Commissioner reports: Oakley, Weightman, Yeager, Mariano

1:40:10join. We can do it this afternoon. I didn't have that on my notice. Sorry about that. Oh, to be heard after P sixty eight. I got it. Okay, Commissioner Oakley? Commissioner Oakley.

1:40:20Okay.

1:40:23They would have to

1:40:25I went deer hunting. I did not shoot anything, but I saw a lot of deer. The only temporar I I saw was on camera and it was 3.30 in the morning. I didn't get it. So anyway. Didn't use a spotlight. But it was good relaxing. But went and visited with uh uh public works on their quarterly meeting. And I think you went to one over in uh Commissioner Starkey went

1:40:55to a quarterly meeting. Not this one but the nine eleven.

1:40:58And they look like they're paying attention.

1:40:59Yeah. And well they do. They're they're very good. They They give out awards for For the year of service in the county and There's so many different moving parts in the public works area that you you walk in there is just just amazing at all the good works and good things that happen from a group of people and that's only part of them because there's a lot more than could fit in that room that works in public works around. So they do a great job and I certainly appreciate

1:41:29it being able to be there and speak to 'em. So I'm really grateful for all they do all over the county for our citizens. So that's

1:41:42that's it. Okay, Commissioner Weightman.

1:41:44Well I have to brag University of South Florida.

1:41:48Oh we're not talking college

1:41:49football. No,

1:41:50we're not going to be able to do it.

1:41:51First time in the college football playoffs. We made it. So go Bulls. It's exciting to see.

1:41:57Is that why you're wearing green? Nice

1:41:59tie up.

1:42:00Right here. Something to root for it. They got a ball with you? Oh yeah. Just checking. Greatest kicker in the country about right now. Um thank the one thing the school board for having their uh their round table. Many of us were there. Uh it was a nice nice gathering of folks at Saint Leo and thank thank you to Saint Leo for hosting us. Um and then Kathy, if Kathy wouldn't mind come up, put you on the spot, we two good souls um event last week, two weeks ago. Seems recent, but uh Mendelsons

1:42:31always contribute and uh he and the girls w were there and and they represented the private sector side. Congratulations Mike Wells, they they won. They they had the most shoes but just phenomenal event. Figure we talk about it at some nice press there and

1:42:45Kathy Pearson, Assistant County Administrator of Public Services. Commissioner Weightman, thank you for being there. Your speech was very inspirational. So thank you. Ten years. I use this as a my grandson just turned thirteen when we started this, he was three. So ten years we've been doing this, this is behalf of the whole Um county is all our constitutional officers that are involved, our amazing staff. We have collected so far the date, I think it's close to

1:43:1624,000 pairs of shoes and over almost 55 56,000 pairs of socks. We almost hit the 3,000 mark this year with shoes and I think it was um I don't know five, six thousand on socks. So You know, we started this ten years ago, we were really wondering, man, is this gonna work? Is this really gonna happen? And when you hear the social workers every single year that they come here and the caseworkers and they were picking out shoes for these kids,

1:43:46they'll tell you there are kids that still have tape around their sneakers, they cut their toes off the shoes because they don't fit. This is really a blessing and they these shoes will be gone by Christmas. So On beho behalf of all you almost won, by the way. We've snuck you out. Public services snuck you out a little bit. But you know, I want to do say uh Lane Mendelson every year. He donates

1:44:10We only almost won because Lane chose to join the commission

1:44:13this year on the community. She ditched me this year. She ditched me and went to you guys. So we gotta find another Lane. Lane wanna talk about

1:44:22two good souls. And what it means to to your family and you're supporting it, two good souls.

1:44:27Absolutely. Come on now. Abby is our spokesperson now. Yes. I'm confident when I'm long and gone, she will continue the tradition. So

1:44:36Yeah, um it was uh really interesting 'cause five years ago we met Kathy at the um grand opening of the first family homeless shelter in Pasco. And um Rachel was there, you were there. Yeah uh Ray my daughter Rachel was I don't know ten, maybe eleven, and uh we had packaged up seventy, seventy-five backpacks full of toys and games and hats and little watches.

