A RESOLUTION BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF PASCO COUNTY, FLORIDA, ADOPTING RULES AND PROCEDURES FOR PASCO COUNTY PUBLIC MEETINGS CONDUCTED BOTH IN PERSON AND THROUGH COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA TECHNOLOGY (“HYBRID VIRTUAL MEETINGS”)
What the county recorded
Staff recommendation
Approve
DispositionApproved
Approved Staff’s recommendation by roll call vote.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Jun 30, 2020
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Jun 30, 2020
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
This case, across meetings
CAO-20-3504 in full →Heard once. CAO-20-3504 appears on no other agenda in the archive.
- Jun 30, 2020BoardR1▶Approvedthis item
What was said
Machine transcription of 29m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 75% of 128 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
I motion passes 50. C 80 was a withdrawal. So we are now done with a consent agenda. We'll move on to the regular agenda and we are changing order. Order. What?
Okay. We are changing the order. So we're going to go first with R1, then we're going to move to R3. Then we're going to go to R5, then R2, then R4. R four is if time allows we have enough And I'm getting feedback from somebody that is has is listening to this and is also a participant. So I will need you to turn down your uh TV or your computer that you're watching this on at this
time. Please. Thank you. R one, please.
Commissioner David Goldstein, Chief Assistant County Attorney. Looks like my PowerPoint is up. Can I go to the next slide, please?
As Mr. Steinsteiner mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, the we're operating under the Governor's Executive Order EO 2069. And that was set to expire today actually on June 30th. So that was recently extended to the end of August. Um I'm sorry to August first. Once that executive order expired. The board, the MPO, and any advisory boards will be required to have a quorum physically present at their advertised board meeting. However There's nothing stopping other voting
members, staff, applicants, the public from participating virtually. Next slide, please.
Next slide, please.
So the governor is still recommending that senior citizens and high risk individuals avoid crowds and that all residents avoid groups of more than fifty persons. In addition, the governor's task force recommended that we continue to allow virtual participation even into phase two, and that's what we're currently in, is phase two. So for this reason, the County Attorney's Office and County Administrator are recommending that you still allow for virtual participation even once you have a quorum physically present. And we call these hybrid virtual meetings. Next slide, please.
So the hybrid virtual meetings are similar to what you're doing now with fully virtual meetings, but there are some significant exceptions. The big difference is that you must have a quorum physically present at the advertised location. Now many of you are physically attending anyway, so we don't think this is a Tremendous additional burden. Um, if you're not part of the quorum that has to be physically present, you can still attend virtually for health reasons or if you just want to maintain social distancing. Otherwise
the boardrooms now staff can also attend the in the boardroom, but otherwise The boardroom will be closed to the public and any presenter uh I'm sorry, it'll be closed to the public. Except for staff and any of presenters that are invited to be in the boardroom. And we can never have more than fifty people in the boardroom. Significantly, the phone-in option, which we've been using for fully virtual meetings, will no longer be an option for hybrid virtual meetings. Whoops instead public the public will comment through WebEx. And an
email like they're doing now. And then we'll have new public comment kiosk. In the lobbies at the West Pasco Government Center and the East Pasco Government Center. So the kiosks for the East Pasco Government Center will be. Available for day city meetings. And the kiosk and the West Cosco Government Center will be available for Newport Ricci meetings. Next slide, please.
So the County Attorney's Office and the County Administrator are recommending that all board, MPO, and advisory board meetings be hybrid virtual meetings after today. There would be no fixed end date for hybrid virtual meetings, although we're anticipating that this will at least go through the end of phase two of the reopening. The advantage of going to hybrid virtual one advantage of going to hybrid virtual meetings is that the board, not the governor, will determine how long to keep virtual participation options for public meetings. It will no
longer be dependent on The governor's executive order. Next slide please.
So I want to talk about the fact that the governor recently extended the duration of Executive Order 2069 to allow fully virtual meetings in July. Um, you did do that, but we're still recommending that you move forward with hybrid virtual meetings for a few reasons. First, even though he extended it, he extended it on June twenty-third of twenty twenty. So he extended it just seven days before it was set to expire. The problem with that is most of our meetings have to be noticed well before the
governor extends the fully virtual meeting order. This this creates a level of unpredictability for staff and applicants when noticing future meetings. And in particular, we have concerns about the August 4th meeting of the board because it would be very difficult to notice that if the governor waits to extend Executive Order 20-69 until late July. In addition, we've already noticed two meetings of the July 9th Planning Commission and the Restore Committee meetings have already been noticed as Hybrid virtual meetings. So
we like to keep those on track. And then finally and probably most importantly, hybrid virtual meetings are still safe. Um, only a quorum has to be in the boardroom. Which allows for social distancing and many of you are doing that now. And then everybody else, whether it's staff or the public or applicants, can still participate virtually. So With that, I'll take any questions on this new meeting process and it would be in effect. Assuming you adopt this resolution would be effect for all meetings starting in July.
