Live Local update and legislative appropriations report
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 6, 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 6, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 34m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 73% of 215 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
All right. Have we heard anything uh Ralph, do you want to give us a report?
Of some sort of local. Live local or or anything with legislature that might bring interest to us.
Ralph Ralph was here. He just walked he walked outside. Oh he did? Can you see if Ralph's out there?
Any just a second. So we hadn't heard of uh David, have you heard anything or
I I I had some initial exchange with Ralph and based on his early read, no change at this point in time but that there could be a late filed amendment, so he may be checking on some things. But that was as of uh two oh five when I texted him. Okay. So see if he comes back anything. Here he comes.
Oh.
what's it? It's great work.
We've been kind of waiting on kind of We didn't know if you had something
to report to
us or
not. Well you all have been focused on the local first Ralph Lair, Intergovernment Affairs Officer. Um right now no amendment has been filed. But no that late filed amendments could happen. So we'll wait and see. on the Live Local. There are other bills out there, but um I'm gonna concentrate on our appropriations. So going in to appropriations, House
and Senate this week will vote on their appropriations bills. and as it stands Out of our four items. Three have placeholders. We have to do that. the Parkway Boulevard uh sidewalk project. It's in the house side. Troby Road. Got put in on the Senate side. The Senior Center. Gotta
put it on the Senate side. So we're doing good. The only one that did not get in, Seapines. That can be a water project.
How the water came out?
That water projects? Only on the Senate side, not on the house side.
Oh.
Still have hope. So that's where we're at. I could go through the other ones. I think Pactor County. That's up to you all.
Yeah, that's your one what that one.
Alright, briefly, there is one for Pasco Fire. Has a placeholder on the Senate side for radio replacement. The sheriffs Has a placeholder on both sides. They got half of what they're asking for, so that's for their mental, uh, physical and emotional health center. Uh Dade City has one project in. It's basically in bringing money back for the intersection
of Meridian Avenue, St. Joe Road.
Is that for the roundabout?
It's not gonna be a roundabout now because we're gonna have a five point intersection now. I think they're gonna realign the road. Yeah. Uh New Portie has one project in play for their fire station and for their Mobile library branch. San Antonio has a placeholder for their elevated water tank. Which is their town center. S uh Or uh Saint Leo I should say. Saint Leo uh town
center has a placeholder on the Senate side. Zephyrhills has a placeholder for their Phase three septic to sewer. on South Side Transmission. Uh FTUA got a placeholder.
Oh we do?
Yes.
On the
Senate side. Yes.
Okay, uh how much?
Uh right now it's seven hundred and fifty thousand. It's just a placeholder.
Okay, so you have to tell me how to help them.
And skills as you know, it's in both sides.
There's a placeholder well I shouldn't say a placeholder, there's money in written in on the Senate side for a Florida National Guard armory. That just came up. So Uh back to the Zephyrhills. Oh
Zephyrhills.
Where that would be. So basically it's the money coming back. It was it was it was taken back because you haven't done anything. It's coming back to the uh to the city. So it's just still in play. Yeah. Uh Habitat for Humanity has a placeholder for their affordable home home ownership for Pinello San Pasco. There is a placeholder in place for the US forty one widening preliminary engineering. That's from fifty-two to the County Line
Road.
Is that the West Bay one?
There's um money in play now for Kirkland Ranch Land acquisition.
Oh really? For the uh like an e lamp or a For conservation.
It's actually the purchasing land so no building would be done on it.
Um there's money in play for the East Pasco Cultural Arts facility in Zephyrhills. There's money in play for Wilton Way Extension. There's money in play for Sun Lake uh Boulevard. There's money in play for the Pasco pedestrian over there.
Was it?
It's been in there but they're not ours.
Oh but I d I didn't think it got any
It got a placeholder.
A place on the Senate or the House?
Uh uh Senate uh for uh two of the projects, the Pada uh Pasco Pedestrians on the House side. So they're in play. going into conference. PHSC, campus nursing um facility at Porter Campus, got a placeholder on the house. The Academy of Spectrum Diversity, that was one that was a Burgess project, has a placeholder in the Senate that impact Pasco. Youth and Family Alternatives has a placeholder for their facility in
the house. And the public historical programs and educational opportunities at Zephyrhills Museum of Military History has a placeholder on both sides. And then finally, United Way of Pasco County, Transitional Housing for Survivors of Human Trafficking has a placeholder on both sides. So we have a lot of things in play that will impact Pasco County.
of all the different places people could ask for money and we we really want to encourage every nonprofit, everybody to go after.
