City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress. All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Welcome to our Lake County Board of County Commissioners meeting this June 9th of 2026. We're glad you're here. We're going to start with an invocation. This will be given by Pastor Bobby Rowe from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes of North Lake County. And then we'll remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Good morning, let us pray. Lord, we thank you for this day. This is the day that you have made and we choose to rejoice and to be glad in this day. We're thankful for a day we've never seen before. Lord, as we proceed to govern this county, continue to give our county commissioners wisdom and guidance as they make decisions for the residents in Lake County. Lord, their decisions impact our lives. And although at times we may not agree, but let us agree as Lake Countyans to love each other, to work together, to make our county the best county in the state of Florida. We love you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

Thank you, Pastor.

All right, County Manager Jennifer Barker, do we have any updates?

Yes, good morning Madam Chair, Commissioners. First tab four, the agenda recommended approval request was updated to include Commissioner Sabatini's remote participation in today's meeting. We are monitoring, I do not believe he is online yet, but we will let you know if he does sign in. Tab 15, a revised resolution was added as well as an additional resolution. On tab 27, the background summary was updated to reflect the Planning and Zoning Board unanimously approving the proposed ordinance. And tab 32 was added as an addendum, and I'm requesting that that be moved under the regular agenda.

Okay. Thank you very much. Moving along then to special recognition, I'm going to call on Commissioner Parks, who is our liaison to the Lake County Museum and Historical Society. Yes.

Ms. Lewis, would you please come forward to be acknowledged? I'm going to embarrass you a little bit. You are. In a good way. So thank you, Chair, my fellow commissioners. I appreciate you allowing me this opportunity to make a very special letter of recommendation, letter of recognition and a public honoring of this wonderful lady here, Ms. Janet Lewis. So obviously I'm very blessed to be the liaison to the historical society of the museum that we have here. It's an incredible feature. It's an incredible place for the county for us to go visit and learn about our history, both new and old. There's always something to learn over at the museum. And that place is so special, and I know it is to all of you, primarily because of this lady right here, Miss Janet Lewis. The displays that you see over there, if you go over there, if you've not been over there, please go over, are largely a result of Janet's work, her hard work, her passion for history. Who loves the incredible display that we see outside in the middle of this rotunda right now? Let's give her a round of applause. Janet put that together for all of us to enjoy. I just think it's an incredible way to do. I know there was others.

Because Andy helped me push that one thing all the way over and down the ramp.

Yeah, there was a lot of work. And I know there was maybe some people that helped me. But that was you. You did that. You did that, Janet. And so it's a little bit bittersweet that we're going to be losing you. And I know you're on to other things. We just thought it was fitting, I thought it was fitting that we do a letter of recognition for you and publicly honor you. So I'm gonna go ahead and read this and if you would like to say anything as well, that would be, I'm sure the chair would not mind. So Janet Lewis, manager for the Lake County Historical Museum and the Umatilla Historical Museum, incredible work that you've done over there as well too, forgot to mention that, has dedicated her life to preserving and sharing the rich history of Florida and Lake County. A lover of history since her early childhood years, Janet's passion for local heritage has inspired countless residents and visitors alike. With 37 years of service working with children through public education, library services, and the city of Umatilla, Janet has touched generations through education, storytelling, and community engagement. Her commitment to historical preservation and lifelong learning has strengthened the cultural foundation of our community and ensured that the stories of our past remain alive for future generations. As Janet retires from the Lake County Historical Museum, we honor her extraordinary dedication, her leadership, and countless contributions to preserving our local history. Her work and devotion to the museum have been truly priceless, leaving a lasting impact that will benefit the community for years to come. Janet will be sorely missed by her colleagues, friends, and all who have had the privilege of working alongside her. We extend our heartfelt gratitude and wish her the very best as she embarks on this exciting next chapter of life.

Thank you. It hardly seemed like work. For me, it was fun, a passion. And I often got carried away.

No, that's what you're supposed to do. That's what you're supposed to do. You've got to go over. If you haven't been there, as soon as your agenda item's over, you've got to go over to the museum and see it.

I'm very proud of the rotunda display. And the rotunda display.

So thank you. Do you want to say anything else?

No.

Okay.

I'm all misty-eyed now.

We have a parting gift bag with some Lake County paraphernalia.

Oh, yay, so everybody knows where I'm from. Yes. Okay, when I travel. Thank you.

So who's going to keep Ray straight now? I know.

That is the big question. That is the big question, yes. How do you feel about that? We need lots of volunteers to keep, yes. Can we all get a photo with you? I think, yeah. Can we get a photo?

Sure. Okay.

Okay, you're in the middle. Okay.

Can we all talk? Oh, okay.

This way.

There you go.

I'll just be back here. Yeah, that's good.

Do you want me to take my own phone, too? Yes. Okay.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Janet. We will miss you. And please, everyone, go over and check out the Umatilla Historical Museum whenever you get a chance. It is incredible. It is an incredible place to visit. All right, moving along the minutes approval, Mr. Cooney, Clerk of Courts. Good morning.

I have one set of minutes for your approval this morning.

Move approval. Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. Moving then to citizen question and comment period. We're now entering the public comment portion of the meeting when the public can discuss items that are on today's agenda with the exception of any zoning items which we will take up when we get to the zoning portion of the hearing. Anyone who's joined the meeting through Zoom using their phone may press star nine to virtually raise our hands if you're participating via zoom we ask that you click the raise hand button to let us know that you wish to speak everyone will have three minutes to speak and after three minutes an alarm will sound and we will ask that you wrap it up right after that or you you're welcome to wrap it up ahead but when we get to that period of time if you keep going i probably will have to interrupt you and ask you to to wrap it up so We do have a number of cards. We have some that are for zoning. So those will stay over in the zoning pile. We have something on tab 14, which I believe that might be on consent. So anything that I got card wise, it's on consent. I'll just find out, we'll have you come up and make your comments before we address those particular items. And I'll move on now to the ones that are general comments that are not items on today's agenda. And I will start with Thomas. And I'm going to take a stab at this. Chris Cuolo.

As I requested on Cod, I moved here into Lake County in the, over near, between Deland and Eustis. And I've noticed in the last couple years the traffic has been getting a little crazy on State Road 44 also very dangerous My question is is there any plans? I have two questions any plans in the future for the widening of State Road 44 from st. Johns River Bridge to State Road 44 in Mount Dora does my first question I My second question is between Pine Lakes, and I've brought this up a couple of times in the past years, between Pine Lakes and Cassia, there are some parts of the highway that have real curves and there are no signs for curves. At one point going towards the land around Cassia, there's a sign over by the boys camp. There's a sign, there's a curve. And then there's a street. Well, they have the curve and the street sign before the curve. They should be reversed, is what I'm saying. So basically, my question is, is there any plans in having someone look at this part of the roadway between Pine Lakes and Cassia with these curves, because at nighttime, it's pretty difficult sometimes.

Yes, and I'll try to answer that, and then if staff needs to weigh in to correct me or to elaborate, but as you know, State Road 44 is a state road, and so we cannot put our own signs up. We just can notify FDOT and put a request in, uh... they have conducted uh... a safety study over the last couple years they had been working on a safety study because there have been for many many years in fact i can remember when i was in high school one of mine someone in my class had actually had a a uh... a deadly accident on one of those curves. So for many, many years, State Road 44 between Eustis to DeLand has been a problem. But I know they've done the safety study. They've looked at adding some turn lanes. They've looked at some different things. And it's really ultimately up to them, although we can raise and elevate those concerns to them. And so the curves, those are an issue. Turn lanes are an issue because then people can move off of the road so that others can continue to go. I've heard requests for double lines, more enforcement, all of those kind of things.

