Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the August 11th, 2026 Board of County Commissioners meeting. We're glad that you're here. We're going to start the meeting with an invocation that's given today by Jocelyn Williamson from the Central Florida Free Thinking Community. And after that is provided, we will remain standing and we will have our Pledge of Allegiance. So if you'll please stand.

Good morning, commissioners, staff, community members. Let us take a moment to recognize the shared responsibility we carry for Lake County and for the people who call it home. Tomorrow is International Youth Day, which offers us an opportunity to think not only about the needs of young people today, but also about the community they will inherit from us. The decisions made here will last far beyond a single meeting, budget year, or election cycle. Roads will be traveled for decades, parks and public spaces will become part of family memories, Policies adopted today can shape opportunities, neighborhoods, and lives for years to come. Let that longer view guide the work before us this morning. Our experiences may vary, our priorities may differ, and disagreement is inevitable, but disagreement does not require disrespect. A healthy community depends on our ability to listen to one another, to speak honestly, and to remain open to ideas that challenge our own. Let's also remember that behind every budget, road project, ordinance, contract, and policy are real people. The decisions made here do not remain in this room. They shape neighborhoods, businesses, families, and futures. So today, may we choose evidence over assumption, compassion over indifference, and cooperation over division. May we keep the long-term good of this community in view, even when it asks more of us in the present. And may we guide a Lake County to be welcoming, resilient,

and worthy of the generations who will inherit it thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic All right, moving on to agenda update. Jennifer Barker, county manager.

Yes, good morning, Madam Chair, commissioners. First tab one, there was a revised agenda minutes that have been added for June 9th, 2026. Tab four and tab five, the signed termination and release of unity titles were added. Tabs 26 and 27 were added as addendums and we're requesting to move it to the regular agenda. And I am also requesting that we add tab 24 to the beginning of the agenda to immediately follow the citizen question and comment period. I think we have a lot of folks here for that agenda item, so I'm requesting that we move that up in the agenda.

OK. All right. We will then move on to our legislative update. And Chris Carmody is with us, although my paperwork says Chris Carmony. I kind of like that new variation on your last name.

I've heard it all, as they say. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having me, Madam Chair, commissioners, teams. It was another fun and raucous session, as they say, and I'll get into that. And we'll kind of jump into what was. And obviously, if you have some questions, jump in. Otherwise, we'll have time at the end as well. So I'll get through here, and again, you have copies of these slides, and obviously if there's any particular bill you want more information on, just let me know. So if I go fast, that's why, because I don't want to hold up. See, that's a good marketing team. They put all these nice bullets there about me. I won't make you read all that. But you know, I always say when these presentations, it starts by kind of knowing who's in the room making the decision. And we have a great local delegation here. You can see all of them up there, Senator True now. Representative Czarkowski, Cobb, and Gentry. When my team works with them and your team, it's pretty hand in glove, right? I've never been told, oh, I don't know if we can get to that or what have you. They jump on it right away. It's a great team, right? And we don't always... the county and your delegation doesn't always agree on every single issue, and that's okay, but when we've come to them and we need their help, they always jump into action, and so we appreciate all they do, and so when you see them in the grocery stores, the church, or wherever, please thank them when you see them, because they're working hard. So setting the scene, going into this session, there was a couple things that were kind of looming over all of it, and I say looming, because it did loom a little bit as we got into, one of them was property tax reform, and you can see the bullets there, but the gist of it was, We knew the governor wanted to have a proposal, the House had set up a committee, and the Senate had been mostly quiet about the issue. And we'll get into what occurred there, but it dominated a lot of the air in the room. Every time there's a conversation, well, what are they gonna do on property tax? We get down a budget, what are they gonna do on property tax? It affects the tax package, it affected a lot of things, so it took up a lot of the air. And the other thing, is congressional redistricting. Um, as it wasn't a secret going into this session, president Trump, governor DeSantis and others had said that they wanted to see a, as opposed to every 10 years, they wanted a mid decennial, um, redistricting. And, and some of the reasons where there was a perception and belief that Florida didn't get the right number of seats based on the last census, when it was all done through COVID and that a lot has changed since then. So again, One of those, we knew it was coming, we just didn't know when, but congressional redistricting, I've now, this is my third or fourth one I've gone through. You see a lot of interesting politics, right? People who never thought they were running for Congress now think they're running for Congress when the boundaries change a little bit. Now, for us here and then a little bit south of here, the seats, excuse me, from here and a little bit north, the seats didn't change a whole lot. They really started to change the minute you moved a little south of here. Slightly on the East Coast, the Congressman Mills' current seat, that changed a little, but really south of our areas where the seats really kind of got mashed up a little bit and changed where you're seeing some of the impacts of that. But here, mostly the same. We will see a new Congress member, as you know, because Congressman Webster announced his retirement, but that was mostly due to that, not because we have different boundaries here. But that did take up a lot of the air and it kind of set the tone going into the session. And then the last one was building a budget. The House Speaker and the Senate President made it no secret that going into this session they expected to cut the budget again. They wanted to have multi-years of cuts. And some of this is because they knew that now known as Amendment 3 was coming. hard for the state leaders to say that the local governments are spending too much if the state's not cutting their own budget, right? And so you can't take the politics out of politics. So there was a concerted effort. We knew going into session that they were going to try and keep the budget smaller. That's not because there's not money, and we can get into that. We're going to have almost $15, $16 billion in unspent based on revenue estimates. That's the equivalent of one COVID and four Cat 5 hurricanes hitting Florida in the same year. So we're flush with cash. We'll have to see what they do with that cash starting next session. But that was kind of going in. So let's start into some of their priorities. And I apologize, converting this to PowerPoint, some of these got mashed up. but I'll try to help you there. Governor DeSantis in his final session wanted a few priorities. He had gotten a lot, especially in years five and six, so he didn't have a whole lot left that he needed or wanted, but there were a few, and one of them was data centers, which obviously has become very much a hot button issue. The ultimate bill that passed, I would call it a good compromise. The original versions went so far as to basically without officially saying it, take data centers off the map for Florida, which, you know, some would argue would not be good open for business type of mindset. Other versions did nothing, right? It had no guardrails and what have you. The final version, as you'll see there in 484, ultimately put a lot of guardrails on the power grid and the impacts on that and requiring anyone coming in with a data center to pay their, not just their fair share, but the full share of what their impact was going to be on the grid, and then also the environmental impacts. As I understand it, I read a lot on them, the environmental impacts are getting better and better as the years go by and they get better with how they recycle the water but there's still some impacts there and so that required some more measures taken by the data centers or the builders to do as least impact as possible with those waters. And I know you and other communities across the state are trying to figure out what you're going to do with those if they come knocking on your door. But the bill passed there, put some nice guardrails in place that protects Floridians regardless of whether a county or city decides what they do or don't want to do with one of these. He wanted a bill of rights on artificial intelligence. That died. And some of that, and you'll see a theme here, the Florida House of Representatives was very aligned with President Trump's White House. Not to say the Senate was out of alignment, but the House of Representatives was very much in alignment of things that the President wanted. as you probably recall the president said he wanted to have no AI bills across the 50 states he wanted that to be a federal policy and the house sort of followed in line on that one and as a result that bill didn't move anywhere I mentioned congressional redistricting he did get that he signed that law on May 4th and then also vaccine mandate rollback you probably remember A couple months before session, he sent anyone to roll back all the vaccine requirements on our K-12 traditional public schools. That didn't go anywhere, again, in the House, and that was partly also President Trump left, said he didn't want to mess with the vaccine mandates, and so the House kind of followed suit. There's a couple other ones. The Emergency Trust Fund, anyone hear about that thing called Alligator Alcatraz? No? Okay, no, I thought everyone would hear that. my attempt to humor. So obviously everyone knows about this. It became very much a nationally covered story, but that was all funded with the governor's emergency fund or the state's emergency fund that the governor has the control over. We usually think of COVID or hurricanes with that, but it was also, it can use to be fun. Anything that's declared an emergency, both Republicans and Democrats in the house and Senate had concerns over that. Not so much on the immigration policy. That's obviously a hot button issue and people can agree to disagree, but it was more on the amount of money that was being spent without going through any level of procurement, any transparency until much later. And so while they didn't want to take away this fund, obviously Florida, we're in a peninsula, we get a lot of hurricanes, knock on wood, hopefully none this year, they did want to put some more guardrails. So ultimately they passed Senate Bill 7040 that required some within 14 days sign-offs from the Budget Review Commission that's up in Tallahassee made up of some of the budget leaders when they do spending on this just to make sure everything's in alignment and more than anything that there's transparency. something like alligator Alcatraz or a hurricane, there will be a little more transparency in using those funds. And then also these are some of the governor's national issues that he focused on. The push for a federal balanced budget amendment, that's something that you get a resolution, you get enough states to do it, the feds have to have a convention over it. And then state level save back, this is the voter IDs that's kind of holding up some of the business in DC right now. It passed at the state level. They're still trying to push it at the federal level. We'll see where that goes. Senate President, this was another tough session for him. He had three major bills he wanted to get through. None of them made it. Rural Renaissance was the one he tried the year before, which obviously would have benefited parts of our area here. That was going to put a big infusion in cash, as the President would say it, and some of the areas don't have the benefit of some of the urban revenues that come from a more urban environment. I think he's got two more. I don't think he has two more years left in the Senate. They won't be as president, but I think in over those two years, he's going to push really hard to try to get this to the finish line in some form or fashion. The other ones is school district deregulation. As you probably have been following along the last 10 years, Florida and the name of school choice has changed a lot of its laws, both on vouchers and how we treat our charters in private schools. And the Senate over the last couple of years has taken the approach of that's great. School choice is a great thing for all of our families, but you know, if the school regulations for traditional public schools is like the size of the Bible and for everyone else it's like a pamphlet, we need to kind of measure that out. And they've taken the approach of if we don't require it to privates or charters, why do we require it to traditional publics? And then they take the test to figure out is it a safety issue or something else. And if it doesn't make sense, the Senate has put forward laws to just strip that off the books and allow our schools to be a little more nimble. Last year it passed, this year they had some more, they tried, it didn't pass. We think this will be back. And the last one is school scholarship reform. I mentioned vouchers, wildly popular program across the state, but they have, through their own studies that the legislature's done, have found that there's not just millions, but there's tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions that they can't track where the dollars are going in the K-12 system, and there's tens of thousands of students they cannot track. This doesn't mean that our students are all not getting educated, they just don't know what it means right now. And so the Senate put forward a bill that would kind of reform some of that and put some more transparency of where the dollars are going. The House wasn't ready for that. I think this is something you'll hear more moms and dads of kids in this system, whether they're in traditional charter or private or homeschool, saying, hey, we need a little more accountability because it's going to crater the process if they don't get it. So I think you'll see that bill again. And the Speaker, he had some priorities. Sovereign immunity was one of them, and I'm happy to report, you already know this, I think I sent it to you all the day it was, that bill passed but it was vetoed by the governor so while it now this will make it 12 years since the state has changed the caps on sovereign immunity that's good it gives you all coverage on insurance coverage whether it's reinsurance or self-insurance I know that's going to have looking to Melanie sort of visually and mentally here, you know, as her team manages that stuff. It gives you another year of relief, but I do, as I say every year, every year that it doesn't raise the caps is a year that they're gonna strongly consider it more. And while next year's speaker I wouldn't call trial bar friendly or the one after that, there's down the line another speaker that while he's gonna be great, he's a little more trial bar friendly like Speaker Perez was. So if nothing happens in the next four years, you can kind of count on it after that. He had some medical malpractice bill that died. and then some school materials that died. And then DEI, this is one that will have impact, not just here in Lake County, but across the state. We kind of foretold that this was coming, and it's not that we're Nostradamus, this has been pretty well talked about in Tallahassee, that they were gonna push for some local preemptions on anything dealing with diversity, equity, inclusion. The bill kind of became known as the Anti-St. Patrick's Day Bill, and I read by that as a lot of communities have St. Patrick's Day parades, but the way this is written, you may not be able to allow to fund those anymore. It's a complicated bill, and I kind of have a slide here to go over it, and you guys have copies of this. It goes into effect January 1. Some of the, oh, this is gonna be the bad stuff doesn't seem to have taken place when you get into the details of it, but it is gonna put cities and counties and a little bit of a precarious situation as they look at their budget because even things that weren't necessarily meant to be DEI-focused could necessarily fall under this if they're not national holidays or otherwise carved out as reasons you can't do something. So we'll keep an eye on it. My guess is, whether it's y'all's community or someone else's, there's gonna be one of those, oh, we didn't think of that, and then they're gonna have to do a little bit of a glitch bill next year because, again, They didn't want to go after St. Patrick's Day parades, but some would argue maybe they've got them. But we'll have to see how that goes. The budget. Again, I said it was looming over everything. It took them for two years now in a row. It's taken them a little extra time to get the budget done. Last year was an extended session. This year was just a special session. Nevertheless, we sit there and bite our nails over it until it's done. But as you can see, they did have a start over. Ultimately, you know, they landed in the $114.5 billion, even less after the governor's vetoes. And that was during May. Here's what it looks like from a pie chart perspective. You can see, no surprise, in a state our size, health and human services is one of the largest expenses. K-12, that includes higher ed as well, and education budget, so that's no surprise. And then transportation economic development. The good news on that, job growth grant fund was funded again. That's the governor's fund, where if he sees a project that can help grow jobs and provide some infrastructure for it in the community, the state can put some money in there. And then, of course, the road fund. I've been working with y'all long enough to have the privilege to remember when they didn't always fully fund the road fund and they'd steal from that or the housing fund to fund other things. Fortunately, knock on wood, both the housing funds and the road funds were fully funded this year. For a community like ours here in Lake County that has major thoroughfares and we're truly in the center of the state where a lot of the growth is, that's a big win for us just in the sense that our projects won't fall behind because they were raiding the road fund for something else. As you can see, ag and environment, that grows every year. As you probably know, the Seminole Gaming Compact that was approved about five years ago now, that allows the sports betting as well as the casinos. 96% of the revenue that goes to the state from that compact is then put into water projects, ag funding, that such, or I say ag, ag and environmental funding through DEP. So as long as folks continue to like those particular vices, the state's gonna be flush with cash for our waters and springs. All right, and then here's some of the highlights. I covered some of those. Employee benefits protected. They reduced spending again. The tax package was about 150. It was mostly focused on the back-to-school sales tax and a couple few exemptions for home hardening products. And then some investments in education infrastructure. As I said, There's quite a bit unspent and it'll be a boon for the next speaker and president and the next governor because there'll be a lot of money that's unspent and the state will have to figure out what to do with. Perhaps they invested in things or perhaps they just leave it unspent sort of as a rainy day fund, but we'll have to see what they decide to do with it. And then I'll acknowledge the unfortunate news, as you all know, we had two appropriations that did get in the budget, and unfortunately both were vetoed. Sadly, when you look at compared to other counties, Lake County had a lot of vetoes, not necessarily Lake County projects, but just the county overall, cities, counties, districts, other groups inside. know the best we can get was some of this was the governor was trying to get to a number some of it was you know they tell you oh we don't like planning projects or this or that but they approved other planning projects what i've what i've found over the years when a project gets vetoed and sadly for for us working with you it's the first time we haven't brought a project home but when they get vetoed it's usually very amorphous what you get from them and if you ask 10 different people in the governor's team you get 10 different answers What I can tell you though is that I mentioned our delegation. They worked their tail off and I'm sad that we couldn't help get this to the finish line and should you decide to do these again next year, I think you should. They were both worthy projects and I think with new leadership and new governor for sure, I think both will have and the others that we considered will have a good chance. Notable bills, and I'll go through these quickly again, because I know you have other things on the agenda, but I can obviously answer any questions. Some bills here, 290, or Florida Farm Bill, land use and development, building permits and inspections. Probably the most noteworthy thing on that, building permits and inspection, is that the state is going to adopt uniform commercial and residential permit applications. Shouldn't have a whole lot of impact here, but that's something we're gonna wanna keep an eye on building with the Florida Building Commission. The goal is they wanna avoid a patchwork, right? Whereas if you build across the state, And you go to Lake County and you get one set of rules. You go to Orange County, you get another set of rules. And then Seminole, that increases the cost of business and lowers it. On the flip side, there's a reason Lake County has their particular set of rules. We're a little bit of a different environment than Orange or Seminole or Osceola. So we'll be working with the Florida Building Commission to make sure that whatever comes out of that, it's fair and it has enough flexibility so that Lake County will be protected on that. And as well, they've been tweaking live local ever since they passed it. It was very well intentioned. It's obviously had some not great impacts on local governments. You'll see there on 1389, there's a couple things there. As you probably remember, it was height, density, and zoning were the three things that a county or city could not use as a reason you couldn't build an affordable housing project in a certain area. Some communities started using step backs or setbacks as a reason not to do it. And so enough of it occurred that you saw a tweak where they said, well now you can't use that. So now that's the fourth sacred cow when you're building affordable housing. Hopefully it doesn't impact our ability, meaning Lake County's ability to properly review and approve these projects right, but that will be another thing on the setbacks and step backs there that they added in there. Here's one that's getting a lot of attention across the state. I know we worked with your team on this when we first started to realize some of the impacts. This is a bill that started off pretty friendly and had some pretty good language there that said, oh, you gotta work with your county and you got 180 days and you get through it. And the second committee stop, it became we're not going to work with anyone. You got counties or cities have most counties because of the agriculture enclave side of it. You have to approve it no matter what. Before the final committee stop, us and others who are kind of working on this issue were able to get some concessions put in place. But this is something I think we're definitely going to have to pay attention to. I know this will impact you all. You've probably seen in the news St. John's County. has had some impacts already with folks asking for approvals for certain projects in the enclaves. But again, Senator McClain, who used to represent our area when his seat had different things, he certainly had an open door policy on this, but this was being pushed very, very hard. And so we'll have to see where it lands next session, meaning if we can get some tweaks in there depending on some of the impacts. So you see there as we put on the impact on Lake County. And then some other bills, some of these you're aware of, some of maybe not. The net zero policies it prohibits. I don't believe this was something that was necessarily worrisome to y'all, but it applies to everybody, the ban on net zeros. The official actions of local government, we covered that one. The PFAS, again, they're trying to push PFAS chemicals out of, any kind of use except they have some exemptions for airports because of federal regulations. Public nuisance, here's an interesting bill that made it through, which here's some refreshing news, a little help to the local governments. If you're aware of nuisance abatement boards when you're trying to clean up areas, if a property's been reported as a nuisance property, whether for crime or other things, different than code, just for the folks in the audience, there's two different boards there. there's a cap on the fines and the caps are so low or they were so low that a lot of landowners that had these, whether it was commercial or industrial, they just would just say, well, I'll pay this when I sell my property because it's capped and I'll just make that the next business owner. So you never get that property back in alignment or being a good neighbor. And so this lifts some of the caps. It also adds, some of the illegal gambling sites into that that you can throw into public nuisance to help local governments better regulate that. Clerks of court, they've had some rough goes over the years, but this was finally done where they've got a little more flexibility in how they use some of their court fees so that they can pay their staff and create a little more efficiencies for those using the courts. And then local administration of vessel restrictions. This is Lake County. There are local vessels. This changes some of the rules on how you deal with derelict vessels. And then... I covered this one earlier, but here, just so you could see it deep down there, the one thing to pay attention to on 803 is it gives this exempt for permitting for anything at 7,500 less. Now, the way inflation goes, that'll maybe last a year and just about everything will be over 7,500, but this is something to pay attention to. It's meant to give, like if the hurricane hits and you gotta do some repairs and you don't have to wait around for permitting, That sounds great, but when it's being applied everywhere and then everyone says, oh, that was just under 7,500, that addition above my garage, that's where you're gonna have some issues there. Hopefully no one tries that, but you get my point. So we're paying attention to that. And then a couple others just more for your awareness. There's a lot of nonprofits in this community. This was pushed by the Florida Bar to create a little more efficiencies for nonprofits. There's a new state flagship. If you've been to Key West, you may have heard of the Schooner Western Union that was down there. Now they've designated the SS American Victory in Tampa. That's a former warship. And then you might have heard there was a renaming of an airport. All the other airports were quite nervous when this bill was filed, not that they had any issues with necessarily renaming Palm Beach International, but they also didn't want to have their airport renamed on a whim either. But this bill did pass, and I think they've already now started taking flights under the new moniker of President Donald J. Trump Airport. And then here's some bills that died. Hey, good news. A lot of these were not good bills, and so they did die. These first two, probably very important, but I'll start with the blue ribbon one. And I know we talked some with your team, and we were paying attention to it, This is a bill, and you can read it, that said if you had at least 15,000 acres together, and you owned that all together, and you were gonna dedicate at least 60% to conservation, ag, or public use, that you can pretty much do whatever you want with the other 40%. You don't need a lot of input from your permitting board, building department, zoning, what have you. Some would say yay for efficiency, right? Others would say that sounds interesting, because there's a lot that falls into that 60%. People were already targeting that that would include data centers, and again, not for or against data centers, I don't think people qualify data centers as conservation, agriculture, or public use. The point is there was a lot of not sure, and this came down to the wire. You had leaders in the Senate, the next two Senate presidents whipping votes to try and pass it, and you had folks fighting against it. Some of those folks are coming back. Some are not. I think the approach from the folks fighting it that's saying, yeah, we all agree we could have more efficiency in building departments and zoning approvals and all that, But what's good for the goose is good for the gander. In other words, if you're going to allow it for these big landowners, you should allow it for the little landowners. Otherwise, it doesn't work. And so while I expect this bill to come back, I don't know in what form. We'll obviously take our cues from you on how to approach it. But the current version, if it had passed, would have created some interesting wrinkles here for you all locally. And then local business tax, that's one that comes back every single year. There's folks that don't think they should have to pay it. It's obviously a revenue source for local governments. And I think with amendment three looming out there, they decided not to pass this bill, but regardless of what happens with amendment three, I think you'll see something like this come back next year. And then a couple of this, a couple others there to pay attention to the last one state bird change. Uh, anyone knows it's our, it's the mockingbird is our current state bird, but there's been a push to pass it to the flamingo. It passed the house. It did not pass the Senate. We'll see where that goes next year. And then a few others there, term limits for county commission and school, just noteworthy there, they sought to establish 12 years. There's a couple leaders, some term out, some come in. Michelle Salzman, I think, from the Panhandle, she's been pushing for this, and there's some others that wanna have term limits County Commission and school boards so far it hasn't passed and part of it is you know everyone wants term limits except for theirs right like so kudos to you all right they're like but I like my Commissioner I just but all the others should have term limits so that's probably working in your favor if you don't like term limits but every year they keep beating this drum you know I'm more of the there are term limits they're called elections and you know that's how that works so if you're good enough to get reelected that you should stay but no one asked my personal opinion up there And then Department of Health, that was the package I talked about, the vaccine mandate, that didn't pass. And then medical freedom, that was part of that as well. Again, part of these bills that didn't pass was as you recall, and there's even more there, The friction between the House and the Governor last year was made for a lot of fireworks. It continued this year. Whereas previously the House and the Senate had a great relationship with the Governor. You didn't see a lot of bills that died because everyone was on the same page. And even if they didn't always get along, they were doing everything on the same page. on the floor, as lobbyists, that especially represent someone like Lake County, I welcomed the friction, even though of course I want everyone to get along, because that allowed a lot of these bad bills to just die, because they couldn't get along on other things. Sometimes you want them to pass, but a lot of bad bills did die, which is a good thing. I point out carrying of weapons and firearms. As you probably recall, about this time last year, there was a second DCA opinion that said that Florida's open carry ban was unconstitutional, the Attorney General, James Uthmeyer said that he wasn't going to challenge that ruling, that he agreed, and so it sort of became the law of the land that open carry was now legal in Florida. The problem is our statutes on the books are intertwined between concealed carry with a permit and open carry, and it's hard to distinguish both, or it's very easy to distinguish, but the fact is that now you had a law that said Someone couldn't conceal carry in a government building, but they could open carry in a government building. That's a little interesting. Fortunately, Florida did not Florida, and let's hope it doesn't yet. There hasn't been any incidents that has made anyone say, hey, we gotta fix this. But there was some hope that there would, a law that would be passed that would create a little more guidance to you and your teams as you guys try to cram up with policies. Whether in your parks, you probably saw neighboring Winter Garden down there had a sign about not allowing firearms in the park. They got a nice letter from the Attorney General, and the sign went away. There's a little bit of gray area as a result of this law, so I think a lot of folks, regardless of how you feel about Second Amendment, are just hoping there can be some clarity, because right now the way the law reads is not so clear. And then some of those other bills are covered. Here's some notable dates, and I'll get into Amendment 3. Obviously, we have a primary next week, general election November 3rd. Org session, which is really a lot of pomp and circumstance. I don't say it in a pejorative way, just they show up. and they elect their speaker and their president, and they talk about how it's going to be a great two years. We saw how the last two years went. And then we have regular session March 2nd, and then the last day of session is April 30th. Let's all pray for no special sessions. And that, as a reminder, will include a new governor. The swearing in of the new governor, whoever he or she may be, will be this first Tuesday after the first Monday in January. So I think this year it actually lines up to be January 2nd. Um, so Tallahassee, that's when the real work will start. They'll have a committee week in December, but for the house and Senate, but the real work will start once they swear in the new governor and the new cabinet, um, or whoever else is added to the cabinet and they really get to work. So you probably heard about this amendment three. Um, So it took a minute for them to get there, but they finally did get there. It was about a three-day special session. The proposal came from the governor, the House and Senate amended it. The original proposal wanted these exemptions you see to apply to everything, including school taxes. The amendment that came later took out school taxes. But for y'all, which I think you know, but those behind me, goes from 50 to 150,000 on January 1, 27, which will affect your 27, 28 budget. And then in January 1, 28, the exemption will go up to 250,000, which will affect your 28, 29 budget. They put in there that you can index it to CPI or the legislature has the right to add to it. There's a lot of things in this bill that constitutionally folks have questions about. One of it is that, is can you just defer all that to the legislature to do it whenever they feel like? We'll have to see how that's ruled on. But then the others there, as you can see, as an olive branch to the commercial community, it was the annual increase can go on your assessed value can go from 10% now the max of five percent if it was to pass and then it um and then there's also in the implementing bill it had the rollback rate which i know y'all are dealing with as you shape your budget originally the rollback rate and this is a statutory change this is happening no matter what happens on november um is that you you go a rollback rate which only requires 50 of y'all to approve it has some qualifiers in there for personal income and for the max millage rate so that it can essentially stay level on what you need for spending, even if it's slightly more, it's kind of flat. Now you have to go to what they call the base rollback rate, which has no qualifier. So essentially, unless it's some weird year in how it's done, it will be a reduction in the revenue that you have to just keep it at neutral, if you will, at that rollback rate. If you want to go any higher to basically what would be like sort of like a qualifier to make it just cover the services you have, as the increased cost, you would have to have a super majority. Some communities will be fine getting to that super majority, others won't, some won't wanna go there. It's gonna make for some interesting pickles, right, because a lot of communities just say, we stick with the statutory rollback rate, we're not raising taxes, we'll live with what we have. Now that actually is a lowering, at least for the first year. After that, it should, in theory, stay neutral. Couple other things that's in there, or I guess I should get to, there's a legal challenge. Actually, let me go back, because it's not on the bullet, and then I'll move that. The other thing in there is you probably remember the original version of the bill said, here's the things that cities and counties can spend their money on. And it didn't say including, but not limited to. It just said including. And for the lawyers in the room, know that when you have that specificity, It's just that. If you do the but not limited to, there's some gray, there's some open to interpretation. It originally did not have anything for administration. They added that in, but there's some concern around the language. It didn't have anything for flooding, right? So clearly some of this was, once it got into the public eye, they're like, oh yeah, Florida, it rains a lot, we have hurricanes, we should probably put something in there for flooding. And they added a couple other things in there to make it clear. The last paragraph, as you all know, and when I say you all, I'm looking at you as commissioners, know that there's a deal dealing with administration. That much is clear. So you got the administration side, but then it puts about a two line addition to that sentence that says, whatever is approved by the commission board or what have you. Some argue that that means anything that goes in front of you is good to go. Maybe you gotta do like kind of line item budgeting, right? So it's not something you can give a department a million dollars to do with what they want. They gotta bring everything back. Some would argue that that means no, You can pay for the administration, but you can't pay for parks and recs. So you can have a parks and recs director, but you can't pay for your parks with ad valorem. This is all going to be challenged in the courts. We'll have to see how they level on it. And I asked a lot of the lawyers, both in my firm and out like people who look at this every day. And I got like four different answers. So that tells me that there's some clarity needed on this. So let's talk about that legal challenge. There were some challenges filed some around the ballot summary, the circuit court, um, more recently agreed that the ballot summary was misleading. that it said save our homes, which is a completely different part of the Constitution than what this deals with, was misleading. And how it works under how they changed the law a couple years ago is the Attorney General, James Oethmeyer, gets to rewrite that language. And he has 10 days, which I think the deadline is either tomorrow or the day after that. So we should know soon. Governor DeSantis has already announced that the state's not going to challenge that ruling, that he's going to allow the Attorney General to rewrite it. And then the court has another bite at that. So if the court does not think that the rewritten summary works and is fair, they can say, nope, take another stab at it and we can go back and forth leading up to November. Probably got to get it done by early October, obviously, or actually late September because of the 45 days, but that's what they'll go through. And then, as I said, there's some challenges to the constitutionality of it, which can come later, even if they approve it, right? There's Commerce Clause, there's a provision in there that says if you buy your home, I think it's after January 1, 27 or 28, You have to wait five years to get the benefit of these tax exemptions. Federal Commerce Clause says that you can't treat folks outside the state differently than you do in the state. That dooms a lot of proposals. And there's some other things on there. Again, I don't do con law day in and day out. I do lobbying, so I'll trust people who kind of live in that world. But I've been told that there is some concern over some of this language, so we'll have to see how that fleshes out in the courts. All right, and then as you see, Tax Watch and some other groups listed some of the impact. You all can see y'all's impact. I'm sure you're already paying attention to it. And we'll see where this goes here. For those that can't see me, on the top right is Lake County where they list, the parentheses means less. And then so, questions. It was another fun, raucous session where everyone that's in the process prays for a little more peaceful session next year with new leaders and new cabinet, but we'll see. That's all well and nice until someone doesn't get what they want.

