School green space, Wisteria road, golf carts
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, May 17, 2022
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, May 17, 2022
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 5m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 100% of 14 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Okay, I I'll go next and then we'll let Dan go. Um Commissioner, I want to talk to you about the schools issue. So that was one of the things I ran on when I ran for school board and I tried and tried and tried to get the school district to get rid of the fences. Um and the way it works at Pasco County Schools is they uh they give the map of the school when they're building a new school to the principal. and they let the pr they say where do you want your fences? and they have carte blanche to wrap
up the schools and keep the public out. And it's you know, I grew up Playing on school grass, you know, after school in the summers, flag football, whatever. Um and I and I would take pictures all through Florida and all through the country of other school districts who don't do that. And a great example of schools that don't do that here in Pasco County and I think the n community would have a fit are the ones in Dade City. They are not fenced. So
um the school feels that it's um keeps the school protected from vandalism. I went to a national school board association meeting And um Went to a seminar on school safety. This was after the Columbine shootings. And their national experts said those fences all those fences do is keep good people in. And um and s because someone who's gonna vandalize the school isn't gonna be stopped by a four
foot or six foot chain link fence. But um one of the tenants of of a community like say like Longleaf, Um where we put a school in the middle of it and couldn't get the fence removed, is that When there are more people walking around And when there are more people with eyes on something, it's safer. I i if no one's there, no one's seeing what the bad actors are doing. So there are ways to keep schools safe. I there's no reason for someone to be walking the school the halls
of a school in the summer. But certainly the green space, which is taxpayer funded, should be open. So what and Dave and I have worked on this forever and ever and ever. And I do believe we have three schools whose print the way the school district did it did it, if I recall, is that they let the print they put it out there to the principals and the principals in the county had the opportunity to decide if they wanted to be a park. Um and work with us and I have no idea how that's going. That the idea is
that when school is out, it's similar to what we did at Starkey K eight, so we do have that one. When school is out, the county um takes over the green space and it it acts and functions as a county park and we take on the liability and when school starts then it's the school district's liability. So I I'm frust very frustrated by the um The lack of action on the school district. So Yes.
Follow up please? Yes. Okay. So Longleaf, there's supposed to be three schools or four schools that are in agreements and opening after school and on weekends. They are Longleaf, um, Schrader and B Bayonet Point
Middle School and I believe there is a fourth school. It's one by Kelly.
Um I don't remember the name of that one by you. That's supposed to be uh open as well.
And w after speaking at a meeting, Ray Gad did say he was in agreement and he would push to move forward with this, which I would be really excited and if we could even I don't know how long it would take, but if we could do this after school weekends and of course we have summer coming up. And if we can even team up with HOAs or someone in the community, if the schools or we don't have The manpower to go out and give keys to everyone, then maybe the president of the HOA can delegate someone to help and coordinate opening
the schools before and after school. So I think it's really important. I do believe we have uh an RLS for a request for legal services in this area. So I am can continue to work on that and I would like to see this move forward.
I think it may take legislation personally until Um Okay, so moving on. Um I uh did go out to Wisteria. Um if you remember we had the hearing um w about the road and we told the engineers um Uh with K B. Holmes that we Wanted that road to go north. and apparently some stakes were put out that got some people very upset. So we had a big meeting out there with their engineers and
our folks and Ray Gad and and um the other engineer from Tampa Civil, I don't remember his name, that lives on that road. And um we think we came up with a really good um solution that everyone was happy with. So the engineers from KB, I think it's FDC, not 100% sure, are redoing the road design. And um so as soon as that is done, I'd like to see it and to share it with the residents on Wisteria Loop, please.
Um Um I uh another thing that I think we should still work on are are being able to cross state roads and golf carts. I don't understand why if you can cross it on pedestrian, it's un unsafe to cross it in a golf cart. It makes no sense to me. You get across faster. So just all of us we need to keep hammering that. And that's all I'm gonna say for today. And I'm gonna turn it over to Dan Boss.