##VIDEO ID:tHEHQeVvFog## [Music] 24 2024 border County Commission meeting here in seol County it is approximately 9:30 and we are going to begin the meeting I would ask that each and every one of you check your phones silence them if you have any other electronic devices iPads or anything like that if you'd be kind enough to silence those we're going to get started with uh Chief Matt kennley is going to lead us in the pledge an invocation by Pastor Ron Williams Chief please join me I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all let us pray Lord we thank you that we have an opportunity today to live in America the greatest nation ever on the earth the land of the free because of the Brave and we thank you Lord not only that we live in America but live in Simo County we really do believe it's the best county in the state of Florida that's why we live here and just personally I thank you Lord that for 30 years as a pastor that these people the commissioners of this great County have invited the faith-based community to come in here and invoke your blessings and so we ask you Lord today to meet with us in a special way I pray that you'd watch over the Commissioners help them to make wise choices for our community and I feel for them because no matter what they decide there's going to be people that don't agree with them and so Lord I just pray that you'd help them to have a backbone to just do what's right and so I just pray you watch over them watch over their families I pray that you'd bring peace to our nation help us to realize that there is more that unites us than divides us and I pray that you'd protect all of the folks that are running for election in our country and watch over their families as well we thank you Lord that we get an opportunity to recognize a veteran today and uh help all the veterans here today to to know that we appreciate this sacrifices that they have made for us and also that we're going to recognize some First Responders help them to know that we appreciate what they do for us that while everybody else is running out of the burning building they're running in and so thank you for the First Responders thank you for the law enforcement officers that that bring peace to our community I pray Lord that youd put a hedge about our County that eil would realize that it's not welcome here and any Bad actors would realize they're not welcome here and you would help Lord us to to continue to have a peaceful County here I pray Lord for our military scatter around the world that you'd protect them help no one that has the flag of the United States on their shoulder today to die and I pray Lord that you'd watch over those that are in the path of the hurricane that they would get prepared and take this seriously and there'd be no loss of life I pray Lord that you'd just Deliver Us from Evil and keep us as the apple of your eye watch over our Educators today and our students who be going to the flag pole tomorrow and they'll be offering their prayers for our nation and for their schools and their peers and pray Lord that You' watch over our kids and keep them safe as they go to school so thank you Lord once again that you've been invited here today I pray that you'd show up in a special way bless these Commissioners for what they do and the sacrifice they make to help our community be better it's in Christ's name we pray amen amen thank you Pastor thank you Chief next up we're going to invite uh Mr briyan Applegate to the podium the U now retired seol County um County attorney Mr Applegate welcome uh thank you Mr chairman and good morning Commissioners uh and I want to thank you for the opportunity today to say a few words about uh Paul chipuk um uh like many people um I'm still trying to wrap my head around it uh Paul loved serving seminal County uh he loved uh the challenge every day um Paul and I go back 35 to 40 years and I can swear to you today that I never heard Paul chipo say a bad word about anyone ever and on occasion he had reason to um and and I will tell you that um it was fun working with Paul all these years um he would come into my office and start rattling off well here's the issue that you got to learn about there's this property it has two easements on it there's a canal there's a improper legal description there's a problem with the title um the there's a RightWay that runs through the center we're having problems with fpnl and he would look at me and see the glazed look on my face like and he would just say let me draw you a picture and and he would um he was um a great mentor to the younger attorneys in my office at that time he um I would hear him talk to those attorneys about what they were dealing with and I always knew that the conversation would end with a small chuckle small laugh he had a way of putting uh the younger Attorneys At Ease um and and then I became the interim County manager and Paul became the County Attorney so as I was rapidly losing what hair I had left Paul decided to grow his and on occas I would get a comment you know have you seen Paul's hair I go well obviously yes and um I would chuckle he said um I would say Paul's saving some of it for me so um we always had a great time working together and he loved working with uh the county staff uh and I know they loved him um he um I could never put in words what a gentle soul he was if I had a dime for every time we were working on an issue and we would look at one another and say h one day we're going to be sitting at a bar smoking a cigar and drinking some water uh well not more yeah and laugh about this uh not to be um I you you know that I assign Paul some of the most difficult issues we were all facing could be SunRail um the jeda point releases uh that we had to deal with the state on and I I assigned Paul those for a couple reasons one was his intellect obviously but two his Statewide reputation number three really the the ability that he had had of simplifying complicated issues and as an attorney that's a gift and Paul was gifted in that respect and I also knew that Paul commanded the respect of the lawyers in the other jurisdictions that we were working with um and that he was the perfect fit for that and I I know that you know that um and and he made my life as a county attorney uh you know a lot easier than it would have been and then as you know when I dealt with my own issues medical issues Paul would be the first one every morning every morning would come into my office and say what can I do today what can I help you with today uh or if I was out Paul would take over and I wouldn't have to worry about anything um but if I had a DME for every time I had a glazed look over my face when Paul was trying to explain a complicated land use issue and he knew I'm like Paul and he would say pull out the pad let's draw a picture and I would say oh I get it now you know um so we were all blessed you were blessed the staff was blessed and the citizens were blessed and when I worked with Paul uh on the the brough boundary issues uh there were times he he Paul kept me from my head exploding and uh I will never forget um what he did for the county for the citizens for the younger attorneys in our office and for me personally uh he was um the his intellect his gentle soul uh his his dry W and I'm going to talk more about that on Saturday but um [Music] um um I was blessed Beyond me and I want to thank you for this time uh but I assure you that Paul loved every single day he was here in fact I didn't know this until just the other day someone told me Paul was offered two positions elsewhere he wasn't looking he was offered to positions that but would have paid a lot more money and he turned him down he said he was happy where he was and that that tells me a lot about Paul and his loyalty so thank you very much and um uh again the only thing I can say is blessed beyond measure thank you thank you Brian very much good to see you certainly will be missed I think all of us enjoyed the time that we were able to spend with him and you know my Fondest Memories were as a plan and Zoning commissioner um him running the land use um seminars for the new new planning and zoning board members and uh very very bright man very kind soul so thank you very much we sincerely appreciate it thank you Mr chairman if I may yes commissioner delari Brian you obviously touch just a small sliver of what Paul chip Park was to this County and I get that uh you can't repeat everything because we'd be here for a long period of time uh we all got to know Paul in our own different ways and he was truly a treasure not just to the board but the entire County and he was a great friend uh I can remember many of times where you know he would come into the office and you started to notice that the hair was getting a little bit longer and he just smiled about it as he would pull it back uh it was colorful ties that he had it was uh quite the comments but one of the things I learned from Paul uh was not just his quiet demeanor uh not just his passion for the county but that uh there was always another day and uh he loved music and one of the groups that he really loved was the Grateful Dead and uh Paul would uh quietly recite different verses periodically uh from different albums and uh uh it was quite comical how he made such uh that group not only made a big influence on him but uh seeing him at the beach in new samna uh he lived life and uh that's one of the biggest lessons that I took from Paul was uh you're not guaranteed tomorrow but live for today because you're not sure what's going to happen tomorrow so thank you for being here and talking to us about Paul anyone else thank you all very much next we're going to move into our proclamations we're going to have uh two proclamations today and we also got a presentation on behalf of our fire division here in the county I'm going to ask everyone to um once we're done with the proclamations all three two proclamations presentation then we'll all come down and get pictures if you all just bear with us we'll try to get through it as quick as we possibly can first up is going to be commissioner delari will read a proclamation proclaiming technical Sergeant Thomas Sterling United States Air Force of simal County September veteran of the month thank you Mr chairman proclamation of s County Board County Commission is recognizing United States Air Force Air Force technician Sergeant Thomas Sterling for his outstanding service to United States and SEO County whereas the brave men in women of our army navy Marines Air Force Coast Guard space force demonstrated Resolute Spirit of unmatched selfishness it reminds us that there are few things more Americans can give of ourselves to make a difference in the lives of others and whereas throughout our country's history generations of service men answer the call to leave their families their jobs and put their future in their lives in line to Val defend our nation and whereas many service members have sacrificed end in permanent injury or death and yet to Spirit remains in a continuous preservation of our freedom and promise of Liberty where has more than 30,000 living veterans in Su County who serves our nation in time of peace and War throughout their service they've kept America strong and whereas technical Sergeant Thomas Sterling enlisted in the United States Air Force on January 5th 1978 as an aircraft fuel technician and served honorably for over 16 years during Desert Storm and Desert Shield as load Master inspector and self fighter program until retirement on January 31st 1994 and whereas technical Sergeant Thomas Sterling received an Air Force accommodation medal with two devices Small Arms experts markmanship ribbon National Defense service metal Air Force training ribbon Air Force longevity service award ribbon with 3D devices overseas long tour ribbon Air Force Good Conduct metal with four devices and Air Force outstanding unit Award with four devices and whereas technical Sergeant Thomas Sterling upon retiring from the Air Force moved to chilota and has lived there with his wife Peggy for 46 years and whereas technos Sergeant Thomas stroy initially worked as a machinist building lasers and fire simulators for for University of Central Florida and the milit he then became a mechanic instructor Master techn uh technician for veto high school training students in autome Mechanics for the past 30 years and whereas Technic Sergeant Thomas Sterling currently teaches after school programs automobile programs and two week summer schools for special needs children and has helped fund senior high school students automobile