Public comment on agenda items
What the county recorded
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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 outcome, because the county never recorded one. Everything below is inferred.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Feb 21, 2023
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Feb 21, 2023
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 26m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 89% of 92 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Here. Now is the time for public comment. Citizens are given an opportunity to comment on any current or future agenda item coming before the board and on any other business under the board's purview. Today's public comment will be handled as follows. First, we will take public comment from those who are here in person. Then we will take public comment for those who are pre-registered for a WebEx link. And are currently on queue. We request when you address the board, comments are not directed personally at a commissioner or team member. but rather
directed at the issues. This provides mutual respect between the board members and the public. After stating your name and address for the clerk, a three-minute timer will be activated. After two minutes, a single beep will indicate you have one minute left. When your time is up, two beeps will sound and you should close your comments. WebEx participants will be disconnected automatically when their time is up. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone signed up for public comment?
We do. Uh first is Thomas Carroll.
Thank you. Uh my name's Thomas Carroll. I live at [address removed]. Uh thank you for the time to talk about the closed golf course in Hudson, the Lynx. Ryan Holmes has made several presentations to the Homeowners Associations of the Estates, where 14 holes of the golf course are on, and Fairway Oaks, where I live, on the east side of Little Road, where four holes of the old golf course is. And there's a golf path that runs under Little
Road that I believe is county property. I purchased my home in July of 2003 on the then thirteenth Hole Green and I paid a premium for being on the golf course at that time. I understand that the county cannot require a company to run a money losing business, and the current owner, who closed the course several years ago, Claimed he was losing money in a declining business. There was even an article that was written about that at the time in the uh Tampa
Times. Since the closing though, we as homeowners have had to live with an unkept poorly maintained neighbor. I understand the county has at this time fined this owner approximately a quarter of a million dollars without any payments or concerns on his part. A few years ago, a tree farm of scrub pines was planted on the property. Trees were planted throughout the property, including retention areas. and the
area is not properly maintained and the fire break, if you want to call it that, was supposedly put into place. In just a few short years, some trees have grown to five to six feet and soon, in my opinion, will pose a fire hazard if struck by lightning. And we do live in a state that's kind of called the Lightning Capitol. We now have a developer making presentations that they are purchasing the old golf course and
other property. to build two hundred and eighteen single family homes, cut a new street onto Hudson Avenue by Library Road, Which will dramatically increase traffic and possibly cause a dangerous intersection. I was informed when the golf course closed that an M PUD was in place for many years that had required the eighteen hole golf course with many slanted fairways to be in place to alleviate excessive rains during
any kind of storms, hurricanes, etc. I am asking for the board's help in reviewing this builder, this building of this development of the golf course that can create more problems for us in the future as neighbors of Pasco. Thank you for your time. And Tom
Tom, your leadership has asked me to bring out staff. Uh to kind of update you because you've heard presentations from everybody else around it. So we're working with your team to actually do that. I think we've got a date selected. I think our
president is here who will be talking too.
Oh okay. I'll let you guys continue then. Okay.
Okay. Thank you, Jack.
Okay, thank you. The next one is Pastor Leonard Lord.
Leonard Lord, uh I live at [address removed], for about 46 years and want to say it's an honor and a joy to be here. Wanna say hello to all of you in the name of Jesus and it's good to have Mr. Weightman on the board and Mr. Bradford. Uh I came quite a while for some years and then uh adopting the grandson haven't had time to be here. But uh Anyway. Uh I know I've been told by many and and discerned that y'all do fear the Lord.
And uh And that's good. We're exhorted in Christians as Christians By uh the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos to Not forsake our first love. Now what I found it's easy to forsake the love of Jesus and let other things creep in, and what happens is He says if we do forsake our first love. that our candlestick would be removed. We wouldn't be the highlight he wants us to be. So it's the
person of Christ we have a relationship with that gives us the wisdom. as leaders, the ability to make the decisions for the people. And just here I'm just speaking in reference to what's on my shirt that We've had a word for years and prayer that Pasco. would be a forerunner Of good things to come. You see, Jesus was the first one to lay his life down and live fully for others, through the love of the Father, and he entered in behind the veil to live
and pray for us. So I'm just here to just uh say there's only really one king, one lawgiver, one judge. And his name is Jesus Christ. So I pray that God would deliver us from the fear of man and the laws of man and get back to the heart of life. And I appreciate y'all helping that. And uh of course, uh Pastor Troy Peterson will share more on our prayer time coming. God bless you, and may God bless you and Uh May Pasco
County indeed fulfill its prophecy. be a forerunner of good things to come into all the world. Lord bless ya.
