Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this meeting to order. If you would, stand for the pledge and the invocation.

Bow your heads. Lord, thank you for this day and thank you for all the things you've done for us. We want to thank you for all the success that these young ladies have had. It's a commitment to do what they do and I'm proud to say that it's good to see kids doing that and doing well in school. It's a great thing. I also want to Pray for the people we have in Iran and all the wars that are going around and all the fights that are going around this country for the military. We appreciate them. We thank you for blessing them and keeping them safe. And I want to pray for the commissioners that we do the right thing and we have thought and used our processes correctly. It's a tough job sometimes. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Yes, sir. At a request of Commissioner Ford, you'll see on your packet a proposal from Fort White for a summer program called Thrive, and he would like us to discuss it. Okay.

We'll do that at the beginning of your spot.

Okay. And that's it.

Okay. okay this time excuse me mr. Parnell is going to be reading the proclamation for state championship softball team here I think he's got a related godchild here or something another I think but the Kirby on the end, when I call the girls to the stage and the coaches, if you would come up this way, and then while they're entering the stage, Mr. Kirby is handing you your state proclamation. Young lady right here shaking her head. She wants to come up and speak to us from the podium. And then as you ladies leave the stage this afternoon, grab one of them proclamations, because that's what we have when y'all were down there during the game. We were giving that out, which was when y'all were down there playing the regionals so uh good for y'all so

we go and i mean the state i'm sorry state competition so kevin if you would go forward all right here we go such proclamation number 2026p-22 a proclamation of the board of county commissioners of columbia county florida honoring columbia high school softball team as the 2026 state champions whereas the columbia high school softball team has proven itself an elite on the field with a record of 29 wins against only three losses in winning the 2026 state championship Whereas each player of Columbia High School softball team has not only exhibited a high degree of athleticism and skill, but has competed at all times with honor, dignity, and grace while on and off the field. Whereas the conference of Columbia High School softball team served to instill a rightful sense of pride in each player, coach, parent, fan, and student body, and across our Columbia County community. And whereas the 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 celebrate the victory of a state championship as outstanding athletes and role models for future generations of champions to follow them. Now, therefore it proclaimed that Columbia County Board of County Commissioners recognizes and honors the compliments accomplishments of each player for the 2026 Columbia High School softball team. Laura Van Beetles, Ava Christie, Anna Dansby, Emily Delgado, Marlee Hunt, Kenley King, Lauren Lee, Alana Lord, Josie Rollerson, Addie Sherman, Raleigh Stone, Louisa Taylor, Amani Thompson, Raylan Waker, I'm sorry, I probably said that wrong. Brooklyn White, be it further proclaimed that the board honors and recognizes each of the coaches of these champion athletes who have devoted themselves to help their players excel on and off the field. Joe Saucer, John Sherman, Brandon Beatles, Andy Jolly, Jolie Rollerson, Alexis Butler. Duly adopted this fourth day of June 26th. Board of County Commissioners.

got a motion for approval motion approved second got a second all in favor say aye aye all opposed and I got one little announcement coach saucer is was not able to attend and that the young lady does her speech to us if you would join them on the stage and then we'll get some pictures yes

Okay, so good morning. My name is Anna Dansby, and on behalf of our Columbia High School softball team, coaches, parents, and Booster Club, we just want to say thank you so much for you guys' generous support. Although we could not attend your last board meeting to request the funding, we were representing our school and our community that afternoon with a walk-off win over Seminole High School, which earned us the spot in the state championship game. Later that night, we did learn of your support, and knowing that our community believed in us meant so much to our program. So today, we are honored to stand before you as the 2026 FHSAA 4A State Champions, and this achievement would not have been possible without supporters like you. So we just want to say thank you so much again for your generous support and commitment, and we are so proud to represent Columbia County.

chairman what day was it we were all in here was it the game before the championship or the champ game before we were sitting here and i'm sitting there on my phone and i remember saying in the meeting i said well we're going to national state championship yes oh yeah i was i was watching it waiting for facebook to say something so yeah it was uh as it was going on my wife has beat me up and uh

then I think Mr. Parnell, you was able to attend.

I went to the state championship game, and let me tell you, these young ladies played their heart out, and it was a fantastic game. So great accomplishment, guys. I'm glad y'all did it. It was great.

Well, I was at the regional when we played Baker, and it was like a WWE wrestling match. It was Kinsley's mama. I thought I was going to. Pretty good. We enjoyed that. So, Board, if you would, let's join them and we'll get some pictures.

I will say my girlfriend from the clinic, she said, why'd y'all come beat up on us like that?

Look at her, look at her, look at her mama.

Right on that one. That'll take you a seat. I've seen you spit on me before.

Thank you. Thank you.

Great job.

Oh, thank you. We spoke very well. Good job. Good job.

Okay, moving forward, Stash.

What's happening, Governor?

Yeah. Good morning, Stash Guntek, legislative coordinator. Anyway, I wanted to update you on two special sessions that occurred in the last couple weeks. The first one was to finish up the budget. The legislature passed the state budget and sent it to the governor's desk on Friday. Our sheriff truck purchase was fully funded. Our jail renovations came in at half at 1.562 million. We are getting another fiscally constrained county supplement for the sheriff department at 1.68. Unfortunately, the county road six bridge was not funded and the storm response warehouse was not funded. Jobs Growth Fund landed at 40 million statewide, and the Rural Infrastructure Fund landed at 22. SCRAP and SCOP was 25 and 81 million respectively. The Department of State Cultural Fixed Capital Outlay was at 38 million. I know we had discussions about some potential projects with that. And just a couple items of note, Fort White Public Work Safety and Storm Resiliency, they got 250,000. North Florida Water Utility Board got $350,000 for their feasibility study. No employee pay increase statewide for state employees, but only targeted groups like law enforcement, state firefighters, things like that. Overall, it was a very contentious budget year. Let's go into the special session that happened Monday. Legislature went in. to a special session Monday, June 1st, talking about property taxes. Initially, the governor created a proposal, dropped it Thursday afternoon. Leadership met, they came up with their own proposal, and here's what it does, slightly different from what was reported. We'll have $150,000 exemption for the 2027-28 fiscal year. And then on top of that, that exemption will increase to $250,000 for the homestead in 2028. The exemption amount will be topped at $250,000, and starting in 2029, you'll have an increase each year indexed to inflation. The proposed amendment reduces the assessment limitations for non-homestead residential and non-residential property from 10% to 5%. The fund to help local governments replace revenue will not happen. That was in the original governor proposal. The legislature took that out. The proposed amendment allows a county or municipality by two-thirds of the membership of governing body to determine if a reduction to the five-year requirement is warranted for a critical local need. MSBUs will still be allowed. And it gets into what we can spend the money on. Originally, the original text was we couldn't even spend the money on any constitutional officers. That wasn't public safety. There was some questions about that. A lot of ambiguities were in the amendment text. So the legislature came and tightened that up a little bit. So what we can spend the ad valorem revenue on is public safety, including law enforcement, fire, and emergency services. Finance or refinance infrastructure, including expenditures on road and bridge construction, maintenance, and stormwater control. Finance or refinance natural resource projects, including flood control measures. And using and consistent with this paragraph to make debt services payments for existing obligations. Meet obligations for retirement benefits of local government employees. and be used for the operations and administration of county constitutional officers, boards of county commissioners, municipalities, et cetera. The school board does not apply in this. So that was one of the things that was talked about. And then the legislature said no, school boards would be taxed regularly. And it codified the principle of increasing the millage rate to a two-thirds vote. If you want to go anything larger, it would have to be a unanimous vote of the governing board. All that to say is your estimated revenue loss as of today in the 2028 fiscal year is $6.9 million, and 2029 would be $10.6 million. Now, that would occur if it passes 60% of the vote come November 3. All this could mean nothing if it doesn't pass the ballot. But that's what's headed to the ballot. So it was a pretty significant, it was a pretty quick session. Lastly, looking forward, elections November 3rd, our next legislative delegation meeting will occur sometime in January or February. While committee weeks are occurring, session runs through March through May. And just one last two things, Senator Hooper is retiring I know Senator Ed Hooper from Clearwater. He's been a good friend to us. I know him personally. He's retiring on November 3rd, so he's helped us out a lot. And a goal of mine this summer is to meet with incoming leadership Senator Jim Boyd of Manatee County and Speaker-designee Sam Garrison of Clay County. So that's the update on terms of the last two special sessions, the last two weeks.

What do you think the chances of that passing are? I mean, I hate property tax like anybody else. I don't see that not passing in some form, probably the form it is in. What do you think? I just don't think...

There's a good chance it could get to 60%. I mean, you know, weird things happen in elections, so... If it comes at 59.5%, that means it didn't pass. So it could. You just need six out of 10 voters to vote for it. Yeah? Have they said anything about how the state intends to make that money up to the county? No. So originally, the governor wanted something to that effect, and it was left very, there was some ambiguities about that. It was the legislature will create a fund. That was his proposal. Unfortunately, that fund disappeared in the final text that came out. What's going to the ballot is there would be no constitutional mandate to have a fund that would require the legislature to backfill local governments.

I don't know about you guys, but this, this is going to be tough, you know, and I'm, I'm, I don't like property tax either. I'm, I'm glad they're doing it, but we're going to have to, it's really going to affect our decisions from now to the next century that happens. You know, we, it ain't going to be about, um, having money. It's going to be about cutting something, you know, so we really need to, I'm just going to assume it's going to pass. You know what I mean? So, You know, budget's going to be tough when that happens, you know. Budget's always tough.

It's going to be tough.

