Public comment on agenda items
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, Sep 17, 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, Sep 17, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 32m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 66% of 129 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Here. Let me know that we have uh five board members here and I have a quorum. Um at this time it is time for public comment. Citizens were given the Um opportunity to Um Comment on Any current or future agenda items coming before the board and all businesses under our preview? Um Today's public comment will be addressed
as follows. First, we will take comment from those in person Yeah Here in the room. Then we will take public comment from those who are registered pre-registered for a WebEx and are currently on queue. Um
Comments will be directed. not personally to a commissioner or a team member, but rather to the issues. This uh provides mutual respect for the board members and the public. After Uh stating your name and address for the clerk, a three minute timer will be started. After two minutes a single beat was Will indicate you have one minute left. When your time is up. Uh, two beats will sound
and you should close your statements at that time. Uh for those that are on WebEx, they're will be automatically disconnected. So Uh Mr. Clark? Do we have anyone signed up to speak on public comment?
We have quite a few signed up at this time. Um Nancy Gray.
Is
that an alarm? What's that? Good morning.
Good morning.
Nancy Gray, [address removed]. Thank you for the opportunity this morning. We've lived in Pasco since eighty nine. We're now in our retirement home. Over the past ten years, we've had storms filling up Deer Lake and the backyard overflowing up as high as 75 feet into our yard. The county pumps it down for short periods of time, but then it takes months for the water to go down out of the yards. We lose our property for up to six months at any given time. Two years ago Gene at Public
Works was able to rent a pump and it was used for one hour, turned off, As it was flooding other communities. We asked why and can we be proactive? Nothing came of it. March I sent an email asking please don't give the car wash ungrave a CO until they address the drainage. They're flooding the neighbors across the street before they open the car wash. It's in their garage, it's in their front door. They now have foundation damage, cracks in their walls,
floors, ceilings, and now trusses are separating. One unusable bedroom is moldy and sinking, another bedroom is sinking. The water runs from the car wash around their home, through their home, eroding around, and all of it gets dumped into Deer Lake. Three small children. And they can't use their backyard that's fenced in because the water's up. They tried dealing with the car wash when they were first building it. It was shaking, it was cracking
their house. Now the water has destroyed it. Repairs are now over a hundred thousand and they've not addressed the roof yet. Lawsuit's been filed, she's gone back to work with three little kids. March. Nick with County Engineering emailed Public Works Developmental Review regarding the car wash. They were going to get back to us. They forgot. April, Gina sent an email to Developmental Review. They forgot. Jean
is wonderful to work with. She's an asset to this county, but she shouldn't have to be a mommy to others to follow up to make sure they do their jobs. We feel like we've been a community that's been forgotten and we want to know why. I contacted Gina three weeks n ago now for a pump. Before August we had a lot of work done around the lake and in our backyard. The lake was down five feet at that time. Now the lake is up almost fifty feet into our yards. They
put a pump in, but they won't turn it on. Our gardens damaged, we've been waiting out in three feet of water raising things up. We have animals that will be underwater. A garage will be underwater before they pump in. We put a pump in. before they pump it. if w they're using the imminent danger. If we were in Crane's roost, they would have pumps in those lakes right now, anticipating the water to go up. That is not imminent danger. They don't have any rising water.
They have no pumps. The only difference this year is the car wash. We're asking for a solution as our county commissioners. Please turn the pump on and can we please come up with a solution?
Thank you for your comments.
Thank you.
J P you you have someone that can meet her outside about that car wash. Thank you. Call the next person.
Skyler Alexander.
Why?
Yes, sir.
We'll just sit in file. Second.
Got a motion and second to receive and file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion pass 5-0. Go
ahead, sir. Name and address.
Good morning, Commissioners and Chairman Oakley. My name is Skylar Alexander. I'm with Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas, West Pasco, and now Hernando Counties. I'd first like to thank each of you. I know personally at public service does not come without sacrifices. So thank you all so much for your continued commitment and dedication to serving our communities. I'll be really quick here. Each of you should have already received an email, but I wanted to personally invite each of you to our
upcoming Pasco Electeds Build Day. That day of service will be taking place October 9th in the morning from 8:30 to 11. Um and of course we have our one and only, Representative Brad Yeager, um hosting that event. So I'd like you to just if you have time take a look, see if you're available. Uh you can reach out to me. My information is right there at the bottom of that. But this is just an incredible time to roll up those sleeves, volunteer your time, and of course help a Pasco family right here in
the area. So thank you all so much and I hope to see you there. All right, Skylar. David Codero.
