Pasco County meeting record

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1Jun 3, 2025
Board of County CommissionersR31Regular businessNo disposition in the minutes
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54m
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Okay. And then we'll go to regular R thirty-one. Draft a future action plan presentation.
Joanna Cheshire
Good morning Chairman Mariano County Commissioners. Joanna Cheshire, Chief of Staff of County Administrator. Uh I'm here to introduce regular item thirty-one. This is a presentation only for you today, but it will be back before you the next board meeting on June seventeenth for hopefully your approval. What we have for you today, the presentation, is a very abbreviated version of what we've provided during the three public hearing on our action plan over the past month. and the one on ones that we gave to you all leading up to this meeting. June seventeenth is a big day for us because we hope
that the action plan is approved and we send that to HUD, get the ball rolling there. Um but it also is the day that the solicitations for the implementation consultant are due. Um so that we're really rockin' and rollin'. I want to just before I pass this over to Marcy and Connor. Let you all know if you don't know already that you know we've been in communication with HUD and they did review our action plan just kind of non-binding, just a preliminary review. And they did say that they read every word of it, and this is one of the best ones they've seen. So we're very proud
of the team and the work that we've done. This truly is kind of the the uh training of the marathon here, the the piece that not a lot of people get to see, but a lot of work goes into. it um before we can go to our our six year marathon with uh implementing uh this funding. So with that I'll pass it over to Connor.
Connor Donovan
Thank you, Joanna. Good morning, Commissioners. And thank you for allowing us to speak today. My name is Connor Donovan. I'm a program administrator with the Office of Disaster Recovery Resources, affectionately referred to as Oder. Uh so we'll get into it today. Just a quick introduction. We're gonna try to be really brief, so it feels like I'm skipping over anything. If you guys want to ask us any questions at the end, obviously we're here. Uh it's a community development block grant for disaster recovery. It was announced in January 2025 that we would be receiving $585
million. Uh just as a note, it is a six-year cost reimbursement grant. And in order to gain access to that funding, we need to submit our action plan and some other pre-grant audit type of stuff. So don't think that we have that money right now and we're just sitting on it. That's not the case now, that'll never be the case. Even once we get the grant agreement after our action plan is approved, it would come to us in the form of a line of credit. Of that $585 million, $509 million is for our unmet needs, so that's
all the different allocations we're divvying up, and then $76 million is a set-aside amount for mitigation specifically. So as we move forward in this presentation and our action plan, whenever you hear mitigation, just think that $76 million, we don't have any wiggle room. With just yet. That cannot go up, that cannot go down until we get a couple years into our program and we can identify all the other things we're doing to justify a potential increase. Another note on this slide is
those three specific storms: Hurricanes Idalia, Helene, and Milton, those are the three storms we received this grant funding for. That is all that this grant funding can be used for. And so when I say that, that means direct and indirect impacts from those three storms. God forbid we get hit with another hurricane this summer or some no-name storms, this funding can cannot do anything to help us address those. It has to stick to those three named storms on this slide.
So, program basics, just to go over it real quick, you see housing up there. Number one, it is a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. So naturally, that's kind of the top priority that HUD looks at. When it comes to housing, we're really focused on two components: individual housing programs, which are things like reimbursing people for repairs they've already made to their homes, helping them demolish, rebuild, elevate their homes, those one-on-one individual type of projects. And then there is
larger housing development things. Like senior housing, transitional housing, low-income housing. Those are kind of the two sides of the housing coin. And then the only other eligible uses I'll really touch on because it can get kind of confusing is infrastructure and mitigation. Those projects, as far as types of projects go, are very, very similar. The difference is that infrastructure is fixing or addressing things that were damaged due to the storms, whereas mitigation is lessening
future impacts, regardless of what happened during the storms. So kind of a good example when we're thinking that through is if I lived on the water and My house got flooded, my area got flooded, it destroyed the road, it destroyed my lift station. Well, fixing the road and fixing the lift station is an infrastructure project. I'm making an improvement based on damage from the storm. If I wanted to build a seawall or elevate that lift station or insulate that lift station so it doesn't happen again, that's a mitigation
project. Because it's not something that existed before. We're just putting that in so that it lessens future impacts. So mitigation and infrastructure very closely tied together, and mitigation is the only category that does not have to tie back to the storms directly or in the indirectly. So mitigation is definitely going to be our most competitive category. As far as key spending requirements go, 70% of our total grant funding, so 70% of that $585 million, has to be spent on low
and moderate. income individuals, households, or areas. And so what that looks like is if you're a household of one person, that's just over fifty eight thousand dollars. If you're within that income cap, you would be considered LMI. If you were a family of four, it would be just about eighty-four thousand, you'd be within that income cap. Uh you gotta meet one of HUD's three national objectives, benefiting LMI we just went over. You could eliminate blight or address an urgent need. Have to tie back to impact from the storm unless it's mitigation. And then
it has to address an unmet need with no alternative funding source identified. And so really what that means is just no creative accounting. If we adopt something in our budget this year, we are not able to shift that around later on and pay for it with the grant. However, we can address funding gaps. So if we got uh $2 million for a $3 million project in our budget, this could fill in that last million. To get us over the finish line. So draft action plan methodology. Thankfully it was not just us sitting
in a room thinking of what's going to stick and what percentages look good. There's three ingredients for drafting our action plan allocations. The first is the HUD requirements, we just went over. The second is community feedback. And the third is our unmet needs data. And so those three things combined get us the allocations we're going to talk about today.
