Oakley water report Starkey tree clearing
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, May 9, 2023
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The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, May 9, 2023
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 21m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 100% of 79 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
That's our last one. Uh Commissioner Oakley, you wanted to bring something up?
Let me see what is the remote.
And I actually uh what I wanna bring up.
I'll wait till everybody clears so we can hear it.
Okay, so um Of course I said as the Chairman of the Board of Tampa Bay Water. And it's come to my attention.
It's coming to my attention that uh Not just us but other people are having issues about water. We don't seem to have those kind of issues because of our plan with Tampe Water. what they provide us in wholesale water. Well we have cities like the city of Zephyrhills having an issue about water to the point. that they can't bring in a new project They're asking the developer to figure out their water prone. City
Zephyrhills is in a closed basin because all the water for Hillsborough County goes to the city of Tampa.
So they have to depend on others uh to get water. And several years back I worked at getting the parallel to 301 on the east side of the road. a water link between Dade City and Zephyrhills 'cause at the time Uh Dane City had all kinds of water. And Zephyrhills was was to the point they couldn't drill any more wells in their area because they were in a closed basin. So the fact of it is There's projects being turned
in or want to turn into the county that deals with water but the city of Zephyrhills can't provide it. So I guess Um What I'm saying is we need to be Sure, if we you know if we can help them provide water and Mike can speak up because David Allen's I think on vacation but he's not here at his meeting so I could ask him but um
I think it's a concern and and we have and that's a water issue and Zephyrhills is having it now. Jeffrey Hills is receiving 200,000 gallons a day through that line. Now from Dade City. Well soon Dade City will not be able to provide the two hundred thousand 'cause now Dade City's growing. And they've annex the properties in for more housing and all, they're going to need that water for themselves. So then it leaves Zephyrhills without being able to possibly develop
because they have no water. Unless the county can step in. And I've talked to um Billy Poe, City Manager of Zephyrhills, about this before. If they could change the way they treat your water where it would be identical to that of um Pasco County and Tampay Water, the way we treat it. so that water could be blended and make it better for them to be able to us to sell them water in the city so it can take care of these developments. So Uh
I think something we gotta think about. Uh Pope County to our east. Their only source of water is wells. So when you think about their source of water being wells, They reach a certain point and have been getting close to the fact they don't have any more water source. themselves. That's a huge county and a and a pretty rural county overall. Um, so we know they're having issues. They're also having the same issue 'cause
They have big developments wanting to come in a lot of land on in Poe County. For there I have to hold up the developments. Because it can't provide water. So we gotta be very careful about that. At the same token, we need to also like Is and we we can't mess with the tip and pull monies to to fix roads to fix road problems around some of these developments.
So we have to be careful but the mobility fee is gonna have to come in enough to where we can fix those roadways to where it makes it safer for our residents at the same time. So one issues water in the future for one of our cities. As a matter of fact it's our largest city in in the county at this time. Um that or if we're willing or we can help them with water issues, then I I would think and I've heard in the past I thought we were
willing to do so. At the same time sitting on the board at Tampe Water, We need more and more uh water projects for a water resource in the future. Uh one of one of my thoughts was that we'd have a water issue with um another uh reservoir like we have the other one, but not nearly as big, maybe half the size or more, so that we possibly could have for uh t another water source to help South Hillsboro
and others that don't have uh water sources that we have and and they have a reclaim issue and knock on wood. Our growth has come later to where we've been able to retrofit and and put reclaim into water yards and we so we've got a lot of uses out here. to take care of the use of reclaimed water. So we don't n have nearly the problem that Pinellas County is facing or even the city of Tampa and Hillsbury County, they're
facing big issues with reclaimed water down the line if they can't get rid of it Or they can't make it cleaner to go into the bay and keep the bay safe.
And by law they have to fix that.
Yeah.
Soon.