Name and address for the clerk.
And good morning, uh uh Commissioner Oak and Commissioner Oakley. Uh my name is Dave Cadiro. I live in [address removed]. My address is [address removed]. Uh I've been a Florida resident for about six years. Uh a little background. Uh this is the first home I have owned in thirty years, simply because of life. I started work when I was eleven. I couldn't retire till I was sixty
eight. I'm no longer sixty-eight. But with the proposed anticipated high end budget I have on my hand To be very blunt in a civil fashion. Uh I'm getting hammered like so many other seniors, and there are some that live in Pasco County. I don't know how many, but there's a few tens of thousands. There is such a thing as a fixed income. I
didn't retire at sixty eight after working n fifty five years plus. to dip into my burial savings. Two maintain and keep my home.
Lately for the two commissioners, uh including the late uh Mr. Bradford, whom I voted for and supported. since I worked both elections in the last two cycles. Uh I do not see to this point um responsible expansion with the assets we have When I turn around every corner between fifty four, fifty-six and eight miles from my home and every tree is being stripped For development.
that if I'm not mistaken, this board has approved.
I know I'm not alone. I'm not begging. I'm simply asking that you acknowledge my prayers that You will listen. To limit Budget Anywhere you can. 'Cause another three to five hundred dollars out of my family budget of one? Uh well put me in peril. That's just not fair. I know you represent a lot of people. I know you do not have easy
career path we just service. That's very well acknowledged. But there's a herd of people out here that are getting nailed left and right. I'm just one little family of one. But I ask your consideration to trim this proposal any way you can in a best you can fashion to help some of us folks. on limited incomes because they're a whole heard of us. Thank you very much for your time.
Thank
you.
Make sure you sign up for the uh extra homestead for next year. I will. Thank you,
ma'am.
Uh Wanda Kat uh Castle Casnoff.
Good morning. Good morning everyone. I live at my name is Wanda Chasnoff. I live at [address removed], which runs off of Green King. I'm here to address three things. I'm here to address the flooding that we can't get out. My neighbor can't get out to the to the grocery store. He's a one-legged man on a scooter. This weekend the flooding was all the way up past my house. I've been here this is my second time to be here to address the flooding. I've had Jack at my house. He showed up at my door on the telephone
with me. Also I'm addressing that we have homeless people that live in the woods, they're breaking our homes and stealing stuff and everything. Can't get 'em out. Third thing I caught ninety-six cats in the Green Key area two weeks ago for the T and R program. Green Key's infested with cats. Also, the parks are we're being notified by the parks that we need to trap in there. We have one trapper in Pasco County that does the trapping and it's a volunteer. We need help. And
we need help. The flooding, like I told you, Jack, I showed you pictures. We can't use our septic tanks because the water's so high up that we can't use them. We are half a block from the middle of Green Key where sewer can be accessed to. But we're also claimed a private road. But the flooding keeps us from doing anything to our road because the water covers everything and eats the asphalt out. We need your help to stop the flooding. We are on the county
line. We do not have no culverts on the north side. We have about two blocks that is on the south side, which is New Port Richey. We have not one ditch, not one culvert that goes from nineteen to the Green Key Park to let our flooding stop. And we need your help. Y'all got a $2.9 million uh grant for the end of Green Key that said y'all was gonna put pipes in there about eating up the water lines and the gas lines.
Y'all ain't started no project. Y'all didn't include us. You didn't do anything. We were not included and we're just down the street. So I want some help. I'm here as an advocator and to speak out for my neighbors that are all senior citizens. We need your help. Thousands of people are moving here every single day. And they get treated like kings out here at Trinity and Wesley Chapel and all because they got a little more money. I'm sorry that I was sick and I don't have the access
to the money that they have. If so, I would have paid my street already free of charge to all my neighbors if I had the money, but I don't have the money. So I'd like to ask for your help. Y'all are the board. My taxes are paid and they're paid current. So I would like some help, and I'd like to hear from somebody to do something. And they can't do like what's going on in St. Pete. Put the pipe to the gulf. Then what do we do? All the water comes up to pipe. Then we're all flooded again. So we would like some help
along with all these other people that are here that's got a flooding problem that they can't get addressed. I thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you. I will be advocating still for cats. I'll be catching cats and I don't get paid one dime. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If I just really could. Uh we've got funding and we've got two projects right around Green Key that we've funded. We're at sixty percent design. I've told Wanda this as well. She is fired up because she's she's getting flat out continually. So the help is coming. Uh it's gonna take a little bit of time. And Wanda, thank you for all you do for taking out those cats and we will look at that homeless problem again.
