Pasco County meeting record

Every appearance1 of 1 are in a recording

TranscriptWhat was said at each appearance is below it. Machine transcription, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 96% of 101 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.

1Aug 19, 2020
Board of County CommissionersR1Regular businessNo disposition in the minutes
Open this item →
22m
Jack Mariano
Move on to our regular agenda. We will start with R one. Give me one second here, please. Presentation for the Coastal Restoration Initiative and Funding. Commissioner Mariano.
Jack Mariano
Thank you. Um Do you have a s the slides ready? As shulls up the slides, uh I want to thank uh My two assistants, Sonia Walling and Colleen Weaver, for Helping to get the slideshow ready. I think they did a good job with it and uh the team to uh get this information out there. As you know, we heard a lot of things about the aquatic preserve and how it's gonna affect the S and all. Uh we had some great presentations from uh group up in Kings Bay, Sea and Shoreline that did a great job putting a nonprofit together. Uh knowing
our dredging projects are coming up for Gulf Harbors, Leisure Lane, Leisure in Hudson Beach, that I thought it would be good if we actually start looking at Pun uh put a plan together. So Uh what I want to look at is the Coastal Restoration Protection and Maintenance Plan. Uh comprehensive plan to protect and value our resources, ensuring the economic b benefits for our entire economy. Next slide.
Um DP Secretary Noah Valenstein said it best. He said it's a monster economy, talking about the Gulf of Mexico, the importance of our natural resource coming together as ec economic. So it's Florida's economic driver. Three point two million visitors, six billion dollar economic impact. Florida has the largest fishing and recreational industry in the U.S., second largest commercial fishing fleet in the U.S., with a GP GDP of $1 trillion. It's the 17th largest GDP in the world. Uh if we have natural if
we have a natural resource challenge, it has a dramatic impact on our economy and way of life. Next slide. Uh case in point, Hudson Beach. Lately You know, you if you look at Hudson Beach it's not the h it has doesn't have all the glamour that it used to have. Um the white sandy beaches that you see out there from back in the nineteen eighties have kinda like gone away and they continually go away 'cause they're rode away into the beach. And along the Hudson Channel on the northern part, um we have Ek E. coli, our next slide.
Um Bacteria levels that are going up and they seem to be keep going up. Now the county doesn't control the sewer out there. We tried to work aro around the whole area to try to make it better. We fixed the stormwater drainage up on Clark Street, which has helped a lot, but we still have an E. coli problem. So we don't want to have the image out there of Hudson Beach uh with that any longer. We want to do something about it and fix it. Uh next slide.
So, coastal restoration, protection, maintenance. We need to coordinate the coastline goals, efforts that align us to the county planning across the departments. We can expand economic benefits. We can improve water quality through stormwater, septic, and other other ways. We want to do restoration so we kind of fall in line with the aquatic preserve. We want to take care advantage of those benefits that are out there, because when they put that in the a quantum preserve in place, it actually creates some funding opportunities that we can go after. And I want to say that I do want to preface
I want to use as much as a With every project that we save some money from the BP Restore Act money, because every time we are using that money, um We're actually able to not be through some of the boundings of the uh aquatic reserve. But we still can get the economic benefits. So I want to support resiliency benefits. Uh you've heard me talk a lot about resiliency. I'll be I'm sitting on the committee with the Regional Planning Council about doing the same thing. I want to start incorporating that into our long-range planning. I want to work on the maintenance of our canals and waterways. It's great for stormwater quality, great for water
quality, for flooding purposes, et cetera. So we're going to need to investigate the personnel needs that we need. We will probably need to bring a biologist on. We're going to need someone who's going to have some dredging expertise to help us go through that process. I want to have some high-level stakeholder meetings to create buy-in, just like they did at Kings Bay. I want to adopt language into the support, the strategic and comprehensive planes, and I want to s look for innovative programs for solutions. Next slide.
