miscellaneous business and commissioner reports

1:20:37Okay, at this point we're gonna move to miscellaneous business. Commissioner One, uh District One, Commissioner Oakley.

1:20:45I don't have much this week. So and had a lot going on outside, so but Yep. Everything's good in Basco County and East Side and construction everything else is going and hopefully we get these roads finished soon we can travel through 'em.

1:21:01So

1:21:03Thank you, sir.

1:21:03Commissioner Moore.

1:21:05Um thank you, Mr. Chairman Mariano. On behalf of uh fire rescue and uh public works, um, there's a request for a one-time road fix for Deacon Loop, and that's in District 2, estimated by Public Works to cost between $4,000 and $4,500. That's fire rescue was recently called a Deacon Loop, but found the road to be impassable to emergency vehicles due to large potholes. So like to make a motion on behalf of Fire Rescue and Public Works to fix Dekin Road

1:21:35at an amount up to $4,500.

1:21:38Okay, so move.

1:21:39Second.

1:21:41All in favor

1:21:41say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir.

1:21:46Just want to bring up C forty seven that was on the consent agenda. There was no need to pull it at that time to cause confusion. Um but I wanted to say thank you to some folks and uh that did a great job. It was the Florida Communities Trust Department of Environmental Protection grant for 40 percent of the cost of the 318-acre property bought by ELAMP, by the ELAMP program. So just wanted to read the line for the agenda. The proposal was ranked third out of 16 and received support from Senator Wilton Simpson, Representative Artie and Zeke of the Southwest Florida Water Management

1:22:16District, the Nature Coast Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society, as well as the West Pasco Audubon Society. The total grant was worth $1,000.

1:22:27So thank you to our legislators, our organizations for supporting this. The ecological corridors are obviously very important to all of us. And we can use these state funds to help lower the cost for the taxpayers of Pasco County. So congrats to Parks and Recreation and National Resources for bringing this home bringing home this over one million dollar grant. It's greatly appreciated. And that's all I have.

1:22:49All right. Thank you. That's a great great pickup. So money down the road. Commissioner Fitzpatrick.

1:22:55I am very excited to see this drawdown. I think it's really important that we continue to move forward with our parks and rec and make sure we have equality through all of the parks for all of our children because we are setting a premier standard and we need to make sure all of our parks are at that premier standard. Also I attended the Area Agency on Aging meeting and I think it's really important I would like to read their mission so our citizens know. The Area Agency on Aging of Pasco Penellas is a trusted resource to advocate,

1:23:25educate, and empower seniors, adults with disabilities, and caregivers which promote independence in partnership with the community. Our meeting lasted over two hours the other day. And it's Concerning that the helpline calls have increased over twenty percent in two thousand twenty. and the senior homeless population is up 400 percent from last year. So I really want to make sure that we are making sure we have affordable housing for our seniors, elderly

1:23:55and disabled. And I know we were still following up. I don't know Kathy if you have an update on the one lady that we had spoken about previously. Okay. Thank you, I'll bring it up next time. Because I wanna make sure that we're not once we have someone that we're helping and we're putting them from hotel to hotel to hotel, that we're not losing them in the transition because I don't want to see an elderly person get all the way almost to the finish line and then they're back being

1:24:26homeless again. And it's very concerning and I do think that at some point we need to have a base location for our elderly population. Thank you.

1:24:37Yeah. Hello? Thank you. Uh County Administrator, Mr. Biles.

1:24:43Yes, sir. I have a few things here, a couple of updates apart that. Uh one is um One of the ladies that spoke in public comment left her notes and asked if the board would receive and file them. It was uh Jill Troton. Motion receive a file.

1:24:56Second.

1:24:57All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you. We'll get you Get those to you after we're done here. Uh second thing is I don't know if you noticed but on Monday uh Florida federal judge uh throughout the uh C D C T S A mask mandate for federal Funded. The transportation facilities, airports. airlines but also included public transportation has had fallen under that and so Uh we got notice today that the Biden administration, while they may appeal, is not gonna

1:25:27enforce that while it's on appeal. And so we are rescinding the requirement to wear masks on public transportation buses for now in accordance with the judge's order. Uh and the guidance that the Biden administration put out yesterday, uh the TSA did. that they will not enforce that right now. So that's this number two. Uh they're still recommended, but right now um that is we will follow the the guidance put out by the Biden administration on that. Uh the the third one is we have started over the last several

1:25:57weeks several meetings between our team uh and the sheriff's team with respect to the detention center. I don't really have any updates today, but I plan on next meeting probably have a little more fidelity on some updates for his timeline, things that that impacts. Um, you know, but County Attorney's given us a couple of attorneys to help us work through that. I know the clerk's been involved in those meetings. Uh you approved a budget amendment today. for the clerk to move forward on the capital audit. Uh that transition. So there was a lot of work happening behind the scenes. Uh HR's been in the jail

1:26:27several times to talk to all the existing employees about you know, working for the county and what that means to them. So so we're working through it, they just don't have a whole lot to uh report today. We will get you a more formal report in the next couple of weeks, uh next time we meet. And the last one just wanna let you know that you know we you know we talked about people with fire rescue and protecting them specifically like the DCON depot and the DCON units that we're doing there. That's a That's a international best practice. Nobody else does it the way we

1:26:57do to protect our firefighters like that. Um With that said, the Florida Safety Council recently awarded um Jeffrey Brockman, who works actually for public infrastructure in their safety program. for the the Safety Leadership Award for 2021. So it's not just Fire Rescue that deals with you know dangerous situations, but you know other branches do as well. And so he manages and runs a safety program in public infrastructure. uh and and has done a really tremendous job over the last few years really setting them up for success and make

1:27:27sure we're taking care of our people from a safety perspective on the public infrastructure side. So just wanna let you know that, you know, another state award. uh from for your team here. So I with that that's all I have. Thank you.