projects resulting in scholarships and awards W for the central Florida auto dealership Association and has been a member of the veterans of foreign war in chilota for 20 years and whereas Thomas Sergeant Thomas Sterling has brought great credit and distinction upon himself the United States of America United States Air Force and suo County now therefore be proclaimed that we the Border County commissioners of the suo County Florida express our gratitude admiration and respect for technal sergeant Thomas Sterling for his outstanding service United States Air Force and the residents of su County be further Proclaim that this Proclamation will be presented to technical Sergeant Thomas Sterling along with our sincere congratulations and recognition as s County Veteran of the month adopted this 24th day of September 2024 second motion second all those in favor I oppose like sign hearing none carries unanimous sergeant if You' come up and have a few words please come to the podium welcome and thank you sir I would like to express my deepest um gratitude for Sho County officials and the community for this incredible honor it is both humbling and uplifting to be recognized for my service not only as a member of the United States Air Force but also a teacher and a longtime resident of this wonderful County serving in the United States Air Force was one of the most transformative experiences of my life it taught me value of discipline sacrifice teamwork and dedication to the purpose greater than myself for years in the Air Force we were just we were not just about defending the nation's values but also about understanding the importance of community leadership and service I carry these lessons with me every day and I am proud to have served alongside so many brave men and women as a teacher here in Simo County it has been a privilege to pass on some of these values to the Next Generation working with young minds and being uh an equal rewarding Journey filled with challenges growth and Triumph the opportunity to inspire and guide students extends to my passion of service and every day I am reminded of how important our role is as it as Educators in a shaping of the futures of our citizens I want to thank each and every one of you for recognizing me today it is not only a personal honor but also a reminder of the importance of service whether in the military or in the classroom thank you thank you sge and sergeant if you'll stick around we're going to take a break after the presentation by our fire service and we'll get some photographs with your you and your family and so forth so please be patient with us next up Proclamation proclaiming October 2024 is Greenways and trails month in seol County Florida this will be entered in by commissioner Andrea Herr commissioner thank you chairman Commissioners I mov the following proclamation of the seal County Board of County Commissioners proclaiming the month of October 2024 as green Greenways and trails month in seminal County Florida whereas Greenways trails and natural lands promote outdoor recreation tourism economic growth and personal health and well-being and whereas Greenways and trails protect the environment by preserving open space creating wildlife habitat and establishing pedestrian corridors between populated areas and conservation lands and whereas seminal County Parks and Recreation maintain 51 miles of paved trails and 85 5 miles of unpaved trails and Wilderness trails and whereas seino County's Greenways trails and natural lands provide clean water air and habitat on over 6600 Acres of environmentally significant lands and whereas seal County's Trails connect to neighboring communities and components of long-distance Trail systems including the Florida n National Scenic Trail and the Florida Coast to Coast Trail and whereas trails are essal component of seminal County's infrastructure currently undergoing numerous improvements funded by the 1-cent infrastructure sales tax commonly known as the penny sales tax and whereas the State of Florida designates the month of October as Florida Greenways and trails month to highlight Florida's natural spaces and Recreation Trails now therefore be it proclaimed that we the board of County commissioners of seino County Florida that we do hereby proclaim the month of October 2024 as Greenways and trails month in seminal County adopted this 24th day of September 2024 second motion second all those in favor I oppose like sign c n carries unanimous Mr dur thank you very much for your hard work appreciate it Mr chairman yes this morning I don't know if uh Mr J wants to address this or not now or maybe later but this morning the State of Florida put out a press release saying that we've added an additional 1300 Acres thanks to the yoro purchase by D for the Florida forever program so I don't know if the 6600 includes the new 1300 no so 7,900 Acres now um that we have in seol County might have to redo this document hot off thees uh thank you commissioner okay next up is our presentation recognition of County Fire Department's 50th Anniversary Chief Matt McKinley good morning commission Matt for the record Matt Kinley fire chief Su County fire department and happy birthday 50th birthday Su County Fire Department before I say a few words on this momentous occasion we do have a short video in 1974 seal County was tasked with the former of a countywide fire department it went to the board of County Commissioners the first meeting in September they voted to implement it effective October one and we had a Mad Dash we had 20 days open five new fire stations hire 56 people buy trailers by trucks set up a countywide communication system we turned on the radio and started taking all the calls at midnight we succeeded because we didn't really know what we were up against and sometimes that can be a gift then called the seal County Department of fire protection many of the origins of the department relied on the volunteer stations already in place we had bunker gear that we borrowed from volunteer fire departments it was a hodg podge of colors and you know configurations the newly formed seminal County Fire moving into the volunteer stations at Geneva julota Golden Rod Fern Park and Forest City with makeshift facilities used to complete the network of fire protection and in the first year the department was founded 1900 calls for us it was busy uh because it was the first time that there was a handle on how many actual calls the the county was experiencing you know when you had 28 different phone numbers in little volunteer fire departments no one was collecting reports so we didn't know these calls were ran in slime green colored trucks and with handdrawn maps the guys you know that we hired and were there were committed to making it work no matter what they had to do you're pulling together these rag tag people unorthodox equipment but that was quote a scene out of a movie it's all part of the show you know it was to show that we were doing things differently and how seminal County fire department has grown since then 20 stations over 500 Personnel in so very many ways that scfd stands out there's a lot of things we're proud of there's a lot of things we're known for we are known as a very operationally sound um aggressive uh interior firefighting Department really embrace the EMS side of it our shot team our power team Burn team all of it it just we're always trying to pull in the new best practices or be the ones that are creating the best practices those best practices earning seminal County Fire Department a seat in the upper echelon Cass and Center for Public Safety Excellence accredited and ISO class one class one you don't get any better than that what did you start as uh N9 and 10 and it doesn't go any higher from just getting started to the very best you can get in just 50 years SC cfd always with an eye on Innovation while keeping the traditions of this homegrown department near and dear I think the best practice that anybody can do is try to build off of what has the foundation that's already been laid um everybody talks about filling other people's shoes I don't believe in filling other people's shoes I believe in standing on their shoulders so in just years so in just 50 years we've achieved accreditations in Cass cfai iso1 major Milestones uh for any Metro siiz Fire Department none of this would have been possible without the vision of the board both current and the past um very significant uh events along the way I'd also like to recognize founding fire chief Gary Kaiser Chief Kaiser is a true Visionary in the fire service uh and the rapid progress that the seminal County fire department has taken is due to a large part to H the strong Foundation that he and the founding members built every member past and present has contributed to raising this department higher and higher every year I want to emphasize that the celebration is not just about the members of the fire department but everyone all across all of the Departments and divisions within the county um our ability to provide the level of service that we do would not be possible without their collaboration their assistance we don't build the roads we don't build the fire stations we don't put the water supplies in all very significant things for us to be able to do all the incredible things that we do um thank you very much and again happy birthday uh very much appreciate this support thank you thank you Chief you know I will tell you um I had the opportunity this year to spend a day over at the training center and put bunker gear on In the Heat of the summer and walk into a smoke field it it's something everybody should should experience and and once you do it you will quickly realize our firefighters are Priceless to the community and what they have to go through and those type of things and you have no idea how heavy that gear is and how hot that gear is um and then we're asking these men and women to to run in and save lives so thank you all very very much my big question is there are a lot of you here today who's running the fire department today thank you all for being here real quick we're going to take a short break get some photo ops with everybody and then we'll come back with our investment advisor's report [Music] [Music] [Music] no [Music] oh [Music] yeah you live closer than anyone yes all right we'll give everybody a chance to clear the chamber and we'll move on to our consent agenda you want to do this oh yes yeah not really based on what fed did but that's another story do we have Mr McIntyre queued up I I think I you guys hear me okay yeah we can hear you now great fantastic well good morning uh as as you guys if you've been following the market or are aware I can have uh whoever's controlling me turn to the first page um major themes the FED did cut rates by by 50 basis points that was last week and they gave us a new Dot Plot which is their interest rate projection and it indicates two additional Cuts this year and four in 2025 the market expects more than that so theoretically that makes the market expensive yields have continued to fall after that fed move the bond market is now pricing in three moves this year and another five in 2025 um obviously there is so much in front of us with the elections there's so much in front of us with uh the policies of both candidates both both candidates have policies that are that are inflationary and also add to the National debts so um although we certainly acknowledge that that the market is is usually correct uh over time we also think that there's a lot in front of us the two-year treasury note yield has fallen 150 basis points since the beginning of May and every time the two years has fallen this far below the overnight funds rate of recession has followed according to the Wall Street Journal and a whole bunch of economists who dusted off uh and sort of Revisited this idea uh honestly it certainly doesn't appear as though recession is around the corner uh inflation is definitely cool job growth has slow but there is still job growth very little indicating recession is going to follow in fact third quarter GDP is tracking right now at very close to 3% and obviously we're almost through with the third quarter so second quarter growth was 3% as well obviously when we're talking about a recession it's to consecutive growth to consecutive quarters with negative growth so we're a long way from that regardless of what the old models may say and that makes it even more difficult because one of the reasons the FED would cut rates is to stimulate the economy economy seems to be doing pretty well