Okay, questions. Professor Goldstein.
Mr. Chairman Mariano
Yes, Mr. Uh Commissioner Oakley.
Uh yes. Um Mr. Goldstein. And some of that, when you say it's a virtual hybrid meeting and we have to keep social distancing, so would I be considered if I stayed in Dade City at the day as here as part of being a part of the meeting, even though the meeting was uh scheduled for over in Newport Ritchie?
So if there's a if there's a quorum, if a okay, if the board advertised location of the meeting is in Newport Ridgeie. And there's a quorum. present. In other words, three three members are present in Newport Ritchie. Yes, you can participate virtually from Dade City. Same thing with Commissioner Moore could do the same thing. So you just need to have three of you need to be at the advertised location or the meeting.
Okay. Oh that that's good because that that way we have to keep social distance and not enough room to get the space at the dais. So I think that probably works good.
And and that would work vice versa. If it's a Dade City meeting, board members can participate from New Boon to Port Ritchie as long as there's a quorum in Dade City.
Yeah sure. Okay.
Thank
you. Anything else?
Mr. Chairman Mariano. Yes, sir. Go ahead, sir. Um on the public input part. You know, it's it's been very difficult for the public to actually get in front of us to talk to other of us or even to get their information out. Um, between the timing, et cetera. And if we're gonna have a virtual kiosk in the lobby Pretty much when we have these meetings, there's actually enough room to come right up to the podium to speak to us face to face. And I don't think it'd be any harder to kind of schedule them out there to speak to us or just having
them come in and speak. Um What what does the board think about allowing a better access for the public comment for people to speak in front of us instead of Thirty feet through a closed door and and a key kiosk.
Um
so Go ahead. Well, uh I think the reason and I'll let county administration address this more fully, but I think the reason for having the public at the kiosk in the lobby was It's difficult if you have a large crowd in the boardroom, it's gonna be very difficult while they're waiting to speak. in seats to keep to maintain social distancing. I don't think it's so much an issue of the podium. The podium's probably adequately socially distanced. from the rest of the board members and it's it's more the eating
capacity in the in In the boardroom.
So if we if we have a situation where it is loaded, we can keep uh keep money in the kiosk. But if it's a light thing, I'll and I'll give you an example, the BP the BP Restrike Committee meeting coming up. Uh we're gonna have the aquatic reserve looked at. We're gonna have to see and shore coming do a presentation for nine board members. There'll be some public members that were actually gonna set up a nonprofit that wanna see it. they'll get a lot more if they can s actually sit in the audience and watch it as well. Um, but as far as public input, I don't think it's gonna fill up this place and I think it'd be reasonable. We can go if we can go step by step to see if
it is a crowded place and we gotta control it. But if you're gonna have somebody controlling the kiosk they can control someone coming in to s to speak at the podium just as easy. So it shouldn't be a any burden on staff if someone's gonna be controlling the kiosk to just letting them walk in and walk out anyway. I mean for instance we had two gentlemen today that wanted to talked about the Sun Coast Recovery Center. They come down here 'cause they thought they could speak at the kiosk. I gave 'em instructions if they could. And I see that then they didn't speak at the kiosk. I'm not sure what happened with Mr. Bowser's conversation, but they're not here. They didn't put their input in. So I want to make it easy
for people to to give input.
Commissioner Moore. So I'm gonna I'm gonna let County Administrator weigh in on this.
Go ahead. Yeah, Commissioner Moore. So one of the one reasons we set it up like this with the kiosk is because While there is room in the lobby in New Port Richey, there is not room in the historic courthouse for crowds to gather. And so we we kind of have to treat both locations the same. And so in on the east side, we have the kiosk at the East Haskell Government Center where there is room for a crowd to sit and socially distance, which you can't do in the Dade City. Historic courthouse. And so that's
why we set it up that way so that both sides of the county we were treating the same. So there's a kiosk. in New Port Richey and a kiosk in Dade City, but in Dade City it's at the East Pasco Government Center, not in the historic courthouse. Furthermore as we go to a hybrid we will have more staff staff and and obviously more commissioners in the boardroom. We will need to put some additional tables in both. Boardrooms to make sure we have room to socially distance both places. And so that actually may block access to the podium at both both
places.
