UT-25-0660

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1. 1Aug 19, 2025
   Board of County CommissionersP57Public hearingNo disposition in the minutes

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   Unidentified speakerVoice A

   2:41:14Back to P fifty seven.

   2:41:18We have approved publication of the hearing of this matter at this time in the Tampa Bay Times of August sixth. Twenty twenty five.

   Unidentified speakerVoice B

   2:41:28Good afternoon, Commissioner. Tracy Overturf, Public Infrastructure, Fiscal and Business Administration Interim Director. Item P57 is a resolution revising the water, wastewater, and reclaimed water rates, fees, and charges. Recommended action is to accept public comment and receive the presentation of the 2025 rate study and the rate resolution outlining the adjustment to rates, fees, and charges for utility services for FY 2026 through 2029. The team has been working with a consultant, Stan Tech

   2:41:58Consulting, and we have Justin Grant here this afternoon to present the finding and recommendations. We also have the utilities team available if there are any questions.

   2:42:09Well welcome back.

   Justin Grant

   2:42:12Good afternoon, Commissioner Oakley. It's interesting to be wearing a different jersey today, but I'm pleased to come and talk to you and continue the discussion and represent the county here with uh

   Unidentified speakerVoice C

   2:42:22put you at the end of the agenda.

   Justin Grant

   2:42:24Yes, I appreciate that. Yeah, I was g I was thinking about the different jokes or or you know, introductions we could make and you know certainly this is not a development item, but you know I've been a part of many of these sessions and there's lots of important business for the county to to do to conduct and this is part of that. So we're happy to do it. Um so this is uh a four year rate study and so we're happy to be a part of that process as well. So there's two public hearing that'll happen and so we'll go into our presentation. Let me see if I can get our clicker functioning here real quick. All right.

   2:42:55All right. There we go. Okay, perfect. So this is something this board is pretty familiar with, right? And so I'll go over kind of the four main objective objectives or pillars why we go through and we do this study. And so first thing is we want to look at revenue requirements. You've heard a little bit of commentary. I know that public works talked a little bit about revenue sufficiency analyses and things like that that are that are happening as a part of the, this is part of this process as well. And so we try and figure out the the How much, right? There's operating cost, there's capital costs, there's financial policies that need to be adhered to. And so you want to make sure you take this opportunity on a four-year

   2:43:25basis and really take a hard look at that. Then we look at the cost allocation. Cost allocation breaks it apart, your different customer classes. So you're trying to provide main, you know, a set of services between water, wastewater, and reclaim, and that distributes between residential customers, commercial customers, industrial, and the like. Then you look at rate design. And so this is the opportunity that you don't do that on an annual basis, you do that every four years when you take a look at your things. And you you look at the how, how are rates structured, block tiers, things like that. And then you look and you take the opportunity to update other fees and charges. So the name of the game here

   2:43:55for the utility is it's a municipal government utility, which is cost recovery. And so you take this opportunity to go through the exercise and examine all the different things. things that the the utility has to perform when they roll trucks to do specialized services and make sure that the appropriate fees are being charged so that the utility is made whole as a result of those activities. So let's take a look at the timeline. So the timeline here is we've been working here for quite a long time as Tracy introduced the item with utility to get through this. And so now we're here kind of on the home stretch for adoption. And so we've got two public hearing,

   2:44:26first one being here today on the 19th, the second one being at the Dade City meeting on 9-3. If the board ultimately chooses to adopt uh the rate plan that the utility is proposing, that'll happen at that second public hearing in the green item. And then on 10-1, it'll become effective. And so then because of certain requirements, there's a delayed, you know, there's a notice requirement for bulk users. So those bulk rates that'll go into effect, that'll be in December first. So let's talk a little bit about here what the main some of the main drivers. So uh we're not going to talk

