Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Welcome everybody here tonight for the meeting at this time.

This time I'd like to have Mr. Fuller to pledge an invocation, please.

Everybody bow your heads, please.

Lord, we come to you tonight and ask you to have your hand of understanding on our commissioners tonight. Help us make the decisions that's best for Plumlee County. And Lord, I want you to have your hand of protection on all these people that are here tonight. Help them to get home safe. And as always, we want to ask for you to look over the... Men overseas fighting and our military, our police, our firefighters. They've had a busy, busy summer, busy year already. And we thank you for looking over their protection. And we ask in all these things in your name.

Amen.

Okay, staff, is there any additions or deletions?

I believe there is one addition, a proclamation. I'm trying to remember which proclamation it was. Was it for the weight lifters?

Yeah.

Yeah, proclamation for the weight lifters.

Okay. All right. I'll seek approval as the agenda is presented. Motion approved. Motion. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, I'm going to shift it up a little bit here because we got some special guests. On the 250 presentation, we've got a young group here who's going to be doing some singing, so whoever's coordinating that, if you would, y'all can come on up and do y'all's presentation before we get to these proclamations.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Kimmy Roberts. I'm Columbia County Events Specialist. And we have been working intensely with Lisa Lee, the school system, since January on America 250. And we haven't just... work with the schools we've been working with art gallery we've been working with numerous other entities in columbia county and one of them is the lady lakes quilters in columbia county and you'll see in just a moment what they've been helping us do but uh commissioners you'll see there is a print in front of you of a mural and that's part of our grant that we're going to be putting at the west branch library So that's for your viewing. If you have any complaints or concerns or whatever, please let me know. But right now, let me explain to you about the quilt that's been going on. Each school has made a square for this quilt, and the quilt has really drawn a lot of attention, not just in Columbia County, but Tallahassee as well. The quilt will be on display at Tallahassee, and we're excited. But Lisa, if you'll help me, we're going to go ahead and we're going to hold this quilt up where everybody can see it.

We'll let you see it first.

Every one of these squares is done by a different school in Columbia County.

It's handled by a student or a student?

And all of this work up the tops, into the top, was done by the poachers and the legumes.

So we're excited. It's for a lot of the teachers, but this was all their idea. Each school had a different idea. Very pretty.

And then tonight we have Summers Elementary principal Robert Cooper. And his Summer Singers with director Amaya Perper. And they're going to sing a song called America for us. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll never know. I'll never know. I'll never know.

Thank you.

Thank you again, Summers, for participating. Thank you again, Board, for having us.

Thank you.

Commissioners, if you note on the print, it's a book and it opens up to look like a book. with the adult, the instructor from the library, basically telling the students about American history. And it leads right into the Bill of Rights. It leads into the Betsy Ross flag, the first steam engine, the Liberty Bell, the Bill of Rights, our history books, the flag that we have now and where we are now in this country. Thank you.

Jimmy, if you would, take this and put it out in the foyer there where Okay, at this time we've got a massive amount of proclamations here. I'm going to kind of change it around a little bit here and go to the one that we added. And I'll be handling this one here, the weightlifting. One thing I wanted to point out before we got into these proclamations, you know, all of these kids, They are the ones that I represent as the future of Columbia County. These are the guys and girls that have gone over and beyond to accomplish some of the feats that they are, and I'm kind of partial to the welding thing, because that's somehow or another I've made a living out of it for years. The group, you know, they're heading to the Nationals. The drone team, they're heading to the Nationals. Competing, and some of the kids will share the numbers. And I think it's a heck of an accomplishment. And, you know, it's unfortunate that we've got to wait until the end of the year to recognize you guys because I know it's hard on the parents and whatever to organize and put these plans together. And I'm going to pick on the Wakeman team because I followed them because my grandson was with them. But it came and went so fast, they don't even need no money. So I don't know what Brian is doing. He's slacking up these days, I guess. But at this time, and I'm going to have Brian, I'm sure, say a few words or whoever the speaker in that group is. But at this time, I'm going to read Proclamation No. 2026P-21. proclamation by the columbia county board of county commissioners recognizing the chs weightlifting team and their accomplishments in the 2025-26 school year whereas columbia county board of commissioners recognize excellence and dedication and outstanding achievement in athletics whereas in 2026 season the team earned the following prestige honors of the 2026 2a region district three champions traditional division 2026 to a region to champion traditional division the 2026 to a state championship traditional division and whereas the individual weightlifters Cameron Stevenson under 69 weight class individual state champion Olympic division Garrett Shipley 219 pound weight class individual state champion traditional division, every Camille unlimited class individual state champion, traditional division. And whereas the entire team including Ray, john Beechley, Jacob Bell, a guy comes Turner, Connor Robinson Maurice Campbell Jaden Simmons Cameron Stephenson Jackson Woodley George Johnson Jerome Horn Alfonso Currie Jr. Bryson Grinstead Garrett Shipley Alexander Satterfield Joshua Jones Josiah Robson Henry Camille Emmanuel Jones and coach Brian Allen and assistant coaches John Woodley and Quentin Cowan. Whereas the success of these student athletes bring great pride to their families and school, all of Columbia County and now therefore be resolved that the columbia county board of commissioners hereby congratulate columbia county high school weightlifting team and their outstanding 2026 proclaim this 21st day may 2026 by columbia county board of commissioners signed j.m swisher and tim murphy chairman board of county commissioners and uh i think that deserves a round of applause to start off with right if you would make your way here one of these gentlemen one by one kevin's gonna hang your proper thing and then y'all wouldn't stand up here i think it's gonna be a little bit better place to get victory than everybody but uh right if you don't mind uh i'd like you to say a few things this is pride allen

Good evening, everyone.

I didn't know I was going to be put on the spot to speak tonight, but I don't have trouble doing that.

It's all good. Just want to say how proud I am of this entire group. We came back here three years ago and missed a complete offseason. Our offseason runs from January to about April, May. First came back three years ago. We didn't have one that year. Didn't know that I was coming back to be a coach. Jump right in. These kids have all been a part of it. For two years straight, we've had two unbelievably amazing off-seasons training with these guys. It's a collective group. All of them are here tonight. They're supporting the softball team and their big victory. Many of our football players went over there today with the bus. But just so, so, so proud of this group. We've had so many tremendous numbers with these guys. Some probably didn't expect two years ago to be here. I can't stand up here and talk about this weightlifting team without giving my respected Jim Register. Since I became Columbus head coach in 2011, start the jim register award coach register the foundation of of up to date he's smiling up there in heaven as he looks down this is our fourth state championship uh as a weightlifting team probably one of the most decorated teams at columbia high columbia history this is the fourth one but it started with jim register uh in 1996 my senior year we won it 97 or 98 we won in 99 we won so it's been 26 years 27 years since we've been on this stage uh as state champions but it's in the testament these young men in this program these coaches that work countless hours hours that you don't see just really really really proud of this group and i think the commissioners uh board commissioners well i appreciate it brian and i'll tell you you know my grandson's one of the ones that's uh down with the softball team but this young group here on washington this year uh when they go out of town they represent columbia county wait we're supposed to be representing

Garrett Shipley.

Garrett Shipley. Brian held the Columbia High School record for how many years?

33.

And I told Garrett, I was hoping to get Garrett to be here, because he's a man now, but he ain't a Brian, but he beat Brian's record this year by how much, Brian?

50 plus pounds. It's amazing, and every one of these guys, who's gone this year?

Gone is he gone? He's gone too? Okay, yeah.

But I really enjoyed watching you guys this year at the conference. But y'all resonate with me, and I'm really proud of you.

At this time, a round of applause, and then we'll get some pictures. Wouldn't it be good to take the remaining ones, and you'll make sure to get them. Y'all want to get some pictures of it? You can picture people. I guess we can.

Thank you Conrad.

Something I will be bringing to the board here before the meeting is over. is I'm going to make a recommendation that we go down the legal path to recognize all state championship winners from here on out with road signs like they do in other communities. We all know our neighboring county here the other day won state baseball championship and on like a Wednesday and I seen the sign on Friday afternoon. That was pretty impressive. So I think we cannot do Union County so again we appreciate it y'all look for the sign we're going to do whatever we can recognize you guys appreciate you again thank you it wasn't bigger than we were that got a leech okay okay at this time uh uh mr moses and mr wyndham if you make your way up i'm going to read the proclamation and uh these two gentlemen here are going to be representing columbia high at the national competition for the drone if i get this all wrong guys forgive me but they're going to be up there exercising their skills uh on a national level uh taking care of this drone and i heard that the little moses fellow was going to be he little tomorrow but i knew he was a speaker like his daddy so i give you that task so as soon as i get done reading the proclamation i'd like to hear a little bit about y'all's program if i could proclamation number 2026 p dash 18 a proclamation by the clemming county board of county commissioners recognizing rylan moses kevin Windham, and Ruby Chandler, and Mason Dutton. Whereas, Columbia County High School students, USA students, have demonstrated exceptional talent, dedication, and preparation by earning the right to compete at the highest level in their respective career and technical fields. And whereas, the following students, Kevin Windham and Ron Moses, will proudly represent Columbia High School in the 2026 Leadership Skills Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. competing and programming automated mission plan and hand flying complex mission that includes precision flying, data recording, and beyond line of sight operations. and whereas welding technology students ruby chandler and mason this deuce will compete in individual welding competition these students will participate interviews written testing and on-site welding demonstration to showcase their expertise Whereas SkillsUSA is one of the largest career and technical student organizations in the nation, featuring over 100 competition areas and participants from all 50 states. Whereas the selection of these Columbia County students to compete at this prestigious national event reflects the quality of our local career, technical education programs brings tremendous pride to their families, schools, and the entire community. Now, therefore, be it resolved that Columbia County Board of Commissioners hereby congratulate Ryan Moses, Kevin Windham, Ruby Chandler, and Mason Doosan at their outstanding accomplishments and official qualification to represent Columbia County at the 2026 Skilled USA National Leadership and Skills Conference. We extend our strongest support and best wishes for success as they showcase their skills on the national stage in aerospace technology. and welding be it further reserved be it further resolved to proclaim this 21st day in may 2026 by the columbia county board of commissioners jay swisher and tim murphy approved 2026 p that's 18. got a second all in favor say aye aye and the mr. Moses if you would and then the welding technologies group is going to come right up after him because the young lady that will meet here in a few minutes she took upon herself to did a great job putting a PowerPoint together here so I had I didn't want to read that proclamation twice I want to make sure I wasn't missing you guys

Aerospace technology is a class that we started offering at Columbia High School last year. It's a partnership between the Space Coast Initiative and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. We work to give regular high school students, such as us, an easier reach out into the aerospace field, whether that be as a pilot, aerospace engineer, anywhere from being an astronaut. It's a really great program that's able to extend into a vastly growing field. aeronautics and aerospace has been greatly is greatly expanding here in Florida all along the coast and with this we're able to work on getting certifications such as the FAA part 107 license which allows us to accept payment in exchange for goods done via drone we work on getting a USI safety certification, which is just a presentation that makes us look a lot better compared to other competitors if we would like to go out into the field and get a job. And we're working on the competition where we were flying our drones through a complex course and also doing a part 107 FA test on all the curriculum with that and a problem troubleshoot and drone repair course through the tests and that is what our program does.

