Welcome to a meeting of your Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.

Representing District One, Harry Cohen.

Representing District 2, Ken Hagen.

Representing District 3, Gwen Myers.

Representing District 4, Christine Miller.

Representing District 5, Donna Cameron Cepeda.

Representing District 6, Chris Bowles.

Representing District 7, Joshua Wolstall.

The County Administrator is Bonnie Wise.

The County Attorney is Christine Back.

Time is set aside at the beginning of each meeting for citizens to speak on any issue.

So we have time for everyone.

Speakers are asked to limit their comments to three minutes.

Today's meeting is brought to you with closed captioning by Hillsborough Television.

Good morning and welcome to the December 17, 2025 regularly scheduled board meeting of the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.

Everyone please rise for the pledge and invocation given by our chaplain, Commissioner Gwyn Myers.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty, and justice for all.

Let us pray.

Oh gracious Heavenly Father, I come to you again just to say thank you.

Thank you for this year and all that Hillsburg County government has accomplished.

Father, we know the reason for this season.

I ask that you will continue to bless this board, our leadership, our county administrator, and all our employees and what we have done this year.

And as you give us happiness, peace, love, and joy during this holiday season, we will not forget you and what you have allowed us to do in your holy name.

I pray, amen.

Thank you, Commissioner Myers.

Uh, this morning we have two very special accommodations, and the first one will be presented by Commissioner Bowles.

Thank you for coming and joining us today.

Our first and last uh meeting of December and of the year.

Um I'd like to ask uh Mr.

Andrew Emberton and Dr.

Charles Sand to please join me up here at the podium, please.

And if you have anybody else you'd like to bring up, that's fine.

That's good.

Okay.

Why don't you come around this way?

Yeah.

Good morning.

Nice to see you.

Um, we appreciate you being here.

Uh I'm excited to present this special recognition to an amazing young man who transformed a near fatal tragedy into a success story that serves as a vital service to our community.

Mr.

Emmerton here at the age of 26 experienced sudden cardiac arrest with no warning at all.

But thanks to the quick thinking of his friend to UCPR and the medical team at the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital, Mr.

Emerton survived, and he's here with us today.

This life-changing event led him to create Breathe Florida, a nonprofit organization.

So far, the organization's accomplishments in our community have been nothing truly short of remarkable.

Further illustrating Mr.

Emmetton's dedication to service.

It is an honor to present him with this accommodation for his hard work and efforts.

And if you give me a moment, I'll read what the accommodation says.

A Georgia native, Mr.

Emerson, is proud to call Hillsborough County his home.

After graduating from Brandon High School, where he served as a battalion commander in the JROTC program during his senior year, he re earned his bachelor's degree in computer engineering in 2020.

His graduation led to a promising career in the technology field.

In October 2024, Mr.

Emberton suffered a cardiac arrest.

He survived because of the vital CPR techniques used at the scene.

This life-changing event led to him to create Breathe Florida, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping high school students earn an official two-year CPR certification through the AHA at no cost to the student.

Since its founding, the organization has raised over $10,000 to sponsor CPR certification for students at Brandon High School, focusing first on the Junior R the JRRTC, excuse me, program.

And to date, 63 cadets have earned their CPR certifications.

And the organization is now expanding this opportunity to athletic teams, student organizations, and students who may benefit from positive community building and skill-based empowerment.

These amazing results are all due to his unwavering commitment and selfless generosity.

The Board of County Commissioners of Hillsborough County, Florida, does hereby commend Andrew Emerton for his accomplishments in promoting CPR to the community and wishes him success for his many years to come, executed this 70 day of December, 2025.

Would you like to have something to say?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Morning.

Hope you're all having a great day as well as a great life.

It's truly honored to be here today.

I really appreciate Commissioner Bowles, the other county commissioners, as well as Dr.

Charlie Sands, for seeing the value in highlighting a story like this.

Last year in October, um, well, first and foremost, I would give all glory to God for everything happening here.

Without God's grace and God's will working in my life, there's just absolutely no way any of this would be happening.

So first and foremost, I would give all glory to God.

Last year in October, I was visiting friends up in Gainesville when I went into a sudden cardiac arrest.

One of my friends called 911 immediately, and the other friend immediately began life-saving CPR, where she had to do CPR for about 10 minutes straight until emergency services could arrive, where then I was brought to Shann's hospital and later resuscitated.

By the quick actions of my friends, the incredible work of the EMS teams, as well as folks down at the hospital, in the grace of God and the whole situation, I live and stand before you all today.

As before you guys can imagine, over this last year, I've tried to thank, praise, and glorify my two incredible friends so many times over this last year, and every single time they are to stop me and say, Nope, that was all God.

We were just there.

And I remember I would even argue with them.

I would say, like, no, no, no, like list, like you gave me CPR.

Come for E.

Call 911, and they would just say, Nope.

That was all God, we were just there.

And eventually I would agree and say, Oh, yeah, you know, that makes sense.

But at the back of my mind, a very human part of me would still look to glorify the human part of them.

And I'm sure part of that will always be there within me.

But it really is like a moment like now receiving recognition for something like this where I just can't help but think it's not me.

It's God.

I'm just here bearing witness, and I'm just so grateful and humbled to have the opportunity to steward this uh this uh this vision and this idea forward.

The idea didn't even come from me and came from my it came from God.

I knew I had a purpose around the corner, but I didn't know what it was.

Out loud, I said, God, if you think I'm ready, so do I.

The idea for Breath Florida came to me immediately after.

Nonprofit to sponsor high school students to get CPR certified at no cost to them, but the uh mission of empowering young people in our communities to have the knowledge and confidence to act in a time of crisis and potentially save more wise over time.

It was in that moment, and especially now I feel convicted that this is what I was brought back to do.

So if getting Breathe Florida to even half of its full potential is the last thing I do, then that is what I'll do.

Of course, the goal is to spread this across this opportunity across the state of Florida, but our focus and our goal right now is uh to focus here in Hillsborough County, the place I call home.

We'll start here and then we'll go from there.

Thank you, and God bless you all.

Thank you.

Absolutely amazing.

Uh just uh the fact that you're here to tell your story.

It is wonderful.

Um, and just for a moment, I'd like to uh bring Dr.

Sand, who leads our EMPC and um who is very been very active in our community, dealt with uh AEDs in the past, getting those out in our community, and he would like to have a few short words.

We got a lot of people today, but a few short words.

Dr.

Sand likes to talk, and he's a great speaker.

But uh, but that being said, uh give a sh very short demonstration on CPR.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Um yeah, you know it'll be a challenge.

Maybe there's a reason I haven't been invited back for 10 or 15 years.

We love you, Doctor.

But um, as you heard, I chair EMPC since 2014.

I'm past president of the American Heart Association, retired ER doc, although I still do EMS things.

Um thank you, Commissioner Bowles and other steamed members, the Board of County Commission and Andrew, privileged uh to be here.

I'm gonna show you how to save a life.

Anyone can save a life with CPR.

You just you see a great example here.

Young kids can learn it, elderly can learn it, any age can learn it.

Everybody in this room, everyone watching virtually can learn it.

Um suddenly cardiac arrest can happen to anyone.

Doesn't matter what your status, your socioeconomic status, your race, religion, it kills everybody.

It doesn't select people.

So you need to learn CPR.

If one of what you went into CPR right now, uh into cardiac arrest right now, God forbid, every minute goes by, you lose 10%.

One in ten every minute.

You lose.

So you need to start CPR as quickly as possible.

Anyone can save a life, call 911, start CPR, call for a local AED.

We have one right in the room, just so you know, so we're we're in good shape.

Um a defurator shock brings back rhythms back to life.

So why not give uh people the chance to learn CPR?

Doing something, uh doing something is better than doing nothing.

So what you do for CPR, we'll just give you a little demonstration.

Um first of all, you need to make sure they're actually unresponsive.

Give them a little tap, don't shake them too hard.

If they don't respond, they're not breathing.

Just go right into it.

And these kits are great.

You can buy a kit for your family for the vacations, teach everybody CPR, save a life of all your family.

So, in just a couple of minutes.

So it'll tell you the rate to go.

So it's what every half second you do CPR one and two and three.

You like the BGs?

Stay it alive.

I think everybody knows that.

So, whatever you want to do to remember that, do that.

Um, do that rate.

So push two inches, 120 a minute, uh allow full recoil.

There's lots more to teach you, but they're not giving me much time because we have too many speakers here.

The other thing I like to say, so you can get these kits or whatever, you can look on YouTube.

What better place, what better time than when you're with your family during the holidays?

Teach everybody CPR.

Most cardiac arrests occur in the comb, more occur during holidays for whatever reason.

It maybe it's stressful event, I don't know, but it's a good idea to teach everybody CPR.

The last thing I'd like to say for the last time I have, just going to add lib now, but I can do it ad lib, is the ADs.

These defibrillators are here's a real one.

Here's a trainer.

They're literally very simple to use.

They will give you voice prompts, they'll tell you what to do.

It will.

So it'll it'll go step by step.

The pads show you where to put it.

They're very easy.

Back between 2000 and 2010, we had a subcommittee on EMPC where we put our goal was to put a thousand AEDs in this community.

You gotta shut it up too.

You gotta shut it.

So uh we want to put a thousand AEDs in the community.

We did that with our subcommittee.

We first started with this building, every other floor.

Now they're on every building.

There's two on this floor for some reason.

You guys are in good shape.

There's one right there, a real AED, that you can utilize.

And I have to give mention to our legal counsel during that time.

You stole her from us, Christine Beck was our legal counsel, so thank you, Christine, for all you've done for our community in saving lives.

You contributed to it.

So that said in a nutshell, they're not giving any more time.

I already feel the hick the hook being pulled.

Thank you, everybody.

Learn CPR, teach your family, no better way.

The life you save may be your family or yourself.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bowles, Florida County Commission, all the Hillsborough County staff for allowing Andrew and I to do this.

Thank you.

Maybe next I we'll figure out a way to get you back up here next year.

How's that?

We'll figure out allowing it.

We'll figure it out.

But thank you so much.

Um you good?

You want to bring anybody up for a picture?

It's up to you.

No?

Okay.

You want me to call it?

You're part of this.

That's okay.

I will be careful.

Thank you, Commissioner Bowles.

Now, Commissioner Miller will present our next commendation.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh, good morning, everyone.

Um, would Chief Mike Bardell please join me up here at the podium?

He's with the Sun City Center Emergency Squad.

Oh, my plaque went.

Good morning.

Well, welcome, Chief, and to all of the members of the Sun City Center Emergency Squad, we are truly honored to have you here today.

This recognition is for a remarkable group of individuals whose compassion and commitment define what it means to serve.

Every year, the Sun City Center Emergency Squad responds to nearly 4,000 ambulance calls, all staffed by volunteers who dedicate their time, skill, and their hearts to helping their neighbors.

And they do it entirely free of charge.

They are the only organization of their kind in Florida, and their selfless service not only saves lives, but also saves Hillsborough County taxpayers an estimated four and a half million dollars each year.

That's an incredible gift to this county.

This year, the squad is celebrating 60 years of service to our community, and they've done so in an extraordinary fashion, being named the 2025 volunteer EMS Service of the Year by EMS World and the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians.

I think that deserves like a huge applause.

This is such an important honor.

We are welcome to have Representative Alvarez and his staff here with us today.

So I'm gonna read what the commendation says, and then I'm gonna let um Commissioner Bowles speak as well because he has served on this side, and while this is in my district, and I am so humble and grateful that you're he is the one that has taught me how much value this means in our community, and I want to be able to give him a few minutes to speak as well.

So it reads the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners proudly congratulates the Sun City Center Emergency Squad for receiving the EMS World National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians 2025 Volunteer EMS Service of the Year Award, a national recognition of its unwavering dedication and outstanding volunteer service to the community.

Founded in 1964, the Sun City Center Emergency Squad remains a pillar of commassion compassion and commitment and proudly standing as one of Florida's last remaining all-volunteer, all-free basic life support ambulance services, guided by the motto, neighbors helping neighbors.

I'll keep this very brief.

As we just heard from Dr.

Sand and we have living proof from uh Mr.

Andrew Emerton, minutes count when we're talking about life saving issues and having the Sun City Squad down there and available that fills in those gaps where uh whether it's a BLS or even ALS in some particular you know cases because you never know what the true emergency is, having them be able to respond and be there and that they're volunteering their services beyond commendable.

I've worked with them in the past over my 28 years.

I've had the opportunity to work with Sun City and uh love all the members down there, and I know that they change over the years, but uh you've done an outstanding job, Chief, and uh keep that going.

Don't stop.

Great job.

I'm up here receiving this award, but the truth is the true heroes are the 370 volunteers that make everything I say every day come true for everyone, and they are the true heroes in the community.

Our average age is over 70 years old.

But just because we're retired doesn't mean we're done.

People want to do something for that, and they feel like they have something to offer to this community, and I think by evidence to what we do, they are showing it day in and day out.

And I'm very proud.

Uh I understood from Dr.

Sands that I could speak for about two hours, but uh I understand that's a little less now.

But uh want to thank all the people that have supported the squad over the many years, and we're just so proud to be able to go out and serve our community.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna ask all of you all to come up and join us for the picture.

How's your daughter doing?

All great.

What do we do here?

We're gonna go this way.

Come on, go everyone.

Just take some problems.

We're gonna turn around over.

Oh, good, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Miller uh and Bowles uh body when it reviewed the changes to the agenda.

Uh yes, good morning, commissioners.

We have one item that has been removed from consent for discussion or questions by Commissioner Miller.

It's item A5.

This is to approve and execute a local housing funding agreement and a land use restriction agreement between the county and the homes of Regency Cove for improvements to infrastructure connections and replacement for to support 4,831 mobile homes, 16 apartments and common areas for 55 plus senior mobile home community.

This is in support of urgent community needs resulting from the hurricanes.

We have several items for time certain.

The first one is item D1 at 10 o'clock.

This is to conduct a public hearing to accept comments on the program year 2024 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report with known as the CAPER detailing the use of funds received from HUD for community development block grant, home investment partnership and emergency solutions grant program.

Item D2 at 10 o'clock is to hold a public hearing to consider the transfer of certain property rights within the Stacy R.

White Preserve ELAP site to the water resources department in support of the one water south wastewater conveyance and treatment project.

Item D3 at 10 o'clock is to hold a public hearing and approve by two-thirds vote, the impact fee increase ordinance and the water wastewater rate resolution, which increases water and wastewater impact fees.

Item B5 at 1015 is to adopt a resolution supplementing a resolution prior resolutions providing for the issuance of subordinate utility revenue note series 2025 and the principal amount of not to exceed 1.5 billion dollars in aggregate advances in order to finance all or a portion of the acquisition, construction, reconstruction, expansion, replacement, and your equipping of various capital improvement projects to the county's utility system, specifically the one water campus project located in Southern Hillsboro County.

This is related to items B6 and B7.

The next item is item B6, also at 1015 to approve the approve the third modification to the Progressive Design Build Agreement with Garney Companies for the One Water South Wastewater Conveyance and Treatment Projects related to items B5 and B7, and then item B7 related to items B5 and B6 to approve the sixth modification to the agreement with Corolo Engineers Inc.

for additional and continued professional services associated with the South County One Water Program.

Item E1 at 1030 is to receive a special appearance by Craig Richard, President CEO of the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council to prevent their activity report for 2025.

Item B1 at 1045 is accept the library materials management report performed by the County Internal Auditor's Office.

1145 is a recess for lunch.

Those are the changes to the agenda.

Commissioner Wolstell.

Mr.

Chair, um, I had a slight amendment to our last regular meetings minutes, um, 165 subsection E.

If you'll recall, I pulled two items, A7 and A8, and the vote went as I expected 6 to 1, but evidently another commissioner also voted no, and mine was recorded as a yes.

Um, Mr.

Varnsdale did confirm that that was recorded by the pad, so I'd either need to make an amendment or revote on those two items.

Um I've I pulled the item specifically to vote.

No, I was the only one that opposed it.

Rick, do you have a recommendation?