So when I look at you know what they did for Save Crystal River, um that n nonprofit public-private partnership, which, and I'm glad to see Administrative Bowles, you you liked the idea from the get-go to try to help us make this work, the funding they received to review again, $17.7 million they've received in state funds, $129,000 in grants donations. Uh Citrus County even put in three hundred and fifteen grand. five hundred and twelve grand they raised in donations and fundraising. Um
over 25 acres are restored uh restored, replanted, over 116 eelegrass plants. They have removed 106 million pounds of silt. I'll call it that. They removed 95 percent of the phosphorus and 50 percent of the nitrogen pollution for treated water. Next slide.
So this fits into our strategic plan, which is as Mark Bell has coached me a little bit, says you need to go put it in the strategic plan. And Mike Carbello, thank you for You know, going along the same line. To create a th thriving community when we're talking about reinvestment, quality of life, we got recreational opportunities. And Commissioner Weightman you did working with Fish and Wildlife to bring scalping. We have seen the benefits that are out there. And then the great ways to bring families together as well as a local business benefit from having these people. Well, we want to make sure we can prevent pollutants from the national environment. That's
what it will do. It will stimulate economic growth. And Commissioner Starkey is we agree we need to put a some resurgence in up and down the coast, uh improve organizational performance. Identifying creative funding solutions in the private and public sectors, it all comes back to just seeking the additional strategic plan to make it happen. Next slide.
So the Comm plan, we need some actionable items. Uh talked with Terry T Pitos about that, kind of working with him in the LDC and other county operations. Next slide.
And coordination both inside Pasco and outside in working with the agencies, uh internally, County Administrator, National Resources, Long Range Planning, Tourism, Economic Development, the budget. And I will tell you, uh, Commissioner Weightman Mr. Thomas was out there with the people that were doing all the surveying of all the people. And they had the lady at the boat ramp during the scallop and she was paying attention. They were taking all the data, brought Adam up there. He liked the ideas that we were talking about doing up to improve Hudson Beach, which is going to really help the whole area. Uh so we're looking at
all those stakeholders, we need to work everybody together, and I think that's why this uh n network that we're gonna build will be very helpful to this committee. Uh next slide.
So we are going to look at additional funding, grants, nonprofit contributions. There is a Federal grant out there that is called the John H. Chafee Fund, working with Congressman Belarakis. He is actually digging in to find out what we can go do. The Rief Store Act funding, as I said, the aquatic preserve is going to be critical to us to use it as a benefit. And as long as we are using the BP Restore Act money, we can do that. get through a lot of things that may be other otherwise tough hurdles. Uh innovative grants, pilot projects through DEP, we're going to be looking at them. We've actually even applied
with uh Regional Planning Council for 550 grand for resiliency. Uh so we're gonna look for ad additional stakeholders. Uh I will tell you since this slide was printed, I've got mobility fees listed on there, but mobility fees were taken off the table as our adept County Attorney Mr. Stein said I said you can't use it for that. But I really think that if you look at the values that will go up along this coast, I think just so we could kind of use the mobility fees for transportation, we can look at just going along the coast, even inside the 19 quarter, for
that tax increment funding, tax increment financing, that could pave the way to funding all these things we need to do. And the people on the coast will be paying extra taxes if they are going to carry their weight for it. If that doesn't work, we will be able to do that. We can look at the MSPU, which may w we may what may want to use for long-term maintenance. Next slide.
So if you look at the pictures, if you go back to nineteen seventy. And those two pictures I have on there, one's the Hudson area, one's Gulf Harbors, I kind of just isolated those areas because you can see those canals that are in place. And Commissioner Starkey if you notice that southern channel in Gulf Harbors on the right side picture is listed is shown there.
Unidentified speaker
My
Jack Mariano
house is shown here in
Unidentified speaker
that picture.
Jack Mariano
Yeah. So by using that and and using the the the BP money, et cetera, we can use this if we go forward to try to look at doing the maintenance dredging for all that's shown. And it goes up and down the coast. I just wanted to highlight those two because of the the dredging project coming up first. Next slide.