And watching this process from the start when all this conversation started to happen, you know, there was, like I said before, there was a spectrum. There was some that just wanted to apply just another homestead, right? And there were some that wanted to no property taxes at all. Well, we landed somewhere in the middle, which was kind of the running theory. When the House proposed their amendments back in session this past year, school boards wouldn't be affected. The governor says all taxing authorities would be impacted by removing the homestead. And then the legislature kind of came back and said, well, no, the school boards still won't be affected. And I use the school board because we didn't know how, where it was going to land, what was going to be eliminated, what was going to be exempted. What was it? It was just so it landed kind of on that center spectrum there that there was going to be a larger homestead exemption and your rental properties, your, your non-homesteaded, your commercial industrial are still going to be able to, you're still going to tax normally like you are now. So it was a very, um, You would ask, well, what's happening with property taxes? Well, I don't know. It was based on the day. And there was a lot of uncertainty, and then that's when all this dropped in the last week. It was a week ago that the governor announced what he wanted, and then the Senate copied and pasted his proposal, and then the House and the Senate came together and they passed the package that I just summarized for you.

Well, you know, property values have went up drastically. So really if you look at it in a certain sense, raising the homestead exemption is basically keeping up with the cost of housing. It really, I'll be honest with you, I really believe we probably need to cut back because it's not an advantage like it used to be to have homesteads. $200,000. You got that reduction value, but about a thousand or $500,000, $300,000 minimum, usually on any house.

Right.

You know, being able to exempt more puts it back in line close to where it used to be. I'm not probably, I'm for this and we're just going to have to find a way to

like to tighten our belt but it ain't nothing you can do you know but i'm glad that the taxpayers gonna get them i've always said property tax most unfair tax i've ever had you know you not everybody pays it and everybody benefits from the money that's spent from property tax everybody in our county benefits from property taxes but not everybody does it so i feel like it it makes the property owners pay for a lot of things that you know right so yeah that was the train that left the station that was what was rolling and um and there's a lot of uh voices that were wanting this

But then there's going to be voices against it too. You know, I'm sure there's going to be groups that say, you know, this is a good idea, but it needs to be refined. It needs to be processed. And, you know, it's going to be up to the voters ultimately to make that 60% threshold.

and right now I think I mean Stas was talking yesterday we have no other option but to plan as if it is going to pass because you know us jumping into long-term responsibilities of finance and what have you right now we got to be very very diligent I mean because next year is going to be as i think your words were yesterday stas it's going to be the same as this year the impact will be the next the following fiscal year but uh you know because i i was amazed when stas said it and i was kind of keeping up with it on channel 204 but uh they're they're they're telling us right now people uh that we're on our own you're you're you're gonna have to make it up within this budget that you're sitting here looking at right now that's why this budget year very very important that we dissect this thing to the you know it's uh there's gonna be some unhappy people I tell you that right now I don't think we got any other option you know chairman you know we are we are because we've been diligent we're in real good financial some of these counties that are teeter I don't know what But there was one lady, I can't remember who it was, senator or representative, I can't remember, but she went on to say, you know, the importance of what's probably going to be in the near future thereafter if this does go through is the consolidation of redundant communities. You know, you got a lot of these larger counties, got several seats, you know, town, Fort Whites and, you know, White Springs and that amongst them. If I'm not mistaken, I think Hillsborough is one of them. you know there's uh they're gonna have to be consolidating services because there's a lot of redundant costs down there to the taxpayers and of course you know we're not we don't fall in that category here we only got the town of fort white and uh but you know it's uh it's not a big impact as it is there but gonna have to be looking at a lot of different options coming up there because this uh we in my opinion we just at this point in time we just cannot commit to something that we know for a fact that we cannot uh you know afford to go forward and i'm going to be honest staff probably needs to go ahead and assume

it's gonna happen and start looking at ways to fix it because we don't want to come down to August and say how we gonna do without this much million dollar we need to go ahead and start right now think about how we gonna do that right after we get this year's budget done I'd be looking at all right we got to change some things so because it's gonna be it's gonna be tough you took seven million out of this upcoming budget let's call it eight million dollars off the table that's what you need to be working

because your new monies are gonna come forth, and then there's reoccurring costs that are increasing.

The MRS insurances, we have no control over that whatsoever, zero. That's a big chunk of pie.

And I don't even know that their numbers are even, I know the revenues are not yet, but I see the insurance people running around between here and the school board so that's the sign i'll take that right now so uh but uh okay well if anybody else got any questions yep yep all right thank you thank you okay uh seek uh motion to approve what's your consent agenda motion approved second got a motion did i get a second there yeah okay got a second all in favor say aye aye motion to adopt

good morning mr chairman members of the board um the first item we've pressure washed the courthouse and you guys asked us to go ahead and re-landscape everything we did a mandatory pre-bid we only had one response to come in extremely over budget so we're asking to reject the bids and go back out open market once again it just come in extremely i request a motion to reject all bids and re-solicit due to the exceeding budget available got a motion i'll second that got a second all in favor say aye aye aye opposed kevin was that from pressure washing also no sir it was two phase but we got the pressure washing done okay this is the landscape i thought i thought i haven't said that that was a lot of hell let's get $210,000 yes sir it's double what we thought it should be they keep spending that kind of money to look like your yard around your platform i'm the landscaper there okay the next item back in march the board approved staff to negotiate with five additional firms we agreed to retain the current firm we have We have done that. So I request a motion to approve the rate schedule and agreement for the top five ranked firms.

I motion to approve. I've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Say aye. Aye. I'll approve.

Thank you, gentlemen.

So we'll be able to be paving Old Country Club here in about three weeks. all right uh mr hill mr hill first for your burn ban uh we're still we're getting afternoon shower so there's i don't see any reason to reinstate it at this point i don't think you got much option already setting up firework camps all over town hey real quick on that last burn ban

I know I got beat up pretty hard for it being lifted. What goes into us lifting? Are you guys voting to lift the burn, man? What goes into that?

The short answer, our calls for brush fires slowed down. The long answer, the weather pattern changed. What we were waiting on, the afternoon showers and humidity came back.

Y'all were right about that weather change because within three days, I had rained four or five days in a row.

Yes. That was why the decision was made to lift it. The problem with the community was the biggest thing. We had these afternoons in the 20s and the high teens. That was a problem for us. And as dry as it was. It's still dry, but everything's greened up and our community's back. Right, right. I just want to get that out there.

I know I got beat up on Facebook before.

And we went from running from January, February, March.

from running 90 to 100 brush fires a month back to the average around the 20 to 30. and believe me both of them said what the fire department said because you are the professionals people think we make those decisions we don't we listen to professionals and they tell us what to do so yeah it's not us that guys out there it's not i ain't gonna say the burn band's off because we had a fire two days before that meeting 150 yards from my river house that got out it just appeared had bad lightning and i didn't know that kind of stuff happens i mean it just it just appeared and they that's forest servers in there fixing it you know we had one yesterday i've come swamp so they're still burning they're just back we're back down to our normal yeah annual numbers and we also

We talk with Forestry almost daily, and it comes with their recommendation as well. Since Forestry's issuing again as well for piles, they're still not doing acreage. So it's just the weather pattern changes.

I just want people to know, we don't make that decision. We make that decision based on professionals. Exactly. We're not up here flipping the coins. I know we're going to take it off today. It doesn't work that way. No.

Well, you know, I also had a lot of people calling me, wanting to know when we can burn. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, you got both sides. Yeah.

Those are the calls we were getting every day as well.

I've seen a lot more stuff sitting beside the road. I think a waste person could pick it up. Yeah.

All right, let's go to EMS.

So Ameripro's not going to be here today. I don't know if there was a misunderstanding, but they're planning on being at the next meeting in person for an update from them. From our standpoint, Ameripro, as of yesterday, is pulling crews from Jacksonville and actually staffing the five and a half units, the five and a half ambulances. The only thing we're seeing they haven't staffed yet is the ALS QRV, the 24-hour QRV they're supposed to have. And they said they're doing interviews, I believe, next week for that.

Didn't they say in the meeting they were going to have that the next week?

Yes. So they're hitting their timeline on what they promised you on the last meeting. Like I said, as of yesterday, they started pulling crews from Jacksonville to come over here. They're a little short on the 12-hour crew because of the travel time to and from, but they actually have the crews here.

are last minute folks huh they push it they push that envelope to the end every time don't they yes just like a misunderstanding of not being here today yeah hey oh watch out now hey no there's a big day i mean their under misunderstanding happens from day one we got involved with them it's been a misunderstanding the entire time so i asked them for last meeting i asked them to email the board the recommendations of what they needed for the applicants have y'all got an email I haven't gotten an email either, and that's something they can do from behind a desk. That's not even any legwork. They couldn't do that, and it's been two weeks.

It's an email. I have to believe there's some maybe paramedics want some work in this county or close to this county that if we really put it out, somebody, you know, you get two or three or two, you know.

I'll just go ahead and say it. They're not going to meet these times even with these trucks.

They're going to meet the times.

I'm telling you what's going to happen is it's cheaper to pay the fine than meet the time. And they're going to pay the fine.

The month of May They were urban. They were right just below 70% meeting their times. And the rule was at 67. And that was a whole month.

The times were 70 and they were 67?

They're supposed to be 90 is what the contract requires.

A hundred times.

I think I was looking at that.

It's a day or a week. A hundred times a day or a week.

A month.

A month. A hundred times a month.

No, no, that's not, that's not about, that's, it's a hundred, it's a hundred, it's a hundred times that there's a 911 EMS call that there's not an ambulance available a month is what that number is. They're at level zero more than that. That's times there's been a call for service and there's no ambulance assigned to the call.

And I'm going to say that some people just say, hey, I'm going to take them

That's a number that Jason and I with dispatch have been trying to track because those are very hard to track. This started a year ago. We started trying to track these, but smart cop is very difficult to work with because that's happening a lot. But we have no way to track it.

Oh, I got a call last week. Actually, it was this week. Monday was this week. Monday was. We waited 30 minutes and still nobody. We finally got a lift.

Monday was one of those days that happens about once a week. There was at least 10 or 12 times Monday that there were calls for service and no ambulances that we have fire units sitting on scene.