That doesn't work. I was going to church two weeks ago on a Sunday morning, going towards the land, and some fellow tried to pass me, and he wasn't going to make it. He wound up. on the other side on the grass. And I said, I just hope this guy coming this way. Sees him. Sees him. Because he came up just to my back of my car. And I said, you're not going to make it. I mean, I'm doing 55. This road goes, nobody does 55. They do 65, 70, and the lines don't mean anything.

No, I hear you, I understand. Mike, is there anything that you wanna add or anyone from Public Works wants to add? Oh, okay, so he, Mike's gonna go out into, Mike Oka is going to go out into the Rotunda area and meet you and get your concerns and then he will be the one that'll interface with FDOT.

Thank you.

I appreciate you coming and raising these issues.

Thank you very much. Okay.

All right, next card is Farmer Banks, Helfrich.

I am farmer Banks Helfrich. I live in the Clay Road District, farm tip of the day. Watermelons are in season. And here's a super cool hack of when to harvest watermelons. The vine that comes from the plant will go to the vine that goes to the actual fruit. Where they intersect, there's a curlicue on the outside. When that curlicue turns brown, your watermelon is ready to be harvested. Chairwoman, board, distinguished guests, is America morally and ethically bankrupt? Do we find ourselves self-centered in a transactional society where we only do things for ourselves and not for the good of all? There's an old adage, you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer. In fact, you can't take it with you. You ask any hospice nurse what the reoccurring theme is, and they will always tell you, those of us on our deathbed always wish we spent more time with our family, less time working, more time being compassionate and kind. 20 college students were each given $10 each. 10 of them were told to go spend it on themselves. 10 of them were told to go spend it on someone else. Those who spend it on themselves came back and their happiness was the same, flatlined. Those who spend it on others, their happiness increased. When we serve others, joy increases within us. During World War II, Oskar Schindler, an Austrian factory owner, saved over 1,400 Jews. At the end of the war, the 1,400 survivors came to him, and they thanked him for saving their lives. He broke down, he kicked his car, and he said, I wish I would have saved more of you. I don't need this car. I began coming up here and speaking with a question. I'm going to end with another question, and that is, if we are not here to serve each other, why are we? I am Farmer Banks Helfrich, candidate for State House District 25, and here to serve. May you all be blessed. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you. All right, Alana Colson.

what they, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, a private school, couldn't do legally, i.e. be honest, on land that they purchased, they are now asking the Forest Service to give them that land. Embry-Riddle is pushing Paisley Lake County Forestry Lake County and forestry to allow them to cut down 40 acres of trees on either side of a dirt runway equals 80 acres of trees and pave an airstrip in the middle of the Ocala National Forest and run five planes in there. This is protected federal land. We look at the 2030 and the 2050 land use maps for Lake County and Florida. They say they already know there's a minimum of 12 gopher holes in other creatures, so this is a wildlife concern as well as a commitment that were made to Lake County and the Florida taxpaying citizens. So telling the truth, this would not be right to allow, and Lake County would be open to lawsuits from any environmental agencies and its citizen. Embry-Riddle has been using its campus area and buildings for a research park to benefit its system and its students. Private tuition there at Embry-Riddle varies from $44,000 to $65,000 for undergrads and $23,000 for grad students. Their present big project is an old gym into the Boeing building. The Boeing building on Embry-Riddle campus was slated to be completed by 2024 with jobs for 200 Floridians and with 200 more in 2025. The expected completion is now by 2027. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, donations are piling up, including $25 million from Florida State, although this is a private school. Students have been told that there shall be internships available with Boeing and employment in the range of 100,000. I don't know what the average income of Lake County taxpayers are who are helping fund what they did not vote for. And this is one of the reasons why they are so cramped at Embry-Riddle that they want to take some of Lake County's land In 2007, Navy SEAL Richard Graham began a program to help U.S. disabled and special ops veterans. In 2016, he purchased 55 acres adjacent to the Ocala National Forest and this land piece that is owned by Embry-Riddle. He purchased this land to host peaceful retreats for his program, Home Front Canine, to benefit those with PTSD and suicide prevention.

thank you and perhaps you can email the rest of your comments to us um so we can hear the rest of them and um or if you're willing to come back another meeting then we can do the the bottom part of it but i appreciate your synopsis and um it as you know it's not something that we actually voted on up here so we are in a We are affected by it, there's no question, no question. Next card is Rick Carlins.

Good morning, commissioners. Rick Carlins, Fruitland Park, Lake County. And first, I want to thank you for considering the ordinance a couple of meetings ago and passing that. I do appreciate that very much. I believe that we have some amendments. I had emailed to each one of you. I printed out six copies that I'd like for each commissioner to have paper copies. So at the end of what I have to say, I will hand them to who they need to go to. The ordinance that was brought to you was the Collier County Ordinance, and it was adopted in 2023. And what I wanted to say, though, is the amendments, what they would do basically is it primarily would establish a symbolic, well, currently the weaknesses are that the ordinance, that was passed is basically symbolic. It limits action largely to litigation initiated by the county commissions. It contains no prohibition against county participation in constitutional enforcement. It contains no enforcement for penalties or provisions. It explicitly denies creation of private rights of action. It lacks anti-commandeering language and federalism case law. It does not prohibit the use of county personnel or resources for unconstitutional enforcement. And it provides only discretionary authority to the sheriff rather than affirming constitutional non-cooperation authority. The Collier County ordinance that was adopted that we brought in for consideration, there were I think maybe 20 or 25 people that came in support of that ordinance. And it was spoken to that we wanted to proceed with the stronger ordinance, the more enhanced ordinance. And the ordinance that you have with these amendments would make it very strong, that it would be what it is that's desired. But if I may just read one of the asks in the recommended amendments, it would be the anti-commandeering doctrine. It's recommended a new whereas clause, inserting the following findings from the Collier Ordinance, whereas neither the United States Congress nor the executive branch of the federal government has the authority to commandeer the states to act. and whereas the anti-commandeering principle is absolute and categorical. And that is, okay. So anyway, these findings would provide constitutional foundation for non-cooperation with unconstitutional federal actions and significantly strengthen the ordinance's legal defensibility.

Mr. Carlin, can you give the copies?

I will do that, yes, I will. All right. And thank you for the time.

Okay. All right, the other cards I have are either zoning, one is on 19, tab 19, that's a presentation, so we'll take that up, that has to do with the injection well issues. And then I've got tabs, let's see, we're gonna move to clerk of courts consent, and then when we get to our consent agenda, I will let everyone know what the cards are on our consent, okay? So Mr. Cooney.

Good morning again. I have 10 items in my consent agenda for your approval.

Move for approval. Second.

All right, on the Clerk of Courts Consent Agenda, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Moving then to the County Commission Consent Agenda, that's tabs three through 18. I have a card on tab 14. I also have one on 15, which is a card in support, and so I will let the, I will, yes, Commissioner Parks.

I just want to make a comment on tab 10 after we hopefully pass it. Oh, okay. All right. And I'd like to make a comment on 12.

On 12? Afterwards? Okay. All right. So as far as... I mean, I know the card on 15 is in support, so I'm not sure whether... I can pull it and we can vote on it separately. It's up to you all. This is for a three-way stop to be added at Country Club, East Crooked Lake... It's a safety issue.

Chair, if the speaker would like to speak, we can pull it and vote.

I'm looking for the speaker. Oh, there she is. Okay, all right, we'll wait till we get there? Okay, all right. So let's move on to tabs three through 18, less 14 and 15.

Move for approval. Second.

All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. That passes. Those items pass. We'll come back then to 14, and I got a card from Cindy Newton.

