Chairman's report on central energy plant, opioid walk, and permitting

1:36:32Uh I have some pictures to show. Oh. go in line with where the pictures fall out. My items. Well that's coming up, I'm gonna uh nominate Commissioner uh I'm gonna appoint Commissioner Bradford to the canvassing board.

1:36:44Oh

1:36:44that's fine.

1:36:48Are we waiting for something?

1:36:49I think we've got to do it. I think you're you already made him the alternate.

1:36:53He'll just move on. He'll stop, okay. All right, so um last week we went down to Penols County to take a look at their central energy plant. Um it was really interesting. They've had this since twenty fifteen. It's a chiller plant. And Eric if you would come up and describe the trip and what we're gonna be looking at for down the road.

1:37:15Certainly good morning. Uh to the best

1:37:18to the best you can. We we'll still get a lot of information.

1:37:28Went down to visit with train and their central energy plant that they have, uh downtown Penellas, our Clearwater area. Uh it's pretty pretty uh innovative concept they have where they have one building that provides the chilled water for about seven buildings that are in the downtown area. And quite frankly, they've even partnered with a hook excuse me, a condominium complex to be able to provide the chilled water for that facility as well. This is a uh very well maintained and and run facility, it's about eight years old, and it it has

1:37:59promise and something we're gonna be looking at to do here in Pasco County as well in some other area. It's um I think

1:38:04Water Street does that too. They have a central chiller for most of their buildings

1:38:08in Denver. The gentle the gentleman that designed and helped construct this was trained. He he's responsible for eight or nine different chiller plants like this in and around the Tampa area and so he was describing how with each successive one he's taken the lessons learned and improved his design. Um how however common it has we we still have to run the numbers and do the calculations, but uh it does have the potential opportunity for significant energy or electricity savings if we're able to do something similar to this. I'm thinking at the West Pasco Government Center or maybe even other areas around the c

1:38:38area. Yes, ma'am. Uh also that's a good candidate is the Land Lakes uh public safety campus. So we'll we'll be evaluating this in the future. I just It was a it was uh it was it was a wonderful trip and and pretty pretty impressive operation to have to go on there.

1:38:51Now Eric, I wanna thank you and Andrew for going down. It was one of those times you you know, you had an idea, you run it by staff, see what they think and Andrew and and Eric Eric said they wanna go down and take a look at it right away. So we went down there, took a look at it. We're very impressed with everything and Uh that it could be a great opportunity. So thank you for that.

1:39:10Uh next set of pictures.

1:39:18Got more pictures? I got I I probably have five different slides coming up. Alright, there's a picture of Sunwest Park. There's my mother on the lower right, Franklin. She went there for the lobster row from the uh got lobster people. Love that. That was a nice little setup there for uh drinks out there, yeah. Little elevated bar.

1:39:41And the place was a really s I tell you Andrew Cesares has done a great job over the years improving and improving, improving, but we still have Lime Rock there which we'll talk about in a minute. There's the lake.

1:39:54Um it was packed, the bands were great. Um I didn't get there Saturday. I was moving my daughter from Lakeland to uh over to Odessa but uh I got there yesterda Sunday, it was like packed, everybody said it was just a blast.

1:40:08My brother went and it was his first time at the park and he said it was fantastic. Yeah.

1:40:13Good stuff. So I will say what I'm going to be looking at for down the road is that as we go spend some money out there, they're talking about putting paving out there. I don't think we should put the full paving in with the medians, et cetera. Let's just put a base skim coat on. I think through zoning it's coming up very soon. Um we already did the land use change to bring a hotel and a restaurant out there, but if we just put a skim coat of asphalt out there, it'll make it better for the next year or two until the new guys come in and then they can cut out what they want to cut out without spending a

1:40:43lot of extra money. Um This is a um Pitcher, uh Starkey Park. where the opioid awareness uh walk was going on. I guess it's a second annual um Pastor Estelle from Calvary Church says marching forward to stomp out opioid addiction. I will tell you it was something else to talk to so many people that are directly involved and been affected by the opioid crisis. Um you know, we we've heard for years, there's Pasco

1:41:13Ristell on the right, um, for years about what what we're doing, all the treatments. Um actually talked to a lady who

1:41:22was knocked out. Narcane saved her life about two years ago and she now she's thriving um thriving citizen doing great. Uh talked to a mother who lost a son, um, other family members of the sa same scenario. um and people making comebacks. So I am excited to what she's trying to do. She's actually put a plan forward Uh I wanted her to have a chance to go present to the opioid task force but they want to wait to do RFPs.