Thank you. So the next one is Troy Pastor Troy Peterson.
Motion ref receive file.
So
move. Second.
All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay.
Troy Peterson, [address removed]. Commissioners, uh first off, I want to thank you uh for opening up this podium to give others an opportunity to share and to speak. Um I want to personally thank Commissioner Mariano. and the others, uh the sheriff if he's watching, um, for partnering with somebody careers, Pasco in doing the National Day of Prayer.
Um that's been done. I believe Commissioner could help me on this for the last twenty years. Right out here. on our uh right on the front steps also being done in Dade City. Um I want to introduce this prayer guide to you all. Um every year we do uh national uh forty days of prayer, uh starting on Ash Wednesday leading up to uh Um Palm Sunday, uh the the Wednesday following. Just imagine the Church in Pasco
praying according to Scripture and God's heart. Imagine Christians united to cry out for transformation of our community. Imagine our unified prayers piercing to the heavens over Pasco County. Imagine the Church in Pasco praying together. I will add I was on a Zoom call with several other pastors and leaders throughout the US last night. I I have twenty other pastors in different states throughout the US that are gonna be praying this specific prayer
guide. So, what we've done this year is normally we receive a prayer guide. The uh national ministry that puts that out didn't do a prayer guide this week or this year. So we put one together and you're holding it in your hands. We got together on Wednesdays with several different leaders from the community. We came up with the scriptures, and what we're doing this year differently is we're praying the Seven Mountain Influence. Isaiah 2 says, the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the hills. That's a place of power. That's
a place of authority. There's a place of power and authority in the government, in the education, in the family, in the businesses, in the media, into the arts and entertainment. So what we want to invite is government leaders, March 8th at the Oasis Coffee Spot, 6:30 in the evening, we're going to be praying. Specifically for our government leaders. If any of you can make it that night, we'd love to pray over you. Um also education um is a is a key thing. We've been going into the uh school board
meetings. We want to pray over our uh school board members. And so this is a time of prayer leading up to the National Day of Prayer, which uh I believe that would be uh May fourth, right out here. Thank you for your time.
Okay, thank you. So the next individual did not leave their name. They only left the topic car washes. So when the it okay, she knows who she is. She come on up and introduce yourself.
Thank you for letting me speak. I do not represent any company. We need your name. An individual who has lived in Pasco County. Yeah, name and address. My name is Loretta Albanese. Okay, and your address, Ms. Albanese.
And your address? Your address?
Oh [address removed]. Okay. My husband worked for the post office. I am an individual who was very upset by the fact that We as homeowners can only water our grass on the day that corresponds with the last number of our address. But yet I see people all over the place wa spraying their lawns with their
sprinkler systems. What's gonna happen to the water in a few years? The people that come before m after me, what what what are they gonna drink? You can't manufacture water. And now you're letting car washers be built. Every place in Pasco. Eventually this county will be known as Pasco, the Car wash County. They're everywhere. Some of them are only two-tenths of a mile from the other gas station, and they're across the street from each other. It
doesn't make any sense. I don't know what the county does when somebody buys a piece of land. Do they tell them they're gonna build a car wash there. And doesn't anybody say to them Why are you building a car wash? There's one right next door. Or there's one two tenths of a mile On Trouble Creek and Rowan Road, there's a new car wash going up on the corner. Two tenths of a mile up Rowan Road, there's another car wash that has been there for over thirty years. So I
don't understand. This is not just Pasco, it's probably everywhere. I haven't been to the east side of the county. I don't want to walk go over there and see a hundred more c new car washes being built every place. I think some sort of a um There has to be some sort of a guideline. You just can't come in and build a car wash here and there's one across the street or there's one around the corner. I just think we need to worry about the future generation of this county.
that will be w needing water in order to be able to survive. Thank
you.
Thank
you.
Okay, thank you. So the next one signed up is Alan Rose.