   2:44:56too much about the entire capital plan, but we will highlight two main projects that the utility is working hard to try and make sure that it's implemented here as a part of this rate study. Both of them are expansion, both of them are wastewater plants. And so you can see here on the screen, right where we've got Atlantic Lakes and Wesley Center wastewater treatment plants, you've got 403 million worth of wastewater plants. that are trying to go into the plan. And so why this is an important slide is you you see a number of different MGD requirements and things that are coming through is you'll see, you know, when we talk about the rate plan in a few slides, FY27

   2:45:27is when the utility is planning to go out and finance these activities. And so you'll see that as a major cost pressure coming into that. All right, so let's take a minute here to walk through kind of these historical rate increases and what Pasco County looks like relative to you know the U.S. water and sewer CPI. And so I'll mention that is the water and sewer CPI. So not to be confused with things that include electric utilities. And so this is just for the uh the standard water and sewer, it does not include reclaim. And so you look here over over this period of time that uh Pasco County over the last 10

   2:45:57years in 2015. Has had a 27% increase as compared to 56% on the water sewer CPI from a national basis. That's a 29%, almost 30 percent delta, the Pasco County maintains a more affordable position. You see a couple of fluctuations there in the chart. And in 2018, the county did make some uh rate structure modifications that lowered uh those first tiers, made some you know lower consumption users' bills more affordable. But most notably in 2020 and in 2021, I'm sorry, 2020 and 2022,

   2:46:28those are the first uh first two utility acquisitions that the the of the FGUA systems, being Aqua and Lindric in 2022. And you see a rate impact there in 20, with Aqua being taken on uh because the utility ultimately uh you know uh elected to do a uh rate increase across its entire rate base. In 2022, uh the county was able to avoid a rate increase by utilizing um some federal monies that came apart came about as a result of the pandemic. Hmm. All right. So

   2:46:58let's go to um the residential Bill comparison here on the left. So let's first take stock of where the county sits relative to uh to its to its peers in a water and sewer bill. And so this is on a 6,000 gallon uh basis. And so that you know it's still your average use for your average customer. You see Pasco County there at $88.65. Kind of that, you know, if we call it the the top of the bottom third, if you will, almost towards the bottom of the middle half of the graph. Uh and the good news here. Years when you take a look at uh your rate increases that are proposed there

   2:47:28on the right side. And so I know that is a little bit uh small and kind of hard to see, but we want to make sure we get a lot of impactful information on this slide. You have got a four-year plan that suggests a water and sewer, an even water and sewer uh increase of 375 in 2026, and then a 475 increase for the remaining three years of that plan. And so you see there that it is compared to the requirement. To some of the other regional utilities, most notably there, Hillsboro County at the top that's approved a multi-year structure at 5%. You see Newport Ritchie that uh is a municipality here within the

   2:47:58county at 4%, and a couple others that are uh is significantly higher. You look down at Saint uh City of St. Petersburg that has some higher increases there. And so from a you know a rate design standpoint and an increase, right? Pasco continues to align with that slide we looked at. uh a slide ago that you know it's affordability affordability side uh slide uh that is more of a steady and a heavy approach here. All right. So now let's move into a little bit more of that rate design thing. And so what we ultimately worked with the utility is

   2:48:28to take a look at the reclaim water structure, as one of the main design elements we'll talk about here for a minute. So you see there on the left, right, the current fees. But I'll spend some time here talking about the bulk side first, and then the next slide will address some of the retail changes that we're suggesting. And so you see the four bars there in each one of them. County is a little bit unique that they have two different bulk structures for the reclaim users, one with storage and one without storage. And so when you look at that top one, that those are things like most notably golf courses and things like that that have the ability to

   2:48:58store reclaim water they can pump, they can transmit in certain ways. And so there's a rate uh discount for that, right? I don't want to say discount, there's a different rate structure for that. And so right now you see uh in the in the different bars, right? If you can read the legend there, the black bar is the existing fees. And so the orange bar is an indexed approach that would index right along with that slide that we were just on. At 375, they're going into 26. And then the next three bars, gray, yellow, and blue, are tr are different indexes of cost recovery pieces,