I got a couple questions. Go for it. A couple observations first. The land use, I mean, it's obvious, I think, for those that maybe haven't been paying attention to this, but we've heard a lot about it for a long time, and that is the pulling away of local governments, the ability to actually manage our growth and growth pressures and Delegating that or giving that to the state and so that theme continues and that one bill the blue ribbon is frightening and the fact that it got so close to actually being approved is just blows my mind, but that's something that People in Florida have got to be aware of and we've got to do a good job trying to get that information out to people so that they know what to ask their state legislators and what to complain about because otherwise these things just happen just like they have for the last 10-15 years and then we have to live with them and we don't really feel the effects until we have these big booms and growth like we're having right now. But something else that I noticed too, the bad bills. I mean, it's crazy how bad the bad bills are and to think that they even have a shot at passing. So we've got to, and this is why we have a lobbyist because we have to have the lobbyist there keeping tabs on all of this and going to bat for us. And that's a really big part. It's not, a lot of people think we have a lobbyist so that we can just go get money. and hopefully bring it back to Lake County. And it's nice when you get those projects approved and we get a little help with things that we're trying to get across the finish line. But the real reason is so that we can make sure that these laws don't get adopted that then have a negative effect on our county. But the big thing that the question and all of this is one would you come back and let's dedicate some time to actually delving into the land use ones because you really went really quickly over those and I think that we should spend more time in them so that we understand them really well so then when they come back up this next Session, we're aware, like even on Live Local, just really having a good understanding of that so we know what we need to be asking for to be amended. But transportation, all of this money that the state of Florida is flush with, to me it seems like this is the perfect time, if there was ever a time, for all of the counties and the cities to get together and really push hard, and the citizens. to push hard to say, okay, let's set aside X amount of dollars that will come back and actually catch up MPO projects that are lingering 10, 15 years. And in our case, we have many of them. U.S. 441 in Mount Dora is a prime example. It's been on that list and in Leesburg as well. Been on the list for 15 years and it still hasn't been widened in certain sections. I just am looking for direction on what we can do as Lake County to maybe lead the charge, to say to our other counties, especially ones that are in a similar situation as us, that have so many of these major state roads, but they look and feel more like local roads in some cases, like 44 stretching from DeLand over to Eustis and beyond, to actually try to get money designated to catch up on infrastructure and just need direction on how we do that and how we might be able to organize that effort.

Sure. A couple things on that. On the Blue Ribbon one, and I'll say you have a great team, and I'm not just talking about the folks sitting on the dais with you, but some of the folks I got to say hello to before I got up here, and it's always fun to get to know a new member of the team that's working on stuff. they, when we send them these bills, like the blue ribbon one, I need some input on this, right? Because that bill was sold as, oh, there's just, there's a couple areas in Southwest Florida that they just want to create some innovation and efficiency. And I don't mean, I'm not putting ill will on any of these sponsors that did it, you know, but we, I stay up a lot of nights and just pull out the bills and kind of read through them and go, that's interesting, that, Lake's a big county. What do we think of this? That would not be good, right? And there's other counties that were affected by this as well. So we appreciate working with your team. It's definitely a back and forth, because while I understand a lot of this stuff, I don't live it day in and day out. on your team to help us with that. And then I'll give a little bit of good news, although I don't want to put it on them. The incoming speaker in the house, Sam Garrison, is out of Clay County. From my experience watching him operate in the house, given his rural background at Clay County in the northeast part of the state, from what I've seen is he's been a lot more open-minded to not just putting the thumb on the scale on preemption, so to speak, and I'm not gonna assume anything he will or won't do, right? He's gonna be his own speaker. But I think you'll feel, I think we will see a little better treatment, for lack of better terms, of local counties and cities, especially in the rural area in these next two years because he sees the impacts, right, when you just You know, it's one thing to say, well, preemption because the local government's not being fair to this project or that, and you've got to take away the right because they're not there. But as you said, that thing would have had devastating consequences, not even about who gets to make the decision. A lot of your constituents would have woke up the next day and go, well, wait, how'd that get over there? Well, we weren't allowed to say yes or no on that. That was their decision, right, under that blue ribbon panel language. So I think you'll find, and I think President Boyd, who's going to be Senate President, I think he'll be great too, but especially Garrison and his background. on the rural area, I think you'll find that. And you're right, the bad bills, a lot of this, they call it the tyranny, the anecdote, right? Something bad happens in this one area or one city or county does something that maybe they should or shouldn't have done, but it ticked off the wrong person, and now someone's on a crusade up in Tallahassee. That's how a lot of these bills are, and I deal with our friends at the Association of Counties. I always check in with them, hey, what do you, like Davin especially, I go to him first, what are you seeing on this? and kind of shake his head, and I'm like, okay, that's what I thought, let's get to work. But good news is there's a lot more bad bills this past session died than passed, but you always have to pay attention to them. The last thing on transportation, so you probably remember it was your priority with City of Groveland, the realignment of State Road 50, we did that a couple years ago, and that was a team effort with our delegation, with the DOT leaders, and the city and county coming together. Squeaky wheel, I hate to be so old-fashioned, right, but we just did not let up on the state. And every time it looked like the state was, and DOT was kind of back tapping the brakes on that project or saying we got to push this out a couple years, you know, we had, I'm looking visually at the slide that I showed earlier, we had Senator True now, Representative Jarkowski or some of the others lighten them back up saying, why am I hearing that this is going to be pushed out another year? We got to get this done now. Now, again, just getting MPO projects, a more general theme, that will take, not just that effort, but getting others involved. But as you see our leaders, not just our delegation, but other leaders, as you see these governor candidates start to barnstorm the state between now and November, I would let them know, because there is going to be money that's available there, right? Not just the road fund. There's no reason, again, I don't write the budget, but there's no reason in my mind that they couldn't dedicate like they did during COVID. And we had some of those fed funds set a billion aside, prioritize how we're going to do that. Cause you remember during that, when they use some of the moving Florida forward, they focused on the big highways, right? So I four and some of the others, which again, benefits us to some extent, it helps move them through. But as we kind of reminded them when we were pushing for state road fifties, I hear you, but think about all the veins that lead to that giant artery. And if the veins are all constricted, then you've done no one any favors, because if they can get on I-4 and it takes them five minutes to get where they go, but it takes them 45 minutes to get to I-4, what have you done? And so they started to see the light on State Road 50, because as you know, there was a congestion point there, but I think some of that is just gonna take a little bit of a drumbeat, getting louder and louder, and when we make the trip to Tallahassee, making that the priority, saying, yeah, we've got these projects we want, but you need to find some funds here.

Okay, and I know everybody else has questions, but just one suggestion. Maybe we reconvene on this issue, and we get our marketing team involved, and we look at a way where we actually put together, like, this marketing campaign that we take out to some other counties, see if they'll get behind it. We use that as a way, not just the typical, you know, we're here asking you do this or that, but we put a full court press on.

And the last thing, not to belabor, because I do see some folks that look like they want to ask questions. We're going to have a new governor regardless term limits, and whether he or she are Democrat or Republican, they're going to have a transition team and a transition period after November leading up to January. We should and can engage with that transition team to make this a priority. As you recall, you know, we always forget because it's been eight years since the last major transition team, but they always have siloed healthcare. economic development, transportation, infrastructure will probably be a silo. We need to get to the folks on there, if not try to get one of you or someone from the community appointed to that transition team to play a role in that, where it can be reminded to them over and over again, you cannot ignore our just local road infrastructure, which includes state roads that serve a lot of our local communities. I think that would, having whoever the governor is hear that message will be very impactful as well, because that's how they shape those first session and all their next eight years goals from that transition team.

All right, more questions?

I don't have a question, I just have a statement. It's concerning transportation because I've had this conversation with some of our delegation up in Tallahassee is, you know, we get pressure from the state, Lake County and Polk County especially, and Lake County, we all live on a ridge and we get pressure from a state commodity, which is sand, right? Right. So we have a bunch of these heavy trucks running up and down our roads with no help from the state. They're putting pressure on us to approve these things because it's an important commodity for our economy, but they're not doing anything to help us improve the roadway or new infrastructures that these trucks are riding on. So we need to put that pressure back onto the state and say, look, if you want to have this, then we got to, you know, we got to have better infrastructure to help us out. Just like Commissioner, Chairwoman Campione said that we have a lot of roads that are state roads that look like county roads that need to desperately need some assistance. And we've been trying for 20 years to get them done and they're, they're just not paying attention to it, so I think it's time now that we really put pressure on the state to say, you know what, we need some help here.

I mean, we'll probably be good on that, and obviously we have gas taxes that help fund some of the road maintenance and building, and that's a declining source of revenue for obvious reasons. Cars are more efficient, and we have more electric vehicles. For years, there's been those in the state that have been recognizing the fiscal cliff of our road fund of knowing that every time a new electric vehicle goes on and we take a gas-powered car off, That's less revenue. I think you'll see, again, regardless of who's governor and certainly with the new leaders coming in on the House and Senate, a little more of an appetite to change their approach to that, knowing that they have to stabilize that fund. And with that stabilization, conversations can come out of it of great, but let's also talk about where the heavy commercial traffic flows and the communities that have to bear the brunt of that.

Right, yeah, and I'm gonna turn it over to Commissioner Parks, but yeah, that whole gas tax thing is a big deal, because we know last session, right, they cut some of that by how they do the indexing, so they gave it an even bigger hit, even though they knew it was a declining source of revenue, And a lot of like what Commissioner Smith is talking about, it has to do with maintenance and resurfacing. And that's where we really feel it with those big trucks. They degrade our roads faster. So that links right into that discussion about that as a funding source. But then if we could just kind of keep focusing on these as two separate One is the maintenance and the resurfacing. The other one are those expansion capacity projects that have been sitting there for 15 years. So, okay.

I was just gonna say a great presentation and I was blessed maybe a couple months ago through the Florida Association of Counties to meet with Speaker Garrison, and I do believe for an hour, actually one-on-one, I do believe he'll, I think he's gonna be a lot different. We'll see, of course, but I grew to respect him for sure. I think it'll be a different story. Some of this is, you know, we've talked about already, 19 billion for transportation, which is not even really 19 billion. It's less than that because it's a larger bucket. It's just not enough. You've mentioned it. I-4 projects are 4 billion out of that alone. With this state of Florida, I just don't think that we're investing enough, and I know our legislators know that, but To say the same thing, we need to really make that an effort. We need to follow our long-range transportation plan, which was adopted this past year, which shows that we're actually trying to do our own part. We're trying to commit our own dollars, both the county and the cities, but we want them to recognize that there's a lot of roads that we've been falling behind on here in Lake County. I totally agree that it has to be a full court press. $19 billion is not enough for Florida with the way we're going. The big cities are going to gobble that up, like a lot of that up. That's going to be, I think that's still going to be a problem.

Not wrong. And the good news is, I mean, other than, like I said, the old-fashioned squeaky wheel, our delegation and, you know, I think three of them are on the ballot, so we'll have to see elections, but the way I understand it, they should all be back. You'll have Senator Trudeau moving further up in leadership, and then you'll obviously have Representative Gentry, who used to do what I do, so he understands kind of all the inner workings, Representative Yarkovsky will be moving up. Every year they move up gives a little more seniority, a little more ability to get things done, and also just experience. So we'll have a good delegation to work with on that. And again, we'll likely, I don't mean to presume or get rid of the current DOT secretary because I like him, but usually there's just a lot of turnover with the new governor. We'll probably have a new DOT secretary, maybe, maybe not a different district secretary, but there'll be new opportunities to reengage and refresh and educate.

I appreciate that, and two other quick things. I think that next year, we'll be looking back, my prediction would be that trying to repeal the entire Growth Management Act could be the biggest issue. I don't wanna exaggerate too much, but I do think that there's, so it's not just the bad bills that we're talking about, but from what I'm hearing, there's gonna be a real attempt to completely repeal or redo 163, depending upon who you talk to in the legislature, different opinions. there's some things that are antiquated about 163 totally that was written in the 80s right so it does need to be changed but i think we have to watch that and it's going to be incumbent upon residents to follow that because that's a big deal i mean getting rid of and again you don't want to get rid of comp plans i'm a huge fan of comp plans and public process that goes along with that but these are some things the extremes that you're hearing about when it comes to repealing 163 so i think that's going to be important for us to follow, and then lastly, the state bird should not be the flamingo, it needs to be the scrub jay, because if we're gonna change it, because that is one resilient bird, so I would put in that we change it to the scrub jay.

I like that one. Okay, Commissioner Morse, do you have any questions? Okay, all right. And Commissioner Sabatini, you just got here, but it's a great presentation worthy of going back and going through or spending an hour with Chris and walking through it. And plus, we know you're somebody that's on top of all this stuff all the time. Okay, well, very good. Thank you very much.

Thank you all. It's a pleasure to work with you all. Is Angie here? Yep. I'd be amiss if I did not acknowledge our partner, Angie Langley. She works with us obviously here locally, and I make her come up and hang out with me at the state level as well and walk the halls. But it's a good team. And like I said, I can't emphasize this enough. You mentioned the projects, Chair. We've had some success working with DEP and DOT, and a lot of that's because of your team. I'm looking at Commissioner Parks. We had some water project we were trying to work with with one of the cities in his area. you know, DEP came to bat, that was partially because you had a great team that we were able to work with and put the right proposals in front of, right? It's one thing to get our folks in the room, but we have to be able to sell it once we're in there, and so it's, I can't say it enough, you have a very good team, and I'm proud to work with them. Thank you all.

All right, thank you. Okay, moving along to minutes approval, we've got June 9th and June 23rd minutes. Clerk of Court Gary Cooney.

Good morning, I have two sets of minutes for your approval. Move for approval.

Second.

All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Moving then to citizen question and comment period. This is the period of the time in the meeting when the public can discuss items that are on today's agenda with the exception of zoning items. And then we have several items that we actually have cards that will be we'll take up when we get to those items. If you're online and you wish to speak, we ask that you press star nine and that you click the raise hand button. So we will pick those cards up in just a second. And we've got a few cards that are here in the audience. And you have three minutes. And we just ask that you conclude your statements when you hear the buzzer go off. Otherwise, I have to remind you to wrap up your statements. So we're going to start with Martha Cox. Martha. okay um let's see if that's not pulled that's on consent so um you're okay all right that's regarding episcopal children's services and uh thank you so i'll just acknowledge that you're thanking us on the cdbg funding uh vincent um i see you front and center here

Good morning, commissioners. Uh, my name is Vincent Nemec. I'm from Lake County Claremont. I'd like to thank you. Uh, when I was here asking for help for a crossing guard along Hartwood Marsh and Hancock to do the construction on Hancock Boulevard or Hancock road. Sorry. That's my knee all coming out. All right. Uh, it's been a little bit unsettling, uh, and plus the Windy Hill Middle School, their hours are till four o'clock in the afternoon. I spoke with a crossing guard early this morning, just to verify my times, and they start at 8.30 in the morning, they take a break, they come back for the end, and they leave at 3.45. I had the safety of the children crossing the most busiest intersection in Claremont. which is Hartwood Marsh and Hancock. I thank you for your help, but I'm asking for more help if we could extend those hours at least until the construction is completed. Okay, I don't know if my commissioners have been down Hartwood Marsh and Hancock recently. It's a nightmare. It's a total nightmare. We have large construction vehicles coming in and out. Okay, dump trucks, we got the sand. Mine's over there. It's these poor kids. Kids are kids. They don't know the difference between danger and safety when it comes to the roads. So that's why I'm here to speak as an advocate for the roads and the safety and the citizens of South Lake Claremont. Thank you for your time. And if you could ask or you know how to get in touch with me. I know you guys have a large agenda, but I really would like some more guidance on this if you can. Thank you.