1:45:03would come and check in. Not a not a good day obviously. but the kids were greeted with, Hey, here's a backpack almost like you're you know, here's a welcome gift, a swag bag. And um Rachel felt really connected to that and she felt really good about that. It was something that she had read that another kid had done in in another state. And Ms. Kathy came up to me and said, Oh, it'd be great if you guys could participate with with two good souls, maybe next year. I said, Oh, okay, well, why next year? And she said, Well, our event is next month. This was September and October was two good souls.

1:45:33I said Why can't we why can't we do it this year? She said, Well it's a m it's only a month away. I said, We can we can get shoes and socks in a month. That's that's not a problem. So that was our first year getting involved and um And I said to Abby, would you like to work on this with me? Because she saw Rachel uh packing the backpacks and she saw Rachel getting excited about it and talking about it. So this was a really great opportunity for Abby to have her thing. and she felt she was like, Yeah, absolutely, I'm really excited about this, let's do it So we um you

1:46:04know, I I was thinking, okay, we're gonna do this. Yeah, we kinda move around and help different organizations, but uh Abby's like, I wanna do it every year and so she's like the ambassador of Two Good Souls. And um I also say that um her public speaking skills have improved because um Miss Kathy gives Abby an opportunity to talk in front of people each year and she writes a speech and she practices it and so So it's really it's really become part of her identity, and she loves the fact that she's helping kids and

1:46:35she gets to talk about it with other people. And she even last year at one of our events, Abby was talking about it and how much it means to her. And afterwards, one of one of our customers came up to Abby and said, I want to donate. You inspired me. How do I donate? I want to give $2,000 and buy shoes. And Abby was so excited, like she she called Kathy, like, I got more money coming in, we can buy more shoes. And um so it really um her her positivity and her desire to help became contagious

1:47:05in a good way, and and um it's yeah, it's been fantastic in in many ways. So really appreciate it.

1:47:12I want to thank if you ever see Jacques Hakeem in our community. We couldn't do it without him. We partner with him. He gets us discounted amount of shoes and I think how many 500 pairs of shoes? We need

1:47:24to get him on our team as well. Because I think he's on Wells team, right? No.

1:47:29No, I think

1:47:31I'm not sure. But anyway, please thank him. Does he have a permanent Going through

1:47:38very instrumental in our community, as you all know. But we were able to buy more shoes because of him. And one more note I want to just say to Lane, you know, it has been a pleasure and an honor watching watching Abby grow. It brings tears to my eyes. You know, she's 12 now. She was seven when she started, right? Seven. And the maturity, I feel like. I feel like part of their family, that's how they make you feel. You feel part of them. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you.

1:48:06And and Kathy, the the m the greatest thing for shoot what were the sizes?

1:48:10The big ones? So we tried to get bigger sizes. We do have smaller, but it's mostly for the um, you know, sizes eight and nine and up, because those are the kids that sometimes get forgotten about. We do plan on coming back in January. January with some of the social workers and we'll have a little film and obviously invite Abby back so you can honor them sometime in January or February. We're working out those details. So thank you all. Ten

1:48:36years, congratulations to everybody who's been involved from from its uh from its from its startup and um wonderful work. That's all I have to share.

1:48:45Uh Commissioner.

1:48:48All right, well um I just have to wait for Dina to get back.

1:48:54It's okay.

1:48:59We can start with what I'm um I just handed everybody. She's gonna put it up, but I'm um doing a thing, stockings for seniors. So we are trying to service 115 seniors that are in the congregate dining um through the county. So we are trying to bless them. And these are some of the items that we are trying to collect. So I have flyers if anybody would like to help. We're gonna have a box um at our office. If you'd like to drop things off, that'd be great. So and

1:49:29I have flyers if anybody wants one. Okay, next. I have a bunch and I will be super quick.