So community feedback. We held four town halls before we developed our action plan to kind of aid the creation of that. And then we held three public hearings after it was posted to get feedback and see where we missed the mark, were we happy? Did we land where we needed to land? Um we also attended different community events, Chamber of Commerce meetings, nonprofits, the Hurricane Expo. Uh what you see up there is really what we found regardless of method of communication. People want To
move back into their homes and they do not want the storm to impact them the same way that it did this time. Really housing and infrastructure were the top two regardless of what we did, whether it was a survey, an interactive budget game, our actual in-person comments, housing and infrastructure were the top two far and away.
Now, when it comes to unmet needs data, you might look at this and see only three categories, even though we just on a couple slides ago had six eligible funding categories. That is correct and it is confusing, and that's the way HUD does it. So I apologize for that. But they want you to focus on the three core aspects of recovery, even though you can spend it across six categories. Those three core aspects are housing, infrastructure, And the economy. When you see these percentages up there, I really want to emphasize these are not our allocations.
This is just the data piece. This is just the data piece. So one of those three ingredients that make up our action plan. And we also recognize that the data is flawed, okay, but it is the best that we have available. And why is it flawed? Because every town hall we went to, when we would ask people, did insurance or FEMA Identify your damage and give you an accurate assessment. And so if I had $10,000 worth of damage, FEMA said you had $10,000 worth of damage, and I think they just about booed me out of the room, they started
throwing stuff because that is just not the case. Okay, so we are using FEMA estimates, we are using insurance data, we're using small business administration, FEMA reporting, and what this really comes down to is Our estimated impact numbers, which are the insurance claims and FEMA damage reporting totals. Minus our funds available, which has nothing to do with the grant. That's the claims paid out and FEMA assistance paid out. equals
your unmet needs number on that bottom row. We just increase it by 30% to account for a couple things. One being inflation over the course of the six years we have to spend this money, and the second being how much federal projects cost more than other projects in terms of Davis Bacon law, um increased building standards, that kind of thing. And so when Amy gets up here later, she can verify that I am really bad at math, but this is simple. It's your estimated impact. minus funds
available, which is Your claims paid out. equals unmet needs, and that unmet needs number is just increased by 30%. So times 1.3. So again, that is just one of the three ingredients. So where do we actually land? We land on these program allocations. I'm going to turn it over to Marcy to talk through some of our different programs that make up these percent allocations.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Good morning, and for the record Marcy S. Burg. Senior program administrator for the Office of Disaster Recovery Resources and for the record the only one that calls us odor is Connor. And also for the record, just in case you think that we've been out and we've been uh thrown things at nobody ever threw anything at Connor at any of our meetings. So I just want to clear that up for the record. So we're gonna go over uh how we're gonna spend the money because
that's exactly what this is all about. Uh $585 million. We have um used what I will call the KISS principle. We've kept it simple rather than coming up with lots of different programs. We aggregated programs as much as we could in response to again the data that we've received and the community uh the community input. And uh first we're going to start off with our housing uh programs for three hundred
and Five million dollars. We've divided that into three programs. And I will tell you that almost every meeting that we went to, people said Please use this money to get people back in their homes. So we took that very seriously and created a repair, reconstruction, and elevation program, R-R-E for short, for $155 million. In this program, we will repair, reconstruct, or elevate if needed in
a flood zone owner-occupied housing units. So that will be the original footprint of the house, but when we uh if it as we build it back, we will be using energy-efficient met um materials. We could add handicapped accessible. Well,
uh rails, uh ramps, things like that that are needed for for people, and then if it is located in a flood zone, we would elevate it up to what is needed. In addition to doing our repairing and reconstruction, what we also are suggesting that we do is reimburse people because we know that That some people have not waited. They've they they want to get back into their house, they want to make sure that uh
they have a safe place to live. So they've started their reconstruction or they've finished it. And so we want to be able to reimburse them for that work. So if they have receipts, nobody else has reimbursed them for that work, we want to be able to reimburse them for that work and If Maybe they just did the minimum amount to get back in, but there's other things that they really need to do to get that house livable or up to code we can add to it with the rest of our reconstruction.