1:41:53Um I'm gonna say we've known for six months we've got a lot of money coming in. There's different programs going out there. I think it benefits the opioid task force to hear from anybody who wants to hear something, even going through the process. And um Kathy, if you want to come on up for a minute, but I th I I think we've had so much time. I know we want to make sure we get money spent the right way, done the right things, but I've got a lady, a pastor from a church that serves 5,000 people, that has people directly affected by it, that she wants to get started

1:42:23as a To taking this long bureaucratic process. So at least and if this church wants to do it and other other churches want to do it. There's enough money coming, I think, to let's get out there. The outreach, the counseling that can be going on for these people, that alone is a is a value. Handing out narcane maybe at the church, if that's what they want to go do, is a is a benefit to people. I mean literally that one lady I talked to just really touched me that she s this saved her life. And now she's thriving. So many times you think, okay, what's

1:42:53gonna happen to do it again? No, this lady She hit bottom and she came back. And all of these people are making comebacks or no family members that have suffered so badly. So Kathy, if you would, let's go talk about what the committee's doing, because I w I do want to see this presentation done before them and if we need to get a board motion to go do it, so be it. But I want to see Faster action. Absolutely. And I appreciate the diligence.

1:43:15Commissioner, thank you. So Paula Barracado is the chair of our opioid task force and a lot of the members, just to brief you all, are been selected by a lot of you to serve on that. It has been a year. We just re uh reelected or reappointed Paula to do the chair again. We did receive our first money in February. It was nine hundred and forty-five thousand three hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars. That's we just got that money. There is a board meeting, the OPU Task Force is meeting on March

1:43:45twenty-seventh at ten AM, and they are going to begin the process of, you know, we got to get this money out. There is uh about seven million nine hundred and fifty one. Yeah. uh thousand dollars that we still have not received. The first part of money of the nine forty five was from the county, uh city part part pot of money. This next one is from the regional. We're expected to get that by the year end. We have no idea when it is coming. So the the committee,

1:44:15their thought is we want to give the biggest bang for our buck. Whatever um the Committee decides to do the final decision will become before all of you. Just as we do on all our other C D BG grants, we make the recommendations, we do the RFPs, we bring them to you. So I know at the next opioid task force meeting they are going to begin to see what we can do about this 945,000. I think we had talked about We want the biggest

1:44:46bang for our buck. Do we want a whole bunch of people coming and collecting small bits of dollars or do we want to do Big Bang with big dollars? So I've talked to each of you individually or we've gotten some feedback. I think we can do both. And so what we're hoping to do, and I think Poller is is on board with trying to push this committee to at least start getting maybe some small RFPs for the small amount of money and get this thing going. Commissioner Mariano, you're absolutely correct.

1:45:18It's a problem. It's a huge problem. And it's not just here, but you know, the fentanyl, all of it. And I think we just met with Tracy Callie today from Bay Care. She's amazing. She's talking about putting an urgent walk in clinic in one of her facilities coming up. So we've got some great plans for this money and I'll take any questions if you want.

1:45:39And I'll just go a little further. One of one of the things this pastor has s submitted a a plan, a project with a a lot of good ideas. Some are just in there as far as counseling goes, preventive, like going to the schools, talking to the kids. Maybe it's in Sunday school, maybe it's in a regular school, I don't know. But at least if you hear the presentation it might even give more ideas to go forward as they get ready to to make the allocations make recommendations. I mean granted I know it's coming back to us but again after a year's time first money's coming in Um Just

1:46:10seeing this. With real people Just pouring their hearts out as far as what they've gone through. Commissioner Brantford.

1:46:17Thank you, Mr. Chair. Kathy, uh I remember the briefings that you've been giving me and and uh correct me if I have uh blurred the lines or I don't c correctly remember. Is there a an attorney assigned to the money to see if it's spent within guidelines. Absolutely. So

1:46:36Jordan Wolfgraham is works Jordan Wolfgraham works for Jack. She's been side by side with us all the way on this. She comes to every task board meeting. She's at every meeting and so yes, she is definitely on top of it. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. And thank you, Jeff, for signing Jordan.