Good morning, Cindy Newton, District 4. I've been advocating for DWTS for replacement of conventional septic for quite a while now. The last two people that contacted me asking questions after the county letter went out decided to get the units. And upon talking further with it, they found out they were getting more charges than they had originally thought they would be getting. And they considered a bait and switch. After reading this, I kind of understand a little better of what they were talking about, the extraordinary costs are gonna be passed on to the consumer. And while I understand this may be necessary, it does make me wonder some things. How many more costs are gonna be added to these contracts down the road? It seems the contractor's not able to keep up with these installations under the current payment that they're getting with the original contract. With the county becoming responsible party of the continuation of the maintenance and installation upon onsite dissolving or going bankrupt, will this include the units that are only under the grant, or is this going to include all the DWTSs that onsite is putting into Lake County? Will that also include the community ones with the community drain fields? And what will the cost be to the taxpayers if the county has to take over this maintenance? I'm wondering if I'm going to end up paying for the maintenance of these units for which I've been advocating. Thank you.

Yeah, Commissioner Parks, you might want to answer the question, but I can tell you that the whole intent behind their fee structure is to make sure that the units themselves fall under that utility. So that's part of why they charge fees that they charge, so that they are able to go in and maintain, not the Lake County taxpayers, but the utility operating the system. And the extenuating circumstances that they found in many properties were significant. such that it wasn't just a straightforward come put in a DWTS system, but you had very difficult, some more difficult than others, but whether it's hilly or obstacles, other improvements that are in the way, but those added costs on that weren't calculated in the original cost of installation. So have I hit on? the things that were raised accurately.

What about if they go belly up? So to answer your question about the units, the county is only responsible for the units associated with the grant. If on-site has contracts with other subdivisions like Lake Nellie, that has nothing to do with the county. If the company goes under, then this particular amendment would provide us the source code so that we could continue to operate. We would either find another operator or we would have to bring it in-house. And again, that is only for the units covered under our grant. And yes, so the extraordinary circumstances are also covering things like if they're older homes, they don't have the proper electrical, things like that. Those are not things that the county covers. Those are things the property owner would have to cover because that's a benefit to the entirety of the house versus just this unit. So there have been those types of things.

I understand those.

Yeah, and again, I would just add that, and I appreciate staff working on it and some of the good questions. Remember, this is still a pilot program for a very real challenge that all of Florida is going to face with septic tanks and the documentation, the science behind it, that there's just so many people here now that a more effective system has to be installed. And again, I won't be... too repetitive here, but that's the purpose of this was to address those and those difficult cases and moving forward and obviously this can be looked at every year as far as, and it's really up to how much the state gives us the money for it as well. So it'll kind of depend on the tranche of money, the grant money that's coming down from DEP, which we just got another grant for that, but that's subject every year to change.

Yeah, my main concern is the maintenance ongoing if they, because we only got one quote when it went out.

It's true, but that is a changing, it's emerging and just like this, what's fabulous about this great country is you can put forward and get patents and put your science and do your research into something that's new and effective and they have done that and that's protected. Of course, there are other competitors now coming online with the same kind of system. So there'll be plenty of opportunity, just like there is for advanced treatment units, which is sort of the next scale down. There'll be plenty of opportunities for competition. We will welcome that. I think even knowing the contractor, they know that and will welcome the competition as well in that area.

Okay, thank you. All right, and thank you for advocating for them.

Yeah, thank you. In the long run. That's true, I forgot to thank you for that too. I know you know this, but.

And Madam Chairman, just to clarify, as far as the rates go, this particular amendment, there could be annual increases, 4% or CPI, whichever is lower. So, and it only applies to the people who have voluntarily signed up to be a part of this program.

All right. Okay, so that's this item. Do we have a motion for approval on, oh wait, I have somebody raising their hand and I don't know if it's for this item or not, so I'd have to

Yes, there's someone online they're labeled iPhone if you could please unmute your mic and then state your name for the board And then give your comments, please Whoever's online as iPhone you'll have to unmute your phone to speak

We'll try a little bit longer. Okay, all right, we'll come back to that. I don't know what else to do.

My only concern was, there were four things I was concerned about. Three of the four were addressed in this, especially the technology portion of it. If the county's gonna end up being responsible for it, we need to know. So that was very, very important. The permit would come to us. That was another one. The one thing I didn't get that I'm still concerned about is that we're the ones collecting the money and we're the ones paying onsite. And my concern is the fact that we're gonna have, if people don't pay, we're gonna have to foreclose on them. But onsite's gonna continue to get paid regardless. whether the customer that they have pays us or not, onsite still gets paid. They need their own receivables department is what they need, in my opinion.

And I think because the way it goes on the bill, that's where it gets a little tricky, where we have to assume that responsibility because we're in the position to have the leverage to say you either pay or here are the repercussions. So it's just... In a perfect world, there'd be another mechanism. This is the best mechanism.

Right. And three of the four were incorporated, so it's better than what it was.

And I'd really like the fact that then we have the ability to get to the source code, so if we have to take over, then we've got the ability to do that, or another company does. Okay.

I'll make a motion for approval. Second.

All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. That passes three to zero. Moving then to tab 15, and this is the one that Lisa Chapman is here for, and this has to do with the installation of stop signs and all-way plaques at East Crooked Lake Drive and Country Club in the Eustis area, as well as signage to prohibit trucks over 10 tons, unless they're there for a local delivery, and some speed tables. Lisa.

Um, I just wanted to, first of all, say thank you to commissioner Campion for coming out personally with County staff and observing, uh, what this problem has become on our road. Um, it's substantial. I've lived on east crooked lake in the same house for 24 years now. Um, and I've watched it turn from a quiet residential street into a cut through for heavy commercial trucks. and speeding commuters. The speed limit on that road is 25 miles an hour. And I'm here with my neighbor, Joe Mazikian, who lives at the corner where that proposed three-way stop is. And he's personally witnessed and heard plenty of accidents on that stop. The visibility is really poor at the bottom of Country Club coming up the way they, people just assume that you're making the turn and they cut out. It's pretty bad. So every single day, and I work remote from home, I see dozens of heavy semi-trucks, flatbeds hauling heavy equipment. None of them are doing 25 miles an hour, I can promise you that. And I don't know how they make that one real tight turn where multiple cars have gone into the lake at that point. Those are usually 16-year-old boys though. Um, but my Joe's brother is a retired state trooper. Um, we stand in my driveway when he's in town and we guesstimate what the speeds are and they're easily 40 miles an hour and upwards on that. And again, speeding commuters and heavy trucks, and it's become a cut through road as opposed to a residential street. So these proposed measures that you've come out with are Everything we could have dreamed of for controlling the amount of traffic and controlling the speed. So I just want to expect or express appreciation to you and for getting this on the agenda. Um, I'm representing a lot of my neighbors on this street that couldn't make it either due to work today or conflicts of schedule, but, um, we want to keep the character of this street residential. It's a beautiful drive. If you've ever been on it, East crooked, like it's a beautiful drive and the, um, partly the wear and tear on the road. Also, since it's been repaid, there's potholes that weren't there for the last 20 years. There's, um, cracking on the asphalt on the corners. Cause these big trucks are tearing up the road. Um, and the most important thing along with the wear and tear on the road is the liability. that someone's going to get hurt or killed on the street. I don't even walk it anymore. I used to walk that road for years. I won't even walk the road because it's just heavy traffic and the right of way is crowded. I just really want to say I appreciate getting this matter. I can talk a small room to death, but a microphone terrifies me. So anyway, that's all I had to say is thank you for getting this matter after years of trying. Within eight weeks, you got something going on this, and I appreciate this so much. So thank you all for your consideration on that.

Thank you for coming out today, Lisa. And those that met us that day when we drove the road and we looked at some of the problems, and I know personally whenever we come to that stop sign, if it's my husband and I, one of us looks one way, the other looks the other way. I mean, you just hope that nobody's going to come around there really fast. It's dangerous. So I think this is a long overdue safety improvement.

I'll second that.

All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously, and I appreciate the residents reaching out and trying to get this done, and hopefully this is going to benefit that entire area. And you are right, that is one of the prettiest drives in Lake County, and if you go to check it out and you've never seen it before, just drive 25.

Can I make a comment about that? Sure.