   2:49:29right? And so if they ultimately look at um both bulk and retail side. Uh when you look at the cost of service allocation for a reclaim, it's subsidized uh by the sewer fees uh to a certain extent. And so when we worked with the utility, this is an opportunity for the utility to make some adjustments to those rates to increase its cost recovery. And so that the gray bar is a 25% increase in cost recovery, yellow bar is a 50%, and blue is that full cost. And so you look there at that top rate, $1.11 is the reclaim without storage. That's the full cost recovery for

   2:49:59that structure, $1.67 at the bottom. The recommendation there highlighted in the red box is uh to increase uh the 25%.

   2:50:09Okay, so now let's move to the retail side. So the retail side, you've got a couple of things here. Under the current uh structure here, we'll highlight that that purple box first. The purple box being uh the current structure allows for 10,000 gallons included in the base charge that is charged to residential customers. And so um, in an effort to try and you know alleviate certain system demands and promote more conservation, uh conservation signal a little bit earlier. And the rate structure. The recommendation here is to move that tier down from 10K to 8,000 gallons. And

   2:50:39so this could increase system apol uh product availability as a result. As we look at your average use usage habits, right, we ran some uh additional analysis at 10,000 gallons, and that uh you know over two-thirds of your standard lots are using less than that for their irrigation. So then it also uh introduces two volumetric tiers where there was only one. And you'll notice here in the second tier, both are separated by 5,000 gallons. The second tier at 13,000 gallons in excess does achieve cost recovery on the retail

   2:51:09side. And so the aim there is to ultimately uh create a structure that when you have higher than normal usage uh, you know, for these normal residential properties, that the utility is able to recover its cost past those two. Thresholds. And so ultimately you look down there in the gray and you see some of those bill impacts with the 10K gallon user. This is ultimately going to represent about a $3 increase from $1220 to $15.20. And you do achieve some additional cost recovery for the utility.

   2:51:38Here's a slide. I know it's all purple. Purple is the color of reclaimed pipes, so our apologies for some of that blending a little bit. And so we've got kind of that orange slide, and then there's a darker purple there. Uh that's the 8k gallon proposed. I wish I had a little laser here to get to that. But uh right there in the heart of the slide, that the point of this slide being is it represents some of the same data that we just talked about. Gives you some comparisons to those regional utilities. But when you're making the change here, uh even though you're making a structural change, you're reducing from 10K to the 8K, this is consumption at 10,000

   2:52:08gallons. So now the change is here, you're gonna have an 8K included and you're gonna have two 2,000 gallons worth of consumption on that user. Pasco County's position doesn't change relative to the other utilities.

   2:52:20All right. And so finally, our summary recommendations here, I'll run through these and then we can go through any questions that you might have. So the four-year plan here is the indexing at 375 in 26. And then we talked about uh you know those big impacts uh from the wastewater plants coming in in 27 and the financing and the additional debt that comes online with that that precipitates that 475 for the remaining three years. From a retail rate standpoint, right, we've got no structural changes on the water and sewer side. And we just walk through some of those things for reclaim on both the bulk

   2:52:50side and um The bulk side and the retail side. Finally, connection fees at this time would link along with the indexing plan of 375 and 475. Bulk rates have been calculated as a part of the study for water and sewer to index they will they will increase to cost of service as part of the analysis, and then they'll index along in 27 through 29. And then reclaim has been presented on that previous slide. And as we talked about in the beginning, those miscellaneous fees as well as the environmental lab charges will be updated as a part of

   2:53:21the resolution documents that will come forward to you on 9-3 for adoption. That concludes our presentation.

   StarkeyChair

   2:53:28That was a fast one, but I have a couple of questions, but I'll let my board members go first. Commissioner Oakley?