So What's everybody else's thought? I mean there's a suggestion from Commissioner Mariano. I can say it might be difficult. Either we do it or we keep or we stay as is. So I leave it up to you guys. I'm good either way.
Mr. Chair, can I add one comment?
Please go ahead.
Um the these rules are, you know, it's a fluid document. So The board could always try the kiosk, you know, for the month of July or for the July meeting. And if it ends up becoming problematic. We we can amend the rule. Um you know, for the August meeting. So there's there's it's a fluid document if you decide to change your mind in the future.
Mr. Chairman, I I don't see the need. I mean, if you can't make it work in Dade City, I get that. But we can make it work here. We should be making it easier for the people to speak in front of us, whatever the opportunity is. And if the government center on the east side is too difficult, you can't make that work with putting chairs along the hallways and using the other conference room that's there, then so be it if that's the case. But I think we should try to make it as easy as when whatever the location is, whatever it allows.
Commissioner Mariano, thank you so much. Yeah, I I'm trying to tell me how we would do this in Dade City where you don't have the ability to do. Have a bunch of people in a hallway. You know, and I have and I apologize. I hate to bring this up again, but I need somebody that is listening from home or in their office to turn off either their TV or their other computer because we're all getting feedback. We're
hearing ourselves. We're hearing the whole discussion in a delay in about five seconds. So please. Or I'm gonna turn all mics off.
So the question again would be the date city location, how would what Commissioner Mariano say take place? Right. We don't have a stack or area really to stack people. They literally have to be outside.
Yeah, you are correct, sir. In Dade City you would have to they would have to be outside. Because you there is not room in that hallway to stack 'em and continue to the staff that's working there work in the building. So we would have to stack 'em outside and Um Again, that's that's we we walked through that logistically. as we were putting this plan together and That's why we landed at the East Pasco Government Center because there is room to stack them inside in front of the kiosk and room to sit them so that they can watch the meeting while they're waiting
to comment. So that that's why we did it over there like that.
Okay. So tell me again what would happen on, let me look at my meeting dates, the two two August.
Let me out here. When's the next um date? Date city is August 4. So how would that work in Date City? Again.
So the rules is currently drafted the public could either re register and log on through WebEx and be promoted to address support that way. Or they could show up at the East Pascoal Government Center. And there would be a kiosk if there where they would then provide public comment either in the morning or in the afternoon on a public hearing item. But that would be at the East Pasco Government Center, not at the historic courthouse.
Mr. Chairman I would add they can also email too. You can still email under the new rules as well.
Well, no, and I understand. So I I think and this this is uh you know somewhat of Mr. Mariano's point he made a second ago, is we do have some items that have been put on hold because they're contentious items that I know quite a few people want to speak. Um on the issues um I just don't know. I know I'll let Commissioner Oakley jump in since he's an East Pasco guy. But I don't know where the benefit is for somebody to go
to the government center to speak at a podium or calling in. I just don't I mean, you're gonna drive but if somebody wants to see you, they wanna see you. They want to speak to you. If not, it might as well be on the phone. I wanna drive all the way to the East Pascoal Government Center to speak at a podium and we're just gonna see somebody on video. If I was if I was a constituent, I don't think I would wanna do that. I'd wanna be at the podium or I'd rather just stay home and be on the phone.
Well how do you um How do you get them into the board meeting? When there's no room for social distancing downstairs. That's that's the problem.
Right. I I agree. I don't disagree with you. I miss my point is why even set up a place at the East Pascoal Government Center for somebody to come speak when they're still doing it. It's still remote. Commissioner Yeager. I don't understand I don't understand the advantage for somebody to take the time to drive all the way over there and they're not gonna be able to look at us face to face anyways.
Commissioner Oakley.
Commissioner, we're setting that up because not everybody has the ability to get on WebEx. or and we don't have phone calls set up. Um and Wed of X is replacing the phone calls. And so for those that don't have the technological ability to do that, that's why we have the key Oscuble locations.
No, I Again, I understand what you're saying about coming to the West Pasco Government Center more so than I do somebody being off site. I mean, I get what you're saying. I just don't know how this will go down, but
On the east side it's probably not much difference between A phone call in and the kiosks, really. Because you're not in front of the uh the dais when you're gonna speak.
Yeah. Commissioner Weightman
Mr. Wells.
