Stormwater Management Master Plan Update – No Funding Required

1:09:29Okay, we are done with the consent agenda and we will move on to our

1:09:38R fifty one. Is that the first one?

1:09:42R5.

1:09:45Yeah.

1:09:46Storm water management.

1:09:47Yes.

1:09:52Alright, I'm back. For the record, Jason Mickel, uh Public Works Director. Uh you know, I just want to start off. Uh we I want to make this quick. I don't want to take up too much too much of your time this morning. Um but I just I again I want to thank the board for the support. Um we all went through last year's storm event together. Um, you know, many of the many of the the folks in this room that were here to speak um you know went through went through some really difficult times. Many of our Many of our community um residents did as well. Our own staff, right? Um

1:10:22and this is very timely coming to you now, our stormwater master plan. Uh we've been working on this for about 18 months. The one silver lining in it is we were of the storm season is we were we were able to capture some of the um you know recent storm events and be able to kind of incorporate that the best we can into our stormwater master plan. We have uh Mark Elard, he's our um he's our principal at Geosyntech. He led our our effort um this this for this for this master plan. Um

1:10:52I want to really thank him and his staff, along with our team, that really pulled this together. One of the charges I had early on. um after conversations with with Mike and with Brantford and with the board was keep this thing on time, keep it on budget and get it to us in time so we could have this discussion. Um and here we are, right? We we've hit those marks. So I wanna thank you again for the time you took to meet with us early on our one on ones to go over um all the information that we had and give us valuable

1:11:22feedback. Um Some of you showed up to some of our public meetings that we had. We had five. They were spirited. But we we we learned quite a bit at those meetings and we were able to incorporate um valuable information in into the plan. So you know without spending too much time up here, um I want to turn it over to Mark. He'll walk you through a really quick presentation, and then we'll be here uh available for any questions you may have.

1:11:49Thank you, uh Commissioner. Thank you for having me here today. And I would like to echo uh what Jason mentioned about we were able to work very closely with uh county staff and I think a real tight-knit team that was able to bring this home effectively with some good results. So we have a brief presentation that uh we'll go through. Should be. Ah yeah. So go ahead and advance.

1:12:17Look at that. Okay. So here we are. So I appreciate the opportunity again. I'm Mark Ellard, Senior Principal with GeoSyntec, project manager for the consultant team. Uh multidisciplinary consultant team that was able to uh provide some good resources to this project. Now We had a chance to give an overview of this, so we're gonna go through a real quick kind of recap for the purposes of this uh public uh BCC meeting. Uh starting out with uh just a reminder of uh what the goals of the overall plan were.

1:12:48So or what this goal of this where I'm here right now for is to present the summary of the master plan scope and results, an overview. Again it'll be a pretty quick overview. Since we've had the chance to disseminate this information quite a bit. But then importantly, receive the Stormwater master plan update with you all receiving and approve the ranking of the top 15 projects, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Uh so that they move forward for further design and permitting.

1:13:17Now jumping in, what were the desired uh priorities outcomes of the project? Um as stormwater master plan connotates, it's all about stormwater. Now there's a big focus on flooding, of course, but there's also other elements that we looked at in the in the plan to put together uh this roadmap for the county to move forward. So in addition to flood abatement, there is the idea of effective drainage and how that's maintained in the county, operations and maintenance, regulatory compliance, and really with the goal of developing an actionable capital improvement

1:13:47projects. uh to move forward with and you know we'll talk about these elements a little bit more. So the master plan which has been uh submitted to the county as final uh includes a couple important things, stormwater areas of concern, an overall long needs list of what we found uh recommending suggestions for things to be done. Talk about that a little bit. But also a detailed uh for what we're calling the top 15 concept plan Some really detailed information that allows those projects to move forward. Yeah. subject