Um yes, because there is an electronic record.

I would prefer it would be probably better if he we resend it and revote.

Okay, so make a motion to rescend that vote from November 5th and then re-vote on it however you want.

Okay, so do that you can do it any time you want now or at the end of the meeting, whatever you want.

Okay, why don't we put on the changes now and then we can come back and do that?

Okay, so can we motion to approve the changes?

Move the changes to second commissioner cohen, send Commissioner Myers, please record your vote and changes the agenda.

Motion carried seven and one.

All right, then a motion by Commissioner Wolsel to uh resend uh was there a certain number or uh items um a seven and a eight of the previous regular agenda.

Seven A eight.

Okay, motion to uh just rescind that vote.

Commissioner Wills will send Commissioner Cohen.

Please record your vote.

All right, so now we need a new motion to approve to approve A7A8.

I'll move approval of A7 and AA.

Okay, motion Commissioner Cohen.

Do we have a second?

Second, Commissioner Bowles.

All right, please record your vote.

Motion carries six to one.

Commissioner Walsell voted no.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Okay.

I know we're going to public comment portion of the agenda.

Uh, the board welcomes comments from citizens about any issue or concern.

Are your opinions or valued in terms of providing valuable input to board members?

However, at the same time is requested when you speak to the board that your comments are not directed at staff or board members, but rather the issue.

We've set aside 45 minutes for public comment this morning.

Uh the chair will call on speakers by the in the order in which the request to speak have been made.

Um dressing the board, please state your name, speak clearly into the microphone.

Each person will be given three minutes.

I will tell you uh we will not get to everyone this morning.

We've we have 61 individuals that have signed up, so we'll get go as far as we can and just uh be mindful of those that are behind you.

Uh first three speakers are Marie Gilmore, followed by Joyce Gonzalez and then Dennis Hayes Good morning.

Good morning.

Do I start any time?

Do I start any time?

Okay.

Good morning, Chair and Commissioners.

My name is Marie Gilmore, 25-year resident of Southeast Salesburgh County, and editor of the hometown Osbury Observer newspaper publishing good news for 24 years in January.

And this morning I've already gotten two stories.

I didn't even know I'd be working this morning, but two fantastic proclamations, so thank you for that.

I'm here for the second time in 24 years to speak on behalf of the Mosley.

Well, because I was here last meeting.

To speak on behalf of the Mosley Homestead, a valuable link to Hillsborough County's early history.

Preserving it provides meaningful educational opportunities, supports heritage tourism, and ensures future generations can learn from our shared past.

The Timberly Trust has shown a commitment to responsible preservation and public access access.

And with your support, this project will become a lasting community asset.

I know you'll have a report today.

I was very excited.

Thank you to Commissioner Miller's office for sending it to me, and I'm thrilled to see the progress going forward on this project.

Additionally, I'd like to take a moment to thank the board for its support of the second annual parade of lights in Brandon.

Because of your support, this family friendly event was a huge success for the second year, and it showcased what makes Brandon special connection, volunteerism, and hometown pride.

Thank you for investing in these community traditions that strengthen our neighborhoods and bring people together.

During this parade, we supported two local charities, a literacy charity and hope for her.

We had 2800 people walking in this community parade, including five marching bands, which is my favorite thing to see at the holidays.

We truly appreciate your time, leadership, and continued support of our community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Gilmore.

Joyce Gonzalez.

I'm followed by Dennis Hayes and then Mark Proctor.

Good morning.

Good morning, Commissioners.

First, I want to thank all the commissioners for considering this grant funding for the homes of Regency Cove.

Regency Cove is an elder association.

This grant gave the residents hope to be able to continue to live in their little piece of heaven and their retirement age.

After Hurricane Helene and Milton hit this association, there was major damage done with the flooding, not only to the entire electric grid, but to their units.

Most of them lost their vehicles.

These hurricanes destroyed the entire electric grid to the entire park.

The electric grid was well over 30 years old.

A major part includes the three lift stations for this park.

The electric meters were under saltwater, which destroyed the electric underground wiring.

They were without power for almost two months.

We would get power back one section and then another one would go out.

To this day, when it rains, units still lose their power.

Tico, their contractors, and the electrician worked day and night to keep this park safe and keep power back to the units.

After ground temp wiring had been installed, and to this day we are still having to install above ground temporary wiring.

Tico President and many others came to the association very early after the hurricanes to meet and discuss partnering with homes of Regency Cove and install all new wiring to the entire community.

The association would be responsible for the pedestals, meter cans, breaker boxes to each unit.

Tico and at their expense would install all new underground wiring and conduit to each unit pedestals and new power poles to ensure secure power for the future.

The only way to complete this project was to do a one-time special assessment.

However, the board realized this would cause many unit owners to possibly lose their units or to have to choose what to pay.

The cost of this one-time special assessment would have been per unit between the dollars of $10,000 to 15.

This is a retirement community, and that was not a feasible.

When several affordable housing team members who had heard about this association was seriously damaged, they came to the park to investigate and review the association.

They realized that this was a very bad situation.

The association had to act quickly to get this project started.

So the association moved forward.

The priority was and still is to get the residents stable electric.

In closing, I'd like to thank Brenda Tremain and their entire team for working with Regency Cove to get the residents of homes of Regency Cove to this point.

As property manager, I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak in front of you.

Appreciate your comments.

Dennis Hayes.

Mr.

Hayes here, followed by Mark Proctor and then Lori Collins.

Good morning.

First, I'd like to thank Brenda Vasilla and her crew with the Affordable Housing for countless hours they spent arranging for this loan.

And secondly, I'd like to thank the commissioners for their consideration in this effect.

As the association's president, I saw and lived the first thing that destruction of Helena Milton caused.

Some section of the park were without power for weeks.

In summertime's bad.

Tico and his subcransworth Regency Co.

for what seemed like months, putting temporary lines in place so people could survive.

After everything dried out, we still had issues with losing electric power when it rained.

When it rains, the salt water still reacts with the with the wiring.

The directive buried cables, direct buried electric cables, no conduit, just cable, need to be replaced.

And we were working to that effect after this.

The money, this money would assist in accomplishing this project.

Again, thank you for your consideration.

And just because I didn't use my three minutes, does anyone have any questions I could answer possibly?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mark Proctor is up next, followed by Lori Collins.

Good morning.

My name's Mark Proctor of 409 South Kings Avenue in Brandon, Florida.

As chairman of the Timberley Trust, I want to emphasize that the uh thoughtful and deliberate approach that uh we have taken with the supervision of the Moseley Homestead.

Our intent is centered on education, preservation, artistic expression, and a deep reverence for the natural world, which continues to guide every decision we've made.

Our board has invested the time and diligence necessary to advance a plan worthy of this extraordinary place, including completing architectural and preservation studies, environmental assessments, long range planning, documents, and the expert evaluations required for responsible stewardship of a natural, a national registry property.

We have prioritized doing things correctly rather than quickly ensuring that all work aligns with the historic landscape, minimizes impacts, and respects the spirit of the Mosley legacy.

As an example of a partnership is with our next door neighbor Portillas, which now provides solutions to our long-standing concerns about visitor access, parking, and site impact.

Through this partnership, now formalized as Portillo's pathway to the past, the homestead has a strong community business ally dedicated to supporting heritage preservation and facilitating responsible public access through shared space for meetings, visitor orientation, bus access, and a new gated connection to the homestead.

We have also expanded our visibility and viability and outreach through a Hillsboro County Historic Preservation Grant, which has enabled the creation of an interactive web portal promoting virtual exploration of the homestead.

Our visibility has grown further through county tourism media efforts, including the homestead being selected as a major filming location for a lifetime network movie, demonstrating both the cultural value and the aesthetic appeal of this unique historic environment.

We have also launched a social media uh initiative and strengthened community engagement through uh donor-sponsored events such as our successful Labor Day Legacy picnic.

The Moseley Homestead recently was toured by the 2026 class of the Brandon Riverview Chamber of Commerce, and they have sent us this note uh showing their appreciation.

The Mosley Homestead recently uh it has looked ahead and remains committed to expanding responsible, sustainable public access, both in person and through advanced virtual and educational technology.

Thank you for your comments.

We appreciate the property for decades to come.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, sir.

Uh next up is Lori Collins, followed by Denise Herndon Collins.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Dr.

Lori Collins.

I'm a heritage preservation specialist and advisor and volunteered for the Timberley Trust, the stewards of the Mosley Homestead.

For 143 years, the site has safeguarded archives, photographs, artwork, and material culture documenting the settlement history of the United States, Florida, and Hillsborough County.

It is a rare cultural intact landscape, one of the last of its kind, and in fact was recognized by the Florida Trust as an 11 to save endangered site.

The trust has taken a very deliberate and thoughtful path forward.

We recognize early that a conventional community center model, while well intentioned, would have had impacts that were incompatible with the site's covenants, historic character, and environmental sensitivity.

As the staff report will note later today, such an approach would have required third party operators, high annual costs, and changes to the restrictions, even possibly changes to ownership interest that protect this national register property.

Instead, the trust returned to its mission to the wishes of pioneer settler Julia Daniels Mosley and her granddaughter Julia Winifred Mosley and to the guidance of preservation professionals.

We've been highly active, as Mark just stated in the community and through a new um Hillsborough County grant that is allowing us to have greater public awareness through a web portal.

Lots of grants and exciting special category grant that we'll be coming back with later in 2020, early 2026 for the match.

Commissioners, the Mosley Homestead is ready and looking to the future.

Our proposed Eco Center creative studio and interpretive trail, all professionally designed, which you will hear more of from the staff report today, represent a thoughtful preservation appropriate evolution of the original community center idea.

These low impact structures fulfill the same public service goals, education, engagement, community benefit, while being far more compatible with the property's historic landscape, environmental conditions, and preservation covenants.

Our plans, as I said, are professional preservation sound, mission aligned, and deeply consistent with the original intent of the BP environmental mitigation funding, part of that funding that is designated for the homestead and is current and is of current interest to this commission.

That money linking natural and cultural history, ecological education, and heritage tourism, all in this one spot.

We respectfully ask for your continued support and the time needed to finalize these present conceptual plans and studies becoming uh fulfilled.

With your partnership, we appreciate it.

This site will remain a tool for the county.

Next up is Denise Herndon, followed by Dave Smith.

Good morning.

I'm Denise Herndon.

I'm going to speak on A146, a reach up.

Uh, for um at-risk children.

I don't know if these um nonprofit is separate from what the Hillsborough County insurance pays, or if these people are in insurance, but we need to do something about making it mandatory in high schools to educate on CPR because there's been little kids in elementary school that have saved people with CPR.

I have this um somebody um please fix this to make this um show so people can see this, and I'd like it to stay up there.

This is concerning uh information about a false body cam and false reporting of this um police report that's numbered.

I was told because it was a general offense, it's closed.

Well, is there a closing when the body cam is falsified?

Because what it shows on that body cam is not what happened, because there was nobody in that gas station at Lakewood in 60, except myself, selling books, t-shirts, and the guy that I was with left and was coming out after the gunshots happened.

So he didn't see everything that had happened there.

And I guess because nobody was hit.

It's okay that a false sheriff's report and a false body camp registered here.

And there's what four captains that have issues and stuff that they terminated.

Well, there's more than that.

And I think people are being made scapegoats.

Cronister is at the top.

He needs to leave.

You need to fire him.

And the sad thing is there's a lot of good sheriff deputies, and it's a lot of good people are being accused of things that they're not happening.

And I will never give up.

I will never back down on this issue.

I thought this was all about something else, but there's a lot of other things.

I'm finding tentacles of a lot of things going on in this county.

And you guys can do something about it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next up is Dave Smith, followed by Margaret Converse and Carl Williams.

Hi, I don't think you should fund the sheriff's office any more money.

They do a pretty lousy job of protecting consumers' civil rights.

My wife was murdered in Hillsborough County, and I informed all of you commissioners about it, and you haven't done anything.

There's a lot illegal with the BOCC when it criminally covered up my wife's Hillsborough County murder with BOCC paid Victor Chris, who illegally removed my wife's civil murder case without judicial approval from your Hillsborough County courthouse.

BOCC's paid Brandon Wagner was told not to investigate this matter by one of your one of his county commissioners.

The BOCC is now as guilty as its paid courthouse accomplices who racketeered in covering up my wife's murder due to now being inputted with these facts.

But we'll no doubt continue to turn a blind eye to Asian perpetrated crimes.

Okay, your BOCC paid sheriff refused to investigate my wife's murder, keeping Jane Castor's local concert from being exposed for having initiated my wife's Hillsburg County murder.

She's being sued.

Jane Castor's concert illegally aided in a bed of the Federal Reserve Bank and stopping me and my wife from suing the feds in 2022 by falsely imprisoning me and your Hillsborough County jail while keeping my wife on the streets of Hillsborough County until foreseeably killed.

Your Hillsborough County Courthouse issued a summons on Victor Chris, I defend it in a RICO lawsuit I filed this month, but your Hillsburg County deputies refused to perform process of service on him, stating it's politically incorrect to serve Victor Chris's summons because he's one of the gang.

Proud BOCC paid deputies see themselves as criminals in a gang.

And you proud commissioners are their managers aiding and abetting BOCC paid local agents and illegally obtaining and keeping consumers owed monies like the monies BOCC is stopping me from obtaining and your Hillsburg County Courthouse.

Now that you've been directly inputted with these facts, all of you can be sued as participants in place of your contract paid agents for their racketeering activities under the respondent superior and law of agencies, agency doctrines.

Either you have your sheriff investigate my wife's murder and fire Victor Chris or be sued with him.

Uh for the camera.

Thank you for your comments, sir.

Uh next up is Margaret Converse, followed by Carl Williams.

Good morning, all, and thank you for having me here today.

I am a resident of Regency Park, and I love the place, but unfortunately we're in dire straits.

Our park is an A-05 elderly low-income community with over 400 mobile homes, living in our park, many, and living in our park, we have many um veterans.

Not allowing us to have a large monthly assessment added to our monthly bills, which would cause so many of us to have to leave our home.

I just want to say we are very grateful to Hillsborough County Commissioners allowing us this grant.

It would truly be a Christmas miracle if we were all sharish.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Converse.

Carl Williams.

Mr.

Williams here.

If not, followed by Monty Leedy and then Jeffrey Pritchard.

And those folks here.

All right, keep moving.

Charles Holsoppel.

Morning, sir.

Good morning.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, sir.

My name is Monty Leedy, and I live at Regency Cove.

I'm a 100% disabled Vietnam veteran.

My wife and I are both disabled at this time.

I want to thank you for allowing us to meet here today.

Thank you for the grant.

We need it.

So many people in our park are living on Social Security.

Or by the aid of somebody else.

I'm one of the fortunate ones.

I get to skim by each month.

But we need this grant.

And I want to thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you for your time.

Have a good day.

Thank you, sir.

Jeffrey Jeffrey Pritchard, followed by a Charles Hulse Soppel.

Morning, sir.

Good morning.

Thank you for the opportunity to uh speak before the commission.

Um very grateful for the uh opportunity to uh to help the community.

I'm relatively new to the community.

I moved in five years ago.

Um it was it's my first time being in a community that has a homeowners association, and over the uh last five years that I've been there, I've really seen the value of the association and what it does for the community, and not only that, I've also realized how much history and bonding there is in the community.

Uh I'm retired uh on a fixed income, and my wife has uh been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

So uh, you know, for me, I'm looking at potentially you know, some medical bills coming up uh that are gonna be you know a challenge to us, but I also know that you know I'm not alone in that situation, you know.

As we get older, you know, there are a lot of financial challenges on a fixed income.

So uh the opportunity for the commission uh to uh help this community, I think would be a great value.

Uh and uh I'm hopeful that uh it will go forward.

Thank you.

Please set your name for the record.

Uh Jeffrey Purchard.

I thank you.

Thank you.

Charles Holsoppel.

Followed by Robert Rios, which is virtual, and then Danny Pipkin.

Morning, sir.

Good morning.

Uh my name is Charles Holsoppel.

