Commissioner Mariano Ridge Road and canal dredging

1:39:20Thank you. Is there anything else besides that that you wanna bring up in Commissioner Oakley?

1:39:24Well, I think it's important that If we're gonna decrease someone's tax bill and have the whole county pay, then we decrease it to what the county average is. That's what I have to say. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Mariano?

1:39:38Thank you. Um I wanna say that uh delighted to have Ridge Road open. Um I do think that You know, I I'd like to see us do something again, Dan. We've talked about it, something more to get make sure we get our federal representatives, our state representative that helped us with getting that road open. It took a major effort and a lot of focus. So at some point Maybe it's one by the the thing around it, whatever, but just let's get everybody out there together to to celebrate 'cause it is it's an amazing accomplishment to get that road done. It's a sad statement

1:40:08of government to take twenty years to get the road done as well, but uh glad to see it done. And uh Dan, I got news for you. It didn't help me on fifty two this morning coming in.

1:40:19It did or did not? It

1:40:20did not. I

1:40:21know

1:40:22twenty minute backlog.

1:40:23I didn't go that way.

1:40:24So and you know who knows what's what's causing that. But anyway, it's good to see construction out there. Pepper's doing some work out there, so it's good to see stuffs rolling. That might have been part of it with the driver slowing stuff down. So it's good to see that going on, but uh can't come quick enough. Well you

1:40:37can't go north on it. So

1:40:38Yes. February. February. All right. And a question for Jeff. I think we've got this coming forward. The right-of-way ordinance. We're still doing work on that, but it's going to be coming forward soon. Yes. Okay. And I know I'm going to just mention this briefly and I'm not looking for an answer right now, but um last night I was at Leisure Beach. A year ago, September, I guess as Marsha had said, it was we had a meeting with them and we said it was gonna be about

1:41:05by September we should have the reports done, we're gonna go out for a bit, et cetera. And we found that that didn't happen. the work we had done wasn't enough to go out for bid. It's now sitting with the economy's attorney attorney's office because the projects bigger than the numbers, uh, so we're gonna have to work together. I've got a meeting scheduled Not next week, but the week after. With Dan, Jeff, Mike, and Bob Goering to actually talk about what we can do to get this whole process moving,

1:41:36put a timeline together. At the meeting last night, again, Leisure Beach on the canals, uh, there was a few suggestions, and one of them I really like that I want to bring forward. Uh a gentleman suggested and I uh to set up a waterway committee. No, I w I think with the Waterway Committee we can reach out to the neighborhoods and and even the yacht clubs or boat clubs, et cetera, from Bailey's Bluff all the way up to Sun West, Seapines. and let each one of them have a representative there to go talk about what they want to see done and let them keep an eye on

1:42:06their areas as this come forward. Uh the gentleman was actually from Marco Island. Moved up from there to here. 'Cause he thinks this is a jewel up here. Uh we had another gentleman who just moved over from Dade City over on the water. And he's got A total of a half a million dollars worth of boats. He's done damage to both of them already. Uh he says, you know, I might have to go to Hernando Beach. Uh he actually knows Commissioner Oakley. I says, Look. We're gonna try to work on this, try to get it going. But I think if we set this committee up And again, I don't think we'd need a board member to sit

1:42:36on it, kinda like we did with the Water Committee. Let them go kind of get together. They can get organized and they can talk about their things and we can talk about how to do it. One thing I think we need to do at this point. Because we're looking at I I think a previous meeting we talked about Driftwood. uh Westport and Sea Pines to be added into the mix. We thought it would be quicker. with the ones we first picked picked because they were all maintenance dredgers. The time it's taken is so long that people don't want to wait. They're not going to wait to 2026, right?

1:43:06They want something done quicker than that. We're going to work in that timeline. Uh Commissioner Starkey, uh Chairman Starkey, as you mentioned before, like an MSB might be the way to go. And I had agreed with that and I agree with it in the form of what they did with the paving assessment at Highlands up in Shady Hills area. They had ten areas to do a paving assessment. Uh Mike Carbello and his team did a phenomenal job. separating each area from one that was roads that were just done, that were in good shape. Others that were dirt roads, others were roads that were paved before. So it was all different levels of service that

1:43:36were needed, different work to be done. These canals are going to be the same thing. I think we need to go look at and part of the conversation and the meeting coming up will be setting up that MSPU. So I can wait till the next meeting to go talk about it then or whatever, but It's something I want to get started so we can be ready for next year. Even if we don't have numbers together yet, kinda like we did Magnoly Valley, let's get the framework in place and let the people know. They're gonna be sharing in the uh the the the cost that are gonna be done to the done done the thing all the way through.

1:44:07Yeah. Those will be worked in parallel. Okay. The M SBU is being worked on on the public infrastructure finance side while public works is working. the planning, design, and permitting issue. So Okay. So I and I think when we sit down in a couple of weeks we'll work you through a timeline.

1:44:23And and I like and I think I think we need to see because the people asked for it last night is a work plan as far what's going to happen, when's it going to happen, what are the timelines, et cetera. And That's all I have. Thank you.

1:44:35Okay. Um Uh do I go to Ms. Biles next? Doctor do you? Can administrate?

1:44:42I think so. Okay. So just a couple of things. Uh we're almost we're out of almost out of time. So I'm not gonna have Ralph come up and talk about the session unless y'all want that. Um we can talk about that later. Um the is I think a couple of people have mentioned uh Ridge Road, we did open the two lanes. The northbound ramps should be open in February, working through some equipment and getting that in place and And all that done. We wanted as soon as the southbound ramps were open, we wanted traffic on it. So that's why there's