So so we're seeing that, we're seeing that with our our municipalities, which except for Port Richey's the only one that didn't ask.
Yeah.
Um so they're really stepping up to the plate. It's not, you know, I think they all realize it's, you know, they just need to You know, look and see where they can get either the state or federal dollars and not always do the county.
Yeah. Well this is better than I I thought it was when we were up to the
right-of-way.
Once they pass these out. They'll probably announce conference. Probably around the time they come back from Easter. Or not Easter, but uh In in about a week or two they'll probably announce conference and then go into there and finish up as they end March eighth. That's the same way with the tax page package that has been brought up. That will be like the appropriations bill toward the
And when's the end? What's the end? Marth fourth or when did the eighth. March 8th.
March 8th. Friday, March 8th.
So what are we um I think we've we've lost our our real push that we had started because we've held up and held up and then we had conversation with FAC instead of the Oh, yeah.
We went into the
Should we go ahead and send a letter or just still be on hold and not do anything and then Get a bill that we're gonna have a hard time working with.
What's
the
suggestion from the I'm I'm I'm seeing an amendment filed. I don't know what the
that was filed this morning. That was filed this morning.
And and David's already reviewed that amendment.
I see. Thank you.
So no that it could be filed late. I think as far as the letters it's really the pleasure of the board at this point.
David wants some speak to it.
So I think John's recommendation would be that we send the letters out tomorrow, uh because then we'll know for sure what the Senate did or didn't do.
After after the hearing on
a legal standpoint, whether I send them this afternoon or tomorrow morning, there's no difference.
Okay.
So I don't think there's any harm to wait to see if there's a late filed bill or late filed amendment. I mean, it is the Senate President's Office, so if anybody could probably get away with filing things late, it's probably the Senate president. So I mean Jennifer said she was going to file Senate. Something. So I'm a little shocked that
Well there
isn't anything.
This amendment is is timestamped for today at one twenty five. And it is that's the one that I just the one that I just sent to the I'm
I'm getting reports that there's amendments currently being filed as of like fifteen seconds ago. So I think the bottom line here is is we need to pay attention. Um I think we stick to the plan. The plan is is if we don't see anything that represents what we've discussed here for for Pasco County in this forum, especially by Wednesday, then we we'll we'll make that decision and if we need to discuss it.
But Commissioner Oakley's point, the letters are ready to go. Okay. I mean and we've added email addresses and everything, so they're ready to go.
All right. So I think I think you should take the information we got between the chart, um, the s the verbatim you've written up as far as what they can uh uh put in into a bill, get that to our state senators and our state legisl uh state house house members too. And let them know we're we're still concerned very concerned about this. So in case in case something you're getting.
So he's give us a moment uh to review the amendment. Uh it was just filed at 221 by the sponsor of the bill. So it's he's gonna read to be looking at it on my phone, so.
Industrial was removed.
Did d did you get that from Sean? No, it's on
it's online right now. It just it just popped up.
There's a lot of language here, I apologize, I'm leaving this last thing here.
I'm not seeing our language. Or anything close to our link.
David, did you see that industrial was removed? Are we looking at the same thing?
So where you which line are you at?
Hmm, line twelve.
From Osgood.
Okay, me I don't know if we're looking at the same bill. Why line twelve? You're talking about floor too.
So he's
unless there's
multiple amendments. It's this one. He's reading that one. That's the late file amendment on the floor.
Oh, I'm sorry. He was on
the wrong one.
My mistake.
Okay. No, the version I'm looking at does not remove industrial. Nor does it have any of the language that we talked to Jennifer about yesterday.
It seems to just be m slight modifications to prior things dealing with like floor ratio and height in the airport airports.
Good.
This looks to be just sort of the technical changes that Jennifer described with Mike. I don't see I don't see R line moving here.
Mm-hmm. So I'd say we go with the plan after the it's after it's voted on in the Senate Chambers tomorrow. Then if we don't have the language you want, we fire the w fire the paperwork.
So Did you brought it up? So normal procedure. So tomorrow is the first uh time it'll be heard on the floor, uh and then they're scheduled for Senate on Thursday will when they'll take the final vote. Unless they roll it over. immediately, which they could do tomorrow and pass it out of the Senate. So so just know tomorrow they'll take up the amendments, they'll they'll talk, they'll have debate, and then the final vote would be on Thursday morning. Okay. When they're uh when they meet. And then I
don't anticipate so it'll Then be sent over to the house. They'll get it Friday. At this point I don't anticipate the House moving or hearing it in a committee until possibly next week, but until they get the bill, they're not acting on the bill. On their side.