All right. No, ma'am. Can't talk from the audience. Thank you. Next person.
A little help with this uh last name, Scott.
That'll help right there.
I'm not sure if it's a K or an H.
Scott Keith,
[address removed]
[address removed]
[address removed]. [address removed]? Yes, ma'am. Oh that's funny.
Yeah, I think probably the first representative from that area, right? Or somebody to come here from that area. Anyways, um Excuse
me,
sir.
You said the last name was Keith? Keith, K-E-I-T-H. Yes, sir. Right.
Okay, thank you.
I'm
here to address the poor road conditions. I mean it's it's been horrible. My wife and I have been residents and homeowners on Oakley Avenue for twenty years, since two thousand four. And the only thing I've seen in a change is It went from being labeled as a private street to now we have the green and white letters or whatever. Now it's your road. Uh The only light on that road was put on by my wife and myself, so I mean there's been nothing done whatsoever. The road is horrible. Uh we've
made community efforts to try to get People together for the funding, you know, to try to get the asphalt fixed. We've made efforts with filling holes. We're not professional road. Cruise or whatever, so it's not working. So I'd like to get that addressed if we could. And um The speed. It's a twelve hundred foot road. And then you get people running down there at thirty five miles an hour and when I stop 'em And I ask 'em, you know, what what's your problem? Residents, and uh they're
like, Oh, it's listed as thirty five on Google. So that doesn't seem to be too fair to the homeowners there. You know, you got people running thirty five miles an hour at twelve hundred feet. Yeah. That's it? I just wanna know what our you know, if you guys got us on a project plan. Right. Uh what what the deal is, if we can get help and what it would look like. Thank you. All right.
Ramford you got somebody to talk to? Yeah, sure. Next person.
Uh Karen Thompson.
Karen Thompson.
Uh Jeanie Atkins. Okay.
Morning Commissioner Star Thank you for your meeting this morning. I'm Jeannie Akins and I live at [address removed] and I'm in Jack's District. Uh when my husband and I bought our property in two thousand Uh we built our home in two thousand and four. after we retired. Our home is on over an acre and it's zoned AR with one residence per acre. At the time we purchased our property In law suites were allowed. Uh
currently we decided that we might want to put an end law suite in the back and we came down and spoke to the Planning and Zoning Commission. and found out that they're no longer allowed, that it has to be attached to the house using the same air conditioning system. And what our plan is is we wanted to put something in the back for ourselves so that my son and his family can move in our house and we can now be in the in-law suite in the back. kind of dovetailing
into what everybody else is complaining about is about the price of homes and Elder care is just going up and it's unaffordable and unacceptable for a lot of people. So my request when I was speaking to the Planning Commission, they said Well, they're no longer allowed, but the Commission is reconsidering them. So I'm here today to ask you to please reconsider allowing in-law suites at a reasonable size so that people can ha keep their family
members close by. My mother lived with us for nine years. I cared for my mother and my father for the last 12 years. My mother just recently passed away. She lived with us. It was fine, but it would have been really nice for her to have her own little cottage in the back so she could have felt like she retained a lot of her own independence rather than being right in with us. So that's my request is that you please reconsider allowing on properties
that have enough room so that the setbacks are still within code from the all the neighbors and have a separate living quarter for family members. Thank you.
Thank you for your comments. And we've been looking at that issue. Yeah.
Thank you.
Should be here
already, but thank you.
Great. Thank you.
Uh Pastor Jen? Kernok?