1:14:18to to the funding. Now The scope, there's a lot of elements in the scope, won't go over all of them, but suffice to say we spent a lot of time collecting all the information from the county, both past, what's been done in the past, what has been successful, what hasn't worked, present, the present state of issues and concerns, and also what has been planned for the future and be able to help try to inform that through this plan. So there was a lot of data collection to understand what's going on in the county. Uh also we had a chance to look at through the the stormwater related

1:14:48codes and the comp plan and some of the level service criteria, the operations and maintenance program. So in addition to just things going on in projects, really dug into the staff and the resources and equipment that help maintain stormwater throughout the county. pulled all together the information that we had again from from past studies and watershed management lines to really identify what the the key pro uh projects and priorities are to move forward. Now we did include a pretty extensive public

1:15:18uh information and stakeholder involvement. uh portion of the project and also of course we had the opportunity to meet with the the board Here as we're wrapping up the project. So I want to jump to a highlight of the project was, as I mentioned, to identify the projects, the problems moving forward. The idea here was to generate a laundry list, if you will, of things that need to be done to address stormwater issues that have been identified both previous to this plan and during the course of this

1:15:49plan. So this was what we called an area of concern identification process. So what were some of the sources of this information? Information, as again, I mentioned previous reports, studies, things that had been done, but also comments from the public and other stakeholders that were involved in the process. Boil it down, it identified 141 separate specific project needs. Again, a lot of them focused on flooding, but some of them having some ancillary benefits redu uh related to water quality or resiliency to be done. This information was all captured

1:16:19in the form of fact sheets within the master plan document. So here's the graphic is an example of a two-page fact sheet. That's an example of just for one of those projects. So we had this two pages of information for each of these projects, so the county has this on their fingertips moving forward. So, some of the important information captured in these fact sheets included a specific definition of the problem, the issue, whether flooding or other related stormwater issues, what a proposed improvement was, uh whether or not it was uh f at this at this point a fully flushed out uh improvement

1:16:50or whether it was just the idea of where it's headed to uh initially. But idea of uh projection of the costs associated with it and the also the benefits of the project. So all those were wrapped up. Uh into these fact sheets. Now, the next step we did is really to prioritize those. So we're trying to get to what are the priority projects to really hit the ground running with in the next uh planning cycle. So we needed a mechanism to be able to rank those projects. We used some existing uh public works ranking tools. We added a lot of bit of um

1:17:20enhancement to that and other criteria to be able to evaluate each one of these projects individually to give them a score and a rank. Right. So what's shown on this slide is the criteria that we uh looked at. There's a lot of lot of text on there, a lot of criteria, but it made sense to do in this context. So for example, flooding, the the severity of flooding is important. That was a criteria. But also cost, of course, constructibility, can it be permitted? Maybe even things like environmental and other resiliency benefits

1:17:50were also factored in and scored. So the bottom line. All 141 projects were scored. and uh to prioritize them. Yes, good.

1:18:00Can we go back to the last slide, please? And your project ranking criteria Um is this your s is this your standard criteria that you do for customers whenever you Look at stormwater master plans or is this Modified n a a new philosophy. What's your methodology kind of behind this? Um I will say it's in in the weight. Are they in order by by weight, you know, flood frequency, number two, flooding

1:18:30impact.

1:18:32Yeah. Um this was unique to Pasco County. I will say similar frameworks as this we've used in other communities throughout the state. Um Pasco was the opportunity to really dig into some things that are more on the tip of the the tongue, like like resiliency is an example. Recently had the vulnerability assessment completed uh during the county, so that's really important. I think we wanted to work in some of these factors that Provide uh a peek into overall project benefit rather than just looking at okay, this is gonna Take eight

1:19:02homes out out of flooding or and make a road dry from flood, that's important. But there's also other benefits that can work into the overall costing, which may be a very important thing. impact the different types of funding and potentially grants and other money that come in. Um the list is not in priority order. What you be uh kind of under the hood of this you'll see over each one of these criteria there was also a a tiering of uh a score of zero, five, ten, twenty-five, some scoring under there to rate each of those criteria relative to their importance

1:19:33or applicability to that particular project. So They're all weighted um Uh weighted the same, but under the hood there was some numbers that allowed some of the more important aspects of individual projects to kind of rise above. Is that

1:19:49the right-of-way? Yeah, it's just depending on the weight and kind of how it is, it could sometimes skew a particular project, right? And um So I was just curious more more of the you know um a better understanding of the methodology Mm behind your your ranking criteria. I I think it's important Um Two That we underst under understand, you know, the the the point system.