Anybody have any questions? and he lives in my district go do some aerospace you don't put his daddy out of business yeah all right well we appreciate it have a seat then we'll get right back to you yes sir thank you miss uh rylan no that's not right i'll get it right help me out girl you're really trying to come on ruby there you go ruby okay this is the two that's representing Columbia High and the Nationals at the with the welding program I'll go ahead and take their horn a little bit everybody walk through the lobby here and you see the globe here that the welding group made if you hadn't seen it you walk right by pay attention to when you leave this class has been very very exceptional we were nationally recognized there's no doubt and uh i've watched this little girl time or two when i've been out there they come after school seems like before school and uh y'all make daryl earn his paycheck so that that's really really good and the uh but you know just to recognize the program before they get started it's amazing this program at any given time there's over 200 correct me if I'm wrong there on the waiting list to get into this program the leaps and bounds If you haven't done it, go out there and just pay attention. Daryl will take you through to the shop anytime. It's an amazing accomplishment that they've made since I've been there. So, Ruby, you got the floor. Take it over.

Yes, sir. I'm Ruby Mason, both seniors. I know, like you said, we go Monday to Wednesday, 3.30, 7.30 after school. I know we both go there as much as we can. We both have jobs. We have worked as hard as we can. I can tell you my project's got blood, sweat, and tears up in that thing. like we have worked. I know we both have all three of the AWS certifications. He got all three in his first year. I got mine last year, junior. I was the first girl to get all three in one year. And I was doing ag mechanics as a backup. And then we were also doing skills for the first time, all-girl fab team. We got third place state. And I feel like we've put a lot of dedication into what we do. It's not just playing a sport, not to decredit anybody else who has also put effort into what they do, but we are actually working as hard as we can. And it's not just, you know, throwing a ball, hitting a bat, you know, we are working, you know, Florida heat ain't no joke.

That's a smart young man there. He shuds his mouth, let the woman talk. Mark Boyd, you'd be married forever, boy.

I reached out to one of our employees to help them maybe put together a little PowerPoint, because at that time, that was only going to be coming at this time. But Ruby took it upon herself to create a PowerPoint. And David, if you don't mind, would you play that for the... And this was all done by Ruby. Is that correct, Ruby?

Yes, sir.

That's right. Ruby, you want to read it or you want me to?

Yeah, that.

Okay. Ruby Chandler and Mason Newsom are both seniors at CHS. Ruby is a fourth-year welding student and Mason is a second-year student. Ruby is competing in the welding sculpture where she will represent the sculpture being interviewed and have on-site welding demonstrations. Mason will display and be judged for his skills with the on-site welding demonstrations and blueprint reading. Both currently have three AWS welding certifications. and I'm not gonna go through that makes him join skills USA to combine his passion and competing and welding Ruby is returning skills USA member after competing and welding fabrication team her junior year she chose sculpture for a change and advanced welding with the presentation both are excited and eager to represent Columbia County in the state Florida for nationals this June did you bring your project

has it got another page to it David yes sir I think it's about four or five somewhere in that range

and she went on and you know I'll go ahead and break the ice all these young groups they need assistance and we'll be jumping in here in a bit and have more discussion I'm sure we'll be able to come up with some support for but these to go to these national events they cost money there's no ifs ands or buts about it I'm glad that the CTE and the different programs that Ms. Coppock and where she goes there okay that they're uh she doesn't want me to make her speak tonight but the uh they they really work hard to they vocational education in columbia county has come a long ways and then here ruby is she i guess she thought she was going to have to really sell us but she brought this thing down really really good and uh the uh she got down to the dollar what it's going to cost them to go and the schools the system has paid for most of what the registrations what have you but Darryl how many days are y'all gonna be up there there's gonna be some time where you know you gotta you know how it is taking kids it's idle times bad times so we're gonna be doing whatever we got to do to support each and every one of these groups to go forth and to carry on and I got to teach Darryl Horne a little bit here. He was, his picture's right out there in a suit and tie in that wall there, but he was teacher of the year here. Darryl used to work for me a long time ago. He brought this, I couldn't talk sense into him. I told him to go get an education, but he's a welder now. But he's done a tremendous job with the kids. I was a little blown away about three years ago when my granddaughter first got into it and she kept calling thomas thomas i said who's this thomas guy and then she said that's her teacher i said y'all called mr thomas no it's thomas so nobody in the school called daryl daryl it's thomas kids and all so we appreciate what you've done there and uh ruby thank y'all thank you sir you don't talk very much but smart boy yeah he may make it but here's then of course i'm not going to go into the detail because i've talked to him a little bit as far as that but you guys the the The competitions that they have is one thing, but this year we formed or they formed a booster club there where now they can honestly sell some of this equipment. I mean, some of their doings at the and I know Everett's bought a bunch out there. But they have an auction each and every year, and I just encourage everybody to pay attention to it, come out and support the program because, unfortunately, the way the fundings are in the state of Florida and what have you, it's a very, very costly program to put on. And this raising this money goes a long way, and I'll assure you, none of it is put aside for play. The kids get something out of it. We really appreciate y'all's accomplishments. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Oakley. Where's Fort White at? There you go. Mr. Ford represents the Fort White area, and I asked him if he would handle this proclamation. And young man, if y'all would, make your way up to the podium. Mr. Oakley, you come up with him, please.

Yeah, you come up. So this is proclamation number 2026P-19. And while they're coming up, I just want to say, if I'm not mistaken, this is the second year y'all won this? Or not the same guys, but schools, Fort White schools won this. Y'all went last year to a competition.

We went to the International Science Fair.

California, right?

California.

Yeah. So obviously you've done a great job with these kids. You've taken some to the state schools. you know every year so we want to recognize you also doing a great job but let me read the proclamation real quick it's uh whereas two outstanding young men joseph demming and luke mckinney are attending fort white high school with a 4.0 grade point average and whereas the leadership of their mentor and advisor mr wayne ofke they teamed up and won locally regionally and statewide in the annual science fair And whereas Joseph Denning and Luke McKinney were invited to submit a research paper entitled, is AI more effective than automation in controlling a hydroponic system to qualify for a national competition. Whereas these students are selected to compete in the National Genius Olympiad competition at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York, June 8th through 13th, 2026. now therefore in consideration of the above the board of county commissioners of columbia county florida wishes to recognize joseph demming and luke mckinney on their outstanding achievements hard work preparation and dedication to the field of science in proclamation or and proclaim our support for their achievements hard work preparation and dedication to the field of science and proclaim our support for their representation of Columbia County at the next levels of competition. Unanimously passed and adopted at its regular meeting of the Board of County Commissioners of Columbia County, Florida on this 21st day of May, 2026. Attest Board of County Commissioners of Columbia County, Florida and Jay Swisher, Clerk of Courts and Tim Murphy, Chairman.

got a motion second got a second all in favor say aye aye all opposed okay yes all right good evening county commission i just want to say first my name is joseph demmon my name is luke mckinney i just want to say how honored we both feel to be here with y'all today and how much we appreciate the support y'all do and how much we support the idea that y'all giving us this proclamation for us this evening And like I said before, we are kids from Fort White High School, and this year for the science fair, our project was called, is AI more effective than hydroponics in controlling, than automation in controlling a hydroponic system?

Our project aims to test how AI and automation can control the oxygen levels in a hydroponic system, with the AI using an oxygen sensor to not only monitor but then translate that data into turning on an air pump to pump air into the hydroponic system, whereas with our automation system, it uses a 15-minute timer to turn on an air pump for one minute, effectively pumping air into the system, therefore with both systems resulting in plant growth.

For three years, we have participated in the Florida Science Fair, in which we have achieved efficiently in the local, regional, and state level of the Florida Science Fair. With our first year, with us winning fourth place in the state science fair, and in our second year, winning second in the state science fair, and with this year, at the regional level, we have been nominated and chosen to be a finalist in the Olympiad Science Fair, which is an international fair held in Rochester, New York on June 8th to June 13th. However, this trip is not cheap. We have estimated to have needed $2,600 with $1,200 for the registration fee alone for the event with another $1,200 for airfare and then $200 for miscellaneous items like gas and food.