But I would say according to Sean, it's unlikely that's unlikely that the House will not make it. They probably will not since this is the Senate President's bill, it's unlikely the House is going to make substance cleaners.
I mean let's say any any changes were gonna be something that that had to come from that office pretty much. Um anything that's gonna happen is gonna go that way, but at least we put it out there in front. So At least our members need to know about it. They need to make their comments however they think best to do it. But yeah, we we just need them informed.
So the talking points I put in some PowerPoint slides gave it to Mike. Mike repeated the M.
I was, I just forwarded it to you and uh to Commissioner Mariano. And I would then send it to all I would
send it
to
the entire delegation. So Robert.
So we got nothing.
The short answer is from what I'm reading, correct.
So thank you all.
You're welcome. Part of that problem we should have file those Never s sooner, but we were talking to what we thought was
President's office. Yeah. Commissioner Simpson did ask us to quote stand down until this week. We s you know went to this finished this process with this discussion with the Senate President's Office. And even the Senate President said, when this all started, said, I have a cell phone, let's talk about it first. If you don't like what I come up with, then go ahead and sue me. That was her quote in the paper. So now we're not suing the Senate president, I want to be clear. Right. She keeps saying that we
threaten to sue the Senate president, but our lawsuit is against the apartment complexes, not the Senate president.
Right.
I understand that. But um I think we we had a in my opinion it was it was a good faith effort to go try to get the law changed. And I think we made some good suggestions. Unfortunately Senate President didn't agree with us. So we're going to play M D. Yeah. Okay.
We have anything else we need to discuss today?
Well um let me ask let me see let me see if I have this right. Sorry was sending off a complaint. Cool. Because we're not gonna meet again before this session. I mean it's gonna be
tomorrow.
So do we have clear direction to what we want David to do?
Did you just say that and I just I think he does
so
okay I might miss Yeah so you
actually already gave me directions to go ahead and start the demand letter litigation process to wait so but but but we we did wait to see if we would get any movement with a legislative change. Our last hope was honestly Commissioner Simpson's discussion with the Senate President's Office If that didn't go anywhere, which appears it isn't going anywhere, then you've already given me direction to proceed with the demand letters and the litigation.
Do you think we should touch base with Weldon one more time?
I'll I'll call him alumni.
Well
I was just wondering if David's
the direction that I see is basically if the bill moves out of The Senate without any without the amendment language we're looking for. We we file we file the demand letters.
Because it can still change on the Senate floor, right, Ralph?
Yes.
It's a higher standard I believe. Ralph, would you have to do that?
I'll let Ralph speak to that. But uh that may be why Sean asked us to wait until the actual Senate vote. Right. Before we send any letters.
So possibly another amendment could be filed. It could be changed on the floor again. It's in the Senate. The President's in the seat. She's determined Bill. So if they're gonna change it, it's gonna happen tomorrow. Um could be another late filed or tonight another late file. So if you wanna wait until after that procedure tomorrow for you know, you can do that. And then they'll take the final vote more than likely on Thursday. Or they could roll it over tomorrow. But today
or tomorrow it's gonna be done. It's gonna be both
in the Senate, not on the Senate committee.
In on the floor. It's going to the full floor now. Okay. All
forty
com all forty senators will vote on it.
I think we owe Wilton uh respect to let him know that nothing We don't see that anything came out in the amendment that was helpful and that this is our plan. I think we sh we need to touch with him first. And then and wait till tomorrow.
Okay. Yeah we have to wait until Marnings, but I I plan to talk to him and the others as well.
I also um want to get the list of the FHFC applicants. Maybe we can even go ahead to see if any have applied yet. Um we may need our legs.
As you know, Representative Yeager was a little more successful in getting those lists than than we were. So my guess is if a legislator calls up and asks for the lists If we call we probably get answered that that won't be available until Friday when When when they're gone.
So I was thinking maybe we wait till Friday at five when it closes, but maybe we just go ahead and see if they can ask. What time is
it? Yeah, well I wanna be clear, if Pasco gets any more applications between now and Friday, we'd be sending demand letters to any new applications in Pasco.
Yeah.
Um I can't speak to what other jurisdictions might do.
I mean our best case scenarios, twenty five of 'em have applied in Leon County to come off. And well we get more people's attention at the crazy.
But but
No, I mean for us.
Yeah, that would change a lot of things.
I I just you know, we're s we're so standing alone on the island right now for But we gave them a fix that could fix that island.
Well from what I can tell they didn't do anything to help Gainesville either. From that from what I'm reading.
Because they were looking for some kind of student
I'm not seeing any language that addresses Gainesville's concern in that.