Good morning. Alan Rose, [address removed]. Um I come to you. I see that we're getting waterways on the uh agenda. C ten is the item number. See that you've making progress. There's some money coming in that you can work with. I've got waterways management experience over thirty years. I've been bringing to you for a number of years a proposal to take care of our entire coastline. Our coastline is in serious
need of help. Now I'll be retiring this year and I'm offering my assistance to the county. to help get this done. We have many different eye many different areas to go for direct funding. I know there's an MSBU that being proposed and different things. We have uh In the just on the state beaches and waterways and ports program, $15 million a year under the Coastal Barrier Resource Act, over $2 billion a year for our section of the United
States, direct funding. The Army Corps of Engineers Director has $10 million direct funding available for us here. We just have to approach it properly with the plan in place and take action. Um for our for Pasco County, a success you can look at is what was done in Hudson. Hudson Beach, September 20th. September twenty-second, twenty twenty. I went and properly cleaned Hudson Beach. The uh Department of Health has records
to show you what Hudson Beach was before that cleanup. Before that cleanup you had numerous, you couldn't count 'em all. Failures and restrictions. People could not swim in the water. The water stunk stank. And most people blamed it on uh different uh systems that are in place for uh septic systems. That wasn't the case. I went out there and I did what I knew needed to be done, took care of it. Since that cleanup, the following
year you had three restricted times and last year you had one. This is what happens when it's done properly. I came in and and I had built a breakwater, but the breakwater is too high, so they came in and leveled it behind me. I got to cease and desist, so I stopped. But what I did stayed in place and is still making a difference today. We can have that kind of res resources and response throughout our entire coast. We can get miles of beaches. for people to enjoy weaking.
Increase our waterways dramatically and make it beautiful for everyone to enjoy. Cleaning the waters, our manatees, our s sea turtles, and our uh waterfowl will all have a place to really thrive. And that's just wanted to bring it to you.
And Alan, thanks for coming forward. Uh those of you don't know um Commissioner Weightman and Bradford, Uh, Mr. Rose actually sat on the Restore Act committee with us, but he was so intense, so involved, we had to get him off so he could actually give us more information. uh coming forward. When you retire especially, I would love to get you with get with get you have get you with Mr. Carbella, start looking at the grants that are out there and work with you to to try to help get all the money we can in for all this restoration. And uh we actually have a grant in for the State, or a request in for the State to actually help with Hudson Beach too. So I would love to have your involvement. I appreciate
you.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Next is Kathy Julian.
Hello. I'm back kind of as a broken record. I was here um Ms. Julian, can
you give your name and address
for the record?
I saw I'm back kind of as a broken record. The last time I'd come to speak was because um a group of people that I'm affiliated with have been addressing porn in the schools. And um I was showing you guys some some of what was going on at the library and actually on the way home that time. that from that um trip here I stopped at the library And um I checked this book out and This book is truly disturbing the images that are in it, but it's available in the library. I don't know that's it available now 'cause I have it and apparently you don't do fine, so I could just
like keep it forever. But um I was put in contact um the commission the chairman had me get in contact with the people from the library and there's a form I have to fill out and the problem I have with the form is that I need to put my name and address on it and I don't really want that um being sent out to people that are gonna be looking to see if this book should come off the shelf or not. Um I emailed a couple of times with them and I never heard back again. So I didn't you know, I don't like
to be ignored. But um I don't think anybody likes to be ignored, but I just um would like to know how we follow up on this and how we get I mean, I showed this to a friend of mine who works in is a therapist and he looked at it and he said, that's kitty porn. Those are images of young boys. performing nasty acts on each other. And this is in our libraries. This is not right. Why are these books there? I understand they're in the adult section, but Anybody could walk in and look at them. They're right
next to the floor. I mean, this is crazy. This is in our libraries. Why is this in our libraries, guys? Why does it take a mom to come in here and Bring this up. It shouldn't take a mom. There should be somebody. I mean I I know all of you are upstanding members of the community. Everybody here knows this isn't right. We shouldn't be exposing our children to this. I mean I I j I I'm just befuddled, but I can't get a response, so that's why I'm back and I'll keep coming back every time you come to New
Port Richey.
So Kathy, you just gave us your name and address for the record. What's the problem with filling the format with it?
Well I I mean I'm giving that here, but when you're I don't know. I I don't like having my address out there. I mean I started going to city council meetings and then I have these crazy people. texting me and emailing me, I know where you live and they're coming to my house.
Well if you would, Kathy Pearson's right over there.
But I never I never got a response back. I g I asked why I have to I mean I don't have a problem giving you my address. But I do have a problem putting it on a form that's gonna be given to people that are in the commun you know what I'm say there's a difference.
