general public comment
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
This archive found it in the recording: a call to order, a recess, or business the board never listed. The county recorded nothing about it, so everything below is our reading.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Sep 9, 2026
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 46m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 84% of 149 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's the time for public comment. Citizens are given an opportunity to comment on any current or future item coming before the board or any business under the board's perfect. Today's public comment will be handled as follows. First, we will take public comment for those who are here in person. Then we'll take a public comment from those who are pre-registered for an online link and currently on queue. We request that we address the board. Comments are not directed personally against the 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, in three-minute time it will be activated and the green light will be be shown on the podium. After two minutes, a yellow light will indicate you have one minute left. When your time is up, a red light will be displayed, three beeps will sound and you should close your comments. Online participants will be disconnected automatically when their time is up. Madam Clerk, we have anyone signed up for public comment?
Yes, sir, we do. The first two individuals are Leslie Smyers and Tom Smyers.
Move a motion, receive file. Move to receive file. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
Thank you.
Good morning. My name is Leslie Spyers and I live at [address removed]. I am here today to discuss how ordinance 530.16 allowing commercial vehicles to be parked or stored in a residential neighborhood needs to be rewritten. My husband has been here in the past to talk to you along with my sister. As they have been have as they have informed you, my neighbor has been running.
repair shop out of his 3,200 square foot shop building in an ER estate residential neighborhood since 2024. We have been working with Code Compliance since March of 24. After a lot of research into this ordinance and the inability of Code to police it, I have found the Miami-Dade County Ordinance for Parking and Storage of Commercial Vehicles. This ordinance has guidelines on the size and quantity of commercial vehicles allowed in a residential Neighborhood. They are based on certain categories that pertain to size and type of commercial vehicles. I have provided you with
this ordinance they have adopted and the categories they have created. I feel this is a great reference, as you can see, a semi is considered a category three vehicle. So parking or storage of a category three are prohibited in all residential zone districts. Just the sheer size of one semi, along with its six. Foot trailer, let alone multiple multiple semis, does not belong in a residential area. As the county attorney has stated, what 530.16, he can have as many as he can fit inside this 3,200 square
foot building. And as we know from past experiences, more if he tucks and hides them outside, shielded by this building. If Code cannot see them, they are not there. We have not forgot, have we not forgotten this is a residential. Residential neighborhood, a residential neighborhood for families live in, and this should be preserved, not threatened with commercial encroachment. The current 530.16, or in section D, which states nothing in this section, is intended to authorize the use of residential zone property for commercial or industrial activities that are
not permitted uses of the zone district where the commercial vehicles or equipment is parked or stored. You would think this would cover what has been happening. No, it doesn't, because according to the county attorney, this means exchange of money. I feel a county ordinance should be written so everyone can understand them. They should mean what they say, not a legal interpretation. Of what it says. I'm also providing you with the noise ordinance information that I received by co-compliance in the decibel limits in a residential zone.
A semi, while it is running, exceeds these limits, and my neighbor at times leaves his and other customers' semis running for 30 minutes or more. This ordinance 530.16 has greatly affected our ability to enjoy our home that we We built in two thousand and two. And we need your help to fix this. Thank you.
Thank you. Before you leave, if you would speak with David Allen right in the back and uh Mr. Goldstein, hopefully you and Mr. Allen will get together and bring this item back to us as an agenda item we'll take a look at.
She didn't hear you.
Thank you.
Tommy Tom Smyers. Did you want to speak to?
Go ahead, sir. Name and address for the record.