Mr. Parks, do you want to address that?

Thanks, Chair, yeah. Thank you, Vinnie. Always great to see you, and absolutely, we'll connect after the meeting about this with staff, you and I. Thank you. Have a blessed day, all of you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Cheryl Martin?

Good morning, everybody. My name is Cheryl Martin. I am a citizen of Lake County. The reason I'm here is about the school zone, Edora Road, speed limit signs out there, and the third party that's monitoring those school zones I say school signs, speed limit signs. The sign, it's in Mount Dora, Mount Dora Police Department got their people, the third party, monitored them as a 25 miles an hour speed limit, but I got the resolutions, and I did tell the... I did go to court and I did challenge my ticket because the resolution called for the speed limit to be 35 miles an hour, but the monitoring company that Mount Dora has say the speed limit is 25 miles an hour. So the magistrate, because I verbally told him, oh yeah, this is what the resolutions say. He told me I could come back to court once I have the paper. So I got the paper of the resolution showing that the speed limit is 35, not 25. Now I cannot get a court date, a new court date from that third party. The city of Mount Dora Police Department won't take my calls, won't email me back no more. So I'm just looking for some help because I am refusing to pay this ticket of $100 because the speed limit signs is not appropriate, monitored by Mount Door and a third party.

People mount door about what they can do to get this resolved.

Okay, they have I'm saying they because I did notice all the signs now say 35 miles an hour and I do have a copy of You know my vehicle being ticketed, you know for that 25 and everything states 25 miles an hour, but the signs they did have On the northbound and southbound they had 35 25 then 35 35, 25, but the 25 is not legal. It's not legal by the resolution. It's no resolution. I call Public Works, Mount Dora, Leesburg, I'm gonna say Mount Dora, Lake County, and everybody's telling me 35. Again, I do have the resolutions for that and the school beacon. I even got the resolution for the school beacon out there, which was during school, the beacon that flashes. I have all of that, and I just wanted a new court date. So I can show my proof.

And what we'll need to do is we'll just, if you can maybe give that to either the clerk or the county attorney and we'll try to work to see what we can do to, I think Mount door can help you get it resolved and then they can talk to, um,

Because like I said, I got a list of people I not called. The last police officer I called, and I do have his number, and his number is on this stuff, he told me he can no longer talk to me per the city attorney. So I'm like, oh, emails don't work, phone calls don't work, everybody refusing to talk to me. And like I say, it's proof is proof. I mean, the agenda is in here.

Okay, we're gonna try to interview on your behalf and see if we can get you what you need, which it sounds like potentially the court date could resolve it, but I think if the other parties involved are willing to get it resolved, then they can help us with the court date and get it resolved.

So if you wanna leave the information with Misty and your contact information as well, I'll reach out to the city of Mount Dora and see if there's something we can assist with.

And I did, you have 14 days from the time you go to court. I did all of this in less than 14 days, got all of this stuff together. And then they told me I had to go to the clerk's office. The clerk's office do not have my name in the system. But I said, can you put something down showing I came over here within 14 days? She said, really, I can't because I have nothing on you.

Okay, we're going to try to help you get this sorted out, and I have to say I admire your tenacity and your thoroughness, and we're going to try to help you get this sorted out.

Again, like I said, I'm just looking for help. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Cheryl Martin. Now we have Farmer Bank, Selfrick.

I am farmer Banks Helfrich, I live in the Clay Road District. Farm tip of the day, did you know that peanuts are legumes, peanuts are related to the bean family, and peanuts are root vegetables, and right here, right now in Florida, peanuts are being harvested. Chairwoman, board, distinguished guests, what exactly do our political representatives do? from DC to Tallahassee to right here in this room to Howie in the Hills. We show up, we serve the community, and that is our job. What exactly is showing up? What is actually service? There are seven ups to service. One is to wake up. Two is to dress up. Three is to show up. Four is to listen up. Five is to speak up. Six is to follow up. Seven is to never, ever give up. Out of those seven, ups, the one that is most important is actually showing up. So what exactly is showing up? Showing up is going to Love Groveland and carting out food and asking the clients, how are you? Showing up is standing in front of you all and sharing a farm to a tip. Showing up is being invited to that nativity play and showing up in the community to support local arts. Showing up is being there for the community. Twenty years ago, my mother had an issue at the state level, so she called her state representative. She got an assistant on the line. The assistant said, Joe, which was her state representative, we'll get back to you within one day. They hung up, and in an hour, Joe was on the phone with my mother. Gabriela, my mother's name. How may I help you? My mom explained the issue. Joe listened. He then said, you know what? I need to do some research. Give me a day. I'll get back to you. They hung up. Within an hour, Joe was back on the line with my mom. explaining to her the intricacies of government and taking her hand through the issue and finding a solution. Joe ended up being the Speaker of the House in Tallahassee. This is service. This is showing up. I am Farmer Banks Helfrich, candidate for State House District 25, and I show up. May you all be blessed. Thank you for allowing me to speak. And I do have one caveat to add. What is the definition of home rule? Home rule is the power of all towns and cities and counties to self-govern, pass laws, and manage internal affairs without asking for or needing explicit state permission. I am 100% behind home rule. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, and now we got to, it looks like we've got someone online.

William, please unmute your line and state your name for the record.

Good morning. Um, can you all hear me? This is Willie from Putnam land conservancy.

Okay. Hold on. We're going to be moving into that agenda item next. So can you hold on until we get to that agenda item?

I can. My comments were more general, but I'd be happy to hold on if you'd like.

Okay. If they're general, then you're not going to stay for the rest of the comment period on that issue. Go ahead and proceed.

Maybe I can just tell you what my comments are briefly about. It's just about the importance of the county land conservation funding to protect critical linkages and wildlife corridors. Is that something I could address now, or would you like me to wait?

I think that, in fairness to everyone that's here on this issue, that it really needs to come at the time when we hear from everyone else on these issues. Okay. Okay. All right. Stay with us. We'll be back to you. I will. Okay. All right. Let's see if we have anyone else. All right. So now we're moving on. So this is when we were going to pick up tab 24. If I could just get a show of hands if you're here for tab 24, which has to do with the public lands and trails. Okay, all right. So yeah, I'm trying to make a decision because we have another issue that has about 12 or 14 cards. And so trying to weigh this out, but we're going to proceed with tab 24, which is this particular issue. And we are going to, Okay. This is on tab 24. All right. This is going to be a lengthy, this is going to be a lengthy hearing. So if you care for other items and you have something that you want to do and then come back, this is probably a time when you could do that.

Um, in fact, I could, I'm like sort of a little bit of a majoritarian here. If like two thirds of the room is for the rail stuff and like one third of the room is for

you know the other the conservation or the other item is it all related the appraisals okay oh yeah yeah that's all related um yeah it's gonna be cut in half okay thank you and the other item that had like 12 cards was the deep woods one so that's where just trying to be fair to everyone madam chair yes sir um i will have to leave at 12 be over at canvassing ward at 12 30.

So I know it's going to be lengthy if there's going to be a vote on this. I want everybody to understand that it needs to be done before 1230.

Okay. All right. Okay. Very good. So we know we've got those parameters. And if any one of us has to step out, just so everyone knows, we can still hear the meeting. So if somebody's even up talking and we step out to use the restroom so that we can keep the meeting going, we can still hear because we have speakers back here. So just so you know.

You can actually hear in the restroom, too.

Yes. Yes, you can.

to let you know, so we'll hear you the whole way.

Yes, yep.

Thank you for breaking the ice and making me laugh.

Okay, all right.

Oh, I'm gonna... Just so they know, I mean...

Turn over the introduction here to Angela Harold.

Good morning, Angela Harold, Operations Director of Public Lands, Parks and Trails and Facilities. I am here today to present to you some findings of the Public Lands and Trails Advisory Acquisition Committee, introduce those properties to you along with their trail recommended property, and to have you start the discussion on the bond process and how we want to move forward. So here's a quick outline of what we will talk about. I'll give you a quick update on what the Public Lands and Trails Acquisition Committee has been doing. I'll call it Public Lands Committee to shorten it. We'll do a quick review of the properties that they've recommended, the trail property that was recommended, and then we'll move to discussion and direction on how you all would like to proceed. So just as a quick update, staff has presented site visits to the plaque committee starting on June 30th with the first batch and then another batch on July 30th. The plaque committee were very active out in the field. They visited many of the properties. We received a total of 26 applications. 18 of them were fee simple with 11 of those gaining a site visit. We received eight conservation easement applications. We have not moved forward on any of these yet. We will discuss those at the September 24th Black Committee meeting. During the June 30th and July 30th meetings, they decided that they would like to recommend to you all to move forward with appraisals on four public lands and then to move forward on due diligence and potential purchase for the Buckeye Betrayal. Quickly, just to show you sort of how we moved the properties through the evaluations, we started with a desktop evaluation based on GIS layers, soil maps, Florida Forever program, Florida Natural Areas inventory. Were they in a Florida wildlife corridor? Were they in a critical area of concern? At that time, site visits came about, where boots on the ground happened to confirm the findings through the desktop, were there natural resources, intact systems, public access, infrastructure present, what kind of condition was the infrastructure in, and then any boundary or development pressures. So we're gonna start with the first property that they recommended. It is the Sunderman Family Trust property, 562 acres. It is located in Groveland. The asking price, and I'm gonna make a little note on this, the asking price is the price that was put on the application. However, what we're asking for today is the approval to appraise these properties. Each property will need two appraisals per requirements. And then at that point, we will start price negotiations. and if we want to proceed with purchasing the properties. So these prices are the asking price, but we're going to have to see what the appraisals come in at. Does it have public access? Yes. There is a structure on the site. It is adjacent to the pasture reserve. In tax systems, very great property. It was one of the highest ranked properties that we saw. It is also in the habitat conservation area and is part of the green swamp critical area of concern. Any questions?

I got a question. So it's in the green swamp. What's the max... density that they can build at in its current status?

So it is a future land use of green swamp rural. I was lucky to work with public planning and zoning to get these for you. It looks like a 47 dwelling unit capacity.

And over 500 acres?

Yes. So it is made up of one, two, three, four, five different parcel numbers. Sure.

One trust. I just want to throw this out there earlier just because I think obviously we have this great committee. They're doing amazing work. And I want to thank the family and the people that highlighted this parcel, because obviously it's fantastic and they're great people. But I just want the board to know, I think I said it early, aka like a year ago when we started this, I think the priority for land buying should be to buy lots that can in effect stop the sprawl so quite literally the lot that is right where that city wants to expand its next dense sprawl by that to stop it and preserve that so these areas that are in really rural areas that basically can't get built and if they do it's like one house per 50 acres basically or whatever you know 10 acres five acres what there's a bunch of these For me, it's not gonna be the priority, because I want to use the money to stop the sprawl. So buying it where there is no growth versus being able to contain some of the cities that are growing and destroying the feel of Lake County, I'm just saying, I'm not trying to start a whole debate here, but I'm just letting you know, I don't feel comfortable spending tens of thousands of dollars moving in the appraisal process for a piece of land that isn't isn't in the top five or 10 options we have for stopping immediate sprawl, you know, just outside the city limits and protecting those rural boundaries. I mean, quite literally this isn't, thank God, one of the only overlays, state overlays for legally protected land to not allow dense development in that area. So again, Thank the family for coming forward. Thank everybody for highlighting this beautiful area. But if we're buying and protecting in protected rural areas, what are we doing? And this highlights the bigger issue. And I promise I'll finish this up real quick so we can go back to the presentation. This highlights the bigger issue with the whole land buying program where we're buying the rights of these so-called agricultural areas and buying conservation easements. We're buying them in rural areas where there is no development and there is no utilities and there is no growth.

it's like great look we're protecting the protected area okay but why not protect the areas that are about to get destroyed by sprawl so for me you know i i don't want to spend the money to move forward in that direction just a heads up all right sorry but i had to get that out there early because i think it helps guide the conversation and i think that um i want to make just a quick comment to that just because from a practical standpoint i i think that everybody probably agrees like okay what what can we do to stop sprawl and what can we do to protect rural lands and protect the rural character of the county I think that's really a big priority to all of us. So when you make that a priority, then you've got to think practically. And I just want to point something out to you that I learned along the way, and that is that if you buy a property and it's owned by the county pursuant to the Florida statutes, cities are allowed to jump over those properties to annex land. They get to pretend that they don't even exist. This came up in East Eustis when we had the city wanted, and nothing against the city of Eustis here, but the city was very anxious to go east. And the only way to get there was to hop over one of our public lands, which was Lake May. That was a conservation land. It was bought with public money. And they literally were going to jump over it and then annex into the rural area. So I appreciate what you're trying to do, but from a practical standpoint, that will not create a barrier to a city annexing. But I think that what you're getting at is that, yeah, it's important to look at what is the underlying land use on the property that's being purchased, how much of it could be developed, in this case 47 units, and then considering the condition of the property itself, and all of those factors go into decisions like this because if you've got a completely pristine piece of property maybe those are the times when you say yeah we don't even want those 47 units you know so and then there might be other times you go oh yeah 47 we could live with 47 there so i think that those are the factors that need to go into it but i just want to point out that you can't create a barrier by buying public lands around the perimeters of cities because they will hop they can if they choose to

I THOUGHT WE, BECAUSE OF OUR EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT CRAFTY COUNTY ATTORNEY AND THIS BOARD AND YOUR LEADERSHIP, DIDN'T WE FIND A WAY TO TAKE THAT LAND AND PUT IT IN PRIVATE HANDS TO STOP USE? I MEAN, PRIVATE BUT PUBLICLY FACING.

IT WAS EXTREMELY HARD AND WE DID IT.

BUT IT IS AN OPTION.

It was an option, and we were able to do it by having another entity take a piece of it, and we created our own little barrier. But you don't want to be out there having to maneuver like that, because that was touch and go. Trying to stop that annexation was touch and go. It was hard.

I hear. Thanks.

I just make a real quick and then we'll go.

Yeah, just because I was going to say this earlier, but you started it. So I I was going to make very general comments. You may say the same thing, Commissioner Smith. But so as the liaison to the public, I'm just going to call it public lands and trails committee. They've done a wonderful job vetting this for hours. There's a lot of people here, and I love seeing this because this is like one of the greatest things in the county in a long time, this program. and we want to hear you all. There's some great proposals. To take a little bit of the drama out of today though, we're not buying any property today. This is appraisals only. These have made it to the list because they've been vetted already. both the trail and then these four or five, and there may be another two or more that could get added, and we haven't even looked at going in cooperation with Rural and Family Lands Program underneath the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. We haven't even gotten to that yet. But today is two big things, and it's just to proceed with due diligence, because there's a little bit of a timing thing with the trail, due diligence that needs to get started if that's going to proceed as well as appraisals. And then also the big question is, which you're going to get to, stealing your thunder, but do you want us today, the big decision would be to go ahead and do the entire $50 million bond, which I personally think we need to because time value of money and depending upon what happens with

And that'll be another discussion when we get to that discussion, unless we want to delve into that.

Just let them play all those out. This one is interesting because, ironically, there could be some agricultural clearing of the land that might opened the road 20 years down the road for development.

And we also looked at when we purchased these properties, what is it going to take to restore them? How much money are we going to have to invest down the road, not to bring Amendment 3 up, but Amendment 3 looming? What is that going to take financially to restore these properties? This property is fairly intact, which is why it was moved forward in the process.

And to maintain it.

and to maintain it exactly, yes.

Okay, let's go ahead and do comments and then we'll jump back into the flow.

Chairman, if I may, to help with efficiency and productivity, there are five items on this list. They're all under the same tab. May I suggest that we take each one individually, and if someone wants to talk about the Sunderman Family Trust, let them talk at that point. We'll make a decision whether we move forward or we don't move forward, and then move to the next one.

I'll just, I think Sean's persuaded me. I think we just make a motion to get them all appraised. I think the idea.

That's what we're after is to get them appraised and the negotiation will start then.

Yeah, I agree. I was on the fence. I was leaning a little the other way, but I'm okay. Just let's appraise them. And then when we have the discussion, we can have it alongside the debate. My problem with today is we're getting the presentation, but we can't have the debate or we can, but then it's going to make, this is painful for a lot of people who are here for the other item. So let's just, I would just move forward with the appraisal. We'll do our own homework, read it, and then move forward. Is that, Are you guys cool with that? I mean, it just makes things faster. I'm OK appraising them. The committee's already done their homework. I mean, I just don't know if I would.

I mean, the properties, they're all here, but I would be in favor of appraising all of them, including the trail. And then and moving forward and then the other issue would be the bond. But I don't know if that's the chair.

I thought we had the trail appraised already.

The trail is appraised already.

That's a different issue, and I think we would take public comment on that one. Yeah, or due diligence. We have a lot of people here.

I would move the report of the property appraisal, the separate parcels for conservation, before the motion to appraise them. And then we can have the debate and the presentation at the same time. Okay.

And I'm in favor of doing the appraisals because until you have the appraisal, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to delve into all of those other factors because you really don't know what you're going to have to pay.

Yeah, and you're hearing a lot of prices, and the committee really went through this. You're hearing prices, oh, it's this number, or no, it's this number. And they were just worst-case scenarios.

Right.

You gotta let that play out. And there are property owners, believe it or not, that are not in it totally for the profit. They're in it for legacy or doing the right thing and don't wanna see it built paved over with homes.

I don't know, $20,000 an acre's a heck of a legacy if you ask me. Well, I'd be okay.

I'm not saying that they're not gonna make money, but yes.

I'd be okay with, if this is just appraisal only and no discussion on what property we accept or don't accept, I'm okay with the appraisal.

Move to appraise it.

Second.

All right, we have a motion, we have a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. But this is public comment, right?

that's that's the question is do you want to make sorry chair I see people in here so it's already been approved to to appraisal but it's also a public hearing so

It's just for public comment. So that was appraisal of the three properties. So that was the Holloway property, the Sunderland, the Shelley Chastain, I'm sorry, four, and the National Developers.

Right.

So the Wekiva Trail is a different question. We can move to that discussion now, and I believe that's where you have comments.

Right.

Well, there's four properties. The Holloway property, which is 2.3 acres. Right.

That's four properties total.

Correct. Right. That motion included all four. Right. Okay. That's what I thought. Everything. And the trail guard then. Yeah.

Okay. Just appraisal. And I'll give the speakers that have cards on those properties the option. I'll let them know that from the standpoint of getting comments, the ideal time to give those comments would be when we get those appraisals back and we're actually weighing out the different pressures on the property, the different possibilities that could happen to the property, and then we hear your comments on why you think those are the properties that we should be acquiring. So if everybody, so I'll go through, and if you want to, just raise your hand and come on up. Otherwise, well, maybe raise your hand to let me know that you're okay for waiting until we get the appraisals back. So the first one would be Nicole Marie Martin. Okay, you're okay until we get the appraisal back. Nathan Focht? I'm okay. Okay. That's for this one. That's for this one. And Deborah Shelley? Okay. Okay, excellent. Thank you. And I appreciate everybody doing that because we want to really delve into these and spend a lot of time and make sure that we do the right thing. Right. So, all right. So now we'll move to... And all of you that know about these lands already, if there's anyone in the public that hasn't read about them, they're all incredibly special properties. All right, so we're going to move on. Okay, we have the light, and that would be our prior speaker from the Nature Conservancy.

There's a couple now.

Okay, all right, so if we could go through them and see if they kind of understand where we've gone and that we're moving on to 24, but if they want to say something with regard to the public land purchases. All right, we'll take them one at a time.

Willie, please unmute your line and state your name for the record.

I'm Willie Thelozen with the Putnam Land Conservancy. And again, my comments aren't specifically to those properties. What I wanted to comment on is the importance of, anyway, well, to back up, I work with the Putnam Land Conservancy. We're based in Putnam County, but we work in surrounding counties also, and we're working to try to protect critical connectors in the Wekiwa to Ocala Greenway, which is a corridor between Rock Springs State Park and Wekiwa State Parks connecting to Ocala National Forest. It's a critical wildlife corridor, and in addition, there's some very important natural areas with spectacular natural communities um and so at this time that corridor the corridor is a state designated corridor that's eligible for state funding through the florida forever program but the florida forever program as you all may know has been woefully underfunded for this coming uh funding cycle and and who knows what the future holds so funding for state acquisitions in the kind of at Ocala Greenway is not going to happen in the foreseeable future. So the county funding to, for lack of better words, fill the gap of conserving critical gaps in that corridor to make sure those connected lands are not severed is really critical. So that's what I wanted to comment on, just to let you all know how important this county program is to protecting wildlife corridors within the county, especially when the state funding is not available. I appreciate your time.

All right. Good comments. Appreciate that. Really important comments. Next speaker.

T Bailey, please unmute your line and state your name for the record.

Hello. We need you to unmute. We're not getting you. I don't know. What name did you say again was on the line?

T. Bailey. T. Bailey? Please unmute your line and state your name for the record.

All right. We may have to move to the next one.

That was the last one.

Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Then moving to 24. 24.

So we're gonna proceed now to the Wakaipa Trail, segment one and five. This was submitted to the plaque committee under the trails portion, Green Maze and Trails portion of the referendum. It is 11 miles, runs through unincorporated Lake County, Sorrento, Mount Dora, and Tavares. The request is for 23.5 million. There is public access. It has been, the Wekiva Trail has been in the Adopted Trails Master Plan in 2008 and 2018. So this has been worked on for a very long time. It is listed on the Office of Greenways and Trails Sun Trail Priority Map. There are partnerships with Trust for Public Lands, Mount Dora, and the City of Tavares. And it is also near Parks Conservation Areas. runs pretty much east to west through the county. So the request for this portion would be to continue due diligence and move to a purchase agreement. And to utilize 23.5 of the public lands funds.

Okay. All right. And this is the one that we have a lot of speaker cards and I've got a group of speaker cards that are with the trust for public lands. Um, and I just want to get some clarity. Did they want to be, they want to go at the end after we've heard from the others. Okay. Gotcha. All right. So then we'll just start working down. Um, we'll start working down our list. Um, so I've got, um, TJ fish. And then after TJ, I have, so there's a lot of them here, Dennis Dawson, so TJ Fish.