So did you say we've started to find them?

Yeah, July 1st will be the first first that they'll start getting fined for the month of July because they're still in their final 30 days of their 120 day grace.

How many grace periods were they going to get?

It was 60 and 60. They had a 60-day ramp-up and then a 60-day grace after the ramp-up on the times.

So when is that?

July 1st will be when it first starts.

July 1st.

So July will be the first month they get fined.

Now, let me ask you. You know, we're talking about ambulances either in the town or whatever. Is that in a county? Yeah, yeah. Where do they station at? Is there somebody down near Fort Wise? Of 18.

Yes, sir. 18. Right now, they're only running out of two stations, which is the fairground station out there, and then off 18 at Old Knee Black are the only two stations they're running out of. They just got the keys for the building off 100 or just before Ken's, the little church or whatever it was. They're going into it, and I don't know where the fourth one they're having planned is. Building off 100. Mm-hmm. Just before Ken's Barbecue there. Mm-hmm.

Okay, so they're on 18, which is south down. Ain't far. That ain't nowhere to go. But the problem is they run in north. Yeah, and then when it's called down there, they're up here in Lake City. That's the closest one.

I know they're looking at somewhere up near the jail. They're looking at, I know they've talked with David about trying to get a building up there. I don't know what that little building was right beside the jail, but they're working on it.

So they've asked several times about the mobile home that's on the county property next to the jail on Quinton Street. The problem is that's where you have 20 economic councils.

And if you've got them there, they're, you know, not as, I mean, I'm not rocky. I think maybe if we had somebody a little farther north, those amendments wouldn't be all shifting north and then having to shift back south.

So the issue is they're using...

I mean, that's where their station is. They're moving. They're right down from my house. Everything's going north. I go down there and sit there sometimes an hour at a time, and there is not an ambulance at that station.

I go by there several times a week. I've never seen an ambulance at that station. So they're doing calls trying to make up for the north area.

So with all of our ambulance providers, there's only a handful of locations that we lease to them. In this case, it's two. They've always had to go out and find their own places. And so they're not limited to places we can provide them. But we don't have facilities ideally located for them to locate.

Where's the place on Quentin Street? That's where I'm at.

If you know where the jail is, right next door to the jail, there's...

I don't know where the jail is. I'm right in front of me. My office is 300 yards away.

You know that little mobile home next to the jail that has the little handicap ramp on the backside? Yep, yep. That's where...

The old food thing.

Well, it's the Suwannee River Economic Council now.

USDA. Yeah.

Now it's the Suwannee River Economic Council.

That's a perfect spot.

So we had moved them out once before and put them into the Duval Center. And they wanted to go back because we didn't think it was suitable for them. They wanted to go back there because they felt it was closer to their clients. We own a lot of property there.

You got City Lake City just bought five points. I'm sure that big old school you'd find something. Yeah, the corner of that school.

Absolutely.

But Quinton Street's better. Quinton Street's faster, I can tell you. Just knowing those roads down there, you're going to be quick off Quinton. You're 30 seconds from the highway at 41.

And that might be the thing.

That might be the thing. Move Suwannee River Economic Council to five points. then you can open up that trailer for the ambulance service this quentin street isn't a busy street you know i guess it is to a point it's a cut through but but you're right the advantage of being cut through is they can get out to the highway quickly in either direction i want to give that emmett's company even though they you know they the most the most ability to be successful because like we said we're talking about spending money on amnesty now we've got six million dollar shortfall in however many months i don't you know i'm trying to be i understand what you're saying if we have to contract can you still contract them for more ambulances we can do that can't we you would have to open up the contract for renegotiation into a modification of the agreement i think mr foreman has a comment so what we did with this contract

years ago we just had or excuse me years ago we had minimum number of units right that was it that didn't work Then we did another contract where we said, here's your minimum response times. That didn't work. So what we did with this one, we said, here's your minimum number of units and your minimum response times. So you're supposed to be satisfying both. And you can have events of what are called major noncompliance if you are consistently missing those response times. That's why we track it, right? So there's fines, but there's also events of major noncompliance. If you're never hitting, you start getting into major noncompliance, you get larger fines, and eventually you get automatically terminated. so they know that right so even though they have a minimum number of units which they've just attained i think within the last yesterday he said the guy said two weeks today is two weeks i'm seeing advertisements for them trying to hire emts on social media i mean so they are trying on what that's worth Just because they hit that minimum number of units doesn't mean they've satisfied the time requirements. And so they are going to consistently struggle if they really try to stick at the minimum. Everybody knows you can always do the minimum and just get by, but you still have to get by. Doing the minimum is not going to get them by from what we've seen so far. My suspicion is either they're going to open prey that you guys will provide them some support on the north and south end, or they are going to have to bring over more units, even though that's over and above the minimum in the contract.

That's kind of the reason Lance has been producing these reports every month and giving them to them so they know where they stand and if they were being fined, what those fines would be. I think last month we put about $14,000.

It sounds like at some point we need more answers.

I just want to say this, too. One thing everybody's leaving out of this equation, we're going to be billing for these emergencies. That's going to be $500,000 to $600,000 a year. When the number of calls we're doing, that should be about an average of money, $500, $600 a year. So that money is going back into this account too. So when you start talking about $1.6 million a year, you're actually talking about $1.1 if you do the billing. And I understand from Jeff also that we can start billing fire trucks on this interstate with an insurance company. We're going to have to start doing stuff like that. We've got to get revenue coming back in for these services. So, you know, we've got to look at all the options here. and come up with something. Because if you look at counties our size, most of them are running nine ambulances at a minimum. And even if we run nine ambulances at a minimum, they would still be doing about 1,200 more calls a month than the other ambulances in the same county on what our call volume is right now.

Commissioner Ford, to your point, and Lance, correct me if I'm wrong with this, but David and I ran some math. At 5 1⁄2 ambulances, you're at about 2,700 calls per unit per year. Yes. That's way over 1,000 more than the next closest county does.

1,200 more.

Yes. Way over 1,000 more. Now, if you add, if you got to 7 1⁄2 ambulances, well, that sounds a lot better. You're still at 2,000 calls per unit with the volume of calls we get in this county. To get down to that 1,500, 1,200 calls per unit, which would enhance your response times, you are talking about 9 to 10.

Let me ask what those other counties have is nine units.

Let me ask you this question, too. And we've talked about this and I'm going to get this wrong. COPCMs, whatever that is, from what I've heard. And I don't know. I don't know. I'm just that that causes ambulance services that we hire to not be able to make money to to to.

help them have more amateurs for the 911 calls or have more make more money so they can have more evidence what what's the deal with that we used to have something we can do to free that up we used to have a closed market right so we had a closed market for transfers and so you had one provider that was basically running all the transport contracts all the transports in the county and they were also the EMS provider. And they were making a pile of money, so they were able to. Well, if you have a closed market, you can imagine how that works. Now, I don't mind telling you, it wasn't too long ago we got sued in federal court because we denied somebody a CIP. And we lost that case. And we've had an open market for many, many years now since the previous century contract. I think the first century contract was when we came off of that.

Let me interject. So the open market, that's why we didn't pay anything for years.

I know. So that was an industry issue. So it used to be within the EM. So you got EMS and you've got transport. Those are different things, right? Different reimbursement rates. Everything's different. The reimbursement rates used to be close enough to what you really needed to support the process that you could run that EMS and you could bill. And if your reimbursement rate was good enough, you'd be okay. Our folks that we were meeting with the other day, Lance, tell me if they were wrong about this. They said, look, everything in the world has gone up except the Medicaid reimbursement rate. So where 10 years ago they would run a Medicaid beneficiary to the hospital and get a certain reimbursement rate, that covered a lot more expense. They're getting the same reimbursement rate, but everything costs more. And that's when you saw the industry turn around. And this was not just us. We verified this was statewide. These zero subsidy services all of a sudden needed subsidies. because they're like the our reimbursements are not keeping up with the market and so we're falling behind if you want us to keep doing this we need extra money that's the money y'all are subsidizing is the lack of reimbursement that's coming in because commissioner ford's exactly right that's bread and butter right if you can get a high reimbursement rate we're talking about sumter county yeah they're running like 20 ambulances right within their ems they have the villages though they have the villages and guess what every person in the villages gets medicare reimbursement right so they know they can invest in those ambulances because that money's coming back to them if you're investing in ambulances in columbia county where you have private insurance and or a lot of medicaid reference recipients they're saying man we may not have a good success rate with private insurance and we know if we are successful with medicaid it's not enough So it's just different markets, and that's what changed. Would closing the market again through COPCN somehow help them? Conceivably, but you're talking about apples and oranges in terms of the services that are being rendered. They would still have to have sufficient ALS units. They would still have to have EMT, paramedic EMTs, not just EMTs, paramedic EMTs. it's a different level of service right lance a transport is a different level of service from a uh an ems now if they were willing to run their transport and make enough money to subsidize their own ems and not charge us a subsidy maybe but i've not seen that model that that's what i heard from industry people that said the copcm would help the matter is they're running two transport trucks a day right now every day right now they're running two transport trucks every day right now

So like Joel was saying, there's a difference between, say, Ameripro, which runs transports, and they use EMTs and paramedics, and like some of the private transports that just cart people to the doctor's offices, which don't. So there are differences between transports, Kyle.

Joel, where is the, what Mr. Ford mentioned, I know since I've been here, it was approached twice and we were told we could not. Ambulance, I'm sorry, fire truck bill.

I'm not aware that we were ever told we could. If we were, I just don't remember that.

So there are certain state regulations that limit what we can and can't charge for. And so we just have to make sure if we bill for fire responses, it complies with those state regulations.

And I think we're talking about the ALS response, right? Lance, can you?

Rocky, you said rec something like that, right? Yes.