Good morning. My name is Tom Smyers. I live at [address removed]. Code Compliance issued a warning to my neighbor on May 20th of 26. This warn this warning was for working on other people's semis in a residential zone. When he was given the seven day warning to stop the work, he was currently working on another customer semi Not the one that he was given the warning on. This
new red semi was in a shop building being worked on by the mobile mechanic Then the warning was issued from the previous Gray Semi that was also having work done by the mobile mechanic. My neighbor has now planted bamboo. All along the property line. Approximately 45 clusters. With drip lines running. All the time. They they are already
twice the size that they were when they were planted in July. My neighbor has no landscaping in his property at all, just bamboo. Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants. This shows me that the build he's building a wall so he can get back to working in his shop in no time. In time, Code will not be able to view anything from the front or the side of the property. Code has has to
see things for themselves. So if they cannot see it, there's no violation. He will be back in business in no time. he will have the entire rear property stored with semis and the others are in the shop to work for work and repair. Remember remember I've been dealing with this since March of 24 with code and f code compliance and they were here with
that they were here when the white semi came, prepped, ready to be painted in March of this year. and also when the red and white semi was here for paint in April. Yes, we do restoration, we do body work on semis painting, along with mechanical w repair. A full service shop, all the noise and sanding and grinding and the lacquer smell from the paint
makes it unbearable to spend any time outside my property. This ordinance needs to be rewritten in order to safeguard that the residential zone neighborhood this is supposed to the way it was supposed to be. We need to we need your help on this. It's been a long two and a half years waiting for something to happen on this ordinance. Thank you.
Thank you.
Alright, the next two individuals signed up are Zebe Pollard and Christian Is Isale. Ariel. Uh Mr. Pollard first.
Uh either one. Just name and address for the record before you start.
Uh good morning. Uh Christian Isley, [address removed]. Uh our district is District Four. I'd like to uh present our uh supporting material on our one-page presentation.
Mode received file. Second. Volunteer saying aye.
You can give it to you Jessica. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm gonna bring on uh Ask Pastor Zeke to do our presentation today. Thank you for the opportunity.
Good morning. My name is Zeke Pollard, and the address is 6825 Trouble Creek Road, Newport Ritchie, Florida. It is Calvary Chapel Worship Center, a church. The reason I am here today, first off, I want to just thank you guys for your time. I know it's busy time, but I just want to honor you guys and thank you for all you do for our community. But thank you guys for allowing us to um appeal to Solid waste assessment and request an amount that is more accurately and reflects our solid waste
it we produce. I recently took over the responsibilities of facilities management and oversight, and in that I realized that we were paying quite a bit for the solid waste tax. And this even this past year it went from almost $10,000 to Of almost fourteen thousand dollars, which is over a fifty percent hike. So I'm just asking based on the information that we have, we look and we yes, we have
an eight yard dumpster, yes we get it picked up three times a week, but most of the time it's half full. Most of the time it's just trash from Sundays and Thursdays. We sent in our appeal about a week ago, a week and a half ago, and we're just waiting to hear back. But we've also last year we instituted a recycling dumpster, which, if you look on the county website, it says that if you institute recycling, it can reduce your Solid
waste tax. So we instituted a lock on our dumpster to keep out any illegal dumping. We instituted a recycling dumpster of eight yards, not a smaller one. And we've put recycling bins, and now our ta or we I say tax, it's a um I forget what it's called. Fee. It's a fee. For me, it looks like a tax has increased almost 50%. When you look Look at it, most of the time it's half full. We get it picked up three times a year. There's gotta be a way to look
and see, okay, yes, they have large square footage. Yes, they do have trash, but it's half full most of the time. We shouldn't be getting assessed on nearly double what the average county uh tax or fee says it is. If you look, it says that. It should be just under seven thousand dollars when you look at three pickups, eight yards a week. And it's almost double that. And we're not even using that. So I'm asking you guys to just kindly
look into a way if we're not using the eight yards to to reduce that even if we have a eight yard dumpster. We have that because we have Easter and Christmas where we do use that capacity at times. I just want to thank you for your time.
If you'd like, um I've got Kevin Plisker and John Batista. We did just meet on yesterday. I told him I had a couple of citizens out there that had some issues with his appeals, so of course I didn't know I was waiting for an email but I didn't see it. So uh if you would maybe talk with Kevin and and John and kind of discuss that. And and John, maybe there's a way we can actually look at that a little bit differently. Maybe the amount of pickups, not just the size of the dumpster, could be incorporated. You can't speak. You c you can you can come up in public comment, but we've got to separate it out. Alright. But
if you so thank you, sir. Thank you.
Okay, the next individual signed up is Christina Fitzpatrick.
