Commissioner Starkey report on trips and county items

1:50:59Oh boy. Okay. Um so I wasn't here at the last meeting because I was at my uh first and then your last meeting. No, I'm gonna I'm gonna go fast because I'm gonna move all the C and you stuff. This is the um unfortunately they had it on my my schedule for a half hour later, so I was driving into the Tree of Life celebration. as everyone was driving out. But um some people were still there and I met some of the families. But I don't didn't know if you guys saw who they were honoring. So this is the poster that they were putting out so I

1:51:30think this was a really cool idea. And um

1:51:35I think the decision was made not to plant a tree, but I I do hope it did plant a tree. I think we can make that work. And um so uh hopefully we don't have to do this too often. And for those who don't know what this is, this is for our members who have passed away.

1:51:52My county and here's the uh that's the that's a beautiful etching of the tree of life there and we've got some of these benches and um and then there is a tree planted behind us, but uh nice little what do you remember what parking lot that is? Parking lot four maybe? Seven? Parking lot seven, so great job parks department.

1:52:12This is uh my staff um doing the with the the holiday cleanup. We had 25 tons. We'll never beat in Lake, but maybe that's a good one. Um we also had the pop-up pantry there at the same time, which I which worked out to be a great um uh partnership. So um thanks Grace's Pantry and we serve 210 families and a few pets. Um this is the NACO WIR conference that I attended. Um

1:52:43it was an interesting meeting because it the WIR at NACO is the Western Interstate I can't remember what the R stands. Region Region. And it's seventeen western states. And they were actually formed before DACO was formed. And so the agreement was that um they would fold into um NACO but still have their own a little bit of autonomy, and so they meet once a year, and this is our um joint board meeting. This is where I'm sitting here, is the

1:53:13NACO board meeting. Um California's Association, which is like our fact. Also chose to be there at the same time. I think everyone was looking to support Maui, who you know they had that devastating fire, and it really affected their tourism badly, which is how that most of they get most of the revenue. So um big, big economic shot for Maui County. Um this is a field trip that I did Uh it's to their pineapple

1:53:43farm and It was really upsetting to me. because they line their um their rows with this plastic and then when they're done with the pine harvesting the pineapples, which you only get one per plant. They literally disped that up. And let it sit for three years. So if you look in in between the rows, it's all little pieces of plastic. And um I I

1:54:14hope that Florida has rules that When you put this plastic down you have to pay that. Because that's just blowing into the and blow and into the you know, that's just not a good system. But anyway, um I'm still eating that pineapple. Um This is the um John Hopkins uh topping off. Once again, I as a board member of John Hopkins, they picked a day when I was was not able to be there. They have promised me when we do the ribbon cutting ceremony

1:54:44I will be able to be there, but I'm really excited for uh the progress on the hospital. And um And we actually uh I don't know if I could announce the name yet, but it looks like we have gotten a naming sponsor for the hotel for the hospital. And um we'll unless they announced it there, did if you were the Were you there? You said you were there. Did they announce the naming sponsor yet? Okay. So so looks like we we have uh someone who's gonna be a big benefactor

1:55:15for the the hospital. Um Okay, we uh nine of us attended the CNU conference. Um these are some photos from there. Um I'll just point out these and then I'm gonna ask for David and David and Patrick. And um all those and you if you don't mind, if we could all get together and do our notes and best practices from everything that we saw, because we all went different places and then we'll come back and report to the county. Um just to

1:55:45show you some of what's going on here, um on the left, Lisa and I did a three hour bike tour. And um This is uh a bike trail that goes right through the the county and um that's the two lane bike lane there on the right and then they have a sidewalk for pedestrians that's a little elevated on the left. They paint it red because that's what they do in Copenhagen and that it's a a best practice, so um that was uh Something I was gonna feature. We

1:56:16then we Lisa and I did a scooter ride, which might have been our best one. I don't know if the bike or the scooter ride was the best. That's um me and Lisa and Eric Hoover and Patrick Dutter. This is very interesting on the right. This is part of the bike ride Lisa and I did. We were going out to Kohler Preserve, which is the same bike trip, bike park like what we're building over in villages of Pasadena Hills. They took a two lane ro four lane divided road with a turn lane in the middle And they

1:56:46did what's called a road diet. And so you see the bike trail is on the right. The uh And then where we're parking all our bikes, I don't know if there's a hundred of us or fifty six, seventy Um that is where they have the on street parking now for the park that they're building on the right hand side. And I have another picture somewhere to show you. But that was an amazing, amazing transformation of that that four lane divide plus a turn lane down

1:57:16the middle road to a two lane road, a row of on street parking, and then a bike trail. Um so we will discuss that later. Lots of great stuff from that trip. Um my staff volunteered at the Habitat for Humanity at a home and holiday. It's gonna be dedicated next month. Um uh while we were at the CNU conference, uh we had a Florida meet up so all the people from Florida met after one of the long days and Whit Blanton

1:57:46was there. Yeah, from Penellas County. And he said that Pinellas County voted to do the change at the TMA, Commissioner Weightman, that we were looking for. And and Hillsborough County also agreed that they would drop one person from their group and add it to us. So now Pasco and Penellas have a majority of thirteen people if we vote together.