MBAs are different. MBAs, you bill auto insurance. It's not considered the same properties like your house and your actual dirt. you can't double tax for that that's what that's where you get into three can't you cannot like i said i can't bill you to go about your house like you're already paying a fire assessment that's where the problem is for wrecks um hazmat scenes stuff like that that's all through auto owners and those are those are fair game and you absolutely can charge your hands we need somebody else's opinion on this because i know we had a long conversation about this about eight years ago and and i've been called that that's not right

You remember, I don't know that you were here, you were probably in 20 counties, Jeff, here. But the big wreck out on 90, right there in the Lake Lona area, we had all the stocks out here for over a year and a half. I know for a fact they attempted to do that, and they were told no. And Jim, well, a record service billed almost $90,000 out here. Columbia County got zero. It had something to do with the way we do our assessment. And I hate to put Dale on the spot. Do you have any recollection of that bit, Dale? That was probably during your tenure. But anyway, let's check into that because I'm 100% for that because I think it's not fair that a record company go out there and spend three days and just do the same thing, helping them, and not get a penny out of it. Chairman, I would say it too.

One of the reasons we have so many calls is because of the interstate company. The interstate one here would have broke down. Absolutely.

So let me make this promise to you. I will get with Joel, and we will research what the state law limits those charges to. And it is in the statutes.

And then also, whenever we're doing these, the workshop, we'll be talking about it coming up here real quick, because this is a very, very important issue. I don't think nobody on this board would disagree with that. But on these zeros, this whole Tim Murphy research, We've got a lot of, we're at zero.

Yes.

Check your surrounding counties. They got a lot of zeros.

A bunch.

So we're not the only one in this fiasco.

No, I mean. Another thing is to let's make sure we're all interpreting zero as zero. Okay.

Because you are at zero in an adjacent county. I've just seen this two days ago. They were at zero about five times that day. for a total of three and a half minutes. You know, there's a lot of interpretation that needs to take place. I don't want to be at zero, but I don't think it's impossible. Of course, you know, Lance, he's got the most experience in this room, and I think he can back up a little bit of what I'm saying. But it's terrible to be at zero and you'll have nobody about.

You're absolutely correct. There's always going to be a time where you hit a level zero.

multiple casualty incident or something the question is how many times you hit zero and how long do those zeros last you're absolutely correct on that and one of the other things i would ask you know while we're merging into this workshop discussion uh the recovery from these counties i'd like to see all the numbers of what they recovered because i'm here in two different places so to help explain why you hear two different things

It's all in how you look at it. The companies that do the collections will tell you they're collecting about 70%. That's 70% of what's billed, not 70% of total cost. So it depends on how you look at it. If you look at total cost, what I'm told is you're closer to 30, 35. So are you looking at what they're collecting versus what they bill, or are you looking at your costs versus collections?

It's simple enough. Check with an auditing firm. not ours, by exact words, ask for an audited receipt number. So we're looking for an audited number of what the cash actually came to that county was.

And that's easy to get.

I'll just say that's the number I'm looking for.

And, Mr. Chairman, I think what I think a lot of people don't see is, again, if you could have a 100% recovery rate, But if the amount of money paid is less than the money you spent, you're still in a deficit even at 100%. That's what I think we see these 70%, 60%. Commissioner Ford put it in the right context, dollars. How many dollars do you recover basically? Because you could have a 50% recovery rate, but if you're doing it all against private insurance, you're probably doing okay. If it's against Medicaid, you're not going to be

caught my attention that's why we need that number that that's a good because that's a number we're going to utilize in this formula to be able to and i agree with david the number i've been told is about 40 percent it's what you're being what you're going to collect but that's several that's still a lot of money i mean it could be yeah it's better than zero

I'm here for 500,000 calls a year. But I tell you what's got me more excited is this accident thing. You know, I mean, this is because that's a lot of money. You'd be surprised to see so many record bills that are on that bridge.

And you know what's not sad about it, because it's wonderful we have it, but we've got two interstates. Yes. How many towns, when 875,000, 80,000 people have two interstates going through? Very many of them. So that's got to be a weak spot for us. They don't want a day to go by and we don't send two or three of them.

I mean, I look at it.

The motels, the population that's here every week, that's what kills us.

Yeah, there's a double-edged sword with the hotels out here. They help us a lot.

Almost daily, you're going to see the lights flashing at one of these motels. I guarantee you. Here's the thing about it.

When you go to a wreck, that guy's at it for an hour. Not like going and picking up somebody at their house, you know.

That's right. Because they're ready. You get there, they're ready to go.

We're giving Lance more homework.

Lance, I think you're doing a heck of a job. I think you just stay after him. Get Jeffrey to help him out with it. Get one of them walking tall sticks. Jeffrey will get his horse trailer or cow trailer and go out there and haul people around.

so to get uh ambulance a little bit farther north county has a mobile homeowner sean with a ramp and all that they still have access to interstate that gets you to that covers falling creek deep creek you're a little bit farther north you still get your actions 441 you still get to 41. you get all the areas is that something that's feasible because that way it gets it more north and it covers that area those folks deep deep deep creek they can have access to that and get there faster rather than coming from town

so can we look into that as well because i think that'll be beneficial as well yeah if we get the two ambulances monday from the hospital authority one of those could be stationed there very easily because right now we use it for our volunteer firefighters right so it is set up for somebody to live there so that's why i was like we could and there is i think there's even a garage there are two departments so it's not the weather there's a bay right okay let's look into that please

I think Marshawn might be better than Quinton I think just I mean it gets it farther north yeah I don't know if that could be a shared post or whatever there you know I don't know but it definitely needs to be something on the south side I don't know we have that building right in town I don't really think that building's been occupied I've never seen anybody they say somebody worked in it so every now and then or something

will work something out what is that when you're leaving the town head towards trenton that's the

Lifestyle Enrichment Center?

Lifestyle Enrichment Center down there.

Is that not daily? Not daily, but they have a lot of dinners there and stuff at night.

If the health department is only going there one day every now and again, is that something that could work into their thing? Maybe so. I mean, I've never been in the building. We maintain that building.

I know that.

But it is not owned by the county? It is not owned by the county?

Lifestyle Enrichment's not. It's not maintained by the county?

I didn't say that. I said it's not owned by the county.

Oh, it's not owned by the county. We do maintain. I know I've seen county people down there mowing and stuff.

We do maintain it.

Yeah.

It's part of our contribution to the seniors.

All right. Any further questions for Jeff? He sure wouldn't. Jeff, I'm sorry. He sure wouldn't want to sit down. Look at him. Appreciate you, Lance. Thank you a lot. Thank you.

You've got too much hair.

Okay, Mr. Kraft. All right. First thing is we'd like you to adopt a generative artificial intelligence.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You might want to consider putting the clock down at the other end so the speakers can see the clock. Probably a good idea in the future. I don't know what's going on here. This policy doesn't even have a date on it. And I just respectfully point out to you that the item you just approved also has no date on it. This is endemic with Lakeshore Hospital Authority. They have a lot of stuff that doesn't have dates on it. I don't know what's with this county with dates, but maybe we got to start doing things. And it doesn't even say that this is a policy. I'm not exactly sure where this goes. I'm glad that the county supports responsible use of AI tools, but this is not explaining what an AI tool is. Is this chatbots? Well, I don't know. And I know that I've recently spoken to the deputy clerk about this. When you now don't see a recorder up there, you see a little flat instrument that uses AI to help reduce the minutes. Mr. Murphy's looking at it now. That's a recorder. It's connected to AI somehow. Anybody can get those. And my suggestion to the clerk was that if the clerk, and she probably remembers, is going to use AI to help produce the minutes, it needs to be said in the minutes that AI is being used to help produce the minutes and what the name of the platform is. See the Gemini Pro, there's lots of people that make AI stuff. I check my stuff when I write stories. I produced the Columbia County Observer for the last 20 plus years. And I run everything through AI. So when I do a story, I don't sound like I'm AI generated. You know, because it's easy to do. AI has certain ways of doing things. And the other thing is that all the answers you would get from AI are not always the same. So if somebody uses Grok, which is Elon Musk's platform, you may get a different answer than Sam Waltman's platform or Claude. So what I'm suggesting is that this maybe needs a little bit more development. It doesn't say on here who has to approve it. Clearly, the IT manager, the head of IT should approve it. Rumor has it that he's so skilled in attacks that can ruin your system that he works for the Mossad part-time. Nobody really knows about that, but that's the rumor. He's one of the biggest experts in Florida. So it would appear that he would be the only one that should be approving these. And it doesn't really say in this policy. Well, it doesn't even say that this is a policy who approves it. It's also not clear, Mr. Chairman, where this goes. It says that this is going into a new thing, a new IT thing. I don't know where that even is in the HR department. I think that needs to be where people can see it. This protects everybody. And I don't know if I could just finish up, sir. I don't know how, and I use AI occasionally. It can be very helpful. You do every time you Google, you use AI. Is that how that purports to comply with public records? AI has nothing to do with public records. So this whole thing looks like it was AI generated, but there's no disclosure on it. And I would suggest you need to go back to the drawing board and make this a little clearer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. This particular policy was drafted by your HR director and your IT director. They drafted it. The intent is, this is to get something on the ground because people were already purchasing AI subscriptions. And we don't want people just going out and purchasing it without having the IT department, which is Mr. Manning, review it and approve it. Because if they're using tools that we don't think are legit, we don't want them using those tools. As you know, we've created a committee to start reviewing all of our policies. And this will be one of the ones we review as we move forward. But we felt it important enough to get something out there now for people keep buying these subscriptions, because we'd rather not spend lots of money buying subscriptions to worthless AI tools.

So we have department heads or county employees purchasing the AI?

We did. We don't anymore. That's why we're putting the policy out. So yes.

So would it be feasible for the county to just have one AI program that they pay for?

Does it not work like that? It could be. And that's why IT needs to be involved so that they can determine what is the best tool and what's the best way to implement it.

I mean, I'm not an expert on AI.