If you would Kathy please talk with a facilitate.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you. So next is Kim Barker.
Good morning. Good morning.
Good morning.
Hi, my name is Kim Barker. I live at [address removed]. And um I am a lifelong resident of East Pasco and uh realtor. I've been a realtor for sixteen years. Um I'm here this morning to uh first of all thank you for considering building such an amazing amenity center on our side of the county. I've read two articles in the paper, uh Tampa Bay Times and the Laker about the potential for an aquatic center
coming back to East Pasco. Pasco County owned and operated an aquatic center at Hercules Park in Zephyrhills many years ago and it was closed during the you know the housing bust and it the the loss of that amenity is really sorely felt in the community. Since its closure, the the residents of East Pasco don't have ease of access to aquatics or even really a good rec
facility. So I am so excited to hear that you're considering our side of the county for uh that type of improvement. Because as you know, the county is growing. Um Central Pasco has blown up and it's it's coming into East Pasco and so the quality of life in East Pasco is really changing. The landscape is changing, the the small town feel is changing, and and to be honest, there's a lot of people that are experiencing gentrification
in our area. And as you know, with growth, as a realtor, I'm never gonna come before you and complain about growth. Right, like that that's good for me in my business. But what I do care about is how the county reinvests those dollars to improve the quality of life for the people who have been there for generations. Um so I would really like to see that and uh I just hope that you keep us on your radar. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, and then the last one signed up for in person is Rick Stevenson.
My name is Rick Stevenson. I live at [address removed]. Forgot there for a moment. Um I would also like to mention the issues with the Lynx golf course as Mr. Carroll has. I'm not gonna hit the same s subjects he did 'cause we don't need to reiterate it. But as You all know It's close. And N it's turned into a tree farm, but
I have gone through and reviewed the master plan and the MPUD and everything still shows this property as a golf course. Once again I also went through Uh an extensive search looking for public hearing. Changing this golf course to a tree form. Excuse me. So I find absolutely no Paper trailer. that says anything going
on there now is illegal. Um We've had Brush growing everywhere on the fairways. We had a homeless encampment. Down at the tunnel that goes underneath Little Road. and it's kinda become a dump that we've had to be cleaning up to. Um, see, I understand you're going through a similar issue with Saddlebrook and another part of the county.
Um And you have assisted. a golf course in Paradise Pines with finding a new owner and everything to Bring it back to its original state. So is what we would like to ask. We've got like a thousand homes. that are in this golf count course community, including the estates and the preserves and everything. And that's what we need to get back to so we can have it. Um An
example, uh we've got a neighbor One of the dead trees off mister Lumma's property fail took out their iron fins and it's all over their yard now. His response is call your homeowner's insurance, even though it's his street. And with that, I would like to just ask to this chamber to reiterate and research what's going on there and give a possibility of assistance to the
homeowners. Okay.
And and you know, you we we talked before and you asked me about b doing a meeting. We tried to w you had a meeting last time and the developer was there and I was there for a little bit after our board meeting that night. Um But I I will, as we had done before, when the Gulf Coast first shut down, we brought out code enforcement team, we brought out a growth management team, willing to do the same thing for you again publicly. Uh if I have the experts there that they can talk to you, you can ask all the questions you want. So I'd like to be able to, Mr. Carbella, to be able to set up to uh have the attorneys out there. I
see Sam Boun Bounty in the office audience as well, but we can coordinate that meeting to get our staff there, our team there, so they can explain to you the technical questions and give you their responses back.
Right.
Okay, as the commissioners, we can't go there as in a group. And frankly, I'm not gonna put myself in a position to be deposed by the realtor's friend, uh the realtor that's has the property for Ryan. uh which he threatened me at. So I'm not gonna put myself in that position, but I'll have all the experts there. They can tell you what they found. And we'll do that out in the
I appreciate that and we've moved a meet a special meeting. I think was March fifteenth and we forward the date and request to your all's office. To get everybody there on one sheet.
Okay. So Jeff and Mike if you'd appreciate
that.
So Jeff and Mike, if you're allowed to set the team up to go out there, that would be good. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
There is no one else signed in for in person.
Okay. Is anyone else in the audience would like to speak and address on public comment? Okay, we'll close public comment in here. Anybody on WebEx on the queue?
Okay, so there was one signed up but he is not in the queue. So we are good, you can move forward.
Okay.