult for everybody to be paying the amount of money that we're paying for recycling and basically they like I said earlier they pick up the garbage they carry it take the cardboard and aluminum cans out of it and they go dump it in a different Landfield not ours they dump it over in oala or somewhere that that's a true statement not necessarily through waste probe but by the time it makes it to foreign countries and wherever those recycling places are uh a lot of it does not wind up being recycled on the plastic side Mr Turner if you're done Mr Adams that I guess I'm about done I just don't see how we're going to come up with a better deal than that at this deal so when would Street side recycling stop October 1st 2025 2025 yes sir and the reason we had to bring this to you all at this time that if we would have decided to go out for an RFP y'all know as well as I do it takes 12 to 15 months to get equipment now in these days that if we did go in another direction to allow this to happen so that's why we're bringing it to you this far in advance so I guess I'll say this my drive in here I drive through Johnson through most of Hawthorne through interlocking and all of that is pick up today okay I think there's on the average Tuesday when I come in here there's probably eight totes in that traffic pattern that I take that's like 20 some miles um you mean the rec the recycl bins um one thing I see is a lot of when you have the recycl bins and there there's one specifically on Kuka where there's like four or five that get put out all the time and because the the sand trucks come by there all the time all that stuff gets blown all down the road and then somebody eventually picks it up which usually doesn't until it gets to be like a big pile of stuff and we either get a group of citizens or um the pey plum keep putting them beautiful comes out and does does a thing once in a while um some of our waste on the side of the roads I guess I'm saying is because those are uncapped totes that don't really hold things when something Drives By at high speeds um I'm all for this as long as can you tell me what does it look like where we are going to recycle at the three facilities and keep in mind we've had keep putting them beautiful come here and present to us almost every grocery store takes recycling of all different kinds almost every dollar General does we we have other opportunities besides just the county facilities to recycle if we choose to do so um I know my wife recycles some things and she doesn't do it through this she drops it off at Dollar General and different places based on the ease of it and not having that tow out in front and having us out there picking up the stuff that was in the recycle bin every week which is what was happening at our house because we take our garbage and recycling all the way out to a road a half mile away that's high traffic um and everything gets around so I'm for this as long as we can you describe what it would look like in our recycling areas like at our inar uh and our Huntington facilities we've already got we've upgraded to 30 yard recycle containers um that people can bring there if they miss the recycling they bring only thing that we deal with at those sites is the contamination Factor because a lot of times we have people like glass I I have an opportunity to get rid of glass but I can't get it clean enough every time I take a picture and send the strategic materials with will you take this no and it's not it's really not worth having somebody go through there and pick out every piece of garbage to get the glass right so the the the the but we have the dumpsters in place already we already take cardboard as we get it in there to uh Waste Pro um and the Plastics as they come in uh already like that um so that's what we would do is we would have the 30 and we would work with Waste Pro or or like Columbia County they work with ala County and they take their they take their recycling they have the same way they don't do curbside recycling in Columbia County they have three facilities like we would have but what they've done is they've restricted the openings to those containers to where it doesn't really allow for somebody to throw a trash bag in there with your newspaper and things like that and then they take it they take it to a Lota County they have a interlocal agreement with them I guess my last question is why do we need to wait till 2025 that's when the contract is up okay so we can't say just stop picking up because I honestly think it's part of part of the problem in some of our mspu and stuff every extra truck we I tried that last year and we approved Waste Pro it's in our contract until next year and so we're basically paying about $42 right now of our contract is in is in recycling and so I wanted to try and do away with it last year it wouldn't work out our contract would not let us do it until the end of the contract period which is next year the contract specifically States a time period and and last year when we started having this discussion um we we like we would have to have done it already because I believe it has to be done by July 1st and you have 90 you got to start that conversation like 90 days ahead of July the 1st so we didn't we didn't bring it up this year because anticipation having this conversation okay Mr Tilton I have a a comment you and I have talked about this too is travel trailers on property right now uh they're producing garbage and then they get to leave and they don't pay an assessment I I think that's wrong I don't know how we find out who has power but they I believe they should be assessed from now on uh because they are able to be on the property so many days a year some of them are building the house and we appreciate that don't get me wrong but they are producing garbage when they're doing that so I think we need to address that and that might help some of that cost go down a little bit when you put more people in the pot I don't know how many more people that looks like but I