So what I'd like to do is have us direct the county teams to develop a coastal initiative. Introduce some language for the new strategic plan currently in review. Add some actionable items to the comprehensive plan. And potentially uh take a look at, and I don't want to change like what Swift Mud's doing, because Swift Mud is doing a great job with the permitting. Uh they got the right talent, they're right at the right place. Uh I'm not looking to take everything over. But if there's a way that we can look at taking over the um review of the dredging activities, uh restoration activities,
I should call them, then that's what we want to go take a look at. So I'm not saying we need to go do it, but I just want to take a look at all these things to try to work this plan forward. Is that the last slide? Okay, so that's the last slide. I don't think we need to do anything today, but I'd like to have maybe a little discussion about what you th what you think about trying to work up work up the coast with something like this.
Jack Mariano
Commissioner's? Yes,
Kathryn Starkey
over here.
Jack Mariano
Commissioner Starkey.
Kathryn Starkey
Sorry. The little bell. So this is awesome. I think uh you know, I think it was last year we talked about uh when we were starting to work on dredging here and there that really we need a comprehensive look at the whole coast. And dredging is just one part of it. And um And I I wish I had a hard copy of this so I could go back to some of the pages because um I wasn't sure how you tied in recreation on here. Um was was there uh a recreation component? component that you mentioned?
Jack Mariano
Yeah, recre we did talk about recreation.
Kathryn Starkey
Well, there's more than that along the coast, you know. Um Having served
I was want to see what was at the beginning and and where any mentions were towards um uh um a way to tie recreation into this. When I served on the state Greenways and Trails Council, we we put together the Florida Blue Waap. And that's a trail that goes all the way around the state. And um many counties that are coastal have campgrounds specifically for um kayakers and and amenities and
certainly We should be doing that. I always thought that property we bought
By the American Marina, I think it is,
Unidentified speaker
Commissioner Weightman.
Kathryn Starkey
Is that you know that would be a great place for some platforms and for the for the kayakers. And that's just one little piece of I think things we are not um capitalizing on on our beautiful coast. So I would tie all of that into this, even more than just scalloping or fishing. There's other recreational opportunities on the coast. So I think I think we have an asset that we haven't really dove into and I think that was mentioned in the ULI report
as well. So if I
Jack Mariano
could
Kathryn Starkey
look forward to moving forward with some kind of initiative.
Jack Mariano
And and Commissioner Starkey, way back when when we had the US nineteen task force, Commissioner Hildebrand and I I actually sat on the same committee. uh never met, but we had it set up. I think we can look to maybe try to recreate that type of committee as well. Uh like Carl Roth who sits on the dredging for Port Richey wants to get on this. I've got other business people up and down, but I think Cooperatively, you and I could work on the same committee if we could make structure it that way uh and really make this thing fly.
Kathryn Starkey
Yeah. Or a a p yeah. I I think this is time has come. Thank
Mike Wells
you.
Jack Mariano
Commissioner Oakley, Commissioner Weightman?
Mike Wells
I I think uh I think it's a great thing. I mean anything we can do to help our coastline and improve it and improve access for people. It was a great thing. Hudson Hudson's a great area. Hopefully we can figure out a way to dredge that too, unfortunately. to get those boats that, you know, are stuck in there now that can't get out for economic development reasons. So But it's no, I I think it's great. I think anything we can look at and try to find funding and It's a positive thing. So thank you for bringing it. That's good. Excellent.
Kathryn Starkey
Just to be clear, this is a whole coast initiative, right? Not just Hudson. Oh yeah, all the way down. Yeah.
Jack Mariano
Correct.
Kathryn Starkey
All the
Jack Mariano
way down to Bailey's and all the way up.
Kathryn Starkey
Um I'm Commissioner Starkey. So I'm wondering about the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council when they do um You know, they dive into some planning sectors and do some reports and I'm I'm wondering if if uh they can dive into this as well. I know you mentioned one something from the Planning Council, but it wasn't a comprehensive Uh review.
Jack Mariano
And the the comp the part of the grant I think it enti entails looking at that as well.
Kathryn Starkey
Cos I can hardly hear him. That's that's weird.
Jack Mariano
Okay.
Kathryn Starkey
What'd you say?
Jack Mariano
I said we we're part of the the grant and and the process we're looking at is actually to do that, to look at the whole the whole county up and down.
Kathryn Starkey
Okay, because Yeah, that's that's what they do. And a lot of people don't realize that. I know they just did a a plan for the city of New Port Richey I think.