Okay, oh, right, we wanted to come back, and you wanted to talk about 10, and you want to talk about 12.

Yeah, and just on the public safety, because it comes up every meeting, you can also help by advocating to make it, to our legislators, to make it harder to get licenses and to keep licenses for the bad drivers. That would probably help as well, too, for public safety. That's just my two cents on the issue. We'll do all we can, but there's still bad drivers out there. Anyway, number 10 is I just want to point this out because this is, I think, a part of our culture, being concerned about water resources in Lake County, that you see this is a second amendment to an agreement with the Coastal Conservation Association. So at our landfill, we offered up space to CCA, Coastal Conservation Association, about four or five years ago, maybe six years ago by now, to take oyster shells from all the oyster bars around Peninsular Florida, essentially. Your Claremont Oyster Bar would be your local one. I know there's one here in Tavares as well. Those shells, instead of them going to a landfill, they'll be collected and go to a place like this area that we have at our landfill facility that's dedicated for them to be dried out. and then they're crushed and then taken to other parts of Florida like Mosquito Lagoon, the West Coast, Apalachicola Bay to reseed oyster beds. Especially in Apalachicola Bay where there's been quite an issue for four or five years of actually banning the harvesting of oysters. So it's something that's happening and it's right here in Lake County. I just like to point it out always because you don't always hear this kind of good news. That's going on right here in the center of the state. This second amendment, by the way, is to add another sort of service, if you will. We're gonna grow mangrove seedlings. So they'll be grown there as well. That's what this second amendment does. And then those go out to hopefully replenish and regrow our mangroves. The best defense for hurricanes, by the way, are mangroves. So I just thought that would point that out. Thank you for letting me talk about that for a second. Big news for Lake County today.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. And Tab?

Yeah, Tab 12, the only thing I want to make a comment, and it's Sourcewell Cooperative Contract is a catch-all contract for a lot of different vendors. I just want to make sure if we are using this contract, there's more than one contract. vendor that does the work that we need and we are getting a competitive look at both of those or three of them and just not awarding a contract because they have a source well contract.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Okay, all right, moving along then to tab 19, this is a presentation by David Salinas, Office of Solid Waste Director, and this has to do with the injection well issue, or deep injection wells, and I have a speaker card, Catherine Wright, so we'll do the presentation, then we'll get the speaker card, and then we'll go from there.

Good morning, David Salinas, Office of Solid Waste Director. And I'm here to give you the basics for deep wall injection as it pertains to the heart of Florida landfill in Sumter County. Blanche Hardy with Lake County Water Authority will be finishing up the presentation with the technical aspects. So to start with, leachate is the liquid generated mainly from rainwater passing through waste. As the water passes through the waste, it collects soluble and non-soluble solids, including harmful substances. Leachate is also produced from the decomposition of other landfill waste. Here we have a cross-section example of a landfill essentially showing the layers and where the water passes through and is collected in the bottom. Leachate is captured at the bottom of the line landfill where pumps are installed and they sump to extract the leachate for treatment or disposal. There's four primary ways to treat leachate. You have recirculation. That's where the leachate is reinjected back into the landfill. It was a popular idea, but it it is not something that's practiced Regularly you have evaporation you have the most common which is treatment which is wastewater treatment plants and then deep well injection and For the purposes of today, deep well injection is the process of injecting wastewater into porous formations below groundwater sources, insulating liquid waste from drinking water aquifers inserted between watertight rock layers. There are six well classes for deep well injection in the state of Florida. Here are all six of them listed out, but today we're gonna focus on class one and five. Heart of Florence current permit is for a class five well which is used for exploratory purposes only and does not allow for wastewater disposal. This phase is intended to evaluate the feasibility of a future class one permitted deep well for the disposal of leachate. Here we have a drawing of the proposed drawing of the exploratory well on the left and on the right for illustration purposes the process of deep well injection. And from the DEP, we have more than 180 active class one wells in Florida. No new hazardous waste wells have been put in since 1983. Waste treated to become non-hazardous to demonstrate waste will remain where placed while hazardous defined as 10,000 years. So essentially the waste has to be treated to become non-hazardous or demonstrated that it will remain in place for 10,000 years in order to be injected. Approximately 54 wells in Florida are for municipal wastewater disposal and Currently Pasco Indian River and Charlotte counties have deep deep wells for leachate Some of the potential concerns for class 1 deep well injections you have well construction failure faults or fractures in the geology minimal risk of induced seismicity and That's probably more commonly known from Oklahoma with fracking, the increase in seismic activity. It's not saying that there wouldn't be any, but there is a minimal risk. Prologue storage causing degradation to the impermeable rock layer, site contamination of the source, and improper abandonment or sealing. And now I'll turn it over to Blanche.

Good morning. Blanche Hardy, Lake County hydrogeologist. We're at the point we're talking about potential impacts. So well construction is unpredictable. In Karst geology, which we have in Sumter County and we have in Lake County. So if you look at the pink picture to your left on the slide, you can see that these are substantive sinkholes, enough to be mapped by the state in the direct vicinity of the well, which is the red star. And the pink color indicates that the state has found this area indicative of Karsh geology. Damage to aquifer springs and seeps. The center map shows you that there are springs. And again, the immediate vicinity, the left part of the map is Sumter County. The right part of the map is Lake County. So we have class one to class four springs in this area already. And then on the right-hand side, there are 729 potable wells within one half mile of this site. These are cross sections. You'll see a small map inserted on each cross section that shows a line. These exploratory wells were drilled by the US Geological Survey. These two maps appear in the definitive report that they issued on the Florida and Aquifer in Central Florida. So the red box indicates where the screened interval or open interval of the proposed Phase I injection or Class I injection well would be. This first map is the map that was provided by the consultant to Sumter County. It has been the map that's in the publications, as you can see. That white area is called a confining layer, but it is actually defined as a confining or semi-confining layer. It consists of a carbonate called an anhydrite. Anhydrites react with water. They also are slightly caustic. Leachate is very caustic, so one can anticipate there will be some reaction with that formation. But it is in a confining layer. What was not included in the PowerPoint that was provided is the cross section to the right. This cross section, and let me step back a second, in the maps that show where the lines that the USGS wells were installed, I want to point out this is seven or eight wells for the state of Florida. So this is not well defined by any stretch of the imagination from a geologic standpoint. So this first one is a well that's kind of by the site, slightly to the west. The second one is by the well, again, kind of by the site, slightly to the north. These two drawings were in the publication, as I mentioned. The well in the second drawing, the location of the proposed well in the second drawing, as you can see, is in blue. That is a lower aquifer. The red dotted line that goes through both of these drawings is the saline interface. So in that first drawing, this well is directly below the potable water supply that has been identified as an alternative supply should we need to go deeper than we currently do to address the growing population of the state of Florida. You'll see the red line is slightly above that on hydrate in the second drawing, but again, we're right below a future potable water supply that other counties right now and public water suppliers are looking at as alternative supply. When you're in a bubble, which we'll talk about in a minute, you're in the freshwater bubble, you're 2,600 feet of fresh water. So that first one that shows that red dotted line, that's fresh water above there. That's your drinking water. That's your future drinking water. The lower water, that's your drinking water 20 or 30 or 40 years from now because those lower supplies are called juvenile water. They're not rechargeable. At 2,000 feet, you don't get recharge in the same kind of way that we get Florida and recharge right now where there's official aquifer and our sinkholes except water, it percolates down through the core system or through the sand into the limestone. These are thousands of feet deep. This is water that was deposited when it was deposited millions of years ago. So these are not infinite supplies. These are finite supplies, but it's our future.

So moving to the next drawing.