think we need to find a way to identify the travel trailers and The weekenders Who coming down leaving their garbage and they pick it up and but somebody else is paying for that pickup no I would tell you that that's definitely a discussion needs to happen we've had um me and Miss Young And even Mr Suggs we had an instance where somebody had a a farm that they like to come in on the weekends out of town and work at that farm and they produce trash well they don't want to take the trash back with them to Duval County or wherever it was they want to know how do I pay the assessment so I can leave it there uh when I leave on Sunday afternoon and know it's going to get picked up that week so I believe I'm I'm all for having that conversation and putting that mechanism together thank you yes sir Mr Turner usually Waste Pro doesn't pick up any bag of trash that sit out beside the highway they have stops certain stops and so if you set out a bag by the highway and you're not on one of those stops and Waste Pro usually won't pick it up and that's the reason why these um this gentleman that he's talking about wanted his trash picked up and they couldn't get on because he didn't have a residence so they developed a process where whereby you could sign up and they'd tell Waste Pro to pick up garbage at that spot as long as you pay your assessment because they wanted to do that and so they they have already come up with a way to do that now I think it would be more of a Code Enforcement issue to figure out if somebody's parking illegally parking a camper out in the woods somewhere and they how how could we ever catch that I don't know how you would I understand what you're saying but I don't know how you'd catch that all right so Mr Pickins is next and then we're going to go ladies before gentlemen so because they're both we've had these conversations before about about you know the recycling unless you have an enduser you know there there's no profit and sometimes it doesn't work and it seems like where we are um and other counties are going that way too I understand this wouldn't start till October 25 what's the education process to educate citizens because some people are really really um passionate about recycling um I mentioned this yesterday to you that during that uh period of time where Waste Pro was having some employee problems and also equipment problems and the recycling wasn't getting picked up on time or one truck picked it all up um I got more phone calls over that than a lot of issues that I've had over the eight years so I think the Public's going to definitely need to be educated of why the why the county wants to do this I've had discussions with Waste Pro how we how we go forward or how they maybe went forward in other ways and they said they would be willing to help educate on this but I think the um we need to keep putting them beautiful um to help get the word out but what people have to realize is is about 10 years ago China was the main recycle Hub like everything went to China especially on the plastic side they came up with an initiative called the green fence initiative and the green fence initiative said is that contamination and recycling cannot be over 1% okay so that means of of a ton of material right you can't have over 20 lbs of contaminated material in that 2,000 lbs of stuff in the United States right now we struggle even with the state of art facilities to get anything less than 7% so if you have material that is too contaminated you can't recycle it and that's the the reason that you're finding these woses because they can't move it it it becomes easier just to dig get it dig it out of the ground so as far as educating we would do everything that we can to let them know that we still have opportuni to recycle we're going to work on opportuni to recycle but it might be that we recycle items that we know we can move only um and have to be and then as we find we'll always be looking for end users um and as we find those end users then we will recycle more products in all in all fairness so we need to make sure that we understand that in users are not easy to find we've been looking for six years now or five years that Jay's been here we thought we had the glass problem Sol but we were wrong you know we we're working on the tires you know by cutting them up and doing whatever and so we're working on these things but it's not as easy as just getting lucky and going out and finding a Plastics guy Waste Pro wants to find them too and waste management and all them and so when somebody opens up they inundate them with enough stuff so I mean it's not easy to get an end use for this stuff I think too you remember the uh the gasification thing that we presented you I mean if that if that thing ever was to come to fruition it would you know everything in putam County would be recycled then and I think it will one day yeah it's the technology is just it's not it's not evolving yet yeah Miss Wilkinson uh thank you Jay for your presentation I don't know that you answered Commissioner Adam act's question as far as where we will have all the different uh recycling we have the three sites in alarin Huntington and then at Central we have the three sites already set up for drop off recycling now so we wouldn't be looking at expanding any of those in this um process not right now no ma'am because I mean we have it set up for the items that we already recycle now we have the dumpsters now if we if we came across something that would show a need to expand those the problem you're going to have is if because we even talked about um like East palakka and trying to have a couple more of those sites around yes sir if they're not manned commissioner Wilkinson like if they don't have an attendant there to watch what people are putting in there you might as well just bag it up and throw it away okay all right that's that's the problem you know we don't want to go back to the old green box days right you know we all remember that there I remember Sam as a kid you