And Christina's gonna bring up two other people with her.
S um I'm assuming that is Tracy Neg Negridge and Randall Cohen Cohen Collinsville.
Don't just speed it up, they'll be able to do it in less than six minutes.
Well I'm sorry I
says to speed it up you'll be able to do less than six minutes for the three.
Okay, and motion to receive and file.
Motion to receive and file.
Second.
All in favor say aye.
And then this isn't a five. Aye.
I also dropped these off to the A Just.
Good morning commissioners. Today I'm speaking on behalf of Ridgewood Community to oppose the opening of neighborhood via Osteen Road. Or Blueberry Road to Hutchinson. We want to keep our neighborhood closed. We have over 550 signatures supporting this position. History shows this proposal is unsafe. A 2003 $60,000 feasibility study reported in a no-build recommendation after heavy opposition. I also attach the newspaper article, well, which I'll summarize. After that study, a newspaper
article by Ed White discussed. Coastal design study identifying a fatal flaw at the north terminus of the project. The intersection of Osteen Road and Orchid Lake Roads is a residential street that cannot handy handle heavy traffic pressure without eminent domain actions on roughly twelve homes. A court opening Blueberry to Hutchinson will funnel drivers directly into this exact dangerous location at Osteen and Orchid Lake. To prevent needless accidents and preserve our neighborhood safety, we ask the county
to maintain the no-build status. As opening Blueberry Road to Hutchinson creates a dangerous bottleneck, forcing two sharp ninety degree turns within a short distance. Our neighborhood has fought to stay closed. a closed community since early 2000 to protect our children who currently play safely in our streets and cut through traffic. This was brought up again in 2024 and now the feasibility study happened last year. Traffic has already worsened because of Pepin Academy adding 150 students
without adding busing. It has led to illegal and hazardous parking on residential streets during school hours. Instead of routing school and cut-through traffic down our deteriorating pothole-filled road neighborhood roads, Pepin has an easement has an easement and they could build a second entrance to through their five acre back lot to connect to Blueberry Road directly to Little Road. This is a Pepin issue. They are a charter school. It is not a community one. The school must take
accountability for their own traffic congestion, which stems from poor drop-off and dismissal planning, not a neighborhood failure or a taxpayer expense. Therefore, opening this road, we're still gonna have the backup of the traffic for the dismissal. Our community must remain closed. We bought into a neighborhood where children play, ride bikes, and fish. We do not want cars speeding through our streets, which happens during school hours. We oppose opening our neighborhood via Osteen Road, Hutchinson,
or any other route. Over 555 residents have already signed the petition to keep Osteen Road closed. Furthermore, the 90-degree turn at Osteen and Orchid Lake Road along Along with the sharp curves, leading to paper bark and crozier, makes increased traffic dangerous, highly dangerous. We also demand transparency from the county. Residents have been asking for the traffic feasibility study for months, while our county workers and the school district are discussing this openly uh have discussed opening our neighborhood
behind closed doors. Though we finally received a study last week but the final wouldn't open. I did receive a copy of the feasibility study yesterday. the 2003 copy and the feasibility study for 20, the current one, but it's amended. And we're still waiting to see the feasibility study with the without the edits. Meanwhile, meeting notes reveal plans to connect Blueberry Drive to Hutchinson to school route Through the uh through our area via Little Road. I'm
speaking to strongly oppose opening our neighborhood to additional traffic. The decision poses safety safety risk and ignores ongoing school congestion issues. These critical traffic and safety concerns create dangerous roads such as the 90 degree turn at Osteen and Orchid Lake Roads. Combined with curves leading to paper bark and crozier is highly dangerous. Drivers frequently speed around these bends, resulting in a team bone accident just within the past couple weeks at Orchid Lake and Paper Bark. Opening
the neighborhood will only increase congestion and accidents. School traffic surges for Wendell Kren are. has um school traffic surges. So as for Wendell Prynn, they also have an additional fifty families this year and cut buses for an additional Hundred families, adding 150 vehicles to daily pickup and drop-off. Now I must say the administration is working to alleviate traffic. The lack of transparency By the way, the county is quietly moving forward without community transparency.
