Commissioner Starkey Tallahassee code enforcement demolition backlog

1:13:17Oh boy. Okay. Well I've got a last, but I just okay. Um, so first I wanna show you uh well I went to Tallahassee last week. Derek and I and Tom Adono as well. We had um quite a few appointments, and I will um thank Sean and

1:13:39Oh, Sam for setting them up for us and and uh Ralph. And um we met with Jared Oakes. If you remember Jared, he uh was uh uh Um what was what was his title then? Uh Speaker Corcoran's um Chief of Staff, maybe. I don't know what his title was when he was up there but um Pasco County m uh guy and he is now uh Chancellor at over at D Department of Education. So we met with Jared, with Henry Mack, the adult

1:14:09education chancellor. Um they are very impressed with what we're doing and um asked us to put a white paper together for a proposal to Do a pilot study for our county and Penales County in helping STEM education career academies. We also met with Alison Flynn, again the vocational rehab director for Department of Education. We met with Michelle Denard, the president of Career Source Florida. We met with Stephanie Kopalak

1:14:40Copalousis who is um the new Chief of Staff for the Governor. That was very eerie. We met at seven thirty in the morning in the Capitol building. It's like a it's like a desert up there. No one's up there. And um But I've never been to a seven thirty meeting before. I try not to go to those, but Um, but she is uh a friend of a friend and it's great to have a contact like that in the in the governor's office. Um Uh we also met with Dane Eagle, the uh

1:15:11The head of Department of Economic Opportunity. And I think we're missing one here. We met with the um head of Um Enterprise Florida. who is also from uh Tampa Bay area, Jamal Worked at the Port of Tampa? Gotta put this on my list for thank yous. Um so uh Um we met with Kevin Guthrie, you know, the head of the uh Division of Emergency Management. He used to be our guy. And

1:15:41also Representative Josie Tomco and Amber Mariano among others. So Um In discussions with Kevin Uh we brought up Willowbrook, um which is in Commissioner Mariano's district, but as you know, since I've been up there meeting with some of the state officials, we we've tried to help the folks on that street who I don't know, for two years now, cannot walk home. I cannot drive home, cannot have mail delivered, cannot have garbage pickup.

1:16:12because of the s of the road in front of their house is condemned. Um And they he brought together a team while we were sitting there and um they are trying to find solutions within the federal guidelines guidelines that can help Those poor people who you know, have really can't sell their homes. No one no one's gonna buy a house that's on a road that is in danger of collapsing. So I'm I'm real um excited that they're gonna try and help us. One he had a really bright young

1:16:42girl in there named Maddie, I don't remember her title. But she's actually looking for Um, unusual ways to find uh funding and one of the ideas she brought up was um in in the earthquake um funding. Because this is a uh They can they have GPS that shows that the ground has moved. And so anyway, they're they're looking hard for ways that we can find funding to help help buy that out. Um sorry my phone is ringing here. So

1:17:12um let's see, he said uh So just so so she all know it'll take about 2.3 million to buy out all the homes. There's eleven homes impacted, and six are completely restricted from direct access. Um Uh then um we also talked about uh the uh Alfers Parkway. And as you know, Kevin set us up with a great federal program that would buy out a hundred percent of the home's value plus give them money

1:17:42to move. and um and down payment assistance and we are Um we're struggling with that program and I don't think we have anybody under contract yet. So I wanted to Make them aware of that and see if there's anything we can they can do to help us get that program at least buy some of those houses out on Elfers Parkway because that's a disaster over there. Um I have s a video that I wanted to show you. From Tallahassee? D are

1:18:12you able to play that?

1:18:16This is as I was leaving. Um this is what Leon County does for trails. You know I can't ever have a commissioner items without trails in it. And I wanted to show you this video. Um

1:18:29And I I just over the years going to Tallahassee I've been so impressed with their trails program. But notice their trail on the side of the road. This is what I talk about when I say we should just buy a little bit more land and move the trail off the edge. Now every once in a while it comes right to the edge. Um and there's a there's a bus pull out there. But You can you can see that they take it away from the edge. There's landscaping to the left, there's landscaping to the right. And to me, that's just the represent a

1:18:59representative of a Great. Trails plan. And they do this all over the city like that. So, Um and uh you can notice their medians too are very nicely landscaped, but look at that trail. Now that that's a trail that's gonna get a lot of use. And that that's just beautiful. Um, okay, then I want to show you some of my drive-around holiday photos. And um a couple of these I've sent

1:19:29in a couple of times to code and I know that I keep them very, very busy. But I just wanna try and end this for my neighborhoods. And so this is what I seek. You know, we don't require garbage garbage pickup. So um if you could keep sliding through. Um this is what I find. And and and look at that road um that I hope we will pave soon. Keep going. This is uh Holiday Drive.