1:20:17Yeah, and one other thing I would add that may shed some light is these 141 projects, they're all in various phases of of concept or idea. Uh some of them are in design phase right now, so they're very well flushed out as far as the concept. Some of them are just ideas now of where some complaint or some information came in from the public and just realizing what it is. So there's uh uh this is also an attempt to kind of provide a level playing field with the scoring for all these projects. No, thank you.

1:20:46Yep. So it's a little confusing with it being ranked and by the way I'm I'm glad, Mike, that you pulled this off the consent agenda to bring it forward. There was uh I had several questions. I appreciate the meeting we first had. And I think I might have talked with you about w one of them they have on there is Town and Country Villas.

1:21:04Maybe when w before this started The city's taken that property over. And we actually gave the city two million dollars for improvements.

1:21:12We haven't given it to them yet, but we're about to.

1:21:14Yeah. What whatever the case may be, the allocated for that has been annexed by the city. So I've got like Sea Pines, which I'm glad is there, but there's even probably more parts to that that needs to get funded. That's been a a twenty-year project coming, that we finally got all the land we need. Now we just need the Army Corps. and one more approval to to go forward, that that project should be all the seed pines should be up there. I'm delighted to see that you get Foxwood subdivisions north and south in there. Great ad, because they've got money as well that can go along with what's here to improve

1:21:44it. No whatever, that's a that's a great ad that's in there. Green Key neighborhood and again you say you've got But no it's when you say ranking, to me that means ranking's priority as far as scoring goes. Um so when you say it's not ranked but it's in order or whatever, I don't know what that means. But Green Key is another big one that can work uh for a few different ways. And I think it was like two point five million we got years ago that could be part of that. And it's not only just that one solution right there, but also. doing the Green Key

1:22:15Roadway to take that water out to the Gulf is another big thing. Um When I look over to Uh the Port Ritchie outfall, a phenomenal thing that again the city of Port Ridgeie should be all over it with us trying to get funding as well to make that happen. happen. It should be a high, high level project. Griffin Park, I think, is something we've already funded through ARP uh to to get done. So I'm not sure why this is what this is why this whole thing was confusing, why I thought we'd need to discuss this thing, because I don't know why we've got this ranking when it doesn't make

1:22:45sense to what we can get done, what we've got funded to get done, and what we've got designed and you know should be moving forward. So I think this needs to be worked at and looked at closer and and brought back to us to say here's what we've here's where we are in the projects, here's what we've got in process right now, to give us better detail because just The the number and uh and uh and a dollar amount is not giving us a story about what we're gonna do. If we've got a plan, let's go put a plan. This is just a statement of here's what the projects are. So I think we need more detail to say what we're gonna go

1:23:15do. Ancloat River, I see that up and down, which is great. It's an impaired water body. We just had the scallop season canceled, partly from the outflows going through there, for some great dredging work that was done upstream. That's great. But But the effects are still there d for more to be done. And the golf has been a good thing. And the golf courses all along f on Trinity Boulevard are all willing to help and and help and hold water to to to to make that work as well. So again, for a plan to come forward uh to be adopted. I I think we need something more that we're gonna look at and says, here's what we're gonna go

1:23:45do. We've got funding for fifteen projects, it may be thirty with what we got funded already, but I think we need a better plan to say, here's what we're doing, here's what here's when we think we're gonna get at least the first phase done.