I live at Regency Cove in Tampa.

And uh a friend of mine just gave me this book, The History of Regency Cove, the first 50 years.

And uh this was printed about 20 years ago, I believe, when Mayor Ayorio was was mayor, and Regency Cove was a valuable historic part of Tampa, and it's become really one of the affordable uh options for seniors in the Tampa Bay area, and this uh the electrical grid upgrade is super valuable to the value uh of the community and a necessary improvement.

And I'd like to thank the the council for considering the the help in upgrading that antiquated electrical system and uh continuing the history and the legacy of Hillsburg County taking care of the seniors.

This is a great book.

You I think you can get it at the library, the history of Regency Cove.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

We got Robert Rios, which is virtual, followed by Danny Pipkin and Carla Anderson.

Is Mr.

Rios on the line uh Robert Rios did not check in?

Okay, thank you.

Followed by Carla Anderson and then Debbie Phillips.

Good morning, sir.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Danny Pipkin, and I'm a resident of Regency Cove.

I um I'm a former public servant also.

I spent 15 years with the state of Florida serving the resident another 10 years recently at the VA hospital.

When I moved in about eight years ago, one of the things that struck me was the veteran preference uh presence inside of the cove.

Um I served, my son served.

There's a lot of service related things going on in my world, but I also remember from the years with the DOT, uh, budgets, constraints, funding, and I thought, what could I do?

What could I say to you folks that when you get this in front of you this afternoon that would resonate?

The service to our country, the service to our community.

You all are doing that, and I thank you for that.

I thank you for the opportunity to come up here.

I noticed the POW MIHR in the lobby here where we were sitting.

One of the guys in our community is a 90-something year old World War II veteran, Manny.

Love Manny.

He's a great guy.

We got a lot of veterans, and I see a lot of these older folks after these storms struggling, and I was asked to help move this, help stand my washing machine back up, the human factor.

These older, us older.

I'm not, I am one.

I never knew I was gonna get to be old enough to be in a 55 community with a golf cart and all that stuff, but here I am.

The opportunity to see that the community and to be able to help other residents was touching, which you know I've lived a life of trying to be of service, and I know that's what you all are doing.

So I hope that you would uh I don't know if this is true or not, but if you ever get the chance to come into the Regency Cove, I'm I'm told that we have the biggest Jose Gaspar statue in the city of Tampa, and I invite you all to come in and look at it.

It's a beautiful piece of paradise, but what's really good is the sense of community and family that we all share.

Um I came in after the storm, and the boat from the bait shop had floated down the main street, you know, this old wooden boat, and all these people struggling, crying, hugging, trying to support each other.

We could use the help, folks.

Thank you for your time.

Have a good time.

Thank you, sir.

Carla Anderson, followed by Debbie Phillips, and then Charlene Corter.

Morning.

Good morning.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Carla Anderson.

Um we've just been there a couple of years at Regency Cove, and uh I had seen it several years ago when we went in there, but thought I'd never be able to live there, even though I was old enough.

I just didn't think I could do it.

But it's been an affordable place to live for decades and decades.

You've got people there who have been there.

Well, some of them are second generation.

They're living in their parent what they inherited from their parents, and many won't have any place else to go if they can't be there.

It will be very difficult.

So we really, really appreciate you all taking a second look at us for this grant.

The devastation from the storms was awful.

Everybody knows that.

It wasn't just in Regency Cove, it was throughout South Tampa and many places in Florida and elsewhere.

But this is an opportunity to help keep a gym.

This is a special gym in South Tampa.

You won't find another one like it anywhere near around.

Everybody works together, everybody helps each other, and it's beautiful.

It's really a beautiful place to live.

And we hope that you'll be able to help us stay there, because there will be many if we have to take on this whole expense individually.

There will be many who have to give up their home.

So I really appreciate the opportunity for us to meet with you and for you to consider the need and and take care of it with that grant.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Debbie Phillips.

Followed by Charlene Corter.

Was Corter here?

Rolf Anderson.

Nope Miriam Frank.

John Caruso.

Good morning, sir.

Good morning, Commissioners.

I'm also a resident of a Regency Cove.

And after the hurricanes, there was a good bit of damage done in our park.

Many of our veterans, many of our elderly people a lot older than me, and those that are handicapped needed assistance.

And the community as a whole came together and uh assisted each other.

Something that we do in America, something that is worthy to take notice of.

So and some of the repairs were substantial.

The uh trailers needed new flooring, new cabinets where the water had come in.

Our unit was up to three feet from the ground coming up.

So it was inside of our unit.

We've made those repairs.

But as a lot of people have said, the amount of money that we have on fixed incomes and other sources is very limited.

So now to take on the project that TICO has told us about in our grid work for the electorate, it's going to be very, very, very difficult for a good many of the residents there.

So if we can have your consideration for the grant money, we would greatly greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And can you can you say your name, please?

Sir, can you state your name?

Sir.

Name.

Rolf Anderson.

I'll be in the microphone, please.

Roth Anderson.

Thank you, sir.

Regency Cove.

Next speaker.

I saw someone that get up.

Good morning, sir.

Hi, everybody.

I'm John Caruso.

Um in 2021, my wife and I bought a place at the Regency Cove.

And at the end of 2024 in October, we decided to move from Buffalo, New York to get away from the weather.

And we moved here at the end of October of 2024.

And when we got here, our place was chaotic.

I seen all these elderly people just frazzled.

And all we wanted to do was help.

And then when the electrical thing started, we had town meetings at the Regency Cove, and there were more people in that room than I've ever seen.

Most of them I never knew lived there.

And after we were told what we might have to pay, I went outside and I watched these people come out of here with tears in their eyes, people that have lived there their whole entire lives, thinking, how am I going to get this money to be able to survive to live here for the rest of my life?

And at the same time, my wife and I are thinking we want to live here for the rest of our lives because it's an absolute beautiful place.

And I just like the thank you for considering the grant for us.

Thank you, Ms.

Crusoe.

Got Patty Rogers.

Patty Rogers here, followed by Lisa Hayes.

And then David Cribb.

Please come on down.

Good morning.

Thank you for your time.

I'm Patty Rogers, resident of Regency Cove.

I just moved in three years ago, and unfortunately, we were all hit hard by the hurricane.

Um it's a great community.

We all rallied and pulled together, and but it took most of our incomes and savings to even make the repairs from the hurricane, and now we have the electrical needs, and it's overwhelming.

Many are losing their homes.

So I plead with you for your thought on this grant to help us maintain our homes and meet this financial need with electricity.

Thank you for your consideration.

Appreciate you so much for considering this.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Lisa Hayes.

But I'd been to Regency Cove quite often before that because my my mother and father retired down there in 1985.

And so it was always a great place to come to.

So there's a lot of rebuilding, and I know for a fact quite a few people have already moved because they couldn't afford to make the um improvements or you know, remodeling or stuff that you have to do after a hurricane.

Um when we heard about the electrical infrastructure having to be um redone and everything.

Um it was you know, we knew it was going to cost a lot of money, and and a lot of us don't have it.

And so we are very grateful for you to be able to be able to help us, and we would really appreciate it.

Like someone else said, it would be a wonderful Christmas present to hear that we we got the grant, and we thank you for your time.

Sorry.

Thank you, Ms.

Hayes.

David Cribb, followed by Mike Puckett.

Good morning, sir.

Hello, my name is David Cribb.

I'm also a resident of Region Cove on Gandhi Boulevard.

Uh I'm a lifelong resident of South Tampa, and uh as many people look at South Tampa being the home of the money makers and movers and shakers.

Uh, but if you are familiar with the area, when you get closer down to Gandhi, where we are, it is uh not quite uh the same high-rent district as other places.

Um after the storms, we returned to find that uh there were electrical boxes were spewing smoke.

Uh eventually had some fires in the place, and TICO informed us that the electrical system was totally shot and needed to be replaced.

We had made repairs as we went along, trying to keep the system uh, you know, to fix what was wrong.

But the storm with the amount of water that came in destroyed the whole system, and TICO was working with us uh to provide a new entire electric system for the park.

This is over 400 uh units and hundreds of residents in your area.

So uh we really appreciate you uh considering that uh this grant for the homes of Regency Cove Incorporated.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Mike Puckett, followed by Jose Nunes.

Yep, Mike Puckett.

I'm also resident at HORC, short for homes of Regency Cove on the board of directors too.

I saw I wanted to add to what uh David just said.

I don't everybody got flooded by the you know, about 70 percent of the park was flooded out, and the devastation was was horrible.

Uh most of these facilities have their electrical boxes about a foot and a half off the ground.

Uh I'm a part owner in uh local architecture firm.

I've never seen a grid this old before in my life, and some of these meter boxes I didn't even know existed.

Uh but over time, you know, the the people that are there, they've tried to upgrade and so forth, but to see so many, you know, two feet of water in their facilities, and they're already three feet up off the ground.

Um the community center was completely flooded four feet.

Um this grid is very old.

Tico understands it too.

They've been coming in, they understand that they've been coming in every day.

Uh they understand that they've got to put some money into it too.

The residents have been doing the same exact thing, but this grant would go a long way.

I know I got asked one time, it's like what's the most important thing I see in the future, and it was this grid.

Uh it's not just the grid, each each house is getting a uh pedestal, a meter, a 220 box, and then also uh each panel is being upgraded to the 220 to all the you know to the normal codes.

So it's a big thing for us.

That's why you've got the all the people here, they know each other.

It is very tight community.

So again, we really really appreciate the consideration of this grant for our community.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Jose Nunes.

No.

Uh Susan Keith.

Good morning.

Hi, my name is Susan Keith.

I've been in Regency for COVID full time for the past five years.

Uh my house was hit with 27 inches of water around it, which destroyed the floors and the walls in my house.

And we all struggled to get our places back to normal.

And that financial burden was a lot.

Now we realize our electrical infrastructure has to be replaced.

And it was a huge bill.

Most of us can't afford to write a check for 10 to 15,000.

So if you could help us out, we'd really, really appreciate it.

And God bless you.

Merry Christmas.

Thank you, Ms.

Keith.

Daphne Ullman.

Daphne here.

Good morning.

Good morning, and thank you for allowing residents from the HORC.

Um, homes of Regent Seek Combs speak.

My name is Daphne Ullman.

I've owned a property there for the last five years, and I've grown to appreciate what this offers to our residents and the elderly community.

As a recent retiree, I'm beginning to learn what it might mean to live on a fixed income.

Most of our residents, as people have said before, are retirees.

It's an over 55 community.

They're living on fixed incomes.

There's a tremendous amount of veterans in this community, and the community cares and supports each other.

The damage that was done, you've already heard the grid definitely needs to be replaced, not just for the safety of the homeowners, but probably a majority of the homes in that area.

If that grid goes down, it's not just going to impact the 400 plus units and residents there.

It's going to impact the rest of the general community.

You know the way the electrical grids work.

So this is not just an investment in our community.

It's an investment in the general community surrounding us in South Tampa.

As I mentioned, a lot of the people are on fixed incomes without the ability to afford these required repairs.

I've already known a handful of people that have left the community.

People that have had been there for years but realized with another devastation like we had in the last in 2024, they will not be able to survive and continue to pay the additional assessments to keep this community safe.

So I reach out to you at this holiday season to say please approve the grant for our community.

We've already invested a significant portion of money that is not part of that grant that exceeds seven figures just to start the electrical repairs that are required.

And many of the elderly residents of this community, it would be a blessing, and it would ease the economic pain that they endure on a daily basis.

Thank you.

And I appreciate your consideration.

Thank you, Ms.

Ullman.

Appreciate your comments.

That closes uh public comment.

I apologize for those who did not get an opportunity to speak this morning.

Uh can we have a motion to approve consent?

Move to approve.

Sanction Commissioner Meyer, send Commissioner Cohen.

Please record your vote on the consent agenda.

Motion carries seven to zero.

Bonnie, you want to introduce the first time certain.

The first time certain is a public hearing.

This is item D1.

This is to conduct a public hearing regarding the consolidated annual performance and evaluation report.

And Brenda Brackens will take us through this public hearing.

And while Brenda's coming to the podium, we'd like to welcome her back.

Good morning.

Good morning, Brenda.

Welcome back.

Thank you.

Brenda Bracken is affordable housing director.

We're here to present item D1 to conduct a public hearing to accept comments on the program year 2024 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report known as the CAPER.

And to close the public comment period that began on November 13th, 2025, and to approve the submittal of the CAPER to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is HUD.

This is a requirement of HUD.

And the CAPER details the use of funds received for the community development block grant, which is our C D BG grant, the home investment partnership, and emergency solutions grant, which is our ESG grant.

The report accounts for all programs, infrastructure projects, public services, and other community development activities funded through these federal programs between October 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025.

This is a public hearing.

This is a public hearing.

Kenneth Thomas virtual Mr.

Thomas on the line.

Chair um Kenneth Kenneth Thomas did not apply in.

All right, thank you.

I see no one else.

Can we have a motion?

Move approval.

Second.

Motion, Commissioner Cohen, second Commissioner Myers.

Uh please record your vote on D1.

Commissioner Myers.

Yeah, it found the work.

Thank you.

Motion carried seven to zero.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next item.

Thank you.

The next item is item D2.

This is to conduct a public hearing for the transfer of certain property rights within the Stacey R.

White Preserve ELAP site to the Water Resources Department.

And first Turboville will take us through this public hearing.

Morning, Forrest.

Good morning, Commissioners on Forest Turbo Bill Conservation Environmental Lands.

The item before you today is comprised of three requested board actions.

The first action is to hold a public hearing to consider the transfer of certain property rights within the Stacy R.

White ELAP Preserve to the Water Resources Department in support of the One Water South Wastewater Conveyance and Treatment Project.

The transfer of these rights is necessary for water resources to construct the project, which involves the installation of underground pipelines, the establishment of vehicular access to a new pump station, and construction of a stormwater pond in accordance with the recommended approvals that were provided by the ELAP General Committee back in March of 2024 and March of 2025.

The second action is to request that you adopt a resolution designating a portion of the preserve for this water resources project in accordance with the conditions that are stipulated in the resolution itself.

One of these conditions is that the water resources department compensates the ELAP program for the value of the property rights being transferred, which was calculated at 374,893.

These funds are available within the water resources project budget, and following adoption of the resolution by the board will be transferred to the ELAP program within uh 60 days.

And then finally, the third action is to request your approval of a budget amendment resolution to accept and appropriate $374,893 to the ELAP Capital Restoration Project.

These funds will be used to implement both upland and wetland restoration projects across the remainder of the preserve.

A reminder this is a public hearing, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

No one has signed up, but would anyone like to speak to D2?

If not, uh, can we have a motion?

Move approval.

Motion, Commissioner Willstill, sign Commissioner Miller.

Please record your vote on D2.

Motion carries seven to zero.

Thanks, Forrest.

Bonnie.

Thank you.

The next public hearing is item D3.

This is a public hearing to approve by two-thirds vote.

Impact fee increase ordinances and for the water and wastewater rate resolution.

Hank Ennis will take us through this.

We have Staff Lisa Ray, our representative from Stantec and George Cassidy here for any questions.

Good morning, Hank Innis, County Attorney's Office.

Uh Commissioners, what you have before you is both a uh rate resolution and an impact fee increase ordinance.

Um because the staff is recommending an increase in the South Central Service Area of impact fees greater than 50 percent.

There's certain things the board had to go through to get to where we are today.

One of them is to have two workshops on the demonstrated needs study, which you did on uh December 9th and December 10th.

Also, staff prepared with Stantech the study that demonstrates the extraordinary circumstances necessitating the need to raise the impact fees greater than 50 percent, and that's part of your backup.

And then the action today will require a two-thirds vote by the board, which is five affirmative votes.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Lisa to present the item.

Thanks, Hank.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, thank you.

Lisa Ray, Director of Water Resources, and we are here for this public hearing on the um water and wastewater impact fees.

High level, we're going to be talking about some basic definitions and history, the key drivers behind the need for the impact fee increases, the proposed impact fees, and then the next steps.

So generally, what are impact fees?