1:58:09So that would be thirteen to twelve. That would be six better. Six for us and seven to them.

1:58:16I don't I don't remember I I think it's I think it's Uh what did we have before? I don't know. Five. I just know that if you add Penellas and Pasco together now it's thirteen, that's what we wanted. And Hillsboro has twelve. So the

1:58:32what

1:58:32was

1:58:33that's

1:58:33that was the important

1:58:34what was rec what was recommended What I saw last and Uh wasn't Palatable.

1:58:42Yeah, so this is better. We always wanted to have the Pasco Penellists voting together majority.

1:58:49We have always voted pretty well together.

1:58:52Yes, exactly. All right, um you know we did the give out on the trees. Um I don't know if Pete's still here. But I know my sister in law went to the park to get a tree and boom, they were gone. So those trees were super popular. Last year we didn't get rid of all our trees and we planted them on county property. So um I wanna Wanna expand um the trees. It's a great program and thank you guys. Keith, yeah, if you want to just give a little report on our Arbor Day I

1:59:23I heard a lot of people talking about it. A lot of people.

1:59:27Yeah, yeah. Um Keith Wiley, Director of Parks Recreation Natural Resources. Yeah, I think we we underestimated the uh popularity of the event. Um got a couple phone calls that morning, uh fairly early. And I think we uh like summer day camp it was pretty much uh over before, you know, as soon as it opened. So we're gonna be doing another event in the fall. And we're gonna probably go three times uh the acquisition and just kinda do a redo. So

1:59:53our citizens loved them. I love

1:59:56that.

1:59:57Um, you know, thinking about the woman from Green Key this morning, I just still really wanna hold a landowner responsibility for Degrading their neighborhood like that. And so we st I still don't have a clear picture of what the enforcement is for that. And if we have to do legislative changes, I think we need to talk about that and workshop that because it took me a year to clean up that lot on 19 because the guy lived

2:00:29And um and that that's just not right.

2:00:31If I could for the a little help with that, Jeff, would you re resend the list of violations that happened with the traditional homeless camp so we can all look at the violations of code so everybody can see it?

2:00:42Be happy to.

2:00:42Thank you.

2:00:43Um I had a uh a nationwide call with FAC yesterday on uh the housing bill. It is being debated today. Up in Washington. Um they are have a they took out the C D P G D R Something happened with the CDBGDR. It's not gonna affect us, but I I want our staff to be paying attention to the housing bill that's going through. The Senate wanted to keep it in and lock it in, but the House did not. So we may need to make

2:01:13some phone calls. But I sent Katie three slides from that. Did those show up? No? All right. Katie, if you're listening. Send those slides and if not I'll show them to you later but so

2:01:27we can we can come back to it.

2:01:28Yeah we can come back to um what's happening with the new housing bill and um I am in the midst of writing uh language like what we discussed about for the vouchers and Mike I wanted to run this thought by you because I'll be presenting it in um New Orleans. So so right now um local preference first is really kind of just a suggestion for our housing vouchers. And um they're required to they were required to

2:01:59advertise once a year when they opened up for the lottery. And um if you recall it takes one day to be considered a Pasco County resident. And I'm telling you none of the commissioners around the country know this is going on. And so I am suggesting and a and if you remember sixty percent of the people with housing vouchers in Penellas County are from Adam County. Forty percent of ours are from Addict County. And if you only got to live for one day, what does that really mean? So my suggestion that I'm going to put in this

2:02:29is that 80% of the available housing vouchers must go to a Pasco County resident who's lived here for over a year. And of the twenty percent, preference will be go to those who have family or job in the county. We're not just gonna import the world's problems into our vouch um into our vouchulas is my suggestion. So Um any thoughts on on that?

2:02:56I think we should go to DC. Well this

2:02:58is gonna have to happen in DC. Yeah. Yeah.

2:03:01Okay.

2:03:02We have to go um make make our case. Ralph

2:03:06and Ralph and Ballard are working on that federal agenda and we can tack that on and and we're working on a plan.

2:03:12And then and I will work on it through my committee. But if my committee doesn't approve it, uh we're gonna take it up even just on our own. All right. Um And on that lot on on uh Jasmine and Little with all the motorcycles, is there a way Do you have to have permission to tur to do that? I mean what's what are the rules on that? Conditional use. Because I wouldn't want two strokes running around behind my house. That should

2:03:35be a conditional use.

2:03:36Well what's the enforcement?

2:03:37It it depends. I it it if they create a motorcycle track Like was done out outside of Dade City, then they need a conditional use. If they are just using ATVs on or motorcycles on their property, generally it's fair use of the property. Um Well that they're We'd have to look into exactly what's happening on the property to see Well

2:04:08you can go go to Google Earth

2:04:10like I just did and there's there's tracks all over that property. Okay.

2:04:14Okay. Is that an anything else for you? Do you want to wait until after break or do you want to do it now?

2:04:20I I will be super

2:04:21Okay.

2:04:22You know what I'll wait.

2:04:23Okay. Uh we'll wait in here. Are we gonna break for lunch? We'll be back at one thirty.