I could not tell you will one platform work for everybody or not. But our IT department has that expertise.

We... And I want to say something now. We're talking about IT. IT gets very little love from anybody because it's IT. A lot of people know what IT is. I didn't used to know what IT was. But I want to thank you all for the new website. The county website is great. In fact, my ex-wife called me and said, man, y'all really, and she used to work for the county. She said, that's great. So I want to give all them kudos for that. And I'm sure if they, this AI, they'll fix it and they'll figure out how to do it right. I have all the faith in the world in our IT guys.

We thank y'all.

We want to get a break on it now before it gets out of hand. So this puts a break on it now, and then if we need to refine it, we can, but we just don't want it to get out of hand.

Motion to approve.

Got a motion. Second. Got a second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. All in favor.

Thank you very much. The next one.

I would like for you to come back on this in a month or two and let us know what we're doing here. How this is working and what we're doing here. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to bring it all in, huh? Yeah, we might need to make some fine adjustments to what's going on here. Because this is good for everybody. I know it's good for me and

And you know that AI, sometimes I'll have a question about something within the county, what we're charging or what our tax rate is. And you know, AI, it'll tell you. It's amazing what AI does. But I'm like Stu and other people, sometimes it might not be perfect.

Change one word in that ask and then it gives you a different answer too.

On the other thing, Mr. Locher was correct. You need to cite that something was assisted by AI. And we have departments, we caught it because we started seeing these subscriptions creeping up, and we're like, no, we can't have that. They weren't always citing when they used AI. So this way we have to tell them, you're citing it or you're personally liable.

Yeah, and you know, I saw a post about this, but some of these people nationwide are using AI for their campaigns. I would want against that for people if they just want to know the truth. You can tell when somebody using AI, you know, when you know how they speak and you know, I'm not an eloquent speaker. Most people aren't. And when they come on there and say all these big, I'm like, yeah, who wrote that?

I'm sorry. Okay, so the next item is RFQ 2026-H for grant administration and writing skills. You picked the top three firms. We negotiated contracts, and your agenda package should be the contracts for those three firms. We're asking you to approve the contracts.

Okay. Let's take a motion. Motion. We have a motion. Second. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed?

So the next one is the 4th of July 250 celebration. They went out and sought sponsorships. So far they have received $16,500 in sponsorships for the 250th celebration. And we're asking you to accept those sponsorships and appropriate them so that we can apply it to the activities.

Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye.

Timmy Roberts thanks you. Or not. Oh, there we go. Hey, Patrick. We're having technical glitches again. Can you go to the slide right after the grant applications request slide? So anyway, real short, we had two grant committee meetings, one this week, one the week before to review people that were requesting grants. That one, yes, thank you, sir. They recommended funding or these were all requests to apply for grants. They recommended emergency management's annual funding request They recommended two grants for the fire department, one for personal protective equipment, your SCBA breathing apparatus, and one for community fire prevention slash safety, safety devices. I came in there this week and asked for the Rural Infrastructure Fund, and I'll explain why. You heard Stas earlier talk about how limited the funds are. Their funding year starts July 1. I would like to use that money to help fund the improvements at the Ellisville Wastewater Treatment Plant, which you already know is just slightly over $7 million. So if we can get our grant together and get it submitted at the very first possible moment, July 1, we're hopeful we can get some money. It won't pay the full 7.3, I think it was, but at least it's a good chunk towards it as we cobble together the financing package. And as you remember, these repairs have to be done because of the consent order. which is no problem that the county created. We built a plant that met the requirements at the time we built the plant. The water management district came in later and established the B maps, which lowered the nitrogen removal levels to a level that our plants physically cannot achieve. So this is why we have to spend the $7 million to remember that was the additional 50,000 gallon train. So one of the benefits out of it is you're getting additional capacity. Won't go into all those details, but I would like approval to allow us to apply for the RIF grant. And then finally, as you read in the paper today, earlier this week, Commissioner Murphy had a meeting in Columbia City. A lot of people showed up, very interested in creating a community center in Columbia City. And so we would like to have permission to apply for a legislative appropriation in the next legislative cycle, which means we can put everything together by December so we can get it submitted before January when we have the delegation meetings. That's kind of what Stas was talking about earlier today. So that's what they recommended. Additionally, there was a grant for EMS personnel to be considered. They wanted to hold off on that because they first wanted to know what you want to do about EMS. So it was felt that asking for personnel ahead of even having a decision to move forward was premature.

Is there a deadline on this grant?

There's always a deadline, but there's always additional funding cycles.

What's the deadline on this grant?

I don't know. Unfortunately, I was meeting with commissioners and unable to attend the grant committee meeting.

And looking at that, David, you know, with the workshop us picking that uh look into that and then that way we can share it during the workshop yes you know if i'm not mistaken isn't this called the safer paper safer safer safer and if you tell me which unfortunately we've never we unfortunately have never received a safer grant that is correct but but if it's if it's available and we can make it justified during our workshop i think we ought to if we don't if it's not passed

I don't believe the workshop will be past the deadline, but I'll double check on it. I was going to say, I don't think Lance is here. Is he? What is it, the 22nd? So the deadline's the 22nd.

Of this month?

I believe this month, right?

So when's the meeting?

Next week. So, Lord, I just want to bring everybody up to date on the Columbia City deal. One of my constituents reached out to I, and he and his wife did a great job in Mr. Phillips visited us down there the other night, and he made a comment. I was a little overwhelmed how many people showed up. It was pretty good. And so I always told him, hey, if a group comes together and is really serious about it, I'll go forth with it. This is the first time in the years I've been here that they've really organized ready to do it. So it was kind of exciting. And so we're going to do what we can to try to work forth. And just like we did on the 18 project down there, I call it Scrubtown. Is that what it's called? Bethlehem. It's Scrubtown Road right there. That's on Bethlehem Road. But anyhow, I went down, took some pictures of it, shared it with everybody. They're quite excited. We're putting a plan together. And Joel and Amy was at the meeting. She gave me the do's and the don'ts. So we'll see. We'll see. We're just at the very, very early stages.

think the caliber of people that were there there's enough people there that I know and Clint do that would take care of a community center if they had one there which they do need one they don't have one so I think you need one well we got property there too yeah that's right okay so with that being said

uh chairman i just want to say if we apply for this green if we get it if we're not going to use it all we have to do is turn it down right you can turn it down yes so i just don't want to drag around for the last minute if we're going here's the thing if we're going to put ems for ems ambulances on the road why not try to get funding for those employees i mean i think everybody agreed at the last meeting that going to want to put at least two more ampersands on the road here somehow or another so i just don't see what i say i'll be honest with you i'm going to make a motion right now that we're going to go ahead and apply for this grant for this safer grant if we get it and we don't use it we just turn it down we just don't take it yeah okay because the i'm not ignoring you i'm sitting here looking at a date here

So, David, we were talking previously. I know we're jumping ahead here a little bit, but it doesn't matter because it cut in place.

Right.

We're talking about having the, on the 10th, correct?

Next Wednesday.

Next Wednesday, yeah.

So we're hoping to have it on, the reason we picked next Wednesday is Monday we'll know if the hospital authority is going to help us with the acquisition of ambulances.

So is this going to be a meeting or a workshop?

The board's discretion. The board's discretion.

Let's, I think the... although we need a lot of them information uh time's kind of by the essence i i don't have a problem making another meeting and where we can make take legislation on it and most especially if we're going to do something like this because my question would be i don't know if joel can answer just not put them in the spot but the uh you know can a phaser grant work in coalition with ms

Yes.

You know what I'm saying?

The grant funding?

Yeah. It's just another funding.

As long as you're not duplicating a tax.

So what happens is if you get outside funding, you reduce the amount of money you need, therefore you reduce the amount of MSTU.

I mean, from what I understand, Lance, tell us what it pays for.

yeah give us the breakdown the safer pays for your personnel for everybody part you apply for x number of personnel whatever they award it's three years the first year is 100 the second year is like 75 and the third year is 50 of all personnel expenses for that grant this county was awarded one back in 2008 and turned it down just like y'all are talking about that's right yep oh wait they were given one in a previous board turned it down So we don't apply for them often because we don't get approval to do it.

So you can turn it down if you don't use it. Yeah, yeah. I don't see no problem with Rocky. Like you said, let it go forth because as we work into our budget cycle here pretty quick and believe I'm right on this but when we turn that one down David you may remember it had due to the way that we had a budget for whatever reason we rejected it because of the incoming calls they were different year two year three and what they were five-year terms back then you had to guarantee the positions for the same number of years they have changed the wording of them considerably since then and now it's three exactly right that was a deciding factor right there

So at the end of the day, we can proceed with preparing the grant application and then on the workshop make a decision or you can make a decision today.

They're very extensive grant applications is the problem with them because they're federal grants and it bears lots and lots of paperwork.

I'd say go ahead and force it.

Go ahead and bring it to the, I mean, because if it's prepared, I mean, we got a whole week, I guess, what you're saying.

that way y'all can y'all get it application done in a week's time most of it okay yes but then you got another 12 days after that to do it do have we have we thought about you know and this is just a question ambulances or ambulances have we do we have some way to compare what it would cost to to do a expansion of Ameripro as compared to a county ambulance? I mean, do we have that? Yeah, we need to compare the price. I mean, I don't know. You know, it may be cheaper for the county. I don't know. But we do need to do some kind of research on that, you know, because if we're going to do two more ambulances, I want somebody to do them, you know what I mean? And at the cheapest price with this $6 million of all we have here. And I agree. I'd like to see all of it, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. But at the same time, we don't want to miss an opportunity. Right. I don't have no problem. Make a motion on that.

I made a motion. I made a motion to add EMS, the phaser to this.

Safer.

Safer.

