Public comment with Peterson, Pearson, Jones
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The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Apr 23, 2024
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The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Apr 23, 2024
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What was said
Machine transcription of 15m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 72% of 82 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
this time do we have anyone signed up for public comment?
Yes, sir, we do. Um okay, so we have two individuals signed up. Uh Pastor Troy Peterson is the first on the list.
Pastor Troy Peterson, [address removed] I do have some flyers for the National Day of Prayer.
Move
to receive and file. Second.
We got a motion second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passed.
First off, uh I really appreciate Mr. Chair
Because we really never know.
What tomorrow brings. Thank you.
We always have to be prepared to give an answer of the hope that's in us. And that hope is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Um and that's what I want to share. Today. Із вивен опорідні токеве. Like in the Book of Hagai, uh the high priest Joshua came together with Zerubabel, the governor of the m of the land. And they seeked
God's guidance together. And really that's what the National Day of Prayer is, not just a a one-day thing and it's done. It's continuing to work, the body of Christ, the pastors, the leaders in the area, the governing authorities. To really be ready for every good work, to obey our governing authorities, and to work together as a team, one body in Christ. Yeah. I've
been honored since I've been here in Florida eight years to be a part of the National Day of Prayer. Um last couple years Uh leading and in um handing out the specific prayers that we're gonna be praying to the different leaders. And so that will once again, like every year, be the first Thursday in May. Um both right out here on this side of the county, right out here, several congregations will be coming together. Um
I would encourage everybody, you know, even department heads. I I know we had a department head. Uh Commissioner Starkey, I really appreciate last year you even just stopping by and and getting to pray over you before you went to fly out and see your daughter. And also May 4th, we have a huge opportunity. Commissioner Mariano, thank you for coming last year. If you could imagine South Koreans Coming to America. To
pray. for revival. Well that's what's happening. Last year happened in forty one cities. This year it's happening in twenty-one cities. Um it's happening in um Pinellas and Hernando County for a whole week and they will be in Pasco County At Light of the World May 4th. So if you can stop by, come and go as you please. It'll be from two to five o'clock. Uh we'll be praying over our government leaders. Uh the South Koreans will be praying for us, and then we'll
have a meal in our fellowship hall from five to six, and then we'll have worship from six to nine as well in prayer. Thank you for your time. All
right, thank you.
Mr. Chair, they pray with intensity.
Yeah.
Okay, the next individual signed up is Craig Pearson.
Name and address for the clerk. Yes, uh my
name's Craig Pearson. Live at [address removed], since 1987 with my wife Joanne. Since 87, I come from a family of contractors and building inspectors, and the other side of the family are educators. Once I moved to Florida and brought my whole family here, we invested in Pasco County. I purchased several pieces of property and I said, I'm getting a little too old
for this, but my last uh purchase. uh uh wasn't uh great. Um I'm regarding the purchase at that 12018 Ember Avenue. I spoke before your commission uh back in February. Um I'd been trying to uh put an end to a uh uh uh I guess a demolition order that had been issued uh to ord to owners prior to myself. uh back in according
to the pictures that were taken uh at that time by the county that they were good enough to extend to me that was on uh m in March of uh twenty two and uh Somehow that got started when we checked we got free uh excuse me not free but we got title insurance. The title insurance said that there were no liens or activities on the property. We checked the the manifest, if you will, that
the county had and it showed that there was uh Uh uh in the past there were problems with debris on the property, but that those had all been settled and closed. Uh they then sold the the property to another gentleman who quickly, I guess, sold it to me. Um but when we checked on it, the reference at the closing was something to do with a shed that there was a shed that had no permits taken out. Well,
when we looked at the pictures uh from the county that were taken, there was a slab next to the well uh with uh uh th it had uh well uh reinforcements and this around it. Um and then when we purchased the property we went over there and all those reinforcements were gone, so we assumed that That's right. whatever was happening was gone. Unbeknownst to me, I guess parallel to our efforts, we made thirty-one trips of
household debris to the county landfill. Um I have a picture of the property here if I may.
Did you um give us the address of the property?
Pardon me? Uh yeah, uh yes, the address there is twelve zero one eight.
Would receive and file?
One eight one eight what?
Oh, I'm sorry, Marino. Oh that was Ember Avenue.
Ember?
Yes. Okay. It's in the Moon Lake section of Newport Ritchie.
Mm-hmm.
No And uh so I finally gave up because none of the people would meet to me, they'd the th the best I could do was talk to them on the phone and the legal department said, Well, it's not our job to make sure you get the notices, it's only our job to send them out. which being a former government employee myself as a director of environmental health Um and taking n I'm not an attorney, but I took enough law courses uh that um they need to
obtain a signature. Well, what happened is in January my wife goes to the mailbox and we get a general m mail there and the mail was from the county, we opened it up We called people and everybody said, Again, well, too bad. Yeah, all our legal paperwork is done, so it has to be taken down. It's literally the nicest house on the state. And a
motion is received
in the street.