1:20:00That's uh I'm pretty sure that's the condemned trailer, and I'm gonna talk about the combination program in a second. Um but there are this is this one You're gonna see another photo from this house. Let me tell you that this is wait, if you could go back one Um this is the trailer this is a travel trailer from nineteen sixty. That is behind the Wawa on 19. This is where all the people that like to hang out at the Wawa and the bus stop that we took away. Um this

1:20:30is where they hang out. Uh when I visited this house and there were three fatalities here a couple months ago, drug drug shootings and uh talked with some of these people but yeah it was crazy I shouldn't have gone alone. Um But the woman who owns this travel trailer It's not a it's not a Mobile home. It's a travel trailer. She did not know the name of anyone who was hanging there on her porch and there must have been ten guys and women. Lloyd

1:21:01on her porch. And they did not know her name. So this is a really, really sad situation that I am really hopeful We can help that woman. Um get this condemned. The poor guy who lives next door, this is He's the one that always brings me sends me these photos and I go take my own. But this is from A couple of days ago and okay, keep keep sliding through. And uh and and the condemned mobile home is across the street by the way. This is another this is another house. I think this is on Trouble Creek. Which

1:21:33I you know, I I don't That's a very heavily traveled road and we we shouldn't wait for me to be turning these in. That's my problem with reactive code enforcement. Keep going. And you can see it piled up over there. Keep going. So there this is this is that one, this is from March eleventh. The other one was more recent and it just keeps piling and piling. So I don't you know, imagine what that smells like and what the rats are doing in that that street. So keep going? I think I have more. Is

1:22:04that it? Okay. Oh the oh the how the car? Yeah, it's really short. Also uh by not having code enforcement on weekends, I find that um The car dealers Like to um They take advantage of us. What happened to the car?

1:22:26Instead of calling code enforcement, I went ahead and just called the dealership and I I asked him to move the car. But he puts that I frequently see this out on nineteen. Can you freeze it? Well i it's it's on the other side. It's it's that is such a ch safety hazard right there, putting that car out on the high that's that's that is the edge of nineteen right there. So um I asked him to move it in and Um but I think we need someone to go up and down And

1:22:56and work on the weekend so they stop they stopped doing this. So is that in the medium? Just about. Yeah. But that's a that's a safety hazard when you're coming out. Um So This is all for my plea to uh every year as we go through the budget process to add more people to code enforcement because as you can see We still have issues. Um and Commissioner Mariano, I drove up to Whitney Seafood. I've driven up there twice in the last few weeks. And

1:23:26I just see so many violations up on fifty-two north of where I usually drive. There's there's signs that don't have any faces on them. There are companies who are placing advertisement out on the street. I see more used car dealerships that have moved in that weren't there, you know, six months ago. Um I just see so many violations and And I do I I I turn mine in and I am really seeing I

1:23:57think holiday and US nineteen looking better. It's taken eight years to get a lot of those signs gone. But when those old nasty empty signs are turned in It starts o'clock and code enforcement notifies the business that they have six months to f to fix that sign and if it's nothing happens or the business is vacant in six months, they have to cut it down and take it out. And it really does make a difference when those old ugly abandoned signs or broken signs come

1:24:27out. So Um I would encourage More code enforcement up in that area as well. And um And then lastly, uh I want to talk about demolitions because when I showed you that photo, one of those trailers on Holiday Drive. was a trailer that's been slated for demolition for over a year. And Christy came and spoke to us about six six months ago or four months ago about the demolition program. And um When the HRE team took

1:24:57over handling all of these, they inherited two hundred demolitions. And we we still have a huge backlog. And we had talked about hiring another team to go out and do it. So The net here are some numbers from March uh 21 for this fiscal year. We had 167 requests for demolition investigations. as of March fifth for the year Wow, FY twenty one. A hundred and forty two formal investigations have been completed.

1:25:28A hundred and two have resulted in determination. Thirty were unfounded. So, but we only took down Twenty one structures. That's how that's how big that backlog is. So we need to Take down more of these Uh quickly. Twenty three we had twenty three owner demolitions in twenty one. Thirty I don't really understand what she's saying, fiscal year twenty one, so is that Because we're in twenty one now. So is that

1:25:58from October to now, is she saying? Okay. Thirty-one uh property information reports ordered and received from the vendor. We have thirty eight orders to demolish and process and recorded. Since October first. eight liens processed and recorded and twelve appeals have been heard and all were successfully defended so Um we have an opportunity to give someone some business. They can uh start a demolition company and we have lots of work for you. So

1:26:29I would really like us, Sally, to um I don't know what needs to be done to hire another demolition company, but I'd like to speed up the demolitions and and as we do the demolitions I want there to be an automatic No trespassing sign goes up and is registered with the sheriff. So if squatters come in like what happened on 19. we can immediately evict them because we we had to search for that that owner who lives out of state. So Thankfully we were able to find him. However All

1:26:59that trash that they brought onto that lot on in holiday right on 19 is still there. And we have a we have a court um date in April. But um You know, so what, the trash is all gonna sit there piling up for another month? So um I think that's enough for today. All right. Thank you.

1:27:24Well just to add something to what you're saying, Christy Sims and their group that's that's been going that during COVID. They did a lot of good things in that group and cleaned up a lot of things. better than they had in the been able to do in the past. So they're moving a lot of things forward and hopefully that that group will do even greater things this year. So

1:27:45Well I've heard that we're making a good job. Well I know and I I you know I heard that we have stripped the litigation nuisance properties, PSO properties, fire priorities. um out of the business plan for the HRE. So I again I think we said last time we really like that program. We don't want it messed with. It's been very successful. They just need more help. Um getting these condemned um uh businesses or homes and business and buildings out of

1:28:16here. Um but frustrating about the HRE program. All right,

1:28:21that's fast frustrating.