1:23:55Gentlemen. Um again Jason Mickel, public works director, Christian, great points. Um if I could, um the plan itself followed a uh transparent criteria. This is something the county um our staff directed to do it this way, not Geosyntech. We asked Geosyntech to incorporate the things we thought were most important. Um one is constructibility. We didn't want to come With a bunch of projects that we didn't think we can get off the ground. Um we we wanted to come

1:24:25here with a list of projects that we feel comfortable with or either can go to design, permitting, or actual construction in the next five years. Um much of this is not funded yet. We don't through our capital budget. Our stormwater fee does not cover the cost of these projects. It doesn't even it covers a fraction of the cost of these first 15 projects. The one thing I I want to say though, and and it we can we could use this perhaps uh to to do you're asking Commissioner Mariano, we are gonna come back to you with a um a

1:24:56rate sufficiency analysis from Stantec. They're currently working on that right now. Um, we're gonna come back with a a programmatic approach. How much money would we need to generate? When can we get the projects done? And you know what that schedule would look like for these top projects that we've selected based on that criteria, which is transparent and it's in the plan. You could see the the scoring. Um but the one thing we really wanted to focus on was to do projects that we could actually get. Yeah. and not just sit

1:25:26there for the next five, ten years as we try to get property rights or permitting. We wanted to focus on ones that we can we can execute on. Um and then we wanted to just bring that to you, show you how we did it, talk to you about the projects, and then come back to you in a few months with our report, our RSA from Stantec to say, okay, here's what it's gonna take to fund these projects and over what amount of years. That was our next step was to come back to you with that. After we move forward with the plan itself, then we have the projects. As Mark mentioned,

1:25:56there's 140 or so projects in there. Perhaps these 15, maybe one or two of them, we interchange with another one or two off of the list. It depends on if if you know there's always obstacles. Stormwater projects, as you all know, can be loud moving parts, can be difficult, can take some time to implement. Um we do want to give you a list though that we feel confident that we can execute on. And that's what you're seeing now.

1:26:21No I'm sure.

1:26:22Yeah, and I I'm good with the list.

1:26:25And again, it's it's it's a big, big thing. So to get it all together. I d this is back very, very quickly. I I'll give you credit for that to get it back so quickly. So I I appreciate that. But again to the details, we're gonna have to make s we we should be able to be in the position to say, here's what we want to see get done, here's what and why. And with different things going on in districts between the flooding of the hurricanes, the flooding is a very important thing could dictate. And again, with all the money that's out there that's already allocated for some of these projects, I think should be factored into, you know, how they get done, where they get done. I mean, C Pines local, you got a

1:26:55n there is number two, but Really when you've got all the land and everything else you need for a one, two, and three. We need to try to find a way. Um Over Jasmine and Little Uh Tim Brooks, we we bought the golf course, we did a great project in there, but we left out one part on the other side of the road. And I think I might have mentioned this to you. Um is th this uh there's a flooding that goes on in that area that That simply instead of us having to run a pipe, and I was going to ask you for the numbers, hopefully you'll have them for me for me this afternoon anyway,

1:27:26to go put a pipe, uh you know, go put a pipe in that can take it from that side of the road into now where Timber Oaks can actually accept the water. Because years ago you only pump it for a little bit of time before we flood out the other area. Well now it's got capacity where it can flow, but you gotta make sure the flow is gonna be right. You can't overwhelm the system either. So I don't see that anywhere on here and I think that should be one of the items that should be on here.

1:27:48Yeah, and and Commissioner, another another good point. I wanted to bring up the legacy projects, so to speak, the things that you you all are very familiar with. Um Green Key, Seapines, Lafitte. Um Magnolia Valley. Everybody's favorite project? Those are projects that that didn't show up in our project. Yeah, where's Mikey

1:28:07Valley now that I look at it?

1:28:08Because we are already working on those projects and already using our capital budget to fund those projects. We're not coming to you today with a master plan that's going to say, hey, we need to ask for more money for these projects. We're we're already planning on getting those projects done and executed. And we're in some phase of that.