Good morning, Madam Chairman and Commissioners. I'm a resident of Lake County. I'm a resident of Tavares. I'm invested personally in all of Lake County. I have been personally engaged in the Wekava Trail project since 2005. I have listened to a lot of comments in the community about how important and how amazing this Wekava Trail could be, tying it to the corridor, tying it to the fact that it's a connection to the Coast to Coast Trail. Personally, working in South Lake County, where we have the Coast to Coast Trail under construction now, extending it through Groveland to Mascot. Lake County deserves the same thing, to be connected. And so I'm excited to see the project. One of the misconceptions that I consistently have heard for the last 10 years, including online and social media, is the viability of bringing the train back. Lake County's not running a train. Tavares and Mount Dora are not running a train. The train requires a railroad company. You've got two railroad companies. You've got CSX and you've got Florida Central Railroad that have both been involved. And those companies have been clear. The train's not coming back. Some people may not realize DOT did a study for commuter rail to Lake County. Sun rail connection to Lake County. And the conclusion was not economically viable. So in light of those facts that the train's not coming back and you have an idyllic railroad corridor with overviews in Mount Dora of Lake Dora connecting two beautiful downtowns, Tavares and Mount Dora and Mount Plymouth-Sorrento, all of East Lake County to be connected east to Seminole County to the Coast to Coast Trail. It's an amazing opportunity. And one of the things with DOT is that if you will, and we've proven this here in Lake County, if you put skin in the game, They will respond. And right now the issue is you need the right away for a trail. Can it be designed and constructed? Of course it can be in D O T will be your partner. But the point is you have to own the property to be able to do the trail. So there's debates about the viabilities of trails and the point is trails that are in the middle of nowhere, I understand they get less use. This is not that. This is a trail that's transformational. It's an economic development investment and that investment leads to more private investment because trails do attract investment in economic development and that is proven in claremont with the south lake trail that's now part of coast to coast trail we've all heard about winter garden and the other communities so i just want to start off the public comments on this that this is not something that just came up this is 21 years in the making to get us to this point and if lake county can take this one step to get that railroad corridor DOT will be our partner and we can get this trail done. The train is not coming back. Thank you.

Thank you, TJ. So Thomas, the train's not coming back?

No, Thomas is still around.

I'm not going to tell my grandkids that.

No, I think you can make that happen in a lot of other ways.

The train still runs northbound between Tavares and Eustis.

I'm just making sure.

All right, Dennis Dawson, and then Ms. Colson. Is it Elaine, maybe? Okay. Okay.

Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. My comments come as a resident of Lake County, as well as a council member and also a vice president of the Heartland League of Cities, which encompasses all of the Lake County cities. As a resident, my first experience was I came up from South Florida 11 years ago for the Mount Dore Bike Festival and found bicycling through Lake County amazing with its hills and the lakes. But what I found and fell in love with Mount Dore and ended up moving here. But over the last 10 years, we continue to grow and develop. And some of the favorite places to bike, the number two road and the area behind the Tavares ball fields, which cyclists call the Pyrenees, those are getting developed. So what I think this trail will bring is something that's safe. for all residents of Lake County. You know, I came up here cycling because I used to train for Ironman competitions. So people who are out there biking on Lake County roads are hardcore cyclists. What this trail will do is not just for those cyclists, but also for families and kids for a safe place to bike. As a council member, there's a lot of economic development opportunities for this. And I'm sure others will talk about that in the presentation. But I want to share something that Commissioner Parks and Morris and I are on, the East Central Florida Regional Planning Commission. And about a year and a half ago, a group came and they were looking to put in a trail from Samford all the way down to Lake Okeechobee. And they shared us some information from FDOT. And what FDOT did, there's 1,600 miles of the Sun Trail. And what they did is they just took 1% of those trails and they looked at five cities, Tallahassee, Dunedin, Gainesville, Titusville, and Homestead. And so that's just 1% of the, they took 16 miles, 1% of the total 1,600 miles. And what they found in that 16 mile, there was $30 million annual GDP. $22 million increase in personal income, as well as 300 jobs per year, and an increase of property values of $125 million. So it's not just recreational, but there's also economic plus side to this. And so with that, I ask for your support on this, not just as a council member, but also as a cyclist and a resident of Lake County. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Colson, is it Elaine? I'm not sure.

I get a question right before she starts it, that's fine. I always find the public comment benefits from some previous debates, like debate, then public comment, because then they kind of see where the board is at. Can we just do that for like a second, and then we go back to public comment? Because if not, they're just shooting blind. They don't know where any of us are. Can we just have like a very quick debate? Like, is anybody opposed to this? I think we're all for it, right? I'm not trying to.

No, I mean, I don't really have an issue. I've got some statements I'd like to make that the funding mechanism might change from the taxpayers in November. We have 43% of the people that pay the bond now. If the homestead exemption comes through, it goes down to 18%. And it just needs to go on the record that people will be paying more money. is all. I do not have an issue with the trail, but I have an issue with what's going in in November. So my theory is, if it's a $50 million bond issue, can we bond it to keep it open and not close it till we find out what goes on in November?

Okay, so you bring up a very good point and just if you can hold on for just a second. So I'm all about efficiency, if we can be as efficient as possible and also give everyone a chance to say what they wanna say and get that on the record and be heard. But I think that that first question of how we handle what might change if Amendment 3 passes, and the recommendation from Commissioner Morris would be approve the 50 million bond, but don't close until we see what happens with Amendment 3, because we might need to make some adjustments.

And, of course, negotiating with the land acquisition, I mean, that's the process we'll have to go through, but just keeping the bond open and not closing. I mean, if it goes through and we don't like any of the properties, we don't like the trail, whatever. I mean, it is what it is.

You just, from a timing standpoint, I think the key was you'd have to make the decision on, I mean, that would be why we would decide to go 50 million now, is so that we would have the right to do it should we proceed no matter what happens with Amendment 3. Or we would also have the right after Amendment 3, if it passes, to go, maybe we're going to change something and not go out for the whole thing.

Exactly.

Okay.

All right.

So if everybody's on board with that, we've now disposed of that particular issue. So then we come back to the next question of whether we're willing to recommend to the Trust for Public Lands and our committee that we proceed with moving forward with the trail itself, understanding that we have these other variables at play. Again, if we make that decision and we don't hear from the public, I think we're going to have a lot of disappointed people that don't have a chance to say what they want to say and be heard on. We also have some really extremely valuable information that I think is so important for the public to hear because it gets like with the trust for public lands. It gets to some of these points that have been raised that I think a lot of it comes from not having the history of the railroad itself, the fact that we're dealing with railroad companies, that they basically get to decide what they're going to do or not do with the property that they own. And so that is a big factor in all of this. So I think those kind of facts are really helpful for the public to learn about. So, okay, so with that, anybody else want to comment on kind of where they're at?

Yeah, I mean, and by the way, I'm not doing this to like rush anybody or limit them. It's more like if somebody gets over the mic and they're going to speak, I'd like to know them to have like an accurate reflection of where the board is and what their primary concerns are, which of course are valid. But for me, obviously, I do support it. I support taking out the $50 million bond and getting the project moving as fast as possible for a whole bunch of reasons I won't bore you with, but one of which is that it passed with such an overwhelming majority. I personally think if it was $100 million, it would have passed. And I'm not saying we should do it right now, I'm just saying that if we put up another 50 million, and again, I'm not pushing this, I'm just saying if it went up today, even with all the uncertainty and economic tax uncertainty, if people knew it was going right to land and trails, it would pass again. probably not, I don't know if it'd be 80%, but maybe 75, if 70, but it would pass again. So long story short, we should just, you know, obviously stay in touch with what our people want, move forward as fast as we can, and then even consider, you know, down the road, whether we need to do it again faster than 10 years. So with that, I'm willing to hear a public comment, but obviously I'm on the side of just moving quicker on this.

Okay, Commissioner Parks.

Yeah, I appreciate your comments. I agree about the overwhelming support for trails and public lands. And what I heard out there in the intent is even we kind of touched on this earlier, the concern about the sprawl and the properties and some of which were on this list that we just approved for the appraisals that are literally within the development path. And I see that all over the county. And I've been obviously deeply involved with the Public Lands and Trails Committee. They're doing a great job. and I see that need that you're talking about, honestly, it's probably well over 50 million, well over 50 million. We haven't even gotten to, there's a whole nother tier of properties that are excellent in development path, one of which that we approved the appraisal on, by the way, has a trail connection to it as well, back in the South Lake Trail, which is heavily used. So there's a lot of pluses to these properties. My, I am in support of moving forward with purchase. I know there's a time thing here. You gotta, with the trail, there's due diligence. We gotta get underway right now. My, as you know, my concerns, not concerns, really just an ask, it's not a concern, but moving forward is are there, can we work with CSX? I know it's been done in the past. I think there's a little bit of a different approach maybe this time to work with CSX on the cost So can we make that attempt again? And then number two, this is more specific request to the board, is can we allocate $2 million out of our tourist development tax, which nobody in this room pays for unless you're staying overnight in a hotel. Other people are paying for this. I think it's high time we use $2 million out of that reserve for trail projects and just me, my opinion, Last couple of years, you've heard me. We need to make a commitment, a long term commitment to trails to have a source every year where there's at least a million dollars coming out of tourist development tax to go towards trail projects, get our cities connected. I don't. What's the reserve right now for 6 million?

So they currently have 6 million in their capital reserve for the tourist development tax fund.

And I do believe that that is in the plan to for trails. So it's not this is an out of bounds kind of thing that's been talked about.

It's an eligible expense.

It is, but I mean on our master plan.

The Wekiva Trail is in the trails master plan.

The trails master plan is also in the TDCs that we approve the master plan trails of having that as a long-term vision for the county.

I'm not sure that it's in the strategic plan for TDC. Okay. I thought it was, but that was just redone. So, yeah.

All right. Um, but anyway, I think that, so my, my request, um, and that you're just, I can certainly bring it up to the TDC board. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I mean, we've gotta go through that process. You're right. Uh, but I, I, and we, we may not be able to decide that today, but today we gotta, we gotta get this moving forward. So I, I agree with that, but my ask is gonna be that, uh, out of the 23.5 that we allocate 2 million from TDT, and then look at the issue down the road of, soon down the road this year, about using more of the TDT for trail projects.

So what I'm hearing is that that's a caveat that Commissioner Parks would like, and that wouldn't stop us from moving forward. It's just the idea that when we would actually have to make the decision on where the money comes from, he's asking that we would consider taking two from the TDT, and that would involve them getting involved and giving us their, opinion on it.

Exactly. Well said because that could be 2 million more for properties that we're talking about here. that are in development's path as well. So that's kind of the way I'm looking at it.

So the purchase, if we were to enter into an agreement with TPL, the Trust for Public Land, to purchase the property, the purchase would need to be completed, the transaction would need to be completed by the spring of 2028. So we still have a year and a half to come up with other funding options, whether it be other grant funding, tdt funding we have plenty of time the key is we need to get into the agreement if the board chooses to move forward with the acquisition of the rail bed because the due diligence is a complex transaction that will take some time and if the board wishes to move forward that needs to begin in january of 2027. so so what about a special mstu for parks and trails So we do have an MSTU for parks and trails currently. For the unincorporated only. In order for it to be a countywide, it would have to either go to a referendum or we would have to coordinate with our municipal partners to have them join in.

Doing the research, what I found out is that we're kind of like the monkey in the middle. We're the last guys. And everybody else has funded their trail systems and we haven't. And I don't know how they funded them.

Well, they did big, gigantic bond issues like they did in Seminole County. They did to buy them. And then they have ongoing revenue stream to help maintain them. And so that's the ideal scenarios where you actually know, okay, every year you're going to have so much that can go to, because they do require maintenance. There's no question about it, just like a road does. So they usually have two. You've got the one issue is buying it, building it. The second issue is maintaining it.

Well, you got $3.8 million a year of debt service for 20 years is what you're gonna end up with with a $50 million bond. So you can double that at 100 and you've got, what, 7.6? I mean, that's a lot of money. But to Commissioner Sabatini's point, it could all get fixed at one time. True.

And another possibility too, you speak about all of the different lands, the second tier that we haven't even had come through the committee. I think that to Commissioner Sabatini's point, that what might make sense in some of those instances when you actually have a very large one, that you take that out as a bond issue and you say these are the three parcels and everybody knows exactly what they're getting in return. Because me as a voter, when I look at referendums, I want to know exactly is my money going to go to the thing that I just voted in favor of? I want to know that for a fact. So I always think the more that you can be specific about what those tax dollars are going to, the better chance you have of getting them approved. So just, I mean, I think, you know, we're just kind of talking about possibilities here so that, you know, any decision we make, I think we're all open to the idea that we've got a lot of property that we would like to see preserved in our county and we don't wanna lose those opportunities.

Can I just make one more comment? I know, to support this. like Seminole County, you touched on it. They actually allocate out of their general fund percentage every year towards that and the bonds that they've done and everything. That is the question. That's why I brought up the TDT is, you know, we just need to and any board future board could always change it, of course, but having a strong policy in place that we're gonna allocate that and or whatever it is at a general fund I mean this is great discussions music to my ears yeah but I just think that that's the difference and you you say we're the monkey in the middle I mean that's because we haven't come up with something like that you're exactly right let's do it now let's do it maybe not necessarily right at this moment but let's do it yeah exactly would you like to make a

I personally would like to hear from the public.

Me too, I just wanted to orient the. No, that was good.

Oh, if you want to know where I stand, of course, I've been involved with this since 2009, so I'm in full favor of this, and I believe that we can get, you're talking about maintenance, I believe we can get the city of Tavares and the city of Mount Dore to do some kind of an interlocal agreement to help with the maintenance cost of it.

And I had heard that too, which is a really big plus.

Not to put the city of Mount Dora, the city of Tavares on the spot, but.

We're counting on it. But that's a big plus. But I think I'm inclined to agree. I definitely want to hear from people. I've been reading a lot of emails like Commissioner Smith. I think I've been at this at least since 2009, but I think earlier than that. And I have gone to a zillion meetings with the railroad companies. And I have, I even got involved with the group that wanted to try to come up with a way to keep the tourist train on the railroad right of way and have a joint trail with maybe certain hours dedicated to the trail and other days to the train. know vetted that because i thought we just don't want to lose this opportunity to connect these two cities to connect mount dora and to various two lakefront cities so you look at what's happened in claremont and claremont is just like off off the charts as far as how much that trail is used and you you've connected winter garden to claremont and um just think about connecting two lakefront cities It's just phenomenal. And then going on to connect Sorrento. Now it's even better in the fact that the trail at Sorrento is already there. I mean, it already goes to Seminole County. So it's just, you know, everything about this is just like the stars have finally aligned. And and I just hate to see a missed opportunity but I did want to point out the fact that there is this thing called a build grant that comes from the federal government and Typically you can get the build grant to build trails if you own the underlying property And so that's what makes this really different in that you're not necessarily You know in a situation where you've got a piece together Local funds and or we're gonna sit on it for years and years and years and not be able to do it It puts Lake County Mount Dora Tavares in such a better position to get the dollars that would actually go to building it. So that takes all that pressure off of the local government side. So I just wanted to put that out there. Just I agree with the idea of letting people know kind of where we're at right now. So as we get public comment, you kind of know that we've we've been working at this for a really long time and we've all been doing a lot of research. So let's move ahead and we'll do the speaker cards and You had to stand there for a long time, so you got three more minutes.

My family actually worked when Thomas the Tank Engine was in town. We actually rode on the rails back there. It was not a pretty sight. I mean, if there wasn't entertainment going on inside the car and you had to just look outside, you wouldn't want to see that. It wasn't like some... tourist place it was just the back of industrial places and out in the woods and that sort of thing and now there's even more going on in the woods than there was back then and if you like compared to Milton, Florida and what they thought was gonna be and what it turned into, it was just a lot more money for the county to have to deal with all the stuff that was going on because they even put in bathrooms and water places and that just made it so convenient for all the people out there in tents. and uh... i mean of course they have to be somewhere but you know what they're not paying the taxes we are and we are have to pay for all the uh... police presence and all the rest of it and who's cleaning it up because i thought that when you said conservation in trails it was going to go for in the forest when they have the trails and when they have the trails out there they have a lot of people cleaning up there whether it's the horse people or the walkers or the people now that they're allowed to have the the lower e-bikes not the fast ones but the the pedal ones and they're all cleaning up while they're out there and I don't see that happening with this and if the rails to trails wants to have a place let them buy it I don't think that we have to pay for anything more. We're already paying for a lot of things that we didn't choose. We didn't vote for them. I mean, there was maybe a vote, but what we voted for is we didn't get, and we just have to pay more and more taxes. So that's where I am on that.

Okay. All right, I've got a lot more cards to go through, so I'll try to give you a heads up as I work my way through so you can be ready that your card is coming up. Joan Hill and then Bethany DeLoof. Is Joan Hill here? All right. Then Bethany.

Good morning, commissioners. My name is Bethany DeLoof. I'm a resident of Mount Dora, and I'm here today to speak in support of the Wekiva Trail extension. What's in your backyard? Not the literal one directly behind your house, but the one where you spend your free time, recreating and enjoying your hobbies, where you spend time with family and where your children and grandchildren play, the one you call your community. I grew up with an amazing trail system right in my backyard. From family bike rides to training runs to long walks with friends, I had a place to get outside and be active, and I had the freedom to do activities I might not otherwise have had the opportunity to do. My needs for the trail evolved as I got older, and while physically static, the trail represented a dynamic place that I could use in different ways throughout my life. And now that I've planted roots here in Lake County, I desire those same opportunities for the family and future I hope to start here. The other day, I was on a bike ride on the West Orange Trail through Winter Garden, and in preparation for this meeting, I observed the wide variety of people using the trail. The trail was crowded with people using it in so many different ways, because a trail is not just for cyclists. It's for the mom pushing her little ones in a stroller, the dad teaching his son how to ride a bike, the family on an outing to get lunch, the new couple on a first date, the kids giving rollerblading a try, the runner training for her first marathon, and the friends who haven't seen each other in years catching up on a walk. It's for the person who has somewhere to be and the person who has nowhere to be at all. Although their use of the trail is diverse, their priority is the same. A safe place to get out and do something important to them. Whether it's something fun, something new, or simply part of their routine. And it's this priority that brings people together in a community. Because trails don't just connect cities, they connect people. Families, friends, and maybe even strangers right in your backyard. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, Alexander McMichael and then Cindy Newton and then Cindy.

Thank you. Good morning commissioners. My name is Alexander McMichael and I live on Sylvan point drive in Mount Dora. I'm here today to encourage you to continue to prioritize the completion of the trail connection into Mount Dora. I am a sixth generation Lake County resident, so I understand how our community has changed over time. As our population has grown, so has traffic, and many of the roads that were once relatively quiet and safe for road cycling have become increasingly difficult to share with vehicles. Years ago, Mount Dora was a destination for cyclists from all over Central Florida. Groups would plan rides specifically to come here, enjoy our quiet roads, explore downtown, eat at our local bakeries and coffee shops. As traffic has increased, many of those riders have chosen safer destinations to ride. That is one of many reasons this trail connection is so important. It isn't simply a recreation amenity, it is an investment in the future of Lake County. Although I am a lifelong cyclist, I know this trail isn't just about bicycles. It's about creating a healthier, safer, more vibrant Lake County. It's about giving children a place to ride safely, giving families another reason to spend time outdoors, and giving visitors another reason to choose Mount Dora and the surrounding towns over somewhere else. As someone who spends many hours every weekend running and cycling the local trail system, I know this trail will positively impact the community. Connected trail systems consistently become destinations in their own right, bringing people into downtowns and closer to the small businesses that make communities like Maladora special. Growth is inevitable. The question is whether we build the infrastructure that allows our quality of life to grow with it. The decisions we make today shape the future of our community. 50 years from now, I believe people will look at this trail not just as a challenging project, but as an essential part of Lake County and wonder how we ever lived without it. Thank you for your time, and I hope to see you on the trail.

All right, and Cindy, yours says public lands. Was that for the land acquisition discussion, or do you want to speak about the trail? Okay, just wanted to check. All right, Kelly Close, Close, and then Holly Newby.

Good morning commissioners and I thank you for the opportunity to respectfully speak in front of you from a unique perspective. I am not against purchasing the railroad because I know that when the CSX and such have the ownership, they control what can happen. I worked on the Royal Palm Railway tourist train from 2018 to 2020 when it went out of business because of COVID. So I believe I have a little unique perspective, and I would just like to present my thoughts on this project. When I was on the train, I worked four months in the box office where people would purchase tickets, and it really surprised me that most people were calling from not even around the state but all over the nation to come here to ride our train i had one gentleman that called me from montana i had people that called me from california to purchase tickets and ensure that they would have their tickets because they were flying here just to ride the train people wanted to take their their grandchildren to experience the ride of a train. There were so many things. When people would come and go from Tavares, Eustis, and Mount Dora, people would ride and they would fill their arms with packages and come back on the train with packages full of purchases. This is a great tourism. So I would like to propose that you would consider rails with trails. I am not against the trails. It has been done successfully in a lot of places. One of the unique opportunities that we had here in Lake County that is not available anywhere else, except maybe Alaska, and it wouldn't be very easy to coordinate it, is the land, sea, air tickets that we sold. People would come to Mount Dora, ride the boat to Tavares, get on a seaplane, ride the seaplane, and then get on the train to return to Mount Dora. It was a unique tourism opportunity. So I'm not against you purchasing this. I just would like you to consider that there is a tourism opportunity that we could have. You could even put pedal cars on that piece of track. But once the track is gone, it can't come back. So... It can be done. It has been done places. So I'd like to respectfully ask that you have an open mind and consider that as you are moving forward with this project. And thank you for listening to my perspective on this.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I do think when John Drury talks a little bit later, he might bring up the fact that I think there's still the excursion opportunities that lead to varies and go around the lake. and they used to take those to the blueberry farm, as I recall. So anyway, there's still opportunities for excursions, just so you know. I think that's still something that's being entertained and accommodated. I think the concern was, and he can address this.

There is to the commuter ability because of our infrastructure that is so desperately needed for transportation.

Thank you. Holly Newby and then Rick Gonzalez.

Good morning. Thank you for letting citizens have a voice in their government. I'm a lifetime Lake County resident, former school teacher, small business owner, taxpayer. I'm encouraging you to slow your roll on this project. And I've heard you talk about how many years it's been in the works. I don't think it would be unwarranted to say, let's just go a little bit slower while we're assessing how much sprawl what's left of Lake County can take. Mr. Sabantini, you're all first. preventing the sprawl of Lake County, when in reality, the trail program was sold as conservation, nature trails, it sounds great. The reality is that the trail is a paved concrete road for bicyclists. While that is a wonderful asset to have if money is no object, money is about to be an object in the budget. It's always been an object, but it's going to be more of an object when the homestead exemptions go away. Right now, you have endless choices. If you rush to do this, you're going to be forgetting that you have 95% of the taxpayers in Florida that have been sold something that this is not. When I saw what the trail really looks like as it's being extended into Altoona from Umatilla, It is the concrete sprawl that we don't want. I was devastated to see the first thing that happened when you build a nature trail is you bring a bulldozer and you push down the oak trees and you cut back the grapevines and you pave over the gopher habitat and you cut back the trees where our mockingbirds live and the sandhill cranes can't cross the road because there's 11 pieces of heavy equipment sitting in the right of way. Furthermore, the trail that's being put through Umatilla, this is supposed to be a rail redevelopment. The rails have been gone for 100 years. They were removed by the St. John's Railroad Company. It has been a green space in our community for generations. Now it's a new roadbed for cyclists. I can't wait till they arrive. The habitat loss just along 19 is devastating.