And it wasn't only Gainesville, the senator from Orange County spoke up about the housing around UCF.
Now, is it theoretically possible that that could be addressed in the tax bill, this you know, the future tax package? Yes, there is still that possibility that that they could not fix the land use side but still fix the tax side. It seems like a remote chance given that they didn't help us on the land use side, but is it still a possible yes.
I think by sending the demand letter out providing we're comfortable with that with S Commissioner Simpson and all, I think it might even send a message to the others instead of applying to see what plays out anyway. So it might might be better for us to do it period.
Yeah, and as much as I would like other jurisdictions to help us out, you know, my goal from the start of this was to protect Pasco County. And so that's where we got the demand letters, that's why we got the complaints drafted against the two in Pasco County, and we're prepared to sue any of the projects that come in in Pasco County.
Maybe we'll create our own carbo.
I did have a meeting yesterday with Mr. Karbala, David, Goldstein and David Engel with one of the Live Local applicants on fifty four and they are not gonna apply for the uh to go from C two to Live Local, but they they have, you know, vertical mixed use requests coming in.
So I would I wouldn't say that that that's a positive role. this is the the board's action directing us to sue any land use applicants in a vote live local has worked. A lot a lot of we've got a lot of projects that are just like the one you talked about, Commissioner Starkey, where they're originally gonna apply for the local, have backtracked and said we'll just go through the county's normal process and then they've then met with us to try to figure out what is it the county wants to get my project approved. So I think on the land use side We've
been s fairly successful in warding them off. Tax is a different story 'cause I don't know yet 'cause we haven't sent our demand letters yet on those two.
Well, I guess we'll I guess we're gonna find out.
Yeah.
So we're gonna wait till tomorrow to send them. And the day tomorrow.
Unless Commissioner Simpson directs us to take some other action. The Commissioner comes Commissioner Simpson without a due respect to Commissioner Simpson, if he asks us to stand down another day or two, I probably should honor that request. I agree.
Well the other the other thing is if the bull if the bill gets pulled from the Senate basically they temporarily pass it. Yeah then we'd wait until they took action.
Yeah, yeah, if they for some reason I guess that's possible Ralph, they could table it on the centaur. Stranger things have another
scenario.
I feel like we're really f shooting for a Hail Mary at this point. But but um but yes, that's a possibility too.
This is the first time in my career that I've dealt with anything like this. What uh six years in the school board and twelve years, eighteen years.
Yeah, yeah.
Well it's really strange bills. But we see we see bills coming toward us a lot of times um from state legislators that actually affect the way we can govern our own citizens and be able to do things and be able to afford the things we provide our citizens. So i they keep nibbling away at our authority to do anything, eventually I guess the state'll just run everything on their own and there won't be a need for a county commission or whatever 'cause they'll run
it from the state. So
I mean have you seen the ones coming out? Not a
very good scenario. So
the one coming out on permitting approvals. I I don't know how we're gonna comply with that one.
I was gonna say I applaud you all for being actively involved. This is r now you see how the process works. Know that you know Things might not get changed immediately the first year, but they continuously tweak and go back. So so we we'll probably be addressing this issue next year when we can, you know, possibly get a sponsor and and get to people that will wanna have it changed. I think by then we'll n the other local governments will see this in play. And and this year they'll see com people coming out their
tax rolls or uh large chunks coming out their tax rolls and they're gonna wake up and they're and they're gonna see. But There are other bills moving along in the process. One I I am gonna refer to um You know, when you said how do we make this up, we're gonna you know, it's it's forcing local governments to either change their millage Or raise our taxes. But this year the legislature has also got a bill that addresses how you all can raise your millage rate and taxes. Uh
going forward if this bill passed, which it looks like it will. You'll have to have a supermajority of your voting board. Um to approve those.
Mr. Chairman? Yes sir. I'd like to say Ralph, you uh Sean did a phenomenal job getting with us, setting up the meetings that we had, going through everything, keeping us informed every step of the way. You guys have done a phenomenal job. Mike, you you really made a d a big step up this year to you know, after your s first time through, the second time through with this one really, really well, even joining with Penels and Hills Row. So I think we're representing ourselves the best we can. Um you know, Jeff and David, you guys have been great uh to work with, staying on top of
it with great ideas, great suggestions, even going up there to testify or let's say discuss this I should say. Uh so I I think we've done as best we can And whatever it happens we just gotta keep on battling.
We have a lot of silent cheerleaders. Um there's a lot of s there's a lot of cities and counties that when you talk to them privately say they support the action we're taking. The problem is that very few of them are willing to be the tip of the spear like us. Right. So um This may just be one of those cases where we are at the tip of the spear.