We requested a feasibility study months ago and received nothing. A 2003-2004 study already resulted in a no-bill decision for these exact safety reasons. Proposed solutions for the school district. This is a school district issue, not a taxpayer burden. The district should use they could use unspent funds to hire addition Traffic Directors at Lemon and Orchid Lake. Furthermore, Wendell Crane can swap their traffic flow, move teacher parking and dismissal to the back of the school, and student parking to the front. This
would stop traffic from backing up to Orchid Lake Road and Ridge Road. Please honor past safety findings and protect our neighborhood from additional cut-through traffic. We wouldn't open Carleton Arms and we shouldn't be opening in our neighborhood that is currently closed. This project represents unnecessary and excessive government spending. A previous study resulted in a no-bill decision, yet Commissioner had decided to spend over a quarter million dollars on a new study without prior community input. Officials should
consult residents before spending taxpayer funds, especially when there are cost effective alternatives to reduce traffic when cost effective alternatives to reduce traffic already exist. And it's also up here, which was suggested where we couldn't wait until the twenty second meeting is We don't have Marchman traffic. Pepin Academy is a charter school and Wendell Crenn is addressing their traffic. But in here it states Jeff Munkalian has stated that they will be open Blueberry Drive to connect Hutchinson. Thank you.
I'm sorry, stand by one second. So the next person signed up is Reggie Jackson.
Mr. Orton.
One of a few.
Alright. Good morning everyone. My name is Reggie Jackson. Uh I'm at [address removed]. Um Forgive me, I don't have notes uh but I promise my issue is uh simple and easy to uh follow. Um I travel doing tattoos and um here in this county uh I had to go renew my license yesterday and I was informed that the price is elevated from sixty dollars to a hundred and ten for license renewal and um Like
I said, I traveled to different states. Uh there are different regulations in every state. For example, Texas has no license um regulations, so there's no fees or anything you have to worry about. I'm not a person who wants things for free. I don't expect things for free. I'm not saying that's the way that things go, but I do feel like uh we were kind of hit overhead uh with an unexpected doubling in price. And um I I I do feel that the That's kind of unjust and um we didn't really get a notice of that. It just kinda happened here in uh July. Like uh
I have uh other artists in my studio who um who have reapplied for their license and they got they got lucky enough to just renew with the sixty dollars before it got elevated um without anyone knowing again. Um and hold on just a second. Uh if you Go to get licensemap.com. Some interesting information I found is like basically Florida was number eight in how easy and cost efficient a license renewal was
and uh it being sixty dollars and we have now jumped from top ten in a tattoo license renewal to the bottom twenty of the uh of the states uh Another example is in New York, it's a hundred dollars renewal biannually. So uh they pay that hundred dollars every two years. Um again, kind of the basic rate we was at with the 60. So I'm just kinda uh seeking like public record and understanding on uh where this doubling has come from. And it's um it's
starting to seem that it's coming uh across the board like in the waste management. And also, and uh I I'm sure everyone has noticed um rises in their electricity bills. Um, it's just starting to feel that uh we're starting to get hit overhead and uh and and taxed in every which way, yet um I'm not I'm not charging people extra money to get tattoos and the people who come to get tattoos aren't getting paid extra. So it it it's just it was quite interesting and shocking to uh see that this price is double. And um uh I I would very much
like to see some public record on where these funds are going and um and and and uh uh why uh a good reason on why um the the price has doubled. Uh that's pretty much all I got. Um I yield my time.
Okay, thank you. Maybe Connery can get more information. I'll move down.
Alright, the next individual signed up is Amanda Weaver.
Thank you, Ms. Weaver. I approach your name and address for the record. Thank you.