Can you hear me? So the six years I've been on the board, one thing I've heard from constituent after constituent is You know, you all make it difficult for me to come speak. I can't get there. It's during the day. And I think us having this hybrid system. Helps people to have advantages where they can actually speak. I haven't really seen it happen, but I wish it would. the kiosk, I mean I agree with Mariano, I know Commissioner Mariano, I know we all do. that we want to hear from our constituents. Um, but again, I think the idea here, and I think we probably
ought to keep it this way or figure it out afterwards, but where folks could still call in and or emails, I think, have been good. I think the more we hear from the folks, the better. But again, I do understand the social distancing. You know, I don't know how that's gonna work. But again, I the whole thought process that I've heard was you all make it difficult for us to speak. I can't get there at 10. So now you can actually call in. You know, they need to take advantage of that because we want we want to hear from a
Yeah. I don't Yeah, I don't think we should lose lose the call in ability to Commissioner Weight's point.
Uh Commissioner Moore, I I can Chairman More, I agree as well. We shouldn't we shouldn't lose the phone call ability, especially as we're talking now. It actually makes more sense to have that extra piece because if you want to work and you can't you can take 10, 15 minutes away from the make a phone call, but you're not gonna be able to drive out and take your data to to to come out. Um and again, with the issues that not structural, but it the structural issues at a East Government Center, it it does limit you. But out here it just doesn't make sense to me. If I can control a kiosk out there, I should be able to people walk right up here
and and speak right in front of us. I mean, granted they've only see three of us here. on this side when there's going to be something like that, but that should be sufficient.
So come and help us through this a little bit and what with you. Let me
know
David, hold on please. Um
And somebody still has their computer on. I don't understand how difficult it is to turn it off. Um
If Listen to all three commissioners that have spoken on this issue. Um
Why don't we look at doing taking Commissioner Mariano's and Wells' suggestions on the West Side and allowing them one by one to come to the podium? And the east side, just take your suggestions of Mr. Biles, what your suggestion is, as well as the ability to call in.
and keep that ability to call in. I think that satisfies everybody that spoke up.
Okay, Commissioner, I think to clarify the WebEx there is the ability to follow
Okay. So we can't use the phone on the WebEx part like we can on other meetings. Okay. Never mind.
You're saying
can we make that amendment where Uh there's social distancing on the west side and in the uh lobby area. and are called up one at a time. It'll take a little longer to do their public meeting, but we allow them to come before the board and the day is that on the west side. I don't know how you do it over here if you have several people coming. If you had a f just two or three, you could come here that way too, but uh for a social distance downstairs. We're pretty limited for more
than probably. Four or five people at the most.
Yeah,
we
don't want Yeah, you're right. We don't want people waiting outside in ninety eight degrees.
Mr.
Chairman
Mariano about put 'em you know distance in those hallways downstairs.
Well, so the problem with that is if you have like you said, Commissioner, if you have group people, it's no big deal. But if we have an instance where there's 50 people, which we know we have an item coming up, where there might be 50 people speaking, literally, if not more. Who knows? Um You can't say yes to some and I think no to others. Um that wouldn't probably not work very well.
Go ahead, Mr. Chairman Mariano. Go ahead. Um This might not go over very well, but I'll put it out there anyway is you could require the quorum to be here in you could do all your meetings in Newport Ritchie until this passes. And not and not use the Dade City location. There would be nothing that would prevent that legally.
Yeah, I I have a I have an issue because of what we've talked about and other commissioners talked about giving the people the ability on their side of the county to actually speak. I think that would not go well with some of our citizens. Especially with some of the or you s uh because if not if you do that, you're gonna have to keep pushing some of these items off. And I think that there'll be a there's gonna be a point where Some of our applicants are going to get frustrated that they have to keep being continued.
Mr. Chairman Mariano?
Yes, sir.
I think I think Commissioner Oakley's got em up come up with a really good idea. I mean if we're gonna call we make people call in the day before noontime, they gotta sign up anyway. If we know we're gonna have four or five people in Dade City. you can socially distance them downstairs pretty easily. If you know you have more then you can let those people know you're gonna have to go to the East C Basco government center to make that work. I think for ninety nine percent of the time, you're probably not gonna have that higher number. And maybe that works better.
That may be right, the way things are working right now, 'cause Even with our phone calls now, we're not having probably over about Four or five at the most. On either side.
Did Mr. David Goldstein, can I make one suggestion?
Go ahead. Go ahead. Yes, please. Um please. So there may be members of the public who don't feel comfortable sitting in the actual boardroom. So maybe one option would be to still have the kiosk. But then anybody who wants to physically go into the boardroom, you allow them in. Because and that would also kind of spread people out a little bit if you got a big crowd. Because I could see that if it's a big crowd, they may not, especially in Dade City, there may not there may be people that are not
comfortable if their only option is to go into the boardroom. It's a big crowd.