So we will do that for owner-occupied and also in this program we're suggesting that we do it for small rental properties, for either rental single family properties, but also a duplex or a triplex under four or five units. We could also do the same thing. In addition, we could do demolition clearance of properties. And I just want to be clear about the difference of meeting the HUD
national objective. If we're doing this for an income qualified person, then that meets the LMI standard. But let's say there's a property that needs to be demolished and we don't do anything else with the property, that is a different ink category, and so that doesn't count to your LMI. But we can do that, and we could also do voluntary buyout for properties and allow the Yeah. the space to then become green space. Uh so
In addition to that Marcel,
Jack MarianoVice Chair
let me stop you just for a second on that issue. Um at my meeting yesterday we talked about this a little bit and I just want I wanted to think about this as we go through it. This is a high level thing so we can make changes as we go because not super specific to exactly what we do, but as far as one of the things I'm gonna be looking for is If you have affordable housing. you don't want affordable housing in, to me, a flood zone. Uh Leisure Beach Van Durham, we had that project take him in. We couldn't get s we couldn't use C D B G money. We're gonna try to buy it years ago because
the PUD wouldn't allow it. So my thinking is why would I want HUD funding to go put affordable housing in a flood zone? Right? Doesn't make sense to me. So I want you to take a close look at that. I'm not gonna I'm gonna be looking at that closely as it comes forward. Uh so I just wanna make that point. Go ahead, Mercy.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
So the next uh program that we are proposing is a manufactured housing program uh for $50 million. See, I'm taking the thousands like you did, Commissioner Weightman.
Um so uh uh we had a number of our seniors, and Commissioner Yeager was on the front lines of all of this uh that live and they they retired, they bought mobile homes uh down in um as specifically even west of uh 54. and they were living independently, they were living well, and they uh the hurricanes came along and they lost everything. They they lost everything.
And now they have no place to live. Some of them are actually at our Pasco Hope and and some are have relocated and found apartments to live in, but none of them could live as inexpensively as they did while they were living that way. So We are proposing to do the same thing to repair or replace single-family owner-occupied manufactured homes. It does not have to
be on their own lot, it could be within a park. And we could also reimburse those people if they've done any kind of work in their homes, we can do that as well. And then as well as demolition and clearance of those properties and buying them out and helping people to relocate to other places. In both of those scenarios, we're talking about replacing like for like. So whatever is the footprint
of the house, whatever was the footprint of the mobile home, replacing it with manufactured, modular, or other type of housing. and for the residential homeownership, replacing the house as it exists. And then
Jack MarianoVice Chair
if I stop you again, Marcy? Thanks. I just want to cover these points just because these things are going to come up later, but it's good to discuss it. Um I was at a affordable conference down with uh Senator Brandis. He had it last year, had it again this year about trying to work with it as far as hurricane recovery as well as just overall affordable housing. And one of the things we had a a speaker there talk about manufactured homes. So one of the fears was we don't want to just have mobile homes redone, put out there, et cetera. We'd like to get those changed over. A manufactured home goes to a different
set of stands of the Florida Building Code, but they still can withstands and they do things a little bit differently. to wind duration to to make it so that it's it's safe or safer sometimes in a regular home build. So uh that is what they're talking about manufacturing home. So don't be scared of the mobile home thing. It's still gonna be a safer construction. Um as far as voluntary buyouts and relocation, I want you to consider this. Our our prime real estate should be along the coast anyway, so as long as we're elevating properties and and going, I'm not gonna be looking too many buyouts where
I can't use that land again for someone else to come in that wants to build a nice structure that'll be worth a lot of money and improve the demographics of the west side as well. Yeah. So just kind of to keep that in mind. Thank you, Mr. K.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Thank you. Commissioner, uh to your point about mobile homes versus manufactured, that same speaker probably said that a mobile home has not been built since 1977. That the current structures are manufactured homes and they uh when Hurricane Andre came through they all took uh a much s more stringent uh look at uh wind safety and other things. So yes, that's exactly what we're talking about. Now let's go on to the last category, and that's our
affordable housing construction program. And for $100 million, what we're talking about is acquiring and building either new single-family homes, and that would be either an infill property or perhaps a small development, as well as new construction of Rental units again on the smaller side, duplexes, quadruplexes, triplexes, as well as multifamily
units like senior housing. uh we would be able to do uh something very unique and that would be Buying out some of these mobile home parks that were completely destroyed and maybe doing a demonstration project in those mobile home parks of some new and innovative construction, whether it be Lego homes or container homes or different types of housing. So this gives us a real opportunity.