Good morning. Amanda Weaver. I'm a lifelong Pasco County resident and choosing not to disclose my residential address for public record. The morning after the Cobalt fire, I showed up to help and ended up helping spending twelve plus hours days with the residents of building two. I watched what happened after the fire trucks left. I didn't see any of you there during those days. But Mr. Mariano, I did see your interview later stating that you would consider a moratorium while Pasco looks at its building codes to make sure what's be being built is safe. My question is, why are we just looking
now? Pasco County identified this danger 17 years ago. Your 2009 local mitigation strategy warned that population growth would increase multifamily development, that major structural fires could affect significant numbers of people, and that the risk in central and eastern Pasco would increase as large structures were developed. Residents have begged you for years to slow down the building because their infrastructure isn't keeping up. Cobalt shows why the codes governing that growth matter. One fire required
10 engines, five rescues, five Pasco aerial apparatus, and at least 81 Pasco County fire rescue personnel, with some units committed for nearly 13 hours. Fire rescue maintained coverage by repositioning resources throughout the county. Did their job, but good building codes should be should help keep one fire from requiring that level of response in the first place. If you're going to continue approving multifamily development at this pace, the safety standards governing those buildings need to keep pace with growth. And Cobalt exposed exactly
the kind of vulnerability we should be addressing. This was a relatively new multifamily building, reportedly built to code, protected by an FPA. 13 R sprinkler system, but the fire originated in the attic where the standard does not generally require sprinklers. If Cobalt melt the minimum code and that code allowed this attic to remain unsprinklered, then the minimum wasn't enough. Yet instead of simply raising that standard, I'm not hearing proposals for tax incentives and HUD vouchers to encourage owners to retrofit. Why are taxpayers being asked to incentivize
basic life safety? The incentives should be the safety of the people you represent. So I'm not asking you to look at the codes, you've had time. I'm asking you to change them. Required enhanced protection in multifamily attic, sprinklers, monitored heat detection, stronger compartmentation, or non-combustible construction. And building safety cannot end when the fire department puts the hoses away. We need to require large multifamily properties to have emergency response plans and trained management. When hundreds of residents are displaced and Pasco Emergency Management and the Red Cross are responding,
property management shouldn't be able to end that response four days later because they want to get back to normal. That's exactly what happened at Cobalt. The residents didn't get back to normal. We need to require a coordinated transition of disaster service. services and require management to know what to do when a catastrophe happens. Hasco New Growth was increasing this risk seventeen years ago. You wrote it down. Protect the building before the fire, protect the people during it, and protect the families still standing in the ashes after everybody else
goes home. Cobalt doesn't need another study. It needs to be the last warning you needed. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Yeah.
Alright, the next individual signed up is Nancy Hazelwood.
Nancy Hayswood, 34110, a nice place. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's good to see you again. Um I'd like to uh speak a little bit on having more meetings. Appreciate all the work everybody's doing on 2050, and I know we are having public meetings, but they're in the day and most Of the residents can't get there. So this is on the 2050 plan, and I remember
going to public meetings at night at the beginning, but we could still use some more details. So you've got a lot of curiosity wanting to know exactly what the county is doing for the citizens now. It's it's kinda like After those meetings, everything went in a black hole and we didn't even see anything after that. So we know what's going on, but we have no clue really about what it is unless we can make an afternoon meeting, and I know most people can't.
I'd like you to please consider more evening minute meetings for your citizens. And I know you're under crunches too, but How important are you citizens to you? So thank you very much and commissioners please let us know what
you're doing. Alright, thank you. The next individual signed up is Amy Baird.
Amy Baird, [address removed].
I am here today to thank you for taking decisive action. to defend the rights of the citizens of Pasco County. We appreciate your vote to uphold our Fourth Amendment rights by ending the contracts for ALPR cameras.
There are 150 or so municipalities around the country that have ended their contracts recently. What they are finding is that Flock is still continuing to record data past their contract ending dates.
Other municipalities report that Flock is slow to remove the devices and that they are continuing to record data. One easy solution that has been implemented elsewhere is to cover the cameras with heavy-duty plastic trash bags to stop the recording. I know the ending date of the contract is September thirtieth. I encourage you to keep a close eye on having the devices removed. And if the removal does not happen rapidly, that you take decisive
action to protect us from this continued surveillance. As far as the twenty-two SkyDio drones that the Pasco Sheriff's Office has requested for $9 million, we appreciate that that item has been removed from the budget agenda. We currently already have six of these drones in our county. and while the use being proposed, and the current use by the Sheriff's Office is seemingly innocuous, Once
these drones are fully in place, the chance of changes and improvements to the software leave a lot of questions about the potential for future surveillance. At the last meeting I mentioned the 2020 Predictive Policing Events and I'm sure you're aware of the recent arrest of a Pasco County corporal on churge charges of sexual assault of a minor. As citizens, our trust in the Sheriff's Office has been shaken.