This drawing is called a plate. every single one of those dots, and I put the map there showing the grid of dots. Again, these are very few dots to define the subsurface geology of Florida at the depth that we're talking about. This plate, you have to go to the USGS and you have to acquire this plate. It's publicly accessible, but certainly a consultant, and definitely I know that these plates exist, and immediately when I saw the PowerPoint, I went and got this plate. If you look at the star, on the map, this well that I have put the red box around is in immediately direct vicinity of this proposed well. And this one shows that again, this will be in that potential 20, 40, 50 year water supply that we may need to secure and treat, and I call it mineralized, we'll call it salt water, in order to provide for our growing population. So a few more maps. If you look in the middle, the blue area and the pink area that doesn't have dots in it, this is your good water. And that's you. This is Lake County and Sumter County. Lake Sumter and Marion County are the water supply for millions upon millions of citizens between Tampa and Cocoa Beach. The Green Swamp is the water supply for Central Florida. And this is where we're talking about allowing or not protesting this proposed well. And then the next one I think is the best map to look at. That purple is 2,600 feet of fresh water. This well will sit right below that. Now, I'd like to put something on. I know that we received a communication, so I prepared some things after you saw this. So let me put this on the... There we go.

I can straighten it out a little bit.

So we talked about there's over close to 200 class one injection wells. Well, here's where they are. There are one, two, three, four injection wells in the spine of the state. All of the injection wells, almost all of the injection wells, the class one injection wells are on the coast. So those injection wells have an open borehole or a screened interval that is under 1,000 feet of salt water, not under thousands of feet of fresh water. It's under thousands of feet of salt water. So you don't see a lot in the middle of the state because when you put them in the middle of the state, you start to potentially impact water supply. So I know that the discussion has been, well, these wells have never contaminated a drinking water well. Well, you're not allowed to put them by drinking water wells, so that's excellent news. I'm glad to hear that. However, that does not mean that the injection wells in all classes, I will go over all classes, have not contaminated groundwater. And I think most people know about Piney Point. Piney Point is the gypsum stack outside of Tampa that discharged 6,000 gallons of untreated industrial waste into Tampa Bay. The well didn't fail. The pump for the well failed. So you can't just look at the well and say, oh, these wells are great. You have to look at the system. The pump failed, and by the time they shut it down, 6,000 gallons of water had been discharged into the surface water. There's another one in my list here where I talked about the anhydrite. They had a failure into the Biscayne Aquifer where the well reacted. The material they were injected included acidic wastes and it rejected with the anhydrite and it tore open the well. It left a great big gap in the well so it not only contaminated the groundwater deep groundwater contaminated groundwater above the deep groundwater. So there are a number of instances in Florida and a lot more instances outside of Florida where deep injection wells have contaminated groundwater. So unfortunately in this state, if you put one in Sumter County, it's not gonna just contaminate groundwater if there's an accident. It's gonna contaminate the drinking water supply. my drinking water supply, your drinking water supply. So I'm happy to answer any questions. I'm happy to share any of the information I have about other failures in the state of Florida. My recommendation as your hydrogeologist is that this is a very bad idea. And earlier, we heard that there are other ways to treat leachate. So this isn't an emergency. This isn't we have a crisis. We have no other choices. There are other choices. It's expensive. This is probably not quite as expensive. A couple things. There's nothing so far I've heard that guarantees they won't accept leachate from outside of Sumter County. Now, our solid waste does go to this landfill from my understanding, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. I also asked, well, what is the reduction in the tipping fee to the citizens of Lake County if this is allowed? What's our savings? Well, nobody's talking about a reduction in tipping fees for being able to put leachate potentially in a manner that could impact our groundwater supply. There's just two points to think about. Thank you.

Thank you, Blanche. Great information. Really great information. Does anybody have questions? Welcome.

Just a comment, I appreciate it. You're a great resource for us as a professional geologist, so thank you for that presentation. I'm obviously, I don't think we should support a deep well injection system. I just think it's interesting, and I don't wanna, you don't have to, I guess, go into great detail, but the treating of hazard, they call it non-hazardous waste, so they're not treating it The standard is if you are gonna inject it, it's not gonna be the way it, the water's not gonna be treated to the quality of water from where you're injecting it into. It just, there's some loose criteria on what non-hazardous is. Is that correct? Is it?

Well, leachate isn't considered hazardous, so I don't know, I have not seen in any of the documentation to what extent they are gonna treat it if they're gonna treat it at all.

Okay. Yeah, and the other ways to treat leachate are, I mean, we're seeing this in other places, so I agree with you. They can break the water down to the molecular level pretty much, and leachate, you probably have to do that. There's a lot of bad stuff in that.

You can send it to a wastewater treatment plant. You can put an on-site treatment system. My understanding is this is because of the odor. So there's a lot of ways to handle odor. So but you can't treat leachate and waste. Usually they go to wastewater treatment plants again. My opinion is that the other means are a little bit more expensive.

How far along are they in that process.

Right now they're asking for permission to do a class five which is an exploratory boring. So they're required to do an exploratory boring. As I've shown you, there's really not good data. So they have to actually get data from their specific location. And then they have to give that back to DEP. So for example, if they would drill to the depth that they said and they're still anywhere near the potable drinking water supply, that would probably not go well with DEP. So that's where they are. They're at the exploratory well. But if the exploratory well is okay and it's in the end hydrate and then they go for the class one, okay, anything that happens between land surface and the bottom of that boring is in our drinking water supply. So.

So you think, should we write a letter of concern?

Yeah, I mean, they're doing the exploratory. That means they're pretty much trying to do it. I mean, they want to do it. There's a lot of money.

I would take it from concern to opposition. I would oppose it. Yeah, I think it should be a letter of opposition, and I think it should list the reasons, the other alternatives, and then the reasons that you stated today and why we're opposed and what our concerns are.

I was going to ask, they could put this through a wastewater plant for reclaimed water?

Leachate is treated with the wastewater treatment plants. Yes.

And it would be like a reclaimed water you get from a wastewater treatment plant, correct?

If they would treat it to the appropriate standards, they could inject it as an upper storage and recovery. They wouldn't even have to go so deep. If the water was treated and proven to be treated before it was injected, they could do ASR, which then becomes recharge, and it becomes a benefit.

So the point of my question was there's other alternatives other than what they're proposing here. So I think I would agree that we say, you know what, we need to explore, or they need to explore all the opportunities before.

And I think if you could help us, obviously, have our professional geologist craft that letter so there's the science behind everything that you just said, I think that would be very impactful as to why we're opposing it.

I'd be very pleased to. Thank you. All right, we do have a card. We have Catherine Wright who's here. There's Catherine. Did you want to speak to this or do you feel comfortable that we've covered the issues and you see where we're going? I see where you are going. You'll need to come to the microphone then if you wish to speak.

I do see where you're going with this, so thank you very much for putting this on the agenda. I've been studying this for four months, and I never knew what it was. But to me, a class won well from what I am reading and studying on. Landfill legate, often known as, referred as trustee, so I'm not going to say this whole spiel. It does have highly concentrated mixture of pollutants including ammonia, chloride, toxic metals such as lead, arsenic, industrial chemicals and various pathogens. So with that being said, this stuff is high octane for problematic situations with our health. So given the fact that mechanical systems are prone to failure, the leak could go undetected for years because the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, they only check this stuff at a minimal of every five years. So it's such a issue. But the problems that this stuff can make is neurological damage, liver, kidney disease, birth defects, and various concerns such as leukemia, bladder, pancreatic cancer, and more. And also, it was said somewhere else in another commissioner meeting, I will go ahead and say Citrus County, like why did Florida Department of Environmental Protection even go forward and give the authority to even do this highly ridiculous request? This is really putting us all in danger. So I thank you very much.

Thank you. So the letter that we've talked about, you feel like we've given clear enough direction on the content and the position?

Yes. So my question is, do you want a letter that is signed by the chair or do you want us to bring back a resolution in opposition?

I like the resolution in opposition and then a cover letter that goes with it.

We can bring that back at the next meeting.

Okay. I do have one more speaker card. That's Marty Proctor.