   Oakley

   2:53:33Yeah, I uh Not any questions, just I admire the way we've been doing this because we have small increments of increases where if you look at other counties and surrounding counties of of Pasco, they have large increases because they don't do it the same way. Yeah. So it's um it's it's done the right way I believe and uh Yeah. A little note from Tam Bay Water yesterday we were talking about reclaim water a little bit and the fact that uh And

   2:54:04reclaim water. We have a lot of reclaim order, even though it takes four houses to develop enough to water one yard. One of our main issues is distribution lines to get it to the right place to be used by our customers. So that's something we need to look into in the future so we can take care of that and and spread that water out so everybody can use that water. So uh a different look at it r than I had before. And uh Just

   2:54:34a little note again about I left out of my part about reporting on Tampa Bay Water and Jack missed it uh yesterday. But the fact of it is that we've started using the ninety percent of high water marks in the last few rains, few weeks or whatever and a month. We've had more rains. We're sitting at um a little over ten billion gallons in our reservoir.

   David Boucher

   2:54:59Nice.

   Oakley

   2:54:59Which is a good place to be coming into the fall when we usually have our uh drought time and things of that nature. So we're looking good with with the water uses and we we're picking up that ninety percent of the Alipha River to be able to pump into the reservoir. It's really worked out good because you can you can put 200 million gallons a day into the reservoir. And it's a little bit more than a little bit In fact, we use about two hundred million gallons throughout our whole system. So it really works

   2:55:30good.

   StarkeyChair

   2:55:30Maybe next next meeting give us an update on the uh what's happening in South South Southern Hillsborough County with their their plant. I'm wondering how they're coming along with that.

   Oakley

   2:55:39Oh, okay.

   StarkeyChair

   2:55:40Water treatment plant. Um okay. I'll bring

   Oakley

   2:55:42that to the next meeting. I'll look

   StarkeyChair

   2:55:44I'll

   Oakley

   2:55:44get that info.

   StarkeyChair

   2:55:45Yeah. Yeah.

   Oakley

   2:55:46Um a good project.

   StarkeyChair

   2:55:47Do you have questions? I'll just make a comment.

   MarianoVice Chair

   2:55:49Um I had talked with uh the golf courses because they got hit the uh probably highest with the rate and the the way they're set up they did a lot of s do a lot of storage up was with stormwater. So I went down to Severn Springs to talk to them. They actually invited me down to talk about another issue which we're working on with water quality. Uh especially with the Enclot River running through it. Um So they cut down a lot of their water and part of the reason they do do do cut down whatever they can is because The more reclaimed water you use, the more chemicals you have to put in to offset

   2:56:19it. So I think we should try to

   Justin Grant

   2:56:22interest

   MarianoVice Chair

   2:56:23Yeah, it's just uh trying to offset us. They r much rather have rainwater or regular water. So I'd like to be looking at them and I've talked with the team about it for the future, trying to work with Swift Mutt and the golf courses to find out can we allow them a little more pumping and I will tell you the heritage uh pines is the one area I'm a little concerned with because of the sinkhole activity was up there from years ago. So water levels gotta be maintained. But I think if we can look at it, it may be better So you get less chemicals in the water. You know, for water quality for down the road and then maybe free up some of them. Now

   2:56:53they they they were able to cut down and save themselves a bunch of money. But I don't know how the others are doing.

   StarkeyChair

   2:56:59Okay, so my questions I have two and I brought them up in our meeting. So first um we promised our citizens that we were going to help them with their water rates if they were with FGUA by purchasing all four of the private um water providers that were under FGUA. Because I think we have some that are are not under FGUA. Yeah. Um they're much smaller. So we bought Landrick, we bought What

   2:57:30was the first one? Aqua. Aqua. Mm-hmm. Where are we with the next one which is not aloha?

   Justin Grant

   2:57:39Sure. So so uh yeah, I've got two slides that

   StarkeyChair

   2:57:42Commissioner Weightman Definitely wasn't here when we did that. And I don't know if Commissioner Oakley was, so I'm not sure if they they know the history.