Well you can only uh appreciate everything the board members do and and our staff with our help and our leadership to be forefront of this position and actually it's all of us working toward helping our citizens. So we don't want to raise our taxes over the next few years to take care of people that get a free ride. We want people that come in and do things to actually do them based on their own services
they require. So um none of us want to raise taxes on on our citizens whatsoever. So But I look forward to working with each and every one of you in the future to Work at things that makes this kind of thing not happen. So Well it I think we got a lot going for Pasco County. And it seems like it's way ahead of whatever comes in second. So uh I appreciate each and
every one and all our staff.
Okay. Anything anything else to come before the board?
Um, I have one question for Ralph. Do that um mobility fee bill, do we need to be paying attention to that or does that not really affect us much?
It's it's still moving. Uh I'll be I'm going through bills right now.
We're not moving this week or heard in their first committee. Good thing is is they're not gonna go anywhere. So this was the week that I was really following that you know I've been caught up with little local but I'm in the back there going through all the bills to see where they're moving. So I'll have s an update by the end of the week.
Well let me just finish off.
So I have looked at the the inflation we're in current draft and it's not a model of clarity, but I don't think there's anything that's like Herschel.
It's primarily trying to deal with an issue between cities and counties and
It it basically requires cities to collect the fees for the cities and counties to collect this this fees for the counties and we're supposed to address extra jurisdictional impacts in our fees, which I think we already do. It's probably a bigger issue for our cities than it is for us. Right.
So this is this is a fight between Saint Lucie County and Port St. Lucie as well. Oh, that was
Palm Beach Gardens.
And there there's a similar one going on in Palm Beach County as well.
Yeah. So our cities may have an issue if if the way they're collecting their fees are not dealing with county impacts. But we can our cities cooperate with us fairly well and we're doing amendments to our interlocal agreements with them. So I I think We have a because we have a good relationship with our cities, I think we could work it out with our cities.
And what about the homestead exemption where it goes up to a hundred thousand? Is that dead or is that still moving? 'Cause we'd have a double whammy with this ad valorem thing and then the the extended homestead exemption.
There's only that one's not moving anywhere. They only uh there's some homestead exemptions for additional for um uh allowing the surviving spouses of of disabled individuals to continue the homestead. Nothing major. There's th there's three that are actively moving. I already I've already shared that. Um um with our our budget office. So they're they're reviewing that now. I I will say one bill that that gained traction yesterday because the governor had a press conference on it was a new bill that came to
light. Um I mean Kathy Pearson was up in Tallahause. She came back and told me about a bill that I started looking at and that was uh public camping. Um Uh you know, all b or camping in public areas addressing the homelessness. Um that'll be interesting to see how that one plays out, but I have a feeling that one was given blessing yesterday and that one will pass.
But it comes with money.
Yes, it comes with money and it and the good thing is is it doesn't enforce it says if if municipalities and counties would like to uh house their homeless, they can do so but with stipulations. You have to have a uh temporary permit from the state. Um they would have to have twenty-four seven security, uh they would have to uh provide mental health care. And they'd have to have restrooms on the uh
But isn't this a way to help us get some funding for the project we're trying to do over on the west side? I mean it sounds like exactly what we're trying to do, so I feel like we should be teed up ready to apply with that project.
Possibility we can look we'll w and and I think we will look at that. I I don't know I don't think it's gonna be a large amount of money, but yeah, there's there there will be money going toward it. We've got to see how that works out as this bill uh develops.
Is Kathy still here?
She is
Do you um do you think that our project that um we're n I think we're in negotiations, I don't know, that this quad this state one would help us with funding for that?
Yeah.
Kathy Pearson, Assistant County Administrator of Public Services. This this bill came out of nowhere, to be honest with you. Um I just happened to be up in Tallahassee and the lobbyist that represents the homeless coalitions, I happen to run into him and that's how we found out about this. So um I didn't even know there was money attached to it. So that's a good thing. So we'll we'll see where this goes.
Okay. Um I can send that out. Um someone sent it to me. I looked for it online, um, but but William Crozier sent it to me about this bill. Um which reminds me yesterday I was at the uh ha uh Metropolitan Ministries had an event yesterday and so they've applied for new market tax credits. Um and so it's freeing up quite a few million dollars extra that they didn't think they were gonna have so they're gonna be able to redo their
commercial kitchen. and added like a dining room uh kind of feature and they're putting back in their culinary training academy. So they're gonna be teaching um people had to be um daycare provider licensed day care providers, culinary and then we partner with them at Anskill so Exciting exciting stuff for holiday.
I'll form this to you guys.