know all the little six yarders around and oh yeah how nasty that was we don't want to go back there so you'd have to have a Mann attendant site that you know um has somebody that can kind of coordinate wher everything goes okay and then my other question on tires so we're currently shredding tires we're taking tires shredding them and what are we doing with the shredded materialss so right now we're using as alternative daily cover in the landfill and also as road base okay but we are continually looking for a in use for that um just nothing's stuck okay everywhere from asphalt plants to seol GP nothing is stuck uh you know and then the everybody talks about like tracks or playgrounds that Market's pretty saturated okay those those companies that are doing those are very selective and that's that's really what put us down this path we had a company that made the crumb rubber um and they got there and they said your tires are too dirty we don't want them no more so it took our cost from $125 a ton to $325 a ton as a county well I commend you and your staff are getting us to this point on the tires because I think that that was definitely needed in this County because tires is a big problem and you guys have initiated some Tire amnesty days and all of that has certainly helped um with the with the tires that we've seen dumped on the side of the road so many times and on abandoned property so and we hope to have some conversations with you all in the future as we sit down to expand some of those opportunities to bring tires and and the amounts and stuff like that we hope to bring back to you okay thank you yes ma'am Mr Adams that yeah so to commissioner Turners that the process like let's say I had an acre and I wanted to come bring my camper for a week and then leave and have garbage that goes through us or does that go right to Waste Pro I'm just I know people that are interested in doing that yeah that goes through but the way it's initiated is is is we count Co so we get a CO from uh I believe it's the property praiser we get we get a list of cosos every week and then so what we then do is we add that to Waste Pro role um we send that list to them and then they add it to their pickup spots but I think that he's what he Commissioner Adam act talking about are things you're not going to get a CO on somebody bringing their trailer down but just like that one y'all added the other day you never going to get a CO there because there's no building out there he comes in there he's got a little one room cabin in there or something that he comes and stays on he won't to leave his garbage so he went ahead and where he was taking it back to do all with him he wanted to be in the system and we worked with the Property Appraiser's office to get him on that list Miss Young I think that's how we did that to get him on that list and then we were able to then send it to was Pro to add that stock Okay cool so they could if they wanted to reach out to the county and they have they do have an Avenue that you could add an address to to the thing on the solid waste but you have to be real careful because it's not legal to bring a camper in and just park it anywhere to no I agree with what you said as far as that's a code enforcement thing but it it's perfectly legal if I have two acres to bring a camper in for the weekend and then leave and I can see I'm lazy by Nature even when we've stayed places that had the campgrounds I wanted to just leave it in a dumpster or something so I could see many people that are doing that as a recreation I think they an Avenue right that's that's awesome but there are times when how we know that though that's that's there are times when people put their cans out and whether they Waste Pro does pick it up and they're not charged so so my other comment is around if because we're talking about generally waste in the county the conversation expanded beyond the contract a little bit you know I think we need to look into at some point whether it's this commission or future commissions having it where there's Lids on garbage cans to be honest with you and not having just bags sitting on the curb because that's another place where the bags get ripped by dogs and by bears and by raccoons and by possums and we garbage all over the place that same place on Kuka where we had the guy dumped the stuff all over too it's right down the road that garbage there every time is just torn up and covers a half acre of property at this point um and that's actually all in CS it's all in rways it's not even a person that you could hold responsible through code enforcement um so that's something we should consider and I without giving away the location there's several people that have these boxes out in front of their yards and uh my neighbor happens to utilize one where we put our cans because we all use the same spot and these people that come transient they utilize those boxes for their stuff instead of you know having that option I think if we had that option like we're talking about which is awesome that it's there um and we told these people about it that that would get rid of some of that where you got people dumping their garbage into other people's bins and other people's locations which happens all over the place as far as the one last Point as far as the complaints that I got when we were merging Recycling and garbage the complaints I got were were paying for recycling why do it happened it really wasn't that they cared that we weren't recycling it's that they cared that they're paying a fee and then they see what they did get dumped into the regular garbage um I don't know that the people I spoke to weren't overly interested in recycling they were interested in the fact they're paying and they felt like they weren't getting the service I agree and that's a good point okay Commissioners we have some options available to us today chairman I I move that we accept option two as laid out on page 543 from was Pro which is um 1589 starting in October 1st of 2025 with a