1:28:26I do have a question that I don't think I asked when in my meeting with you. So this eighty five million, is that money we have in our budget? Yeah.

1:28:35No.

1:28:36So what do you think?

1:28:37We have a small percentage that we could plan for of that, about four to five million dollars a year has been the average week.

1:28:45In in capital for stormwater projects.

1:28:47And we have a need of eighty-five million just right now?

1:28:50We execute this this year executing on Griffin Park, which is a two point five million dollar project, and two point five million dollars in culverts. So this is a ten year

1:29:00list here?

1:29:00It's we would like to get it done in five years. If we got the funding for it, we would like to execute this list of fifteen projects in five years. Well we would need the funding.

1:29:09Okay, thinking about something that uh Commissioner Mariano just say just said How many, if any, of these can

1:29:19elsewhere besides your budget, like C D B G D R money.

1:29:23We are applying for that for the the the HUD money um for the second phase of Magnolia Valley. Which would be a large excavation. And then Zephyrhills, phases two and three.

1:29:36So the one that the Zephyr Creek that's on here is that a phase four and five or or

1:29:40that's phase one. The the you don't want to if you have your money budgeted or you're planning to budget for the money, then you run into complications with the C D B G D R money. So if I already have it budgeted, then why would I be asking for a grant?

1:29:55So Beacon Square is l low income affected by the hurricanes. Why can't we use C D B D D D our money over there?

1:30:05I don't know. Perhaps we could. I I could look into that. But we we focused on two two big projects for that grant money. So a lot of lot of asks, I'm sure, are gonna be for that money. Um so we wanted to focus and prioritize on some of the big projects that have been um With us with the county for a long time. So I wanted to focus on two projects, and that's Magnolia Valley and Zephyr Creek.

1:30:30This this this plan really more or less sets your priorities. So, you know, to that, that's really what we what we need to understand. In terms of the funding, we will cobble together funding from existing sources or from grant sources, appropriations, those are those are ways. And then the remainder of what will be left, that's why uh Jason is doing a um rate sufficiency analysis.

1:30:52Oh yeah.

1:30:53You'll you'll recall when the When the original stormwater assessment was increased maybe eight or nine years ago, uh the intent of that was a pay as you go program. And by that I just mean you you saved the money and when you had the money you did the projects. Uh alternatives to that are to bond revenues and and move forward with with debt issuance. Uh that was one of the one of the things that I've asked the team to look at as a result of this plan so we can get more done quicker um and and use the stormwater assessment to fund the debt service. So those are things that we will we will need to be looking

1:31:23at. Um you know this is This is a list of fifteen, but I looked at the list. There's easily

1:31:32Now if the board wants to discuss how those priorities are made, I mean we we can we can certainly do that. But as Jason points out, those priorities will will shift. Um you know, funding may become available for one class of project that that looks more attractive and and that'll move that forward. Uh another project could get stuck in permitting, land acquisition could be an issue. And so there needs to be flexibility. uh with the plan. I think what Jason's saying here is is that we're we're committed to doing that uh moving forward. Um it's it's really getting the resources to bear to get a hundred and forty one projects done um

1:32:02is is really what we would what we would like to do.

1:32:05Um I I remember back in the day when I was on the Pinellas Ant Cloak River Basin Board of Swift Mud that A lot of these kind of projects, Commissioner Oakley, uh and Commissioner Weightman would have been funded with cooperative funding money. Mm-hmm. And these are the kind of projects we kept funding in Pinellas County because we didn't have our fifty percent match. Uh 'cause we didn't have a stormwater fee. It was so frustrating to me. To have that, you know, twenty five million to spend and none of it in Pasco County. in my basin.

1:32:35I

1:32:35was

1:32:35your planner.