We went into the hurricanes with a deficit in affordable housing and meeting the needs of people 80% and below of the median income. And then we lost another 8,500 units. So this strategy is bringing about 30% of the money of that unmet need. to bring more housing and better housing into the county. The next area that we're going to talk about is infrastructure and uh as
Connor said, It's infrastructure and housing were the two front runners everywhere we went. Even when I spoke to complete business communities, everybody said we need housing, we need infrastructure. So we divided our infrastructure money of $130 million into two categories. The first category is critical infrastructure. This money will only be available to our municipalities and the county. And this critical infrastructure is
just what we would all think of: roads, evacuation routes, stormwater improvements, flood improvements, water, wastewater, dredging. We talked even Just earlier about power and utilities that could involve some of that as well. And then the second area of infrastructure is for public facilities. And we do know that when we, and that's for $30
million, during the hurricanes, we put people in schools, they they go into care. Community centers, we had our libraries being used, and sometimes those public facilities sustained damage, and they're not able to function as well as they did before, and they could function better. So public facilities will be open not only to our municipalities and to the county, but also to our nonprofits. including our hospitals
and that could improve uh the public facilities, do clearance, demolition, rehab, and reconstruction of buildings. We could also do acquisition of real property, which speaks to the idea of acquiring um utilities. If
Jack MarianoVice Chair
I could jump jump in one more time. Yeah. Um I want people to know that as far as like the infrastructure, I think it's the biggest opportunity we've got. And it's also the probably the best value for a lot of things that we do because as you heard they they put money in for inflation that takes six uh on for six years, so it may drive up numbers. With these infrastructure projects you get a couple of benefits. First of all, you you lessen your administration cost of a project that's going to go through Second, uh you're gonna lessen the inflation uh la lessen the inflation effects are gonna be out there as
well. Um right now out in Hudson. For the second time in two weeks, we've got Hudson Waterworks having main breaks that are out there that may be causing some stormwater mixed with that with our stormwater and their fresh water that they're trying to go. That could be one of the things we take a look at. And that was something that we looked at 20 years ago, so that's not a brand new idea. The utility company that's out there is when we first tried to get And if we took both of them together it could be a good thing. But as far as everything else we do, I I want to
w to focus those big projects could be a much better value as we're as we're taking these steps.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
So we're going to move on to another category, and that would be economic revitalization. So we're now into our green portion of our rainbar chart for $25 million. And we've created a small business and nonprofit recovery program. And this would be used for businesses that need to replace damaged sign. Machinery, perhaps inventory, equipment, any repairs for physical damage, and
any technical assistance related to the recovery. It could also be used for job training or job retraining as people lost jobs or even industries were hurt that they could be redirected into something new. And that would be twenty-five million dollars both for businesses and nonprofits. Next, we're going to go to public services and specifically uh ten million dollars because as we know Recovery is
not just about putting people back into their homes or fixing buildings, but it's also about people and the human element. And many of our people are still going through recovery and in places where they are in temporary living situations. So when we look at that, and we look at the fact that we have some of our seniors living on a fixed income, losing all of their housing, so
now needing case management, perhaps some budgeting and learning how to live on $900 a month, uh, legal services and getting uh the uh getting the um the f their applications reviewed or their services that they uh believe they're entitled to, uh, employment and recovery services, homelessness, food security, and basic needs. So that's ten million dollars that
will be for our nonprofits and that will be for the next six years. We did talk about mitigation and again the difference between infrastructure and mitigation is that all the previous programs that we talked about, that I mentioned, the housing, the infrastructure, economic revitalization, and public services, they all have to tie back to the storms. So it either directly or indirectly, there needs to be the tie back. For
mitigation what we're looking at is building back stronger. We're building a stronger Pasco County. And for $76 million, I will tell you that this is going to be our most competitive money area because people, especially all of our governments, are all looking at ways that they could improve their infrastructure that wasn't necessarily damaged by the storms. So again, uh we could do improvements to infrastructure, we
could do improvements to public facilities, uh, we could do clearance, demolition, reconstruction. And the key for this $76 million, which is very unusual for a federal grant, is it can be used to match another federal grant, which is almost unheard of. So in this case, we could use a little bit of this money to leverage and get more money from other grant sources. So those are $76 million. for
mitigation. As Connor said, that is a set amount that cannot change. Perhaps after a couple of years, if we show that we've met the other needs, we could go back and ask HUD for a waiver so that we could do more on mitigation. But as of now that that month that amount cannot go up or down.
So uh we're rounding out our programs, and the next one we created was a planning uh program, planning for a better future. We allocated ten million dollars for that, and planning is just really what it says. We're talking about preparedness plans, hazard plans, feasibility studies uh for uh perhaps for uh stormwater for Mitigation, for infrastructure. We can do capacity building for
nonprofits. We can even look at some creative and different building housing delivery services. And then once we investigate it and see what works well in this area, then do a demonstration of new housing development somewhere. So it's a nice connection. Same thing with mitigation or feasibility. We could do the study first and if if all the ducts line up and and it's right, then we could fund it under infrastructure or mitigation.
And lastly, we have administration for $29 million. And this is a set amount also from HUD. It's 5% of the grant. And those are the costs that are related to developing, managing, and overseeing the entire program for the next six years. These all these numbers are tracked and audited by HUD. These will not only pay salaries and pay consultant fees, it
will also pay for projects that perhaps don't follow through, and that happens all the time. We could be doing a house, and it turned out that the person maybe really.
further s investigation in an infrastructure project, we found that it can't go forward. That's considered a failed project. We can't use grant money for that, but we can use admin money for that. So that's our cushion so that I don't have to stand in front of you and say, oops, uh we did it wrong and I need money from your general fund to cover it. So that's what we use the admin. four.