Marty Proctor, 18225 Rose Street, Groveland, Florida. You do have it figured out. However, I want to give a little bit more light. The trash that is put in solid waste containers, in bins, in bags, and in dumpsters, goes directly into a truck. That truck goes directly, not to heaven, but to the heart of Florida, where it dumps that debris that some homeowner, business owner, whatever, Quietly put into the trash Directly goes to the heart of Florida landfill Which sits on top of our water? So I've got a really really even better idea than that Let's take the water and the leachate that comes off of that and pump it underneath our drinking water and let's see if we can't just really do a great job of taking care of this situation and all in one easy movement. Thank you very much. This is an important topic. It needs to go a long way, a lot further than just this part of it. Thank you.

Yes. I agree it's part of a bigger discussion. I think we've got to tackle this one today. But I couldn't be in more agreement. It's part of a larger discussion, not just for us, but for the whole state. Okay. All right. Moving along then to, let's see, tab 20, Megan Melanese, Office of Emergency Management Director. And Megan is going to give us an update on hurricane season. And I'm going to step out and I'll be right back, but I heard the presentation last week. I have it memorized. And I've already begun my preparation.

Fantastic. Good morning. Megan Melanies, Emergency Management Director. We are going to do a quick hurricane season update since we are here in the start of June, which is the start of hurricane season. Our outline for today's presentation is to quickly go over hurricane terminology, just so we're all speaking the same language. And we'll talk a little bit about past hurricane seasons. We'll talk about what we can expect for this season as we enter it. And then we'll talk about how to prepare. So for our overview, talking about our weather terminology, typically storms begin as a tropical depression, and then as they gain strength and wind speed, they form into tropical storms, which are organized weather systems with winds from 39 to 73 miles per hour. As they continue to intensify, they become hurricanes, anything between 74 miles per hour and higher, And then it is considered a major hurricane when it reaches category three or stronger winds. Those categories, which I think most people are familiar with, look like this. So category one, anywhere between 74 to 95 miles per hour. Category two, between 96 to 110 miles per hour. Category three, 111 to 129 miles per hour. Category four, 130 to 156. And then category five is anything 157 miles per hour or higher. So again, those category three storms are what's considered those major hurricanes. review past seasons we did see a recent hurricane responses over the last few years we were fortunate last year that we did not see a land falling hurricane but we weren't so fortunate in 2024 where we had debbie helene and milton the year before that with adalia and even the year before that with ian and nicole all of which were impactful storms for our community the For last year's storms in 2025, we did see some of the storms develop. A lot of them developed in the Atlantic and moved off and away from the state, which is exactly what we hope to see this year. But these were the names that we went through, got about halfway through the list and then stopped with the development. The forecast that we saw last year in 2025, we expected to see between 13 to 19 named storms, and we ended up seeing 13 of those develop, so right at the lower end of that forecast. Hurricanes, we expected to see between six and 10. We saw five, and then four of those became major hurricanes that category three or above, which is right in that range between three and five that we expected to see. So for this year, we are expecting a below normal season. We do receive information from Colorado State University regarding what we are expecting. They have predicted 13 named storms, with six of those becoming hurricanes, two of those hurricanes becoming major hurricanes. And the National Hurricane Center gives a range, so they have predicted anywhere between eight to 14 named storms to develop, with three to six of those becoming hurricanes. and one, two, three of those hurricanes becoming major hurricanes at category three or higher. So out of those, if we do see any visitors this year, this would be the possibility for what they might be named. We're hoping not to see any of these folks come through. And we'll talk a little bit about how to prepare so that our residents can make sure that they're making their plan. In terms of county preparation, we do prepare year round. This is kind of the season where we expect to be most active, depending on what storms develop and what tends to come our way. So we do prepare year round, doing partnerships, collaboration, coordination with all of our county stakeholders. We also recently held a Hurricane Expo that was a public event for all of our residents to come out, meet us, and meet the public safety professionals. that take part in our hurricane response. So it's all community response here, including non-governmental organizations and non-profits. We make sure that our agreements are up to date and in place, and that everyone knows what the expectations are moving into hurricane season. For our residents, before the hurricane comes, now's the time to start thinking about making a plan. The best thing that folks can do is just know what they're going to do and have the ability to enact it when the storm comes. So determine where you plan to shelter during a hurricane, if that's gonna be at home. Make sure that you have all the supplies and resources that you might need. Make sure you're planning for pets as well. and create that disaster supply kit early so you're not waiting in the long lines for folks who maybe weren't as prepared. Stay informed and get involved. Make sure you check in on neighbors. Stay informed with what the most current updates are in terms of what we're expecting for weather. Try to pay attention to impact statements and what we're actually expecting to see within the county. And as you're planning, if you do feel like you need to seek shelter somewhere other than your home, this is a list of our primary shelters that is also available on our website. One thing to note about this list of primary shelters is that we may not open every single shelter every single time for every activation. Um, so please continue to pay attention to local news as well as the county website and social media as those announcements are made. If we do, uh, end up having to activate for a storm this year. So it'll be something out of this list. And of course the highlighted, the yellow, uh, locations are, uh, designated for our special needs, uh, folks who are electric dependent or need assistance with activities of daily living in some way. And then any of the locations that have an asterisk, uh, will accept pets. If you are going to be sheltering in place, just make sure you know where the safe room is in your home. It's going to be the innermost location in your home in case we have increased wind speeds. Hurricanes can also generate and spawn tornadoes, so it's important to know where the safe room is in your home. And be mindful that the home environment may be very loud and frightening. When they say that the wind howls, they really mean it. Stay away from doors, windows, and skylights. Open the refrigerator only when necessary. And again, just continue to stay informed. Having a weather radio would be a major tool to make sure that you are continuing to stay informed as to what the weather updates are. There is also alertlake.com where you'll receive alerts directly to your phone of any local situations that may be ongoing throughout the county or in your specific area. And folks can actually sign up for those by going to alertlake.com. And then of course we always open the citizens information line when we are activated for storms so that if folks have any questions, concerns, they can call that line and speak to a real human and i'm going to say that number just so folks can keep it in their minds it's 352-253-9999 and that's where you'll be able to speak to a real human during an activation if you have any questions concerns or you need information about what's going on with the storm and of course paying attention to local media outlets where we'll be working with those partners to get information out to our residents For after the hurricane, this is when we typically see the most issues with things like injuries or otherwise. So please, it can't be said enough. Be careful. Stay informed to the latest information. Stay away from any downed, loose or dangling power lines. You know, ensure food safety. It's really not worth it to test something. So when in doubt, throw it out. And when you're cleaning up debris, please be safe and mindful. It's really not worth the injury to take shortcuts. Take photos of damage to your house furnishings and surroundings for your insurance claims. And also as part of your planning, please make sure you're taking a look at that insurance policy. Drive only when necessary. We are gonna have crews out on the road immediately after the storm impacts. So the more we can keep that clear, the easier it's gonna be for us to get everything back to normal. And if the traffic lights are out, please treat it as a four-way stop. And also, please, please make sure that you're contacting family, friends, and neighbors as soon as possible so that they know that you're safe. And that is the totality of my update. I'm happy to take any questions, comments.