   Justin Grant

   2:57:50Sure, sure. No, I I I certainly remember it well and you had the the you know the fortunate opportunity to be a part of both of those acquisitions. Uh so back in twenty twenty, uh you know, if you go back to, you know, ultimately this slide, right, when we kind of looked at that affordability back in twenty twenty, right, that was the first acquisition. The first First of as you you stated, Commissioner, four different systems uh that are uh located within uh Pasco County's borders that are operated by the Florida Government Utility Authority, also known as FGUA. And so ultimately in 2020, we took over that first one there with Pasco Aqua,

   2:58:21and then two years later, did Lindric. And so at that time, Pasco had also done some studies to take a look at the remaining systems, which is consolidated and it does get confusing. The final remaining system is called Pasco Systems. It's not Pasco County, it's Pasco Systems as uh is named through FGUA. And so uh I think what's helpful is I do have a backup slide here. This is the first one. And so in order Order of acquisition as the utility planned years ago. FY26 was the targeted year for that, right? And so they're taking a look at that. I know they've mentioned it many times in

   2:58:51the work sessions that we've had as a part of this process, is getting ready for the consolidated utility system. This snapshot here will give you an idea. I know a lot of you are looking at specific service area and different names and things like that. That's directly from the FGA's ACFR that is reviewed. represented there. And so that's uh that's slated for FY26. And then in FY29 would be the second system. This is the Pasco system. So same same description here that goes through and defines the service area. Um, you know, and

   2:59:21ultimately, right, you've got a number of different you know sets that go within that. But the utility is planning for that. What I will note here as a part of the rate adoption uh process is is that the The the board will ultimately be considering a resolution on 9-3 for a rate resolution that would be four years. It would be independent of these actions. And so these actions do require separate diligence processes that the county did go through back in 2020 and 2022 as defined in state statutes. Don't quote me, I believe it's Chapter 110. I defer to the County Attorney before I mention those

   2:59:51specific things, but there is a separate diligence process. And as a as a part of that diligence process if it's ultimately found in the public interest and at the board, the board can adopt a rate offsetting measure or whatever the financing requirements that are necessary at that time to take those utilities on. They do that separate and identified with that measure on its own, not as a part of this four-year structure.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:00:15Is that sure? Yes. So way back when, back in like two thousand four, uh we had all these water companies ever had trouble

   3:00:27Yeah. Um Aloha was a big part of it. Lindrick was a big part of it. Uh Oak was a big part of it. Um And I'll I'll tell you up in Hudson, especially night, Florida, another big part of it. So I know the others were factored in as well, but I I don't know if the order was done the way uh

   StarkeyChair

   3:00:46that was by size, just to affect the ratepayers less.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:00:50Okay. So as far as to affect ratepayers lost, I will tell you the Hudson area will be the easiest one to take over in in that case because When your rates of nine Florida are through the roof already. And Hudson Waterworks are really lower. If you want to consolidate that system

   StarkeyChair

   3:01:07Wait, Hudson Waterworks was not one of the four.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:01:10They're not yeah, they're a cooperative. But but but uh but the the it may be a a deal that be b could be put together to keep all the rates the same and bring them all in the same system. Because right now this the service they're getting with Nye, it's not Nye now, it's a different company, but has just been terrible. Uh

   StarkeyChair

   3:01:25most of these that's how it is.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:01:27Exactly. But

   StarkeyChair

   3:01:28but again, money into quality and improvements.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:01:31So w wha without affected rate payers, the least expensive one for anybody would be actually taking looking at the Hudson system. And I know Mike's had some conversations, but I think it's still a another push to have for us to keep it going. Uh but again e even with the Aloha being bigger, I still think as they were one of the initial ones, maybe it's something we should really look at to find out. Do we take that one first?

   StarkeyChair

   3:01:53Aloha? Yeah. Well I So our thought uh our thought process, guys, when we set this up was that

   3:02:04Excuse me?