Lisa Yeager
Can I ask a question? So I was wondering as we're picking the firms to help us kind of spend this money, is there any way that we could have a presentation by each of them, kind of like we did with the lobby firms?
Mike Carballa
So you if I I'll I'll answer that. We currently have a solicitation underway. We have a selection committee made up of of staff members and assistant county administrator for our normal policies and then we'll bring a short list to the board like we would normally do during that process. Okay. That's how it's currently structured. I mean And
Lisa Yeager
they'll be able to do a presentation?
Mike Carballa
Uh they will do presentations to staff. Staff will make the selection and recommend that if I'm hearing that the board
Lisa Yeager
can the short list do a presentation to the board?
Mike Carballa
I would probably advise you that it would be I mean we can get into the legal ramifications here with procurements. I mean the board can always do what it wants to do, of course. I mean um but I would I would suggest we we let staff make the suggestions and the recommendations to the board. That would be where I'm sitting with it, but if the board wants to be involved in it, um I would love to be pure prerogative.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Yeah, I I'd like to say that I think you know Five hundred and eighty five million dollars is like life changing for the county, picking out who's gonna be looking at what what their experience is. If there's a way to get it done, um I'd like to bring it where we could look at it.
Mike Carballa
I mean you have the authority to veto or or move the numbers of of what the staff does. I mean that would be fine if you see Commissioner Oakley wants to add, but Commissioner Oakley?
Ron Oakley
Yeah. I just want to say that we have a very good process in purchasing and and doing these jobs and construction jobs throughout the county. And we've always let our staff present that and do it in the way they do. And they've done a very good job and kept us out of hot water with attorneys and things of that nature. So I would tend to I don't mind hearing about who's going to be doing it. Mm-hmm. The fact of it is I would let our process go through that it has in the past. and
it keeps us out of uh our hands being on things that shouldn't be on through the attorneys and things of that nature. So we're set up to take care of those things in in the administration.
Unidentified speakerVoice B
Mike, regardless of what consultant gets elected, the the final decision of how this money is spent will come to the board, correct? So you're gonna have input to your point, you're gonna you're gonna have that input.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
True. Um, but I mean the dialogue of sometimes asking questions that want to be asked. Um Is there a way that we can set up a little bit? to have it before the board without
Mike Carballa
I'll defer to the purchase director who's here.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Yeah. Commissioner Weightman, do you want to add any any at that point?
Seth WeightmanSecond Vice Chair
I I think that the procurement process ought to play itself out and I tend to align with Commissioner Oakley on
wait letting staff pick who the most qualified person is and if it's close like if it's if it's close and then purchasing director says hey what do you what are your guys' spidey senses then we we take a look but I mean if it if the procurement shows that there's one firm that comes out you know way ahead of another um That could be kind of yeah, dangerous for us.
I have no idea why.
Mike Carballa
Well the uh on the lobby firms the board did serve as the selection committee on that and that's that's for good reason. These are your lobbyists and they're representing us, you know, in Tallahassee and in Washington DC. On typical procurements for services, that's typically deferred to the team. We we have an assistant county administrator that uh sits on those selection committees along with technical experts and staff who are actually, you know, skilled at looking at what What what these folks are are gonna bring. And and again we shortlist them. We always bring that shortlist to the board and then the board ultimately
will will agree or disagree on on the contract. It's it has happened in the past where the board has gone against a you know staff decision and that's and that's perfectly fine.
Seth WeightmanSecond Vice Chair
To be clear, Commissioner
Mike Carballa
I'm I'm
Seth WeightmanSecond Vice Chair
in different. I just
I'm hesitant to inject into the middle of a of a procurement um until it's until it's done with protests and different things that can arise and delay delay the process. If it comes to where we want to see or hear, I'd be glad to hear them out. I just tend to be cautious. In the procurement process, just simple facts of protests and delays and compounding of months and times, which ultimately, you
know, pains everybody.
Mike Carballa
I agree with that. My concern would be with the lobbying, it it did take time in terms of coordinating schedules and there there is a scheduled element. But Carrie, uh any colored alignment?
Kathryn StarkeyChair
Yes, Carrie Roberts, purchasing director for the county. It is allowable, but again, I would also recommend against it for protest reasons that you know you all be the deciding board body if there is a protest, so it would come back to you at that point. When we do bring the shortlist to you, if you have questions at that point, you can send staff back to to get answers for that as well. well.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
So let me ask this. And I don't need need to say be the part of the selection committee itself, but when I when the contract's gonna get written, there's gonna be certain things I'm looking at what I wanna go after. So In your procurement as as you've got it. And and again we got twenty nine mil million dollars of admin. I don't want that going out. I mean if we really need to go that's why I think like bigger projects with the Gulf Consortium Scambia County, for example, picked one project to do. Their administration costs were like one percent
compared to what four or five or sometimes ten percent if you did a a reef project. Much more effective. When you put this procurement out and this is going out there, are we able to look at what they're gonna do per project to what they're gonna get paid all the way every step?