They are one-time fees paid to connect new customers or construction to help cover the cost of expanding the water and wastewater systems so that growth pays for itself.

Now we really operate two very different service areas in the Northwest.

We have a service area that is very well developed, does not see a lot of growth, and has plenty of capacity at the plants.

So that is being treated differently than our South Central area, which has a significant amount of growth.

A lot of new people, new homes being built, new commercial endeavors going in, which is requiring the construction of a new wastewater treatment plant, the associated infrastructure pipelines and pump stations, as well as a new water plant.

Now, a little bit of history on the impact fees from 2005 to 2020.

The impact fees were held constant.

There was an increase done in 2020.

And we'll talk a little bit about what happened since 2020 that drives the extraordinary circumstances between the growth and the inflation.

But I do want to remind everybody what an ERC is.

This is an equivalent residential connection.

So water use, the way these are calculated on dollars per gallon costs.

We use the average residential home as the basis.

These same rates apply to commercial and industrial based on a proportional relationship to the residential use.

So a restaurant would use a lot more than a house.

Their impact fees based on a per gallon basis would be that much higher.

And we'd use this just as a reference point as we talk about impact fees.

So I'm going to go ahead and turn this over to Andy from Stantech so that he can update us on a couple of items.

Good morning, commissioners.

As was indicated, we did have discussions on a lot of the key drivers and the extraordinary circumstances that are driving the need for higher impact fees for water and sewer on December 9th and 10th.

However, just briefly for the benefit of a refresher and for the public that may not have heard those workshops.

They've represented significant amounts of growth within the South Central Service area in particular.

Over the past few years, that's been about a 22% increase in demands.

If you go back to 2017, our water demands have increased by about 61%.

That's a pretty fantastic number.

And so attendant with that is the need to then, as we have continued growth even beyond that, to build new facilities to support continued growth into the future, which is at similar levels in terms of magnitude of growth, but the cost of that infrastructure has risen substantially since the fees were last adjusted.

We benchmarked a few different types of construction projects pre-COVID and to now and noticed significant increases in the cost of capital facilities.

Pipelines had increased over 200%, and as shown on the screen, wastewater treatment facilities had increased by over 300 percent in just a five-year time period.

So there's fantastic increases in cost, and because of the nature of the growth, large facilities are required, providing 34 million gallons a day on the wastewater side and an additional 46 million gallons a day on average for the water side.

So we need a significant amount of additional capacity, and the cost of that capacity is increased substantially.

And unfortunately, we need this capacity very soon because we are approaching our limitations of some of our existing facilities now during dry periods on the water side at our lithia water treatment plant and on the wastewater side over the next couple of years based on current and planned growth.

And unfortunately, we need this capacity very soon because we are approaching our limitations of some of our existing facilities now during dry periods on the water side at our lithia water treatment plant and on the wastewater side over the next couple of years based on current and planned growth, we'll be at or near capacity at two of our wastewater treatment facilities in South County.

So these are some very significant circumstances to use the term extraordinary, I don't think is an overstatement.

Especially when we take into account the magnitude of the costs that are required in South County.

This is included in your backup, and we talked about it extensively on the 9th and 10th, but we're talking about investing about $2 billion in additional infrastructure for growth over the near term.

That is more than the current net book value of your existing utility system as a whole.

So we're talking about the equivalent of building another new utility in the next year term to serve growth.

I mean, this is this is truly a significant investment that you're undertaking.

And so with that in mind in the context that Lisa provided, we performed updates to take your localized data for your actual system assets in Northwest, your planned improvements for the South Central area to determine what is that current unit cost of capacity that we have in place today for Northwest and that we're anticipating building in our South Central service area to update our impact fees to make sure that we had a fair unit cost based on that current cost of capacity in those two areas.

So this slide shows you the adjustments for the water and wastewater fees for each service area.

So for Northwest, the increase for water is um 18.7%.

For wastewater, it's 43%.

Both of those are being proposed to be phased in consistent with the Florida Impact Fee Act in those instances.

However, with South Central, because of those extraordinary circumstances and the demonstrated needs findings, uh, those adjustments are substantial and they're proposed to be implemented very soon because of those extraordinary circumstances.

An increase in the total fees from $5,865 per ERU for water and wastewater combined to $13,270.

And I do want to point out that these fees were calculated in accordance with industry accepted approaches and based on the nature of the facilities being used to serve growth in the future.

So for Northwest, that methodology was based on the cost of the existing infrastructure that has the capacity to serve growth, and in South Central, it's based on the cost of these planned and upcoming improvements, some of which are in progress at this point today.

So as we look towards an implementation schedule, this slide just shows kind of the presentation of how these increases would be implemented in Northwest.

Uh, there would be two-year increase plan for the water side and a four-year phased approach for the wastewater side.

So you could see in total at the bottom how that combined water and sewer impact fee uh would change each year.

Initially in Northwest, it's about um $500 per year, and then for the last two years it drops to about $300 per year.

However, the increase for South Central based on those extraordinary circumstances is not being proposed to be phased at this time.

And so I think it's important to have some context when you look at these.

As part of our analysis, we often do benchmarking.

Your fees need to be based on your current and localized data, but it's helpful to have an understanding of what's going on around you.

However, there are a lot of variables when it comes to impact fees for communities.

We don't know when they last updated their fees in many instances, what methodology they used, what facilities they have, did they go to full cost recovery fee, what's the structure of their fees?

There's a number of variables here.

But what I can say is that we do a lot of work, not just with the county, but um several agencies throughout the state of Florida nationally, and when we do updates to these fees, because of the magnitude of increases in cost that we've seen in the last few years, the more recent fee updates tend to be towards the higher end of the chart.

And even entities that have updated their fees fairly recently are coming back to and having conversations about updating their fees again in light of these cost increases.

So keep that in mind as you consider what you have in front of you today.

But this is just to give you a perspective that of the range of fees that we see, and that as they're updated, we continue to see even some of the studies that are in progress on this chart, fees that are coming out comparable to, if not even higher than what we're talking about for South Central.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to Lisa to talk about next steps timeline and also some of the backup material.

Sir, could you identify yourself for the record?

Oh, absolutely.

My name is Andrew Burnham with the Intact.

Okay, thank you, Andy.

So we did conduct the two public workshops to discuss the demonstrated needs.

We are now holding the public hearing and pending board approval.

The implementation would go into effect 90 days from approval.

However, I do want to um point out we do have background or additional backup slides.

This does include a couple of phase-in options that we have discussed during some of the um of the briefings that we held earlier this week and end of last week.

So we had individual slides in here, but for ease of reference, and it's not in the slide deck.

I do have a summary, and I printed out copies for each board member.

So I I guess I can hand them to you when I instead of flipping back and forth between a bunch of different slides.

I thought it would be easier if I had all those individual items summarized.

Is that all right?

Um so as we were discussing this over the last couple of weeks, um, you know, we we talked about the impact that this would have on the community and on the businesses, and initially, you know, the proposal that we had put and that was shown in the slide deck was for full cost recovery in South Central immediately in 2026.

So that would be option one.

You can see that we go from our current fees in 2025 to the full implementation of the 13,270 in 2026.

So then we took it into a couple of different steps.

We took the total increase, divided it by two, spread it over a two-year implementation.

Again, same thing, taking the total increase, divided by three, spread it over a three-year implementation, and so on.

We have a four-year implementation as well.

Um, we did also present as an option a mirror implementation to the Northwest.

So in the Northwest per statute, it's two years for the water, four years for the wastewater.

We did present a mirror image of that for South County as well.

Um, and I know that there was interest in having those options available for discussion purposes, so uh, I did want to summarize this for you.

Um, that this is a public hearing.

If there's any questions, we're happy to take them and work.

All right, thank you very much for the presentation.

Um, we've got four individuals are signed up uh to speak.

First one's Denise Herndon, followed by Elizabeth Farrier's virtual, then Todd Josco.

Good morning.

Good morning, I'm Denise Herndon.

My understanding of impact fees on the new developers were was for the water, sewage or um wastewater, fire stations, schools, roads.

But my what I'm hearing is that the impact fees that are placed on the developers is concerning just the water and the wastewater in the pump stations.

When did this get changed in our um Hillsborough County?

I've heard in the past that oh, we had to um 30 fire stations that needed to be built because of the expansion, and there was no funding for it.

And so one of the county commissioners touted a lot of um town halls that that was her only reasoning to get the CIT revoted, but what's really wanting is an arts and cultural center that we don't need.

We already heard many people here talking about needing help because of an electrical grid.

An arts and cultural center isn't necessary.

This is causing segregation.

I have never been a racist or discriminating about anybody, but when you start putting false things out there, saying some things for the fire stations when the last meeting it really came out true what it was all about.

It was about getting funding for an arts and cultural center that even if there's donor to build it, the county taxpayers are going to be paying for it forever.

And there is a community in here that needs their lift stations.

They are paying for their lift stations.

There's somebody in here right now that they were out of their business for weeks because they had sewage problems.

Their lift station is in the center of their property.

Most lift stations are right near the county sewer lines.

This one isn't.

There's a parking lot over it.

I don't know where all the problem was, but this was at the Outback Shopping Center or Strip Center at Brandon Boulevard and Gornto Lake Road.

I really think that county should be paying and footing the bill for all lift stations that they are required to take care of.

If they're paying for over 900 for new developments, why can't they pay for existing ones that you guys weren't ever paying for?

We need to have that changed and not an arts and cultural center.

Thank you, Mr.

Hernan.

Elizabeth Farrier, is she a virtual?

Elizabeth has not signed in.

All right, thank you.

Uh last two speakers, Todd Josco, and then followed by Cammy Corbett.

Good morning.

Good morning, Commissioners.

Uh Todd Trosco.

I'm here on behalf of NAOP Tampa Bay, which is the region's commercial real estate trade association, to ask respectfully for you to consider uh a phase in approach for the South Central uh water and wastewater uh impact fees.

Um I don't think anybody could uh agree that this has been a smooth process.

A lot of this information was only released to the public on Friday.

Um I heard uh staff mention that the rate increase for residential and commercial will be the same, but like that was something that was not evident in any of the materials.

It took a lot of investigating on my point to to figure that out that that was indeed the case to the point that I I would have chosen not to be here today.

I could have communicated these um concerns in a letter, but like there literally wasn't even time to turn around a letter um to express our concerns.

Um I know that there were two workshops that were conducted.

Um again, respectfully, I think they met the um letter of the law, but maybe not the spirit of the law in the past when the county has done impact fee increases.

Um we've had um charrettez uh workshops up on the 26th floor where uh the public could ask questions of staff and of the consultants.

Um, you know, obviously in board workshops, the public can't comment.

Um, so here we are today.

This is the first time that the public has been able to comment on this, and with your vote today, there will be no opportunity for the public to ask any questions of any of this.

Um in the past, the county has um uh phased in impact fee um over uh periods of years, and again, because of all of these concerns, we've asked, we we would ask respectfully the same that the the commission um uh phase in these impact fee increases um over um a four-year period.

So thank you very much for listening and happy holidays to everyone.

Thank you, Mr.

Josco.

Uh Cammy Corbett.

Good morning.

Excuse me, every time.

Good morning, Cammy Corbett with the law firm of Hill Warren Henderson.

And I'd like to express my deep disappointment at the lack of transparency in this process.

Um, as Todd just mentioned, we usually have a very good dialogue with staff.

It was like pulling teeth to get this information.

It made it very difficult for us to vet it.

It makes us very difficult to support industry, both commercial and home building industries have supported reasonable impact fees that are phased in and historically done so.

But this the way this has been presented and the way this is putting you in a difficult position, is really really disappointing.

And so we at a minimum would request that you phase in the impact fee to give businesses the time and the cut the cut the consumer time to absorb this increase over time.

I'm having a very difficult time understanding how someone pulling a building permit in June of this year is going to benefit from a facility that doesn't come online for another three years.

And the law requires there to be the fee payer must benefit from the fee they're paying.

And I'm really struggling with this one.

And so I'd respectfully request at a minimum that you phase it in.

All right, thank you.

All right, that closes uh public comment.

Uh going to board discussion.

Uh Commissioner Wolston.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I'll just say off the top, I I'm really not concerned with whatever time frame the board wants and a phase-in approach for the Southeast section.

I'm not really concerned in that.

Just want to point to a couple of um our board policies frustrations.

First, George, um, during the last workshop, you had told my colleagues that you weren't you weren't sure if I had heard or what I had heard at the past rate increase fee.

Um you have since gone and found the video, and I just want to make it clear to my colleagues that what I heard was 100% correct, which is that the rate consultant in 2023 said at that microphone that 50 percent of the monthly rate increase of user fees that was being adopted was for new impacts for the Southeast County.

Okay, I've got an acknowledgement that was doubted um during our last workshop, but that is absolutely what the rate consultant, not not Stantec who did it that one, it was Reptullis or whatever.

And um, I just want to read a real quick snippet, Mr.

Chair of board policy 3310, which is the water and wastewater financial policy.

I'm not gonna read the whole thing, which is that in addition, the funds to expand the utility system to service new customers shall be obtained through capacity fees, past earnings, grants, including the community investment tax, proceeds bonded from the capital assessment units, and unbonded capacity assessment units.

It does not say that we will expand the utility service to service new customers by increasing existing customers' monthly user fee, and that is absolutely what's been happening for the past two years.

I in the Northwest area of Hillsborough and paying for future new residents in the Southeast Hillsboro, and it's inappropriate.

So all that I really want is that at the bottom of this, it says that the water and wastewater um department is required to conduct an annual assessment of their fees.

And the promise to me was well, we will make sure that when this money is captured for these new residents, that they will follow that policy and bring back a recommendation to reduce that monthly user fee that we impose to that 50%.

So then I asked, well, when is the last time that the water and wastewater department proposed reducing the monthly user fee?

And that of course that answer was never.

So I don't um exist on hopes and dreams.

So I want to make sure that whatever motion that we make today that we're amending whatever ordinance or policy that mandates that as we capture the new capacities revenue for one waters plant, that we are requiring them to proportionally phase down that 50% increase of the monthly water um bill that was imposed for these new assessments.

Because if we don't, then it's based essentially we're saying you get your cake and you eat it too, and in life we know that that doesn't happen.

Um the other thing that I would say is that um board policy 3209, which is the user fees and cost recoveries policies mandates that we capture these fees through these um assessment units.

There's multiple policies that support us making sure, and in those policies, it says multiple times full cost recovery based on you know competent financial um assessments, etc.

etc.

etc.

So I've looked at this.

I would say that I agree with the speakers.

I found it frustrating even to me.

I mean, when I when I put forward, hey, I want full cost recovery.

Um, and I don't I don't want to make mince words about it because um people need to pay their own costs of doing business in Hillsborough County, not new customers, and if those costs are too unattractive, then I guess we're not that attractive of a place to live after all.

Um but what I will say is that I was disappointed that the actual report was not out until December the second, even though I immediately told staff it's important to me that we include everybody, make sure that everyone has all this information.

It was conveyed to me that they didn't have that information, and that's because the report was not done at the time of them asking it.

Um, that you can go and read the report, it is dated December the second, which is what um clued me in on that.

I don't think that it was intentional or mischievous.

I just think that it's an expedited timeline because of the reality that we are facing with the legislature.

And the other final thing, Mr.

Chair, that I would say that makes this impossible for us to not do full cost recovery, is because I used to negotiate commodity goods in metals.

That's what I did in the industry before I built my shipping store.

And it was really difficult for me to balance costs for my customers over a 12-month time frame, even in the commodity goods sector.

It can be very volatile, you just don't know what you're going to get.

You're usually dealing with international companies.

But there's a state law that restricts us to doing it only every once every four years, which is impossible for them to manage stabilized pricing when we're dealing with some of these massive infrastructure improvements.

So I'm gonna support whatever um delayed process.

I do I would say that an immediate um 90-day implementation of this would be unfair to some process some um applicant who's already in the pipeline, they've they've already analyzed what their costs are going to be, and this would immediately change everything that they've done, even though they've spent money on their project.