Our constitutional rights are being targeted from several angles, and one of those occurs right here at each public meeting. There is a reason why separation of church and state was foundational to the development of our country. As a suggestion, your invocation at the beginning of each meeting could be more inclusive or affirmational, perhaps, instead of very Christian leaning. You're leaving people out.
The Constitution and its amendments matter to our democracy surviving the chaos of today's world. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. The next individual signed up is Elaine Lones. Yeah.
I'm here with Amy. Uh name and
address for
the right Elaine Lance, uh fifty eight twenty seven Tennessee. And I'm here with Amy and I also oppose the Flockslash Axion Cameras drones. It's getting like Big Brother. We're turning into a military country. Not good. And also the data centers. I'm very much against the data centers. They suck up the water that we don't have, the electricity that we don't have, and the cost is passed on to us. I don't know why. Also, I didn't
know that waste was going to be brought up today. I was actually one of the original people with George Ellsworth to put in this solid waste assessment. And the solid waste assessment is not a tax. It's a utility bill, just like your water and your sewer and your telephone. Um, then that's why people that are exempt from taxes still have to pay for their utilities. You can't do a nightly count on how many people are in a house to decide to charge them for an assessment
or not charge them for an assessment. George Ellsworth was a very smart man. He had, I know, at least two majors. And um we did it uh very diligently. We followed garbage trucks, we went to different businesses, we marked down what kind of businesses they are, and that's based on an average. And that's all you can do. You can't you can't uh change their solid waste assessment fee without changing everybody else's in the county. Uh because uh we had people saying,
Well, I'm up north half the year. I shouldn't have to pay the whole Assessment. Well, what's to keep somebody from moving in with a family of ten and start creating garbage? And that money goes towards your space in the landfill. It it is not a tax. It is serves a purpose. And I also wanted to know, are we building a stadium in Pasco County?
No.
No? On that map out there, there's a big building regarding the orange belt, where the orange belt is going. There's a big huge building. Everybody's wondering what that is because nothing's labeled on the maps. We don't know what roads or highways or anything. It's kind of useless without some kind of point of reference, you know? And uh what department does Mr. Batista work in?
We don't go back and forth with solid waste.
Pardon it?
We don't go back and forth in conversation. Public comments is
the right-of-way.
Pardon?
Mr. Batista works in SolidWays though.
Okay. Thank you. That's all I have to say. Alright, thank you. The next individual signed up is Christy Zimmer.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Christy Zimmer, thirty six fifteen, Pine Cone Court, Land O' Lakesh Thank you for allowing us this time to speak. I am asking you to vote no on the proposed nine million dollar expenditure for a permanent drone surveillance network for the Sheriff's Office. This is not an argument against the law enforcement. I love our law enforcement. It is an argument for constitutional limits on government surveillance and protecting innocent citizens who have done nothing wrong. Florida s already has a law specifically addressing the issue, Florida Statute 934.
The Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act. It's very clear in there what law enforcement can and cannot do, and I've emailed all of you a copy. It restricts law enforcement from using drones to gather evidence or information except under very specific circumstances, including obtaining a warrant and responding to certain emergencies. That law exists because the ability to watch people from the air creates serious privacy concerns, and those concerns have become even more important as surveillance technology has advanced and the laws have not. On June 29th,
the United States Supreme Court decided Chattery versus United States recognizing the government's use of technology to obtain detailed historical location information can constitute a Fourth Amendment search. That decision follows the court's earlier decisions in United States versus Jones and Carpenter versus United States, both of which recognize that technology can allow the government to track people's movements in ways that implicate constitutional private. protections. The lesson is simple. Just because technology makes surveillance easier does not mean the Constitution gives government unlimited
access to that information. So before this county spends nine million dollars building permanent aerial surveillance infrastructure, I believe the public deserves clear answers. What will these drones record? How many innocent residents will be captured by these cameras while simply going about their daily lives? How long will that information be retained? Who can access it? Can it be shared with other agencies? Can it be eventually be combined with license plate readers, facial recognition, and other databases to create detailed records? Of where innocent people go and who
they associate with. These are not hypothetical concerns. Once a surveillance system is built, expanding it c used expanding its use can become much easier than limiting. Public safety is important. I support effective tools that help deputies respond to real emergencies and protect our communities. But public safety and constitutional rights are not opposing values. Demand both. I respectfully react request this board to vote no on the 9 million proposal or, at a minimum, postpone it until there are strong, legally
enforceable protections governing warrants, deployment, data retention, information sharing, auditing, and destruction of data involving innocent citizens. We can give law enforcement the tools it needs without creating a system that could fundamentally change the privacy expectations of everyone who lives. Lives in this county. I'd also like to address the 2050 plan. Anything being approved without the proper process of the Planning Commission and public input would be a completely inappropriate, especially wishing to eliminate the classification of wetlands changing.
I please beg you to have public workshops on this. Also when you do have your meeting this evening, please consider where do all the fines, the fees, the licensing fees, the FOIA fees, application fees and fines, and all that extra money goes to with uh with in addition to our taxes. Thank you.
That's the last person we have signed up in person. Is anyone else want to address the board that hasn't signed up? Please come forward. And if there's anyone else behind this gentleman, please line up after him. Because we want to go online after that.
Uh good morning. Uh my name is Scott Tuttle and my wife own uh operate the Golden Corral in Zephyrhills, 6855 Gul Boulevard. Um again not to be the Beat the horse, but um it's on the solid waste assessment. Uh we received our 2026 commercial solid waste assessment. Uh approximately $13,658 based on $20 or $2,496 cubic yards of waste. I'm asking the commission to review both the assessment and
the methodology being used to calculate it. Um that methodology was since 1989, I believe. Um 1990. Our assessment remains essentially the same year after year, regardless of our waste. We actually generate In twenty twenty five. Um we had a flooding, of course all of Pasco did, but we were underwater for about four months and there were the blame game of who was gonna
get rid of the water between the city and the county. So that left us with 19 usable parking spaces for that those four months. But Um it drastically reduced our customer volume. Our assessments did not reflect that in reduction. And our business is also a highly seasonal. Uh I heard the gentleman earlier talking, he uses it for like Easter. We're highly seasonal, all of state of Florida is. We're busiest uh roughly six months out of the year and our waste drops significantly
during this lower month. Yet we are assessed as the dumpsters are full at every schedule picked up every fifty two weeks out of the year. The city does not provide a compact or service or a recycling service and one of our three yard um three eight yard dumpsters is exclusively for cardboard. That's all it is, is just f recycled because we used to recycle. And they stopped doing it. Yeah, all three to be uh I'm sorry. Yeah, all three appear to
have been included on our assessed volume, even though the county states that recycling is not assessed. Finally, this volume based assessment system dates back decades, which I just said you said nineteen ninety. I'm asking whether a methodology developed that long ago is the fairest way to measure commercial waste. There's only two counties in the state of Florida that actually use this methodology. Everybody else does it by weights and measures. Everything in the state has Something behind it
from gas pumps to weights and measures for scales for buffet to go. How come we in Pasco County can't do that with our trash? Um I'm not asking to avoid paying out fair share. Um I'm asking that our fair share be based on the waste we actually generate though. Thank you.
Alright, see no one else will close public comment inside. And we have two people online. Alright,
we have two individuals. The first one is Kathy Julian.
Ms. Julian, are you there?
Ms. Jolene, if you're there, name and address for the record, please.
Ms. Julian, you are muted if you are speaking.
Scott.
Ms. Julian, you are muted if you are speaking. Please unmute your microphone.
Right, I'm gonna give her a second. I'm gonna move to the next one if that is okay. Am I unmuted now? Did she just unmute? Ms. Julian, are you there? Yes, I am here. Okay, thank you. Yes, ma'am, name and address for the record.