Kathryn StarkeyChair
Yes, sir.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Alright, so and that's and that's I'm comfortable with that because again this could be a five hundred eighty million dollars. Five five hundred eighty five million, there'd be a lot of eyes on this thing every step of the way. So anything steps out, so be it. But I think once we Have the contract in place, if we've got flexibility to what we're going to negotiate, let's say you're going to do a transfer of the Hudson Waterworks and Night Florida or the old Night Florida, and we negotiate what that number is going to be. If we go look at doing whatever projects may be, if we can look at what those admin numbers are going to be and negotiate those, I'm
okay with that, but I do think after the selection, they should come in, do a full presentation and let us go ask our question so we can kind of get where they want to go, we want to go. If you're okay with that, uh I I I I I'm comfortable with that too. Yes sir. Okay. I'd
Ron Oakley
be fine.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Yeah. Okay.
Ron Oakley
All right. Thank you. Yeah, good dialogue.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
So let me just uh wrap up with our timeline. Uh we published our draft action plan on uh May twelfth and according to HUD we have to leave it open for thirty days of public comment. So we are in that public comment period until June twelfth. And then we plan to come back to you at your next meeting on June 17th to ask you to approve the action plan. It does need to be submitted to HUD by June 20th.
And uh they have 45 days to review it because we gave it to them ahead of time and got such positive reviews from them. We expect that the 45 days will not be all of 45 days, but it'll be less than that. And then the next step will be for uh us to get a grant agreement from them, uh, get it signed. And then we should be able to roll out our initial programs. The very first program that
we roll out will be our individual assistance, housing assistance. And I'll tell you it will make Pasco County proud and Pasco County really look good that almost a year after the storms we'll be starting a program like that, which is Very, very unusual, and we heard some of that during our public hearing. So that concludes our presentation. As the County Administrator and Joanna Chief
of Staff have said, we got very positive reviews from HUD and can't take all the credit for that. I do want to acknowledge our consultants that we had working on this from IEM that are with us today, uh Tim and Jess. Uh they've been to every meeting that we've had uh and traveled all over the county with us and really to their credit uh I think they have absolutely steered us in the right direction. So thank you and
Connor and I are here to answer your questions. Okay we'll should
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Commissioner Oakley work our way back? Yeah.
Ron Oakley
Okay. Um You took my thunder away 'cause I was gonna brag on you so don't please go right ahead. Go right ahead. Everything I've heard you say and and do and and watch with a step back away from what y'all were doing. came out very, very good. For FEMA I know they gave you high remarks about the fact that the process did what it was supposed to do and I think it's because of your experience in doing these type things. That
was part of it that made this stand out very much to FEMANOM. If my words are right, they said it was one of the best presentations of the use of this kind of money of all counties that they had looked at. So thank you very much. Thank you. And I know it's not just you, it's there are staff members behind you and other people that help guide the way that so you don't get there by to the top by just walking by yourself
most time. Most time you got a lot of support staff that are there with you. So thank all the staff that that is a part of that. So thank y'all for the work you did. Thank you. Commissioner Weightman.
Seth WeightmanSecond Vice Chair
Thank you. Yeah, to echo Mr. Oakley's wonderful job out there in the public and listening there to their passions and concerns and and their needs. Still a lot of confused and stressed folks out there for sure. Um is for the On the economic side, uh revitalizing and helping small businesses or businesses generally fix their signs, that's probably millions of dollars in savings with
you know the six-figure sign restoration quotes that businesses are are getting back and the engineering that goes along with those. I think that's just fantastic, and it'll go towards you know, Commissioner O Sarkey's signed ordinance efforts to bring signs into compliance and make businesses look look better, but also I think we ought to move expeditiously on that to ease businesses. Hey, I need my sign up. That way folks know where we are. Um we hear it all the time. Folks need,
you know, they're trying to figure out, A, how to comply, and then if their signs busted. the additional stress and expense that comes with with the signs. Um next on the affordable housing piece, the hundred hundred million. You alluded, Marcy, what in our conversations and alluded to today, so my understanding we're needing eighty five hundred affordable units in this county approximately.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Oh well that we lost eighty five hundred units and not all of them were affordable. Actually our studies are showing that we're thirty six thousand units in arrears for people eighty percent and below of the median income.