We hope that you would consider funding our trip to state as we would love to represent Columbia County as a whole and also bring our project to the international view. And thank you for all that you've done.

bring them all up and I'm going to take care of these I've got one other proclamation here it's kind of unique normally you got somebody here but ironically enough our girls softball team we got we had a workshop earlier today we got everybody's phone started going off they They won the game, and they're headed to, they will be playing at 10 o'clock Saturday morning for the state title. And that was pretty neat. That's where my grandson is and several more. It's pretty neat. Miss, I've got something here. I've got a proclamation, and I'd like to start off by reading. I had Miss Shane Spivey Beatles ask me to read something just for the audience and what have you, and I'll start off with this. My name is Shane Spivey Beatles. I'm proud to serve as vice president of Columbia High School Diamond Club. I'm reaching out on behalf of our Columbia High School Lady Tigers softball team and coaching staff. Our Lady Tigers have put together an unbelievable season capturing district championships, regional championships, and currently holding an outstanding 27-3 record. Because of their hard work and dedication, they now have a credible opportunity to compete final four and potentially play for state championship on Saturday. The team traveled to Longwood, Florida yesterday to prepare for today's state semifinal game against Seminole High School. This is an exciting time for our program, schools, and community. While this opportunity is a tremendous honor, it also comes with a significant expense including travel, lodging, bills for our players and coaches. We respectfully ask that the Fleming support these young ladies on their journey towards state championship one thing that makes this accomplishment even more special that is that every player of this team is from Columbia County these young ladies represent our community with pride character and both on and off the field our community has already shown incredible support and we are so thankful for everyone who has rallied behind these ladies throughout the season. Thank you for your time, consideration, and continued support of the Columbia County students and athletics. We truly appreciate it. Go Lady Tigers, sincerely. And proclamation number 2026P-20, the proclamation of the Board of County Commissioners of Columbia County, Florida, honoring the Columbia High School softball team as the 2026 Regional and district champions, whereas the Columbia High School softball team has proven itself an elite on the field with a record of 27 wins against only three losses and winning 2026 regional district championships, whereas each player for the Columbia High School softball team has not only exhibited high degree of athleticism and skill, but has competed at all times with honor, dignity, grace, and wild on and off the field. whereas the accomplishments of the Columbia High School softball team serve to instill rightful sense of pride in each player, coach, parent, fan, and student body across Columbia County. And whereas, Columbia County Board of County Commissioners recognizes the important and unique contribution of each member of the 2026 Columbia High School softball team as they continue competition in pursuit of the state championship as outstanding athletes and role models for future generations of champions to follow them. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the Columbia County Board of Commissioners can be recognized and honors the accomplishments of each player for these 2026 high school softball team. Laura Van Beetles, Ava Christie, Anna Dansby, Emily Delgado, Marlee Hunt, Kinley King, Lauren Lee, Elena Lord, Josie Rawlinson, Addie Sherman, Riley Stone, Louisa Taylor, I hope, Imani Tubsell, Braylon Waringer, Brooklyn White. be it further proclaimed that the board of honors and recognizes each of these coaches and these champions athletes who have devoted themselves to help the players excel on and off the field joe saucer john sherman brandon beetles andy jolly jody rollerson and alexis butler duly adopted this 21st day may 2026 signed by jay swisher clerk of course tim murphy chairman of board of I think it's pretty obvious that these are definitely future leaders of the community and we've got and it's kind of unique you sit there and say well you know these little girls went down there they didn't know if they were coming home or not but I gotta quote somebody's words today and he's probably the tightest human being I know he went and watched his little girl wear a wooden snake down there and after he got through bragging on all the kids and girls and everything down there the first thing out of his mouth he said I dropped a thousand dollars in one day and so that kind of made my day so it goes to show you the expense of what it takes to send these kids off and what have you so would that be the I would like to go forth and simply say the drone team the welding team the Fort White science group The softball team here, this is added expense to each and every one. Today, Columbia Highways noted that they got to stay a whole nother day, so you can do the math. board and hope for support that i think we should give each and every one of these institutions a minimum of five thousand dollars to go towards their expense i'll second that i think it's uh i'll defend it any day in uh at charlie's restaurant i think this is money well well spent this investment in your future think about it chairman clubby county look at all what look at what our schools have accomplished that's right that's right that's saying a lot for clubby county right there in our in our in our school board and our school system that's right

So for clarity, the motion for the clerk, it's $5,000 per team.

Yes. We'll be giving, just for the record, we'll be giving the Softball Association, the drone team, the welding team, and the science team from White. And one thing I'd like to point out, I'm sorry, I do not know the young lady's name, but Columbia High School also has got a representative. They were unaware of this. different but we're also going to be represented by Columbia High School also and then I would say if the money is needed the lady that's Mr. Olski help me out what's the teacher's name that's going with Columbia High School Miss Ledford she's not here to represent I kind of dropped it on her at the last time but if needed I'd like to include in that motion or modify that motion to the fact that if they desire, they need the extra funding to be expended to Columbia High School. I'll second that. So all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, okay. And teammates, kids, come forward with your representative, Darrell, Mr. Jones. Help me out. Where's the, Mr. Olskey. Mr. Olskey. Of course, the softball girls are down there watching us. I'm getting texts already over here. They're pretty happy, it looks like. But anyway, it's all good. But if y'all would make your way to the stage, we'd like to get some pictures with you. okay so that completes the resolution so I appreciate everybody coming up support kids and grandkids and thank you Jason all we can really tell you checks in the mail

Yeah, that's what they did.

You can order.

I was gonna let it be on record.

okay columbia county 4-h scholarship appreciation so thank you commissioners for allowing me to come before you today i'm heather fudge i'm the county extension director and 4-h agent for right here in the county and just one thing i wanted to say in response to what you were just saying about all of these proclamations which is fantastic and thank you all for supporting all of those kids But I wanted you to realize we are the county department that you employ to train our future. So you guys are the reason why we get most of these kids or a lot of these kids even started in these programs. They start out with us at age five all the way to 18. They can stick around. A lot of them choose to go on other directions, other clubs. But we do have the younger ones. So we start out the future for everything. So Zoe's got some thank you. She's going to hand out. But just some things I wanted to call attention to. annually you guys actually approve a two thousand dollar scholarship line item whenever you approve the budget and we utilize that to be able to send you two different programs um so currently there's 975 dollars left in that line item and we're going to end up utilizing that for scholarships for our summer day camps so we have eight summer day camps this year um and i can call those out for you really quick we have poultry day camp little poultry pals for our cloverbud five to seven age group we have a so much fun day camp pajamas and popcorn our florida outdoor adventures our columbia county 4-h school of life skills for magical beings year one year two and year three so there are eight day camps that we are actually housing a potential of 115 youth all summer long so actually all of those day camps are full except for the three school of life skills ones we only have 14 I think is what I just calculated as of we'll say 540 a while ago whenever I checked we have 14 slots available is all for all of our summer day camps so it really has been going fantastic and I'll tell you more about some of the sponsorships and things so I can thank some folks in the county but I just wanted to thank y'all especially but one of the main thanks is the zoo apprenticeship camp so around december right during the december break we had a opportunity to send some youth to a 4-h apprenticeship zoo apprenticeship program and this money was able to cover them volunteering and spending time at bush gardens yes it's a fun environment but they also got to do actual activities see the behind the scenes learning experiences learn some leadership responsibility all of the teamwork all of the extra things so we were able to go through we had one scholarship and we did actually approve that one we had them fill out an application so it's not just hey you want to go we'll send you so we actually make them write a essay and show interest of what they're going to get out of it how they're going to benefit from that and this year zoe and i were able to select miss zariel fennesey zariel is 11 years old and she's a part of our cambridge 4-h group she'll be moving on to other 4-h groups next year but she's participated in quite a few things and been involved a lot more even after this zoo apprenticeship camp so i'm going to let her come up and she's going to tell you about her trip surprise me here begins the start to my life-changing experience

First, I want to talk about how I learned new facts about hippos. I learned that hippos eat more than 156 pounds of food a day. And if hippos are out of the water too long, they produce this red, oily sweat to cool them down. I also had the opportunity to go to a water performance featuring dolphins and orca whales. Here we went to a private learning experience where we asked and learned things about possums, like how they have about 20 babies per litter. Then we fed some unnative birds and flamingos, but we had to remember not to touch them. We made toys made out of newspapers to see who was the oldest elephant. She's 58 years old and her name is Simba. Lastly, I want to thank you for giving funds to 4-H and giving kids a once in a lifetime experience that they will cherish and never forget. I'm so blessed to have been given this opportunity. I thank you guys sincerely. Thank you.

Just want to give her an opportunity to come up here and thank you herself because she was super excited. She's come and spoke before our advisory meeting and practiced that some. She actually had a whole board, display board that stayed in our office for several months. And whenever we asked her to do a PowerPoint, she said, yeah, I could put that together, no problem. So we were able to incorporate that into the slideshow. So we were super proud of that. Some other things I wanted to highlight about extension and our summer programming, because this all feeds into it. So in the actual budget that we get with county extension, we get $900 per programmatic area. And so that's not a whole lot to run the 4-H program, right? So whenever it comes down to it, we have to do a lot of asking and begging and pleading. just so you're aware. So we have the 4-H Association. And whenever you hear me say we have the mayor's matching grant or any of the things that we've we've accomplished, that's through our 4-H Association, which falls up under the Florida 4-H Association. So we have tax exempt status. So with that, we have actually achieved getting $5,000 in monetary donations from several different entities in the county. And just wanted to make sure it was on the recording to thank those entities. So Odom, Moses & Company, Public Supermarket Charities, AgriLiquid, Liquid Cares, they just notified me yesterday of our award. New Millennium, the building company in town, they were given money. First Federal Bank of Florida gave money. Anonymous community members wrote a check and said, here you go. We want to make sure we're sponsoring kids. And then we've also had some in-kind donations from entities like Chick-fil-A and Tractor Supply in the area. So it's something we work really hard for. We've already awarded out $3,600 in scholarships, and we've still got another $2,000 that we're going to give out to youth in the community, and that's going to be including the money that is left in the line item for scholarships that you guys provide. So we definitely wanted to thank you and say yay, and let's keep helping the future. Thank y'all.

While Mayor Proe is on the way up, I want to recognize Ms. Coppock and Ms. Arline. Ms. Coppock serves on our Economic Development Board, and Ms. Arline, she's... But thank y'all for what y'all do with this location. This right here is a good representation of y'all's efforts. Thank you. Yes, sir.