All those
in
favor
say
aye.
And people couldn't believe all I'm asking for is that somebody to sit down with me and pr and show me what happened. Later on, I said, all right, forget it. I'll hire my own licensed company. We hired the company. I said ask.
something different than the permit allows you the six months for me to clear all the items out of the property. And they said no. It's a six month permit. Yes sir. So if I can have your permission at least meet with someone.
That's Commissioner Bradford's district or is mist. Yeah, Commissioner
Bradford's district.
Maybe
Mr. Bazer could look
if if I may, that this would this was an item that was slated for d it it a dem demolition order was issued before this gentleman purchased the property. Right. My office has spent several hours over the phone. on this issue. Um as Um I understand the building official has. Um The structure That is
slated for demolition, has ha was built with no permits. or ex expanded with no permits. Um And um at this point the the time he The gentleman has two options. Either we're gonna take it down Or he can take it down and save the save the costs of Of that or demolition.
I realized that, but we had a permit to take it down. That's how I found out it was missing because I called him, I said, No, I'm tired of fighting. Let's just hit set a date. We set a date date for the twelfth of May to take the structures down. I called the electric company to have the power turned off and she goes, Oh the power's already off. And I said, How can it be off? I own the property. I got a bill from you right here. She says, Well we can't tell you who did that. I said, Okay. I said, Take it back you
know, so I finally found out it was the county. So my nephew went over and he said, You were right, uncle. He said, There's nothing here. They took down everything. They even wrecked all the fences, took the fences away so that now some of the people that that live unfortunately in the the woods on that street, uh I guess can have a nice park for themselves to uh hang out in. Um And also. You know why and and here's the real irony is that
our permit was nailed, my permit was nailed to the tree to take it down. Okay. Your time.
Sir, if if you if you would when you go back out, go into the my office, ask for uh Sonia Walling, and I'll I'll get with you in the attorney's office, we'll talk about it further.
Well thank you very much. I don't mean to take so much. Yeah, yeah. Have another
person signed up?
There's no one else signed up.
Anyone on WebEx?
No, sir.
Does anyone in the audience wish to speak that did not get a chance to sign up? If so, come forward. Line up in front of the podium. I see one coming.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
Hello, um.
Name and address for the clerk.
Um do I I don't have to state my address, it's protected, but I can't. Okay, that's
fine.
Okay. Uh my name is Marlo Jones. I am a uh community organizer here in Pasco County with Faith in Florida. And uh today I come here with members of the Rline family and the Thomas family. Uh the Thomas family and the Rline family um Or one of the oldest African American families on the west side here in Pasco County. Migrated from Georgia in uh nineteen twenty five. been living in the Pine Hill community for over a hundred years and We
love this community. Uh about four weeks ago we suffered a tragic death in our family. And um Not long after that, uh the Trash Service Waste Connections came and took the family's dumpster. This dumpster has been with the family for over fifty-five plus years in the same spot. Fifty-five plus years. They haven't given sufficient reasons why Um so
we wanted to reach out, wanted to first send my condolences to you all and to uh Commissioner Bradford's family. This is Commissioner Bradford's district. I've been working with Commissioner Bradford's office on some public safety issues in the Pine Hill area where we had a young man hit and killed by a car. Um but this time we're coming because residents in the community, you know, deserve to have some fair representation. And uh the Trash Hauler Service Waste Connections
has been very rude to the um customers. Haven't had any issues for fifty-five plus years. I mean the dumpster's older than I am. So we're coming today to talk to the county because this is a uh county area. The county has control of this area. It is Commissioner Bradford's district. So uh just want to come here with the family today to see if there can be some type of resolutions because I read the ordinance. I've talked to other trash hauler companies and um
there's really no reason for what happened.
Hmm. You still have you still have a minute.
Oh I still have a minute? Wow. So
you
know, I'm used to uh going down to Newport Ritchie where it's very quick, okay? Um I think I'll come here more and speak. I'm just kidding. But um Well you're
welcome here, so
thank you. I really appreciate it, Commissioner. Um but I do want to thank while I have this time, I really want to thank Commissioner Bradford. I've heard everybody speak warm, kind words about him. And I'll say um when the young man was hit and killed, a homeless Person who was walking to a shelter. He was hit and killed last April. We reached out to Commissioner Bradford's office. We reached out to the city of Port Richey and New Port Richey.
Todd came down, we walked the streets, we we seen how dangerous it was. There's kids out there, there's a baseball field out there. There's a church out there at the African American Club. And uh I just want to thank him and his office for showing compassion and caring for the constituents in this community. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Chairman Mariano. Yes sir. Sir. Okay. Never mind. Uh administrator is working on you.
She's gonna she's gonna meet with you.
Okay. So is anyone else to speak? Seeing no one, they will close the public comment. Section and then we'll move to our resolutions, our first resolution.