And yeah, that's right. So it's one of those things we're facing but You get thinking about it. It seems okay and w I mean we're having this discussion today on these projects coming in with all this and and It's schools and roadways always come in behind developments. And today you saw what the issue was about being able to get out of roads when you got so much traffic and being able to have interconnect of different projects. I actually today, uh and a
lot of people, I think staff's even told us about it before. about the interconnect activity of of the different Project and a lot of them don't want to have interconnect. They don't want people coming from outside. Especially if they're gated. But uh you understand why, so But those are issues we're going to face in the future and we we need to be um aware of them I think and and the fact that we need to be thinking more in those lines for our development, develop our county the
right way to be able to look ahead and and plan for these kind of things and if we can help our cities then I think we need to do what we need to to reach out to help them. So But that's basically all I want to tell you. I just want to bring you up to speed on what's happening around us that that might affect our developments. I mean, it's doing theirs and uh we don't get roads ahead. But again, don't get me wrong, you can't take money where you don't have it. and use all the money up and then the next thing you know, you got
this area that needs this roadway done and you have no money. You can't can't steal from Peter to Pay Paul. It doesn't work that way. So the monies we get in through mobility fees to take care of some of the roadways and the for the traffic and all is very important. So and we do have a good a good engineering group with the traffic ops and things of that nature that They check on uh what's happening in our county. So
Well I'm I'm I'm sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Um you know I'm glad you bring up a point that that it's something to take a look at and how we need to work together as well. Um For Tempe Water to work, we've got to work together. We put a lot of money into that plant. We the other reservoir we put a lot of money into the s the D cell plant and the D cell plant only runs partially because it's so expensive to run. And so that's not a uh the best solution even though I know that's one of the projects
being talked about. I'm gonna I'm gonna lead you back to what I brought up this morning as far as under under conservation. I think we should be working with the city All our cities, including ourselves, and let's go find out How many toilets are out there are on high capacity? Let's go work on a program to switch that over. Let's get a partnership with Swift Mud, maybe Tampa Bay Water too. Because if we're gonna go struggle to spend a huge amount of money, that's gonna take a ton of engineering, a ton of money to design, ton of money to build, and then you're moving it when we can conserve, which
will even save money on being able to treat the water, which is gonna come out as well. I think it's a much stronger way to go and it's quicker. that we can accommodate for this rapid growth we're facing, all the development pressures we're facing to be able to get out front of it. And I think uh again I'm gonna I'll I'll bring this up at the joint meeting we have coming up on Friday to do the same thing that you know we want the other cities to go look at as well because that is something that's out there. I think it's probably the best low-hanging fruit fruit that's there. And it's something with the pressures that Florida's facing, we're facing it it's
it's it may Makes the most sense to me how to move quick. Yeah. So
Commissioner, I have two more things.
Commissioner
Starkey. Sorry. Um I want to show you a photo. Uh and then so this is Trouble Creek and and um now if you could go to maps to show and the satellite view of Trouble Creek and Little Road. Um this is a very heavily wooded area. along Trouble Creek. Uh we have a park right down the street um called um Eagle Point Park. It's across from Gulf Harbors. In um this is
one of two lots that we've actually Um I saw this being cleared and I just forgot to call it in and then an engineer uh Someone in the community saw it and called it in because as soon as he saw there was no silk fences, he realized they probably didn't have a permit. So then our staff went out there, stopped them. They did uh clear cut both lots Is
it So when when you you when you see this from the air, it's gonna make you sick what they cut down. Um they filled in a class one wetland. Uh they um on the other side of 19 Can you make it so all the robes on in there? I don't know how you do your layers, but
Okay. So um so it w we were able to our our attorney's office did a great job of um Yeah, no no. Keep yeah. It's an area actually that I've been working with before Dan Biles even came that we are were trying to make a a park out of keep going a little to the wet no west. And j okay, now up a little bit so you can see no, down, sorry. Okay, so there.
So all that area in there someone has come in and clear cut. And um
What were they doing there?
They they uh said they were uh do you know, do they they throw it this is the second time this happened to me in my area. Oh, we work with Duke and we're staging for our hurric you know, hurricane preparedness. We would never let someone stage for hurricane on a substandard road with a huge ditch like Trouble Creek. And and that property is zoned residential. So um So we are in the process of I think they went to they did a
stipulated agreement and the gentleman who rented the property from the property owner It's paying. Like fifty five thousand into our tree mitigation trust fund. Um fifty
thousand, yeah.
Is that right? Fifty thousand. Okay. But here's here's the thing that's so bad. D uh and I'll ask our attorney to give it what's the f fine for s doing site prep without a permit?
So as with any of your violations The maximum violation of an ordinance is $500. $500 a day, an incident, a tree. Uh but it's Y it's capped at
five hundred dollars. That's not enough. That is tha I mean, I I I can tell you being married I mean I can tell you that people will it's gonna be catch me if you can, but if the fine is five hundred dollars, I'm gonna clear my property without the permit and then ask for forgiveness. It's not okay. You know that guy uh at at um Set the the one up in the central Pasco employment area, he took out all his oak trees. He d I don't think he had to
pay anything. Did he
make 'em plant the trees back?
I I w you know I don't know what um I don't know what Swift Butt's coming in. He's gonna get it from Swift Butt too, but I just think five hundred dollars for s For clearing your lot. is not enough without a permit.
Well
what else can we do?