All right. Good afternoon. First, thank you, Council Chairman Murphy and the Council members of Columbia County. So I want to take a few moments to share some updates. First things first, we are in National EMS Week. So those who aren't aware, this is a week where we recognize our EMS personnel, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, and thank them for the great jobs that they're doing. Day after day and call after call, they answer and they make sure our communities are protected and safe. So thank you to them. To give you some quick highlights on where we stand, AmeriPro staffing is currently 80%, 88%, 100% on EMTs. We are still looking for five paramedics. We do have two in a pipeline right now that are set for orientation on June 1st. From there, we will backfill any vacancies as we go through our supervisor selection process. So those will be in the next couple of weeks. I will talk about our response time compliance. It is improving month over month. Our highest point has been 75% in the week of May 4th. With no exception requests, I might add. So we have not asked for any exceptions for inclement weather, traffic, level zero processes, or hold times at the hospital. This actually surpasses the trend line from your previous provider, which was trending downward and was at 71% from beginning of year till end of contract. We're awaiting signed property leases that will spread our resources further across the county and improve our response times. We've provided automated CPR devices and video laryngoscopes. Those are deployed across the entire county. New trucks have arrived and are being wrapped and outfitted as we speak. Ameripro and the Columbia County Sheriff's Office are progressing with a CAD to CAD interface. and our physical computers are with the county with SmartCop being added onto those systems. That gives us an end of ramp period of the next couple of weeks where we're expecting to have full staffing and be ready to go. And that's kind of where we sit now. Any questions at all?

Yeah, I got one. We had a guy in here that told us that if he had to, he'd pull nine ambulances from somewhere else if he had to get... Y'all tell me if I'm wrong now. I don't remember how many, but he said a lot. If we have a problem getting the five ambulances. I remember when we first did it, he said he was going to get it to five immediately. Then it went to three, and then it went along there, and now it's still not to five. And we gave him some room because of the three because he wasn't in the 60-day period. Now we're out of the 60-day period, and we've still got three and a half.

Is that one of the right numbers? Three and a half.

sometimes so I am severely disappointed in whoever that fella was because he told us and I know Ameripro is a big company you know and I know you are successful but I don't know how when we're saying 80% and when he said we'll pull them from somewhere else if we have to well you have to now in my opinion i i'm not being a smart mouth i'm going by what y'all told us so i had a person call me today that it took forever to come get a child and mr ford did too and it was a special needs child that had an issue with a with um in other words i'm not going to go all the way into it but y'all got to do better you know what i mean and and we're fixing to try to help him do better by doing what we're trying to do but we're six months out so are there going to be five ambulances ever in our county absolutely can you tell me what when maybe okay so again the contract that was signed as a mutual agreement between ameripro and the county

provided a ramp period with the expectation that the previous provider was going to provide services for the entirety of that commitment or that ramp period, which did not happen, right? So we have ramped up as expected. We will have five, and it's actually gonna be five and a half trucks for you. We will have those five and a half trucks as those people go through their onboarding process, right? But as we sit today, We're actually staffing four to four and a half trucks a day. And last week I believe we had five trucks on at one time. So it's not three and a half, it's not two and a half, it's not one and a half.

I'm just going on what we heard.

I don't know. Okay, I understand. So I want to provide those facts to you. So we are doing everything possible along with providing sign-on bonuses that are higher than any other market. tuition reimbursements, EMS schooling, everything we can do to make sure that your area is bolstered with EMTs and paramedics, that it's sustainable for the future. However, there is a ramp period built into the contract. And for the expectation that we have five trucks from day one with zero staffing is far outside of what any of us can control.

what we told at this meeting that we had over here at the uh that they could ramp up immediately starting tomorrow they could have a little piece of gear yeah and look tom and i talked about that last week it was it was larry you know and he was saying that he could bring trucks in he said in fact i've got trucks on order you know we heard the whole thing um and it's based on this Now, I do want to talk about that contract compliance issue because there is also some misunderstanding and disagreement on that. Columbia EMS was given 90 days to phase out, but that did not necessarily affect the Ameripro contract. So they're not the same, right? So we had Columbia EMS fade now. We naturally assumed, correctly I think, that a lot of the Columbia EMS people would leave to go to Ameripro, right? What we've dealt with, and we knew we were going to deal with this, and in the fair nobody said this was not true the staffing transition is the big issue right exactly as uh as gentlemen said you could have 100 trucks if you don't have one paramedic to put on it doesn't matter so but that doesn't change the fact tom's told me that they're going to get the trucks here the trucks will be physically present in the market what we've had is a bad situation where we were running bls units full time I do know, and I think Lance has verified, AmeriPro hasn't run a single BLS unit in response to one of our calls. They've run 100% ALS. That was actually the number one issue we had. The response time was a problem, but when you're responding with a unit that can't actually take care of the person they're going to see, that's an even bigger problem. So AmeriPro crossed that Rubicon immediately. They've not run a single BLS unit when they should have run an ALS. But we do acknowledge, and Tom came down from New Hampshire and sat with us last week. and said they acknowledge there's issues right the issue that we have as a county is from a public safety perspective we've got to get this work in the right direction and that's why these gentlemen are here today so they can tell us what they're doing to get us in the right direction but i say all that without turn absolutely we were told the trucks could be here we were told if we needed 10 trucks they could get 10 trucks here and it wasn't these guys who said that right it was it was it was upper management

we were also told if there was a staffing issue they could they would bring people out to jacksonville or contract jacksonville i do i asked them specifically because davis told me that and i asked them specifically at that meeting and they said yes we will bring people out of jacksonville and command these trucks and be happy so to say the least i was very disappointed i mean this ain't personal this is old ladies and old men and

old women and young boys calling us saying it took them this long to get here and we didn't know what to do. Some of them had taken them themselves. I've had a couple people just took them to the hospital themselves. It's one thing to mess up on cutting wood products or building a desk for us, but Y'all are in that business. Y'all know how important it is. And, and I feel like when you say, when you put it on the other company and said, well, they, well, y'all did exactly. Y'all had less than you during your ramp up period. You never had five. So you, you stood by that. I mean, even, even if they were helping you, I don't think it would have made any difference, but we're told they didn't need a wrap up. Well, they said they'd have five during the ramp up period. I remember that, but, but neither here nor there. Y'all have done, in my opinion, nothing that you said you were I'm not mad at you. But you don't get the calls I get. You don't get the calls from mothers and grandmothers and older folks that are sick and little children that got sick. It's not easy, man, to take that call. It's tough. And I see it as my fault, really, because we hired you. So it's serious to us. So please, please do whatever you can with Tom or whoever. Somebody that will tell us or do what they say they're going to do. That's all I'm worried about.

And what was the date you just gave us? Y'all be fully, how many, two weeks, you said, I think?

Two weeks.

You have five trucks. Two weeks.

Two weeks.

Two weeks. Two weeks, okay, two weeks, five. Okay, is that what you said, Mr. Fuller? I don't understand.

Two weeks, they have five trucks.

Okay.

So how many other areas are you guys present in, like other counties or other states, whichever, how many other areas?

Ten states total, counties, four of us.

Has this happened to any other states?

um difficulty finding staff or having ramp up periods that no it's happened before with the first time like as as what i'm getting at is has this happened before to where you guys haven't lived up to the promise that was stated first let me say this the promise of providing ems services at an als standard is being lived up to okay we are providing services at the clip of 35 or so calls a day Right, that is happening, right? The amount of trucks is being ramped up, so we are providing EMS services. However, it is not at the rate in which the county expects or demands, and I acknowledge that. Right, that's what I'm getting at. Right, so to ask if there's other areas where this has happened before.

Has this scenario happened anywhere else?

With staffing challenges, absolutely. Across the entire country.

for every organization whether whether it's us or any other private or or public sector this happens either either way our constituents here in clement county we deserve they deserve what we voted for what we hired you guys for right now we're not quite receiving that because we don't have the five trucks and we're outside of the ramp up period if if it wasn't if it could have been provided then it should have never been agreed upon or whatever you what we said at the first meeting that should never happen if we said hey we can't provide that and i shouldn't have stated right out front we're not getting what we're paying for right now so we're in a bind and our constituents deserve better so we have to do better i understand and we're working towards that joe i got a question for you were they interpreted the contract different than we interpreted it because 60 days was that right month period right

So the misunderstanding was that when we gave Columbia EMS the 90 days, that somehow that affected their contract. And Tom and I had this conversation. I understand why he thought that, but I walked into, it's not, right? It was 60 days. Now, gentlemen, I want to reiterate, we have improved things significantly from where we are. I think maybe there's not an understanding of how bad things were. You were sending ambulances for a period of time that did not have a paramedic on them, 100% of the time. They are 100% of the time sending paramedics. That's where we've had the big gap. Getting those up to AL. That's where we have the staffing challenges, right? You heard them say there are 100% except they're not 100% on paramedics. Those are harder people to hire right now. What Commissioner Murphy heard that Alachua County is getting poached by Ocala, right? They're coming in poaching out there. There are paramedic MSs. There are not enough of these guys. That's what we talked about in the workshop. it wouldn't matter who the vendor was if you can't find bodies to go on the ambulances that's been the challenge and tom had a very frank conversation with us that's that's been the challenge right whether you have the trucks or not you don't have the personnel and even as they sit here now two more weeks before you have enough people because you got to staff that truck 24 7. right it's not it's a lot more than just five trucks worth of people it's 24 hours a day or so it's a it's it's it's legitimate it's demonstrable no There was a misunderstanding on their part of the contract. I don't think there is anymore. We're still kind of in the position

they haven't been able to get the people in so they pulled anybody from Jacksonville I don't think any of that has occurred I mean we were told if y'all had a staffing issue y'all have plenty of people in Jacksonville y'all would bring some of them over here and ban trucks so y'all would hire those people so some some have come from Jacksonville I'll clarify that some have come from Jacksonville all right and also keep in mind that when the contract was signed we stood up a truck in 12 hours okay so so we made a commitment

With no staffing in place, we pulled resources from other areas to make sure that happened. So we have pulled people. And we're working, again, towards getting the staffing that you need.