It's never coming back.

If you listed on the bond issue what this really was, we'd like to pave Lake County with concrete roads that we will have to maintain for cyclists in indefinite periods of time. There's also going to be an ongoing law enforcement issue with golf carts, e-bikes, and non-approved vehicles on these roads. If this is a special project that you give for recreation, where are the horse people included? They're 20% of our population. Where are the people that want to ride Segways out of Mount Dora? They're not allowed. I know the lobbyist attorney got an hour. My time is up. But I ask you to slow your roll and think about how much concrete can Mount Dora take. Apparently Donley Avenue says no more. Britt Road says no more. You have a chance to think this through and come up with a more nuanced solution than shoving an urban redevelopment program down Lake County's throat. I'm just a taxpayer, but my time is up.

All right, guys. We're not going to clap because everybody could clap for everybody else and get out of hand. We don't normally do that. Rick Gonzalez.

I live on Estes Road. I fully support you as fast as possible purchasing this railroad line. When I moved to Mount Dora in 1998, is there 98 or 99, I was actually part of a small group that cleared some land along the railroad track and put up a sign that said there's gonna be a trail here. So it's been that long in planning. So please do this. If you come down to the bike shop on Highland Street, and watch the amount of money that goes through that place, people spending, coming from all over the country to ride bikes here in Lake County. It is a economic boom for this community. So it's a one-time shot. Do it faster. I was a little disappointed thinking it's only going to be in 2028. I was hoping you'd start construction next year. But that's all I have to say. Thanks.

All right. Lou Poygas and then Ashton, I think it's Nav.

Good morning Madam Chair, Commissioners, Lou Bwegas, Chair of Lake 100. We all submitted a letter to you personally on our support for the purchase of the rail. Lake 100 fully supports the funding of the 11 mile railroad right of way. I'm only gonna highlight five items on here rather than read the entire letter that I'm sure each and every one of you has read. The economic development standpoints are long-term infrastructure value, business and talent attraction, support for local business, tourism and regional connectivity, downtown economic activity. We don't know, like Commissioner Morris said, what the vote is gonna be like in November. This will be a no-brainer. This will bring money to our community and this will serve all of Lake County. not just a few. Lake 100 respectfully encourages each and every one of you to support this. This is a project for all of Lake County. Thank you for your service and your time.

And Ashton, Ashton, are you here? There you are. And then Roseanne Opata.

How are you guys doing today? My name is Ashton now. I own Pure Cycles in downtown Eustis. I'm from Mount Plymouth, Florida. And my biggest thing with this trail is I'm tired of customers coming in the shop explaining to me that they can't ride on the roads like they used to. I have customers that have been riding on these roads for 55 plus years. They have people that come down the street, throw them off the roads, and they just can't get out like how they used to. And it's pretty sad. As you see, a lot of people say that it's hard to see your town growing. It's also hard for those people too. Like Lakeshore Drive in Eustis, we had a lady killed on that road. That's one of my customers. That was very sad. I mean, it's awful to see. And I think that there's a lot of potential in just the safety factor of it. I raced my whole life. I've been across the whole country riding. I can say personally, I've been to these towns where they have these paved trails. I've stayed at local hotels, went to local places to eat, and used their local trails. It's going to be used. As you can see, I think right now it's an eyesore. If you go downtown, outdoor, usually you see people using the tracks to cross the roads. to get to different points of downtown, so I think it's going to be beneficial for anybody. I see a lot of people saying that these e-bikes are gonna be pretty crazy on these trails. There's a lot of differences with these e-bikes. An e-bike that goes 60 miles per hour is classified as the same as an e-bike that goes 20 miles per hour. A lot of people are buying these bikes off Amazon and they don't know. As you see down in Claremont, Winter Garden, they started patrolling these people. They put speed limits, they're handing out tickets, so they're trying to fight this to fix it. But mostly anything with this, it's going to be beneficial. Like I said, I'm tired of people coming in saying, oh, where can I go ride? And I literally don't have anywhere to send them unless they want to drive down to Winter Garden or go to the extension on Sorrento. But yeah, it's sad. I mean, like in downtown, you see this right in front of where my shop's at. Literally on Highway 19, there's the bike lane. And I don't know if you guys have been down there and seen how fast people drive through there, but I've probably seen four or five customers almost get killed literally pulling out of my shop. It's sad to see I think with us growing so much we need to grow with it And I believe that there's no price tag on safety for a community It's only going to be beneficial like I said, so thank you guys so much, and I hope you really think about it Roseanne and then Frank Kerwin

Thank you, Rosanna Bato. I live in downtown Mount Dora. I live a half a block from a train track, and in the 17 years we've been in this house, I've never seen a train on that track. Found out about trails when COVID hit, which is why I'm now a member of the COVID cruisers. My husband came home from the gym when they closed everything up and said, we've got to get our bikes out and start riding. So, of course, we had to take them to Adrenaline. They'd been in a hot garage long enough for the wheels to dry rot, and got them all ready to roll, and And so where did we go? We didn't have anywhere really to ride. So somebody told us, well, ride from Mount Dora to Tavares. So we did. And some friends of ours who saw us riding said, well, can we go with you? And we said, sure. So got a little group together and we rode to Tavares. And the second time we rode to Tavares, one of our friends caught her bike wheel in the railroad track right down here about three blocks. broke both of her elbows and a wrist so that's when we figured that maybe this wasn't a good idea to ride on Lakeshore Drive and some friend of ours who was more informed than we said why aren't you riding on trails and we said what trails because we had no idea so we started riding on trails we started looking and so we rode on the East Central Railroad Regional Rail Trail the Lake Apopka Loop, the Springs to Springs, the Withlacoochee, all 46 miles of it, the Van Fleet, the Marjorie Carr, the West Orange. We did not ride the seven blocks of trail in Mount Dora. We kind of skipped that. We've been on the Neighborhood Trail. What do all of these have in common? The most thing they have in common is they're not in Lake County. Most of them are not. And we dumped a ton of money because we would get up early in the mornings and ride. We rode literally at least once a week as a group. We ended up with about 15 or 20 of us riding as a group. And we would get up early in the morning and ride, and then we had to have somewhere to eat. So even though The rest of the country was locked down thanks to our governor. We were not, and we found restaurants with outdoor dining, and we ate, and we dropped lots of money in shops and wherever we could. None of that was in Lake County. So trails, as several people have said, are not just for bicycle riders. We saw dog walkers, baby strollers, joggers, elderly people out for a walk. We saw skateboards. We saw roller bladers. We saw e-bikes, which just irritated the crap out of us because we didn't think they were working nearly as hard as we were riding our bicycles. They were on the trails. I think we got out of COVID healthier and happier than anybody because of this. And my last sentence is I will turn 80 in December. I would really appreciate it if you all could get this thing done before I die of old age and can't get on a bicycle anymore. So thank you very much.

Okay, Frank Kerwin and then Doug Bryant. Is Frank here? I might have lost Frank. Okay, so Doug Bryant and then after Doug, James Homage.

Good morning, commissioners. Commissioner Morris mentioned a little bit ago that this is like the monkey in the middle. And it truly is when you look at the trail system and how this would solidify and bring people right into the middle of the county. When you said it was the monkey in the middle who we literally have the monkey in the middle in Mount Dora if you followed the papers we have that monkey and then that may end up being a somewhat of a sightseeing event I'm gonna wave the rest of my Comments and I think there's other people that I'm sure want to speak. I was going to be talking about how this can help with TWO THINGS THAT ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO US IN MOUNT DORA, AND THAT IS PARKING AND CONGESTION OF TRAFFIC IN THE DOWNTOWN. AND THIS APPLIES PROBABLY MORE TO MOUNT DORA THAN IT DOES TO TAVERAS. BUT I THINK I CAN PERCEIVE THE GENERAL DIRECTION THAT THE BOARD IS MOVING IN RIGHT NOW, AND SO WITH THAT, I WILL WAVE MY, WHATEVER IT IS, A MINUTE AND 55 SECONDS. THANK YOU.

All right, thank you, Councilman. James, and then after James is Rachel O'Brien.

Good morning, I'm sorry I wasn't here at the very beginning. I was listening on my way back from federal court, but in any event, I apologize. I wanted to be here for the whole thing. I'm the mayor of Mount Dora. Mount Dora strongly supports this. I understand there are people that wish we could keep the train. If someone had stepped up over the years to do that, that would be fine. I can go back to when I was 13 years old and rode around the entire Lake Dora. My mom let me, and I don't think anyone's doing it these days. So I think this trail will be a benefit not only to Mount Dora, Tavares, the county, but to the entire Central Florida region. And people will talk about the costs and all. I did, in a prior life, I did condemnations for Interstate Highway. that, I mean, the amount of money it would take to put this corridor together is ridiculous compared to the asking price. So I expect the appraisal would come in showing that it's worth that 23 million. And I think that 23 million is well spent. For the benefit of all of our residents for the benefit of our businesses and for the benefit of everyone in this county but we wholly support the idea of acquiring this trail and Improving it and Mount Dora will be a strong partner in this endeavor. Thank you.

Thank you Rachel Hi, I'm Rachel Orion I'm not only a resident here in Mount Dora since 1997, but currently I'm the president of the Mount Dora Chamber. And as a gentleman said earlier, back in 2001, the gentleman that we had running the chamber, my position, used to be the Lake Peds coordinator, and so he was huge on seeing how jealous he was that Orange County had already had this amazing trail. So back in the 90s when Orange County built their trail, and it's grown ever since. You know, you could do 11 miles in one trip, one direction, 11 miles back, but it always either started or ended in downtown, eating in a Mexican restaurant, ready to carb load so you could go out and roller blade or ride bikes or walk or whatever the case may be. I know that prior to that, years and years before that in 1974, the Chamber created an event called the Mount Dora Bicycle Festival. It is well past 50 years now, thank goodness, a couple years past. But when it started, it was 16 to 20 different rides that took cyclists throughout the county, through the hills, through anywhere we could put them, flat roads, around the lakes. But it was, at its peak, 1,500 cyclists that came from not only around the state of Florida, but from around various parts of the country who came to experience Lake the lake, the hills, the experience of Mount Dora, which has also lended towards our charm, our community, and the experience that we want people to have when they come to Mount Dora. Over the years, it's gotten more dangerous, which you've also heard today, on the roads. It's not just because we're growing. It's because people are becoming less patient on the roads. There are more cars. And I think that it's not a safe place for a lot of cyclists to ride, especially cyclists that may be in tow with their families or learning to ride or maybe wanting to rollerblade. You can't rollerblade on our roads. It's not very safe at all. But I think that what we could do with our trails is turn those into not only a place that connects us from East Coast to West Coast, and hopefully that will eventually happen, but get up to speed with what Orange County has done, I do believe that the economic impact could greatly help. In light of what might be coming down in this year, in the election, with the fact that money is maybe taken away from governments, whether it's a county government or a city government, which things that they may have to cut might affect the quality of life that we have in our towns all across the state, not just to mention Mount Dory, Eustis, and Tavares. But if we have one more thing that now we can add to our quality of life and generate some more economic impact and keep our charm, people coming back to this part of the community, I think it's a win-win for everyone. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. We have a light up showing us that we have someone online or maybe more than one online, and then we have our last set of speaker cards.

T. Bailey, please unmute your line and state your name for the record.

Yes, good morning. My name's Tim Bailey. I'm calling from Volusia County, Parks, Recreation, and Culture. We are your sister county, and we had your similar deliberations as you deliberate today on the rail to trail program. We had the FEC corridor here in Volusia County, which the state acquired many years ago, I don't know, probably greater than 10 years ago. And we did move forward with creating a trail system that connected Volusia County to Brevard County and then eventually that trail connects to Seminole County and also connects to your county, Lake County. So that piece was very important to us here in Volusia County. We had a gap, a significant gap between east and west And that railroad corridor allowed us to connect those pieces together. I think it was a 20-mile section, 26-mile section that we connected. And since that time, we've had a lot of growth, economic growth, as well as people coming to specifically West Volusia to use the trail system because now it connects over 110 miles of contiguous paved asphalt trail that completes our section of the coast-to-coast trail and then also connects to the heart of Florida, which is in your section, and the St. John's River to Sea Loop. So in addition to that, the developers that were developing property adjacent to that, that we call it like our or showcase trail system, they opted to connect their communities as they were building them to the backbone of that trail system on their own dime and their own maintenance dollar as well because they were aware that connecting to that trail helps them sell properties. People want to get on a trail after they get off of work. they're willing to pay more for their property to be adjacent to a trail, especially when you're looking at a long trail that's connected, in this case, multiple counties. So I encourage you to stay the way here in terms of the acquisition. I don't think you'll be disappointed. It does bring in a lot of economic development as well as people from out of the area. In our case, Germany, we've got a lot of people from Germany that are actually coming across the pond to to our trail system, staying in our hotels, eating in our restaurants. They go back to their neck of the woods and tell their friends. And we see a population from Europe coming over to Volusia County to use our trail system. So I encourage you to stay the game.

All right. Thank you. And that looks like that's our last speaker online. And then we have our five finishing speakers, Mike Stevens and then Jim Wood.

Good morning.

I am Mike Stevens. Uh, I'm the chairman of the friends of Lake County trails. I'm also the chairman of the Florida greenways and trails council with the state of Florida. I'm, I'm here to support it. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to talk. I'm going to cut about half of what I had to say out. Cause I think it's already been covered, but I am here to support the purchase of the Wakaba trail extension that will connect us to the existing Wakaba trail sections two, three, and four that have already been built. This is for sections one and five that bring it into Mount Doran to varies. Um, It's already listed as a state priority trail, which makes it also eligible for Sun Trail funding. It's also part of the Florida Greenways and Trails system plan, which also makes it eligible for funding. As been said before, Lake County's been working on this for at least 25 years. The sections have already been built, segments have already been built. We're just trying to tie it in and get it into Central Lake County to bring those users into Central Lake County without having to build additional roads, without having to build additional Trail or additional pieces of roads and parking lots. We want to bring those people into Lake County. Cause we've seen what that economic development can do. Tim and I served together on the Florida greenways and trails foundation. And we traveled the state talking, uh, to other communities in the area. And we're always amazed from stop choppy to Everglades city and everything in between what people are doing with trails and trail towns to try to bring that economic development into their community. We talked a little bit about Orange County and some other counties, and Commissioner Parks mentioned it. They have specific trail funding built into their budget every year. We've talked about it, sales tax, TDT tax, and everything for at least a decade now, and that hasn't happened. So we're still trying to get that permanent trail funding. So what we did is we supported this bond issue when it was going to be 50% for trails, 50% for conservation, and it passed with over 80%. where people wanted 50% of that funding to go to trails. So that's what we're encouraging you to do today. Go ahead and fund this. Get this missing link for Lake County funded. People talk about the wildlife corridor and the conservation folks talk about landscape change. This is a landscape change for Lake County. It provides that connection. It provides that missing link. It fills the monkey in the middle and gets us to where we need to be to get started to catch up with our surrounding communities. We talked about the public lands and trails acquisition committee advisory committee approved it unanimously. Your staff is recommending it unanimously. Uh, I encourage you, uh, this is kind of a moment of truth, uh, for Lake County, please support this, uh, get this project done and get it moving. Uh, we were already 20, 20 years behind our surrounding counties and we need to catch up. We need to benefit from the economic development of those other communities have been enjoying. and specifically budgeting and investing in for the last 20 years, so I appreciate your support.

All right, thank you, Mike. And the next one would be Jim Wood, but before Jim comes forward, I just want to check with Igor. I think you were for the other lands, or did you want to speak? Did you want to speak? Why don't you go ahead and speak, and then they can have their group that they wanted to stick together with.

Commissioner Igor Emery for District 4. Sorry about the confusion with that. I have been involved in this process for longer than I can remember. And I want to remind a couple of names. James and Eloise Fisher were members of Lake Rails to Trails. And people don't realize that Lake County was a leader in the Rails to Trails movement. And this particular project is a culmination of many years and many people's efforts to move that process forward. I encourage you so strongly to move forward with this. And I want to thank Commissioner Campione for the work she did to try to protect some of our public lands from being left over by Eustis. That was a great effort, and we appreciate that. And Mr. Sabatini, I really encourage you to do everything you can to stop the sprawl, because we all want to. And land acquisition, I think, is a part of that. We've seen the flaws in it, but, boy, it's an important part. So please move forward with this. Connect the trails. Thank you.

Thank you. And when you spoke, it reminded me of someone who used to be on the commission many years ago, Richard Swartz, and he owned a bicycle shop. And I think that he would be pleased to know that we were working on this right now.

Good morning, Madam Chair and board members. Thank you for the opportunity to share a few points with you today. I'm Jim Wood with Kimley Horne. Our team has provided support regarding development of some of the recent federal grant applications for the Wekiva Trail and And Madam Chair, I want to pick up on a point that you had made, and that is briefly sharing where the Wekiva Trail stands from a federal funding perspective and the importance of today's acquisition decision. This project remains highly competitive. In the most recent U.S. DOT build grant review, which was completed in July, the Wekiva Transportation Infrastructure Corridor was rated highly recommended overall, received a senior review team designation of highly rated, and the project scored high in nearly every major evaluation category. Federal discretionary grant programs, though, have become increasingly competitive. Increasingly, USDOT is looking for the projects that are ready to move quickly and demonstrate the lowest risk to ensure successful project delivery. One of the most effective ways to reduce risk is to complete critical early phases before seeking federal construction funding. For trail projects, right-of-way acquisition is often the hardest piece to fund through discretionary grants. Federal reviewers prefer to invest in projects where local partners have already secured the corridor, resolved property issues, and made a clear commitment to implementation. If Lake County advances acquisition through the proposed bond funding, the county will not only preserve the opportunity now, but it will also substantially strengthen future federal grant applications. Acquisition in this case is not just a local investment, it's part of a federal funding strategy. The good news is is there continues to be strong opportunities through BUILD and other discretionary programs, but the projects that rise to the top are increasingly those where the challenging upfront work has been done. today the trail has broad support significant commitment from fdot and other partners and strong federal merit ratings as i've shared so taking the next step on acquisition would position the county in a much stronger place to compete for future construction funding so thank you for your consideration of these points as you make your decision today all right thank you melissa hill and then misty summers

Hello, thank you for having me. My name is Melissa Hill, I'm with the Trust for Public Land. TBL has been working as a partner to Lake County to negotiate an option agreement between Trust for Public Land and the owner of the rail corridor, CSX, and their leaseholder, Florida Central Railway, for the purchase of the Wekiva Trail Segment 1 and 5 that we are discussing today. I would like to pause here and just note that for safety and regulatory reasons, CSX and Florida Central Railroad have both confirmed that they do not allow its rail corridors to be used for recreational use adjacent to their rail. As such, a rail with trail is a non-starter. The only acquisition option is to acquire the property fee simple for a rail to trail project. TBL has successfully negotiated an option contract with a 24 month term, meaning the county has until March 2028 to purchase the property should they choose. The anticipated purchase price to acquire the corridor is 27 million. This purchase price has been supported by appraisal work that the county has reviewed and approved. And this is the first time the corridor has been under contract in the project's 20 plus year history. TPL nominated the project for the PL tax consideration and use of the bond referendum funds. The bond referendum has $50 million available with a direction from its ordinance for the PL tax to recommend a 50-50 funding balance between natural lands and lands used for trail connectivity under the Parks and Trails Master Plan, like the Wekiva Trail project. The Peel Tax Board voted unanimously in support of the Wekiva Trail project and for use of $23.5 million from the bond referendum for the Board of County Commission to consider today. Now, I would like to highlight what sets this project apart. One, it has a seller under contract with a negotiated price and a clear timeline. Two, it has support and expertise of Trust for Public Land as a trusted acquisition partner to invest staff time and capacity and to navigate the complexities of rail corridor acquisition. Three, project partners have already been pursuing matching funds, creating a very clear understanding of the remaining need outlining the request for the $23.5 million today. Four, Tavares and Mount Dora are ready to share in the due diligence costs for the acquisition to take on management responsibilities of their segments of trail and to pursue funding for infrastructure once the trail is acquired. There has never been a better opportunity to purchase this project. And today, you have a chance to move it forward. With the grant pending to the state's Florida Communities Trust for $3.5 million towards the total $27 million purchase price, it is my request for the board to support the staff recommendation to move forward today towards an agreement between Trust for Public Land and Lake County and for the board to approve the gap of $23.5 million from the bond referendum for the county to ultimately acquire this property. I really appreciate all of you, your consideration, your excellent staff throughout this process, and I will be available to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa.

All right, Misty. And then the last speaker would be John Drury.

Hi, good morning, Misty Summer with the City of Mount Dora. I too, like Mr. Stevens, am going to cut my presentation a little short. I really wanted to drive home the point of how while this undoubtedly will benefit the City of Mount Dora and Tavares, I wanted to focus on the regional impact, the county-wide impact through the increased sales tax and also tourist development tax revenues, which are also then passed down to municipalities. I think we've covered pretty well the economics today. I feel confident in that. I know we've had a lot of speakers speak to that point. So what I would like to focus on is Mount Dora's commitment. The city of Mount Dora has invested more than $20 million in public infrastructure, recreational amenities, and corridor improvements that support and complement this proposed trail. Those investments include improvements to our parks and public spaces, expanded recreational amenities, parking and beautification improvements, and upgrades to our waterfront facilities. Many of these parks, recreational amenities, and public spaces are already connected and accessible through Mount Dora's local trail network. Together, these investments demonstrate the city's long-term commitment to creating an interconnected network of trails, recreational amenities, and public spaces, and to doing our part to support the success of this larger regional investment. Also, as Melissa stated, we are already committed to the due diligence cost for this project, and we're already in conversations with the maintenance of it. So I can't officially say you have Mount Dore's commitment because that contract will go before our council, but I know they are very supportive of that, and it's something we're already planning for in our budgeting. Thank you.

Thank you. And John Drury.