1:32:35Yeah, yeah. Right. And I used to call John Gallagher every time on the way down to our meeting. Where are the Pasco projects? We don't have the matching funds, Commissioner. Or Catherine. I wasn't a commissioner then. All right.

1:32:52Ti do you have more in your presentation? I'm just I wanna let um R S R fifty two folks know we're gonna have to punt you to the afternoon if you need twenty minutes for your presentation. I have uh a very important meeting this uh during lunchtime. So if you guys wanna come back. Well, um one thirty times certain? Get that one done?

1:33:14Uh I would recommend you do your public hearing.

1:33:19All right, we'll hear that one. Sorry, don't know when, but it'll be this afternoon if you want to go ahead and go. And um Commissioner, are you done with your questions for them?

1:33:27Yeah, I just um let just say like with all these projects out there, I think we need we need a more comprehensive look at everything. Let's go find out what's funded, what's coming, you know, between the Green Key project and the other funds that are out there with sea pines, et cetera, the money we're asking for. to take a good look at the whole thing and let us have some direction of where we want to go. Because I think if it if it comes down to it, if it's next year, and you know, Commissioner Starkey, it was 2006 we got this thing done, and and the Board was afraid to do it even then. The Stormwater fee? The Stormwater fee.

1:34:00The Assistant County Administrator pushed me back saying we don't want you to do that now. I said we need to do this. So with all that said, we did a study for five years what we need to go do. I think comp compiling this all together, Jason, I think it's great that what you have done uh with Geosyntech, et cetera, to bring this, but I think now we need to take a deeper dive into to go find out what's out there. And again, with mitigation money, with um seventy percent's got to be spent in low income areas, I think there may be some flexibility with C B D R if we need to, to move somebody around from other things like we

1:34:30said we would if we needed to. This may warrant that.

1:34:33I wan I wanna remind you that we have the C D B G D R money But we also have the other. Grant. The HMGP, which also can help some of this way.

1:34:44It it can.

1:34:46Waiting to hear what we're

1:34:47going to do.

1:34:54I think what I'm hearing, Commissioner Mariano, say is you'd like the you'd like to see what a potential funding strategy looks like for for this plan. Right. Um and and how we could potentially copy. together funds for it. Are you reticent on adopting the plan absent that strategy or is that something we can bring back to the board recognizing that it's it's a plan like anything else?

1:35:19Yeah, I mean this is fungible. I I uh Right? We can approve this, they can move forward, and we can massage things as we look at the money.

1:35:28And is there any requirement to have this done right now or

1:35:36I mean I I would I it's for your stormwater utility, I mean it's it's good to have a plan. It's good to have a plan that's adopted, especially if you're gonna go to to markets uh for funding. Uh that it's important. Now whether uh uh an item is number twenty on the list or number two on the list. I'm not sure what they want is is, you know, do you have the analysis to back the deed for the projects and has the governing body adopted that plan?

1:35:59I mean I'll say this. I don't think I'm ready to go look for funding until I know what I want to fund. And I I d I d would want to like take a close close look at what other funding is out there, what we're looking at things we can do, can't do, and then really put something together for find out what's what's legit to say here's what we want to go do.

1:36:16Commissioner, if I could add, um this is a a a very comprehensive list of projects, but as we know, you know, we've all been here doing this a long time. Things change, we need flexibility, um, we need to be able to adjust and adapt to changing. circumstances that we may be facing and it this plan allows us to do that. We we're not you're not s setting this thing in stone forever.

1:36:35I

1:36:35mean

1:36:35you're showing fifteen Uh ranks rankings here, but you have a hundred projects.

1:36:40Hundred and forty in the total.

1:36:41How many?

1:36:42Hundred and forty

1:36:42total.

1:36:46Yeah. You yeah,

1:36:47you have to

1:36:47copy that's right.

1:36:49Pages

1:36:49and pages. Yes. I

1:36:50get to I get to read in the plane. Yeah. All right. Move approval. Second.

1:36:56All in favor. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. That's what I was wanted

1:37:00to do.