1:49:36'Cause it's been busy. Okay, so this was um I'll let Commissioner Starkey, I'll skip this one, I'll let Commissioner Starkey um explain that that's her baby. Okay, so we have partnered with One Stop Shop. And a special shout out to Parks. One Stop Shop is in Dade City. So we have been able to bless this organization and give them a ton of resources for Dade City. I believe there's another slide. on this one. So this grandma and Dade City had nothing. So we were be able we were able to provide her with

1:50:06a couch, the two chairs, the coffee table, a table, things for her bathroom, things for her bedroom, and she her apartment was literally empty, so she was so excited. So next one. This was our legislative um partnership with um Superintendent leg this was very informative and um Seth was there and um all the different um people in the community it was very good. Hopefully they'll do it again next year. It was pretty neat wasn't it? Yeah. It was really neat. Yeah.

1:50:36You know, one of my suggestions was I think they should explain what their millage does. Because that was something that I think would be helpful for for everybody. At least you know. So okay, next slide. Okay, this is so much fun. Shout out to every single um employee that dressed up for the seniors. Their costumes were amazing. I'm telling you, District 4, we are bringing it next year because I had no clue this was a thing. But the washer and the dryer and

1:51:06the hot dog vendor operation, all the staff really gets into it. The the the the everybody loved it. It's so much fun. So shout out to Brian and Kathy and that entire team because this was this was so fun. Okay, next one. And then right after that we went to the Vincent house for the chili cook-off and they're about to put up a bunch of housing which is really exciting. So Gus got them the funding for that. So that was it. That was just such a fun day. So next one.

1:51:36Who won? Commissioner Yeager?

1:51:38I don't know because I don't itch. Uh this is the Gold Star Family uh breakfast. This was absolutely beautiful. I have the information in my car, but if you'd like to buy a brick for it, it's a hundred dollars and it gets a great cause. It was absolutely beautiful. Next slide. Okay, this was the area of aging luncheon and um Brian um was actually at another table and I I hijacked him and said come sit by us So this was amazing and they raised a lot of money for a

1:52:08great cause. Okay. Oh, this was our so we had a this is our second health fair with um the Department of Health and Moffitt brought the the lung screening bus and feeding Tampa Bay came. We fed 112 families. There were 20 something mammograms, people with immunizations and all all sorts of things. So this was amazing and um I can't wait to do another one. So there's that. Oh this was the home dedication. They had seven homes they were death

1:52:38dedicating. So it was very it was a beautiful, beautiful day. So next slide. So this was Paint the Night Blue for Pasco Kids First. Um there's not a picture here, but the artist who he's very famous has photos all over the world, but he was abused as a child, and that's how he kind of got into art. It was very moving, very emotional. Okay, next question.

1:53:02What's the location of that?

1:53:03That was at the Greek Orthodox Church.

1:53:07Oh Damien Stuck. Thank you. Is he

1:53:10he's local? Is he a

1:53:11Pasco based? But he's everywhere. Like he's at he's everywhere. Um all over the country. Yep, Mar-a-Lago, T P USA, all sorts of things. Is he

1:53:22is he a Pasco resident?

1:53:28Okay. And then this was I did the welcome for the delegation. And that was great. And I think that's it. Is that it? I have one more thing. I'm just sending to texting Gina real quick. I just wanted to show you this lady. I I did the Veterans Day. Gina, I just sent you a text. Um I don't know if you just put it up under the screen, but I met this lady and she served three different branches. So she was in the Army, the

1:53:58Air Force, and the Marines. And then when she retired, she was a Philadelphia police officer. So it was it was a real honor to meet her. And she lives uh right here in Pasco County. So I just wanted to s if you can't get a Gina it's no big deal. But she was just a super cool lady and I'd never met anybody that had served in three branches. She was very funny. She said I tried going in the Navy, but they told me I was overweight or else I would have been in another branch. So

1:54:28Mariano. Alright, I got a few pictures. Um Well if you want to bring them up, Jane will go along. Uh I was over Saddlebrook Resort and all the discussion about the golf course, the changes they're gonna make, going from 36 to 27, uh how they're gonna make holes better, I'm gonna tell you they delivered on the nine holes I played the other day. Um the designers like made some great changes. The condition of not only the Saddlebrook course itself, um, but even the one they haven't renovated yet in