So I will support a delayed implementation in the Southeast sector, but I and no one has showed me uh a line item of all the line items that were on the back of the um agenda that they disagreed with any of the rates of any of the um the costs that were associated with um the many different projects that this money is going to be spent on.

And what I would say is that if we're not going to do it, do we have the money to finish one water?

Thank you, Commissioner.

What we would end up doing is borrowing the money, and we would be using the rates, the customer rates as pledge to cover the bonding.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll end on that, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh Commissioner Cohen.

So I think you've laid out uh very well some of the difficulties that we're facing here today.

Um when you alluded to the legislature, I think it's important for people to know that if we don't make this decision before December 31st, it's gonna require a unanimous vote in the future to do so.

And that is just uh an unreasonably high bar for us to wait.

So there is something that is pushing us that doesn't allow us to kick this can down the road.

Um I spoke at the workshop about the need to phase this in, and you know, I I want to go back to 2020 for just a minute.

There were three of us that were here then, and our big our big issue at the time was whether or not we were gonna do a phase-in approach or or we were gonna impose it all at once.

And those of us that are still here favored uh a f and I'm not implying that that's the reason we're still here, but uh we did we did favor a phased-in approach for a couple of reasons.

First of all, you you said it yourself.

People that are already in the pipeline have their plans made, their costs figured, their financing in place, and this is gonna be implemented.

I had said during the workshop in January, it's actually in March, but the fact is it's right around the corner.

So to impose something as large as 126% increase uh it at this at this late date, it would create a big burden.

It would also, because we know that it's gonna be passed on to consumers, effectively add $7,500 to the cost of any new house almost immediately.

And I think given the the current state of the economy, that's also a burdensome, a burdensome thing.

Uh I appreciate the the five options that have been presented to us, and I wanted to just before the other board members spoke, say that I'm prepared uh to vote for um really options three, four, or five, depending on what the what the board's pleasure is.

I think that one and two are um a little too steep to start off with.

Um I do think that the the advantage of option five is that it keeps everything consistent across the entire county, and it would definitely be less confusing if the amounts were increasing by the same percentage uh and on the same timeline in all parts of the county.

But um either way, I'm I'm uh prepared to propose uh to support the phased-in approach that's been laid out here.

And um, you know, I in terms of your motion, Commissioner Wastel, I think there's no reason in the world that we can't entertain that uh um and and attempt to do that in the year to come, but I think we've got to make the big decision today and uh and go forward with this because of the constraints that have been imposed by the legislature.

Commissioner Miller.

Thank you, Chair.

Oh, I have so many thoughts on this.

Um I want to start with saying, you know, a couple of the speakers brought up the point that you know this feels rushed and there was lack of information, and I've asked um multiple members of the staff the question, like why?

Why are we in this position?

Why are we being rushed when um this bill was proposed in the House in February and passed in June, and we had it pushed into December, um, and it feels very rushed.

And so um while we did have the public hearings, and we did check the official boxes.

Did we really um meet the intent of having the public hearing so that this information could get out into the community?

Because we operate in the sunshine, we don't even have you know, the short window, the compacted time frame didn't allow us to be able to go out in the community and and learn and understand and be able to develop our own information.

And we had very short windows of where we could communicate with one another with where we are.

Um so I just want to say that that that was one of the things that I'm very dissatisfied with.

I do feel like, and I don't know that it was intentional or not intentional.

I I'd like to think it wasn't intentional, but either way, it still has put us as a board, we're making a multi-million dollar decision with no real ability to move it down the road.

And then they couldn't answer some questions.

I'll give you one that I didn't have an answer to.

For example, if we go to the four-year, which is where I'm leaning towards, does that put us?

I'm not a financier, does that put us in a position where we could potentially be passing on cost to current residents?

We don't have that studies yet because we're moving at such an aggressive timeline.

So I'm gonna be in favor of the longest phase in.

Um so I'm hoping that that ends up being the motion.

I'm gonna wait for the rest of the conversation.

But um, I did feel like there's a very lack of transparency in how this process is um been rolled out.

Commissioner Myers.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I just have a couple of um comments.

Uh when we had our briefing last week, one of the questions I asked our staff, did we have the opportunity to go out and meet with the developers and all and share that information?

And it was a yes answer back and hearing the um comments from two of the speakers this morning, it was just information really not shared with them.

And I want to go back to Commissioner Coyne, because we were here.

I want to say when we talked about the impact fees in 2021, I believe it was a 2020, is those applicants that are already in our system should not be penalized because they met the criteria of submitting their applications in a timely manner before we're looking at this rate increase today.

So I'm gonna come back and make that motion separately, because I really believe they not should not be penalized and said here's an additional cost that you're gonna be burdened on December the 17th when your application was could have been submitted some months ago.

That is unfair.

Okay.

That just might and hopefully the board members y'all will understand the reason that uh a good example.

We can go out and want to purchase a house and says, hey, oh, let me go back and get my spouse, and we've told a house might be a million, half a million dollars.

You come back with your spouse.

Is it's um a million plus?

Is that fair to you that you want to buy this dream home you've been looking at in all?

So I'm just saying we need to really look at that and not bring that back to this board again.

It's the day that the board votes, that's when we should move forward on new applications, those coming into the system.

Let's not penalize those who are already in our system, and we're saying, hey, here's a higher increase.

I think staff you all should look at that more closely in the future when you all consider um bringing that back.

I'm going to move um to approve option number five.

Okay, we got a motion on the floor.

For option number five by Commissioner Myers and Commissioner uh Cohen.

Uh Commissioner Cameron Sapeda.

Yes, I would like a counter motion for option four and um with an effective date 90 days from now.

Can we have a substitute motion by uh Commissioner Cameron Cepeda?

Uh do we have a second motion dies for for lack of a second?

Uh Commissioner Bowles.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I think all of our board members have kind of really set this up, especially uh Commissioner Wastel, Commissioner Cohen, and um as I understand that these monies are collected once the CO is that correct is issued to the builder.

That's correct, Commissioner.

So any monies that are collected are kind of held in trust by the developers or the commercial properties, you know, and so that and I'm just using that term loosely that and so at some point if they have a thousand sites, they'd have to have those that money set aside.

So they're kind of putting this money aside knowing that it's going to change much.

Which I think brings up the point that Commissioner Whistle was saying that you know you're kind of already leveraging today's dollars against tomorrow's sites.

So with that, so even if we started collecting, let's say charging that today, those monies wouldn't be actually put in use and built or being used for us to build the infrastructure until possibly one or two years down the road.

Well, that's correct.

Um, so we do collect them at the time of CO or when we establish when we set a meter for um someone to move into a home or someone to move into a commercial establishment.

I'd like to just make sure that you understand that um when we uh changed our impact fees in 2020, we established a protocol so that if you were in the development process, if you were in the queue, you had a uh a permit application in the queue, we honored the existing rate at that time.

So um if they're already in the process, we honor the current rate.

It's only those folks that come in kind of after that 90-day window and start up making applications uh for service and/or for building.

That's when the new rate kicks in.

So there's a you said protocol policy is where we're using those interchangeably.

I think it was our practice um because we we went through this, it was uh some growing change because we had not changed impact fees for quite some time.

And um, so when we got to that point, it was okay immediately, it was okay.

Well, someone already has a a building permit in the queue.

They've already have an application in the queue.

How are we gonna handle that?

And so we honored those that were in the queue.

Okay, so if we did the board motion that Chris Myers is speaking about afterwards, it would just codify what we're already doing.

We can do that.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

So um again, getting back to the the so if we're building this infrastructure and we're collecting this money on the backside, are we using that those money?

And again, I'm using the learned uh determined loosely the trust money, okay, as leverage for our bonds.

Is that how we're kind of looking at it?

So we have we have a revenue stream from our rates.

That gives us the credit worthiness to borrow the money.

Once we uh borrow the money and we have a a debt service, a mortgage payment, if you will, to pay monthly or annually, uh, we're relying on um, we're certainly relying on those impact fees to make those payments.

They're pledged for debt service that we're obligated to pay for debt service.

If if let's just say that if the development slows down and we don't recover enough of the uh of the revenue from impact fees to to make us whole on a mortgage payment, we will then use user fees.

Um we're projecting that the full recovery when we get there, it will cover 100 percent if if development maintains its current pace.

And so then we wouldn't have to what Commissioner Whistle is speaking about user fees paying uh some portion thereof.

We would anticipate there's a there's a place in time where the impact fees will cover 100 percent of the debt service and that we would be able to look at uh potentially evaluating a rate decrease.

And in five years, we're expecting one wire to be running?

Yes, it'll be up and running between three and five.

And if we do this phase in over the three or four-year period, will that interfere with our ability to borrow or the ability to actually it will not okay.

All right, thank you.

I'm just gonna make a couple comments before we uh go back around.

Um like what other board members said, I'm not gonna um uh point any fingers during this process, but it's it's certainly been a fire drill, and uh I frankly have always loathed uh decisions and votes that have to be made due to uh quick deadlines.

I understand and completely agree that the ratepayers should not uh subsidize uh new new homes.

Um that is certainly an important point.

Um for me, whenever we've considered impact fee increases, um I've always balanced the need for increased fees and recovery with affordability, because unlike what uh some folks believe out there, the builder or developer does not absorb these fee increases.

They're passed on to the buyer.

And as we know, we do have an affordability crisis.

Uh as I've said here before, uh I felt it even my home and my son graduated college and has to live at home because unable to uh although he has a job unable to afford an apartment.

Um so that's why I've uh supported most of the affordable housing projects have come before us.

Um I was leaning toward option four, but I'm okay with with option five.

Um I think it should be phased in because the it softens the blow, if you will, to um future home buyers.

Uh again, I however we need to uh as Commissioner Myers stated uh not penalize those in the system.

And I know historically we've honored, as George said, honored those that are in the queue.

So however we need to codify that is is good with me.

And uh I also believe that as a future um uh planning tool would be prudent uh moving forward that every I don't know, three or four years or whatever, whatever the time frame is that we should review and evaluate uh our program and market um it'll be helpful certainly for our our planning efforts and also the industry to help the the them and um you know gets us get us ahead of the the needs curve.

And again, I personally don't want to go through uh any more fire drills.

Uh Commissioner Wolstall.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'll be real brief.

One thing I didn't state is that another issue that the board is going to have to address is that this rate increase is for the assumption of 106,000 new, let's call it single family homes, except for we've asked almost two years ago the planning commission to bring us back our expansion study areas, and we still don't know anything.

So we're gonna have to um balance that with saying, hey, where are these units going to be and where is this um cost recovery going to come from?

That's that's a different conversation.

One thing also on on that note that I talked to George about that I found out is that multifamily homes disproportionately pay significantly less of an impact on these impact fees, and it evidently hasn't been looked at in like three decades plus of when it was put in.

So I'm gonna be putting back an item to make sure that there's a balancing act, hopefully heavily swinging back in in the opposite direction.

So I just when you were talking about where is that money going to come from, and and finally, George, you're you're too good at your job, you're very seasoned, but your words were very careful about we may possibly bring back that's exactly where I'm going to bring back a policy to say that you will do this, and I hope that I get the votes to be very clear.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And uh before call for vote, just one last point on what Commissioner Wilson said if I'm if I'm not mistaken.

Typically, we've averaged seven to eight, seven to eight thousand new homes a year, and I think as uh as of late has been um our last year around three thousand homes.

So we need to uh recognize that uh fact as well.

Okay, so motion on the floor, Commissioner Mayers, second uh Commissioner Cohen, and then again to confirm George.

We don't do we need to add any language as far as um protecting those that are already in the queue.

I don't believe we need to do anything uh other than just we will acknowledge that we're gonna um we're gonna go back and look at our processes and we'll share that with the board.

Okay.

All right, please record your vote.

Requiring a two-thirds vote, motion carried seven to zero.

All right, thank you.

Excellent discussion.

Next item.

Thank you.

And the next item is relating to the financing of the one water project.

This is item B5.

Kevin Brickie will take us through the financing, and then uh we have two related items B6 and B7 relating also to the One Water Project.

Good morning, good morning, Commissioners.

Kevin Bricky, Director of Management Budget.

Uh B5 is a line of the credit uh related to the one water program.

Uh the one water program is designed to address both the immediate and long-term needs, wastewater and water needs in the county's south central service area.

It includes uh new wastewater treatment plant, a pump station, and 20 miles of new large diameter pipelines uh designed to meet the uh high growth in demand uh due to uh uh high growth in the South County area.

The program is expected to uh uh span over six years at an approximate cost of about 1.7 billion dollars.

Uh the water resource department has identified the need to encumber uh new contracts of about 300 million dollars this winter and and further in later in FY26.

Uh given the scope of the program and the nature of the required contracts and the long lead times uh required for delivery of some of the major materials and equipment, the program will re require that the county enter into these contracts uh and encumber funds well in advance of the need for cash spending.

While large contracts will be entered during the first three years of the program, most of the spending will occur in the final three years of the program.

As a result, Prag, our financial advisor recommended that the county not pursue a long-term bond issue at this point, but rather utilize a short-term credit facility and target bonds at a later date.

Uh bond issuances uh have federal requirements that have expenditure timelines of three to five years, and most of the expenditures uh for the one water project will occur either late in that period or after that period.

Item B4 requests the approval of a resolution providing for the issuance of a subordinate utility revenue note, series 2025 and the principal amount of not to exceed 400 million dollars at any one time and not to exceed 1.5 billion in aggregate over time and authorizes execution and delivery of a revolving credit agreement with Bank of America NA.

And approve a net zero uh change budget amendment to realign uh budgets and pay costs related to this issuance.

We have revised the budget amendment that was in your backup.

Uh and for the record, uh Julie Wisdom, our uh debt manager will be passing that uh uh revised budget amendment out.

It's still a net zero budget amendment.

It does uh make sure those realignments uh bring in uh the uh line of credit in an appropriate matter.

Uh debt service for both FI25, 26 and 27 is anticipated to be about nine and a half million dollars annually, paid from water wastewater system funds.

And Wendell Gartner from Prague is also with us, and I thank him for his uh uh participation.

I thank you for the presentation.

Uh I don't see anyone in the queue, no questions or comments.

Can we have a motion?

Move approval.

Second.

Motion Commissioner Willstone sign Commissioner Myers, please accord your vote on B five.

Motion carried six to zero.

B six and Lisa will take us through items B six and B7, and just for the record, I think Kevin said item B4, but it was B five.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you, Commissioners.

Lisa Ray, Director of Water Resources, and I'm here to talk to you about item B6.

I'll also be talking about item B7 kind of simultaneously as I go through the PowerPoint.

Um B6 is asking the board to approve the third modification to the Progressive Design Build Agreement with Garney Companies Inc.

for the one water south wastewater conveyance and treatment project, increasing the existing contract amount by 224 million six hundred and nineteen thousand four hundred and seven and six cents.

So the one water program, as we've spoken about before, is one of the largest or is the largest capital project that the county has ever undertaken.

And in this sense, we are building three separate main components the wastewater treatment plant, the super lift station, and the related pipelines.

In order to complete this work, we do have Garney on board as the progressive design build team.

We also have Corolla Engineering on as owners advisor.

They provide support in project management as well as specialized engineering services that we do not have in-house.

Um we have completed the design on these components, and we are now moving into construction.

The construction services at this point are going to be our long lead-time materials.

We're beginning the work on the balm road super lift station, which is where the ELAP property was discussed earlier.

Uh we have early works on the actual wastewater treatment site, including pipeline, foundation work, and construction of some of the pipeline.

The goal for the project and a DM DWBE participation was 14, and currently we are achieving 15.66 percent.

Upcoming packages, we will have several more coming to the board over the next year.

That will include uh additional lift station construction, pipeline segments, construction of the wastewater treatment plant itself in August.

That is a very large uh GMP anticipated at that point, and then finalizing our pipeline construction.

Um, and with that, I do ask you to approve item B6.

Thank you.

Available for any questions.

Questions, comments, board members.

If not, maybe we approve to second.

Motion Commissioner Cohen, Commissioner Myers, please record your vote on B6.

Motion carried seven to zero.