I don't think the contract is whatever it is it is what it is but when a man sits right there and I believe this is what he said and says if I have to pull nine over here to do the job I will is that something something nine or ten or ten something so I would caution that the contracts the contract but there was no misunderstanding when he looked in our eyes and said that so to me that meant we're done there is no problem We will have it. Doesn't matter what happens, who does what, what the contract says even. When the man that's in charge says that, you believe him, but I don't anymore. That's the end of it. I'm not going to say anything else about it, but because it is what it is, and obviously what he told us was not true. Joe, I have one more question.

Is this stipulate five trucks, or is it stipulate they'll meet this time?

it's both we hybridized it so if you remember the old century deal was you had this many trucks and then we figured out and then we went to where we we got rid of the means and methods and we said we don't care how many trucks you have as long as you hit these times This last contract, when we revisited it, we hybridized that. So there's a certain number of trucks that are supposed to be in the market for certain periods of time, 5, 24, 7, 1, 12 by 7, right? So that's how many are supposed to be in the market, and they're supposed to be staffed. In addition, you have a paramedic supervisor, right, who's supposed to be on staff. So we had minimum staffing levels. They're not at those minimum staffing levels. Nobody's saying they are at those staffing levels. The metrics for time consideration will kick in, I want to say in July. Is that right? So when you talk about the ramp up, there was the staffing and bringing the trucks into the market. That requires getting their systems online and all that stuff. Then after that was ramped up, you had an additional ramp up period to get the times right. We all understood that was going to take a little while, right? It's like being a brand new employee. They've got to learn some things about the market before they get going. There have been hiccups again that's why they're here to tell you directly what their hiccups have been um i want to remind the board we don't have a lot of alternatives here right we i think we're exploring the right solutions in terms of giving ourselves options in the future but as we sit here in 2026 the next lowest bidder after our friends with ameripro was about double their bid well i'm just saying we might have done different if we had had accurate information from this company

We've been ramping for a while, but we haven't gotten there yet. I mean, that's one hell of a ramp up. I think the promise was five trucks in four hours. It's been 85 days.

You know, here's the thing. We couldn't negotiate with Club EMS to keep some trucks on for a certain amount of time. or something different, you know what I'm saying?

Well, so I want to address that because that's what I was just talking about. Once you let that contractor know they're going away, that is what we did. The problem is their paramedic EMTs go where there's jobs. So that's what happened to Columbia EMS. They can't run EMS response because their paramedic EMTs aren't there anymore. So you have the exact same problems, a finite number of people that can be on those trucks. They're going to work for whoever the contractor is. That's these guys right now. So they're transitioning them over. What do you call onboarding? Onboarding those people. It's just taking more time than anticipated. Now, the concern that we have on a staff level is the same concern the board has, which is just the safety of the constituents and whether or not they're getting picked up and taken to the hospital the way they should. That's where we've got to get the gap closed here.

What seems to be the problem with getting bodies to put in these applications?

A lack of that certification level in the area. So you can go through EMT school roughly three months. Paramedic school takes anywhere from seven to 16 months. A lot of people aren't dedicated to that. Those that are, they're, you know, go to the highest bidder a lot of times so we're fighting with you know regional areas other counties you know even other privates for those same resources now we've done very well to to raise our our pay rates i think we're leading the market in those areas and we've gathered a lot of people from there At the time, we're currently offering extended sign-on bonuses. We're offering relocation. So we've made extravagant efforts to try to get those people in. And again, they are coming. It's a process of getting them from the time where they do a first interview to the training rides the orientation getting them ready to actually take care of a patient on the road uh it takes anywhere from three weeks to a month to to get that process done so even with the ones that we have hired on you know i could say i could sit here and tell you i've hired every single one of them it doesn't mean the hour is going to go up until they are certified and ready to go inside that truck now that's a safety thing for everybody involved okay i don't want to put somebody onto the road that doesn't know our systems doesn't know our our medications doesn't know our our equipment that's not safe to anybody so there is a process to that okay now we've got those people hired they're in training phases now okay and again within about two weeks they're going to be cleared and they'll see active hours on the road in trucks to get you to your staffing level so you put enough dollar bills in front of man's eyes and he's got the ability to come do what you say

would come help you right yes sir so but at the end of the day where your shoot is I just want to make sure I'm clear because we got summer months coming up which I know in y'all's world is a very busy time of the year a lot of travel you know what whatever but my point so when can we fully expect five 24 hour 112 and then the 12 uh I call them a floating superbike

mean theoretically one month two months so you like i understand yeah you'll have your field level yeah you'll have your field level staffing at five trucks uh within two weeks okay the supervisors will be filled in after that i'm not pulling them off the road until we have someone to backfill those positions i don't want your unit hours to go downward to put the supervisor in place i've got an area supervisor okay So what's more important is getting those transports done, getting those patients moved as appropriate versus having somebody to oversee, you know, a certain portion of that ship.

Could we expect, I mean, I'll just assume I'm there. I don't even think I ever wrote on that one. But my point is that knowing that the busy season is right around the corner, you know, and you see the numbers working with Lance, we see the numbers increasing. can we at least expect y'all to attempt to bring people out of Duval or wherever your other, you know, because, I mean, it's, because that's the cause that all five of us get. You know, it's, we never hear about the good, it's always the bad. But again, I heard you say early on, y'all do offer this program of paying for the people's EMT schools, stuff like that. Is that one of them? We do.

Yeah, we do a tuition reimbursement program, $5,000 a year towards any program that they choose as long as it's related to that EMS. So if they want to go through EMT, they want to go through paramedic critical care, we'll pay for that. We also are fostering an internal EMS program so we can grow our own EMTs and paramedics over time.

Okay so I guess what I'm saying to that is irrelevant so I mean I know Lance and Jeff's going to be working on some situations like that and I would hope that collaboratively y'all could work together and hopefully we get our targets uh whatever our plans are because we we got to do it too you know I just feel like if we're working against each other it's going to kill both of us so hopefully together in the very very near future like tomorrow morning at eight o'clock That's what I haven't, honestly, I haven't had no complaints myself. I know they're out there, but these summer months really, really, really concern me. They really do.

Go ahead, Robbie. Okay, when you said you were short five medics, you can still be ready in two weeks, even though you're short five medics.

We'll be ready.

all right so we can get five minutes and let me ask you this so the full contract is five oh you're in training okay the full contract is five and a half trucks one 12-hour truck will it be here too uh if i can have three weeks to get that one ready we'll have that one so that i've got i've got two yeah i've got so in two weeks we'll have the five trucks and three we'll have the five and a half how long does it take for us to assess whether they have the five i just want to make sure we're He seems like he's telling me the truth. I want to know, is there a way for y'all to tell that all those are wrong? Okay, so I'd like y'all to come back in, what's the next week, two weeks? In two weeks and tell us that everything's perfect. Don't lie and say everything's perfect. I can't. So I appreciate y'all and, you know, we got to do what we got to do, but please let's do what we say we're going to do and then we won't we won't expect you know we expected more than i and it wasn't you that made the promise you know what i mean or as it said it so yeah so it's not personal you're here in front of us right now at the end of the day it's a partnership it truly is we're working to make sure that this is right okay we want to do if you can get it y'all heard it just just you know let us know if something's not going right and if You know, we just try to do as good as we can, I guess.

So, if you will, do us a favor. Your criteria that you do for reimbursement, all your schooling criteria and what you need, if you'll email that to the board so maybe we can share it, get it out to the community even more so we can get you guys people you need. If we have to try to help you try to get some employees, we'll put it out. We'll put it out on our PI. I'll put it out there. My Facebook page is wide open. I'll throw it out there and we'll see what we can get. Fantastic. If we can help you with it, that's not a problem because we've got to fill that order in. Be better for our constituents. Give us the whole nine yards about it. I'll share it, make it look real good, and we'll put it out there and hopefully get somebody calling you guys to get hired to get these positions filled because our constituents deserve way better than what we're doing right now.

I've got to ask one other question real quick. If another paramedic from another market that works somewhere else, we understand they work them schedules on and off and on and off. are y'all going to entertain working paramedics as backup so to speak i don't know if that's the right word but as part-time help we do we are part-time full-time paramedics yes sir okay okay i was asked that by a gentleman of a neighboring county and i told him y'all call them not me anyway i did i just remembered that just sitting here thinking about it okay okay all right any other questions thank you good all right I just I'm just gonna see what happens in due week all right make a motion we approve the consent agenda second got a motion and a second all in favor say aye aye motion to adopt second got a second all in favor say aye aye okay Mr. Thornton

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As is our practice, whenever we know we have an ordinance that's going to come for adoption hearing, we'd like to give you as much heads up as we can. As was discussed at the workshop earlier today, the Municipal Service Taxing Unit for law enforcement is finally coming to the fore, as well as one for EMS services. In order for those to be available for the 2026-27 budget cycle, they have to be adopted no later than July 1st. therefore we're asking to have an adoption hearing set for june 18th i want to reiterate as we did in the workshop you will not be obligated to adopt those ordinances if something should happen between now and then this is just to get it on the calendar so we can get proper notices so i'm asking for a motion to set adoption hearings for both ordinances you said june 18th june 18th right yes it's the last meeting in june

Yeah, I don't know what Rocky was. For some reason or another, I thought that was a weak fact, but it's not. I don't need to go.

Okay. Yeah.