in fact at this point in time most folks are suggesting that the FED has achieved the fabled soft Landing where inflation is coming to heal and the economy has not fallen into recession or really even slowed down of course you know every every week is a new week every month is a new month and you know everybody's watching real closely to see what the numbers are going to tell us going forward including the fact um I've got a few slides here next slide please I didn't include the inflation report because frankly the last time we got one there was a little bit of a it was mostly flat it really didn't tell any particular story when you look at the reports for things like nonfarm payroll growth again it's slowed but it's still positive so I don't think those graphs are very telling looking at the investment choices we have and again as we always do going back to the last three meetings uh you can see that that especially the the one year is fallen from 509 all the way down to 398 the 24mth treasury is fallen from 471 to 364 it's actually a little bit lower today although honestly there's so much volatility in the market Market I wouldn't put a whole lot of stake in where it is at any given minute um but clearly things are lower um the pool rates are lower than they were uh it's going to take a little while for them to to fall and fully reflect the 50 basis point cut because they bought Securities and and those Securities are going to have to mature they're all very short so they were certainly mature and in short order and I think we'll see these these pool rates that are closer to 5% over the course of next couple weeks anyway but but again these are the decisions we're making we're stepping out of overnight rates um the portfolio is mostly invested but um there is a fair amount that is still overnight it'sing the higher yield the question as always is do we want to step out and put more out in the longer maturities this decision has gotten harder and harder fortunately in the the spring months a lot of investing was done um next slide please so upcoming maturities there are a fair amount coming up within the next month or so and then it sort of um mitigates uh slows down a little bit as we roll into November December and January when you actually have positive funds flow um a number of these Securities that are maturing are the the Short Palm terms which I would expect that we would roll over uh there they would wind up being at a lower rate but it's relative to other security types fairly positive recommended purchases so I'm recommending that we take 30 million of these maturing funds um having checked with the com controller's office and being comfortable with the cash flow taking three blocks of 10 and going out into 2027 and targeting times when in 2027 you'll be expected to need fund now I understand that that we're walking away from a yield that is much higher we're locking in it it yields out roughly three years now at 350 is and you know the concern is that by the time we get out three years from now the FED will have normalized interest rates and they'll be down around you know somewhere between 2 and a half to 3% so we'd like to be able to lock even more up than we have uh understanding that that yields are lower uh understanding that in in in theory depending on how the election unfolds and how the economy unfolds it could very well be that a couple years from now the overnight rate is is still near three and a half or 4% but this is a hedge this is recognizing that in 2021 in front of this uh count group of County Commissioners we were discussing the idea that interest rates could potentially go negative in early 2021 obviously they did not but that was a zero rate environment we're well above that now we don't think that the economy is ever going to get to the point where the FED is able to or willing or expects to cut below 1% but we still want to take the Bird in Hand uh lock in to the extent that we can out longer um interest rates that provide some significant earnings which which these do so three blocks of 10 out to June August and September of 2027 um where at this point there are are little or few Securities maturing and then one of those 10 million Palm uh maturities we will roll out the maximum you can roll out is 12 months so out to 2025 my best guess is that that will be around 4% with any luck that would wind up being a little bit higher um but but that that's what we're that's what we're suggesting this time this does leave a quite a bit of money um liquid next slide please let me give you a quick shot at what the portfolio looks like as of August 31st the portfolio was yielding 493 um later on as we moved into September and had a few Securities mature and go into the pools there was a period where the earnings were at or above 5% um that will fall um moving out into September with the maturities that happen in September with these Securities I'm proposing to purchase doing the math on that the maturity on the overall portfolio extends out to 300 days the yield Falls to to 481 the mix of of fixed rate maturities relative to floating goes from from 81% fixed to 77% fixed and there still is a pretty fair amount of of liquid funds so this leaves us Nimble it leaves us in a good position I believe going into the election which again has a lot of uncertainty there was a lot of uh Securities that were purchased earlier in the year uh we did w up taking a bit of a break the last month to let things settle out things did not the market actually fell further in terms of yield but I think we sort of had to check and see what cash flows looked like and and that has been done so we feel secure about that so I wish I had better news in terms of of yields being higher so that we could step out at higher levels but I do feel like at this point the FED has determined that they're going to to lower rat from here they given us an indication that that's going to happen my my guess expectation is that this head winds up lower in a quarter November a quarter in December a quarter in January and a quarter in March so I I think that the um I think we get down below 4% on overnights faster than the FED is expecting that we're going to I think that as long as the runways clear and they're able to lower rates and and Goose the economy a little bit and uh make lending easier for homeowners and for for people who have debt I think that they're going to take that opportunity to do it so um stepping back up here to the recommendations on the previous slide okay I need to get approval from from you any inquiries commissioner Constantine thank you Scott thank you very much um but I did want to make you aware of a couple of things that uh just happened at the Florida Association of counties meeting in Pensacola um first of all last month and I don't know if you knew this but last month I was appointed to the board of Florida trust and um at the luncheon on Thursday at the Florida Association count in Pensacola chairman Childers uh the clerk of Escambia County announced a 7% yield for 12 months now that sounds too good to be true I hope she was correct but I would ask you to please check on that um who's it with commissioner for Florida trust 7% yield for a 12-month period She announced that at the luncheon on Thursday so I would ask you to please take a look at that um immediately just just to see just what what kind of conditions there there might be on that or if we can qualify for that because personally I would take that in a heartbeat I think I think it I will tell you I will tell you that um I I would be very interested in what it is they're investing in but this is such an efficient market I've got um screens in front of me literally every day and we're coming the market for all of our clients wide and and 7% in a rate environment where you should be getting four I agree with you I agree suspected best suspect at best yeah I I agree with you but I'm just telling you what I heard and I asked it again and the that was the answer I was I received so I would appre you know just anything that looks too good to be true probably is but uh it would be worth our while to at least investigate okay anyone else Mr chairman like to make a motion please like to make a motion to implement the recommendation of our finance advisor based on the report submitted here today and recommend the clerk Implement said board's recommendation as presented motion is second all those in favor I oppose like sign carries unanimous thank you Mr McIntyre we sincerely appreciate you being here remotely today thank you all we appreciate it as well and have a good rest of the day and week you as well and by the way I would have won the bet with Mr McIntyre when we were talking on the meeting that I bet they would go 50 basis points instead of 25 um next we're going to move to our consent agenda if anyone is here from the public and wishes to speak on any of the consent agenda items please find the forms out in the lobby make sure you fill out the specific item and number it in the number column and if you'll hand it to the clerk Dominique right here at the front with her hand up so that we are prepared to allow you to speak on any of these agenda items that you desire to do so with that said I'm going to move to the county attorney Miss Kate Lor for an overview of public participation thank you chairman good morning everyone Florida law provides that members of the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on propositions before the board of County Commissioners except when the board is acting on emergency or ministerial matters or conducting a meeting exempt from the requirements of the Sunshine Law individuals shall be permitted three minutes each for public comment or six minutes when the individual is an official representative of a formal Association or group the chairman May modify the maximum time for public comment at his sole discretion when appropriate public comments on quasi judicial or other public hearing items will occur during the board's consideration of those items this afternoon public comments on pending procurement matters or on non-agenda items shall not be permitted at this time members of the public Desiring to make comment must fill out a speaker form and present the form to staff forms are available in the lobby Mr chairman thank you very [Applause] much next item will be for the county manager do you have any updates deletions additions Walk-Ons thank you Mr chairman and Commissioners yes just two uh changes to the consent agenda I'd like to pull item number 14 I'll be bringing that back back uh back to the board as well as item 16 on 16 we have not received the agreement from the state so as soon as we receive that we'll bring that back okay item 14 and 16 being pulled by the county manager any commissioner desire to pull any of the other items seeing none we will go to public input do we have any speakers here on any of the agenda items on the consent uh yes sir okay if if we would have that individual's name any the item number you desire to speak on good morning ladies and gentlemen my name is Caitlyn Neil and uh I a new we need your address for the record please I am a new resident of simol County at 13 waiting Waters Circle in Winter Park um I am a homeschool mother of three and I brought my children here today to experience public um excuse me government and uh in this form and I thought the best thing for them would be to witness me speaking on the proposed water increase um my husband and I work very hard to provide a incredible um incredible opportunities for our children like many people in my neighborhood we um are constantly budgeting and rearranging our budget and to have opened my water bill and find that we have this um potential increase it's like another thing knocking us back another thing we've eliminated the junk food we've eliminated the Popsicles from our grocery trips we've eliminated all the things that we can from our budget at this time and um at some point um the the rubber is going to meet the road and I don't know what that would look like for my family and so I know that as a homeschool Mom I have a lot more freedoms and I'm able to actually show up here today unlike a lot of my counterparts and so um I unofficially am speaking for my entire neighborhood and asking that we really look deeper and shy away from this um increase um the all the other utilities have gone up and so many other areas or at least delay the increase until we know the outcome of the election and have more foresight uh more clear foresight into what the economy might look like in