not to exceed 4% increase on on October 1st of 26 78 and n okay that's the fiscal year 26 without recycling 1589 without recycling yes okay so we do have a proper motion and a proper second to move this forward is there any further discussion yes Miss Wilkinson so will we see this in the form of a a contract will the contract actually come back in front of the board or just the few pages that we have in front of us today there will have to be a contract extension that comes back before the board and you know something else just wanted to note in your packet is the email from was Pro that also resolves kind of the prior disagreement so that's kind of a material component of what your vote is today okay thank you okay so we're all clear yes sir End discussion keep in mind this also settles the the that's what he just said okay I'm sorry yeah settles the other problem that we had okay to all in favor signify was saying I I pose like sign the eyes have it thank you very much um is there anything else under new business that we need to discuss we all got a letter in the mail certified letter about St John's Harbor commissioner wilon that's in your area do you want to discuss that yeah uh we'll be bringing that back at the I believe at the first meeting we have in July um staff has been working on a resolution as to how we'll handle uh that issue and that's basically all I have at this point good thank you Miss Wilkinson next item on our agenda is 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 is not reasonable to expect the board will engage in debate or deliberations about matters on which the board has received no prior information as part of the agenda your limit your comments will be limited to 3 minutes comment cards are conveniently placed you don't need to have a comment card to approach us but that would be helpful so our first comment card is Mr Lawrence Perkins if you will make your way up to the podium sir and you will have three minutes to address us thank you sir you're welcome if you will state your name and address for the record my name is Lawrence Perkins uh regarding my property at 153 Power Line Road in East Palatka um one of the things that that we after purchasing this property three years ago is we've invested quite a bit in our well and and done things we replacing the well head what placing lad tanks we're doing another number of things to uh we we care about the property uh we have a uh a tenant on the property um we have been looking forward to uh to improving the water quality there and U Senator Deputy we heard about an opportunity to join the puton county water uh provider uh providing that that service um we started that initiated that more than a year ago and have looked forward to that um they've been the Water Works been the Public Works have been very helpful uh for the most part uh one thing that happened is earlier this year we were told that uh they finally got the meting meters in the meters were installed earlier this year and that they had hired a project manager and uh I had requested that time the project manager to uh contact me I fast forward to uh May 24th May 24th U uh connectivity to the property there was was done and uh uh resulted in uh a flooded master suite uh it also uh resulted in orphaning my well now one of the things that I care about is uh we made an investment in in putam County we I like putam County um the uh the process needs attention one of the things that uh we saw earlier today that uh you know even the most unlikely circumstances can result in a drop ball it's matter of what you do after that drop ball that uh that makes all all the difference in the world uh the Water uh is subsidized by the county significantly and the number of new subscribers is important and will be important and going forward the first batch of connections uh I was a part of and the uh the process and I'm very thankful Mr Suggs took some information from me um I will tell you that uh the uh single mother that uh that lives in that that property she commutes to Gainesville every day that she works to a hospital over there she has an elementary and a middle schooler um we're just thankful that on May 24th uh she happened to be home when her and the property flooded um B if you could bring it in for a landing sir uh I've made some suggestions uh there are processes that need to be improved the communication um um the many messages and even going by the uh the Public Works facility uh and leaving message and not having them return to me was is a problem never contacting me as a property owner owner before they actually did work on the property I was uh challenged by the uh by the contractor and say well you signed a waiver uh Mr time thank you for coming today and I'm glad you spoke to Mr sugs okay is there anybody else from the public that would like to speak now during public comment all right Mr Turner um what happened to Mr Perkins was a perfect storm it really was um it's a rental house he doesn't live there they were noticed three times personally he just didn't receive the notice because he doesn't live there so he was wanting to talk and I agreed that because of what happened to Mr Perkin's situation that some changes will be made and they'll try to streamline it but they were he was one of the first 10 in the arpa project of 300 you got to give them a break here I mean they they're doing their best to make things work and they were nosed um so you know I'm hoping that from this U from this pain that Mr Perkins has gone through that things will get better in the future because we're learning as we go this is the first of 10 I mean this was in the first batch of 10 so I'm really hoping that that we'll take the experiences that we gain from Mr Perkins and we're able to use them to grow the program in a positive direction I truly believe I hope we are going to do that and thank you for coming today Mr Perkins thank you Mr Turner Clerk of the Court Mr Matt Reynolds The Honorable Matt Reynolds let me apologize to you