I'll get it right. Safer. And I second the motion. Because if that's going to help fire zero,

I just want to see the comparison in the two okay I got a motion second all in favor say aye aye all in favor and can we have a motion on the other grants they I thought that was all I've been in comfort I'll make a motion that we approve the other grants recommended by the grant committee okay got a motion got a second got a second all in favor say aye aye okay

then uh before we move on david uh because of just what was spoken uh joel david whoever it seems like it makes sense to reach out knowing this work this i don't know if we're going to call the workshop but knowing that this meeting is fixed to take place next week can we reach out to mayor pro and see if they what their additional cost would be if they

guarantee two more that's what we're talking about that way we can look at that number too yeah i mean i think we could ask them like i said we've got the contract that has the minimum right not the maximum but the minimum number of trucks they need to run and then also has the time requirement so we could find out what additional funding they would need to add ambulances and admit adding this to the minimum um yeah we can find that

so we know we need we feel like we need to be around nine or ten total across the county to get those numbers into that 1500 range so i think we can reach out to tom it's my understanding that even if we move forward with this next week it's going to be january of next year at the minimum before we receive any evidence if we ordered them next week so One thing with working with Ameripro like Robbie's talking about, they might move quicker. I don't know, but I'm kind of leery about believing what they tell me anymore, too. I'll be honest with you.

We might have to do a contract. Well, we've got a contract now. We might have to do a bigger fine contract or something, whatever. It's worth a shot.

I'm just saying, if we go that route, we need to put some fail-safes in that contract that they have to produce, or it minimum mandatory yeah yeah and you know the whole thing I know we because it's a serious situation for each one of us I know and everybody in the community but this uh this help situation is it's when you talk to these other it's crazy but that's what I was before I was going a while ago if we know we're gonna get these ambulances in January we might need to start lining up some classes trying to recruit some people from the college, you know, that might want to pursue this field or something like that?

Dr. Barrett reached out to David, and I know he emailed myself. I think we were on the little email chain there, and he had this thing. He got busy this week, but he's going to be working with us, and I spoke with Chief Crawford last week sometime, and he was explaining how they were doing everything. I think we can enhance that, but at the end of the day, there's a lot of it's there's a lot more to just saying i'm going to hire somebody because you know how it's going to be structured and i don't want to get into all that today but it's uh there's a lot of issues here at hand that we've got to be very very delicate with because like i said earlier and i think everybody on this board agreed we got to prepare this budget this year as if we're going to be eight million offshore that's just we i think we would uh be doing the county uh taxpayers uh

uh i agree 100 yeah so mr chair yes sir dr barrett did respond he um we discussed the the class the cost of doing a full-blown paramedic is going to be slightly under five thousand dollars four thousand nine hundred and some odd for that class emt's is a lot cheaper per per student okay so you could establish a scholarship fund that then funds up to so many people it takes full gamut a year and a half. Now, these people can work once they get their EMT certification while they're working on their paramedic. And that's something we will have to get with Joel and work out a contract that says, you know, if you don't complete the class or if you don't stay with us, you will have to repay us.

I mean, AgPro's doing it. You know, they're putting people through school right now. One of my personal friends' kids just that's a in my opinion that's a great investment you know for it puts us in the middle of the negotiation and then also to give somebody an opportunity because jeff can probably i mean jeff lance can probably attest to it there's a bunch of people's day lost into that industry and they get in their neck deep and they said heck with this i'm going to go be a uh simply thank uh contractor most of them ain't crazy enough to go and weld this but they do anyway but the uh it's uh I think that seems like a very good investment for the taxpayers, in my opinion, if we can put something together like that.

And the reason Dr. Barrett hasn't done it as dual enrollment is because you have to be a minimum of 18 years old. So you'd have to get to a point of you're 18 years old and then you could sign up. But letting them know when they're 17 that they could do this when they're 18 is definitely doable. All right, law enforcement, MSTU. I'm going to break it into the two because they're separate and two separate considerations. Law enforcement, MSTU, obviously we started talking to Heather last year on October 16th, 2025 about this. I want to make it very clear, an MSTU is a tax. It is a property tax. The law enforcement MSTU tax is set up in such a way that however much you increase the MSTU, you would decrease your current property millage. So suggestion by going through the book was it would go up five and it would go down five if the city didn't participate. The city participated was three something. Well, what we know is the city said, Fort White's still going to be considering this next, this month on the 11th and the 15th. But the city of Lake City said on the MSTU on first reading, they were not interested in the law enforcement MSTU because they have their own law enforcement. What that does is that creates a situation where you're able to levy the MSTU only on the areas outside of the city of Lake City. So you're losing a big chunk of your property values. that normally would apply to the assessment and allow the assessment, the property tax to stay low. And you're creating a situation where you're charging the MSTU for the sheriff's services only in areas outside of the city limits, even though he does provide service within the city limits.

Does he have to provide service inside the city limits? Yeah.

I think as a constitutional officer, I would think he probably would, but...

I know there was some discussion at the Fort White meeting whether they would or not.

I mean, even if you told him he wasn't being paid to provide services in the city limit as a constitutional officer, I think he probably still would.

He's going to go to a problem in the city and the county. He's going to take care of everybody. And they vote for him. The city votes for him.

So as an alternative, if you decide not to do the law enforcement MSTU, next week on the 18th you could direct us as part of the budget to actually graphically demonstrate how much of your problem which we're going to have to do anyway based on the changes in state law how much of your property taxes go to what just a very simple straightforward here's your property tax Here's your sheriff's budget. Here's your constitutional budgets. And where else are we going to spend it at? So to give you a brief rule of thumb, I got the sheriff's budget over at my desk. He's asking for $1.3 million more this year than last year. But we'll say $25 million. Last year, we gave him just under $24 million. Last year, we believed that the property tax collections that we would receive after getting rid of the exemptions and all that stuff would have been about 36 million dollars so it's about 11 million dollar difference between in collections so all but 11 million dollars of your property taxes county-wide go to the sheriff you know with the changes that stas talked about i think stas is still here you can't cut the chair so we're going to have some issues on that side But we can show that graphically in the budget if you choose not to do an MSTU. And if you do an MSTU because it is a property tax, it will be affected if it's approved on the November ballot.

Say it like this. You know, you're sitting there listening to you and Joel up there the other night in the city watching you. And if the city... which they have opted out, and we were to go forth, we, this five board panel here, will have given the city taxpayers a tax break.

Yes.

And put it on our county tax. And I'm not doing that.

That's not going to happen.

If you approve the MSTU at five mils, let's say five mils, because that's about what we were talking about, The MSCU would go up five. Our county property taxes would be dialed. Everybody would be even except in the city. We would get a reduction of five mils, but no upside of the five mils.

We could do it where we do five and five. I'm fine with that.

But with the city opting out, they would get a five mil reduction, but no increase. I think Joel wanted to say something.

The whole thing is all the years that we've been arguing about a sheriff's budget uh it's all about the transparency aspect of it because even today when you sit there and use that 60 cents in versus you know out of a dollar uh go to the sheriff's office it's still debunking some people so what we need to do is exactly i can handle the argument i know another four can too but you put it in the budget to that matter this

it yeah to people to tell them exactly where their money's going every year somehow because i i think people will be very surprised at how much we receive compared to other you know what i mean you know that the county uses so i was surprised by i couldn't believe it when i first got elected i was like what so i didn't know it and i didn't know it either i didn't learn until i got to this role i mean you're talking about 80 what 75 cent out of every dollar they pay Almost 80% of everything they pay goes to the sheriff's office. And the sheriff's office is public service. I mean, public safety. And I love the sheriff's office. I think, you know, they do a great job. But I think people should know where their taxes go to what they go to and what sections, you know.

And I think the general public believes that what they pay in property taxes covers everything. But property taxes are a very small share of your revenue. They really are.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that breakdown would be essential. So as far as law enforcement and MSTU, I think we probably need to take a separate vote on that, whether or not to go forth with it or not.

Well, you'll have the ordinance public hearing next on the 18th.

Okay, that's right.

So if you don't want to move forward, you just don't approve it on the 18th. I think Joel wanted to say something.

Yeah, that was a point there. I don't care what y'all tell me in that meeting. We can shut it down right now. Go ahead, Joe. It's advertised. It's advertised.

We can shut it down then. The point of David's presentation today is to educate you guys as much as possible because we've gotten a lot of information in the last two weeks, and he's trying to make sure that all that information is shared with you so that you're as prepared as possible for the 18th. Because make no mistake, the hearings on the 18th are about tax increases. That is what those hearings are about.

we're not trying to cover that up it is a tax increase so having said that the other half of this the ems one i want to kind of combine with the next item on the agenda which is the call for a workshop because ems is a little bit more complicated it's not it's simpler but it's more complicated um obviously it's So you can consider this prior. We wanted you to have the information as early as possible so that you don't say, well, you're giving me all this information right before the public hearing, and now we got to consider it. We want you to have time to understand what's going on so you can make an informed decision. So we really aren't, like Jill said, we're not asking you to make a decision today. We want to get you the information, what you need as early as possible. So we would like to call for a workshop prior to the 18th. We would like to do it next Wednesday, I think at 9, 9.30 in the morning, and just need to know if that's something the board would like to do. I think Commissioner Ford mentioned earlier and Commissioner Murphy talked about making it a called meeting rather than a workshop so that you can take a vote.

And we got plenty of time for that, correct?

Yeah. We'll run the ad as soon as possible. Again, it's a called meeting, so it's got to go out today if we're going to do it as a called meeting.

We've got to pick a time. Hold on, hold on. Okay. Bear with me, I'm sorry.

Wednesday at what time?

It was going to be Wednesday morning.

Wednesday at 9.30.

That'll be the 10th, 9.30.

mr. chair just for information I'm out of town next week but I can um I can arrange for coverage council yeah I got a I just noticed something here on my I think I've got to have a surgery a little day surgery thing here and I could have swore or something but what day is that well they just sent me a notice I mean literally they're trying to move it on me hold on there a second okay guys is anybody everybody available Tuesday I can do it at the end of the day Is that legal? Is that enough time, Joel? Within a time.