Seth WeightmanSecond Vice Chair
Thank you. So As we move forward, what I don't want to see is under the you know verbiage of affordable housing that it just be a proliferation of apartments going up all over this county. And of course, with those projects, those take years to build. And I've never mentioned this in our conversations. I think it's important that we we figure out a way, if we haven't already, to use this money, to use the existing apartment
stock, which could get people, we use the funds and get people into a safe, good quality place to live. really anywhere in this county if people want to move and come into Westlake Chapel or wherever and go to a different school for their kids. I I think that instead of building more that we try to find a way even if we have to waivers or vouchers or other programs to use our lobbyists that we have. to to allow us to use the existing apartment stock that we have in this county.
Six years is a long time to help somebody. And you know we have plenty of stock. There's two much free two months free rent all across this county. Sign's going up and there's there's a a a healthy inventory. So I think that's that's an important piece that we need to look at. And if we can't do it, we can't do it. But I think it's important to explore the opportunity there. And it helps those businesses fill their beds too. Uh do
Jack MarianoVice Chair
you mind if we hang on that point for a little bit of discussion? Just because I think all these things if we go one by one to catch them all be a little bit turkier. Yep. So uh you want to talk first, Commissioner? To to this item? Nope. Okay. So what what I look at is As far as families go and try to get started and you know, they've gone through let's say a really tough thing right now. I want to look at trying to do some home ownership. Um I want to try to help um the habitat, humanities, and nonprofits are out there. The great way that we can help them is if we don't
have to fund the whole thing. but we put some incentive money in there for them where they can get a place of their own. Yeah, I mean starter homes type thing. Uh and I'm not even talking about necessarily west of nineteen, but to the other side sort of more affordable for insurance, et cetera. The apartments have been built. Let the market rate bring them down. You will help the other people. I don't want to go And we've done this before. We put all the money into rental assistance, rental assistance, and then at the end what are they going to do? They become homeless or they're stuck again? if you put them
in a home that they can actually find a way to fund it, buy it, start creating their own wealth, I think it goes a lot better for the community. And I think people that own their own home are more committed to the community. So I want to see more of that happen and I think you can do it leveraging as we talked about earlier. If you have a if you're gonna give let's say someone twenty or thirty thousand dollars for money down to get in a home they could couldn't wise other afford and it's sold for a cheaper price with a developer. You can create something that can be long lasting for the family. Give them stability, give them give give them comfort
knowing what's gonna happen in five years when I gotta go and now I gotta go find someone else. I'm stuck all over again. So I really want to s sort of look at that and I think I you know I met with uh Chuck from the C D B G program yesterday, had a good discussion about looking at that and they want to take a look at that. When you consider Habitat for Humanity when they build a project. That person's financing the house for 0%. Very affordable. Um Money down could help even with others doing other things. So there's other opportunities and Marcy, like you said, let's look at creatively what we
can go do. I think there's a better way to go than subsidizing these luxury apartments that are out there where people are gonna get stuck again.
Seth WeightmanSecond Vice Chair
It's about time. It takes twelve months at minimum to build a home. That's if you already have land. So I'm looking at bridging the gap, which I agree with everything you're saying about home ownership. But when you're looking at somebody getting to a home, paying rent while you're building a house or remodeling a house, it's tough. It's very expensive. So we have inventory in the county now.
Maybe we put stipulations in if someone is building a home, if they have an active building permit, and they need a place to stay, I mean Essentially, you know, where are they going to stay while they're building a house? I just look at the existing stock of what we have to give people an immediate shot in the arm to help 'em. 'Cause everything about this program is time, right? TikTok. So that was that's the premise of of it. I certainly you know when you see $100
million in the breakdown of it it just know and knowing what the data's saying with how many units and we know that the people who are going to want to do these projects are going to come in they're going to want to build multifamily complexes. as a betting man I bet we see the majority of the folks coming in that's what they're gonna wanna build. It just I just wanna move forward cautiously with that aspect. And it also I I'm I'm very cautious in the government getting even more into the housing
business. Um I know it's what this money is is used for. I just want to make sure that we're laser focused on What we're allocating the resources to.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Just one more point to your thing. Uh talk to a local gentleman from I think he's from Zephyrhills. He builds container homes. He can build homes in okay. So in thirty days you can start building homes. If we set up what we're talking about setting up in the west side for the industrial park, you could set up his whole factory right there, create jobs as well as those homes. They can be done real quickly and go. Uh this other people out there with land that want to see something happen. So
Seth WeightmanSecond Vice Chair
those fit perfect on mobile home on the mobile
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Exactly. So for people want to stay there, et cetera, you know, I mean it's an opportunity to move fast. and keep them in the home they want to be in. And maybe it's a short term thing, maybe it's a six month rental or something. So If it's just bridging a gap to go, I think it's a good way to go, but I I just want you to know there's opportunities we can look at to go working with them.
Seth WeightmanSecond Vice Chair
I just uh I just look at this money, big ship, time, years. People need help today, now, yesterday. So That's the lens I'm looking.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Okay. Anything else other topics?
Seth WeightmanSecond Vice Chair
Good, thank you.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Okay. Commissioner Yeager.
