The Special Committee on Drowning Prevention, chaired by Council Member Reggie Gaffney Jr., met on September 23, 2026, at 3:30 PM in Council Chambers. The committee received a data presentation from the working group, discussed legislative constraints, heard public comments, and outlined next steps for Phase II of the initiative. The meeting lasted approximately one hour and focused on understanding the drowning problem in Duval County and identifying gaps for prevention.
All right, it's 3 30. We are going ahead and get started. I want to welcome everyone to the special committee on the drawing of prevention. We'll get started with introductions from my left to our right. Joander Heese administration. Stephen Libby, Council Research. Shannon Matt Gillis, Office of General Counsel. Heather Reber, Council Auditor's Office. Good afternoon, Tyrona Clock Murray, District 9. Good afternoon, Reginald Gaffney Jr., District 8. District 2. Awesome, awesome. I want to thank everyone for in the crowd for coming out on this gloomy wet day. I was kind of worried about the attendance. I know when I drove over here, it was it was pouring down raining. So but appreciate you guys for coming out. We have a light agenda. So I don't think we'll be here too long. But before we get started, I want to make a motion to move our September 9th committee meetings. Thank you guys for that. So speaking of the agenda, before we we uh talk about the agenda, I do want to highlight a few things for those who missed the September 9th meeting. Um we'll discuss a few things and then we'll go forward. Um so we we met September 9th, we met an hour and 15 minutes actually, and some of the highlights that we discussed um in the special retention meeting was doing a pond inventory. You know, obviously what we we heard was the city have anywhere from a thousand to 1,500 ponds in the city, whether that's private or whether that's public. You know, so um I know one of them, if not myself and one of my colleagues we brought, we we need to do a pawn inventory. So we'll be kind of discussing that, whether these pawns are city related or whether they're private. Mr. Endy's also brought up, he brought up whether some what we go do with pawns, current existing pawns or future ponds too. That also come up. So I would like to discuss that as well. Um we also discussed last meeting what our other cities doing in regards to this issue. So we'll also hear about that today. We also discuss what can we do now. You know, um we we discuss every day, council is approving legislation that require new communities to inquire install ponds. So what can we do now? Um we also discussed H bill 180. You know, obviously, we don't want to do this work in vain. So, you know, I think that's important because we need to figure out in terms of the parameters and guidelines, what can we do with a state bill that's in uh in effect? So we got those questions. Um, and I know Mr. We'll have a presentation from Andre Agu at Ayu. He'll come up. He um was nice enough, kind enough to volunteer and get a task force um like 15 different agencies, and he'll speak about that as well. So um before I bring Mr. Andrew Andre up, uh my colleagues, do y'all have anything y'all want to mention before we get this um special presentation? Go on. Yes, thank you, Chair. I just want to also mention you talked about HB 180 or SB 180. And so our general counselor, counselor, um, Mr. Fike Facler is here, so he can speak to those things.