Sorry? If they move it to Tuesday, is that enough time for a called meeting?

Is this being called as a special meeting?

As a called meeting, yes.

Yeah. Well, a special meeting is a special meeting. Oh, okay. A regular meeting is a regular meeting. So is this being called as a special meeting? If I can ask from the perspective of the commissioner, what action would you be looking at next week? Well, it might be – I mean, I don't know.

It might be –

I don't know but if we need to make a motion I would like to be able to make one no I understand so mr. Krause and I were talking about that exact issue the ambulance issue and I think have you finished going through all the different funding sources that are available to cover EMS we have not talked about five different options we talked about yeah we haven't talked about that okay so at the end of the five different options that the board's going to have to deal with the ms issue which mr kraus is about to go through in my view and i'm talking talking to mr kraus it's pretty evident that one way or the other two two ambulances are happening you do have reserve funds right now that you could pledge to allow you legally to go ahead and order the ambulances right And if you ended up having to fall on that sword, you could. But if you obviously had the ambulances donated, then you would just use the ones you ordered as donated ambulances. Does that make sense? So you don't necessarily have to wait to find out what the hospital authority says if the board is satisfied it wants the ambulances one way or the other. You can legally go in and order them. Because I think that was the issue at the last meeting. Can you legally order them? You can legally order them.

So the money we would claim... Are we still going to be able to answer the question what would be the difference in us doing MS... and the other doing it? How long will it take us to answer that question?

So we know if you do the ambulances, what we're asking the hospital for is worth about $1.6, $1.5 million. If you wanted to pledge revenues, you could pledge it from your contingency account, which is what Joel was talking about. And then if you don't spend it...

I'm talking about the comparison between hiring more ambulances with AmeriPro or getting our own ambulances. That's what I'm talking about.

I mean, I'll reach out to AmeriPro this afternoon.

find out what the cost of that is because we don't know you know and then we can figure out what it's going to cost us to do a county ambulance you know and then we have a comparison and you know what what what's the best way to go we got a meeting the following week yeah so you know a few days i don't know if we decided to order ambulance or not depending i don't think that's uh and plus yeah you're i guess you would be dedicating reserves, and I guess you could tweak that and call that a, it's funded, but I don't think you're supposed to expend an expense without it being budgeted.

That's what it would be budgeted from, is the contingency. If we're doing that, I guess.

Right, so on the 18th, you're not setting the millage rate, but you're deciding, do I want to do MSTU taxing you? You're adopting an ordinance that establishes the MSTU.

And I'm not saying we will do it or we won't do it, but that's what the workshop was actually about, really.

But it was to give you the information you need to make that decision in an informed sense. If you were wanting to order ambulances today, we would commit from contingency monies that you have budgeted

knowing that it won't be expended till the next fiscal year and so we would have to rebudget it in october okay so this meeting we're this kind of emergency with the meeting we're going to have on tuesday or whatever we're going there for one thing and that's to vote so they can start that's to vote so they can start trying to get the grant right

No, the purpose of the workshop slash meeting, whatever you decide, is to give you as much information as possible on EMS so that you can make an informed decision on the 18th. Now, a byproduct of that is if the board wants to take action, if you want to vote on something.

We'll also know by then what Lakeshore Hospital Authority is going to do.

Right, so we really can't make a decision until we know that.

So if you want to take action, you need to set it up as a special meeting.

if you don't want to take action it could be a workshop okay yeah but why limit ourselves we don't know what we're going i'm just wondering if we ought to go ahead and say apply for the grant i mean yeah and and we can return it but all i want all i want to get is is a comparison of the two situations as long as i get that comparison you should have that by next week

I would hope so. I mean, I can't speak for AmeriPro, but I would hope so.

And again, you know, as far as us allocating monies today, I'm not, I'm 100% for, I know we've got to prop this thing up some which way, another ambulance or whatever, but we just heard a million and a half. I don't even know what that entails. I haven't even seen it yet.

That million and a half entails three ambulances.

No, no, no, I'm talking about the sheriff.

Oh, the sheriff's?

$1.3 million. You've got a million and a half there.

The sheriff is $1.3.

Okay, but you also got a kitchen up there falling slap apart.

Yes, and that's another issue.

We just got a half appropriation for it. Well, we've got to beat them. What's that? The governor could still beat them. Absolutely. That's what I'm saying. I'm not for committing to no ambulance today, but I don't see what the one week is going to do. But all I would ask the board, And I apologize for this. If my surgery is on Wednesday, we'll have it Thursday. If it's on Thursday, we'll have the meeting Wednesday. Is that okay for you? When will you know when your surgery is? As soon as I call them here.

So you're saying they can know the date of the schedule for Tuesday or Thursday? Correct, correct. Wednesday or Thursday? Wednesday or Thursday, correct.

And morning meetings are fine, or you want afternoons?

Morning's fine with me. Oh, don't you get it?

So we will schedule a meeting. Is it a workshop or a called meeting? Meeting. Special meeting, excuse me.

Special meeting. Okay. What I want to ask you, I probably just forgot.

But I think what Mr. Hollingsworth alluded to as far as the comparison, I think that's a very valuable thing to have on the building.

Because, y'all, we've got to worry about money right now. We've got to worry about money. We can talk about everything in the world, but if you can't afford it, you can't afford it.

You know, you go forward through this MSDU, we know that's a part of the funding source. It's a tax. And it's real quiet out here right now. As soon as that one out there gets done, put it in that newspaper. Tax, get ready. Your phone's gone. And that's what I hate about property tax. Oh, it's out there already. Why we have to. Well, and during that, not to cut you off, Rob, but during that conversation, I know I've heard other commissioners have been beating it around, but I'll be quite honest with you, unless the world changes in a real drastic way, I probably ain't going to be able to support that. And I'm leaning towards sales tax, to be quite frank with you. I've done my research. I know what a half cent generates in Columbia County. And is it a fix-all? Absolutely, 100% not. That half cent ain't going to fill them. The glory days, if you want to say. But it's a fair tax. If you've got to raise something, it's definitely a fair tax because, as it was stated many times before, everybody that spends a dollar in this county pays that tax. And everybody helps. Everybody contributes. I know the school board asset was a real touchy deal, but whoever, they got two brand-new schools, they can build a third. but that money can only be generated and used for that purpose it's not a slush fund or something else like that what do we even know how i mean it wouldn't be a half cent it'd be almost i mean it but we're accepting that i'm just okay i'm glad you said that no no what i'm saying is ems is nothing like building schools and doing i mean i think it'd be like a i don't know half cent generates about seven seven half million dollars a year right that's

Cut it on your slide. And it's based on school records. They collected about $7.5 million last year.

Thank you, Lisa.

So about the sales tax, because we have done our homework. There is, they call it an emergency fire and rescue facilities surtax. The maximum it can be is 1%. You can levy it in terms of increments of 0.25%. you can do 25 a quarter of a cent a half a cent 75 or one cent because it doesn't sound like we need a half a cent so the problem you're going to face with the sales tax they change the rules and you have to apply to the state for a sales tax 180 days prior to a general election that then allows them to hire a certified public accountant to review your program to make sure you're legit They've got 60 days in which to give you a report back, and then you have 60 days prior to the general election to publish that report, advertise it, and everything else. And I'll get you the citations on that. Joel and I have been working with Heather at NGN on that. So you've missed the window for this year. So if it's at a general election, my interpretation, and I'm not a lawyer, is that you would not be able to do it until the election of 2028. which means it would take effect in 2029. So while the sales tax, even the city council members felt the sales tax is a much better way to go, you won't be able to implement that until 2028, 2029.

That is one of your options.

So we looked at the MSTU as one option. A sales tax is one option. Like you were saying, do the MSTU now, and then if the voters adopt the sales tax, you have to get rid of the MSTU. You can't have both. That would be a third option. Obviously, a fourth option is you don't do anything. You just live with what you want. And then obviously the fifth option is you tell us, not my problem, figure it out. And you just fund it. through making cuts and existing revenues.

That's why I mentioned it in the first meeting we had about this. I want people to vote on it.

So I guess the sixth option would be you could put a straw ballot on this November's agenda for people to vote. And it wouldn't have the legal implications of establishing a sales tax, but at least it lets you know what they think in terms of do you want a sales tax or an MSTU.

I'd like to do that. I'd like to do that because that leaves the tax. Because, you know, we're talking about EMS here. We're not talking about building a pretty building or spending money on something like that. We're talking about making sure when somebody calls the ambulance, they get there quickly. And I don't know. You know, I don't know if the voters will vote for that or not. But I like to leave everything in the voters' hands if I can, you know.

I'd say a straw ballot too.

I just can't stand trying to penalize our folks in the county for something that's asking for free. So yeah, I'd say a straw ballot.

Let them decide what they want to do and go from there. For the sales tax. Not the MST, but the sales tax.

So at the end of the day, to make that happen, before August 1st, we have to give Tommy Brown the language of the referendum in English and in Spanish.

And gentlemen... a non-binding referendum in 2026 you still have to do the referendum in 2028 yeah yeah it won't address any actual revenue issues right so so one thing we could do it would not affect this current budget year because you have already adopted the budget by november you could do a referendum asking if they would like to have an mstu and then you could adopt the MSTU in the 27-28 budget year. That would be a way to get public input on the MSTU that would actually That would be fine.

That would be fine. I mean, if they approve the MSTU, they surely approve the sales tax.

You know what I mean? Well, but, yeah, again, sales tax is its own separate referendum. It's very tightly regulated by the statute. So you're going to have to, before you get that taxing authority, it has to be blessed by the voters.

Bottom line, I want the citizens to make a decision as to whether EMS is important enough to pay more money on taxes.