publicly for putting you on the spot I did not mean to do that oh it's okay sir um thank you uh I only have an update on the audit uh for you guys today um had our weekly update call with them last week they are still of the opinion that they could meet the June 30th deadline um we have another update call with them today and I'll double check with them again today that they um still feel confident that they can meet that um we are waiting on one of the um financial statements of the other con constitutional officers from the external Auditors in order to finish the uh board's financial statement so as soon as we get that information from them and we get the draft financial statements for the board done I will be sure to get Mrs Young that to them as soon as possible also I discussed with them the plan going forward for next it's actually technically this fiscal year that will end September 30th they will be starting their interim fieldwork on that at a on their normal schedule which is in July coming up as soon as we get done with this year's audit so next year's um end goal for the audit is to be done by March 31st and they have um no reason to believe that we shouldn't be able to meet that because they will be on their normal timeline this year so thank you thank you sir thank you sir Mr Commando no I just want to thank commissioner Pickins for your comments today for the college and the lady Vikings I mean really is an incredible accomplishment for them and you know as I watched um almost all of the live stream videos one of the coolest things to me was to hear the announcers who I'm sure had a little one-page cheat sheet talk about all the cool things in putham County they were talking about the river they talked about the Blue Crab Festival they talked about the Bassmaster tournament and you know that was stream live to literally people all across the country so I think it's something that the county should be very proud about and uh I thank you for recognizing the team today thank you sir Mr s yes sir Mr chairman I Echo all of that it was it was a phenomenal opportunity to go out to the college the other day and and spend some time with those young ladies and the coaching staff as they came back you know we talked and we heard uh president Pickins mention this morning um putam County what it means to be from putam County and and how putam county is home and and getting people to to to want to come and live here you know it was 10 years ago um you know that my wife and I moved to puam county for for work you know as city manager of city of Paca and so um not only did we move to Paca but we bought a home in Paca fast forward three years and I was fortunate enough to be selected by many of you sitting here today to be the next County Administrator we have since purchased our second home in putham county and we are doing the things that we need to do to that home to make that our retirement home so this is home to us it's home to us to the point to where we're out recruiting folks to come live in putham County we've been successful in getting family to come live in putham County so the things that we got going here in puam county is things that we all can be proud of the projects that we have going you know the the facilities that we're we're improving every day uh the processes that we're improving every day not to mention the events that we have going going on in pman County every day and then seeing something like the NJCAA uh World Series uh softball World Series right here in puam County why would you not want to live here so uh those are my comments Mr chairman and I am just uh I'm just happy to be here and uh proud to serve this community and proud to call it home thank you I'd be remissed if I didn't ask Miss Julian if she had any comments just um want to extend my gratitude to commissioner Pickins for setting up a very special moment for me for sure but um also for uh for for having the honor of taking part in honoring those girls today they did something that no softball team before them has done many have come before them none of them have accomplished what they did um it all comes down to to not just skill on the field but mental aptitude and stamina and they they put it all out there and they brought home the wi so very excited for them thank you you're welcome Mr adamac commissioner comments yeah so kind of like what um president Pickin said I was paying more attention to the baseball team than the softball team honestly I just pay attention to baseball more and softball but I did watch the replay of that game and then it still was emotional there on the the short replay um after they won the championship so very proud of that that that happened here um it's an amazing thing it doesn't happen in many communities only one Community per year right I mean so for however the soft think probably has been less than 100 years so there's only about happened to 100 different communities or less in all of our time here so that's an amazing thing um as far as you know we're in that season now where everyone's going to be outside and Outdoors and doing fishing and and hiking and riding bikes and just hanging out outside um just remember to to I'm not a big sunscreen advocate so I'm not going to tell you to wear sunscreen CU I've never worn it for a second in my life um but take your precautions drink your water get in the shade when you need to realize when you're overheating um it's just really important I myself overheated Saturday because I was playing with the boys and lost track of time so my face is much darker and red than it normally is um so just pay attention and be sure you're safe thank you Mr Adam Mr Turner uh thank you Mr chairman um I've asked um the water department Jr and and them to uh bring a discussion before the board in the first meeting in July concerning water rates um we haven't had a water increase around here since 2015 um I don't know what happened to your bills around the house since 2015 but mine have gone up about th% since