Shrimp festival and code enforcement
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
It is a stretch of the recording that this archive identified as a separate matter — a call to order, a recess, or something taken up that the agenda does not list. There is no official title, no staff recommendation and no disposition, because the county never recorded one. Everything below is inferred.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Feb 20, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Feb 20, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 8m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 94% of 62 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Oh. Gary? You're up. Ordinary business.
I had a note that he had to step away, so I'm
Oh he did. Okay. We'll go with Jack then.
All right. So as we said earlier, the shrimp and crab festival this weekend should be great. The weather idea is gonna be excellent. Um I wanna say the employee appreciation day went fantastic. Um absolutely incredible. Everyone was like energized. It was so good to everybody interacting, having fun. Yeah. Um it was a really just a well well done event. I think Mike Carbella had more fun than anybody out there. I don't
know. Didn't we see somebody throwing rolls or biscuits? And uh
he was he was uh he was the cookie monster.
I won't say who it was,
but But uh, The the lines moved very quickly. Uh the Florida Cracker their their team was great. They they're I guess three months they're cooking the chicken like two forty five in the morning. I mean they were like they were like set up and ready to go and
food was great.
Yeah, did it do did a phenomenal job. I had
said at one time not to interrupt you, but they said at one time they'd serve fifteen hundred people in about thirty minutes.
So
That's uh expert cookie handing out, I'll tell you that. Slaw sloppin' too for Jeff.
So I I had an idea and I floated this to a couple of folks, so I'm gonna float it to the board. So Coming up, I'd love to see us do like a family day.
Grandmother worked, they had the Digital Equipment Corporation, they had this big function up at Canaby Lake Park. And they brought everybody all the families out, and probably did it over a couple of days, different events. And all the families went out there and just for a day just went out and had fun.
Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Yeah.
I think we could do it uh I'm thinking employees. I think we should. I think we could do it up at Sun West Park.
I don't know where you gon where you gonna put everybody a Sunday.
Well so you do it for a few different weekends or whatever, a couple of weekends or whatever, but I mean that that accommodates several thousand people. So
I haven't made it to one employee weekend yet. I'm I was out of town one. Well we missed you. Well you wanna wan I'm I'm not building most.
So so maybe you take it over full weekends or whatever what the cost may be, but set it for a weekend event so that everybody gets a shot to go. They pick their times when they want to go and and let it let them all let 'em all out there.
That's a lot of staff time to organize.
Just think. You just give 'em a pass to go.
I think that's something we just we need to think about and Well I again I want to try to try to develop a plan like.
Sure, and I j'm just I'm I'll float it out there as kinda like I I just was so energized seeing everybody having fun. And knowing that the families would probably love to be there too, hanging out too, wouldn't it be great to have
Yeah, I think that's a good
thing.
Departments do. Yeah, I know Fire Rescue, for example, has one coming up. Yeah. Just as an example. We can certainly t we can certainly take a look. Obviously there's there's logistical concerns and things, but I you know, listen, I too was energized by it. I thought it was a fantastic event and You know, let me listen, just that that event was put on so well because we let our employees think about it, figure it out, and they made it happen. So uh I'll I'll put that back to the team and let me see what what kind of ideas we come back to.
Yeah, and and keep mind, I don't want to change what we did either. What we did
I I don't want to change that yet. I want to keep that event too. I'm looking in addition to Um Commissioner Starkey, I'm glad you brought up code enforcement. So I'm gonna I'm gonna touch on Out. On in my area I see tons of panhandlers. I call, I text, whatever. It's like sometimes you're off shift, sometimes you're on shift. Way back when we had the budget coming on, I said if we're going to put more code people on, I wanted someone to cover nineteen. If I do nothing else but take care of the panhandlers out there that are in the way and are safety ordinance violators.
If I do nothing else but that, it makes the area look better, it makes my people happier because they don't want to see it.
Is that us or the sheriff?