   Oakley

   3:02:05I got here in sixteen, so I'm

   StarkeyChair

   3:02:06Okay, so you were here. Okay. So so then you know the the more people who are paying in as the county grows the less impact it has per capita. Yeah. And that that was our thinking. Um

   3:02:21I hear complaints about 'em all the time. And uh I that's why I wanted to bring it up, to not let us forget To make sure we're on a path. So are you saying that we said we were gonna do Mad Hatter in twenty six? And are we on path? To take on take Mad Hatter. Or

   Justin Grant

   3:02:41So I'll I'll defer to the utility to speak towards that there the progress. I can tell you we've looked at some of these things and supporting, and so I'll step it aside for Joseph.

   StarkeyChair

   3:02:49It sounds to me like you were saying we had separate.

   Unidentified speakerVoice D

   3:02:52Yes, so Joseph Amora utilities director. So actually we had um um uh a task order with um Stantech to conduct some initial financial evaluation for those systems and they're supposed to prepare a schedule um for us in terms of the timeline for acquiring those systems. So um that report is due

   Justin Grant

   3:03:14So so the utility, the utility originally had set out, and I know there was communication uh, you know, with certain with county administration that they were trying to get these things done within this next four-year block, right? And so I want to try and clarify some of the states and statements that I've made here that is that 26 and 29 is what the utility has tried to articulate to the board. I know there's been some memorandums that have gone back and forth. We've been furnished with with those copies. Um I know it's interesting. I wrote one of them. But uh, you know, in that in that time right is targeting that FY26 um to

   3:03:44take over the first system. Consolidated, you're right, Commissioner, right? That that is the smaller of the two systems and there's large amounts of outstanding debt. And so the idea there with the PASCO system being the second one that's on the screen here is, you know, uh the county also has representation on the FUA board, and so you do get a right- You have input into that process right when they go and they finance and they take additional debt. And so the idea here is you'll have an opportunity to be a part of those discussions if the FGA ever were to try and take additional debt through this period of

   3:04:14time. But when you go through this, you allow, you know, you allow, you take over the smaller one, consolidate it in FY26, and then in 29, the benefit to doing that is just like you were talking, Commissioner, right-is that the rate of the U.S. Payers and the FGA will pay down through some of that debt. And so as the structure goes, there is an interlocal agreement between the county and FGUA that allows for the purchase price of those utilities to be equal to the outstanding debt on it. So what's the thing?

   StarkeyChair

   3:04:40Right. Because their fixes may not be what Yeah, they're not going to be able to do that. My experience is they do band-aids and we come in and we fix it. So we want to be paying for band-aids.

   Justin Grant

   3:04:49Right. And and Joseph's right. We we've taken a look at that and we're getting ready to finalize some studies here to give to give back to the utility to take a look at those those two systems. Those are financial in nature. And so the biggest thing that is the variable for both of those systems is evaluation of the capital improvement plans for both of those utilities. And so the two biggest variables you look at the cost with this is Ultimately, what the county, you know, the county standard would be and what the recommended CIP would be. And I know there's going to be additional conversations with the county staff to have their engineers take a look and say, hey, is the CIP adequate based on

   3:05:19what the FGA is doing, or would it be higher? I know there was different amounts that were suggested when we took over Aqua and Lindrik, and so they were revised, and so that kind of changes the cost investment. And then the other there's what we just mentioned, right? Is how much debt is On the system, and if there's any fluctuation in that debt, right, positive or negative, before the county ultimately has to take it over.

   StarkeyChair

   3:05:40Okay.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:05:42There's another numeric factor to consider.

   StarkeyChair

   3:05:45I'm talking to Tony.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:05:46Okay.

   3:05:52Live in I think in the Aloha district.

   StarkeyChair

   3:05:54Yeah.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:05:54If ever there's a time to get attention for someone to bring in a good chunk of money, which helped us tremendously with Lindrick, I think Aqua as well. I think that's a factor to find out what does he feel comfortable looking for Because if he can come up with a big chunk of money, you can make the whole thing work.