Oh, I don't. Yeah. I don't see nothing. I mean, there's a meeting that day. It's during the regular meeting. During the regular meeting. Yeah, we're not going to do anything else. Is there a workshop that day too, right? Yeah.

we'll get together figure about how much time we think we need for the workshop that's at the start time okay real fast we'll need to adopt that correct joel yes sir i need a motion motion to adopt

second got a motion and a second any discussion all in favor say aye aye all in favor thank you chair yes sir at the workshop we discussed maybe given um mr crawford chief crawford and chief hill out there the permission to order trucks or go to h.o do we need to do that now or we're doing it at the end so we're not buying trucks yet we're trying to get the money to buy the trucks right do we need to tell them to do that right now or do we need to do that at the end i think we did just give them direction to go ahead and do that you understood to go forth didn't you

to the hospital authority okay yeah actually here on site within in four to five months so he what he's asking is can we go ahead and notify the vendor that we want these trucks

we don't know all the numbers so we went down the path today let's do our due diligence to make sure we're here but i don't want to commit to 800 000 worth of trucks that's in the garage i just talked to dale a while ago about this situation and he said he was he was good with it but he said you need to lobby the board because they're the ones going to make that decision but that's the hospital authority but i think could we get staff to go talk to them yes sir and then let them know in two weeks this or once we get some people they can't but i i think it would be a good idea i think it'd be a good idea for us to send forth the ask and you know if

Chief Crawford has already prepared a letter to send to the hospital authority. We just didn't want to send it until the board knew what we were doing.

and i want he's already prepared to commissioner parnell's point i mean i any other time i would be like absolutely but we can't legally incur that obligation without a budgeted appropriation to pay for it yeah it's a hyper technical thing but i would say if we get a commitment from the hospital authority for the funds then we'll do the budget

we could move it very quickly if we can get it for the funds okay so the hospital authority will meet i think the second monday of the month i think their meeting is the second monday so their approval would be the second monday of the month we could then come back that following thursday the 18th let's do that with the decision yeah let's do that that work for you that worked yes sir so i cleared it up sorry guys jim are you okay with that yeah absolutely yeah yeah yeah that

I don't want to do that I just want to make sure that he had a direction to do what he needed to do before we got beyond too far you gave me my hearings I think we're ready good evening mr. chairman members of the board first one is real simple out of the traffic operations division hit a certain level to work on the cabins and whatnot requires a lot of certifications we had a guy leave us at a middle level we've had a hard time replacing it so basically what this motion does is it simplifies an entry level position so we maybe bring somebody in train them ourselves and fill that next position so recommend a motion to approve traffic setting take one position second Having trouble, Dave? There you go. Okay, the next one. We have to remove two current towers that are no longer useful to us. April 16th to 26th, the board approved staff to negotiate with Globe Net Telecommunications LLC. The scope includes providing professional services for the dismantling and decommissioning communication structure of two old sites, Kilmore Hill and Geo Tower. award agreement RFP 2026F to Globinet Telecommunications for the amount of $232,660.

i'm up here to talk about the burn ban real quick this might be a little bit of a surprise to some of you but we've we've talked with forestry a good bit here in the last few days there they have started issuing permits again for piles or for industrial or for commercial stuff and all we've we've kind of come to a consensus and all that we're going with with the showers that we've gotten and a few afternoon showers and the forecast of rain that we're getting in the next couple weeks tonight we're going to go ahead and ask that you remove the burn ban if we don't get the rains and all we may have to put it back on in two weeks but we're going to ask tonight that you lift the burn ban and we'll go forward with that for now

I've had quite a few calls because they read in the paper that Suwannee County dropped their bird ban. Are we still under bird ban? They just did it quicker than us. Yeah, exactly.

I've got a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye.

That is good news.

Does that mean they can buy fireworks too?

In the county, we could approve a permit at this point. We have no control over in the city. So that'll be up to the city. But it means Kimmy will be happy because we can now do the 4th of July, assuming we don't reinstall. Yeah, I mean, they have to get permits and approvals and everything. Absolutely. Because you just can't just do that without permits. So, first one is RFQ 2026H, Grant Administration and Writing Services. As you know, we occasionally do grants. And as such, we get people to write grants, and then we also hire people to help us administer grants. Some of the grants, like the CDBG grants, the HMGP grants, some of those are very complicated, not able to be administered in-house, especially when you're talking about having to go out and inspect houses, watch the construction of the houses, write scopes of work on the rehabilitation of the houses. So we want to be able to have firms available to us to use If there's a grant that the board approves us pursuing, we can call them up and have them do it. So we had received 10 responses, eight of which were deemed responsible and responsive. And you can see the eight that we got. Staff is recommending the board approve negotiations with the top three ranked firms, which is Kimley Horn, Ovid Solutions, and GrantWorks.

So moved. Second. David, out of the first three ranked,

They have worked us for engineering projects. They're doing the rehab or the redoing and the upgrading of the LDRs. So they've done a lot of work for us, but they've not done grant writing and administration. Ovid Solutions is a firm that's well-known around the state. I don't know anything about grant works.

The only one I'm familiar with on the whole list.

the next one is very similar but it's related specifically to the cdbg housing grant that you recently received for 1.2 million dollars this would be to take the top ranked firm and uh allow us to uh i think this is to approve the contract with this firm so we can begin the housing project coming up and this top firm is public consulting group you approved the ranking i think at the last meeting so this is the actual we negotiated and this is the attached contract and again this firm is not one that we have worked with previously but the Grant Selection Committee felt that this was the best firm to move forward with. So the next one is BAA 2635, Oral Spring Grant Agreement. This is on your agenda because of the dollar amount. This is basically the 911 grant we get every year, and we're asking you to approve the BAA so that we can create the budget.

Motion approved. Second. Motion to second. All in favor say aye. Aye.

And then finally, this is a discussion for the board. You had a couple of conversations about changing the code of ethics. One of the commissioners wanted to go ahead and discuss if you want to change the code of ethics, whether to move forward or not.

Oh, did I? Sorry.

guess I didn't have a slide for that one I missed that one sorry I apologize so the spring grant rule acceptance and budget amendment there was a slide I don't know what happened to it but anyway in your packet you have two copies of the contract one is highlighted what our responsibilities are and the other one is just a clean copy we're fighting with each other up here so Anyway, basically, you approved the notice of inclusion. They did it. Now they want to go ahead and do it. If you remember, there were like six houses that they were looking at to do different things. Only one of them was an acquisition and demolition. So this is specifically related to the one house that was an acquisition and demolition kind of off of up Church Road. Um, basically, um, as I said, it defines our roles. The state is handling this grant. This is a state program, not a County program. They will pay all the costs of the acquisition. They want us to assume the maintenance. They also want us to ensure that there will be no construction on the property. They want us to ensure that we notify the adjacent property owners. We can only sell this property to another public entity or like the Trust for Public Lands or something like that. We can't sell it to private individuals. We have to report to FEMA every three years. We agree that there will be no additional disaster funds ever applied for for this property. So if it floods again, you're not applying for any assistance to help it. Of course, you're not building anything on it, so the whole point is so this land can flood. And then finally, we have to allow FEMA onto the property so they can do their due diligence as well. We're asking you to approve this agreement with the state of Florida for Elevate Florida for that one property.

Motion to approve. Second.

That's what we just voted on.

Not the DEN. Did we vote on the one before, though, that we skipped?

This is the one we skipped.

He skipped number eight.

I'm sorry, the rural spring agreement. Yeah, the rural spring, see, it's popping.

I don't know why. Yeah, we've already voted on this one. David will leave the toy alone over there. The kids play with the toy. That's the problem. I'll tell you, we've already voted on number seven.

This is the one we skipped.

Oh, this is the one I skipped.

This is the one we skipped. These all sound very similar, but this is the one we stick.

We approve rural spring grant? Yes.

You approve the rural spring grant. You did not approve this grant agreement.

Okay. You're moving it too fast. If you're ever in doubt, look left and watch your head. She's over at the bottom like that. Yeah, okay.

This is why we need our own technology and our own meeting space. Just a pitch.

Okay.

So we need a vote and a motion and a vote on this.

Move to approve. Second.

So now we get to the board discussing amendments to the code of ethics.

I think what I would like to do is just have staff look at it and see if there's anything that, you know, I haven't seen the code of ethics. I was pretty sad that I hadn't read the code of ethics. You know, I think that staff, I mean, it needs

is if i recall the charter review they were asked i was thinking about it but as robin said

You know what I mean? So I think it's a time to – I think we owe it to ourself for somebody in staff. Stas is a probably good one because they don't happen to tell us he's got plenty of time to do this. So I think he needs to go back and review the minutes of the review and understand it a little bit more. You know, bring back a thorough – because there's some questionable things in there that I found.

so commissioner murphy's right the charter review committee the last time you went through the charter review put in the things that you voted to have to have a code of ethics and they said to start with this is the code of ethics we want you to use but you have the ability to amend it probably got it from another And there are things you can do to make it better. We talked about in staff with Joel defining what makes somebody a candidate, rather than having this Board of Supervisors of Elections having one statute and the resigned to run having a different standard. Define the standard. Just put it right there in the Code of Ethics. Make it stronger and clearer on what it is your intentions are.

When the legislature makes laws about running for office, they're always Got two options. Anything that has to do with running the election. Always two options. They always counterproduct on each other. It's just a fact of life.

So it just depends on where in the law you look that definition exists. I'll defer to Joel at this point.

Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at a statute, you always have a definition section. That's what this definitely lacked, right? So when, you know, what is a candidate? There's a dozen different definitions I can show you if you want to give me enough time to dig it up. you can define that though like when you do your own legislation for purposes of our legislation this is what it means you can also as commissioner hogsworth indicated you can wipe the rule out entirely like it does not have to be anything that you can get four votes for you can add remove change i would recommend if if this provision relating to candidacy stays definitely sharpen the pencil right either say fhp If you so much as say, I think I'm running for office, they say, well, that's very good, but you don't work here anymore. Like it's that quick. The resign to run rule says that you can rock along in your job all the way up until the date of qualification. The subordinate elected officer rule says you shall take an unpaid leave of absence. You could actually have a provision in your ethics code that says the county manager shall grant an unpaid leave of absence and take it out of the process that we had to go through. There's a bunch of different ways to skin this cat up to and including just taking it out entirely. It's a legislative decision that you guys can make. I do think, I apologize. so so a staff review has been on the books for what seven or eight years or five or six years absolutely once things get used it's called the law of unintended consequences and a statute gets passed there's always something that goes sideways it's important as legislators to circle back and say why did that not work it's a good time to do a post-mortem so let's look at that we can look at every other provision most of what's in there guys is out of chapter 112 florida statutes and just localizes it so we can look at that too but the key is you can't do this tonight we just need discussion and direction so we can bring it back just need y'all to look at it so we would have to come back with the written

ordinance this is what we want we have to treat it except you have to enforce folks state's got a code i don't even know why we have a code we've got a code

so what does the state say is there a state rule you have this code of ethics because the charter review committee rule because they have two answers that are completely like so i think maybe we go by we get a code ethics for those large things like that like the that i mean we can go by the state we can copy the state's code of ethics and go with it but with this i don't know it hopefully is a copy of the state code it is so i can answer the question while it's there

uh the charter review commission wanted a local enforcement mechanism they didn't want to wait on tallahassee that was absolutely i remember them all sitting on that stage covid and everything going on that was the issue yeah yeah if we had a local code with local enforcement and that's why it works and it's got a three strikes thing like nobody calls tallahassee unless it goes through three runs

there's all that stuff was but a lot of it is just 112. right it's just brought right down to the left and and all of it just copy and paste a lot of it is very much just right it reads the thing but the problem with the one that i had an issue with the election thing just because i don't think it's fair and it is what it is it didn't define anything it just says you can't run And that's really not true with DOT. It's not true with many agencies. So I don't know how the state says you can't run, but DOT says you can. So I think we need a better one because I think it reflects that. I mean, I don't think it should say what it says. I'd like to change that. If somebody doesn't want to change this, I'm one person.