Hello, Commissioners. I'm John Drury, City of Tavares Administrator. I'd like to recognize our Mayor Pfister, who's here. Raise your hand. Who supports this project, Council Member Walter Price, who's here. Yes. supporting this project, as is our whole council supporting this project. I'd like to really quickly put together this train issue. We have invested, I think, $25 million into the train tracks that run north and south, and we've invested $3.5 million into the bridge over the Dora Canal for the trains. and we have a train station of over a million. So we have a train station, we have tracks, are here today, will be here tomorrow. We have hosted train service to the Blueberry Farm with Pumpkin Patch. We will continue to do that. We have hosted train service on the tracks for the Polar Express. We will continue to do that. So if anybody has a train they'd like to bring to Tavares, come on. We'll work an agreement out for the railroad station. We'll work an agreement out for the Use of the tracks and we can have excursion tourist trains here forever. So trains aren't going to leave there here. As it relates to the project. The voters 80% of them voted and had a vision of what they wanted, which was trails and for half the money to be spent on that. 80% of Lake County voters. Nine of the people assigned to interpret that vote and decide what the number one trail was voted unanimously that this was the number one trail to fulfill what 80% of the voters voted for recently. Your entire staff who does parks and trails have identified this as the number one trail to fulfill what the voters voted for and what the nine-member board voted unanimously for. They all had a vision, and we all know that a vision without implementation is a hallucination. What is before you today is the implementation part of the vision. We are all rowing in the same direction, many of us, and when that ship moves forward, everyone rowing in the same direction, we get to the finish line. There are quite a number of people who have been rowing in this direction for 20 years. There is the city of Mount Dora, there is the city of Tavares. This connects Leesburg to Wildwood, to Tavares, to Mount Dora, to Sorrento. It's a big deal for Lake County, connects it all. There are others, very quickly, that have been rowing in our direction. And I've given you their letters. These are letters they've written about this trail, this specific trail. and that is a Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who supports this specific trail, and I provided you his letter on this particular trail. Daniel Webster, his letter, Randy Fine, Michael Waltz, and Governor Rick Scott, now Senator Rick Scott, all wrote letters to Lake County to support this trail along with the 80% of the voters and your committee and your staff. I hope today, knowing that we have all wrote together to get to the finish line, that you get Lake County across the finish line. You have an opportunity today not to drag oars, not to row in different directions, but to join all of us over the last 20 years and get across the finish line. It is a hard decision, I understand. It's a hefty decision. But if we move this forward, we will get across the finish line. Last comment I have is return on investment. This particular project, for every dollar that's spent, will bring in another dollar to build it. We have a $25 million build grant sitting in Washington with senators, governors, representatives supporting it. All they're looking for is do you own it? When we own it, they will all, as their letters show, support the build grant. So that $25 million is going to turn into $50 million, and you'll build it very quickly. If we continue to delay another year, another year, another year, we start losing the support, it slows down, we're rowing in different directions, we're dragging our oars, and we all know if we all row in the same direction, we can get across the finish line. I hope you take Lake County across the finish line. Thank you. Thank you, John.

all right great great comments um we heard from a lot of folks and i'm glad we were able to go through the process and hear what everyone had to say um and um i did want to point out two things just so for the benefit of the public because they were two things that i dealt with in district four over the course of these years and i'm just so thrilled that csx and florida central railroad are at the table and are partnering with the Trust for Public Lands. But I want to point out that they have every right owning that land basically to do what they want to do with it and make money from it. And so through the years we have had a lot of railroad cars stored on that right of way. We have no jurisdiction over that. Absolutely no jurisdiction over that. So for anybody that's like on the fence, doesn't know if we're doing the right thing, think about how it has looked from time to time when those rail cars have been stored on that property. And they could literally do that from where the tracks actually start up over in Sorrento on the south side of Sorrento Avenue. all the way into Mount Dora, all the way into Tavares. We see it in Umatilla. If you travel through Donna Vista, you'll see the rail cars out there. So it's just a practical thing. I think everybody needs to keep in mind that they have that right. It's not a right we can take away. And by having the right of way ourselves to use for a trail, then that no longer will be able to happen. The other thing that we experienced from Mount Dora to Tavares were the whistle. And because it traveled through such a largely, you know, heavily populated area, that became a real problem. Not so much a problem as you leave Tavares and you go around to the blueberry farm in that area. But through from Mount Dora to Tavares, that created a problem. So this solves that as well. But I appreciate all the comments. I don't know if anyone wants to make any more or if we have a motion to move forward with the TPL.

I've just got one comment, and that is I'd like to make a motion to approve the purchase of the trail.

Second.

All right.

Yeah, and I'm going to be supportive of the motion, just with a little understanding, too. I use the trail, so I'm one of those that I use the trail probably on average once a week. in fairness and I love the trail, love the trail system that we have and it is a huge goal of ours to connect all the cities. I'm also one that will go out to our natural lands and call me a geek or whatever but I'm amazed when I see this listed plant species that's rare or whatever and it's out on a beautiful property I see some of the ecological service values that are associated with the conservation land. So I think what you're hearing today is a great discussion. I'm glad we had all this out front in front of people because there's that balance to strike on the trail, which a lot of people will use, and there's immense economic benefit from that. Just look at the South Lake Trail, which has been discussed. So that's a benefit greatly to our community. I'll go back to just wanting to optimize. I think a role of just me personally is to optimize, I use that word optimize, as much as possible that $50 million bond. So obviously want to move forward with today, but I hope there's the understanding that I would want to use two million out of TDT, because that's two million that's, possibly could go towards conservation or maybe another land that has another trail connection, which was heavily discussed at the Public Lands and Trails Committee was the intent of the ordinance was trail lands that are connected, natural lands to natural lands, even if it goes through a city. And the Public Lands and Trails Committee did, they did not, to be clear, they did not stipulate that it was a requirement that they vote in full support of moving forward with the trail, but they did also recognize the same thing that I brought up, and that was that TDT should be explored as a, and several spoke in favor of it as actually using some TDT now for our trail funding. So obviously gonna move forward to support it, but I didn't want the discussion to end abruptly without an understanding that we're gonna, when checks go out, and they'll go out soon, they're gonna go into due diligence process here, appraisals and everything that needs to be done with trust for public land that we one work with CSX I do believe there may be a chance to continue to work and partner with them as well but then also use the tourist development tax money to help defray that that 23.5 that'll come directly out of the bond so

Okay. Any other comments or you want to move forward and call the question? All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Appreciate everyone's participation. Can I get direction on the bond issue as well? Okay. Take out the $50 million bond.

Second.

All right. And for discussion, I think there were several of us that feel that the key is wait until, go ahead and move forward today, but wait until after the referendum on the property tax to decide whether we end up going to closing.

If there's enough time.

Yeah, I mean, it takes about 90 days to do a bond, so we can make sure that we don't close it until after we see the results of the referendum.

Yeah, and I think the point being that the burden shifts tremendously at that point, and so we just need to be very cognizant of how that affects commercial properties, rental properties, and how that affects our general economy in Lake County. Okay, all right, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Moving along then, we'll pick back up at the consent agenda, clerk of court.

Good morning again, I have seven items in my consent agenda for your approval.

Move approval. All right.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, then on to our consent agenda, tabs three through 18.

Move approval.

All in favor say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. And then we are now at presentations. They said thank you, but I don't think they wanted to actually comment. So we have tab 19. This is regarding the infrastructure sales tax and Let's see, Jamie Stewart is going to present this.

She wants to speak on 22 and 26, but that's up to you.

Jamie Stewart, Office of Management and Budget Director, for the record. Good morning, Madam Chair and Commissioners. Today I have the presentation for the infrastructure sales tax. I'll be presenting the proposed five-year project plan for the infrastructure sales tax for your approval. First I'll go over the background, then a brief update on the project revenue projections, the proposed five year plan by category, funding requests, next steps, and finally the board discussion. The extension of the infrastructure sales tax was approved by voters in November of 2015. The term of the levy is for 15 years beginning January 1st, 2018 through December 31st of 2032. The revenue from the taxes collected will be evenly distributed among the county, the school board, and the municipalities. The ordinance for the 2018 to 2032 sales tax authorization provides for an annual public hearing in August to reevaluate priorities and make adjustments to the rolling five-year plan. The four categories identified by the referendum include public safety, quality of life, public works, and other public infrastructure. The fiscal year 2027 revenue projections include $1.3 million in carry forward from fiscal year 2026 due to estimated revenues and unanticipated interest earned. For fiscal year 2027, the revenue estimates are $27.4 million without years projecting at 3.6% average increase year over year. Ongoing projects total $31 million and they are currently funded. Most notably is the FDOT grant match of $12 million, the East Lake Sports Complex and the County Library renovation and replacements. Funding by category and allocation as you can see here for 2027 is $26 million, for 28 is $27 million and so on until the five year total of $139 million. For the five-year plan for public safety, we have fire apparatus vehicles and equipment in 2027 totaling $1.8 million, the fire EMS station renovations for $1.5 million, and the share of vehicles and equipment at 1.5 among others to total $7.2 million in the first year. And over the five year, the total is $45 million. Next, we have the quality of life projects that includes the South Lake Regional Park partnership with the city of Groveland for $1.8 million, the Golden Triangle Regional Park for $1.5 million, and the East Lake Sports and Community Complex improvements per the master plan for $1 million. and other various trail lighting, pavilion, park improvement plans to total $6.6 million in the year of 2027. And over the five year total is $36 million. For public works, for the fiscal year 2027, we have that FDOT grant match at 2.6 million, the road resurfacing and improvements of 1.9 million, and various other intersection, bridge, landfill, solid waste, and public works projects to total 8.7 million this year, and $41.3 million in the next five years. We have the five-year plan for the other public infrastructure projects, $1 million for the capital building construction and renovations, some IT enhancements, over the next five years to total $6.6 million. The five-year debt service, as you can see here, we have various road resurfacing projects, the animal shelter, and the public safety radios debt, but we also have listed here the $516,000 revenue as well. The five-year total on this is $9.8 million. What's coming next is a public hearing on August 25th in addition to September 8th's first budget public hearing and September 22nd's final budget public hearing. So I'll pass it back to you for discussion.

Okay, all right. And I was kind of anxious for this one to come up because I wanted to throw something out for everybody's consideration. You know that we've got a place mark there for fairgrounds funding. It looks like $500,000 a year going out. We have a pending grant right now from the state of Florida to go towards that use and I know we've had kind of been in somewhat of a holding pattern because we thought that we were going to move pretty quickly with a public-private partnership and some things have happened that have kind of thrown that into question mark and not that that might not still stay on track. But what I wanted to throw out for everybody's consideration is to maybe gather some information, get a couple presentations on the possibility of moving forward with the utilities to the fairground site site plan completion so that we've got that drawn out but move forward with a Pavilion that could be utilized to create revenue immediately and that would be for barrel racing and rodeos They have this in Sumter County. You see it in other places in Florida We don't have anything like this in Lake County and we would probably become an extremely popular place for these activities to happen and I'm told that the circuit is basically they go from place to place every month and that you could have someone there twice a month, probably barrel racing once a month, and potentially rodeo. And then you would also have the facility available for other things that could be used for agricultural purposes. There's just an abundance of things that can happen. But the revenue stream really comes from those users that go and they bring their RVs, they travel with everything they need, Some places have hookups, so you could look at the possibility of whether you have hookups for them, but other facilities don't necessarily have the hookups for them, and they just, everything's self-contained, and they spend a lot of money to go to these events. So I just wanted to see if you all would be open to the possibility of having someone come in and show us what they do in one or two other counties and how they make a revenue stream from this, and it wouldn't preclude that we build the big Expo Center eventually that would be the fairgrounds and be a potential moneymaker and could be used for the fair once a year and all of that. But this would at least get you started and it would create a revenue stream right off the bat.

So I think this is where some of the sunshine law happens because we can't discuss any of this personally. Tomorrow I'm having a meeting with the the final meeting for the public-private partnership before it comes to the board. So can we wait one more board meeting before we make this decision?

Okay. And it's a good thing to have brought up because then when we have that discussion, we still can look at it as a two-part.

We segue right into it. I think you'll be pleasantly pleased at what the anticipation is going to be. Okay.

Well, my concern is we have $2 million that we need that we could use for infrastructure for the fairgrounds and not lose it. So I would rather use it than lose it.

Yeah, that's why this meeting's tomorrow and everything's gonna be falling right in place.

And then when we get that presentation, then we can decide whether it makes any sense to bifurcate it or to move forward.

Hey, we could either say yes to the public partnership or no. I mean, I just wanna bring something to the board that I've been working on, so.

I appreciate that, because that was going to be my question, is what is the status of the public-private partnership? I've been hearing about it. So wait, but I do think that.

Our next meeting, so you're having the meeting, and then you're going to bring forward whatever the outcome of that meeting.

But what the chair said, I was amazed that I thought people spent money on travel ball, and they still do, but they spent a ton of money on, a lot of money on what racing and anything question related of course and shows and anything with kids in it yeah yeah um and that's us too by the way i think lake county you know that's a lake county identity right so yeah i'm to be interested we'll wait and see what happens with the private private part and it would be the i mean it's a corner stone of a fairgrounds anyway you need a pavilion like that anyway so you at least be getting that right off the bat potentially

And I will tell you the college did let the contract out for the Nichols group to build their workforce center. And that is the partner of the P3 that's making the presentation. So they will be in the area.

Okay. All right. Well, good. Any other questions on the presentation for this being August? We'll be having the August hearing on August 25th, and that would be the, that's required by the referendum? Correct, that's correct. Okay, all right, very good. All right, moving ahead then to public hearings. Mike Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Chairman, Commissioners. This agenda item is entitled the Smith Family Trust Cemetery. This item has been advertised in accordance with Florida statute. The requested action is for approval of a conditional use permit on approximately 470 acres to allow a private family cemetery within the agricultural district. The location of the property is 6200 Calvin Lee Road in the Groveland area. The concept plan depicts the proposed location of the .84 acre private cemetery southwest of the existing residence. The CUP requires that The private cemetery be set back a minimum of 100 feet from any right-of-way, set back five feet from any property line. There will be a five-foot landscape buffer on all sides, and it be set back a minimum of 50 feet from the jurisdictional wetland line, which this is more than 50 feet. CUPs require inspections once they're approved, so the CUP will be inspected in accordance to the provisions that I've outlined. This request is in compliance with the LDR and the comprehensive plan, and I'm happy to answer any questions to the board.

Okay, and this was driven by an application and I don't know if the applicant wants to speak or would like to say anything at the meeting. I know that I personally had conversations with the applicant and this was a very important thing to the family because they had lost their son and they had wanted to be able to bury their son on their own property and maintain that as a family cemetery. So that's the purpose of this request.

Move approval. I'll second that.

We'll open up the floor. I don't see a light on. I don't have any cards. Anyone wish to speak? Yes. You have to come to the podium. I'm sorry.

My name is Carol Smith, and we did just lose our son. Aneurysms aren't picky. They just choose whoever they want. And we have worked our whole life to have a substantial area. And when we purchased this property, that was one of the first things that we wanted to do is have a cemetery for everybody. And I'm sorry that I'm usually a real good speaker, but this is a little bit of a Difficult time, but if you guys would approve it, we would appreciate it. And the way that the trust is set up, the property can never be sold. And it'll stay within our family. So we thank you very much.

Thank you. And we do have a motion. We do have a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. And we give you our condolences. And I know it was hard working through the logistics of getting the application to us from Hawaii and all of that. But I want to thank staff for going the extra mile to make this happen. And I appreciate you seeing it through. OK. All right, we are at the at tab 21. And this is regarding the North Lake Hospital District and their request to have this placed on the 2026 ballot, correct?

Correct. So this will be an ordinance of Lake County, Florida, providing for a continuation of the existing North Lake County Hospital District in Lake County, providing for approval of the continuation by referendum, providing that the continuation shall be effective for a period of 10 years beginning October 1st, 2027, providing for the referendum to be held on November 3rd, 2026, providing ballot language, providing for notice of the election, providing for notification to the state of Florida department of revenue, providing a conflict clause, providing for filing department of state and providing for an effective date. If you choose to approve this today, I become ordinance 2026 dash 35. And just one note for the record, um, the enabling legislation for the hospital district states that the board of County commissioners shall put this on a referendum every 10 years.

Okay, so this is a public hearing and I don't have any cards. No one has called in. Anyone in the public that wishes to speak? Bring it back to the board.

Move to approve. Second.

Okay, and I have a question. Commissioner Sabatini, you're going to vote for this, right?

I don't want to relitigate the issue, but I think that there is at least some merit to the idea that just like the school board tax vote, it's presented as ministerial, but if we vote no and we kill it that way, they would be forced to sue and then we contest it that way. So I would invite that. I'm fine with that. But if we have to, you know, obviously the board thinks

good faith that obviously they're mandated to vote for it then it is what it is but i'll be voting no um can i just ask that i mean you're going to do whatever you want to do and if you put something up on social media you will put it up on social media but i think that it's really unfair to people to read that and think that we had a choice and i'm a believer in the rule of law i think that when you have a statute enabling legislation and it says that we shall as the Board of County Commissioners put something out to the voters on a referendum it's not it's not our endorsement of it it is 100% not our endorsement of it it is us doing what the statute directs us to do and I would just ask that you would consider that whenever you decide whether you're going to post something if you could just write it in such a way as people understand that We took the position, those of us that vote in favor of this, to follow what the statute tells us that we're supposed to do. And I just hate for it to be portrayed as, because I had somebody write me on the school district one, but somebody wrote me and they said, you voted for the school tax. And I said, I voted to adopt the ordinance so that it could be on a referendum so the voters could vote on the school tax.

And two other counties, Indian River County and Hillsborough County also denied it. And, you know, the case law is the case law, but they did the same thing. The statute doesn't read any different today than it did when the other two counties did it. Listen, I totally get it. I get it.

I think I'd let them sue because, I mean, let's see what they come up with. I don't want to jump in with somebody else and. Jump in a lawsuit.

By the way, you know I wasn't going to debate this.

No, which is that I'm trying to be preemptive in that I know you're going to post something and then I'm going to get emails and people are going to like, you're going to have 500 likes by the end of the day and they're all going to think that we just adopted a tax and we didn't.

And for those who ask him to say there's a fair and good faith reading that it's It's obligational, it's mandatory, and there's also an argument that you can vote no, which of course is why we have to vote to begin with. It's gotta at least, there is an argument that's discretionary, that's why we have to vote.

It's not, it's not discretionary because to put something on a referendum, you have to have an ordinance adopted. We are the legislative body for Lake County, and therefore we have to adopt the ordinance to put it on a referendum. then let the voters decide. So I disagree with your interpretation that it's discretionary. I wish the laws were written differently. If the legislature wanted us to have discretion, they would have actually said it in the statute. They would have said it that we could decide whether there would be a hospital tax in Lake County or not. They said, let the voters decide whether there will be this tax or not, and that's why it's called a referendum. So anyway, I've made my case. We have a motion and a second, correct? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. All right, moving along then to, we've got tab 22, and this is with regard to cemeteries and... I do have one speaker card on this, so I just want to let Commissioner Parks know because I'm going to run out and I'll be right back.

Thank you, Chairman. For the record, Mike Fitzgerald. I'm the Office of Planning and Zoning Director. We have a couple of agenda items today, one regarding cemeteries, one regarding the definition of site plans. These items have been advertised in accordance with Florida statute. First item covering the LDR for cemeteries, On May 21st, 2026, Governor DeSantis signed into law House Bill 425, which requires administrative approval of applications from historic African American cemeteries to change the land use category and zoning district of excess vacant land to allow development consistent and compatible with adjacent land uses. This proposed ordinance today amends the Lake County Code to require administrative approval of rezoning and future land use changes for excess vacant cemetery property to fund the cemetery's long-term maintenance and upkeep with no further action by the governing body so long as the cemetery is an historic African American cemetery recorded in the Florida Master Site Plan file. This is a state mandate. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

And just to clarify, this is approval to advertise only. It'll come back for public hearing at a future meeting.

Yes, we have a public comment. Let's take a public comment from Catherine DeYoung. Is Catherine here?

Good morning, everyone, and I'm from, I guess, District 4. I want to tell you that I support the ordinance amendment because it is bringing us in line with the new legislation from the state. My comments today are tangentially related to this topic. Today, hundreds of burial grounds have been lost, swallowed by development, obscured by vegetation, or simply overlooked by historical record. These sites are often unregistered and unmarked on official maps and are uniquely vulnerable. The loss of such a site is not merely an aesthetic tragedy, it's the erasure of identity, memory, and genealogical connection for entire family lines. Florida has taken meaningful legislative steps to address this crisis. The Florida statutes provide for protections for historical burial sites 50 years and older. And the Florida Division of Historical Resources administers a number of programs to support preservation efforts. One tool that is provided is the maintenance of a master site file of registered cemeteries that are 50 years and older. This site, this data is updated quarterly and it is made available to planning departments throughout the state. Unfortunately, unless it is requested and incorporated, In a database, these sites are vulnerable. When applications are submitted to local planning and zoning departments for construction projects, local construction projects, not ones that have a PUD where they would go before the state for review, these sites are often missed if they're not on a database for local planning staff to consult. Staff may not recommend necessary precautions that should be considered when proceeding with one of these applications. I would like to formally request today that the county look into adopting a policy to incorporate master site file data so that county and municipalities have the necessary data on hand when they receive an application so that these cultural resources can be protected. Thank you for your time.

Second.

Yeah, just a quick discussion on the question. The question from Catherine. When you do, you're getting reports based on sites and zoning and things. That's a requirement often as they're submitting letters from Department of State historical resources on information.

Yes, sir. The applicant must disclose to us if there's an historic cemetery on the site.

But not only that, but I mean, if they're contacting the State Division of Historical Resources, they're going to get not just burial sites, but all kinds of archaeological resources. Correct. Okay.

So just, we do not have a requirement for a property owner to do that or a developer to do that. That's not part of our code. They should do it, but we don't require them to do that.

All right, we don't have to address that today, but that would be something I would look in the future. And by the way, it's free. So it wouldn't cost anybody to do anything, because I do it all the time. But if they simply did that and put the information in, it's free, it could be helpful with the process.

And I would like to add that the state already has a GIS map layer that's easy to incorporate. And it's just a resource that prevents a complication down the road. Thank you so much for considering that.

OK. Okay, so two separate things. We have the ordinance today, which is what the state is requiring the change to our LDRs. And then the request from Catherine that we would consider making a change in the future to our LDRs, which I think it makes a lot of sense, especially since it's not adding a lot of cost.

It's just that you put your information in and they provide it to you free of charge. It comes like within a couple hours.

Okay, all right, so we have a motion, we have a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that passes. Moving then to Ordinance 2026.

These are just approval to advertise. They'll come back for a public hearing later.

Who'd approve?

I don't know where he's going.

This next item is regarding the definition of site plans. The proposed ordinance clarifies the major and minor site plan definitions for better review and categorization and charges and fees. We have outlined major and minor site plan definitions in the ordinance. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Move to approve.