B7.

And B7 is to approve the six modification to an agreement with Corolla Engineering Inc.

for additional continued professional services support associated with the South County One Water Program for the Water Resources Department.

Their assistance is for both the wastewater and the drinking water plant.

Um their DM DWBE participation is at 14.98, and their goal was 10 percent.

Okay.

We have a motion.

Moved to approve.

Second motion, Commissioner Meyer signed Commissioner Cohen.

Please record your vote on B7.

Motion carried seven to zero.

Okay, thank you.

Bonnie got 1030, time certain.

Yes, sir.

The next item is item E1.

This is to receive a special appearance by Craig Richard, the president and CEO of the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council.

Morning, Craig.

Morning.

I received three emails to keep it really brief, so I promise you it'll be brief.

We thank you in advance.

Indeed.

Well, today I'm here to present uh the annual report for quarters three and four.

And uh got some great news to share with you.

We have closed 29 projects last year that resulted in 2,280 new jobs, uh 275 million dollars in capital investment, and some pretty great names for our community.

Uh you'll see that uh we have a goal in our contract with uh the county to at least announce 22 projects, and I'm pleased to say that we announced 29 projects.

So we exceeded that goal.

Uh we've also exceeded the goal to raise 1.75 million in uh private investment to offset uh the public investment that you make in economic development.

And so year to date uh we actually raised 2.8 million dollars in uh in private sector funding to support economic development.

Two of the projects that we worked with uh are some uh pretty well known projects.

One is the Israeli drone technology company, and you'll see uh in the picture there that we had Lieutenant Governor of Florida Jay Collins joined us on the ribbon cutting.

And then at the picture at the bottom there, uh there's a picture of uh Joffrey's Coffee and Tea Company, which broke ground on an 84,000 square foot corporate headquarters and uh is investing 18 million dollars uh in the county.

Some of our business development activities included a trip to Boston, Massachusetts to uh the bio international convention.

Uh we were in Illinois for FinTech Symposium, and then uh we had our signature sales mission uh in New York where we visited site selection consultants, corporate real estate uh brokers, and we actually got to slip in a nice game uh with the New York Yankees.

I want to thank Commissioner Hagan for joining us uh in London for our uh global Tampa Bay uh uh signature sales mission uh along with uh Commissioner Hagen.

We had the chairs of the county commissions for Pinellas and for Pasco County.

Uh we also had the mayors of Clearwater, St.

Pete, and Tampa join us on this.

Uh it was a very productive meeting.

Uh also uh last year, on terms of our international activity, we hosted two delegations from one from Japan and one from the Netherlands.

Both of those delegations were in support of uh the formation of the Tampa Medical and Research District that we've been working on with TGH.

Expand Tampa Bay is our business retention and expansion program.

Uh we worked to visit with 120 local companies, and this year we had about 65 percent of those companies reported that they are currently working in hybrid schedules, which is affecting our our our increase in occup and office occupancy rates.

Nearly 77 percent reported increase in their local employment over the last year, and you know, one of the difficulties that they've all well, seven percent have reported is a difficulty in hiring.

So that's something that we will be working with our educational partners and career source on as well.

In our partnership with Visit Tampa Bay, I'm pleased to announce that uh visit Tampa Bay launched uh a new brand new website in support of Make It Tampa Bay, which is our talent attraction program.

This new campaign generated about 83 million impressions across all digital channels, and more to more than 55,000 visitors uh to the new website, and which brings it up to about 90,000 in total for fiscal year 2025.

Our souped up social media campaigns included uh LinkedIn campaigns that have generated more than 21,000 new clicks to the EDC's website and more than 1.2 million impressions, and most importantly, is generated four new quality leads that we can work on to uh bring to Hillsborough County.

All right, that was a record setting uh briefing, right?

You're not kidding me.

Any questions?

Uh or for started, we certainly appreciate your your brevity and uh uh Craig, you and your team are doing it doing a uh fantastic job.

Thank you and uh I certainly enjoyed the uh the mission uh to London.

Um I know you got some others coming up, but uh just keep up the great work.

I don't see anyone else there in the queue, but um thanks for the update.

Appreciate it very much.

Well, thank you.

And again, we always appreciate your partnership and support in economic development.

And let me be the first to wish you a very merry Christmas and happy holidays to you.

All right, thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Okay, Bonnie, next item.

Thank you.

The next I'm certain item is item B1.

This is the to accept the library materials management audit, and Melinda will take us through this item.

All right, I'm gonna be quicker than Craig.

I'm Melinda Gensarley, County Internal Auditor, and I'm here today to request the board to accept the Library Materials Management Audit Report 2025-20.

The audit's objective was to determine the maturity of the library materials management activities, and it was conducted in conformance with the global internal audit standards.

Before today's meeting, I did brief the commissioners on the audit report's contents.

I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have before requesting the board to accept the audit report.

All right, thank you.

I don't see anyone in the queue.

Move to accept the report.

Second get a motion to uh accept the report by Commissioner Cohen.

Second Commissioner Wolstell, please record your vote.

Motion carried seven to zero.

Thanks, Linda.

Thanks, Adam.

Thank you.

And we can move to the regular agenda now.

The first item is item B2.

This is to approve a mobility fee alternative satisfaction agreement for intersection improvements.

And Adam will take us through this item as well.

Morning, Adam.

Speedily, I'm sure.

Good morning, Adam Gormley Development Services Department.

Uh, item B2 is requesting the board approval of a mobility fee alternative satisfaction agreement and a land conveyance agreement.

These are in connection with the proposed realignment of old Big Bend Road between Bullfrog Creek and Lincoln Drive in Riverview.

Uh the board gave us direction on August 20th to draft these agreements, and we have been working uh some time on a group of developers who are parties to the agreement.

The mobility fee agreement will provide for the construction of old uh the realign old Big Bend Road and associated intersection improvements, which which will enhance both roadway capacity and connectivity in the area as well as cure a current operational challenge.

Uh the costs of this road improvement will be borne by the participating developers, and 70% of the cost of the improvement and right-of-way will be credited against those developers' uh mobility fee obligations.

So the 30% difference is the capacity that those developments will consume for essentially site access purposes.

Uh that provides for the project to be completed by July 1 of 2029, and again, there's no county funds being directly paid towards this uh uh project.

The land conveyance agreement is associated with this realignment.

The proposed realignment of old Big Bend Road will uh would proposed to go on property that's county property currently within parks inventory.

Uh significant portion of that is within the floodplain.

The use of this property will be for roadway construction, stormwater attenuation for the road project itself, and flood uh floodplain compensation to compensate parks for this uh use of the land.

Uh the uh one participating developer candidate development will convey a on an acre per acre basis a park replacement property uh same size as as being used for the projects will also provide uh easement access and ultimately improved vehicular access to the site.

I am available for any questions.

I thank you.

Commissioner Wolston.

I just wanted to say thank you.

I've been asking for these and any best practices so we can hopefully get more of them and future developments.

I would appreciate knowing them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Myers move to approve second.

Got a motion approved.

Commissioner Myers, second commissioner Wolstall.

Don't see one else in the queue.

Please record your vote.

Refresh.

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yes, as well.

Motion carried seven to zero.

All right, thank you.

Next item.

Thank you.

The next item is item B3.

This is to adopt a resolution regarding 250,000 in funding for Faith Action Ministry Alliance.

And this is on the on the regular agenda because this is a capital project.

Good morning.

Good morning, board.

Ms.

John Mueller, Director for Facilities Management and Real Estate Services.

If I could have the slide up, please.

Today we are bringing forward a $250,000 funding agreement with Faith Action Ministry Alliance or FAMA.

We have here somewhere, I believe Gina Cox, a project manager with us today, if she's still here, representing FAMA to express their appreciation of your consideration of this agenda item.

As most of you know who have visited, FAMA is located in the Grant Park area and has been operating on the grounds of the New Testament Worship Center since 2014.

And they do have a formal lease secured as of August 2025.

FAMA provides the a Grant Park Christian Academy programming which meets the growing needs in that community.

And they currently serve over 60 children from that community.

So FAMA recently purchased a 3200 square foot modular classroom, which was under a 2024 board approved funding agreement with the Social Services Department.

In order to ensure the modular is operational, this agreement will fund the remainder of the site work and the other the other components with this installation.

This agreement also provides for improvements to the adjacent parcels they own for sports program.

Please note we are requesting an exception to the policy that the funds be used for previous work completed.

FAMA did incur just over 56,000 to prepare the site and anchor the modular as well as put the stairs and utilities and fire prevention.

So they got the asset and they secured the asset.

If you put the two together, this is all one big project.

When completed with this agreement, FAMA can accommodate an additional 60 plus or minus children for educational after school and sports programming.

And as Bonnie mentioned, the item is being presented as regular, consistent with the board policy for outside agency funding requests.

We're here for any questions.

Yes, thank you so much, um John.

That was awesome.

Um I really can't say enough about this organization, FAMA.

They really are making such a change and a difference for good in our community.

They, I mean, I could spend hours telling you about all the awesome things that they do from you know the children that they've helped, um, that schools have given up on didn't want anything to do with them anymore, but they have uh taken them in, changed their lives, and these students become honor students and really making a difference in their individual lives, but also going back into their families and such a difference uh that they make in so many different areas in our community.

But um, I would like to make a uh move for approval and um it's an awesome organization.

Thank you.

Okay, we got a motion to approve uh B3 by Commissioner Cameron Cepeda, second Commissioner Myers.

Uh please record your vote.

Motion carried seven to zero.

Okay, my next item.

Thank you.

The next item is John Mueller's as well.

This is to proceed with advertising for the request for proposal for a new equestrian facility.

This is item B4.

I said he can go ahead and put the presentation up.

Uh good morning, Commissioners.

Again, for the record, uh John Mueller, director for facilities management and real estate services, and uh Forrest uh Turboville is also here with me.

Um today we are requesting authorization to advertise the RFP for construction of a new equestrian facility at the Northwest Equestrian Park.

As you may recall, the board reviewed the draft scope back in September, and we asked, and you approved us to conduct community and stakeholder outreach before bringing back any final recommended changes.

So since then, just to report back, we've held two in-person community engagements along with a virtual option in between those and met twice with the BACIS horses for handicapped nonprofit leadership.

The feedback we heard centered mostly on three three things.

One we expected from the community, what could happen to the BACIS site in the future, how the new facility might affect the public trails at the new park that came from a different equestrian community, and whether relocating the program would create additional traffic.

So we made several updates to the RFP to address this concern.

First, the current BACIS property will carry a deed restriction if it conveys in the future to no more than four single family homes.

No multifamily commercial or industrial uses would be allowed.

That's consistent with what we heard from the public.

And frankly, we expected that because that's the highest and best use for that property, is uh call it a state homes.

Second, we clarified that if any public trails at the Northwest Equestrian Park were impacted during construction.

We believe it would be minimal, and the county could easily replace or reroute them to maintain connectivity.

And third, with respect to traffic, staff will just note that the current BEC program that nonprofit serves an estimated 161 participants who really travel from all directions today and reloading the relocating the program approximately two miles north was not expected to generate uh a meaningful additional traffic.

I'll note also that the RFP requests that any needed traffic-related improvements near the new entry would remain the responsibility of the proposer.

Um we also made a few uh refinements based on the request from the nonprofit.

We gave and added they need some more storage space, so we added about 700 square feet for them.

And um we asked for a small on-site security quarters.

Items like uh furniture, AV, security cameras.

We really remove those, they're more appropriately handled three or four years from now by the county because we added the security quarters.

We uh we figured that would be an appropriate trade-off.

Uh with those updates, the RFP is now ready to move forward.

If the board approves today, we'll advertise the solicitation and we'll return again with the qualifying proposals once evaluations are complete, and if appropriate, ask you for permission to negotiate here for any questions.

All right, thanks, John.

Um again, as we stated last time, uh this is gonna be a win-win, I think, both for the um Bacchus clients as well as the county from a financial uh position from a fact that all increase programming uh of access to the trail.

We're gonna ensure seamless transition.

So our staff uh performed the outreach that that we asked them to do, and today just simply is just advertising the RFP.

So I fully support it, and if we can get a motion, we'll move approval.

Can motion Commissioner Willstool, second commissioner um Miller, please record your vote motion carried seven to zero.

Thank you, John.

Thank you.

We can move now to the commissioner's section, and the first one is item F1, which is Commissioner Cameron's item two changes scope for two thousand twenty thousand dollars allocation to the Tampa Bay Community Network, which is already in the in the budget.

Commissioner Cameron Capedo.

Yes.

Um I would like to uh make a motion to approve uh change in scope for the 20,000 dollars allocation to Tampa Bay Community Network, which is included in the adopted FY26 nonprofit budget.

The originally identified scope was to use the funding to add additional space to TBCN's video production training facilities.

TBCN proposes to revise the scope to expand its video production digital media training schedule by using the 20,000 of funding to support instructors, materials, and production resources necessary for residents to complete certification level training.

The funding of 20,000 is currently included in the FY26 budget, and no additional funds are required.

A funding agreement with TBCN will be placed on a future board agenda.

Second.

Thank you.

Commissioner Cameron to pay it a second, Commissioner Cullen.

Please record your vote.

It's pressed.

Yes.

Motion carried seven to zero.

Okay.

Next item.

Thank you.

The next two items are Commissioner Myers items, items F2 and F3 regarding two sponsorships.

Commissioner Myers.

Thank you, Ms.

Chair.

Move to approve Sigma Gamma Row Surround incorporated for their 2026 biannual boole.

Other funds were improved and adopted in the FY26 budget.

Second.

Motion Commissioner Myers and Commissioner Cohen, please record your vote.

Yes.

Commissioner Cameron Spain.

Is it working?

Motion carried seven to zero.

Okay.

Move to approve FAMULE incorporated be out day in 2026 for the $5,000.

These funds were adopted in our FY26 budget.

Second.

Motion Commissioner Myers and Commissioner Cohen.

Please record your vote.

Yes.

Okay, buddy.

Next item.

Thank you.

The last Commissioner Ider M is Commissioner Wussels item, item F4 regarding directing the county attorney to challenge the court regarding the Live Local Act.

Commissioner Wolstall.

Thank you.

And Ms.

Mandel, if you want to go ahead and just make your way up, um today is obviously not about litigating the litigation or strategy, but after hearing my growing frustration, Ms.

Mandel and I have had a conversation.

And she believes, and I'll I'll have her confirm that there is a legitimate path.

Of course, we've, as we've seen, you can't um predict the outcome of the judiciary.

But um can we just confirm, Ms.

Mandel, the motion on the floor today is to challenge to the court um the constitutionality of the Live Local Act at the Florida legislature.

Can we confirm that we believe that there is legitimate course of action to protect the county against that law?

And yes, as we've discussed, there is certainly a legitimate course of action, a cognizable case that can be brought that was very legally is the cognizable case that could be brought that that we could walk into court and and and meet all of our ethical obligations.

Obviously, I can never predict that we're going to prevail in any piece of litigation because as it goes up the ladder, you know, you you you face whatever is in front of you, but but I would agree with that statement that you've made.

And the department possesses the resources to handle it internally, correct?

We would be able to handle something like that internally.

Thank you so much.

Um colleagues, this is probably no surprise to any of you at this point.

Um I'll I'll quote um former Commissioner Michael Owen two years ago now.

I think sitting in the current district four is exact chair with a group full of land use attorneys and developers, and I'll quote him and saying, I'm getting sick and tired of these developers threatening us with Live Local Act.

Well, that was two years ago, and um now I'm sick and tired of it.

It's been very patient.

I've been promised fixes.

Um this year, of course, their fix was to specifically target the pr thoughtful protections that Commissioner Hagen and I put in, um, which has opened the door to an unknown floodgate.

I believe right now the um you see them growing every month.

I believe that they're just testing the waters.

Um I'm told that we're not going to get a fix this year either, um, that we need to wait until 2027.

I don't believe that Hillsborough County residents can wait 18 months for potentially 50, 100.

I don't know.