   StarkeyChair

   3:06:08You know I've talked to commissioners uh when I'm at at fact ha not in the last year, but I know that Charlotte and I think Lee County, they bought they bought all theirs out of FGUA. They they had a program like we're working on ours and they they were able to get them all under their umbrella. So um I think this it's a w really worthy project. So the other question I have is and go to the West, please. Uh oh no, Google Earth. Um So I

   3:06:38uh you know I've been looking at this property that Penales County owns forever as a possible solution for our field Lack of space for fields dilemma over here. And um And so uh twice I've gone to Penellas County and had Mr. Carbala say, talk to them down there and see if we can use this property for temporary fields. And I did it just as recently as last month with Commissioner Myers, right there. Right there. So zoom in on that property right there. Um so this

   3:07:09is uh thousand oaks. And no now you're okay. Now go south. So this property right here, and can you zoom out just a little, Tony? Just to give a little more context. Um the Pinellas County line starts at pretty much at that road, I believe, or just before. Uh maybe it's where the roads are white.

   project engineer

   3:07:28You can see a natural break with the houses and the lines.

   StarkeyChair

   3:07:33Right there. Yeah. Yeah. So oh yeah, right there. So that's the Pinellas County line, and this is Pinellas County. property owned by their utilities. And They f they finally have said that they're coming in here and they're doing a storm No, a um reuse water project. Here. And I'm just trying to fig I I asked you guys in our meeting, zoom if you could zoom out. I'm trying to understand the um

   3:08:03dynamics of this. because they're gonna have to pump A lot of water. From far away. 'Cause there's no there's no Pinellas County houses around there. And so Does it be a little bit more than that? You know, maybe we can buy their water cheap. I I I just I don't understand them wanting to put that way up up here in the middle of nowhere in their county.

   Unidentified speakerVoice D

   3:08:28Yeah, so Commissioner Oakley, yes. You did bring that up and um staff is still looking into it. You're talking to Penilas County to make that determination. So hopefully um Okay, so

   StarkeyChair

   3:08:38we don't have the answers yet.

   Unidentified speakerVoice D

   3:08:39Yes, we don't have the answer yet.

   StarkeyChair

   3:08:40We're still looking into it. But zoom out more. Tony. Um

   3:08:47Keep zooming out.

   3:08:51The only I mean the only big developments around there well there really aren't. I mean You get in the East Lake corridor, but it's not that dense. So I just trying to figure out. How that makes economic sense to put that in the middle of No density.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:09:11So they're going to use a facility just to like pump reclaim water in, kind of like a rib?

   StarkeyChair

   3:09:16No, I think they're gonna um they don't have a lot of reclaimed water, right? All these developments were done without reclaimed water pipes. Um But all he told me, um or she told me the commissioner, was that they're gonna use this for reclaimed water storage. project or something like that.

   MarianoVice Chair

   3:09:35So they have trouble getting

   StarkeyChair

   3:09:36rid of those? No, that no, they don't they don't have Yeah, I I I'm I'm waiting I don't understand it. I'm waiting for answers that ours for our staff to ask them. I would love to have that property it if

   Unidentified speakerVoice D

   3:09:49Certainly looks like a very great opportunity for us to get reclaim water from that area. So we'll still continue to um reach out and then we'll hopefully by the next board meeting we'll have an answer for you.

   StarkeyChair

   3:10:01Okay. All right, so this is a public hearing item. Um does there anyone who in the public who wants to speak to this item?

   3:10:11Is there anyone online? No ma'am. Any more questions?

   Unidentified speakerVoice C

   3:10:16So this is your The way this was designed was we wanted they wanted to do a a hearing on both sides of the county, so this is the first acceptance of public comment. It'll be advertised for your Dade City meeting.

   StarkeyChair

   3:10:33All right, so do we n do we have to vote on it or we just wait? We wait. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. And um I look forward to the answers from Penelope's County Administrator. Thank you. And maybe it can tie end up lowering our rates.