the next year or two thank you ladies and gentlemen for hearing what I have to say do you have any questions for me no ma'am okay thank you thank you thank you uh if we would have um ask staff to get with this resident help them understand how the are set the bond covenants uh so on so forth if we could do that Mr County Manager yes uh thank you Mr chairman and Commissioners and that's exactly what I was going to S Suggest so I'll have Mr Johnny Edwards over over here he'll come and meet meet with you and give you his contact information and it's all part of a plan to keep our system up and running so uh Mr Edwards if you mind right thank you very much Mr chairman commission lockart um I appreciate you wanting to take the conversation offline for the purposes of of probably efficiency um but I think it's important that others who might be watching the meeting understand that this this was a long range plan um that was studied uh by people outside of our organization um that brought us this plan for the purposes of making sure that the system was maintained and that the right amount of um capital investment was made there are there are Utilities in our County who continue to do exactly what was mentioned and that was delay delay delay the increases that were necessary and they are in Dire Straits right now facing I want to say billion with a B uh billions of dollars of infrastructure improvements needed because they continued to delay the necessary um improvements and repairs that were needed and we don't want to be in that situation um this was not this decision has nothing to do with the politics of the day locally or the nation it has to do with running a system and making sure that our citizens have the best quality water and the best quality system so that it doesn't fall into disrepair and um and I I just I I feel exactly where you're coming from and I I can relate to your situation entirely um I I do hope our staff will be able to take the time to answer specific questions but for anyone else listening I just wanted to explain that this was not something we did overnight it's a long range plan it was looked at very very closely by our board um and sometimes you have to make those tough decisions well to to to that point if we're going to talk about it let's just go ahead and talk about it um I did you could be in my district I just got a 12% increase to my water bill from the city um which is due to the inability to properly fund increases in infrastructure to maintain a water system uh for the last arguably 25 years that is now faced with probably spending somewhere close to $250 million and we're told we're going to see additional rate increases of 3% for the next three years um it costs money to run these plants maintain these plants run the infrastructure uh and that of course falls on the rate payers it's incumbent upon us not to put the citizens in a situation where they are going to be faced with a 12 15% oneyear increase and that's why these things are typically done in a step process using Consultants who are experts to analyze our infrastructure do a long range master plan on what things look like 10 20 30 years down the road so we're not leaving it for the next Generation to sit here and go yeah we're real sorry that we didn't do anything over the past 20 years years you guys now have to go take a loan out on your home to actually get water uh so it's it's it's a good business model it's good business practice to make sure that you are funding the infrastructure uh for the rate payers appropriately in a timely fashion so it doesn't fall you know on on the backs of all the rap payers all at one big FAL swo and not to mention you know the cost to run plants labor materials just like our budgets at our homes everything has gone up fuel groceries etc etc so does the government's cost right along with it with the contractors and all those things that go along with it commissioner Constantine and with that the last thing is it is an Enterprise fund which means it is completely separate from all other funds of the of our budget it pays and is on its own to pay for itself and with that I would just move the approval of the Constitutional officers consent agenda 5 and six and the county managers consent agenda of 7 through 26 with the exception of 14 and 16 second and motion a second any further discussion I think there was a question or statement by commissioner can talk about them I I appreciate you declaring the conversation over but I would just like to put the emphasis at the front of all of that conversation about water is that the primary focus is around safety and that safety for the future Generations that that you very wisely brought to watch you testified today on on their behalf because that's what we're doing um but the reality of what we've seen around the country and what we've seen even around the state is that those organizations that don't put Safety First with regard to water end up having citizens that have to pay more in the interim before the large upgrade is done when things have degraded to that point we don't want to be in that position so amen all right we got a motion to Second all those in favor I oppos like sign see none carries unanimous very good next item up is our work session this is item 27 code enforcement update Mr Mike rhs will be presenting this and if there is anyone here to speak on this work session please fill out a form in the lobby bring it up to Dominique in the interest of time if you don't have a sheet turned in we're going to keep on moving so if you want to speak please get a form filled out now thank you Mr rhs welcome Mr chairman and members uh thank you all very much for the opportunity to work for you here in seol County um of all as regarded to seol County as one of the best run local governments in the State of Florida I spent 34 years working for the city of Orlando and always look north um for for you all to provide guidance on a lot of a lot of things and it's a pleasure for me to have this opportunity uh he brought me in to talk and work with you on Code Enforcement and address some issues of concern um very quickly uh just wanted to hit on a few high points um obviously there are uh there's some history here in County to to talk about um we want to talk a little bit about your code enforcement process specifically uh want to talk to you about a few quick data points and then talk with you about the recommendations that I have to share with you today um there was a little bit of data collection and Analysis not a lot uh in Truth uh because a lot of your systems not centralized there's not a lot of data to look at uh and we'll look at some in a little bit uh don't want to harp on it um but I do want to um thank the folks who worked with me to help me at least collect what we do have uh spent a lot of time uh interviewing staff interviewing you all interviewing your uh your AIDS uh really appreciate the time and energy you all were willing to put into it uh we also did some peer comparisons and I had the opportunity to do ride alongs with all your staff everybody was really terrific and supportive of the effort um and I want to thank them all again um why code enforcement you know code enforcement's always been kind of the the black sheep in in local government um again I spent 20 plus years uh running code enforcement in Orlando so I'm I'm familiar with the role um but if you don't believe that what you're doing is protecting public health safety and Welfare when you do this you're not doing it right and at the core of everything we do in Code Enforcement whether it's minimum standards code Land Development codes Property Maintenance codes um it's all about protecting the Public's health health safety and Welfare um it's also a little bit about or a lot about um sustaining your property values and it's uh you've got a second hearing today on your budget you're looking at those bottom lines every single day and you know the good news about life here in Florida is that property values buy and large are going up but we've had times when when they haven't gone up and if if you don't understand that code enforcement plays a role in maintaining property values and improving property values again you don't understand code enforcement it's also important uh in maintaining a favorable uh climate for development and Redevelopment activity if your community looks good people want to be here people want to live here people want to develop here people want to find a way to invest here and that's all part of what we do in Code Enforcement uh some quick history on Code Enforcement Florida and seol County just for folks who aren't familiar in 1982 the state created code enforcement boards and the code enforcement process prior to that everything got done through the county court system um County court systems were getting clogged up crime was a much bigger problem then uh not unlike now and so the State of Florida decided to put code enforcement into a civil process that was part of of um the county code enforcement process for uh boards later on for magistrates we'll talk about that SEO County adopted its first ordinance uh pursuant to that Statute in 1983 IT adopted a a minimum standards code in 1982 or 1992 uh in 2003 you adopted your first mou which uh delegated responsibility for code enforcement over to the Sheriff's Office um in 2009 you ended that memorandum of understanding to uh begin to Define some silos and Define areas of responsibility within code enforcement um again in part because there was just some need for clarification between what the Sheriff's Office and other staff were going to be doing with with the county and again we'll talk about some of those different roles in a moment um in 2012 you added special magistrates um part of the reason why the county added special magistrates and a lot of counties and cities did this across the state was because finding volunteers to serve on Code Enforcement boards was difficult and uh and it's still difficult sometimes and so you engage a magistrate uh there there attorneys who come in uh on a monthly basis you pay them to to handle these cases uh on a monthly basis now here in seol and again it's not unlike done across the state 2019 was the last time you all visited this issue and code enforcement generally um in a very specific way uh and at that time you all adopted a lean amnesty program uh lean amnesty program went for three years netted you about $70,000 in additional um fine collections um and that's kind of the last time you all took a long look at at code enforcement uh let's talk a little bit about chapter 162 of the Florida Statutes chapter 162 outlines kind of the the the process generally across the State of Florida uh it sets up boards and magistrates it sets up the fines and the leans that the cities and counties can impose it actually establishes criteria for emergency action which some jurisdictions use and some some do not um more famously here recently the state statute was amended to address Anonymous complaints and as most of you know in 2021 uh bill passed the Florida legislature that uh essentially said that you can't leave a or a code enforcement officer cannot initiate a code enforcement case uh by virtue of an anonymous complaint there are actually two parts to that statutory change and it's important um to note that a lot of folks in local government focused on the first part without focusing on the second part and the second part I've got underlined for your convenience here uh and note that it says this paragraph does not apply if the code inspector has reason to believe that the violation presents an imminent threat to public health safety or welfare or imminent destruction of habitat or sensitive resources uh a lot of local governments have paid attention to the first part without paying attention to the second part and in truth um in order to look at the second part you actually have to go out and look at a violation or at least look at an alleged violation and again it's based upon the information you have there's some discretion that's um that's certainly part that process for the code enforcement uh inspector but uh it's an important part of the statute that we need to remember here um chapter 162 also establishes the uh fines and leans that can be imposed um seal County could probably do a little bit of work on that front and we'll talk about that a little bit later too but uh as you all know uh this is these are the the teeth that were given in in in Code Enforcement of the state Authority we impose fines we impose leans against property