1:54:58the Saddlebrook back nine. And the greens are absolutely perfect. Absolutely perfect. The pool has now been renovated where they got a brand new sh shelters out there. They re redressed everything so it looks good. The pool has been redone. Just a phenomenal. The amenities are are just incredible. So what they've been doing to promise to bring forward, it's going to be a great great addition for the county and really elevating the resort up. Next page. Um so w watching Fox News the other day, you

1:55:28know, after just coming and I'll I'll talk to Amskills, their uh training thing they had. There is such a shortage of workers. And we've known this from in in Tampa Bay with this the thirty two hundred jobs could have been filled just a while ago. This is the nation now. And they say, you know, listen to uh Jim Farley from the president of CEO of Ford talking about how people is it's It's almost those other gentlemen on the on the on it. They're saying for every five workers that are retired, there's only two replacement on the workforce. So everything that I think we're doing at Amskills

1:55:58is critical and we need to expand and I'm gonna be working real hard with the Hudson Industrial Park up by Hicks Road and Hudson Ave to make sure we bring a giant building in there for we get heating, AC, plumbing, uh, as well as all the M Skills for manufacturing coming on. But look at the shortage that's going on right now. And I think I think there's not gonna be an opportunity, Mike, to reach out to the car dealer. that are right here because they have such a shortage as well and there's good paying jobs that are out there is that we need to kind of reach out and and jump into the market as

1:56:28well. And I think if we needed to we could reach out to Floyd and we could probably get them to join right with us to help us sponsor some of this. I think they would

1:56:35love to have a foundation.

1:56:38I think they would love it and I'm I plan to make that reach out but I wanted to kind of just share with you what's going on there. All right next Yeah. Um the Paint Night Blue, what a what a great event. You had the picture from the outside. That was the picture from the inside. You see the place is absolutely packed.

1:56:52Yeah, that's awesome.

1:56:52Uh just a phenomenal event. Pasco kids first. They're one of our beneficiars for the opioid money, et cetera, but doing a great job and it's great to see the community support and they ran a really good, really good program. Uh that the Amskills had the graduation. Mike, I had no idea. It was nine years we've been working with training and utility workers down there. And I'll tell you, One by one he had a bunch of those people come up and talk about how it affected their lives. There was a dad there that was brought there after his son took the course. The dad was being

1:57:23changed out of a job. He's Dad you need to come down here and take the course. And they hear him spill his guts about how great it was to do it. And the encouragement he gave him. There was a couple of other ladies a little bit older that were in there too, and then some young kids. One kid was in a high school and he'd done one of the programs over the summer and he says, I want to skip my senior year and go to work for utilities right now.

1:57:44Oh

1:57:44and uh We

1:57:45won't let him.

1:57:46So they they said no. That's exactly right. So the manager said no you're gonna go back to school you finished and when you graduate you come see me. When the kid's at his graduation he actually calls the manager up and says, I've graduated now, I want to come to work.

1:57:59I love it.

1:58:00He had a five year plan and he executed every one of those plans. He wanted to get married, this is high school sweetheart, he wanted to have a home, wanted to have a car, wanna have a boat. And I think there's one more thing in there. He met all his goals and is now oh pr being promoted to a foreman at that time. So really uh just what they're doing is creating jobs, creating opportunities to make things happen, uh and I and I just was so enthused to s to see it happen and how your team Mike was so enthused about, you know, making all this work to help their own force. Next one. Um

1:58:31and I was at the Gold Star Breakfast and I wanna talk about that Gold Star Breakfast, which you guys heard while you were there. Um so I was sitting with Judy Kennedy, who's one of the big sponsors that was put up the money as well as a bench for her uh her late husband, John F. Kennedy, at Veterans Memorial. Those monuments that uh between Mike Wells and and Jock uh absolutely phenomenal, weren't they? I mean it is just great. They gave little miniature replicas to the to the families there. It was just such an awesome celebration. Tom Castriota gra gave

1:59:01a great speech. And uh it was like two nights ago before that Judy and I were talking about uh you know how bo how about fundraising and trying to get the one for Wesley Chapel as well. I says Well let's go run a golf tournament and uh it was so funny, I hadn't even set the date or anything else up and Judy comes out at a at it as you heard and says Yeah, and Jack Mariano's gonna run the golf tournament. So I'm gonna run a golf tournament. I love it. And uh Mike, you may I think we talked about this, maybe not. But uh I want to run it when I do the scallop and seafood fest, I want to run it the Friday that we kick it off.