Um, if you go look at District 4's maps of the amount of PDs that are sitting there as well as district two, it's just going to be an unsurmountable amount of um copy and paste approvals that we allegedly um would be legal to intervene in.

Um I believe that for those variety of reasons of the many um developments that have popped up, um, the Apollo Beach, um the two in Apollo Beach, the one I think should be the most egregious to this board is that in a bipartisan vote with Commissioner Cohen and I leading the charge for a variety of competent legal substantial reasons, we denied a project which is now intentionally despite us going to be live local.

I think that that is outrageously disrespectful, not only to the board, but more importantly, to the residents of Hillsborough County.

My motion on the floor today.

Um, and and I would say that before I make make the motion, I've heard that well, you know, we don't know how this will affect appropriations.

Well, I know how decades of tax-abated unknown amounts of properties would affect us in the long term.

Much more than one year of the legislature potentially throwing a fit about appropriations that we ask for.

And that's just not something that I can stand by and allow to happen to this community.

If they would have lived left PDs alone, I probably wouldn't have even brought this.

Um frankly, if they would have just said that this applies to municipalities with a certain amount of population, I wouldn't have um said anything.

But for the unincorporated and um rural areas of Hillsborough County, they're targeting those.

Commissioner Meyer should probably be the most offended because in reality her district needs these the most, but they're not doing those hard projects.

They're going all the way out into the farmland because the property is cheaper and there is no public transit or jobs for those folks to ever improve their lives out there.

So for those reasons, Mr.

Chair, I motion to direct the county attorney to challenge to the courts to determine the constitutionality of Live Local Act or any other Florida statute violations it may impose.

Thank you.

Got a motion by uh Commissioner Worldstall, second Commissioner Cameron Cepeda.

Uh Commissioner Cameron Cepeda.

Did you want to speak?

No.

No.

Okay.

And I I'll just say I I support the motion, and for me, the issue is symptomatic of a much broader issue with the legislature and uh and their uh propensity to ignore home rule and usurp local government's responsibilities.

I've always believed that a core uh conservative philosophy was the devolution of power from the federal level to state level to local governments and communities.

And yet uh the Republican legislature continues to make decisions that are contrary to this.

So, yeah, Commissioner Cohen.

Thank you.

I I just want to say I agree, I'm happy to support this, and I think it's important that we support it in a bipartisan way, because the fact of the matter is this is completely eviscerating local control of land use and zoning, and we sit here month after month and essentially make decisions with the gun uh uh against our temple.

And uh at some point, the the um the community is gonna say enough, and then we're we're the ones that reflect their views, so I think in doing this, you're saying enough is enough, and I'm I'm happy to sign on.

Commissioner Bowles.

Uh just out of curiosity, will we joining in concert with any other gets across the state, or are we just gloming on or we doing our own path?

So we we have had that conversation, and I don't don't know if it needed to be in the motion, but obviously we should empower the county attorney's office to uh allow any other jurisdiction, especially those that don't have near the resources that the Hillsborough County County Attorney's Office does, to conjoin and um support this lawsuit if they so choose.

I don't does that need to be said or on the motion.

I'd make that as a friendly amendment.

We can just add that in as an amendment.

Sure.

I accept the friendly amendment, Mr.

Chair.

Okay.

So we got a motion uh by Commissioner Wilson and second by Commissioner Cameron Cepeda.

Uh I don't see anyone else in the queue, please record your vote.

Motion carried seven to zero.

Also, for the record, item F3, motion carried seven to zero.

Okay.

Bonnie.

Okay.

Moving along.

The next item is item G1.

This is a staff report regarding the historic mostly homestead renovation preservation project.

And John Mueller will take us through this item.

That's it.

Yep.

I was going to say good afternoon, but we're moving along.

Good morning, Commissioners.

John Mueller, uh Director of Facilities Management and Real Estate Services.

Today's report is on the historic Mosley Homestead, a site just under 15 acres, located right along Brandon Boulevard.

The current site dates back to 1886 and includes the main building or the nest, along with several outbuildings.

I do want to note this this property was conveyed to the Timberly Trust nonprofit from Julia Mosley's estate.

And as such, they were entrusted with a 140-page preservation and conservation covenants established to preserve the site.

So there's a lot on this slide, but I've deliberately put a line through the middle of this to highlight that this nonprofit funding, which started back in 2017-18, has a dual mission.

Up on the top, you'll see there's preservations and renovations, and then down below you'll see capital renovations and improvements.

So look at the preservation work.

This is always could continue and will continue.

You've heard from some of the nonprofit members uh, Mark and Lori that we work with closely through the years on this, is that it's it's been methodical, you know, deliberate in line.

So the county and state to date, if you add what they've contributed, 350,000 in public funds, we that was immediate.

We there were some urgent repairs that needed to be addressed.

It did take five years to spend that money.

Uh the property is, of course, fragile, and work must be done to ensure all historic compliance.

The trust has asked for another 250,000 of county funds to match 250,000 in state funds.

So that's another 500,000 in public funding.

In addition, uh they have received a 25,000 funding amount this budget year to renovate one of the outbuildings.

Combined, that's a total public investment to date uh to date in just preservation to $875,000.

So we really await two items from the trust, an updated business plan, and a plan for visitation.

And uh Mark Proctor spoke to that.

As the the reason for that is as you start to near a million dollars, uh, and under the board policy, of course, we wanted to make sure the public benefit was there.

And that was really for this site visitation, again, complying with 140-page covenant, not to destroy the site.

We expect to have those items, or actually, I'm going to ask I know the board members are here.

We're going to require those two items, anything on the preservation, they're close, but we want those two items by the end of January so we can move this along.

I'll note last that if you use an average average spend of 50K or even go as high as 75K a year.

Um, this funding will last them several years.

Keep in mind that um there this is an all-volunteer board.

There is at as of today no full-time staff.

Uh so again, uh there remains beyond what I just stated, another 350,000 that remains unused.

So let's let's go down to the lower half of the slide.

So this is the construction of a community center, and this is really the portion that has not developed, and again, their board spoke to it as well.

I mentioned the covenants, which include visitation by small group by reservation, preventing overuse, maintaining the landscape as is.

So when we initially got this, the community center with the initial, there was an initial three-member Timberlee Trust board.

We realized that the operator uh who would have been the history center would have been 120K cost annually.

Um the county started to look at the risk of substantial funds being invested for a community center.

Uh at this time, there was the trust board expanded to 10 members who came with different opinions.

That's their board.

I believe all parties at that point then recognized the idea of a community center to help support the site financially was an approach that would trigger too much change, uh, too much damage, and this funding remains unused.

So of the total amount of, if you add this year's appropriation of 1.675 million allocated to date, approximately 250 or 246K to be exact has been spent.

For those who have visited the site or have not, here are some photos, just some brief photos.

You see the main building up there, and gives you a sense of one of the outbuildings there uh below that.

So I mentioned where where do we stand with that preservation funding?

So in the past few months, Mark uh and his team have secured a plan for visitation with the neighboring restaurant Portillos.

We saw that as fantastic.

That was one of the first things we thought as well.

Um Portillos allows the trust to host their visiting groups and provides parking and restrooms.

This plan aligns with the trust's goals and preservation, but can still provide public access for tours.

As I mentioned, we expect the trust to complete their submittals next month on this to move their preservation along.

So, with regard to the funding of a community center, uh uh Lori mentioned this in her public com com in her uh public comment.

The trust is proposing a change in scope.

Their preference would be in place of a community center to add two low impact structures, an echo center and a creative studio.

These will be staffed by volunteers.

So there would be no additional ongoing cost.

Um they do also need a vehicle just to complete their business plan so that they can have ADA access without creating pass and locks throughout that site.

So next steps for your consideration.

Um as I've mentioned, preservation work continues at the pace at which they can at which they can conduct.

I I do note, and I've said this to them a few times, we encourage them to consider and prioritize improving the resiliency of the site in case of a disaster.

Um it is a fragile site, and you want to be sure if you know knock on wood if an event happens that you're there and have a plan to prevent damage.

Um with regards to the capital funding, while the trust has requested additional time six months, our recommendation would be to expedite that to approximately three months.

I would say the end of March, so they we have time to evaluate as well too.

We would ask the trust, and I know they're here, so I'll repeat this to them at a later date, but I would provide all details of the proposed change in scope, bids and quotes for the work, uh, and conduct pre-permitting meetings with the county development services department.

And we're we're happy to assist them to arrange that, because they really need to determine what restrictive covenants, which they as a board would need to change formally, uh, for any change in project scope.

Finally, I'll mention that on one of the previous slides, we encouraged the trust to use the county's historical preservation challenge grant program.

And they did do that successfully for a total of 12,600.

Long term, we encourage the trust to increase public awareness and fundraise.

The trust in the long term has the option to also use that program.

It allows them to do smaller grants uh with a match that they can pace with their all volunteer staff.

It allows them to do smaller grants with a match that they can pace with their all volunteer staff as uh their own comments uh wrote a few down correctly, not quickly, deliberately and thorough.

So again, just to give you a flavor of where we think this was long term.

Available for any questions.

What's the pleasure of the board?

Um sorry, Commissioner Myers.

Um thank you, madam vice chair.

Thank you for the overview, John.

I'm going to move to approve um for the organization to submit us a 90-day plan by March 31st, 2026.

We have a motion by Commissioner Myers, a second by Commissioner Cohen.

Commissioner Bowles, you recognize.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, John.

With the uh with this the slight change, I understand uh maybe some of the I'll call you you said urgency.

Well will we be able to kind of help them a little with that to the degree that we're capable and is possible.

Yeah, so I spoke to Mark last night.

I just wanted to make sure he was aware that we're gonna we're gonna and it quite frankly, Mark and I probably have talked every week.

We it was not our first time.

We've known each other for a few years now on this.

Um we've been helping them as we can.

We don't want to interfere and we don't want to run their operation.

But we're certainly there with all the nonprofits, whether it was FAMA today or the other ones to guide them.

Um I think we can help facilitate and and drill them, but I do want to acknowledge Mark, Lori, and Amy who's not here.

Those three are the core of that nonprofit.

And um, when we ask them for something, they'll try I know they'll they'll diligently apply, but I think part of this process is saying, okay, it's time.

It's it's been years.

Um, but they they do have, I think, and I heard that this morning in their comments, they have their vision directed.

There's no wavering.

This is what they're going to do.

And that's probably half of the half of the issue with getting to this point until they get that in to the degree guide, and that's what I was going with, not necessarily tell them, but the guide and facilitated.

Thank you.

Okay, we have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Myers, uh second by uh Commissioner Cohen.

Please record your vote.

Motion carried six to zero.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um we have one item that was pulled from consent, which is item A5.

We'll take that before we do future items if that's okay.

Yep, sounds great.

Thank you.

Okay, very good.

Um, this is to approve and execute the local housing funding agreement for the replacement of the electrical infrastructure for the Regency Cove development.

And Cheryl, how will go through this item?

Thank you.

Good morning, Commissioner Cheryl Howells and County Administrative Community Impact.

And I'm here this morning to uh present to you item A5 for the local housing fund agreement with Regency Cove Electrical Uh Infrastructure Project.

So just to kind of give you a uh brief overview, and I I know that you heard a a lot of speakers this morning.

Uh this request is for approval of $3,764,341.

Uh, and it's really to help 431 seniors preserve their home.

Uh uh this is uh deemed an infrastructure project, but in actuality, there are three there are three partners in this.

There's the HOA, there's Tico that put money into it, uh, and then the county.

The county's money would actually cover the cost to uh from the home to the to the public infrastructure or the TICO infrastructure, right?

So it's not covering any costs that TICO uh would have normally covered or that the HOA would have normally covered.

Now, prior to getting to this project, I want you to know that the staff during uh our post-hurricane went from university area to tiny country area to Forest Hills area to South County, Plant City, Val Rico.

Uh they were out there in the community, and so we worked, we worked uh with the community responding to calls that came in through the EOC, responding to news articles uh that came out or from reporters or calls that came into uh the commissioner's office.

Uh part of our staff was still serving um uh in in the shelters, and some of them still serve serving on pods, but the ones that weren't doing that was out in the community working 12 to 14 hours a day trying to reach uh and connect with the needs of the people.

And uh some of the communities that we went to in the south part of the county was uh Bedrock uh River Haven, uh Shell Point uh MHC.

It was a couple of uh, it was a couple of mobile home uh parks right off of Shell Point in Ruskin that was just covered, right?

And so I went out myself and I went to those communities, spoke to the people, saw the damage that was occurring.

We assessed things from um uh from a uh disaster response perspective.

We looked at the amount of uh damage to the home, the infrastructure laws, the coordination with development services to see if this home was rebuildable, uh FEMA uh laws that were in place as well that really impacted how you could move forward.

So even though some of the uh some of the projects we would have loved to move forward with, we weren't able to because uh because FEMA said no, you can't rebuild, you're not able to do that.

So and we also evaluated repair versus uh re uh replaceability, the feasibility of a project coming in.

Some of those projects were uh uh we would have had to do elevation uh uh on those projects.

And the cost of elevation was 400 percent greater than the value of the property.

So some of them were not cost feasible.

Uh and it impacted broader issues as well, the national insurance programs, you know, uh really being compliant with many of the things uh as a county that we have to be compliant with.

So some of the key considerations that we looked at uh in this particular project were was that this was a nonprofit community.

And so there was indicators there that they had a segment of the population that the funds were targeted to serve.

So even though we could go up to 120 percent median family income, when you start looking at the types of assessments, most of the families that fall into that income category don't have 10 or 12,000 sitting around saying I can't pay for this assessment.

They are living on the edge.

The other things that we looked at was uh the type of impact that the county could have.

431 households for seniors, preserving that affordable housing.

This was not a project that had current county investment.

Uh this was not a project that ever received any any subsidy, and chances are these uh these individuals were not individuals, these were hardworking individuals now in their retirement state who needed who needed help, right?

Probably for the first time in their life.

And so just for funding context, the local housing fund uh is it comes from countywide funding, and it's designed to serve the entire county.

So whether they live within the municipalities or outside of the municipalities, uh and this right here really uh this project is to prevent long-term displacement of elderly people who for the most part can't go out and get second jobs.

They can't increase their income.

Uh we did look at funding uh opportunities uh for the uh for the city of Tampa to see if they had programs that were applicable.

They did not have programs that were applicable or that the uh that the uh residents could apply to.

And so we coordinated with the county attorney's office, with TICO, with uh Regency Cove, now uh the nonprofit leadership there.

Uh we had countless calls with uh with the residents, um, worked very, very closely uh with them.

And and as I said, you know, any project that we work on is subject to approval by the Board of County Commissioners.

So we're not in the uh out in the community making commitments on behalf of the board.

We simply say these are projects that we work on.

We bring these uh, we bring these uh what we want to say well-deserved projects to the board for your approval.

And today I just want to um request uh approval of agenda item 85 to authorize the local housing funding agreement with Regency Cove for the preservation of 431 disaster impacted households.

Thank you for that presentation.

Uh Commissioner Commissioner Worsted, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

Um I I know you pulled this, and it would be easier if I heard your concerns first, so I'll just but I'll just say a couple of things.

The Regency Cove community wouldn't even wouldn't even know this, but I actually myself spent a copious amount of time um with TICO on the phone, adopting them as my own employees during the storms and uh specifically about um the troubles that Regency Cove was going through and making sure that their rips were out there quickly.

I'd imagine that I'll hear something similar from Commissioner Cohen.

Um one thing that frustrates me on the TPO meetings that I actually took time to go and just take a look at is hearing from and I'm not surprised to hear, and by the way, good job.

I didn't even see this item on on the meeting.

I'm not surprised to hear that the city of Tampa doesn't have a program um to help um this community because city of Tampa sucks.

I'm just saying um and I hear constantly um their own representatives that um well commissioner Wolstall makes these items um impacting my city, and so I I actually took the time.

Um I actually received four times more votes than any of the Tampa City Council at large members, and three times the votes of the City of Tampa mayor for the city of Tampa.

Um, and it's disrespectful to the City of Tampa residents to continue to say that the three countywides don't represent them.