Hi, um Captain Julian, one to Green City Warning Land Way in Port Richey Florida. Um I'm sorry about that, I guess I'm not very full study this morning. Um I have two things I wanted to speak about. First of all, I wanted to speak about um the cobalt fire and I really am not a builder, I don't understand what happened. It seems crazy to me that that building burned to the ground and apparently smoke detectors never went off. Looks like we have a huge issue with our the way we're building buildings and it terrifies me. I'm
glad to have never lived in a building like that, but I fear for families that do live in a building like that. The reason I'm calling mainly is regarding the DFR program. I have a problem with this using the disaster recovery, minimum, money to build what appears to be a permanent day-to-day law enforcement drone network. The county paperwork describes the project in terms of funding damage assessment, search and rescue, block roads, and disaster response. But when the Sheriff's Office talks about how the system will actually be used, they talk
about sending drones to routine calls for service, domestic calls, school incidents, armed suspects, missing persons, and everyday police activity. That raises a very basic question. What are we actually paying for here? If this is a disaster mitigation program, then use it for disaster mitigation, period, end of sentence. If it is really a routine policing program, then call it that. It would be more surveillance, fund it through law enforcement dollars, let those public the
public debate get on those terms. What I don't think we should be doing is taking nine million dollars and for disaster. Recovery and using it to underwrite a general-purpose police aviation network simply because that network might also be useful during a hurricane. Before this project moves forward, I want to know what percentage of these sites are actually expected to involve disasters, why these 21 were selected and where they are, and why disaster recovery funding should pay 100% of this cost.
going to be used law enforcement. Thank you and have a wonderful day.
Alright, thank you. Next individual signed up is Jeff Cannon. Mr. Cannon, if you are there, please give your name and address for the record.
Uh Jeff Cannon, [address removed].
Thank you, sir.
You
can
proceed. So good. So good morning. I'm actually here today to talk about priorities, accountability, and a million dollar proposal from the Pasco County Sheriff's Office that fundamentally misused federal disaster relief. The sheriff is pushing for a massive network of 21 permanent automated drone docks and dozens of aircrafts. Funded entirely by federal recovery dollars. But let's be entirely honest
about what this is and what it isn't. The money's drawn from community disaster and storm recovery funds, yet these 21 docks aren't temporary assets deployed when a hurricane forms and packed at weight when it passes. They are permanent weather-rated surveillance infrastructure designed to stand up to a continuous automated multiple. for our neighborhoods through the year 2031. You do not build a permanent 21 station aerial policing group with disaster recovery money to manage storm recovery. You do it to
establish routine day-to-day airport surveillance under the radar for normal local budgeting. Beyond the funding slide and payment, this proposal runs headfirst with the state law. Under Florida Statute 934.50, the Freedom from Warrant and the Surveillance Act, law enforcement agencies are strictly prohibited from using drones to gather evidence or routine surveillance on private property without warrant. specific never exceptions or strict adherence to civil liberties.
The statute dictates that citizens are presumed to have a reasonable expectation of privacy from air for observation over their own property, setting up an automated network of 21 docks designed for continuous routine deploying across the launch for emergency response to systemic generalized tracking. When an agency builds an When an agency builds an always ready system
That grid can gear into backyards and private spaces without individual warrants or the problem to cause. They aren't just stretching public resources. They are according direct populations of the floor of law. And that legal exposure compounds support issues holding the entire debate back. Of deep, well-founded lecturer trust that the community has for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. Trust isn't given away because an agency promises to follow its own internal guidelines. Trust is earned through history, transparency,
and respect for civilian privacy. Qualities that have been severely strained here. Residents across Grasco County remember past overreaches, dated German predictive policing programs that threaten citizens like pre-crime suspects and aggressive surveillance. When an agency with a continuous history regarding citizen privacy asks for mo millions in Harvard to peer down into private property, community skepticism isn't just justified, it's a civic duty. We
cannot allow disaster relief funds meant to rebuild our community after actual crisis to be repurposed into permanent
Yeah.
Right, that is all who has uh signed up online.