Good morning. Jen Kerouac. So uh [address removed]. From the Shady Hills area, first I would like to thank Commissioner Yeager for putting forward the resolution as declaring September as National Recovery Month in Pasco. I appreciate that very much. That is a big part of the work that we do out in Shady Hills. I also came forward today
again to advocate for a couple things. The first thing is I would like to invite each of the commissioners out to the Shady Hills area to see what exactly is going on there on Shady Hills Road with regards to the traffic. Um I had emailed each of you separately with regards to a situation that happened to me personally during the time of day when kids are being dropped off by their parents, parents are bringing their kids
to school. And I was actually ran off the road by three FHP vehicles that were accommodating an oversized load coming down Shady Hills Road, driving past all of those schools. And so just I would like for you to come out and see exactly what it is. You know, this was around eight o'clock in the morning. I'm a very experienced driver my husband might say otherwise but I am a very experienced
driver and I was I was scared so you know When we first started talking about the development in Shady Hills, this was the primary concern with regards to dump trucks and and big oversized loads coming down Shady Hills Road and not having the availability to provide properly the transportation route for those oversized
vehicles. So we would love for y'all to come out and just take a look. There's videos all over Facebook. On the Shady Hills Florida site on Facebook. Take a look. Linda Farmer has, you know, videoed. I've sent videos before. We really would sincerely appreciate it because I know that if I was a parent taking my child to school, just in that one moment, I I would have been terrified. mainly
for my kids' lives. And there are kids that are sitting on the side of the road waiting for their bus at that time as well. So, you know, inexperienced drivers could have Come and honestly taking a child out. So I uh please ask you to come and take a look at that road and all the traffic that's happening there physically. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments.
Ex Reverend Marianne Kuzmund.
Good morning. Sorry I'm out of breath. I just got here. Hamirian Cusmal [address removed]. Who's in charge of the bridges that go over Sun Coast?
We have three or four of 'em that Haiti Hills. One's off of Bowman. I recently went out to those bridges and walked around 'em. I recently found out that my son tried to kill himself on those bridges. I was able to go totally. Here's a road. Here's a bridge. Here's the other side of the bridge that drops. I was able to go totally on the opposite side of that bridge. I also found out about three other teenagers that tried to kill themselves on that bridge. There's
nothing on top of 'em. There's nothing on the side of them. I went to that bridge to tell the devil they didn't win. My son's in the army right now. There are many young people who ride the Suncoast on their bicycles. They deal drugs on the Sun Coast, they ride bicycles. There's people trafficking that go out there to the kids and they're able to get to these bridges. So if is there's anything that we can do, if we can get someone to go down there and
take a look at the bridges, because so they're not so accessible, we're actually gonna write signs and put them on the bridges of hope. Shady Hills everybody's talking about what's gonna happen with the law when they're not allowed to be out there in public. Our home was at Shady Hills, as you know, has already been disrupted. All the woods they used to sleep on are gone. Now they're hanging around certain areas and they can't get
to us because the bus doesn't come down to us. We recently last night dropped somebody off at the hotel. We're a tiny little church. But we're there at the forefront. We don't stop. I didn't get home until twelve o'clock last night waiting for a girl to get put into a hotel room.
Think about the little guys when people write grants. Maybe we don't write a perfect grant. Thank you very much. I'm I'm done, right? Is that my before? No, you have none minute. No, you
got one more minute.
We might not write the perfect grant But we're doing the work. Two weeks ago we brought another girl in. She's in Jericho Holmes. W I've been there ten years. Our success rate for just the church It's possibly nine to ten people who are clean. Think about that. That's a church. Of more than twenty five members People have dropped them off so they stay at our gazebo. Baycare's dropped him off. Here,
what are we supposed to do with them? We still take care of 'em. A couple of times we had to give him blankets and pillows. And put 'em in lawn chairs. It was thirty degrees that night. That was two years ago. So next time a church writes a little grant and asks for help It's because we've been doing the work for ten years, not for our glory, for God's glory, one hundred percent. It's for God's glory. Thank you for listening to me. God bless.
Thank you. Remember you have someone to speak to her about the bridge.
Well,
That's
that's D O T. But I have an idea.
Oh it's a st state road? South Coast Parkway. Oh we can talk to her then. Okay. Lisa
Moretti.
Mm-hmm.
Name and address for the record.