so if can i make a suggestion mr chair you guys look through that code of ethics if there's any part of it that you say look at that one look at that one right give me a list of ones you want to look at i'll go through and give you three or four different alternatives from taking it out to this is how you might change it to improve it and i'll circle back to the commissioner that asked me about it these things need to come from you right like where you want to go needs to come from you guys they're legislative decisions you tell me you're not happy with the way this one works i'll show you three or four different options to change it you pick the one you like and you can present it only problems i would have with any of it if you've got somebody in a supervisor position that has a budget has control of a budget that they're working they

They can spend money out of it. That could be a problem.

So at the end of the day, I think Joel's right. Tell them what you want us to look at. We can assemble the options. It has to come back to this board for approval no matter what. It has to be four people that approve it.

So we have to give you options. They don't have a budget. They don't.

And I don't know if you can specifically change it. I think you might have to do it just forever. Leave absence, whatever. I think so. Maybe you can.

But again, we can put together all the options, and then this board can choose which options you want to adopt.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So I have a question it might just be I don't know ignorance or lack of understanding but what's the difference in the five of us we all work for the county now we're all going to run again more than likely or there's two of us running right now and we're not going to miss a day of work We control the budget for the whole county, and we're going to run. We're going to not miss a day of work. We're going to do all the things. What's the difference? We can't interfere with day-to-day activities.

Well, we can't, but I can ask for something to be done. I can send an email, help this man, which is totally legal, send an email, say, this guy has a problem with his driver's driveway.

So here's the easiest.

I see what you're saying. Here's the easiest way. We're doing not favors. We're doing our job. So you could say, well, that's our job. You know what I mean? So I just don't look. Yeah, it needs to be discussed. It needs to be figured out.

So here's a very easy way to look at it. Your job as a commissioner, and Joel and I have had this conversation, is to set policy and direction. My job as the manager is to carry out your policy and direction. So if you, let's take a simple thing like you were talking about roads and potholes. If you call, you have the rights every citizen has to call in a road and a pothole labor. You call it in, public works department puts it as a work order, It gets assigned, and the work order gets carried out. That's fine. That's different than you going out to the crew and saying, hey, Blake, I want you to do this for me. That's really the easiest way to describe it.

Do you have a better way to say it, Joel?

We'll figure it out.

That's it. Thank you very much.

So my name is Amanda.

I'm a local business owner here in Columbia County.

I'm nervous, sorry. I'm complaining on some officers. We were treated very terrible. On November the 14th, I went to an incident where my younger son was in a wreck. And as we all get a three-car pileup, as we all go to leave the scene, these officers all of a sudden just, I guess they woke up on the wrong side of the bed the day. And as soon as we went to leave, Next thing I know, I'm standing out the window just telling my son, get back out of the truck. I'm slammed in the middle of 90, drug out in the road. I have pictures and videos to prove everything. My older son was slammed on the ground. He was called a stupid MF or a dumb ass and everything else. Once I got up out the road walking off like they told me to, I was thrown in cuffs. Me and both of my kids were yelling that this arm cannot be put behind my back because of a medical issue. None of the officers cared. My arms were slung behind my back. I was taken to jail for resisting without violence. We were both taken to jail. Neither one of us was read our rights. So I think some of these officers in town need more training, need to learn to be more professional because sheriff's department and a FHP officer. Yes. And then while my son waited trial, he was in jail 65 days. He ended up with a knee infection. It took three days and me calling the sheriff to get an antibiotic given to him. And the infection was so bad in his knee, his entire knee was red and had pus coming out. And every time he tried to get a nurse, he couldn't get anything done. So I had to get a hold of the sheriff myself. So I really feel like more training should be done. They were very unprofessional. Excessive use of force, both criminal defense attorneys we used said their excessive use of force was horrific. It was terrible. And I have reached out to an attorney already because this really needs to be handled in this county. And I know we're not the only ones that has dealt with problems. I know the FHP officer has already been fired from the sheriff's department, and he was also a cop, police officer. And I know he's been fired from both.

So you've talked to the sheriff about this.

It does no good to talk to the sheriff. I'm sorry. It does no good. And I actually voted for him.

He's the constitutional officer that handles all that.

He basically said he trusts his officers. He didn't need to see the video footage. So I now have two bulging discs in my back, and I've had to go to physical therapy for my arm.

We have no jurisdiction. We can't tell the sheriff what to do or how to do it.

I just think that it needs to be addressed in the county of how things are handled.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Joan or Joanne, I'm sorry. Joan, I'm sorry.

I've done the school bus for Columbia County I am Jones Bradley I have worked for Columbia County for 25 years driving the school bus I am also a pastor of a church out on Brantford Highway and the reason I'm here is because of my daughter and I would like y'all to please look at this picture if you can that is my daughter and that is showing where she was drug out in the middle of 90 when nearly her clothes pulled off of her and for as I'm concerned there is no excuse for it no excuse and it all happened because they went to pick up their red truck with their record and the state trooper said you cannot get your truck he had it impounded he had the tag tore off of it which all that was illegal he couldn't do any of that And then this is my grandson. with guns pointed in his head. That's him standing back there. And he, if you seen the video, you would hear him using the F word and you would hear him telling him how stupid he was. And my daughter back there, if you seen the video, you would see where she walked off. He run up to her, grabbed her, and both boys was hollering that her arm had been broke. She had a rod on it. And the deputy said, I don't care. and so i feel like within myself something needs to be done about this you you can't just treat people like that i thought there was a right where you couldn't just cuss someone even though you are a law officer i thought there was some way you had to have a moral conduct and that's what I'm trying to bring out tonight we have never had any problem with the law never been in trouble and as she said she runs A1 tire shop and they just picked up a lot of customers they got some I think the forest they just got a certificate from the fire department for what that not the fire department the forest service for what they did during the fires that was blazing and uh so i'm here like i said because we've never had any trouble before and all this escalated all this started because he went to pick up the wreck truck which the wreck truck blown to him and his brother and the state trooper flat out said you cannot have it and he had it towed off and they even offered to pay after when she went to the fhp they offered to pay to get the truck Truck out of tow, my son said, don't you dare pay them a penny because all they're doing is admitting that they're guilty. Because he tore the tag off the truck, which he did have no right to. And another tow company took the record and it was impounded. But if you see that picture, I know my time's up, but if you look at that picture, you will understand why I'm upset. Because I see my daughter out there in the middle of 90 when nearly all of her clothes pulled off.

Sir, come forward.

Thank you for your patience awaiting.

The picture is right there. Come forward, sir.

good evening i'll make this short and sweet my name is tom johnson i'm the incoming commander for american legion post 423 we have a temporary post out on gum swamp and i'm here tonight just to introduce myself i know some of you know me already we will be looking forward to working with you folks As far as our veterans and possibly even the homeless, we want to be able to serve and help our community here. would you we would like for um if there was something out there we're looking for a home um our home right now is temporary until august 1st and we're we've been diligently looking around for something i do have some things out there that i'm looking at i wasn't prepared for this tonight i feel like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs right now So this was sprung on to me in the last hour that I was going to come up here and say something. So if you guys ever need any help, please, I'll give you my phone number is 802-505-1541. That's 802-505-1541. Again, my name's Tom Johnson, and we're here to help you. We're here to help our community. We're here to help the veterans. 423. It's a new post here in town. I have worked with previous posts here in town. I've sat on the board with the other posts here in town. Our goal is more family oriented. We want to try to get our younger veterans involved in a community and get them with their children. um i am going to be with the department of florida's children and youth chairman this coming year so we got a lot of different programs that we'd like to put together but our main thing is our home if we had a home we we have people in the waiting We're out in the woods. Older folks don't want to drive out there. So if we have a home, then we have people in the wings waiting to come join us and to help out and support Columbia County and our American Legion family. So I want to thank you so much for your time. And like I said, any time of day or night, you have my phone number, I'm available. Thank you so much.

is there any questions yes so that's uh that's good we'll try to create a team great thank you very much for your time yes sir all right yes sir i know ron beasley is working with the post yes that's a good thing we've done okay okay uh

Thank you very much. I know it's late. I'll be brief. Somebody left their glasses up here. I spoke to the Supervisor of Elections a couple of weeks ago, maybe three, and she said speak to Commissioner Murphy. So you are Commissioner Murphy. I asked what is the problem with putting the handicapped accessible door back on the Supervisor of Elections office? He says, you got to speak to Commissioner Murphy. Now, I don't know why I have to speak to Commissioner Murphy, because the charter says commissioners don't get involved in county business. They said policy. Approximately two years ago, I needed to put this clock down the other end so people could see it that I'm speaking. Two years ago, the county replaced the handicapped, well, installed the handicapped accessible door by tourist development at the Supervisory Elections Office over there. Not sure why, but you did it. I guess maybe it had something to do with Mario at the time, who needed a little accessibility help. The whole front end of that building was replaced. And as a point of information, and Mr. Murphy may remember, he announced that he was helping do the renovations on that building, the welding. They removed the handicap doors from the front of the building, Mr. Foreman, and didn't replace them. So it's not even a matter that it would have been a new installation. It would have been a matter that you would have replaced the handicap doors or reinstalled the handicap doors that were originally on the front of the building. So the supervisor election said, I need to speak to you. I'm not sure why, but I'm speaking to the whole board that handicapped accessible doors need to be put on that building in the front where the people vote ASAP. It's against the law, especially I believe since the ones were taken out and not replaced. And as a human right, it violates the spirit and intent of the ADA laws, which is to make everybody feel the same. Not push a button by a buzzer that says, I'm handicapped and I need help, which is just humiliating. So I'm respectfully asking that you guys take care of that before this election comes up, ASAP. And that solves the problem. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I think they're waiting on the budget to see if there's funding available next year. So they have not opened it yet.