That's what I want. With that in mind, though, we have a we believe staff believes there is a deficit in the number of ambulances on the road in columbia county period if you're not going to do the mstu or or anything then you're basically choosing the option to either do nothing about it or to fund it out of existing revenues which you know it's doable but you it's the same situation as with your real property tax exemption right we're going to cut something right to find you know quote unquote find the money That always means cutting it from somewhere else, taking it from somewhere else, reallocating some resources. If that's the option, then it's your budget officer. He has to go get to work for this fiscal year coming up, right?

To throw one more caveat in it, I would simply say is that if we did get to that point, Joel, that's a valid point you're making there. But if we were to be able to acquire two appliances, I would like to – challenged Jeff and Lance and their team to sit down and see if there's an alternative I'm gonna say alternate but away with the employees that they have now if there's a method for them to come up with to staff that unit in some which way or another you know until funding was available to put on six or nine whatever we had that one well that that's a help that's a help you're exactly right so uh at least it gets you through the first year there's you know what i could i think it was 100 or something like that whatever it was last but uh which first year 100 land yeah and so it's a you know i guess we've got to be very very open-minded there's a lot of a lot of bullets coming our way right now

So you're giving us a lot of homework for the next two weeks.

I like Mr. Hollandworth's suggestion because I'm not afraid to make a decision, but it sure is nice to involve the citizens, the ones that write the checks.

They're the ones paying it, so they should vote on it, in my opinion.

At the end of the day, the city of Lake City did approve the EMS-MSTU participation at First Street. They still have a second reading two weeks from Monday. And if they approve it, then they're agreeing to participate. If they don't approve it, then they're not.

Joe, wasn't it you that said that their system is set up where they've got to have two readings, right? The city's first reading, second reading? Got you.

But on the EMS side, they did.

And they've indicated they have indicated they're supportive of the EMS MSTU. But again, I can't guarantee what the city will do at their second reading. But we'll know that before the 18th as well. And again, some city council members did express strong support for a sales tax. All right, so that's it for the hat and the workshop. So the last thing is we need to appoint somebody to planning and zoning board. Jock Phelps has given us a long time serving on that board, and we really appreciate all he's done for us, but based on policy, he was termed out, so he has left the planning and zoning board. That leaves a vacancy, and you have four applicants for that vacancy. I spoke with Mr. Roberts. His preference would be to be considered for the utility authority. If you want him for the Planning and Zoning Board, he's willing to do it, but his preference would be for the utility authority. Mr. Todd wanted to be here today. You have his application and statement in there. He unfortunately had a conflict and could not be here today. Jesse Brown and Dolphus Johnson, who is an additional documentation in your agenda.

I'll make a motion that we put Mr. Todd on it. He comes to all the meetings. He's very involved. He called me about it.

Yeah.

I mean, why wouldn't we give somebody that's already involved anyway?

I second that motion because he is one of my constituents, not just because he's my constituent, but he has lived in the situation that we want to happen here. And he does not want that to happen here. So I think he would

be more willing to help our situation not to be that way but if he's been coming to every meeting i know for the last year very unusual to be missing this one i know that's what i'm saying yeah okay got a motion and a second all in favor say aye aye all opposed okay so the board got one thing i'd like to say we got some uh we got some pretty good applicants there available I mean there's some good applicants here I mean I I don't have a problem with any of them but Mr. Todd has been very involved in county and and I'll tell you I've been kind of watching the planning zoning thing I'm excited we we got a good group not say we didn't before but we got a group that's out there working right now and that's good that's real good and I'd like to announce we'll have the meeting on the 10th I just got notice from the last Wednesday

and so the board knows there's a high probability that there'll be another vacancy on the planning and zoning board within the month so we'll be back with the same thing again or you will have to probably at the next meeting or the first meeting in july make another appointment uh i would recommend we keep the uh folks that are there as consideration and if anybody else is interested they should turn in their application to us within the next week or so but i can't guarantee that there will be a vacancy but i do believe there's a high probability and i know i know mr johnson here he's former assistant warden hamilton ci and also a big guy

You've got some very good, qualified people. I mean, I agree with you.

I think pretty much anyone in a good position. Yeah, good.

Thank you guys very much. I really appreciate it.

And see you next week. Okay, open public comments. I'm seeing none. Okay, I'm sorry, ma'am. Yes, ma'am, please. Just, Miss Davis, just give your name to the clerk, please.

Put it, say it into the mic.

My name is Cecilia Davis. Hi, everyone. My name is Cecilia Davis. I purchased a building from the late Mr. Lester Scaff back in 2016 before he passed. And I'm trying to open up a restaurant, but I had a lot of setbacks due to Helene and Milton. And since I was about to open, that devastation came. I wasn't able to open. So I got still a lot of setbacks. And I'm trying to get help with incentives because I'm in the brownfield. And the only way I can get incentives through the Brownfield, I have to go through the county or the city to apply for on my behalf. I can't apply on my own. And if there's any incentives that you know for a small business, I would like you to look into that, if you would, and see if you can help assist me. Because I'm trying to open up a restaurant for the community and give them a place to come and eat and have entertainment as well, like karaoke. Because I want to expand later on, but I got to start somewhere. And across the street, I own that property where the truckers will be parking at, the short beds. One of the truckers must have ran over my septic, and it's a big hole there. I got a fence over it now. Two dogs fell inside of it. I didn't know until... My neighbors had called about it, but I'm not able, I'm ran out of resources because Mr. David Krause know that I've been trying to get resources doing the hurricane and all that. But I was shut down each time from like FEMA and all of them, because I hadn't opened up. I was just about to open up. And like I said, I got a lot, I had a lot of water damage, a lot of appliance, you know, a lot of stuff that, and I've been, there's so much that I can do, you know what I mean? So I'm trying to reach back to my community. I've been, I've lived here 59 years. I'm 59 years old and a resident of Columbia County. And I'm just trying to ask for help where I can ask. I went to the city and now I'm trying to come to the county.

This is the building on 441. It used to be the old SNS.

And Mr. Lester sold it to me before he passed. God bless his soul. Good man. But like I said, I would be up and running. I know if he was living, but things, you know, that I couldn't foresee with the Helene and Milton coming to do that. And then, like I said, a trucker ran over my septic on the other property across the way. The truck was a bee parking it. It parked now at my upcoming restaurant. And it's a lot of wear and tear. But I have Mr. Boone. doing an estimate quote on what it'll cost because it's going to be more on the side where the truckers will be because it's more layers or whatever. But then I'm trying to finish up the inside so I can open up. That's not even counting. I'm looking at at least 50 for the inside, and I don't know what the outside because I don't know what it will cost for the asphalt, for the sign. I know what the cost for the sign on the outside is like $12,000. Things are so expensive. I'm sorry.

Did I understand you to say that you could not apply for Brownfield?

Yes, sir. I have to go through the county or the city. That's what that's required me. That's you can tell it has. That's county. My property across the street is county.

And then I believe it was recently annexed.

It was part of it was. But the other side is county still. And then I'm in the rural area because, like I said, Brownfield I was told that it helped uplift the rural area where I'm at also because how I got into the brownfield that used to be a convenience store and it had gas stations there so I qualify being in the brownfield okay so what do we do as a county do we just is she looking for a letter of support to apply for brownfield assistance I know she's been wanting to open this restaurant for a long time

And what happened during the storm was she was ready to open, and then the storm damaged her house, her building.

Real bad.

Because she was not an already open, established business, she fell through the cracks because she hadn't opened her business yet, so she didn't qualify for SPA or anything like that because they were only funding those businesses that lost, not those people trying to create business. In terms of the brownfield, I don't know enough about it at this point to give you a straight answer one way or the other.

I mean, because, I mean, if a letter of support, if, this is legal questions and something they'll have to research, but, you know, if you're looking for the board to give you a letter of support, if that helps you along with your application, I would have no problem doing that with you or anybody else.

I can't apply. What I'm saying is the county or the city has to apply for that grant. I can't apply my personal. The city or the county has to apply for a brownfield grant because I can't apply for it as a personal individual. That's what I'm saying.

I don't know if that's about a brownfield. I have to. David, can you do some research into this and get back with her? I mean, I don't know. I just know my.

David, your phone number. Yeah, he has. Give him your phone number.

Let's research that and see what we can do for it. And I'll reach out to the city as well and sit down with them. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. God bless you all.

Thank you.

Okay. Give David your phone number before you leave. He's got it. Oh, you got it? He's got it. I do.

Okay. Not seeing any more staff. Is that coming? No, sir. Okay. All good?

So just confirming the meeting is Thursday, Wednesday, Wednesday, 930.

The only update I have is for those commissioners that are interested, Monday at 515, I believe, is the hospital authority meeting where we'll be considering whether they want to donate to the county money or ambulances to the county for ambulances. And if you're so... Wish your attendance would be appreciated.

Monday.

Yes.

Okay. Commissioners.

I'm good. I just want to say thank you all for approving the money for Fort White. I think it's going to be very beneficial to the kids down there. Absolutely. Rob? You good? No.

Oh, good. I'm not good. It's hurricane season. I just wanted everybody on the board to know that I have talked to a constituent down on the south end of the county. We have a road that floods and there used to be a way in and out for people to get in and out. This one particular place has closed its doors so I have another constituent said he would entertain maybe putting some kind of a thing with the county and writing if they could go through his property during this hurricane flood. So I just want everybody to know that. But I'm going to get David, we'll get with, I'll get with David, get his name and all that stuff. Come back and approve whatever we do. Have a good one. Okay, there's something to add here.

When you get back.

You want to say something, Joe?

no those emergency ways of necessity we've got one down in fort white that runs along some uh a solar field so and a lot of times there's i know which one you're talking about the guy who changed his mind said i'm closing it now so documenting is not a problem they actually that'll actually be an easement i don't know where he's at but i will be happy to assist with drafting the easement but the easement will actually be from him to those individual properties And it'll say, in times of high water, da-da-da-da-da-da. This is where you can go.

I'll keep it with you. Get it made. Take care. All right.

Thank you very much.