All right. Any questions? Yeah, that's great. And they're making this available and getting out to neighborhoods and HOAs and so forth and getting this information out. And they had their expo not very long ago. I'm sure you mentioned that when I was out of the room.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Megan. Next, we have tab 21, Bobby Bonilla.

assistant county manager presentation on lake county water authority and proposed fiscal year 2027 budget good morning madam chair commissioners bobby bonilla the assistant county manager thank you for this opportunity to come before you and present the final presentation for the lake county water authority under my purview The outline that we will follow is the organization chart, accomplishment, efficiencies, budget workshops, the 2027 recommended budget, and the 2027 millage rate, and the requested action. The Lake County Water Authority is a special district with a special mission. We have a board of trustees, District One, Gavin Rollins, District Two, Trampas Bonior was in attendance today, District Three, Vice Chair, Bertie Chernacek, District 4 and Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Hendricks. And District 5, Mr. Gemmerer. A little bit of the overview and an inventory that we have at the Lake County Water Authority. Keep in mind we're still in the process of the transfer of the Hickory Point. We added additional properties to the Lake County Water Authority as part of the transfer. That included the Blueways, Helena Run, the Pasture Reserves, the Lady Lake. Some of the properties that we have currently open to the public. The Lake Norris Conservation Area is a operating agreement with the San Johns River Water Management District where the Water Authority plays a key role in the management of that property. As you can see, part of the Blueway system, the last part of the run underway currently is the Lake Apopka. Some of the programs that the Lake County Board of Trustees have adopted. including the last two, which is the stormwater and floodplain, to conduct oversight and management. This is the current organization chart. Part of the leadership includes the hydrogeologist and Mr. Elkins as part of our operations director. Part of the accomplishment includes the water quality lab, a lot of data, a lot of analysis being collected through our Lee County's water system, including our water atlas, which has an array of information for the public. You can see some of the samples that have been taken throughout the county and some of the litter has been removed. And a lot of that is done, not just by staff, but also in partnership with volunteers. So we want to thank them for their services. We also partner with FWC and St. John's as we continue to collect as much data regarding our waterways. We also do a lot of community engagement throughout Lake County. Those can be found. in the Water Exploration Guide that the Water Authority publishes every year. On a monthly basis, there are activities taking place throughout Lake County. Some of the photographs, again, are volunteers. We couldn't do this without them. We're creating a library. A lot of the events, we've been asked to, can you have that event at another date, another location? So we have created a library so we have the information readily available and handy. Land management and restoration is still part of our purview and our responsibility. So is the aquatics and the management of our waterways. And we work in conjunction with FWC. The waterway manage signage throughout Lake County. This is something that our aquatics team on top of the debris removal, they take on the signage throughout our county system. We have close to 200 signs in our waterways. You can see in the last three years as part of the reorganization and transition, we've been able to increase the amount of tree removal from the waterways, and you can see the water bodies that they've been removed. Each tree will cost, if you outsource that work, about $14,000 a tree. You're looking at an excess of a million dollars The Water Authority has been very supportive of allowing us to get the barge that you see in place with a second barge on the right-hand corner at the bottom that is a supporting deck barge to allow us to load up additional tree debris as we encounter them. This is an ongoing effort for many, many, many years. You heard a lot about the NERF, and again, the NERF is now in the midst of a transformation. For many years, since 2009, we've had a 220-acre site that we're in the process now, in design, to begin a nature-based solution with filter marshes and series of retention ponds to minimize the amount of alum that is needed. As you know, Lake Apopka is the headwaters of the water system at the Harris Chain of Lakes. First, it makes a stop at the NERF, but then also downstream the other properties that we're gonna have to continue to address in order to minimize and reduce the nutrient loading. The NERF is just one of many projects. And we thank the Board of Trustees for supporting this change. SINCE OBVIOUSLY THIS WAS INCEPTED IN 2009. THIS IS A BIG CHANGE FOR THE NORTH SIDE. IT IS ALSO MEANT TO CONNECT TO THE LAKE APOPOCA TRAIL HEAD AND THE NORTH SHORE OVERLOOK TRAIL SYSTEM, WHICH IS GOING TO OFFER ADDITIONAL RECREATION AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE PUBLIC. LAKE DENHAM IS ANOTHER ONE OF OUR PROPERTIES. IT'S ACTUALLY THE LARGEST PROPERTY IN THE LAKE COUNTY WATER THORES INVENTORY, OVER 3,000 ACRES. WE'RE CURRENTLY IN THE CONCEPTUAL PLANS FOR A MASTER PLAN OF THAT SITE. OFFERS A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR WATER STORAGE, WATER TREATMENT, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, EDUCATION AND RECREATION. THE TREATMENT, THIS IS A PROJECT THAT'S BEEN IN THE BOOKS FOR THE LAST 14 YEARS. WE'RE FINALLY ABLE TO GET ALL THE STAKEHOLDERS IN PLACE, FULLY SUPPORTED BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES, DEP, ST. JOHN'S, AND MANY WHO ACTUALLY WERE IN ATTENDANCE WHEN WE DID THE INITIAL TREATMENT. We continue to install monitoring devices and rain gauges throughout the county. The stormwater program for the Lake County Water Authority, this is a program that started with over 13 projects. We've now got that down to three projects, basically making sure that the cities and municipalities complete the projects, otherwise we're just gonna take the funds back and we have all the uses for those funds. So we're down now to three projects. You can see a list of the cities who have completed their projects, some are new, part of the three remaining projects, but stormwater and stormwater conveyance is of the highest priorities for the Lake County Water Authority. We're also engaging in a partnership with the Lake County Sheriff's Office, the Marine Unit. This building is currently alpha bid, and this will be part of the Marine Unit, which we both share, and to be located at the Hickory Point Recreational Complex. The Board of Trustees, we were able to launch the first annual report in the last four years that was sent over to the state legislature, the Board of County Commissioners in St. John's. We're very proud of the progress that has been made, and all of that is documented in the report that is uploaded in the website. Many efficiencies, obviously a lot of consolidation, revamping the staff and the structure, sharing resources, reaching out to municipalities and other agencies. being part of the development review process, and obviously having a key staff to do all this. We have three budget workshops with the Water Authority, March 25th, April 22nd, and May 20th. Fiscal year 27 budget summary funds the operation and also continues the grant program. There are many projects which are multi-phase, multi-year, which are ongoing. Based on the best numbers that we were provided, it's a lot earlier than the numbers that we'll probably see sometime in July, but these are the estimates that we have from fiscal year 25. At the May 20th meeting, the Board of Trustees recommended ATTENDED A BUDGET AT $29 MILLION AND 50,832. THEY'RE RECOMMENDING, BASED ON THE DATA WE HAD, 0.2940 MILLS. AGAIN, THAT IS EARLY BASED ON THE NUMBERS THAT WE HAVE TO WORK WITH. YOU CAN SEE THE REVENUES EXPENDITURES OVER THE LAST FOUR YEARS. But you can see also how we're monitoring and keeping track of how we spend the money and then the return on the investment. In the last three years, I think we're doing a much better job how we basically have a better return on the funds and only issue purchase orders when need to and payments when need to. We're also obviously restricting and watching the grant program. WE'RE ASKING FOR THE MUNICIPALITIES AND OTHER OPPORTUNITIES WITH THE STATE AND FEDERAL LEVEL TO MAKE SURE THEY'RE EXERCISING THE OPPORTUNITIES TO LOOK FOR OTHER GRANTS AND NOT HAVE JUST THE WATER 30 BE THE FIRST STOP. AS YOU CAN SEE, THE 2027 BUDGET INCLUDES THE OPERATIONS, THE MANAGEMENT SERVICES AGREEMENT WITH LAKE COUNTY, STAFF RESTRUCTURING, ANY NEED POSITIONS, THE CAPITAL OUTLAY, OBVIOUSLY, WE HAVE A LOT OF PROJECTS IN HAND. IN THE RESERVES, WE'RE ABLE TO MAINTAIN THE 16% AS RECOMMENDED BY THE GOVERNMENT FINANCE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION. THERE IS A REQUESTED ACTION. AS YOU KNOW, THE NERF IS GOING THROUGH A TRANSFORMATION. SINCE 2022, WE'VE BEEN OUTSOURCING THAT PROJECT. WE'VE TAKEN A LOOK AT THE OPERATIONS. WE FEEL THAT WE CAN DO THE JOB IN-HOUSE. Fiscal year 26, the fiscal impact is about $833,000, just the labor cost. The Board of Trustees were very supportive, unanimous support to begin the process of doing this project in-house of the operation. With that, we're able to save over $330,000. The makeup of the team, obviously, would change somewhat. So I'm asking for your support. of bringing in four additional staff, keeping in mind that at the end of the day, the staff will also operate the NERF and other properties. But one of the biggest deficiency as the makeup of the team, not just for Lake County Water Authority, but for the county and municipalities, it's stormwater engineering. So that will complete the makeup of the Lake County Water Authority. You heard from the hydrogeologist. You have the operations, you have the field staff, but we need to get down to the stormwater conveyance, B-maps. So I'd like to reinforce the team with stormwater engineers. These are licensed engineers that can actually get to work right away, design, and have shovel-ready projects, not just for the county, the water authority, but all the municipalities who need some guidance. Again, part of the number one priority for the legislative team is the stormwater conveyance that we have in Lake County. We have got to get going on that. And the way you start that is with a master plan throughout the whole county. And by the way, asking the cities to adopt the master plan and make sure their stormwater, their public works actually work on those projects. We have to have a continuous link between the stormwater that's traveling from point A to point B to point C. While Public Works has a array of responsibility, this is a unique area. The Lake County Water Authority, as I mentioned earlier, is a special district with a special mission. This is consolidation, creating efficiencies, and a savings to the taxpayers of Lake County, and the ability to go after much greater grants. We were able to open doors at Tallahassee for the first year AND OUR FIRST TRIAL WITH THE LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES. THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR. THERE'S A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES AND FUNDING THAT'S AVAILABLE. BUT WE HAVE TO HAVE THE MAKEUP OF THE RIGHT TEAM. AND THIS ALLOWS US TO HAVE SHOVEL-READY PROJECTS SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. YOU GET A LOT OF E-MAILS REGARDING PROJECTS THAT HAVE BEEN IN THE DRAWING BOARDS FOR TWO AND THREE YEARS. WE'VE GOT TO DO BETTER. And again, the water authority has owned up to this type of responsibility and accountability and manage management. So we're very thankful for this partnership. So with all due respect, I would like your support in these requested action is to get these folks in place as the agreement with the contract that the nerve is to expire at the end of this fiscal year.