So we're watching it weekly, waiting for them to open.

Okay. All right. I just want to make sure we don't miss it. We can't afford to miss that again.

While you're talking about the Tallahassee budget, we're waiting to see what they do, what have you.

I can't never get it right, but I'm going to call it the Pleasant Homes Grant.

We had a discussion Tuesday in the agenda review about – I know I got that one. We're looking at different options or maybe there's more funding there. But as soon as they come available, we're going to move forward and try to keep that rolling.

Right. So the Richardson grant that we're talking about is the one that's from the Division of Historic Resources, and they just want to make sure that the state funds it. They don't want to take applications if there's no money.

I got you. So last board meeting, Economic Development brought the – idea of a data center here i personally haven't seen anything positive about that if we could have a workshop or some type of something to educate everybody on that i believe that would be a great idea because in my research i haven't seen anything positive about those centers by any means use a lot of water just it's not good for the community from what i understand but i could my interpretation could be wrong so i'd love to have a workshop or something along those lines so we can discuss that bring to the table

the pros and cons and if it's a good fit or not because me personally i know if it's not a good fit for community i don't want that that's just that's just my take on it mr parnell i'm glad you brought that up because i mean you know i'm trying to load up stars here i know he does a lot but i think that'd be a perfect project you know because he can reach avenues that we don't run away but then again I randomly yesterday afternoon about three o'clock I get a call and it's just a I thought was a sometimes a lobbyist or something but they're asking different things and then they turn around and started saying some of the accomplishments that the data industry is going for such as You've got main gas transmission lines that run through Columbia County. I think it's exactly the statement that they said. And I said, I'm sure we do. I know one. And would you be opposed or unopposed to locating a data center beside that as another alternative means of energy slash the exuberant use of electricity? I said, you're way up in my head. forth as much as building massive sewage plants to pay for full pledge to accommodate the reuse water i've read some of that you know and when you think about it i said you know it makes a little bit they they agree to build the sewer plan they'll run and operate and everything for the reuse water coming off of it but you know i heard mr parnell say something here just a little while back but you get into it and of course everybody it seems like except the power companies hate the solar fields now and uh and of course you know we

have too much of anything yeah sure they make promises that it's going to be quiet and all that and we've got enough solar fields you have any suggestion on when we should have the workshop sooner rather than later you know i mean it just

really have nobody knocking on the door heavily right now but that could change what if i come you know i know there's been some interest north of town and i think it's probably i'm not putting words in kevin's mouth but i'm sure that's what sparked his attention because you know it's just like rail crossings solar fields dumps whatever it's going to go on somebody's five history you know it's uh

busy but it's uh i'm with kevin uh i think sooner or later we gotta we gotta stay on top of it i think that we could direct staff to get somebody to look up see the pros cons all that and bring it back to us maybe in a meeting and we'll have discussion about it you know and i would like to hear the options about the sewer yeah give us all we could put

And I'm not saying I'm for it until I hear about it, but we can always put stipulations up on what we would require for them to put one here.

And I'm like you, I'm glad you mentioned it now, because they ain't come yet. We need to be ready for them when they do. And say, well, this is what you can do, this is what you can't. Or you can't do nothing. Leave. That way we're not trying to figure out what they're doing and they're trying to

right if they're they they are bad i don't know if they're bad or not i've heard they are but we got an answer for them real quick you know right i was trying to remember this town's name i read this article the other day that every city council member of the whole town council got booted up that's right that was in utah recall that was in utah yeah yeah it was it was something like that yeah but we want to we want to stay on top of it though because uh

Economic Development, they'll be real quiet about it, and it'll be on us before we know it. Go ahead, Kevin. I said we want to stay on top of it because Economic Development will be real quiet about it, and it'll be on top of us before we know it. So we want to stay on top of it right here, right now, while we can. That's right. And last but not least, I ain't going to hold y'all any longer, but do we have any news on Publix? Are they still moving dirt around out there?

they put pipe in they've got a lot of pipe in so do we have confirmation or are they just still they still pipe we can't disclose we can't really talk about it well commissioner i know for a fact that when the ink is dry on that contract you will be the first to get a phone call yeah yeah you can't we can't it's just like making off our fingers uh all right we're gonna see first but that's right we're gonna see because we're gonna see something right now this is what i passed on out this simply is

that's right you're right you're right because my faith in mr stewart's not very high right now that's right not very high i asked him to come to the meeting what three months ago he ain't been back so i hope he's listening yeah well commissioner

it and i don't want it to be an argument and i know it was it was it was hotly debated and it was tough but i just want to say something and and i have a feeling that i have something i want to do and that's that's just my feeling and that might not be everybody else's but monday and wednesday we well monday we went to a meeting for the for the thing and and the water utility well it it was told to me that they were surprised they didn't know that that we were were even thinking about or whatever that we were selling that I didn't really understand why they kind of got on us like they did they got on us pretty hard but I don't know how they didn't know and I don't know if there's a breakdown but I mean the plant joel said oh we got to have a public hearing on that and i know that somebody there had to know about that like the executive director somebody i mean the city engineer not at the plant was discussed for a long time it was advertised even in the rate study i looked at it in the rate study and the discussion on it even had we may or may not own that at some point you know what i mean i don't know if that was with all the all the things but i just want to me we got to get politics out of that board and it doesn't have anything to do with you know anything to do with anything i'm not mad at anybody and that's me this is my suggestion and if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out but i mean i'm i went in two weeks and found two people that would be good for this board whether they get on it don't know but i think it would take no time to do that and even if you google if you google should should politicians be on utility boards that says that's usually not good you know it talks about and i just any board really and truthfully that's why we don't put them on other boards and and politicians aren't bad people but they they tend to have differences and but if have people that are interested in doing something to the community i think they serve better at that in that because there's no there's nobody mad at anybody over here nobody that's angry with another person and i just think the utility has to have that to survive i mean second of all commissioners come and go i might not be here in two years you ain't no telling tim murphy might not be and and i would rather have the the the good feeling that the people that are there can stay. Now I know people pass away and all that, but I just feel like that's something we need to look at. And, and I mean, we have some qualified people in Columbia County and I'm sure the guys on the thing have some qualified people, but I just, I just see it. It's, there's already some bad blood there, you know, and I don't want that to, pop up and go, oh, well, we're going to do that. You know what I'm saying? So I'm going to be honest with you all. I was scared to death at this utility.

And I remember when I was running for office, I said, man, I don't know.

These utilities got to approach them. But I tell you, I've become sold on it. And that's because of the guys that are on, you know, because of what I've heard and how I've learned that utilities are the way to go at some point. We're pretty, we're real quiet, you know. got to take politics out of it for it to survive and do well. And like I said, it ain't hard to find people to do it. I mean, there's people that are interested in serving this community that have worked in utilities. We got one that's did it from the time he was 19, and then he ended up being the director of it when he was 30. That's what I heard about it. And you interview those people, and you find out. I just feel like that's a way we need to work towards and do. And to me, it's not an option. I think that is the end game right there, to do that and do it. I don't think we have to wait. Now, I've heard that there is reasons, and I'd like to discuss that at some point on another board meeting. But I just feel like I've talked to many people that have served on these boards, and they say, the quicker you do that, the quicker you – and the thing is, you've got all the commissioners getting educated about it, but the guys that are going to be on there in the end, I mean, you're just going to throw them on there two weeks from – two years later, and then they've got to learn all the stuff that the commissioners have already learned. I just think it's – I'm thinking we're kind of doing it – I don't know how long it's been. What a year. It's been about a year, year and a half, two years. i mean i think that that's just the way to go and and you know they're okay we actually funded it last year yeah so it's been a year but i just i think the faster you get those people on the faster they're educated about what's happening what's not happening what's going on and that's just my my thing to me that's not optional i think that you gotta get people on there that can volunteer because like you said i may i may get a point up board next year Then I get beaten election and then I'm out and I've learned all this stuff that ain't gonna do anybody any good. I just feel like that's.

on I assume right there they always put a deadline okay okay so I haven't seen it I haven't looked for it but my point is that when the time comes this board is decided factor you know and you know we decide who's gonna appoint to that board what have you so you know we give her consent to or But whatever. I, you know, in incentive, I don't think anybody's I learned something this week, Mr. Hanukkah, or whatever his name is, he's a regular that comes to the meetings. And I think there's something that could happen. It's we grow it is paid off but on the water authority situation you have one meeting month there's a lot of there's a lot of water in the bridge from one meeting to the other and uh i think i have to agree with them i think i may bring it up to the board you know at a future meeting that we turn all of our board meetings into the evening because this is a new and upcoming thing and uh i think we owe it to

and you know it may be where they get on there with the commission owner for a while you know and get learning how it happens and how you know just but but very i mean it just needs to be done it needs to be done it can't be done in two years or six it needs to be done and i'm you know i think it needs to be discussed and the reason i'm bringing this up now is because i was going to bring it up but i'm not doing it unless we give plenty of You know what I mean? Because that was the problem with, you know, supposedly with the thing with the voting on the sewer plant. I mean, they were surprised by it. I even talked to the commissioner. I said, man, I thought y'all knew, you know, all about all this. So it is what it is. But I think it's the way to go. And I think most of the guys on the board know I think that's the way to go. It's just got to figure out how to do it. And I said, oh, my God.

I think that deadline is like next week or the week after. I was trying to pull it up on the webpage and couldn't get it.