and those those fines continue until properties are brought into compliance sometimes that's pretty quick sometimes it's not the good news is that if it's not quick uh that lean doesn't just go away and code enforcement leans unlike a lot of other judgments are out there for 20 years and while you could argue uh and I could certainly understand why people might might say well you know the the fines don't do enough it it it uh it doesn't serve as as enough of an inducement it's first it's what the legislature's given us um but those leans are good for 20 years and I don't know too many people who over a 20- year time frame haven't had to buy or sell or refinance their property in some way shape or form certainly right now as interest rates come down there might be if we get a few more quarter points um some inducement for people to to want to refinance and uh if you've got code enforcement fines and leans out there you can't refinance without addressing your code violations and your code leans I want to talk a little bit about the code enforcement process specifically here in seminal County and I know I've had an opportunity to go over this with with most of you so I don't want to belabor the point but again that top tier of boxes represents the time that uh from a the time from when a complaint comes in in until the time that it gets ready to get sent to the code enforcement board or the magistrate uh for a hearing and that time frame under the best circumstances for uh for the time the complaint comes in until the time it goes to a hearing is probably 90 to 120 days and in many cases in fact most cases here in seol County it's more than 120 days um and and that's for a variety of different reasons some of that's discretion uh of the officer some of that's you know their consideration for the circumstances uh that are presented to them by uh by the property owners whether it's you know illness or financial hardships or or what have you um but that process itself takes time uh when that time is up and the officers decide to refer cases before the code enforcement board uh in seminal County all of those cases are handed off to a clerk and the clerk is then responsible for sending out all the legal notices associated with those cases um and depending upon when those cases are handed off to the clerk that could take 30 another 30 to 60 days um once those notices are um are served against the property owners involved a hearing can occur the hearing times um vary depending upon whether it's the magistrate or the uh or the code enforcement board but um the time frames that the the board or the magistrate may give them are also going to vary um when it comes to adjudicating the cases so they've you know they hear the evidence testimony it's just like Court uh I know a number of you have been to those hearings and seen them for yourselves so you understand what it's like um you you talk about the rubber beat in the road that's that's real life you know that's real local government stuff um and your board and your magistrate by and large make decisions based on the evidence and and testimony that's presented and by and large make decisions that I think um reflect for the most part what's you know what's right to give to a property owner in terms of compliance and sometimes that you know that could be 30 days sometimes that could be 60 days sometimes that could be 180 days uh it all depends upon what happens here in these Chambers with the board with that with that magistrate so again you add that to the time frame that's already uh that's already passed for all the rest of the stuff um and you're and you're getting on into many months into the process semal count is unique because you all have by ordinance a lean hearing and and what that essentially means is that when the property owner is found in non-compliance with the board or the magistrates order you have a second hearing for that property owner that second hearing is a lean hearing and at that hearing the property owner again has sent legal notices advised of their their opportunity to come here and speak and and represent their their circumstances uh I can tell you that in most cases when they come in and do that the board and or the magistrate will afford them more time if they've got a good story to tell and it's understandable but again it's it's a little unusual that in seminal County you all do that a lot of other counties the order is the order and and that's that um conducting that lean hearing uh often times results in an extension of time and so again a lean hearing occurs the board of the magistrate May afford the property owner additional time if they show up if they've got a story to tell and again it's understandable but again you're adding time to the process only after all that time has expired um and the board of the magistrate decide not to extend the time frames um only then do they order leans to be filed and as you all know um probably know uh it's only when your leans filed that you've really kind of perfected your interest in the property and secured your your standing with regards to any kind of future buying selling or refinancing or anything else um let's talk a little bit about code enforcement organization uh here in Seal County um you probably know that code enforcement's decentralized uh within the board of County Commissioners over uh four different departments uh you also have code enforcement staff Again by virtue of that memorandum of understanding uh who were assigned to the Sheriff's office there are six uh FTE that you originally funded at the Sheriff's Office back in 2003 uh and you currently have six folks assigned there now um you also have um Code Enforcement Officers designated in the tax collector's office and I I believe that they're primarily involved in uh going after folks for delinquent business tax receipts and things like that you also have um across the uh the county as part of your administrative code 21 different positions in different departments those four different departments that we talked about but 21 different positions defined with code enforcement responsibilities only two of those positions have code enforcement responsibilities as 100% of their jobs and those are the sheriff's office staff and two folks who who work in the building division uh Prosecuting permitting cases chapter 53 sets up your code enforcement process it actually implements chapter 162 of the Florida Statutes um we've talked a little bit about that as we've gone through uh our conversations with you um SEO County again is unique in that it has a guide for penalty recommendations and a guide for penalty recommendations as a code standard is a little bit um is a little bit difficult to manage um because as a guide you know it's not at least in theory not law um however when you have penalties that are set forth as recommendations that are in in code uh is very difficult for your staff or for your magistrate or for your board to step away from those standards and I'm sure that there was a time and a place for that particularly in the early days of Code Enforcement back in the in the 90s um or in the 80s even but uh that's probably something that is worth uh a conversation about revisiting uh chapter 53 also sets up your code citation program your code citation program is very much like uh be um issuing somebody a a traffic ticket for a code violation and code citations are really terrific for um for addressing violations associated with people as opposed to property um you have it in your code it's not used except by animal services and it seems that only Animal Services is used it somewhat consistently over the years uh by and large it uh it's not used by really by anybody else uh within seminal County government chapter 95 sets forth uh your health and sanitation requirements in Seal County and it has become the de facto minimum standards code uh that's something that I'm going to encourage you to revisit as we get down the road here uh but you can see detailed there all the things that uh constitute public nuisances here in Seal County and what you find is that you're um and again this is prominantly the sheriff staff try to fit uh the the various conditions that they find around the county into these different different definitions of nuisances and they do a pretty good job of that um but this is not a minimum standards code these are the things the nuisance things that at some point you should be thinking about um abating and and and trying to address immediately rather than addressing through a process that takes months uh as it does now um and all these things are are no question new es um but there are other ways to deal with it uh that are preferable if you um if you were to adopt a proper property maintenance code uh chapter 40 is what the building division uses and those two building inspectors use to address um folks who are doing work without permits or doing work outside the scope of permits um uh chapter 40 has um as as you all know also has all the Building Trades uh that are associated with it and the Building Trades obviously are adopted um on threeyear Cycles or updated on threeyear Cycles um unlike a lot of your other code standards uh the Land Development code I previously referred to this in some of my conversations with you is Code Enforcement po per um you know there's a lot of of of time and energy you all put into uh developing Your Land Development code regulations your master plan uh requirements for for large master plan communities and and and larger developments and um this is an excerpt from your Your Land Development code kind of in the in what i' call the Preamble but um when you think about the time and energy you all put your planning staff puts into coming up with a package of recommendations for you all to approve um you should look equally at how that's enforced and at the moment you have uh a position you actually have a couple of positions in the planning department who have a percentage of their time that might be allocated to enforcement activity but nobody's looking at that at making sure that these things happen 100% of the time and that's a concern I think you should all have given the time that you put into trying to make sure that it's developed the right way um let's talk for a few minutes about the code enforcement board and Special M magistrate code enforcement board are volunteers as you all know you all go through and appoint these folks um they're handling predominantly nuisance cases brought by the Sheriff's Office the magistrate is appointed annually by the County Commission and uh she handles primarily permitting cases although there are some other cases involving Land Development code violations such as uh storm water cases like were heard last week um and those are prosecuted most of the time by the building division but also in some instances by your planning staff uh some folks in emergency Ser um I'm going to call it emergency services that may not be the proper nomenclature but uh as it relates to addressing and and some other some other activities uh I mentioned before that there's no centralized data collection going on in Code Enforcement you've got code enforcement in a lot of different places in County government as we already talked about um so coming up with Statistics that I could share with you have been rather difficult I'll tell you the sheriff's department uh has been the best source of information I appreciate again their help in and and putting some of this information together uh but because you don't have uh because you don't have great data you also don't have great performance measurement that you all can look to uh as a way of gauging their their overall performance and and service to the community and and that's something again that I I think um you all want to look at changing um let's let's talk about some of the data points uh and this is a biggie so this is new Code Enforcement cases that are um that are coming through and this is only information from the sheriff's office because that's the only place where I I can get data um and what you'll note here and I apologize if it's a little difficult for folks in the back to read what you'll note here is that the high point for new Code Enforcement cases was in 2018 where you had uh 2,198 cases uh since 2018 there's been a pretty significant drop in the number of Code Enforcement cases um almost 60% since 2018 uh until uh the end of last year um some of that obviously you can attribute to the co pandemic um although a lot of jurisdictions actually saw some increases because more