So the but the problem is that state law under under Chapter one twenty five caps the amount that you can penalize somebody under under any ordinance you adopt. That's that's the problem.
We have a lobbyist sitting over there.
Per day or so.
I think we need a lobby.
Is that per day or total?
No no. So so yeah. So code can get creative and fine them per incident per day per at $500 apiece. But the the question that was asked is what's the maximum fine you can levy? Maximum fine you can levy is $500. We have we can't matter about
all the we can
w well because they're different violations. So in this case you could We didn't, but you could have taken the position that each treaty was a violation. Um why didn't we?
W the what the what they were cited for was not having a development permit on the two lots. So it was a it was two five and a half.
I only showed you one lot. And they didn't show you the interior of what they took down. But it was so sad. I if there's some other way that we can also find somebody? Uh or or maybe we could say you can do no development on your property for three years or I mean is there is there some other way to stop this I can't is he gonna be able to go ahead
and put a staging area there?
No we're we're not we're not we're not gonna let him
So he's
so they have applied for a conditional use to use the property which will be coming before either is it Planning Commissioner is it He's laughing.
There you
go.
It's a special exception application, so it would be going for planning commission for final vote.
I'm it's probably not gonna get approved because that road is not if you've driven on it's very narrow. It's got a very deep ditch on the side. It's not suitable for construction trucks and a hurricane to be going in and out. Okay, so that's one thing I want you to think about. Should we make it more punitive if you start doing this stuff? Without permission. Um The second thing involves Port Ridgie. And if you could take that map and go up
to um the Pivla Cootie Pivla Chascoty River. I just learned of this in a meeting with um our former House Speaker actually. Um that one of our staff Had had a meeting With Port Ritchie. Okay, and zoom in a little bit. And so over there it catches. By the bridge. Um You know, they bought the property, Jack, you'll know this, next door. door. And they the rain and they knocked it down.
There is this road called I think it's called Bridge Road. I think it's the old US nineteen next to Pixie Highway, whatever. It goes to nothing. It separates the property that Catches has with the new property they they bought. And cat and and that the Lowe's family wanted to put dry storage there because there's a massive Dry storage. uh shortage along the coast. The closest one that I know south Um It uh
well no well it's past TARP and has a two year waiting list to get your boat in there. And so they wanted to do dry storage there And Port Ritchie won't vacate that road. So they couldn't do it. And when they said why Why won't you vacate the road? We don't want development. Well if they don't want development Jack, I don't want to work on that bridge that goes under. The path that goes under the bridge. Why would we be spending all our staff time And
all this time, all this work that we do with them And they don't want to improve their community. It's very frustrating to me to hear that. I've asked the attorney the county administrator Two we, you know, feel out their administrator to see if that's really true that they don't want Development. improvement like that.
When we looked at when I looked at the new design for the new sidewalks we were going to put in and we talked about going alongside catches along nineteen to, you know, make the mo make the golf path work so it wasn't going to affect catches property, it would go alongside it. And I said, you know, if the city of Port Richey work with you, and maybe that they're not going in there and they really few people ever use that place for the as a park, um it If they would give that land up in exchange for working out, getting the land they need for the sidewalk, it'd be a good move for both.
Between the administration that was been there before and um it it n n nothing never took place on it.
Well think we now just need to point lap point like ask him. Do they want development improvement or not?
So we've had some initial contact with Port Ritchie and and I don't believe that they are anti-development to you know in in conversations with their city manager. So I don't believe that they are anti-development from what they've what they have told us. Uh I would say that regarding Bridge Street, which is the one that runs down the catches, I I I think right now they're they're trying to determine before they were to relinquish what is a city. asset or public land, is there a public purpose to it? So they're they're working through those types of things to determine
if there's a public purpose for it and that's that's kind of their position on it as it as it currently stands.
So with two wants that are out there, one if they Lowe's and the merino wanna do dry storage there. We want to get the access to the land that we need to go along nineteen. Maybe there's a win-win. Um I haven't met with the new mayor yet, but we're scheduled I think coming up real soon to meet so I can bring that and I'll and I'll try to bring the Lowe's in the conversation too.
Alright. That's it for me.
Okay. Well great. All right. Um
I mean Commissioner Oakley. You have something after today. Can I have a Catherine reading?
Go ahead, Ms. Carbell. Actually, just just a couple of things. I just want to address just some comments and and things that were that were brought up today. With with regards to um Zephyrhills municipalities and and water systems, know that we have been trying to work with Zephyrhills on selling uh an isolated system. Um I I I don't know if we've come to terms in terms of of dollars and cents, but Uh know that we we obviously will work with all of our municipalities and whether it's looking at service area boundaries to providing