All right. Discussion? Mm-hmm. Is this going to create more of a burden? No, sir. It's going to clarify.

This helps staff to know when not to overcharge business.

I like that.

And we had, I had this come up with somebody in my district too, was just trying to do something very simple and they were thrown into like the major site plan process and they really were just trying to do this little tiny fix. So this is a good.

Pay for engineering and all kinds of stuff they didn't need to, right? Good policy.

Yeah.

okay all right we have a first we have a second all in favor say aye aye any opposed all right thank you appreciate that all right we did tab 24 we're now to tab 25 commissioner parks this is recommend approval to appoint mary burns accounting director to the central florida expressway audit committee thank you i'll second that all right any discussion all in favor say aye aye Any opposed that passes unanimously? Then we are down to tab 25 26 This is the discussion and direction regarding the deep woods ranch and this is the one that I Believe we have the attorney. Mr. Dove is here on behalf of Richard Graham and

All right, good afternoon. I had written good morning, but good afternoon now. Thank you all for your time. My name is Billy Dove. I'm an attorney representing Richard Graham, the owner of the property at 46600 Deepwoods Road. As you all know, my client spoke last week to request a review of the Deepwoods Ranch CUP and we sincerely appreciate the Commission's attention to this matter and the willingness to review that CUP. Today I would like to respectfully request that we just table this vote for a later meeting to allow Property owners a little bit of additional time to review the information and the process surrounding this So that we can ensure that we're moving forward in a you know manner that is Conducive to everyone's interest there and and productive moving forward. So Thank you.

That sounds like a reasonable request to me and I understand that you met with the attorneys, correct? from written riddled and the other property owners and

We've been in conversations, Commissioner. As you all are aware, the CUP touches three separate parcels.

And all three of you all are talking, right?

Well, we are all three aligned that it would be preferred to table this vote just for a later date.

I'll make a motion to table until the property owners can get with staff and bring back a good plan.

Okay, we have a motion, and then we can have debate. Do we have a second? Second. All right, well, now for discussion.

Yeah, respectfully, I mean, obviously, you're doing a great job for your client. He has a client. His client is one person who owns one piece of property. The reason why I was pushing last week to get the COP analyzed, and I have this as a full-fledged item for all of our benefit to dive into, respectfully is not for one applicant, one owner, one citizen. It's for the county as a whole. Obviously, I think there's, what, three other parcels, and then you've got the people who have the grass strip that want to, you know, obviously suit it up and make it a profitable venture. All of your concerns obviously weigh very heavily. You're the most involved with it. But I personally, I don't request tabling it. I request putting it on the agenda immediately for reanalyzing the CUP. because they're just one part one party i mean we're obviously at 460 000 people living in the county this is a major uh effect over the county it's going to be you know a major um it's already created more conversation in almost any of the land use item that we voted on the last two years since i've been on the board so well it might be because you're on facebook blowing it up so so I got you. Actually, it's been around two years. I think I posted about it once in a year. I posted about it because I thought a year ago when we had the original hearing that things like I thought guardrails were being put in place where this wasn't going to be modified in significant substantial way. And then a year later we find out through the media and through some of our diligent citizens that it is so obviously adjacent property owners who have their property affected in a very direct manner, obviously matter. but that's not an argument for tabling the whole thing. The county.

Wait, he's not adjacent though. He's actually part of the CEP. Correct, I know, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a little different than adjacent. It's not, it's part of the CEP. He's part of the CEP, that's why.

Right, but it's a different parcel. Adjacent parcel.

No, no, no, CEP covers his property.

Well, your statement's, totally support why we probably need to have a full hearing on this wasn't it but then it needs to be done as a separate agenda item as a as a whole not on this one particular piece of property correct no no well my understanding in the motion that was made last week was that we were going to reopen the cup and to study and analyze it and see if what's being proposed and what's being done is in accordance with the original cup and what was modified i think

And with that, we don't know. That's the reason why I made the motion. It's been seconded to table until they can come to the board and get everything cleared up on the CUP.

Within their own CUP?

Correct. And if you've got issues with other CUPs, that's a completely different scenario.

Okay, I disagree. I think that we need a hearing on the CUP, and we need to study what's happening there, not just because one person who partakes in the benefit of the CUP, who's one of, I think, three or four different parties, is requesting it. For me, that would be unusual.

Okay, so we have an owner of one of the parcels that's in the CEP, right? Okay, so they are, and then the other owner is Emory Riddle, okay? They are asking us to let them all get together, get with staff and see what they can work out and then bring that back and decide whether your request which would be to open it up and have a hearing is something that they support they need to make that decision because we don't usually the only time I've ever known the county commission to unilaterally actually initiate a zoning change of someone's property is when that property owner wants their property to be changed usually it's done by the county when they want to fix something okay so and that's and they will ask us to initiate it because they don't think they should have to pay for it to fix something all right so that's that's that's we don't initiate zoning tradition but it's not even tradition this is burt harris law so you you what you're doing now is at least letting these property owners get together and figure out do they want to ask for it to be reopened And if they work something out and they bring it back, but what if they're against it being reopened? And then you wanna go forward and have a hearing on that. That's a hearing for a different day. That's a hearing to decide whether we do what the property owners want or not and whether we listen to, and let's just say they're in disagreement, then they have to decide how they're going to handle that disagreement. So I think the point being that they just want more time to see whether they as the property owners can get on the same page or not, and if they can't, then this is an issue, a hearing for another day.

There's a lot of abstractions there. I kind of hear your argument, but it's a lot of like, let's let them figure it out. I just want to have a hearing on the CEP because I'm hearing unilateral complaints that the CEP and the proposed plans within the CEP do not reflect what they were originally entitled to. I want that studied. I want a public hearing on that, and I want to see what legal options we have to make sure that it's not being abused and not changing in a way that changes the quality of life in that area and and what was originally envisioned, that's all. I think we're really talking about two parallel different things, so I hear his request, but I wouldn't pause right now. Obviously, I think I'm outvoted, so it's fine. We don't have to beat a dead horse and move on.

All right, so question, though. From what I saw, first, I want to make it very clear, so there's no misunderstanding. I am also, probably like several people on the board, or all of us, maybe, greatly concerned about the impacts on the forest and it all being in line with what's been In other words, I think we're all concerned about any kind of expansion or going outside of what they can already do. So to make that very clear, but from the motion though, so I understand that doesn't preclude, there's still gonna be, this isn't gonna go away, there's not gonna be some, there's gonna be another instance like this where we're all gonna hear it, it's just after they've gotten together and then we decide on.

Right, where you have a due process hearing so that you actually can have people that are impacted that want to have their statements, the people that want to get up to the podium and say, you know, I think this is an expansion. I think that this is, you know, detrimental. I don't think this should, you know, all of that gets to be heard at a due process hearing like we always do on zoning cases. But to have that today when you have the property owners, the actual property owners, so you've got Emory Riddle, you have Mr. Graham's attorney here, and they're saying, hey, we don't want to have that hearing today. We want to get together and, you know, see what we can work out or not work out. But we're not ready to make that request to have that actual hearing is what they're saying, basically.

Because a couple weeks ago when I brought this up, and I was online last meeting, but the meeting before that, I – had the same concern. I'm hearing about all this that it's blown up way out of proportion and everything. So I wanted to have something here where we would see it and see if it's in compliance. What I'm hearing is we're still gonna get that question answered. It's just gonna be at some point in the near future because they'll come back but then we're gonna have our staff that's also gonna say this is and this is what could be expanding or expanding what was originally approved or not and there's gonna be sort of that compliance check, right?

I think that that is the heart of this is that, and maybe the attorney could expound on it, but I think the question that has been raised by the public is that by paving the airstrip. By paving the airstrip and the things that go along with that, which included road relocation, which included trees being cut and the forestry division weighing in, which included the water management district weighing in. on the permit, all of that stuff. The argument from those that are opposed to the airstrip being paved are saying that the original 2006 CUP is being expanded. Staff has thus far said they're not of the opinion it is. uh... commissioner sabatini saying that he thinks that it is an expansion and he wants to have a hearing on that and the owners you know you've got three separate owners they're saying We want to table having that discussion about whether the county would initiate a hearing or not on its own so that they can decide whether they want to go down that road or whether they would oppose a county initiated hearing. That's basically what he's asking for is just a postponement on that question.

I'm happy to just try and be concise for clarity here. What we're asking is that we push this vote out a couple of meetings. Right. Give us a little bit of time to look at the all of the background information. We've received more information recently on this. There's a lot of moving parts. The CUP touches three different landowners properties before we set, you know, this whole thing in motion. We want to look at all those facts. We want to come back to you. I don't want to come back to you guys and take a position on something that's half baked. or incorrect or is going to put my client or the county in a bad position. But we want to come back and have a fully analyzed picture when we do this. And we're just asking for a little bit of time to get some of that information together. It's the commission's choice, however you want to proceed. But that's our request today.

All right, so we have a motion and a second. And I have to ask the attorney, I'm not sure what to do about the cards.

Yeah, I think you're going to have to do similar to what you did earlier is ask if those individuals want to hold their comments for when or if it comes back or if they want to speak today because they were not given the opportunity at the beginning of the meeting. Okay.

All right. Okay. So we would do that before we've got a motion second on the table and then we'll open it up and I'll just go through the cards. And if you do want to get up and speak today, we will hear your comments. But the motion in a second is to wait until the property owners are in agreement that they want to have a hearing. So, Cheyenne. Okay, Elena, is it Elena Colson? Okay, Shannon Geese or Geis? Geis. Louise Chen. if you'd like to. It doesn't matter the order to me if you.

Oops. Well, first of all, before I start, I've got to share some of my bird pictures. Since moving to Lake County, I've fallen in love with birds. Okay, this is the hangar. These are Spoonville, rosette Spoonvilles, and white ibises in different forms. This is a picture that my husband captured of the Spoonvilles. that's at the facility. And here's another one of them. But what I want to talk to you about is I love the idea of the trails. I mean, that is a fantastic idea. That's gonna bring us so much money into the county. This is a money pit because it's a school. It's not gonna raise any tax, property taxes. It's not gonna raise any school taxes. It's going to be almost 50,000 acres are being covered with a sense of noise that is the selling point of the Catlin National Forest, the Alexander, Water Springs, the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge, the St. Francis Trail. is the selling point is the quiet. So people go there. They go to kayak, they go to boat, they go to picnic, they go to stay in a B&B. There's a lot of things over there. So people are gonna just, maybe they'll go there and then they're gonna say, what is that? And next time they won't book their trip there. They'll be someplace else. So anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

I was curious, and I'm not trying to be argumentative at all. I'm curious that when you took the pictures of the birds, were you on Mr. Graham's property?

We were on the easement road.

Okay. And the only point I'm making is that it's Mr. Graham that's asking for a little time, and that's my only point is that he's got his lawyer here, and his lawyer's been here for hours, and he's asking for the time.

Okay, I was just, but anyway, I just wanted to bring this up about the taxes. I'm sorry if I was out of line.

All right, Shannon.

Good afternoon, commissioners. And the reason I'm going to go ahead and speak is because I live in New Smyrna Beach and I drove an hour and a half to get here because this is something that's real important to me. My name is Shannon Geist and I reside in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, which is Volusia County. While I am not a Lake County resident, I spend several days a week in the Ocala National Forest. I visit this area specifically for its unparalleled tranquility, serene environment, and the opportunity to observe Florida's remarkable wildlife. I am here today to strongly oppose the Embry-Riddle expansion plans at Deepwoods Ranch. This commission is entrusted with safeguarding the unique character and natural resources of Lake County. The proposed expansion by Avery Riddle to establish an industrial project within public forest lands poses a significant threat to the environment and severely diminishes the quality of life for local residents. Also, this is not just a localized issue. This project will fundamentally degrade the experience of thousands of non-residents, outdoor enthusiasts, conservationists, and visitors who fuel the local ecotourism economy. This is a substantial and compatible expansion of scope. We are not talking about a quiet, historic grass-air strip. The original legacy agreement was never intended to pave the way for a major commercial flight academy. This project includes high frequency commercial grade flight training directly into rural residential haven. Local families will endure incessant harmful noise and toxic air pollution from constant touch-and-go flights, permanently disrupting their routine, health, and property values. Crucially low altitude flight paths will directly impact the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge, a globally recognized critically essential burning area. Embry-Riddle's own commissioned biological assessment admits this project is likely to adversely affect and impact protected wildlife, including the eastern indigo snake and the state-threatened gopher tortoise. Furthermore, relentless aviation noise and exhaust emissions over this delicate ecosystem threaten federally protected birds that rely on these wetlands, including the endangered Everglades snail kite, the Florida scrub jay, and vital migratory waterfowl. Clearing dozens of acres for paved runways will permanently fragment critical habitats within the Florida Wildlife Corridor. Our public lands and local communities should not bear the burden of a private university's expansion when established regional airports already exist. I urge this commission to protect the peace of the forest, defend local residents, enforce the strictest interpretations and limits of the original agreement, and use every legal avenue available to block this expansion. Thank you.

Okay, and then I have Alan Chen, and I just, the one thing I just wanted to reiterate is that when we have a public hearing on land use issues, we have to follow due process, and so we have to let We have to let the landowners that are actually the applicants have a chance to be heard and do their thing. We have to let anybody that has an interest or feel they're a stakeholder or any member of the public to participate, right? But we're not having a zoning hearing right now, just to make it clear. So anything that's said, if you wanna say it at a zoning meeting, That's when you would do it, but if you want to say it, and Mr. Graham is who you've been working with, and he's asked for a little time to work on this, but if that's what you want to do, I just want everybody to understand this is not a zoning hearing, and so that would be when you would say arguments like you don't want something changed or done or expanded.

Okay.

Thank you. All right. My name is Alan Chen, 8010 Treasure Island Road, Leesburg. One of the many issues regarding this Embry-Roe project has been the misleading use of the term FAA. That started at the P&Z meeting, and it was also included in staff reports and the USDA Forest Service and St. John's documents. Not one of those FAA documents used by Amber Riddle is actually mandatory for private airports because they're not funded with targeted federal funds. Why is this important? Misleading statements from people you deem trustworthy can incorrectly influence your decision. So those misleading terms include FAA requirements, FAA required runway protection zones, FAA standards, licensure, license, permit, permitted. FAA only regulates actually two things for a private airport. It does the navigable airspace above the property and also there's a form for notification for proposed changes of a landing area. What's really disheartening is that even Stantec, the company being used by Embry-Riddle as experts for planning and design, uses those terms incorrectly. This gives the impression that the proposed clearing, grading, reconstruction, destruction of the 35 acres was compelled or required by the FAA. Absolutely none of that is required. FDOT, in fact, is the agency that manages the airport registration for private airports, not the FAA. This table is a bit messy, but in red are all the misleading unverified claims made regarding the term FAA. We actually spoke to an FAA specialist who covers 22 states, including Florida, and indicated that all those documents are advisories or recommendations. In addition, Embry-Riddle selectively chooses which FAA documents are required. What about these following codes and advisories? One requesting a minimum 2,000-foot altitude in noise-sensitive areas like Alexander Springs Wilderness and Lake Woodruff Wildlife Refuge. There's one suggesting separation distance to wildlife attractants like lakes, ponds, wetlands, and wildlife areas. And they plan to use mitigation credits to destroy those wetlands, which I thought was frowned upon in Lake County within RPA lands. And then there's also one for wildlife hazard assessments and a plan for that if High Impact Airport is situated in wildlife-rich areas such as this. So... As Commissioner Sabatini noted last time, there's a significant off-site construction plan. Why isn't, if it's not required by the FAA, why is this being done? The real question is, what was the intent of the original CUP when it was granted to a family farmer who owned a plane? Thank you.

Great. David Williamson. Diana Williams.

morning commission diana williams lauren street uh lake county um as we all know there's a lot of problems with this project not just the fact that we're taking property rights away from the other two property owners who have deeded access to this runway Not only the wildlife, but our water. Our water. I would like. How do I? So I just want to show you Clay Lake right here sits 600 feet from the end of the runway. It is a spring fed lake, pristine, untouched, perfect. The wildlife and the birds are amazing. 500 feet from their runway. On this end, we have at 2,000 feet from the end of the runway, we have Mosquito Spring. that is documented on the Lake County Water Atlas. It is a pristine magnitude three spring, 2000 feet from the end of the runway. My question is, how are you gonna protect those water sources? How will you protect those water sources from pavement runoff and planes flying over? It's unbelievable. This is so upsetting. That's the end of the runway, that's Clay Lake. That's the end of the runway, that's Mosquito Spring, an untouched magnitude three spring that goes directly to our aquifer and to the St. Johns River, which is already in peril. This is all your information from your own Lake County Water Atlas. The spring has had never been tested, and I think it needs to be. I think we need baseline levels before we start putting a bunch of stuff out there and so that we can keep track of how well the water is going to do even after all this. I mean, if they're going to pave this. and we're gonna have runoff, then we need baseline levels. We need somebody to go out there and test that water in this magnitude three spring, which should be protected because this is an RPA. Somebody needs to go out and test it before anything is done, in my opinion. That's our water, that's our aquifer. In addition, I have here I have over 2,500 signatures in opposition to this project.

And I'll be more than happy to share them with any of you.

Please consider a hearing. This isn't just about Rich Graham's property. This is about a national forest.

Susan Fetter. Ma'am. Ma'am. Diana. The clerk needs your.

Anything that you showed.

Good afternoon. Um, I, um, my name is Susan Fetter. I'm the president of the Lake County conservation council as a group. We're very closely following this as, as you've heard from other speakers, there's a lot of environmental impact things here that doesn't seem to be falling into a little bit of a gray area perhaps, um, between, you know, CUP and regulatory agencies. And we are not experts in trying to help you sort out any sort of permitting or regulatory agencies. We're just here to ask you to keep in the back of your mind as you're working through this difficult problem. to really think about some of the serious environmental issues and if there are things that you can do to help mitigate them such as sound. The sound footprint could be very bad and the fuel, the lead fuel from Cessna airplanes, we don't know what fuel they're using exactly, but many Cessnas use lead fuel. So these environmental concerns are very much top of mind and we'll be back with details when there is a next public hearing. Can you maybe let us know what specifically in this case the next public hearing would be? At appearances it looks like the site plan is under review by staff and it could get passed at this point without further public hearing. So I'm curious what the next public hearing opportunity is. But like I said, we don't necessarily understand this, and so I wanna find out what you think.

Yeah, it's a little bit unusual. But we have property owners that have asked, that own the CUP, that own the land where the CUP is. I've asked for a pause. They've asked for a pause so that they can all get together.

Okay.

Up until now, they have not been on the same page, and they have not been together, and they've got to decide whether they want to initiate a CEP hearing or whether they would be in favor if the motion that Mr. Sabatini made about having a county-initiated CEP hearing, they've got to decide where they stand on that because they are the property owners.

Investors. I mean, just for the record, they certainly didn't create the CEP. It's an old CEP. They're investors. They purchased the property. They have a- Yeah, but it's not just Embry-Riddle.

I mean, it's not just Embry-Riddle. I think that's maybe, and I do think that maybe spending a little time understanding the actual property no but i mean but i do think it's important for like everybody on this board to actually understand like the ownership issues before now no no understand the ownership issues there's 460 000 people in the county the owners are a portion of that

I care about what everybody has to say, not just an investor or a parcel owner today. And by the way, it could be a new person tomorrow. They could sell this in two seconds. Now the new guy comes in and says, well, you know, you need to hear what I have to say first. Okay, great. I still have 460,000 other people whose opinions matter equally.

All of that is important. The issue is, and it comes back to the landowners and whether they want to initiate the hearing or whether the board initiates the hearing. That's what we're talking about right here. We're not talking about the merits. The springs need to be protected. The lake needs to be protected. the issues with regard to the forestry side of it, and all of those matter. Nobody is saying that those things don't matter, but we've got to find out whether those landowners that actually own the property where the CUP is located, whether they're going to support a county initiated CUP, whether they want to do their own application for a CUP. That's really what Is it the issue here?

I want to make sure I understand what you're saying. You're saying that if the CUP gets reevaluated, whether the county officially is doing it or they're officially doing it, you're saying the choice is theirs to whether or not that happens?

Well, whether to oppose it. Let's just say that they don't want to do it themselves. They don't want to initiate it themselves. And then the decision comes to the county commission, is the county going to initiate it? And then they will have an opportunity at that point to either fight the county's initiation of it or not. And so we're dealing with property rights issues here, and so we're talking about potential damages, lots of money. These are big things that they've got to decide how they're going to handle, and that's why they've asked for the pause.

All right. Well, again, thank you so much for your time, and please try to keep these gigantic environmental concerns that affect all of us top of mind as you make decisions.

Thank you. Yeah, just a quick question. And everything you said, being documented, is part of the process. So in case things go on, it happened in the future. But the site plan, though, I think you had a question about site

Well, I guess that's on hold.

I mean, what's what's the answer the site plan is? And it's under evaluation currently to my under evaluation, but would it would it be on hold?

No, so site plans are administratively approved by the staff so long as they meet all the requirements of the LDR so at whatever point if they Meet all of those requirements and they would get site plan approval

But the issue of the CUP still is going to come back in front of us one way or the other. And even if they had site plan approval, okay? Even if staff said, we think it meets code, site plans don't come to us because they're ministerial. But even if they said yes to the site plan, this issue of whether there's going to be a CUP hearing still has to come back to us. And that's what the owners have asked is a pause on that question. So there will be another hearing one way or another on the question of whether the CEP is being reopened.

Yeah, this, well, no, this whole thing.

The property owners are asking you for a pause. That's why you listen to property owners. Just like if your property, if somebody, let's just say somebody decided that Anthony Sabatini's house needed to be rezoned.

Respectfully, let's stay away from hypotheticals because it's going to make the.

But the point being is that you've got to think in terms of all stakeholders that are impacted. The stakeholders that are here today, they matter. The stakeholders that own the land, they matter. And that's what due process is all about.

I see this no different than a planning and zoning issue where someone comes in and says, they hear and they say, we're gonna make some changes. We would like to come back at a later date. I have not heard one person on this board ever tell a developer, no, we need to have it right now. We always give them an opportunity to go back and redo their projects to meet what the county standards are, or to meet what the CUP is. I see no difference in this. They're gonna go back, they're gonna talk about it. The one lady said that the property owner's getting denied his access. Well, the property owner's here is the one who's asking. for a little more time. Let's give them time to talk to each other and talk to our staff and then bring all that back to us so we can get a true fact of what's going on. Because right now, everything is hearsay. Everything that's out there in the internet is all hearsay because they haven't come down to a decision yet.

Well, I have three more cards.

I've got three more cards, and I'm not going to call the question to anybody that wants to speak. And I appreciate that.

I would have seconded that call to question, but we do have more cards.

Okay, so we have... Excuse me?