Jack Mariano
Commissioner Oakley.
Ron Oakley
Yeah, I I agree with this. I I appreciate you bringing this forward because I think we should be looking at our whole coast at one time. There there are specific areas that need a lot more dredging and and things of that nature for for tourists and for our boaters that are out there. But uh looking at the whole coast uh really is the right thing to do. So and it's been a long time coming. I think we've We've kinda lacked on uh looking at that coastline. The dredging all should have been addressed many years ago I think. So That's why we're
in the shape we are out there. So Can
Kathryn Starkey
we
Ron Oakley
get
Kathryn Starkey
a hard copy mailed to us?
Jack Mariano
Yes. Yeah. Yes. Commissioner Mr. Biles, you had a
County Administrator
Yes sir. Mr. Chair. We we will get uh copies of this out there buddy right after the meeting. Uh uh furthermore The dredge study that the board authorized Basically about a year ago Um we'll be ready and w I believe we're scheduled to bring a presentation to the board on the second September meeting. Oh good. To discuss that and should have some rough idea of rough order magnitude of cost with respect to what that means. So this ties right into that. I would say you know, we can have a
further discussion about these initiatives with that because then at that point we'll have a better idea of funding for or cost for dredging and then we can talk about some funding opportunities and then what A couple of these are Really no cost activities, but a couple of them are gonna cost money to do the work. So I but I think that's a time to kind of wrap everything together and then move forward.
Jack Mariano
Thank you. And hey, great job, Commissioner.
So
Jack Mariano
I'm gonna thank Commissioner Starkey too for encouraging me to get two good assistants. So thank you, Commissioner Starkey.
Jack Mariano
Well great great job to you and your team and uh I I couldn't have a good idea. agree more when it comes, especially when it comes to additional access, like you've many of you already spoke of, we do need additional access. I think the kayak launches and things like that are a great idea too. So Definitely supportive of of some of those measures. Thank you. Okay, moving on to R two, amendment to the capital improvement, Nama Al Velorem Revenue Bond Series 2020, Park Projects Commissioner Item, District 5. Um Why
does that say Commissioner O District five, Commissioner District Three?
Okay, so it's five across the board. Okay. So that's back to Commissioner Mariano.
Jack Mariano
Uh actually uh Keith Wiley I think is talking about any?
Okay. All right. So
the agenda item is to move money from um. Let's say the revenue bonds to direct it to the Hudson Beach area. Uh out in front of Hudson Beach as you saw the picture of the old Hudson Beach where there used to be sand out there? Kinda like we did at Sun West, and it was a citizen that brought the idea up to me, to go kinda put a footer Around the whole edge of where the lowlands are. So When we do the dredging, Instead of having to spend money to go bring it out to US nineteen or finding a spa for it, we can actually take
the dredge spoils which along that channel should be as clean as a whistle. Put 'em down there over the top and then we can put beach sand over the top of it later on. It'll save money for the dredge. It'll make it component we need to do the engineering on it to design it, uh, and that's what this agenda is for.
Questions?
Kathryn Starkey
Is this? Wait. This was money that is this from the Where is this money from?
Jack Mariano
From the from the b I'm not sure.
County Administrator
Yeah, w the board recently approved the the loan for to finish Starkey District Park and Sun West. Oh, I
Unidentified speaker
think that's the right-of-way.
County Administrator
What the commissioner is requesting is to take some of the money from the Sun West piece of that. and apply it to doing some conceptual work out at Hudson. So before we move forward with that, because that will take an ad adjustment to the resolution the board approved, we want to make sure the board gave us direction to do that. 'Cause that then will require obvious some some background work to make happen before we actually move forward with that action. But we wanted to make sure we had more direction to do that. Because it is a board action, not a not district action.
Kathryn Starkey
What what does not get done at Sun West at that fifty? Pavilion, is that correct, possibly?
Jack Mariano
It could be a pavilion, it could be Uh we they may change the parking lot instead of putting asphalt down there actually looking at maybe putting a crush rock.
County Administrator
Keith Keith's online.
Jack Mariano
Okay.