Well It's it the sheriff's only got so much time to go do it. Uh I'm gonna give them a compliment in a minute, but you know, a lot of times they got it well I mean they got other calls going on and other priorities. You know, PNN was not their top priority. Right? But it's important to our citizens. And if I'm gonna have code enforcement You know, and they they can go and at least if nothing else bothered the people. Um I th I think we should do it. If they're violating our ordinance on the safety, can't they can't code code enforcement Right of violation on a safety ordinance?
It's no.
Okay. But they can w so they can warn them or detain 'em, or let 'em know.
You can't detain them. Yeah.
Either way they can do They can hold a sign up
button.
Courtesy warning and then put a and carry a sign with them saying do not give to the the panhandler and the safety ordinance. Because you you can be fined. Something like that. What what happens and I and I'll give you an example, the latest one that's been going on, you've heard me probably talk about last meeting, meeting before. uh is this one guy out there with w with a sign that says, Why lie I need a beer. Yeah. He's out there all the time. He goes over from nineteen to fifty two Peacoods Drive. I see him all the time. He's got the same sign. Code did a great job getting out there the other
day. And they You know, Sheriff couldn't get there, so they go out there, he runs away and goes into a new Kia and drives away. Okay. So we're not talking about people that are doing anything more than scamming the system and going through and they're not a good for us society. They're not working. And I mean the guys dress good. And driving a new car. I mean and then Co's got that. He's going to he's going to court March fourth. And they're gonna take that and as as a discussion point. We need to I
I want to see our code people, and I told you this from the get-go of the budget, if I'm going to pay for extra code enforcement, the most important thing to me in my district is having those guys up there, making sure that if they see somebody out there, and when Pat or Odin came in a little little bit ago, they adjust the calendar, I think the previous year, to have a couple of guys work until it's dark. where they can go out there. Because a lot of times they'll be out there after five. So I want to see something done.
Suggestion. Um the sheriff has civilian Volunteers. Why don't we see if we can get a a group of them to do nineteen corridors. They have the official truck. They're in the uniform.
Thank you. You know, tell them that they're not allowed to be there. I
believe and I've sent the emails to
I just don't see code being able to do anything.
Well I send just so you know, when I send the emails out, I send it to Chase, Alex, and I send it to Pat and Pat Phillips too. So I mean I send it to both sides. Whoever can do something, go do it. Knowing if one's tied up. Or if if the sheriff's tied up that some something can happen to make something go. But continually they don't get there and they just keep on going.
I I will say driving back from Sarasota, uh I came up is that forty one? It had some other numbers on it too.
Well that you you could have come up
I didn't come up seventy five they said it was a parking lot.
Forty one, three oh one forty one or three oh one.
Yeah
in the two north south.
S somebody on every corner. Every corner had someone. In the middle, in the median? And people were giving them money. If people would just not give them money, they wouldn't stand there.
And again, if if there's enough attention to it, and we've and we've got the best ordinance that we've ever had to go work with this right-of-safety ordinance to use. I mean Lee County did it, we copied their thing, worked great for them. If we enforce it, I said that from the get go it will work. And that doesn't it doesn't have to be the sheriff. Our own code people could say it's illegal.
I don't think you have any extra code people.
I let me tell ya, it's more important to do anything else than go look at Bush's or other things
too. Well
if I'm telling you, take me on my my nineteen area, give me my district, let me go let me go work my code people how I want. Because I'm telling you right now my people are frustrated. Over and over again I hear it. Next thing. I wan do I do want to thank the Sheriff's Office. Uh Sonia saw this yesterday. I'm going to read to what she wrote down for me. Uh at the sh yesterday, the Sheriff's Office around 3 30, 4 o'clock, two PSO deputies in the left bound lane at the intersection of 54 and Little Road were seen intervening with a woman with a cardboard sign selling roses. Um I'll just
go I won't go to all the details, but they acted on it and I greatly appreciate it.
Awesome.
Type of thing we need. And that's all I have, sir.
That's all. Thank you. Mr. Kavala.