1:59:31So it's gonna be Fourth of July weekend, perfect for Gold Star, perfect perfect for tie-in. Yeah. So we get everybody who was played

1:59:37in

1:59:37the golf tour, we'll bring them right over to that and just really kind of make this thing go for that big 250-year celebration. that Park wants to do and I think it's gonna be a a great kickoff. So we're gonna help hopefully have enough money to fund that next one by the by the next year.

1:59:50I think that's pretty cool.

1:59:51I'm gonna I'm gonna buy a brick with my dad, so yes.

1:59:53Yeah, very cool.

1:59:54All right, next one. Uh that was a picture of just some of the outside stuff. The uh the VA was there. Uh they had some nice uh um vehicles out there to kind of fire everybody up. Next yeah. Um so part of the reason I missed some of the stuff that you guys were doing which was great for the community. Uh my wife and I we celebrated our thirty fourth anniversary, so we're great. The Acropolis up there, the Parthenon. I'll tell ya I I I tell you the history of of the world and starting they say civilization starting in that era, the stuff that

2:00:24I saw, I saw seven different trips, never mind kinda what we what we saw in Athens itself was just amazing. Um very historical and it's now got me reading back into like uh Ephesians, Colossians, and I got the Bible out and I was my wife's watching her stories and we're kinda reading along to see what like Paul went through, et cetera. Saw where he was kept. prisoner so but the history there was just amazing and the and the people there were crazy and the food was great too. So she was uh Very deserving of that. I don't have a picture for it yet, but maybe in the afternoon break I'll have it, but

2:00:55I want to take a picture. I was uh speaking at the uh uh the Arapica Elks over in Hudson. Uh invited me to talk yesterday at for the Veterans Day celebration and I really wasn't sure how deep I was gonna go, what I was gonna get into to talk and And when I walk in there the first thing I see is all the landscaping grant that they used for out in front. Really dressed up the place fantastic. I mean the place looks great. It looks absolutely beautiful. I mean for an old industrial era, et cetera, just like makes it pop. So I walk in there and

2:01:25don't I see The gentleman who's the driver for the Steps to Recovery Veterans program. So I see him there, we talk for a minute, he goes, following me around and say, Yeah I am. So in we go and that little did I know he's got like twenty to thirty of of those veterans sitting in tables in the banquet room

2:01:42Huh.

2:01:44The Arabica Elks is feeding them and honoring them on Veterans Day.

2:01:47Oh that's a good thing.

2:01:48It was absolutely an awesome thing. It was so good for me to be able to talk about all the stuff we've done for veterans.

2:01:53Yeah.

2:01:53Going through it. I got a picture of it and I'll hopefully have it for the afternoon part. I didn't have the I didn't take the picture, I was trying to get them before, but I tell you what a great celebration Arapika Elks did. And after uh talking with them and I've talked to Kathy about this, but we had The uh the steps re uh the um Sun Coast Recovery Center is right down the street. Uh one of their persons from Steps Recovery was there and we may set a partnership with Steps to Recovery where they can do more treatment 'cause there's only so much you can do it with with steps right now. But the treatment facility's there. They like the bond

2:02:24in plus as well as

2:02:25there's one up in Arapeka, not the one on

2:02:28the So the well the Sun Coast Recovery Center is it right at um Just above New York Avenue, below Denton. So it's right on US nineteen. So they're renovating now. They've they spent about a one about a million dollars renovating. They want to do another phase where they actually do some housing. So for these veterans that can't get into steps to recovery because there's enough room, as Marilyn says, there's still more homeless vets out there, they're gonna be able to take some of them people in and give them treatment and then the people down at uh the steps to recovery We'll be able to get more treatment as well up in this facility.

2:02:59So I think it's going to be a great partnership coming up, but uh it was just exciting to see everybody getting together.

2:03:04Nice.

2:03:04And that's all I got. Thank you.

2:03:06All

2:03:06right,