Lisa Yeager
Okay. First of all I'm excited um to see what our community looks like in seven to ten, fifteen years, twenty years 'cause I think um with all of the creative minds that our community's gonna look a lot different and um but I I do wanna say when Mike told me that Um you guys were one of the best, I said to him, I said, doesn't surprise me at all. I said, We are It it's just Pasco Crowd. Like we are we are the front runners in on so many different
levels and I am just super proud of you guys uh for and everybody who worked on this project to make it what it is and again I'm I'm super excited about the outcome. I think a lot of good is going to come of it. Um Seth was saying, the um the people who are hurting now are are missing middle for our housing, our seniors, you know. Um and one thing, you know, j just pointing out with our seniors too. I mean, we're having seniors committing
suicide right now because they can't handle the stress of what's happening in their life. One of my seniors I've adopted right now is literally on the cliff and and it's so hard to stand by and walk with people in that journey and it's all due to this storm. So you know we we just don't realize honestly what a toll it is taking on these people. So um I just thank you for you know everything you're gonna do for them.
So
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Starkey you on the line? Did you show one?
Unidentified speakerVoice C
Yeah, I'm on the line,
Jack MarianoVice Chair
but
Unidentified speakerVoice C
um I I appreciate all your comments. They're very good. And um one of the one of the things I really noticed on Marcy's slide was the uh where it says elimination of blight. So I'm really looking forward to that. Um I I agree with Commissioner Yeager that our county will be much better uh towards outing with this with this money and it should should help everybody. So It's uh making lemonade out of lemons for
sure.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Okay, thank you. Yeah, I'd I'd like to say, um, Mike, I'm I'm glad that you when you first heard about this, that you made you put this directly under you. I think it was a good move. Um I appreciate the meeting we had it yesterday again uh to go through the things we've talked about. And um uh Connor and Marcy, you guys did a great job getting the information. And again, I'm very happy to hear that. uh the the c positive comments you got from FEMA uh from HUD about how great this project is. You've covered so many great things and
as we go this is a very high level thing. So you don't have to specifically get to every single detail what's gonna go on, but this presentation was I think very important for the board to hear. You can hear our input as well when it comes down to picking the projects in order and it could be helping uh uh the Mercy Center in Dade City that want to go put in that we don't have all the funding from the state. We've now got time through August to kind of figure that type of thing out, uh to what we want to do. I think there's optimism out there. I talked to a lady today. Uh She
got hit with the storm of five feet of water over in C Ranch. Um Can't get through FEMA. She's stuck. She's in a house, she's living on a trailer out in front of her house, wants to get in there but doesn't have the money to go do it. She's applied for a Vale Elevate Florida, don't know what's gonna get the money, but she hasn't even got other than the seven fifteen I think two grand from FEMA, nothing. And with all that damage.
Lisa Yeager
Because I just had to resend everything and and got a different
Jack MarianoVice Chair
outcome. Okay. Good to know.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Also uh um s people have been going to Congressman Bilarakis' office uh and they have an incredi incredible staff of case managers that might be able to
Jack MarianoVice Chair
trees. Yeah, she's worked with them too. So yeah, they're in the Congressman Bilarakis and team doing great too. But again, it's a big bird, so all the stuff all the things that you've got in here provide opportunity. Um The
The the thing I liked about our conversation was with all these funds the way they're allocated these different pots right now and you can't change mitigation but infrastructure could. I think within a year's time, especially when you've got planning money that's out there, you can actually start with those things right away. Let's go look at what these things are gonna cost. Let's go find out what we can do for matching that planning part. This could could be a great tool for us. Um I'm gonna be saying as far as the admin, I want to try to cut that down, but I appreciate the flexibility. And I think if we bring this back every single year to what we've done, and I mean I
mean a full board workshop. For like could be four hours, eight hours, whatever, to kind of say, okay, here's where we're at. And I think after August, we should be planning a day, we take another full day to go, here's what we've got, let's go take a look and let's let's give this the attention it fully deserves. Um I think with the RFP process, again, I'm comfortable letting staff do it because I know each one of us probably get phone calls. We we need to make sure we're informed exactly when that cone of silence is. So we get no con communications.
Ron Oakley
It's now.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
It's now. Okay. So if if you would let staff or uh carry if you would let those people know that are out there they're not to put any contact with us whatsoever. Right. And if I see anything, it's not going anywhere either, but sometimes you get a call you don't know where it's coming from. But if you would just make sure that they all gotta know if they do it, they're out, period. I'm gonna take any improprieties and don't put any commissioners in bad position. Um so with that said, uh I want to say you guys have done a phenomenal job going through. This is a great opportunity. I want to make sure we
get it right to help all these people that are so desperately needing it, and it's a great, like I say, a great opportunity for us to do some great things for this county. So thank you all. And
Ron Oakley
I sprayed a male on top. You're good? Okay. Okay.
Jack MarianoVice Chair
Anyone else? Good? Okay.

CA-25-5030

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