people were home and and staring at their neighbors nasty backyards and pools and wondering why things weren't better um in senal county that was not the case um and so again we see this drop and and I'll also point you to 2021 and 2022 uh 2021 uh July 2021 was when the state statute went into effect with regards to people providing their names and addresses uh in order to leave a complaint um and so from uh 2020 was it 2021 to 2022 you saw a drop of uh 20% uh so significant drop off in in the activity level overall um it's also reflected to some extent in the number of Code Enforcement cases you see um Code Enforcement cases uh countywide and again apologies to folks in the back but um in July of 2024 between the magistrate and the board you heard a grand total of 16 new Code Enforcement cases um it's not a lot I'd really expect uh something on the order of double for a a community of this size uh and the same could be said for for the complaints too and we'll talk about some of the reasons why here in a moment um lean filings remember are how we perfect our interest in properties that are in violation of city code um that seems to be getting a little bit better uh a lot of that i' I'd attribute to um again some consistency on the Staffing side for code enforcement um so we're seeing those numbers go up but when it comes to protecting the County's interest and making sure that you're holding violators accountable uh you do that through filing leans and in July I believe the last month I had there was July you had 11 leans filed countywide I want to talk a little bit about um density here in SEO County you know density is why we have all these code standards and a lot of people uh are going to wonder why we have all these code standards and and and not um not fully appreciate it but this number is is intended to help you hopefully understand a little bit more and and you know SEMO county is a densely populated county it's the fourth most densely populated county in the state and these are uh 2021 census derived numbers anyway um and you can see seol again fourth most densely populated county in the state of Florida uh when you take out the rural protection area or the rural boundary area uh it's a 81 square miles give or take uh it bumps SEMO County up to the second most densely populated county in the state of Florida behind pelis County pelis County's got 16 folks involved in code enforcement um countywide a lot of Condominiums uh a lot of different issues that you that you have here in SEO County um in fact as uh we were going through these briefings I I have to uh thank commissioner delari for pointing out the fact that I did not include the wver protection area when when when I did this analysis and so when you take the wver protection area out uh it it knocks that density number up uh even higher I don't think we we pass pelis County uh quite yet but when you think about Staffing organization issues uh going forward um I would encourage you to maintain at least an eye on this on this density number because the more your community grows the more densely populated you become the more you're going to need to pay attention to these code enforcement standards and um and just make sure that they're they're properly enforced uh for a lot of different reasons um that we'll we've talked about and we can talk about some more if you like um International property maintenance code is an international code standard it is um it's developed by the International Code Council it's one of those things that complements your uh building and trades codes it integrates with your building and trades codes and I've got a list here of communities just here in Central Florida that have adopted the ipmc as their their minimum standards code um I'd encourage you to do that here in Seal County um it's a you know it's it's been a long time since you adopted your first Property Maintenance standard back in 1992 The Building Trades have evolved our standards have evolved as a as a community and these minimum property maintenance standards go long way towards addressing not just residential property but commercial property vacant property um and and property maintenance standards in general that again are intended to help preserve public health safety and Welfare and maintain our property values uh let's go ahead and get into recommendations uh the first one you've already checked off because at your last or at least the August 27th meeting of the board of County Commissioners you all selected a new software uh vendor to provide you with new Land Development and permitting software and included in that was was also code enforcement software and that code enforcement software if properly designed and properly implemented should give you a public facing portal to to manage complaints it should provide you with end to- end tracking that are going to that will provide you all with an understanding of where things are in the process um it'll also allow you potentially to publish that information uh and provide some transparency for uh for your residents that I think is important um there are a number of code revisions uh I've touched on as we've gone along but I want to just highlight them here again please adopt the property International property maintenance code uh by adopting the ipmc or something like it you get to deal with problems before they become nuisances and and that's really critical you've got um you got you've got housing stock that you need to preserve you've got property values that you need to preserve and adopting a minimum standards code like this is going to allow you to uh better do that I think it's important to take a long look at revising chapter 53 for line uh fine and lean reconsiderations uh this board takes up a lot of time and energy uh on Code Enforcement matters and it's one of those things that can be properly delegated to the code enforcement board and the magistrate um you all can provide some guard rails for that if you feel like it's appropriate but you know these are the folks who are hearing all the evidence and and dealing with these cases uh from the beginning until the end and and as it is I think they're going to be better situated in a lot of cases uh to consider whether or not to reduce uh fines or resend fines or leans um I also think it's important that the county consider updating its fine Provisions the state statute was Ed many years ago uh to provide for fines up to $1,000 a day um and for counties over 50,000 uh 50,000 in population obviously s counties a long way past that um the statute allows for you to Pro uh impose fines of up to $1,000 doll a day and I'm not suggesting for one second that it's appropriate in every case to do it but every now and then um you want to be able to do that you need to be able to send that message and you need to make sure that the stakes are as high as possible the statute allows you to impose fines of up to $1,000 a day and I think you need to give your board and your magistrate and your code enforcement staff uh the opportunity where it's appropriate to be able to impose those kind of fines uh there are also those recommendations that we talked about a little bit uh in chapter 53 that I I really think should be pulled out and again leave that discretion to your board and to your magistrate uh and then there some policy updates that we need to go along with all those things um I want to talk again the software that youve purchased is going to do a lot to allow you to track cases from beginning to end but unless you provide people with access to it easily uh in in the form of where this portal is placed on your on your website is absolutely critical uh right now um some of you know that if you want to get a complaint logged in the system you wind up eventually on the sheriff's website and um I'm told that they're looking to to make some updates there and I think that's uh I think that's going to be important for them but I can tell you that for the public if it takes more than than three or four clicks to get a complaint into a into your system they're just not going to do it and so the result is going to be they're going to continue to call you and your AIDS which is a lot of what's happening right now um providing that public facing portal again can provide transparency into the process that really really doesn't exist right now and uh we'll go a long way towards just building trust with the residents who were who are logging the complaints and also giving them an opportunity to to maybe deal uh directly with the code enforcement staff dealing with the case uh I think it's important to consider consolidating the code enforcement function uh under a single organization reporting to the board right now again it's in four different departments it's at the Sheriff's Office it's then at the tax collector's office you need to consol validate at least as much of this as you you uh possibly can uh into a single organization that's responsible for enforcing all your county codes so that you as Commissioners and the public uh don't have to figure out which one of those uh different departments is the appropriate Department to have to address their complaint to put it into one portal have it go to one agency have that one agency deal with with all those violations and that one agency and those people can deal with minimum standard codes zoning codes and all that good stuff um it's important to at the same time um overhaul that internal case management process to begin shaving time off where it's possible uh revise the magistrate procedures uh possibly get rid of that lean hearing and and consolidate that into a single hearing and then also I would encourage you to take a look at revising your abatement process right now all the abatements are coming to you all they could be going to your board or your Magistrate um uh and I also think it's important to to take a look at the funding that you provide for that right now um we don't want to click now now we want to click thank you uh so just kind of provide you with three options for discussion sake uh obviously the first one is to continue on with the way things are that's why I'm here um second is to continue with the current organ organization ation structure but to amend theou with the Sheriff's Office and execute hopefully execute a lot of those code changes that we talked about if you don't execute the code changes anything else you do is going to be is is going to be somewhat empty um so I I think that at a minimum those code changes need to be made uh and then the third option obviously is to reorganize the structure to centralized responsibility under one agency give you all one person to call one agency to go to to one throat to choke if things aren't right uh so that um and again that's not just for you all but that's for your your constituents as well um and then again make those make those code changes obviously there are budget and Staffing considerations in doing that and organizational placement considerations there so um with that I'll go ahead and wrap and see what questions you Mr Road commissioner her I don't have any questions but the the I think the work that you've done is really remarkable and provides a very good lens to what I've been feeling for four years uh so the good news is to the team that's worked in the District 5 office and myself it's not us at least not all the time not all the time no that's probably 5050 uh just some general comments first of all I do agree with all of your recommendations I land squarely on number three that I think it's time that we reorganize the 80s were a was a wonderful decade I thoroughly enjoyed myself during the 80s but we don't live there anymore and we probably need to come into the current time uh consolidating the time for all of this to happen is important I am a huge supporter of getting rid of that lean hearing it just slows the whole process down and puts us in Jeopardy the guide needs to be replaced with an actual enforceable document which I think the sheriff's office has been asking for for a very long time we do need to add the minimum standard code um I personally and I don't think this was in there would like us to consider or at least research the opportunity of moving entirely away from a volunteer board into a situation where it's just consistent consistently run by people that are in the role to make those decisions whether that's a magistrate or some other form I think the community deserves consistency with regard to how we do this I'm also in favor of moving as much of it as we can off of this board this is