1:27:38County Attorney, Mr. Steinschneider. Uh Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Um I had heard from both the Chair and the Vice Chair that you were looking for a letter in opposition to Senate Bill 620. Um I'll have that for you to discuss this afternoon. Um The other item that I've got is that that I've generally briefed all of you with regard to the County Attorney's position on the jail takeover. If you

1:28:09have any questions that you wish to uh ask me, I'll be happy to answer those questions. But Um I've done those as individual briefings with you all.

1:28:19Okay.

1:28:20Okay. Thank you,

1:28:21sir. Madam Clerk.

1:28:24Thank you, Mr. Chair. I um I have a uh there's a couple of dates. One um thank you for the budget amendment. My Inspector General is reaching out to um various uh auditing firms to help us with the transition audit, which is not an audit to uh confirm or uh or go into their pr procedures, but it's more of an audit. to look at um what assets they have to verify those assets and to also do a reconciliation of the assets

1:28:54as well as any liabilities. Um so we're working on that. Once we have a a contract I will let you know Um on that. I wanted to update on two things. Last I was I spoke was about Operation Greenlight. Um it was an event that we held to help individuals um in the court process who have court obligations that are unpaid and have a suspended driver's license because of it to be able to get back on their feet and to have a driver's license be able to be reinstated by helping them um afford to

1:29:24be able to pay for the court obligations. We had 261 cases that were either paid in full or entered into a payment plan and as a result of that 156 driver's licenses were either made eligible or are eligible for driver's license reinstatement. And then another event I wanted to touch on was Operation Standown. It's coming up on Friday, April 29th. Um And it goes through May 1st. As part of it,

1:29:54the court and the clerk and the state of Toronto Public Vendor partner to provide the Pasco County Veterans Stand Down Court for our veterans to go and get help with their cases. And that is on Friday, April 29th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you know of a veteran, this is a Great, a great um opportunity for them to come. They get a lot of services, but also if they have any court uh cases that are pending in uh the the criminal um arena, please

1:30:25have them sign up for this. I have a flyer here if you'd like that. It's also available on my website. That's it. Thank you.

1:30:31Okay, thank you. Um I don't don't see Alex here. Anyone from the Sheriff's Office here?

1:30:37Mm-hmm.

1:30:38Okay. All right. Um under mine I'd like to talk about the uh Gulf Highlands Palm Terrace Community Cleanup. Uh it was a phenomenal turnout from the people. Um We had grappling trucks out there that were in full force picking stuff up. Uh it pretty much as we went to one house, there's like three more around it would come out with stuff if they hadn't

1:31:01couldn't get their trash out. Could be like old furniture or other things that were sitting in the garage or sit in the backyard. that they brought it all to the side of the street. We picked him up. Uh the f that one day now keep in mind, these guys were out there on a Sunday working. Yeah.

1:31:18We had one drug house on one road that was just loaded with trash. Code went in the morning, they couldn't get the guy to come to the door. I went in later on with code, they couldn't come to wouldn't come to the door. Somehow Sally, your team out there went back into that door again and got them to come out. Um it was a gent elderly gentleman who was just kinda like being uh c I'll call it call it held hostage by people that have just kind of infiltrated his building and we got them to start cleaning out. We cleaned out a just a ton of trash and a lady who was very vocal in the community was lives

1:31:49right across and been watching for years and I the tears in her eyes just like thanking us for what was going on was uh a a big difference in that neighborhood. So it was a huge success Definitely gonna help and a quick letter from Nancy Benitez, who runs the uh Citizens Watch out there, uh, on behalf of Gulf Highlands Palm Terrace Neighborhood Watch Group. We would like to thank Pasco County Commissioners, Pasco Code Enforcement, and the staff from the Landfill for setting up our cleanup day. It was amazing. This will help

1:32:19the quality of life in our community. Our goal is our commute keep our community clean. A special thank you to everyone. Uh everyone worked so hard to make this clean cleanup day a huge success. There were several homes full of trash. The trucks were not helped cleaned up. It is amazing our neighbors helped each other bringing trash down to the site. Uh so she wants to thank everybody again. And we're going to do a special day to kind of thank the team and I'll let the board members know about it later a little bit later on today.

1:32:46Just a phenomenal day. So Mike, thanks for your team. Um You were phenomenal. Um this weekend at Sunwest Park there's the Soraya Fest. Um We're gonna have to Ben used to be called Jefferson Starship, now called Starship. They're gonna be there for the future being on Sunday. Uh Beater Brothers will be out there on Saturday. Uh Ian Beckles uh got wind of this from one of the promoters uh and is now gonna sponsor the Friday. So Friday's even a free day to

1:33:16come out there. Should be great music. There will be fireworks on Saturday night. So if you want to come out and take a look at the park since the county's taken over, uh I think they're The citizens have loved it. The people have come in, the tourists just love what we've done out there, so it's a great time to actually see the park. It's gonna be a wellness festival, so those that need uh some help or some ideas on on getting themselves some help as well from the county. They've offered s free spots out there for the county people as well, so it should be a great weekend out there. And that's I all have, so we'll uh adjourn for