I need to send in a card. There's no cards here.

Cliff McCall.

Yeah.

Good afternoon. So I don't know what we're saying. Anything we'll say is going to have any actual legal effect of the CUP. But personally, for me, I have a different perspective from this as a pilot. And I've been in the business for 15 years. I was mostly small airports all across this country. So I've seen the impact these kind of flight schools can have. The constant noise, the constant traffic up to nine planes in a pattern, nonstop weather permitting. Y'all talk about wanting to preserve lands in the county. That's great, I understand this is private property technically we're looking at here, but the negative impact it could have on the surrounding areas, which everybody says, I know. That's one thing to consider, the wildlife. You talk about preserving wildlife, everything. Clay Lake, for example, which was pointed out earlier, we've seen countless birds there, all kind of birds of prey. You got osprey, eagles, cormorants, ducks, wood ducks making that home there. That's all stuff to consider. to keep in mind. Other than that, everybody's already covered everything I was going to talk about, so it's kind of pointless to go on. But that's the biggest thing, is if you want to preserve this, consider it. I'm not against flight schools or training or anything like that. There is a place for that. But in the middle of a national forest, I don't believe it's the right place for it. So I'd like you all to keep that in mind when it comes to the CPU and just your personal opinions. Think about that. Thank you.

Faith Attinger. Do you wish to speak?

Oh, it's nice to meet all of you.

And I'm choosing to speak today because I have been following this since the very beginning. And I have repeatedly watched the public's voice get silenced when it comes to this. This may be a private property for Embry Riddle and the other owner. but it is inside of a national forest, and a national forest is what? Public land, right? You just said you can't control what other people do on their property. Why is Embry-Griddle allowed to ask the forestry to go in and take out 40 acres of national forest on a popular recreation area for locals that has been a popular recreation area for generations? But the one thing I really want to ask all of you to consider right now is that all of you took an oath of office, did you not? To uphold the Constitution. The Constitution of what? Of the United States of America and the state of Florida. Of Florida. What is section 7 of the Florida Constitution, ma'am?

My point being that there's a thing called due process and that's what we're trying to adhere to here so that everybody has a chance to speak and have their voices heard and that the property owners get their chance. The property owners asked us if we would postpone this today so that they could work together before we had an actual hearing on facts. That's why I asked speakers if they wanted to not speak today so that they could do their speaking at a time when we're actually making a decision. So that was the whole point of why some people...

be here for every meeting because they have jobs.

Right, but there is, we still have to follow processes because of the Constitution we have to follow processes. That's the point. And you wouldn't want your rights violated just like these owners don't want their rights violated. They've asked for a pause. Whenever property owners say we'd rather have our hearing on another day.

Come here today if you could have given me a legitimate answer when I asked you direct questions prior to this. I'm gonna make sure that the three minutes is going because from this point on I would imagine that you're just going to say ugly things so I'm not because I've read your things on Facebook flood zone which I posted pictures of which that runway is in the middle of a FEMA flood zone recognized by this county if you pave that where's that water gonna go where's that water gonna go who's it going to affect is it going to affect the water for the entire state Our aquifer? You insisted to me that you guys can't say what to do with property and the zoning and it's annexation. That's not a city. So who's responsible for that? See, never a clear answer from you. Thank you for your time.

All right, now that three minutes is up, and I'm just going to point out the fact that the Water Management District is reviewing the application, and that has to do with the FEMA, and it has to do with runoff and stormwater, so it's really important that that be noted. Cindy Newton.

Cindy Newton, District 4. I do think it's important to hear these issues while it's being reviewed and tabled because staff is going to be making a decision. They need to hear some things that may have been overlooked. The intensive use was not evaluated under obnoxious uses during the 1987 CUP approval or the 2006 CUP amendment. With the private side airstrip only occasionally used mainly for ranching, staff looked at the obnoxious use LDRs and determined the conditional use will have limited, if any, adverse effects on the adjacent properties. With this intensity change, That determination is no longer true. We need a new determination. They're constructing a paved runway, taxiway, and apron, which is parking for 12 aircraft. The intensive use should not be allowed under any cup or with the zoning change. within the Wekiva-Ocala Rural Protection Area under goal 1-5 Lake County Rural Protection Areas and objective 1-5.1 Rural Protection Area Framework, along with policies 1-5.1.1, 1-5.1.3, 1-5.1.4, and 1-5.2.1. I also support, the speaker who called in earlier, Willie the Lesson from Putnam. The Florida Wildlife Corridor and Ocala Osceola Corridors are extremely important, not only for, this is the wildlife corridor. And this is the Osceola. Ocala Osceola Wildlife Corridor, which connects those two forests. Not only should we be looking at protecting the land with land acquisitions as those come forward before the board. This is an intensive use within that area that the airplanes are gonna be flying over and intensely affecting that area. and it needs to be evaluated. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, Ray Hayden. No, not gonna let you.

Thank you very much, Ray Hayden, District 5. I actually agree with a lot of what everybody said here today. Here's the fact, though. I'm up here to talk for the public, for the public, because I want to know, because you haven't been clear. I am for the pause that the property owners are asking for. Yeah, pause it. Give them the time to sit there and work it out, mediate it out, work it out, whatever they might come up with. But here's a fact. Like Ms. Newton just said, The original CUP was for a grass strip. I'm a private pilot. I don't land on a grass strip too bumpy. And if there's a paid one going across it, I'm going to do another five landings after that to get my plane down safely. But here's the deal is something can happen because county council has mentioned the factual matter as I'm getting it today, and do correct me if I'm wrong on this, that they can get an approval and that thing can be done. And my understanding is that's going to be law at that point. But if something else changes, then maybe there's something that needs to be looked at. But the problem is, I don't know. If that thing gets done and tractors got in there and start bulldozing the forest, I'm going to be pretty upset about that. And I don't even live in the forest. We already got a Navy bombing range in the middle of the forest. So how much more of the forest do we want to wipe out? And as much of the forest does get wiped out, it's just opening up that slippery slope of nonsense. where everybody like the city of Leesburg starts annexing everything and start building up everything. What are we gonna approve? Here's the thing is, bottom line, what's gonna happen at this point on, and please be clear for the public here, what's going to be the next step and can anything at all happen before you as the county take up this problem as a subject, please? Just provide an answer, that we need here today is, What is the next step, and is everything going to be put on hold until the property owners and the parties that are directly involved are dealing with it? I need an answer. Thank you.

Let me read this one.

Lisa Hayden. No, I'll read it, but he already had said he didn't want to talk.

No, but it just came back up to us. Yeah. It's right here.

First, I want to say I admire this board. You know that I do. And I come here always very polite and very nice. I also have made a lot of mistakes in my life. And one thing about mistakes is I know that you've got to admit to them as quickly as possible. You can't let them fester. And on June 2, 2025, there was a mistake made here. There was one person who was listened to, the applicant, Emery Riddle's attorney. That was it. There was plenty of people in the audience here ready to present compelling evidence as to why this should not be looked at as business as usual on the 2006 cup. But that didn't happen. And it was a mistake. It was a mistake. And now Embry-Riddle purchased the property post that meeting. They didn't live up to the promises that they made to this board. and now it's become a complication. But if it continues and then they have the site plan approved and things move forward even further, that mistake only gets worse. So I think we have to realize it's not Mr. Graham's responsibility to protect the Ocala National Forest. He's been doing a darn good job of it. But it is everybody's, this board, it's everybody who lives here, our responsibility to protect it. So I really want THE BOARD TO REALIZE THAT, YES, JUNE 2, 2025, SOMETHING WOULD MOVE FORWARD THAT SHOULDN'T HAVE, AND IT DID CREATE FINANCIAL PROBLEMS, BUT NOT FINANCIAL PROBLEMS FOR MR. GRAHAM AND HIS PROPERTY AND HIS FAMILY. IT CREATED FINANCIAL PROBLEMS FOR EMBERY RIDDLE AND LAKE COUNTY. AND THOSE ARE THE PARTIES, AS COMMISSIONER SABATINI KEEPS SAYING, IT IS $460,000. thousand people i don't know um that in lake county are really the ones who have been short shrifted here but mr graham has put his money and his time into making that fight for lake county and for us but thank you so much and i still think that you all do a great job.

I'm really, you know, we're blessed. And Lisa, just to point out, Mr. Graham's the one that asked for the postponement today. So for those of you that have been working with Mr. Graham, my only point, and that's why I thought that people wouldn't necessarily want to get up and speak, is that he made that request. And so he's been very gracious and friendly, and he's worked very closely with everyone. And he's the one that made the request. So that was my only point is that I thought people would want to wait until there was an actual hearing so that then information could be presented that goes into a record that's actually part of a decision. We're not making a decision day other than whether to honor what the property owner has requested, and that's a postponement.

Well, I definitely appreciate Mr. Graham, but he is just one person. And we also are in Lake County and the Ocala National Forest is our treasure. So we should have, and we have had since June 2nd, 2025, wanted to say something. And I only wanted to just clarify that.

Right, right. So they're the ones that made the request. They're the property owners. Okay. All right. So I've got one more card left and that's Mr. Williamson who has changed his mind and he wants to speak now.

Good afternoon. My name is David Williamson. I'm just going to speak on the Ocala National Forest part of it because it is looking to expand into it as we've seen on some of the pictures today. On November 24th, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt signed a proclamation establishing the Ocala National Forest. For nearly 118 years, generations before us have protected that land, and now in 2026, we're standing here discussing whether a portion of it should potentially be sacrificed for Emory Riddle. My answer would be simple and that's a no. The Ocala National Forest is the oldest national forest east of the Mississippi River and protects the largest contiguous sand pine scrub ecosystem in the world. People come here for all sorts of activities from hunting, fishing, swimming, camping, hiking, riding, and enjoying something increasingly rare in Florida, land that has not been developed. This forest is also home to wildlife like the red cockade woodpecker, gopher tortoise, eastern indigo snakes, and the rare blue calamantha bee. Once this land is destroyed, we don't get it back. You can't bulldoze an ecosystem on Monday and replace it on Tuesday. You can't pave over history and call it progress, and you cannot claim to support conservation while entertaining the destruction of land that was specifically set aside to be conserved. Theodore Roosevelt famously said, speak softly and carry a big stick. Well, we are here speaking softly today. We're speaking peacefully. We're speaking respectfully. But make no mistake about where the strength behind these voices come from. The strength is we the people. Government doesn't own the people. The people own the government. Whether you're sitting at a county, state, or federal level, elected officials work for the citizens who put them there, not corporations, developers, or special interests. If 50 citizens have to stand at this podium for three minutes, that's two and a half hours of people telling the government the same thing. So save everybody two and a half hours. Listen to them. Listen to all the hunters, fishers, hikers, campers, conservationists, families, and taxpayers. Listen to the people who actually live here and will still be here long after the special interests have moved on to their next project. Some things shouldn't be for sale. shouldn't be developed, and some lines shouldn't be crossed. The Ocala National Forest is one of those lines. President Theodore Roosevelt protected this land in 1908. Our responsibility in 2026 isn't to figure out how much of it we're willing to sacrifice. Our responsibility is to make damn sure it's still here for our children and grandchildren another 118 years from now.

Okay. Um, that's our last card. I don't see a light on and we had a motion. We had a second, um, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay. Moving along then to tab 27.

This is just very briefly, I'll be quick about it. Everybody was watching SP 180 and shocked when it passed and is now ruining the whole state of Florida. And then everybody was watching the Blue Ribbons Project bill, which would have absolutely destroyed the state of Florida and it failed. But during that, another bill passed, which is actually worse than both of them and will literally destroy the state of Florida. And it's Senate Bill 686. It's the law right now. It's called the Agricultural Enclave Bill. It's got a great title. You hear it, you're like, yeah, I love agriculture. No, that's not what it is. So what it is is it's a bill that basically defines an agricultural enclave as almost any land. And there's some details in there just for... apparently modify. But basically, if you have agricultural land and like half your border is suburban sprawl, you're automatically entitled to the same suburban sprawl in terms of density. And guess what? No hearings, no discretion, no anything. Automatic administrative approval. Now, when this happened, it was like so shocking that obviously people were freaked out, but nobody really saw how damaging it was gonna be. Well, we're seeing it now. It's in St. John's County, which is kind of like a sister county to us. It's a nice, quiet, relaxing suburban county, similar in size. Within 60 days of this law hitting the books, 4,047 acres of land, that's agricultural land, okay, so again, I'm gonna say that again, 4,000 acres of agricultural historic farmland in St. Johns County, which is more interior, because it's a coastal county, so this is stuff on the west side, is automatically entitled to high density suburban sprawl housing with no hearing whatsoever. Six applications have hit the county just in the first like 30 days of developers learning about it. It's insane. So obviously the commission as a whole is exploring, it was a 50 vote to exercise all options to consider gaining legal knowledge to see if a lawsuit would be successful in suing. suing yet, but they're exploring it. Before I asked our staff or our county attorney to confer with that county to see if we can join them, because I believe that the amount of lands in Lake County that are eventually going to be considered agricultural enclave is quite literally gonna be most, in my opinion, at least in the middle of the county, and south central, north central parts of our county, especially closer to Orlando or the villages on the two sides. is gonna be all. So I'm not saying we should do anything in terms of legal action, but I wanted to see if we would have consent to have our staff and county confer with their county attorney and their staff to assist and possibly come up with a plan to identify this legal option. There might not be a legal option. There might not be some kind of a way that you can approach this legally to get this law struck and permanently enjoined. Might not be anything at all that we can do. And that's fine. If we have nothing we can do, that's fine. But if there's something we can do, we should. And before I requested the staff, I wanted to bring it to the attention of this board and hopefully the board supports it and our staff can talk to St. John's and, you know, put some legal heads together and see if there's a way to get it struck because Think about that number, 4,000 acres overnight, no hearing, 100% housing. There will not be in 50 years a single farm left in the state of Florida if this continues. I think there's gonna be obviously a huge political realignment and appetite for complete and total change eventually, but hopefully we can take some legal action to save our county in the meantime. What do you guys think?

My theory is I'd like to identify those properties in Lake County before we jump in to trying to help somebody else in their county. So if you can identify those, I'd appreciate it because I don't know where they are.

Sure. Well, two things on that.

Yeah.

Well, two things on that. Number one, I think this is clearly, you know, walk and chew gum kind of thing. We can clearly assist them. By the way, assisting them means assisting us. I'm not saying, oh, I care so much about the people in St. John's. We need to go lend a helping hand. I'm saying that we should partner with them to see if there's a legal strategy that we can then use for our own citizens here. In terms of identifying the land, you can ask the county attorney, obviously, without getting into details, because I don't want to spill into eventual quasi-judicial hearings which will occur. I do believe that there are already a number of parcels that fall within the grasp of this new statute that would significantly change the quality of life here in Lake County. I just don't want to get in the nitty gritty on them because obviously some could be imminent votes or administrative hearings. Some, depending on, it's a game of dominoes. Basically, the amount of parcels that fall within it is dependent on what we do with other parcels. So if certain parcels in the city or the county get entitlement rights, it then shifts the borders of what adjacent parcels to them automatically get administrative approval. So I don't think it's an answer.

So let's identify those. That's all I want is just identifying them. If we have an issue, we'll deal with it. But just to go and waste legal time with St. John's, let them do the work. Why would we want to jump in if they're doing the work already? The county attorney has enough on her plate already without having to go in with another county to see whether we have the issue or not.

And my comments are, look, I said earlier, I think of grave concern this year could be the rewriting of Growth Management Act in its entirety in itself. That's a big deal, could be a big deal. This law is of great concern too. I agree, I don't know how much it affects, I think it does, will affect parts of Lake Yonah. I don't know all of it yet. I haven't actually mapped that in my spare time. But I think that's a good question. If you were asking today would I want to join a lawsuit, no, because I need to, I would want to know How it'll affect us, I think it's a good question. What strategy would somebody with some expertise in this recommend for us?

Understand how preliminary and how modest and how humble this ask is. I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm asking if you guys have consent and direction for our staff to communicate with the county on potential legal options to keep them abreast and see if they'll keep us abreast on what they're doing and then hopefully help at least in some very basic legal research to identify a pathway and a possible injunction against what is going to be the most destructive law ever passed for agriculture in the history of the state. And so if we're not willing to do that, I'm not going to go down that road, but this is such a minor ask. It is such a minor ask. And in terms of identifying properties, I don't see that as a refutation of the motion. I see that as an amendment and extension. I think what I'm happily hearing right now is that you want to both actually allow our staff to communicate with St. John's about a possible legal strategy But also, in the meantime, identify the properties that exist here that are automatically going to be administratively approved so that way we can do what we can to explore action in regard to that. So I would welcome the amendment. Thank you, Commissioner Morris.

So I'm of the opinion that, yes, this is a small ask. Just keep an eye on St. John's and see what they're doing. I'm sure that... Our county attorney has a paralegal that can at least converse with somebody over there and say, hey, how's it going? Or what are y'all doing? what are your thoughts on this? I'm okay with all that. Um, the one thing that, uh, you know, we need to, we need to conserve our rural lands, but what a lot of people may or may not know is Lake County already has 34% conservation land.

We're already Lake County is 34% conservation.

which is much higher than most of the, well, all the counties in central Florida and most of the counties here in Florida. So, um, I'm not, that's not a proponent of me saying we need to build more. This is a proponent of me to say, you know, we need to continue down this path that we've been going on for the last six years, at least that I've been on the board is trying to save rural Lake County. So I'm in favor of at least having staff look at options.

And what you're describing is reaching out to St. John's County and finding.

Just keep an eye on them, see what they're doing.

I would go just a slight further, say we're in support of their efforts and are willing to potentially partner with them on exploring legal options.

That's the minimum. I'm not willing to.

Okay, cool. We'll have sidewalks literally from... Southeast Lake County all the way to the top of the county and shopping center, shopping center, subdivision shopping center and the county will literally look horrible and we get to look back and go, oh, we even prevented communicating and conferring with another similar county about protecting land and seeing if we could possibly join forces.

it's like so minimalistic you're making me want to like change my approach entirely and just make stronger motions because this is so it's so minimal like literally we should be automatically doing this we should be talking to them yes but talking to them and say if if you do this we're going to do that without the board approval i can't approve that so i'm okay with us figuring out what the heck they're doing fine let's figure out what they're doing

Why don't you do this? I think that you should put together like a one pager for us.

That's what the motion is.

You though, I mean you like.

So you want a commissioner to do research, not communicate with St. John's, come up with their own legal strategy of what they think.

Well, I just think that you ought to articulate it in a way that we actually have something.

That's what we have experts for. That's what we have staff for. We literally am directing staff to confer with other experts, other legal experts, on the issue of whether legal action can be taken against that bill. They could come back in two days and say, absolutely not. There's nothing. We exhausted all our options. That's it. That's it.

Well, I would think they could have that conversation with St. John's County's attorney and find out what their theory is. That's all the motions. That's an easy one. I mean, that's like literally a phone call and an email.

But I'm not going to do that without the board knowing. That's why I'm asking you. Everybody on the board should be shaking their head and say, yeah, that's a great idea. Go do it, Melody.

If that's the request, well, I think if that's the request, we're all in favor of pick up the phone, make an email. It's the lawsuit. It's the when you say join in a lawsuit. I don't think anybody has the appetite for it until we understand it more.

I didn't hear the motion. St. John's not suing anyone. They're exploring all legal options. I want an official correspondence from our county saying we're aware of what you're doing. We're willing to engage in research because we could potentially do the same thing eventually. If you're against that, congratulations, because that is, again, the most minimal step towards equalizing the harm created from this bill. I mean, that's just, let's just do it and move on. It's just frustrating. We should be just filing a lawsuit, instructing them to file a lawsuit. You literally have a bill that is gonna eventually turn every piece of agricultural land in our county into a high-density sprawl. How is not everybody on this board infuriated right now? It just shocks me sometimes, that's all.

Well, at the next meeting, we'll have more discussion about it because I plan to do a little bit more research about it. Because if that, in fact, if what you just described is the reality of that, then that's a no-brainer, right? But I would just need to know more, and I would certainly need to know more before signing on to paying legal fees.

I think we need to know what St. John's County is doing and just give them a call and say, hey, what are you all doing? on this bill.

Okay. Well, I think we have a consensus on that, so we can just do that and move on.

Yeah, well, and staff's going to look and see how much this might potentially apply to land-wise, right? Okay.

All right. Tab. What happened? Oh, okay. We've got to go back up to reports, county attorney report. County manager report. No reports. Commissioner Sabatini.

No report, and I apologize if I do have to step out a few minutes early. I'll wait just for a second, but I might have to leave a couple minutes early. I don't know if this is going to continue. Parks. Nothing to report.

Commissioner Smith.

The only thing I have is vote, vote, vote.

But only one vote per person.

Vote, vote, vote, vote. Your vote counts. I can promise you your vote counts. I'm on the canvassing board. Commissioner Morris is on the canvassing board. They're doing a fantastic job over there. I've spent many hours. Commissioner Morris has spent many hours over there. So whatever you do, vote. Vote matters.

And fill in the ovals. Okay. That's true.

And then please do not do a checkmark. Fill in the oval. It's like back when... Checkmarks don't count. Oh, you'd be amazed.

Yeah. Okay. That's all I have. Follow-up from our presentation early this morning from Gray Harris. I guess we have an RFP, RFQ out right now for services.

Yes, it actually just closed a few days ago.

Okay. Well, what I'd like to know is we've had them for how long now?

I would say more than 10 years.

Okay. I would kind of like to know what the track record is because I haven't been here other than two years. And this year, of course, we got zero. But I'd like to know what our track record is with them and what our – other options might be.

That's what the RFP is for, an RFQ.

That's exactly, that's what that's for. And that was one thing. And secondly, I saw where Umatilla was looking at reducing the size of their CRA. And is it something that we could possibly talk to the other cities about to look at their CRAs? And do we have a CRA that we could look at?

Well, we only have one, and that's Sorrento, and it's as small as it could be, I think, because we wanted it to be bigger, but it wasn't. So it's in a kind of different scenario, in my opinion.

So maybe mentioning that to the cities?

We can certainly have that discussion with all of the cities that have CRAs.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm a big proponent of, I think CRA should sunset at a certain point in time. Once your CRA has done its job, then it needs a sunset.

But, that's just me. And I'm not, okay, I have no report. So do you have something about today that's special?

Of course, and I'm sure this is gonna be absolutely fantastic. Because just in case you wanted to know, today is National Son and Daughter Day.

Yes.

So if you have a daughter or a son, take them out, do more for them what you've already done.

And I got a second one because I've always been doing sweets, but I'll hold off on that.

That's all I have. But there is another one.

All right. Save it.

Today is also National Raspberry Chart Day.

Raspberry chart. Okay, all right. Well, we stand adjourned.

Recording stopped.

Thank you.