a governing board not a managing board and we are in the business of managing when we're making these decisions with often very little information given that it's a 20-year history and we require staff to give it to us in such a condensed format to meet the meeting time it's not optimal so um I would also do that I think the portal is critical but I would also add to your list I did not see that in there that use of the portal by the entire team once this is all reconfigured including our offices is critical so the portal shouldn't just be for Citizens there needs to be a staff component to make sure that we're not creating the next data void no Excel spreadsheets on the side of somebody's desk when we have a portal that can track our issues as well um the 21 positions touching this just is mindboggling to me I do agree that LDC enforcement and we've heard that in this Chambers time and time again from citizens that struggle with the new development and what's happening and how we enforce that we have to get in front of that um and then the last thing is the and you did mention this but I didn't see it in writing and that is that the portal accessibility to the public nothing can be three clicks away for the public and once it's in there it should be automatically populating dashboards all set then knew that was coming Mr Glory thank you Mr chairman first of all Mike thank you thank you for your hard work I uh not only enjoyed the uh update in my office but uh hearing from other people about how you went out there and did a lot of the field work yourself uh very commendable also want to thank Sher uh for all the hard work not just the Sheriff's Department's done but your offices uh it's looking at this we may not have given you all the proper tools listening to our consultant that uh I'm glad that we're looking at just from new lens perspective I think it's important that we take all your recommendations uh I think we need to move forward but also asking our staff for a timeline of how this is actually going to be implemented and what's the actual cost of it uh you did mention the new software that we purchased uh I know that that software is not going to be implemented immediately because there's going to be some onboarding of that software as well as the new uh portal as well as the new code updates as well as organizing it and so I'd like to understand what the whole timeline's going to be because it won't happen within 30 days obviously absolutely even though we want it to happen within 30 days and I know that uh attorney's office could make that happen but uh I know that's a heavy lift for anyone to do but I want to thank you and also want to thank the sheriff's depart all your hard work and continued hard work because a frustration of some of the things that is pointed out here today and I know that uh if we look at this holistically we can achieve just about anything so thank you Mr lockart um Echo the great thanks really uh important to have a fresh set of eyes on something that has just become a course of doing business around here for so many years so thank you um I would like I recognizing that the sheriff is here if he has input I would love to hear from him on his thoughts um would also like any other members of the public that are here to to share their thoughts um and I kind of feel bad giving my thoughts before they give their thoughts because it makes it sound like I already made my mind up but um but I will say that I have I will I will Echo everything that was said with um a question about the PE if you want to make yourself comfortable we'll get you here yeah just give me one second on this one question about us annually appointing the special magistrate I do not recall us ever doing that there's a contract there's a contract and I off the top of my head yeah do not know what the term is but since I've been here in the last year I don't recall that we appointed the magistrate yeah within the year I think that maybe that's something that wound up just being done in the county attorney's office on autopilot perhaps but if it says in our code that it's supposed to come to the board we probably want to do that or take it out of the code um whichever the board whichever way we lean um I will also um say that um well I'll wait and and hear what comments need want to be made by others who are here commissioner const you have anything to say okay I do but I will hold it until sure uh I want to go to the public um before we all get engaged we'll we'll we'll wait for consensus and motion before we get further and then watch the sheriff anyone from the public here to speak on this matter yes sir we have one speaker Morgan voke okay spell the last name v o k okay Mr V Morgan voke uh 1280 man Street alont um so I am the guy that brought a lot of these problems to light um we got lot of shady business going on um a lot of things I need fixed so uh things start out pretty decently and smooth through the Sheriff's Office it gets over the county and then kind of goes all over the place so there's lots of findes lots of leans uh you all took the website down but there's let's say 20 pages of open leans that uh I'm currently two of them that I bought after the leans were already there but um so I brought the attention to you a long time ago and at least we're we're working on uh progressing so I think a lot of the things he's recommending are good um I think there's still issues with getting it to the point of incompliance and taken care of um there's the issue where a lot of people have these leans so they feel overwhelmed and they just give up as a result there's plenty of places that have grass that's this tall there's plenty of houses that are falling apart that no one cares to do anything about and it affects yes them that doesn't care but it affects the neighbor it affects the the neighborhood affects everybody around I think we forget about that I think that we for for get that it's your job staff's job it's all of our job to make it a good Community for all of us and we're we're failing so um what do we do about it you know I talked to somebody that um brought up there's very different situations it's very not a black and white um there's that lady who can't afford her her drugs and she brought her property into compliance but she can't wash away her lean because she doesn't $500 to apply to you all U which again like somebody else said why do you even waste your time applying to you all there should be board that takes care of that but um then there's a guy who buys a golf course and lets the golf course go to crap and it affects everybody around and it's again got grass that tall he is not the same as she you know it needs to be looked at it differently there needs to be discretion of somebody if it's a magistrate if it's a somebody you know somebody needs to be able to say no Stick it to him help her out um we're we're failing there uh so that didn't seem like it was any kind of part of uh the solution so far um maybe they're still working on it but we need to have something that you can get people into compliance and then fix it take care of you know go our separate ways um I've personally gone before the uh magistrate and the code enforcement board because I replaced fences without permits I've done other things um but it was always told to me that the point of a lean or the point of a fine is not for the county to make money or anything it is to bring you into compliance so it's hopefully forcing you get it together get it done wash our hands of it well we're kind of getting halfway through and then we give up so we need your help we need to get better uh thank you Mr Bo thank you very much commissioner Lockard do you have an inquir MR voke well Mr voke and I um first met over a a a Code Enforcement issue um in the building department and that was several years ago and we've been kind of what working together um through some of these issues and the the lean amnesty program was something that we instituted U many many years ago I thought the board had directed to have it come back and do another iteration of it something happened with that it didn't happen um but I I think there there is an entirely different conversation that we need to have as a piece of this um for folks who are wanting to bring properties into compliance because that is the ultimate goal and um and I also noticed that was you know not a part of this presentation but it's some something that we need to take up for sure very good thank you Mr F I think that needs to thank you Mr so we did um so we did do that prior to co the amnesty program and then we Revisited a second time Midway through the co pandemic uh and telling our staff to extend it for a second round and it was precipitated by the I don't know $64 million or whatever that crazy number was the amount of leans that were outstanding uh when you and I arrived here as elected officials it was one of the first work sessions that we visited um but we did ask staff to go back a second time which we did extend that uh beyond the covid pandemic uh time frame hopefully to get people to come in compliance I think we forgot to tell the public I don't know if we did or not I I think we missed the piece where we told people um that those notices were going out that second round because if if if those notices had gone out and we had confirmation of those notices having been received by all of those people um and I think that's one of the pieces of this is that we're sending out mail and it's not necessarily being received and Rebecca hammock's comeing out I know she's going to say we sent all the letters and everybody knew yes we did well I'm talking to people who have leans and they didn't get one so so you know somewhere in the middle is probably what actually happened yeah or they didn't perhaps you know get open that piece of mail cuz sometimes people see it's from a government ENT entity and they don't open it but we sent out postcards as well like really colorful postcards and we had things posted on the website originally the lean amersy program was supposed to be 6 months long and it ended up being a total of 3 years through the extensions a lot because of covid correct and how many people availed the elves of that well I think we heard $70,000 was collected yes out of the how many millions how many properties were I'd have to go back and check I don't have that data and I think I think if we revisit that we need to figure out what worked what didn't work and tailor it into something that that gets us to the result we were looking for and uh make sure that we're doing all we can to communicate thank you Miss hammock any other public input Dominic no sir okay we'll close public input commissioner her before I go to the sheriff you had your hand raised I just want to close out that amnesty conversation I think we should build a process where we don't need it correct okay I just wanted to make sure that we were we were all heading down the same path of we we need to improve this to the degree that it is ongoing and we're bringing property up to to code prior to a certain period where we're going to run around and fix it so no I I I I agree and the whole whole premise behind it at the time was trying to get compliance trying to hold understood a carrot out and say hey we're going to wipe this clean if you'll get your stuff cleaned up and as we just heard although best intentions it didn't create a lot of fruit well it was a bandaid of things you know so and ironically what's happened many of you probably had the same calls I've had at my office now that that has expired and now that somebody is trying to sell their property they now want to take advantage of the amesty program that has since expired um so you know I agree it's it's right process in place we don't need to together our great sheriff is here Sheriff Lima do you have something to add or some things you'd like to share with us sir I I will thank you chairman and uh good morning everyone and first and foremost I want to really thank our Code Enforcement Officers I mean for for 20 years they have they have worked hard I'm incredibly proud of them they're probably watching this back we'll watch it back and wonder what what what's going on and I have a little bit of History here too because I was one of the uh supervisors that took on the transition of Code Enforcement back uh 20 years ago when we made that change and the philosophy of Code Enforcement remains true in policing as it does back then that um theory of broken windows that inability in a particular community that goes unaddressed and