That makes sense.
Mr. Chairman
Mariano. The administr uh administrator and I just had a brief conversation. Um, the problem with doing with making the decision at 5 PM the day before board meeting is I'm not sure you're gonna be able to adequately tell the public where to show up. So from a noticing standpoint, I would not recommend You pick one thing and stay with it. Don't Change it at M
uh ten A. M. the the day of the board meeting.
Okay. Well guys, we gotta make a decision here. Either either it's it's you keep it status quo. Or We Move on with um suggestion by the Down the Church.
Commissioner Moore.
Please, Commissioner Starkey. Um I don't care more. I mean Mr. Sharky.
I don't think what we have is working great. So I'm okay to try something different, see if it improves uh public participation.
Chairman More. Yes, please.
So I'm make the recommendation where we allow the public to speak at the building which we're going to meet. Um Whether it be by kiosk or the microphone in the lobby, I mean in the in the boardroom. And if it in fact is more people that have signed up by order, you can let some of those people that you can socially distance inside, you let them stay inside. When they fill out And you if you have more for whatever the reason, then when when one leaves another one can come in kind of backing it up through.
So can I I'm still uh um what are we I'm wondering what we're gonna do on the east side still.
Well, what if we um have those that are going to speak publicly notice us that they're going to be here by Thursday of the week prior. Thursday before our Tuesday meeting. That'd give us time if there's more than three or four, three or four we can accommodate here to speak at the podium. And also we'd have to go to the kiosk, but that'd give us time to set the kiosks up.
I don't know how you put that in wording, but
Commissioner Yeah. Again, I I think the challenge with that is the the agenda is published on Wednesday, so you're asking them within twenty-four hours to decide whether or not they want to comment on anything on the agenda. And so Again, I I think our recommendation would be to keep the boardroom closed to the public, let them comment at the kiosk. That way you can get it. We can maintain distancing both in the boardroom and out in the lobbies, either here at the East Pasco Government Center. You can still get your public comment and we
don't have to worry about the operational or safety issues with with public walking in here when we may or may not, when we're trying to keep social distancing in both board rooms. I I think that's another concern is. Who's gonna if you will, police the social distancing inside the boardroom. Right now, one reason we we have it closed is so we can do it this way.
Yeah. Mr. Chairman Mari It's set up this the way it is with the Keoks right now. Let's leave it that way, go through the first meeting. So and Mr. Goldstein said that we could uh amend that if we needed to at that time, but let's go through the first one with the kiosk using the kiosks and see how that works, or the first two and then see how it works and if it it's fine and there's uh we're able to hear from the public. Um pretty easily in
in both locations, then uh we'll amend it to what we think it might be better or or leave it the same. But at that time we could we could be it's like a trial and we do it and we take And everything works fine and works. I tell you, I believe it will work better than some of the phones. Some of the phone conversations, comments we heard this morning are hard to hear and hard to understand. So
okay, so you guys wanna we our next meeting is July fourteenth. And your thought was we this takes effect July fourteenth, Mr. Biles?
Uh yes, sir. And we actually sent the notice to the paper yesterday for the fourteenth meeting in order to make the deadline.
Okay. So you guys want to give it a shot the 14th? It is New Port Richey, which will make it easier. And we'll see how it goes. And if we need to amend, we can amend that day. Yeah. That works.
Can I just add one comment, Mr. Kerr?
Yes, please.
Um the rules do allow the county administrator to invite a presenter into the boardroom. So if you have somebody that really Wants to address the board in person, the county administered has the flexibility to invite them into the boardroom to make a presentation. Okay.
So for example, Commissioner Mariano said he thought somebody was doing a presentation today. That person could be invited in to do a presentation.
Yeah.
Yeah. Mr. Mariano?
I'm okay. We'll give we'll give it a try, uh especially if I get the flexibility with the restore act when they come up here. It gives me the flexibility. So we'll give it a try and we'll see how it plays out. Good suggestion.
Are we all in the s is everybody okay with that? We have cohesiveness. Okay, I hear I see thumbs up and yeses, I'll entertain a motion then.
Ron Oakley moves approval.
What's about Commissioner Oakley?
Jack Mariano second.
Second by Commissioner Mariano. Madam Clerk, please call roll.
District One, Commissioner Oakley. Hi. District three, Commissioner Starkey. Aye. District four, Commissioner Weightman District five, Commissioner Mariano. District two, Chairman Mariano.