I'm surprised it's not on barcode on my head. Uh Lisa Moretti, [address removed]. That's [address removed]. Candidate for County Commissioner and a perennial thorn in your side, admittedly. I have three things I'd like to speak to you about this morning in public comment. One, I would like to encourage you to take next year's schedule of meetings off the consent agenda. It's an election year. This is something that we've been talking about quite a bit on the election trail. You've been handed a recommendation from a court judge saying that you are out of compliance with meeting at 1:30
on Tuesdays. You should have at least one of those meetings occurring at 5 p.m. so that residents who work can be involved in the process. I know the county attorney's gonna tell me I'm full of it, but you did have a recommendation from a judge in a decided case which you lost. I'd also like to bring to light that you've cut off access to a Salah on the pre-app process for residents. Um that's been a lifeline for us to be able to actually get ahead of what's happening in development in this county. It seems like it was a cherry-picked idea. I
think that um There's a little bit of retribution in that decision and it also is a public records violation. So I would hope that you would change your minds and open that back up for us. And third, I've been inundated with requests since I declared my candidacy, asking for people across the county for help on various issues because they haven't been able to get anyone to return their calls. And I think that um it's really important that you listen to residents. One, a simple case in point, kind
of similar to what a young lady spoke to ahead of me. Uh you get an uh an email every day, every business day for over a year from Norm Carey over in our district. He works with Feral Cash. He's letting you know that the funds that are set aside for TNR are being used inappropriately. He's being told that to bring in a feral to be spayed or neutered, he has to make an appointment, and he can't get an appointment for about three weeks. Now you figure the math on that with a feral cat. So
I know you probably want to write him off as just a guy that's a crazy cat guy with a grudge or something like that. But he's bringing to your attention a very significant problem. And I ask you to look beyond personalities and listen to what residents are telling you. So I would like to say, shouldn't you all be serving the people that bring you to the dance and pay back part of your and pay part of your paycheck? It seems, especially with the Acela situation, that you're setting it up, that you're just responding to developers because developers aren't happy
that we know about the pre-app process when it happens. So again, looping back, I'd love to see you take that Acela back and put it where it was, where we can access it. In a timely fashion. Thank you.
Thank you. That's all we have signed up in advance.
Okay, does anyone in the audience wish to speak that did not sign up? Come forward.
Do I guess I'm Long Germany?
I thought Branford was coming forward for a second.
Yeah. Bramford's busy. Leave Bramford alone. He's busy. Yes sir. Name and address for the record.
My name is Rhonda Weaver. Uh let me think. [address removed]. Um, I'm here about three things. I am with Chaddy Hills Mission Chapel. I'm also with Help for the Children Ministries. I've been with them for nine almost ten years now. Um I we work with teenagers. that are going through all the hard stuff and everything in this. But there are teenagers and young kids that go to Ellis Memorial Park right there in the corner of Shady
Hills and Greenland Lane. They also have all the ball fields there. It takes twenty to thirty minutes to get out of that road sometimes. There's no light, there's no nothing. It's very dangerous because kids walk up and down that road from the school to go to the park and to go play ball and there's no light there. It's very, very dangerous. and I'm asking that you guys look into it maybe putting a light in there. it makes it easier for the traffic going in and out of there and also maybe putting a sidewalk for the kids to go from Cruise
Lake Middle up to that area where the park is at because there is no sidewalks and it's very, very dangerous. Also, I lost a daughter to um A drug on overdose? And then later I lost my son in law to the drug overdose and left my granddaughter. behind. Um People need help getting off drugs. Going to court and going to jail, it's only temporary fix. and when they send them and say they have to go to rehab it
costs money and a lot of people don't have the insurance to go to the long term facilities. I think that we should have a facility Where people can go for at least thirty to sixty days. and not just three days and then say, Okay, we're putting you on this drug to get you off that drug. It needs to be a long term um goal for these people because they can't get off drugs without it. Just tell them put they put 'em on Savoxin or they put 'em on something else. That's still another drug. They need to
be in a facility where they can slowly wean off everything 'cause all you're doing is putting them back on a street and putting them on another drug. You're not really getting them off drugs. You're just putting them on another drug. Um So I think we should have some kind of facility for people that don't have insurance, can afford insurance to get off drugs. Um my daughter went to rehab. Three days is not enough. And like I said, all I did was put her on another drug to get her off a drug and it's still a
drug. And that's not what they need. They don't need drugs to get off drugs. They need long term monitoring health care to get off the drugs. And that's all I have to say.
All right. Thank you for your comments. You're welcome. Yes,
ma'am.
Yes. If you'll follow me for one second I have something. Okay.
Yeah. Uh uh we also going back, Karen Thompson.
Thank you. That's all that signed up. Okay.
Anybody on WebEx?
And none on
WebEx. None on WebEx? Okay, this time we will close I see a gentleman getting up. Okay. So We'll close uh public comments and then we'll move into the Believe we have our resolutions.