Um we actually receive significantly overwhelmingly more support than the City of Tampa elected officials um in the election cycles.

Um I I understand probably the frustrations that are coming from district um fours that over the past years um and decades, district four has absolutely without a doubt been um significantly underrepresented and funded on many of their needs.

There's actually a several decade-old policy that Jan Platt made, um, which was to make sure that no funding was allowed to go out into District 4 outside of the um urban service area to fix their roads.

I mean, that was a motion that was made.

Um you can go and look that up.

And um what I would say is that it was pointed out that this was countywide, which means that they also did tax.

If if if we feel like there's a project um that the Ruskin area, everybody needs to be being treated with the exact same level of urgency and priorities.

Um while I do believe that some underhanded things have happened to the district for office, um, I don't believe for a moment um that Commissioner Cohen would have participated in something like that, and this was just probably an opportunity to um improve this organ this residence's um emergency after the storm.

So if there is a another community that needs help and we need to make sure that staff's treating them with the same priority, I want to hear about it and make sure that that's happening.

I would just say that I do believe that this is a is a good item.

It's a difficult situation, but there's few instances when I believe that the government should actually be spending people's money, and that is in times of natural disaster, and obviously I know that you are also super sensitive to the senior citizen community, just like I am, and that we want to make sure that everybody in in the low-income and senior citizen population is helped the best that we can.

So I do think that this is a a good item.

I am not surprised that the city of Tampa didn't have an item to help them.

Um and I'm saying that begrudgingly for many reasons because I'm tired of hearing that we don't represent the city.

Even in the photos today, you see us pictures of Jane Casser.

It's like, come on.

It's it's it's frustrating and tiring.

And so, anyways, um maybe I'll hear what your concerns are and I'll speak again.

But um, I I do want to make sure that um everybody gets the help that they deserve, including in District 4.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

Commissioner Cohen.

Uh thank you very much.

And and I appreciate your your words, Commissioner Wussel.

Let me let me uh start out um by saying that uh we have a lot of money that's coming through the CDBG program to relieve different hardships that were created by the hurricanes.

And I look forward and promise that when that time comes, I'm gonna give every consideration to District 4 and District 3 and District 2 to make sure that everyone across the county is treated fairly.

Um I'm very familiar with this property with Regency Cove because I represented this area on City Council for eight years from 2011 to 2019.

And while I wouldn't agree with Commissioner Wussel's characterization of the city of Tampa, what I would say is that I do agree that it it it's to my knowledge, they don't have the funding to provide assistance in this type of a program.

And thank God we do, because my understanding from staff is that this was really the only community that actually met the very strict guidelines for this type of funding at this time.

Now, I know there's some funding left over, so if there are other communities that can qualify, we actually still have money available.

Um I think in this particular case, the benefits are enormous.

This is a community of income constrained people who otherwise would have their homes put in jeopardy.

Many are veterans.

I just turned 55 myself.

So uh I I look forward to this being an option for me at some point.

Um, but notwithstanding that, um, this is a really special community, and it is a really cohesive place where people take great pride, not just in their own homes, but in the community in general.

And the fact that we can help them in this way at this time, I think is uh is really a heartwarming way to end for the holidays.

Uh I do want to make a motion for approval, and I uh I want to just close by saying that um I am uh uh I have said all along, I've said this for six years, that I don't want anything for district one to come at the expense of the other districts.

I want all of the districts to be treated fairly.

But at the same time, when there's something available for district one, I want us to get our due as well.

And because this is countywide dollars, it is money that was paid in by everybody, including people in the cities, and I think that uh for that reason it's a very justifiable expense for the Board of County Commissioners.

Second.

Thank you for your comments.

We have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Cohen and a second by Cameron uh Commissioner Cameron Sopeda.

Yes, I just want to say that was a really great report.

Thank you very much.

And also so much has already been said here that I agree with, but um uh you know, with so many elderly there, the handicapped and veterans.

I mean, I absolutely support this and second your motion.

Thank you.

Commissioner Myers, you're recognized.

Oh, thank you.

Um, I'll just like to echo what Commissioner Cohen is said, because the CDBG DR funds really would come in handy uh to be shared in in all of the districts and to make sure those districts that the communities that are underserved that we put those dollars there.

And I know those were the dollars are to be used for, but let us look first to see who was impacted the most and then help them first.

Thank you.

My apologies, Commissioner Bulls.

It's hard to read the things here on the screen.

Yeah, it's totally okay.

And uh I'll wrap it up.

So with that, and this is probably a better question for our county attorney or county administrator.

DR funds, once a project's in the hopper, we can't replace, we can't use those funds for that.

Is that correct?

So for this, we've already got it underway.

We can't use those funds.

Right.

I I would say that would be supplanting, and so we could have a little post-it note that says, hey, we use something over here, and if there's a future project that we could kind of use that as maybe an offset that we hadn't anticipated.

Does that make sense?

I think we can look at that at the at the time.

But that being about that for a non-answer.

Yeah, but I understand.

But but the idea is that this is exactly why we got that money.

We can't wait for this to happen.

We have so many residents could be displaced.

Absolutely not.

So we have to do that now.

Absolutely, there's no question about that.

But this is exactly what that $700 million is for.

And we should be using it for exactly this reason to help these type of residents.

So uh let's continue to do that, and let's keep an asterisk next to a few things out there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So now we're gonna get to why I pulled this in, and it sort of has shifted for me as I've gone through this.

But when this first came to the board in 2024, it was presented as an opportunity to help manufactured housing communities with an emphasis on those in South County.

That's how it was presented to me, um, post-hurricane impacts.

At the time, the board even approved extending the eligibility to 120 AMI because we were told it would allow the county to assist more residents, um, especially in the unincorporated areas.

Um, more than a year has passed, and we haven't had a single briefing brought back to the board and no updates on the funding was available or how they were evaluated or whether the communities originally discussed were still under consideration.

Once the department realized that their initial search for this project with a county wide impact was not achievable based on the preset, they should have informed the board.

Instead, they went in a different direction.

I felt that's what it was, and I'm entitled to the way I feel when I look at these 70% of the funds were being spent within the city of Tampa without an ins explanation of why unincorporated communities were no longer being considered, whether all communities were thoroughly valuable evaluated, what challenges were encountered in the areas originally presented to the board.

To me, I felt like it was a bit of a bait and switch.

Um what we were told that this program was going to be used for in November of last year ultimately is not what came back to us.

Um it's important that the project we didn't know this information.

Actually, my motion today was going to be for you to present what you just gave to us.

And I felt like that should have been on the table to begin with, because it would have made my decision easy.

And so when I spoke to the administrator last night, I said that was all I wanted.

I wanted to understand how the decision was made, why it was made, because I have to go back to my constituents who you noted were Bedrock, Shell Point, Hawaiian, Feather uh Feather Rock.

When I went and looked at those communities, there's great need there.

So I needed to understand why you didn't choose them, and instead we're choosing a community.

I understand that money's tight for everyone, but homes in there are over 400,000 selling right now, over 400.

So you hear a mobile home part, and I think of communities like Shell Point, not ones that have beaches and swimming pools and boat slips.

Yes, ma'am.

So um I pulled it because I felt like there was a lack of transparency and full understanding of how the staff arrived at this.

That's why I pulled it and why it differed so significantly from the original attent in 2024.

Um, I'm gonna support this based on the information that I was given today, but I don't feel that it was an appropriate place for um consent, and maybe we need to talk about how those things get there.

Um I do think that there needs to be proper consideration because I can read through and I won't do it because I don't think it's appropriate, but your responses basically responded that my communities in my district were too far gone that we couldn't help them.

That is discouraging for me.

So we have um sorry, Commissioner Wilson, you recognize well.

And yeah, I mean, I do vaguely remember the emphasis on South County.

Um discussion.

So is there any added context?

I mean, about why that moved.

I I can I can add a little bit of context.

So initially after uh post-storm when we were out in the community, there were a lot of uh a lot of mobile homes that we thought that we would uh we would uh mobile home communities that we thought we would be able to assist.

Upon evaluation of those communities, we didn't realize that FEMA would not allow the rebuilding on those communities and that it would uh impact uh the uh the national insurance for um the national insurance rate for the for the county.

And so upon just getting into the weeds of all of that, we realized that um uh let's say um uh uh one of the mobile home communities right off of Shell Point this that sits right on the water.

FEMA was saying, no, you can't you cannot rebuild here, right?

Some of the communities we were looking at elevation for the uh for the mobile home, the individual mobile home um uh units, and the cost for those who are well over 200,000 for just the elevation, not even uh not even factoring in the cost of the mobile home unit itself.

So there were some price gouging, some skyrocketing costs, things that were not anticipated.

When we initially looked at it, we looked at what the current cost was, right?

We looked at what we believe uh the ability to be able to move forward to uh to do the rebuilding in those communities or replacements uh in those communities, not really understanding that FEMA FEMA really limited us in a lot of cases of being able to assist people that we really wanted to assist.

So a lot of emphasis was placed on South County, but we went all over, we went to the university area, we went to the town and country area, we went to the uh Forest Hills area.

So we really were all over the county.

A lot of emphasis was placed in the south part of the county because they received a lot of flooding uh in that area.

And so it it may take uh buyouts and some of the other things that could occur that will cost more than any four or five million dollars to address those uh to address those things.

I mean, I uh obviously that doesn't give much of a solution though to the district four commissioners, so probably adding context to hey, they're too far gone or whatever the statement was, you know, saying, hey, this is our plan to help these people, we just can't do it with these dollars.

Um, would probably be more helpful to understand in the future.

I I would agree with you.

I mean, there's ways we could have said it better.

I was looking at the agenda item.

You know, if you take yourself back to November of 2024 when this was happening, it was um a bit of chaos, and what we wanted to do, I don't want you to lose sight of the fact that we scrambled and changed our housing ordinance to allow for this program because we knew that so many mobile home parks were uh in jeopardy, and a lot of the times it was because of the land issue related to that, if you recall, and so we of course want to help as many people as possible, and so with the money we have and with the CDBGR, maybe there's other options.

So we're not gonna stop.

I think I shared with you in our briefings that even though we've had a year where we didn't have any storms just now, we're still doing things that are storm related and the areas that are still suffering.

We're gonna do whatever we can.

So that's our pledge to you all to do as much as we can in other places too.

And and I do just want to add one thing that there's there is one project in the pipeline that is in uh that is in district uh four that uh and I want to say it's probably about a four million dollar uh project.

We've not gotten to the finish line with bringing it uh bringing that agreement to the board uh yet, and so we're hoping to have that to the board within the next month or so, and that's located in in Planned City.

Excellent.

So in my closing thoughts, I'd like to just point out the fact that this comes down to communication and transparency.

If you are having trouble getting the projects that actually needed it in South County because of FEMA or some other obstacle, we are the legislators.

We're the ones that had we known this information, the struggles that we were having, we could go to our counterparts, counterparts at the you know, at the state level and at the federal level to help get those that are most in need.

And so what I'm struggling with today is yes, I'm sure they can't write a 10 or 15,000 check.

Most of us can't.

I don't live in a 400,000 plus home.

I mean, I that was what was so hard for me is that these folks that were truly truly just in the worst situations were just overlooked because well, we can't do a project there, and we were not communicated that information.

And that's honestly what I struggle with today.

Um, I kind of feel like I've gotten my point across on this.

I require a lot of communication.

Um, I ask a lot of questions.

Anybody I know is I do my own briefings.

Um, we could have probably gotten through a lot of this if I had just said, hey, listen, bring this if what I wanted was the presentation that you gave today to fully understand.

So we have a motion on the floor, I believe, by Commissioner, I don't even know where I put it.

Commissioner Cohen, a second by uh Cameron Save, please record your votes on A5 motion carried six to zero.

And Madam Vice Chair, okay?

Yes, okay.

Um, and now we're on to future issues, but before you all leave, this is Christine's last meeting, but we could take future issues first.

Anything anybody have anything?

Anyone have anything?

Okay, so this is a good one.

Yeah, we do hold on, hold on.

Yeah, right.

So I I did want to mention, you know, for this is Christine's last board meeting, although she's not gone just yet.

And so I wanted to just say what a pleasure it has been working with her.

We have been through um hurricanes as we just mentioned, we have been through pandemics together and all that entailed, and um so much, and I know she's gonna have um some extra time between her traveling.

So I have a little something for her.

Um I have a new mahjong set for her to have.

Oh, I love it.

So she would have a little bit more time in her retirement.

So this is um just for me.

Commissioner Whistle.

Thanks.

I just want to say you really frustrated me always giving me legal advice that was counter to what I wanted to do.

But um, I really appreciated somebody who, you know, will um disagree with me.

I think that that's important in everyone's lives, and I wish you well in your you and your husband and your retirement, okay?

Commissioner Cohen.

Thank you very much.

Um, I I also just want to say that it really truly has been a pleasure to work with you and and also to know you for so many years, 35 years at the county attorney's office, almost nine as the county attorney.

35 years at the county attorney's office, almost nine as the county attorney.

And um, you know, we don't read your name in the newspaper that often.

And um that is is really a testament to the fact that you have done this job with such discretion and grace, and we have had so many legal victories under your stewardship uh that have vindicated the work of this board, and so much hard work has gone into that from your office from you, and it really is truly appreciated.

I know that um I'm looking forward to hopefully getting to play mahjong with you uh when I have some spare time and uh I look forward to that.

Thank you, Commissioner Myers.

What should I say to my elevator friend?

Many, many years ago.

We never worked together until I became a commissioner, but we always wrote up and down the elevator for many, many years and would talk.

But Christine, just thank you so much for all of the briefings that you've given me and prepared me for the board meetings and all just your compassion and your friendliness and kindness shown to all of us, and we get the chance to take care of the board agenda and talk about other things that are going on.

And I'd certainly enjoy Jessica and Roder and the friendship, because I always tell staff we're gonna take our business and we're gonna have some fun too when we have a meeting, and that's what it's all about when we come together.

We never want staff to feel intimidated, and you did not ever show that to one.

It was just always friendly and very kind.

Commissioner, is there anything else you need?

Well, let me know.

Give me a call back.

I'll be right here to help you.

So uh I wish you the best in your new chapter in your life and enjoy retirement.

But you might also want to think about coming back being a commissioner.

Enjoy your retirement.

Commissioner Bowles.

Yes, thank you.

Um again, for my first year here, you've been wonderful.

I appreciate everything you've done to help me and my staff, you know, get things done.

Uh, I did work with your office quite often when I was serving as a staff member, but also as a firefighter, a representative as well.

And you guys have always done the best for the community and for staff members here.

And again, I just wanted to say I do appreciate your time and your dedication to the county.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Commissioner K Mr.

Payton.

Yeah, I just want to thank you for your many years of service here, and I pray you have a long and healthy life, and that you enjoy many, many years of your retirement and um have a great time.

Thank you.

Well, before I adjourn the meeting, I want to say thank you.

And it's funny, she said kind about three or four times, and I think it is truly who you are.

You just have a kind, calming spirit in a room when we had some heavy lifts, even in my short 16 months that I got to work directly with you, and um thank you for your service.

I think people forget that we're up here um doing the work for the people, and it's doesn't pay what you could make in the private sector, and it definitely is really hard work, and um I thank you.

Thank you for your years of service and dedication to Hillsburg County.

Thank you.

May I make a couple comments?

Yes, please do.

So I am um so thankful and appreciative of your kind words, and it's been an absolute honor to serve the citizens of Hillsburg County for so long, and I've had um the utmost pleasure working with each of you and with the administration, and I know that this county is in great hands.

I'm so proud of the way you all handle issues and run the meetings and take care of our residents, and uh I'm very confident that as I'll be a citizen, I can know that we're in really good hands.

And but most of all, I want to thank um the outstanding staff in the county attorney's office.

You have no idea how good those people are.

They are the most professional, dedicated, um, committed, smart, um, could do anything they want, and they also choose this service, and any one of them could could take a different path.

But without them, um you could not do this job.

And uh from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank them very much.

So thank you.

May God richly bless you.

And um, I think with that we're adjourned.

Thanks.