1:46:53Okay. Mr. Chairman Mariano. If I can follow up on the Commissioner's question, but you've set up you've set up a process

1:47:03Uh

1:47:03we were required to have the opioid task force to get this money. I would discourage the commission from taking it away from them and a s and giving the money out to whoever. Um The RFP process was the way that makes this competitive to anybody who has a plan. There

1:47:33are some of some of the board members who have said they're looking for brick brick and mortar and they want it to be a large contribution, uh they they don't want the m money piecemealed. Um so

1:47:53Yeah, if you start if you start breaking it off and giving it to worthy causes, that money's not going to be there to to build a facility.

1:48:02Uh so let me be clear as far as what I'm asking for. Um When we had the Restore committee solved up, we had the S survey committee, we had presentations done over and over. The RFP process wasn't there. We looked at project to project. They want to do RFP so be it. But I don't think an RFP necessarily is the only way to go about it. And I think if you got people in the community invested into it that want to take a look at it. Give them an opportunity to hear what they have to say. It may change the opinion. I think there's gonna be so much money coming in and the way they've Categorized

1:48:33it. I mean I was first a little skeptical with the state with the money coming in. To have all those controls on it as a settlement? But what they put in place are great programs. And if we can partner with the state I mean we should be leveraging the money from the state funds that they get as well. Especially with the governors just put out some great programs too. That could be the way to go. I just don't want to have let's say s even smaller programs. Not considered for it. And right now they're waiting for the RFP process. I think if they get an idea, there's nothing wrong with them hearing an idea

1:49:03what somebody wants to do. It may trigger some other people, some other ideas to come forward as well. It's not it's not a negative to it. I'm not looking to control it. I want to go through the process.

1:49:12But I'll remind you on Restore there was an application process and there was a ranking process that you is very similar to an R F process. Um so I While you uh while you took ideas at public comment at each Restore meeting, because you're required to take public comment at any of these meetings, there was a process in place even for REST that had

1:49:43all the projects graded to see which ones would move forward. Um I just think that if you start if If you're gonna go out on the street, just like with procurement, you don't want to jeopardize the process by having somebody come in and sell their project before everybody else has competition.

1:50:06So so help me with the difference between the Restore they did presentations, we decided we ranked. Right now you tell me it's an RFP process. That sounds different from Restore.

1:50:18Actually w so when we did restore we it was less formalized, but we put it out on the street, Through our website through I don't you'd have to ask Curtis how how that reach out was done. But it was put out

1:50:41And then They were given a certain amount of time to apply. And then those applications were then graded by your team. and then brought to the Restore Committee. I the The difference I think with with RFP i i is

1:51:00they weren't graded by the team. The committee did the grading.

1:51:02Well th that's true. That's true. Um they were packaged and brought brought to

1:51:09the project. They could do the processing. Um And I I d and so let me just let me stop there. So I just want to make sure, Kathy, that This pastor Other pastors, other groups, et cetera, they come forward. And I wanna be make sure we're careful with it all, but I wanna make sure that they have the opportunity. And right now it looks like I don't know how long this opportunity is gonna take, but I wanna get the urgency that I wanna get this going fast.

1:51:33Commissioner, I I do not serve on the Oakley task force, so I'm not have to deal with sunshine. I will personally reach out to her and make sure when the application's ready we will assist her. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

1:51:46Mr. Chair, I have the answer for Commissioner Starkey. I have some pictures for you, Jack. It is the same time frame. So renewals are the eight to eleven weeks. Eight to eleven weeks.

1:51:57So it used to be you could go down, let's say, and go to Miami and walk it through in one

1:52:00day. You can't do that anymore? You have to make an appointment and then you can do it that day, but it's gonna take three days for processing and it has to be on an emergency basis. However, I can um we can talk offline. Okay. But that's typical. I don't

1:52:15want to

1:52:15have to get

1:52:16stuck and live in another

1:52:17country for a while.

1:52:20Okay.

1:52:21You ready?

1:52:22I'm ready.