untouched has the ability to court in larger criminal acts because it gives the impression that nobody really cares and um I mean that's incredibly uh important but I believe the collaboration between the county county staff and the Sheriff's Office uh has grown tremendously over the years uh we simply work well together and I think that over the past 20 years although we've had good intentions uh this process could have been uh much smoother uh they deserve Code Enforcement Officers deserve a dedicated leadership team that is not transitioning in and out on their way to higher ranking positions and promotions to to Advocate uh for their interests uh they they they deserve an opportunity to come together and and look at alties like aligning with the districts that you represent all of you over the years have become somewhat experts in Code Enforcement because of the amount of complaints that your staff and you have personally been involved with but candid any process that involves uh a county commissioner uh a County Manager Deputy County Manager a sheriff and an unders Sheriff to get resolution on a particular issue is a bad process uh so I I I think that Mike has done a tremendous job with his expertise his his recommendations his feedback I I do think it's probably in the best interest of our Collective citizens to to centralize that back under one umbrella with the county uh what that would look like on our end uh candidly and you know Darren and I have spoken about this is uh uh to give those Code Enforcement Officers an opportunity to see if they wanted to be a part of that transition uh of course I would encourage that I would I would ask them to do that but if they wanted to look for vacancies that that are currently in the Sheriff's Office uh we would entertain that as well so many of them have been here for their entire careers uh and I don't know that that's a bad thing uh for the county either because I think that sometimes starting with a new set of protocol and new standard is a little bit easier sometimes than correcting habits that have been picked up and um and you know over the years I probably should have done a better job with advocating for more staff uh within that duties and responsibilities but uh candidly when people pick up the phone and call they don't normally call the Sheriff's Office thinking that we're the organization that is responsible for for code violations although we've done it for many years I think that as as U as as leaders of the county and a governing body they pick up the phone and call you because they assume that it's going to be you and your responsibility for code enforcement so uh in the end you have uh full support and cooperation from from us at the office we've got a tremendous relationship I know that the services that we provide to our community uh will not change uh members of our organization Deputy sheriffs will still be made available for co-response so if it's a county code enforcement officer and there's some unfamiliarity with the area or uncomfortableness we would respond with because I think it's good to to work together in harmony thank you very much for your willingness Sheriff thank thank you very much okay back to the board any further comments from the board commissioner Constantine thank you commissioner just a sense of frustration that we've all felt over the last number of years because it has gotten more and more prominent of you know citizens calling us begging us many of them are saying will you please file it for us and that is a very frustrating feeling to do that you know having to sell them no we or in my case I told a number of them no um it's just not something I'm going to do cuz he said she said whatever the case may be I drive by yeah and I go yeah it's bad and then I file it yeah and I have done that too but there were some that I've driven by and it could have been he said she said also um the I like the idea of those those um situations that need immediate attention instead of having to go through the whole process and all I'm going to ask the staff to do because I know this is now going to go into your hands thank you very much for everything that you've done it's really been a pleasure working with you and um and for your thoroughness and I want to thank the sheriff's office for working so cooperatively with them I'm just saying please put this I know there's a lot of things on your this is something because we all deal with it mostly our staff deals with it and our our AIDS deal with it and I would just say this would go a long way to making a lot of people in our County comfortable if we could find a streamline and knowing a person to get to so thank you very much to everybody and I'm in support of the recommendations I'm not going to make a motion right now I see another hand but I am supporting the recommendations which recommendation you got three options well okay then the option that is going to the most um I I would not call it uh radical but the change the Change option yeah that's what I'm saying the reorganization of this entire process got it commissioner lockart will just come right down the DI all right so with the consent and collaboration and blessing of the sheriff um I will support um number three um I do want to say that I concur with eliminating the lean hearing as a separate process I think that's imperative um also getting rid of the penalty recommendations as suggested um the immediate abatement for the health and sanitation issues we got to figure out how we're going to do that um the um I talked about the special magistrate being appointed by the board annually I know I made notes on each of these little Pages um just changed the whole thing no it's all I'm concurring with so that staff knows I'm I'm audibly publicly concurring with with the different um touch points um agree with adopting the international property maintenance code um the uh chapter 95 uh that was the abatement issues I believe the nuisance issues I don't know how we change our is was that the was that 95 Mike 95 yes 95 and the LDC and 53 yeah however we change our posture with those items and and I will continue honestly to look to Mike for for his guidance on how we would go about doing that um all of the recommendations that you have on the first recommendation Slide the recommendations on the second recommendation slide uh option three and I do think although being in a an amnesty program position is not the place we want to live I think it may need to um it may need to be instituted in some fashion differently than we did before as we start to implement this new process in these new procedures because we will have a hopefully a lot of community conversation and a lot of opportunity to be out in the community at meetings talking I I imagine hopefully I see Iran Simpson here from um the East Altamont area the the opportunity is to be out with the community talking about these changes and that it is for the benefit of the entire community and how we can help people um get into compliance and I'm assuming that that amnesty program will be a part of that or something like it so those are my comments Mr gari thank you Mr chairman again Mike I think you did a phenomenal job uh thank you sheriff for all your hard work as well as your staff uh I'm not going to repeat everything I think we need to implement all of Mike's suggestions and centralize everything as we talked about in item number three but more importantly I'd like to have a timeline so we can actually understand how this is going to be implementing bring the public in involved and also understand the true cost of what this is all going to cost because listening to this presentation we need to whoever comes over we definitely need to have more code enforcement officers and whatever we do needs to be done great I'd like to have Mike still a part of it because I think he did such a great job in bringing it so quickly to the the uh to the board uh because this is something that you specialize in uh I know that we're in a work session so I don't know if we can make a motion but I definitely think there's consensus to move forward with all these items that we talked about Comm her I started the parade with item number three I did already um speak to the Sheriff's Office with regard to understanding the position uh before making that decision um I do think we need Mike to bring this through to execution um otherwise it's it's just too much for us to do and we probably build something that doesn't isn't as efficient as you would build um and then I but the one thing that got said that I'm not I'm not there yet I don't know the answer based on the lack of data I don't know that we need more staff I don't um based on the numbers I saw I don't think we do but I also don't know that those numbers have captured everything so I think that is yet to be determined I think we need an organizational structure before we decide on headcount Mr Mr chairman something spurred my mind um but the last two comments um and that is I think the staff has to take a really close look at the at at the staff because it sounds to me also like it did to commissioner her that 22 people or how many people you know if if they were if they were organized in a different fashion it we might be able there might be economy of scale that's all I'm going to say you so that's got to be something mrman I'm not saying we need to just hire people for hiring people so we need to look at this holistically to understand what that workload is and you want to start down here and go this way again no no I think Mr Gray needs to weigh in okay then the chair has a few things to say as a commissioner go well thank you Mr chairman Commissioners and when you all had put this uh on my plate about 6 months ago to look at the process I knew the person that we needed to look at it was Mr Mike rhods who has as you all have de as he's demonstrated you've all have seen his extensive experience uh in Code Enforcement so one good news I did talk to him before he is willing to stay on with us to help us through whatever trans uh the the the transition the implementation uh get some you know feedback from you so um and it is not 22 position you know CU there's hodg Podge positions in there so it's just 22 people but a few of them could just be doing a few things so what if uh up of course up to the the chair chairman and the board that U this was step one step two is if you bring it you know let me do bring back to you an implementation transition work with the sheriff I want to thank the sheriff too and his staff they've been extremely helpful in this uh in this process when I came here I just saw a bunch of hodge podge of you know being happening everywhere so I appreciate you all allowing me to bring in someone like Mike to actually look at it and spend some time to dedicate time to to look at it and look at what are the best practices and recommendations to this board so um on your direction I'll just follow your lead so I'll try to close this out I won't go into all the details in the briefing I shared you with you all of my comments I don't need to regurgitate those here for the public it's pretty much in line with what everything's been said here today uh my biggest thing is I need a cost analysis I mean at the end of the day that's what I need to have a clear understanding the cost analysis when I arrived here 6 years ago I didn't need to hire or tell anybody to tell me that it was broke systems broke people are not being treated equally under the law through the jurisdictions of this County and that's unfortunate uh and that's nobody's specific fault it's just a matter of the fruit that is being grown based under the current program that exists and so um I will support number three I would support moving for forward sooner rather than later but I do need a cost analysis I think this Board needs a cost analysis of what this looks like if we relieve the sheriff of of this Duty and he may say burden um and we assume that and what that really looks like but at the end of the day I really believe that the efficiencies that will come to be born under the new program will likely be be more cost effective than what we're currently doing with staff time and so forth so with that said I think you have consensus and Direction Mr rhs do you feel that the board has given enough Direction yes sir thank you okay thank you all very much thank you Mr Rose we sincerely appreciate it okay anything else for the good of the order before we adjourn for lunch break seeing none we will reconvene at 1:30 thank you all very much [Music]