All right, it's 3 30.

We'll go ahead and get started.

Let's start with introductions to our left to our right.

Join Rahie Administration.

Stephen Libby, Council Research.

Shannon Matt Gellis, Office of General Counsel.

Heather Reber, Council Auditor's Office.

Good afternoon to everyone.

Tyrona Clark Murray District 9.

Good afternoon, everyone, Councilman Reginald Gaffney Jr.

District 8.

Mike Gay, District 2.

Steve Long Public Works.

Awesome, awesome.

I want to thank everyone for coming out to this special committee on drama prevention.

The last month or two is it's been a critical time in Jacksonville.

As you guys know, it's been two deaths in one month, but going over the last three or four years, it's is the deaths it dates back to over 10.

Um, so I think now's a critical critical time to address this issue.

So I kind of first I want to acknowledge and thank President Howland for allowing us to do this special committee.

You know, um he understands the importance of this committee to understand the needs and what need to be done.

I kind of want to bring us up to speed how we got here.

So as everyone knows, um August the 5th, Chance, um, Chance Brown, seven year old, he drowned in my district off Broward Road.

Um, at that time, my office, we reached out to public works, we reached out to the mayor's administration, we reached out to um development of services.

We we we huddled, we discussed everything we needed to discuss, and we ultimately decided on having a notice meeting for August the 25th.

At the time we were scheduling our notice meeting, um August the 24th, a three-year-old pass the day before.

Um I have yet to verify the name for the three-year-old.

The three old was also in my district.

The three-year was also all tested.

At that time, we had a notice meeting August the 25th, where we had anywhere from a hundred to a hundred individuals to show up.

Um we had um everyone to come out from the health department, different hospitals, pretty much everyone, subject matter experts to come out and speak about this.

What we concluded was that an hour and 30 minutes wasn't enough time um August the 25th, which kind of brings us to the point why we're here today on this special committee on the um drawing prevention.

So, you know, we we reached out to President, well, I reached out to President Howland.

He did charge us with six um charges, and I want to I want to read off the charges that he he tasked us with.

Number one, he would like us to review emergency response and data.

Number two, he would like us to review prevention, public education and awareness.

Number three, youth elopement, special needs, water safety.

Number four, public residential retention, stormwater facility safety.

Number five, community partnerships, interagencies, number six, best practices, legislative authority, and recommendations.

So over the course over the next six weeks or so, we'll be discussing all these topics.

But today, what I would like to do, I think um, we need to identify the facts.

You know, and what I mean by the facts, um, I think we need to identify how many how many deaths we have had over the last three or four years.

I think we need to identify the ponds.

But before I even go any further, I want to I'm very thankful for Councilman Gay, Councilman, um, Vice President, Councilwoman Clock Merritt for sitting on this special committee, and I would love to hear from you guys in terms of your expectations and desired outcome.

So let me you're gonna go, Councilman Gay first.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um I guess it's uh uh I wouldn't say excited, but I'm hopeful and optimistic that we can find solutions and preventative measures that we can uh help our community uh for awareness and protection of their of the children and the loved ones.

So there's there's uh there's that hope that I have in this, and I feel like uh as we go through the charges that the council president has put before us, uh we'll be able to achieve that to where you know our our community will embrace it as well.

So I appreciate uh being on the committee with you and uh look forward to supporting you on it.

Thank you, sir.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Councilman.

Recognize thank you, Chair, and and thank you to everyone who's here today.

My expectation is that we are able to draft and pass legislation that will help our construction community developers understand the importance of how we can create safer retention and detention ponds.

The hope is that we'll be able to educate parents, um, apartment managing companies on the importance of knowing whether or not you have a child who has autism in your development, and what precautions need to be taken in order to keep that child safe.

My additional concern or additional expectation is that we will have little to no pushback in regards to this issue because this is literally going to save lives, and that's ultimately our goal.

We know that everything has a dollar figure in regards to if we're looking at fencing or what type of um mitigation measures we want to take, but ultimately there's no price on a life, and so we should be willing to do what is reasonably necessary to be able to save the lives of not just autistic children, but all children.

Thank you.

So thank you guys for both of that, and it and it's important that you mentioned that.

I I want to also point out I think last week I just found out about this, and I'm pretty sure everyone has, I'm not sure if everyone heard about it, but we also had a passing of an 80 year old um gentleman.