then so I'm not advocating that we go up that high but I am saying that we go up to something within reason I think we're charging about $30 right now um as everybody knows it looks like we're probably fixing to have to eat the St John's Harbor water plant even though none of us want that whatsoever um hopefully it's not going to cost too much but once we get an expense on that we need to start we need to start charging for water at least what it costs us reasonably to produce that water that's right so we need to do it at St John's Harbor and we need to do it for other areas one thing that made me know that we're not charging enough for water is we're actually selling water to somebody around here that's doubling the price and selling it to somebody else of of one of the utility companies we sell them the water and they double the price sell to their customers um that's going to be part of the of what the commission tasked me to do a couple years ago to make this the system sustainable is to charge rates that make sense cuz right now we don't make sense so anyhow they hopefully they'll bring that before us in July and hopefully we'll know more about the St John's Harbor one then too good look forward to it is that it is all right commissioner Pickins thank you chairman Harvey I just want to Echo the sentiments of um Rich Commando and administrator Suggs and Julianne uh and you know just uh commend president Pickin and the whole St John's River State staff um for their accomplishments uh the girls um did something that's never been done the boys were this close to doing the same thing so you can't overshadow them it kind of does as president Pickin said but um I'm going to commend my brother because he was not afraid to make changes and he's made a lot of changes at the college and one of them was when he brought Ross Jones in and the commitment was you know excellent and Ed education and Athletics the student athlete and they've had their ups and downs and they switched divisions um but as the um the banquet that they had the other night to honor softball and the baseball team for their accomplishment to go to the playoffs uh Ross Jones didn't say anything today my brother said it all he could be coaching at SEC head coach he not long ago he was the pitching coach at University of Florida when when they went to the National Championship so there's that quality of coaches um Ross said that he now has the volleyball coach that he wanted he has the softball coach that he wanted and Joey is his nephew uh Joey pound and um and he's the baseball coach my brother was in the background he says and you have the president that you want also right and he said yes so I just want to commend them because this has been a long journey but it's just another commitment to St John's River State College and a lot of people forget that there's three campuses you got Orange Park and uh St Augustine um but what they have done is tremendous and it's just such a big um part of putb County to have the college here so that's all I have thank you good deal thank you for commissioner Pickins commissioner Wilkinson uh just two things real quick um Comm commissioner Turner I believe that one of the things that Jr is going to bring forward to us will also be the world Rural Water Association will have a rate analysis I'm hoping by that time and that way we will have some um good data to use uh for that um analysis as we move forward and I also just want to say thank you to Dana in the chamber for your presentation today and all the efforts for everybody who volunteered at the bass tournament my I had the opportunity to take my granddaughters down there they had a wonderful time uh they caught a couple fish in the audience it was a big deal and uh they it was just a great event and it certainly brought a lot of attention to putham County and the commercials you guys ran were phenomenal there was I think there were several of them and um I just want to say thank you for all if you'll just tell the all your volunteers on behalf of the board and County Commissioners we thank them thank you thank you I'd be remissed I know uh our fa marketing rep is in the building with us today Denise do you have anything you'd like to add no sir a pleasure to be here I'm sorry you have to sit in those hard seats but you know it's part of it but thank you for being here all the way from outside of Tallahassee area to join us today so she comes and monitors you against anything that you might say or do now I'm just teasing just teasing I do want to say um today we have no we have no more BCC meetings for the month we do have a budget meeting on the 18th starting at 9:00 um today at 1:30 our sign unveiling is going to happen commissioner Wilkinson with rip pay has been very active in getting that handled for our new truck route that'll be in front of wind Dixie at 1:30 um so come and be a part of that and also it's a pleasure to be a county commissioner in putham County to see all the things that do take place you know there's a lot of positive things and and what hurts in this business is that one negative comment that you get but you have to learn to get past that and look at the positive things that are going on here the economic development that's growing the bass tournaments that are coming the the softball I mean it's just a smorgus board of things so when people cut down putham County it really bothers me because it's always been home to me and it's always been a place of refuge and it's always allowed me to recreate myself to be a better person and if we all looked at it that that way I think we'd all be better but I do want to say kudos to president Pickins and the whole staff and the coaching and the girls and the boys the putting putam County on the map on their program and all that does is make the phone ring makes parents want to send their children to putam County and then we need to welcome them when they get here so if there's nothing else good for the order this meeting is now adjourned thank you e