Jack Mariano
Keith, since you're online, would you like to go ahead and answer that question?
Keith
Absolutely, Commissioner. So, yeah, to the point, uh, I think I heard the word pavilion. Uh by the way, this is Keith Wiley, Director of Parks Recreation, Natural Resources. We're thinking that the end result could be possibly not funding one of the pavilions that's planned. We really don't know at this time if there would be any savings in any of the capital projects because we're just in the planning process now. There may be savings at the end, and it may not impact any. actual uh amenity that goes into the Sun West. The amount that's being requested to be reallocated is fifty thousand dollars.
Jack Mariano
Mr. Chairman Mariano. And as I mentioned this when we were doing our budget workshop, I talked about if I need want want to get some money to go make this happen because I thought it would be a good savings horse. Now it's not even taking general fund money. I will be putting the ask in and just taking existing money that's already there to help parks.
Kathryn Starkey
So that's on the record.
Jack Mariano
Um Commissioner Commissioner Weightman.
Mike Wells
Obviously you spent some time on this and I hate I hate to you know you've worked so hard for some west I hate to d delay anything out there. I know that they need a p they need shelters out there. I mean You know. I hate to delay it, but is there any other way to find any other money that we've got out that Again I just hate to you again we've gone so far with Sun West, I hate to even it's only fi I hate to say it's only fifty thousand, but it's It's a lot of money. We can do a lot of good things out there. So
County Administrator
Keith can probably clarify this more than me, but this the Hudson work isn't even on the parks capital plan and isn't part of the master plan. So there is no money tagged to do this. So whatever you do at Hudson you're gonna be reallocating money from another project.
Mike Wells
And do we even think it can be done? Like Army Corps, I mean they're gonna have to be involved. Again, I like absolutely what what you're talking about there. It'd be great to be able to pull up so at the restaurants and so forth on that side. But
Jack Mariano
M my my th my thought process to why I wanted to bring this forward, and again I mentioned even using general fund money, I think it's that important a project. It'll save money on the total dredge project anyway. If we do this with this way, it kind of like takes that neutral fund away. We've talked about, you know, the improvements of Sun West and I think they're all important. what this would do for the area between the water quality, et cetera, bringing it through is good. I don't care whether we use general fund money or go this way here. Um I think with what we're going to do, we probably have time
anyway to get everything together. What we're going to do with Sun West, but this has to happen right away. And if we get this to happen to make the easel eas of the Army Corps in DEP, because I'm gonna be looking to take a small amount of money at this to go put it in uh ma maybe larger depending on how we look at it. But from that BP money, it makes it easier to get it permitted through the Army Corps. When you take the soils from the same area and displace them in the same area, The permitting s really so should be exempt. Uh we'll probably go through the
process just to get their acknowledgement of that, but By doing it this way quicker, uh it just makes it a little bit easier. And and I'm and I'm I'm confident we're gonna get all the right stuff done in Sunwest.
Mike Wells
I just and again I'm just thinking about you and and as you've done so much there. I hate to even I hate to take anything away. Uh but I obviously we need to do a feasibility study and see if we can even do it. See if it's even worth us trying to get through Army Corps, you know. But I think it's a great thing. It's a great idea. Again, it's great for the coast, you know.
Jack Mariano
I'm I'm comfortable with this step and I think if we d needed to do do more for down the road we could, but I may maybe we'll do a fundraising or for for for somewhere down the road if we need more money, but that'll come with the
Jack Mariano
We any other questions about it? So I have a motion by Commissioner Oakley. I have a second by Commissioner Mariano. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign, motion passes. And just a follow-up, I know I had mentioned one time before, if if you want to, Commissioner, if you want to follow up on this or uh or work with staff. Um In reference to I I mentioned Venice. In the Venice Jetty and the inlet and the beach. And I know Army Corps was involved in some of those dredging projects. So I don't know if there's any willingness for the Army Corps of Engineer
to maybe and it was funded by That's the key. It was funded by them. So maybe there's a project out there they'd be willing to do in Pasco County.
Jack Mariano
All right. We we'll explore that one too. Thank you.

BCCA-20-0110

Official title

Every appearance1 of 1 are in a recording