1:52:23I've been meaning to bring this up for a couple of years since our last trip to Germany. Can you show those pictures? Um And you start talking about Sun West, I said, this is something I think we need to put in Sun West. And we went to visit this uh when we did our trip to Germany not last year but no one before. I guess before COVID. This is a company Um called Crystal Turn. And um they build ropes courses without trees. They have them all over the world. If you could show more of the pictures. Um it's

1:52:53so cool because they they they're all different sizes and and looks and they can customize it. This so this one's in some Oriental community. I think this one's in Tolia. That's a really big one. Um Um, keep going. But I z uh so this one is kinda western themed and it's hard to tell but he's he's actually on a uh what was it? Was that a horse? I don't know. And it z zips you through. Mm-hmm. Um And uh so this one shows a lot of the different

1:53:23elements that they've added on to to that that you can add on and that they're all customizable. And this company comes to the Orlando um Expo every year for the parks equipment and I don't know what it's called but I'm sure our staff does. And they always sell their exhibit because they don't want to pack it and take it home. And wouldn't something like that be great for Sun West? I just thought that would be a really good location for something like that. So I keep forgetting and

1:53:53I Since we it's would be something that we might vote on. I couldn't do it privately. So um I just want to share w with everyone I think this would be great for the west side of the county since y'all have one on the east side of the county um and it could go in the park. So

1:54:10looks great.

1:54:10I I think I may have the brochure in my office, but if not um we visited them with PEDC so

1:54:16we have we

1:54:16have information.

1:54:18Okay. Do you have any other pictures up there for me? There's the uh ribbon cutting of the VA Outpatient Center right down the street. Uh is that

1:54:28finally open?

1:54:29Finally open, yes. Yeah, the ribbon cutting Saturday morning.

1:54:32Oh wow.

1:54:32And I wanna tell ya Uh Congressman Mike Bellarakis was there.

1:54:38was there for him and his wife were both there and Gus talked about how his dad started that forty years ago to trying to bring that to Pasco County Ad they fought and fought and that was one of the first things he tried to work on and Gus carried it on and finally they had the opening and I tell you what a beautiful building. From when I first started, they had we used to have like vehicles we'd get for the VA or for the veterans to actually go down to Haley Hospital and back. We have to supply them. Now our veterans can be served taken care of here locally. So for vision,

1:55:08dental, optim optometry, uh all sorts of care and now they can do it lo here locally. It's it's a great service for our veterans, a great accomplishment and uh the VA is happy because they actually consolidated four other buildings to build this one here, so efficiencies are gonna be better as well. So I want to thank Congressman Bilaracus for following through and delivering that to us because it's going to be a great thing. Do you have the next set of pictures?

1:55:45That's all you have? Okay. Um well we had some pictures of the Beacon Woods Fire Station, but as Commissioner Oakley said it was a great opening. Um you know, right next to Gulf Highlands neighborhood, right below Beacon Woods, right close to the uh HCA Hospital, it's gonna be a great service and it's gonna definitely help our people and uh it's gonna be another modernized one that's gonna really help our firefighters as well with all sorts of safety accomplishments. Uh Um And last thing I want to just talk about is, you know, Commissioner Oakley, you talked about

1:56:15permitting, and you know, we talked about how the license and maintenance agreement just went through took hours and hours of staff time. And I'm going to tell you about one that's coming up, uh the Lynx MPUD. The people have been told also to different things. Staff's had an application since I believe it's August. And in a change of a MPUD, there's certain requirements. One of them is 1A, it says any change in a site-related condition

1:56:45that was opposed by the BCC at the public hearing. If there's a change here, it's gonna be a public hearing period. Um The change in the golf course, the drive range, the roadway. Um section N one B, need alteration of use. If you're gonna remove a golf course, remove a driving range, should be a public hearing. N1H, if you re reduce a reduction in open space or recreational areas, both recreational space and open

1:57:16areas are reduced or adversely impacted. N1i, any change to a platform, change in boundaries of open space and recreational spaces, same same thing there. Any change in any aspect, attribute, or future which might adversely affect impact the site. Stormwater drainage, when you put pine trees in in drainage, when a whole neighborhood's designed to take the impact, there's an impact there. When you build within 30 feet of a home, put trees out there, those trees grow up in 30

1:57:47feet, they can topple over or they catch fire real quick, there's an impact. People paid a premium to buy those houses on the golf course. All those things said and done Staff's got to move quicker in these things.

1:58:01Mm-hmm. That's