All right. Question, though. From the standpoint of the positions and so forth, as long as they're staying within the budget as presented, then do we actually have to weigh in on the positions themselves?

You do have to approve the positions themselves because they're full-time positions. And then, excuse me, and then once the positions have been created, we'll load the budget appropriately for the cost. Is that done today? So if you provide that direction, we'll make sure it's included with their budget. You will be approving their millage rate in July.

But the positions will take the place of the funding that you're reducing, basically.

Bob, great. It's a great idea. The master plan, fabulous. I appreciate everything you've done. Board of Trustees, I know it's a big lift for you all, but thank you very much for what you do.

Yeah, I got to say the transformation of the Water Authority and everything that Bobby's doing in his department has been absolutely phenomenal. As you can see from your presentation, you're actually reducing your budget by 10%, which is fantastic through innovative technology and the use of the people in the right place. So thank you for that.

Mr. Karks?

Yeah, so we're going to approve the budget, though, later. Their budget would be with our budget?

Correct. This is just the initial presentation to the board with the requested action being that you would approve the millage rate in July, and they'll be part of the final budget presentation in September, which is adopted at the two public hearings.

Okay, good. Yeah, and I want to go through that with you a little more later. We've got a little time. What you were saying was music to my ears at the end. Could not agree with you more. Of great importance for us is the BMAP and a stormwater master plan across the county with the cities involved from the surficial treatment of waste, not wastewater, but of stormwater. That's gonna be incredibly important for us. So I think that that is gonna be, I'm glad that that's gonna be a primary focus and you have that budgeted for. And then, You know, as well, I think it's gonna be important when you have the master plan with the cities, especially with what could be happening in the future, you know, you need, if you're gonna need, if we need money from the state for grant monies and things like that, you have to have had the plan in place first and for many years to try to follow it to make yourself more, to make ourselves more competitive for those grant monies, so.

Once we get the master plan completed, we'll be going around to all the cities asking them to adopt the master plan, make sure that's part of the comprehensive, the planning documents, so that way we're actually apples to apples.

Yeah, and that might be a good topic when we do our round tables that are starting to become pretty effective with the county commission and all the cities like we do at Venetian Gardens every three months. That would be another good topic to talk about that, I think, at some point.

And we have brushed that. I think now it's just getting down into details and that's where we're going to turn the technical part of it over to the Water Authority. I mean, I think this is a great way to do it so that this is a Water Authority initiative and it's countywide with the Water Authority leading the charge to actually have this countywide flowway and stormwater drainage plan. And I just want to confirm that places in Aster will be included in that plan. Because as you know, that is one of our most challenging areas and, um, something about this time of year, this is when it gets even harder to manage. Um, and of course, as we know from the storms last October, um, again, perfect example of how coordination makes a huge impact and this would totally step in the right direction.

Let me just remind the commissioners, if you recall the public works presentation, we've actually made some opportunities there in terms of funding. the stormwater program, that is all part of the plan to free up that funding so we can actually get going sooner rather than later.

Thank you.

All right, great job.

Are we gonna do consensus on the four positions? Is that how you wanna handle it or are you gonna bring it back or?

You can just give consensus on the four positions and that way they know whether or not they need to make any revisions to their budget before it comes to you for a final approval in September.

I just want to make sure that the four positions are replacing what's already out there at the NERF under the contractual services.

That is correct. Not only is that contract $833,000, next year it's going to be probably $900,000.

Almost $400,000. Good job. I think I'm good with it. I'm good with it.

Okay, I think everybody's good with it. And just to confirm, you still use alum, but you just do it in a different way? You don't have the centrifuge and you're just using the pond system?

We're going to significantly reduce the amount of alum. Only after testing that water if it needs to be injected with alum. After it's gone through the series of filter marshes and ponds, we'll test that before we release it. But we'll be mindful of that other downstream opportunities that we have to address of any neutral loading.

Okay. I just want to make sure whatever's coming out and going into the Harris chain is as clean as it is the way that it's been done in the past as far as the NERF goes. Okay. Marty Proctor put a card in, wanted to comment on Lake County Water Authority. Did you want to come to the podium?

Okay.

All right. Thank you, Marty. Okay. All right. So we have a consensus and that will conclude that presentation.

Thank you, Commissioners. Thank you, Board of Trustees, and thank you, staff.

Okay, we have one more presentation before we get into the zoning hearings. So is everybody okay with moving ahead with that presentation? Do you want to bump that behind the zoning hearings?

Jennifer? Take a five-minute break? Yeah, the budget summary presentation shouldn't be that long. Okay, all right.

Let's hear it.

Let's knock it out, and then we'll take a five-minute break, and then we'll start the zoning cases.

Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Today I have for you the proposed budget development summary. It's gonna provide you with a fiscal 2027, the development so far and where we are today. An outline includes the budget process, the June 1st estimate of property values, the general fund overview, the budget workshop summary, in addition to the constitutional budgets, budget considerations, and next steps in the process. So far, we have had the budget strategies workshops. That was back in February. The departmental budget workshops went throughout May. The preliminary taxable values did come in on June 1st, and here we are today on the 9th going over the budget summary workshops. Here's the best estimate property values as of June 1st. Based on the best estimate of property values, we saw 7.52% growth in the countywide property values. This does reflect an overview of the countywide decline in new construction of 13.54%. in 2026 versus 2025. However, several cities did see a considerable uptick in new construction and some notable ones are Fruitland Park at 433% increase and Lady Lake at 114% increase. A few things to keep in mind, the ad valorem revenues are based on the best estimate of the property values that were provided June 1st. The status quo millage rate of 5.0254% and does not include the tax collectors fiscal year 27 budget requests, medical examiners 27 budget requests or the FRS contribution adjustments. Here's a summary of the preliminary general fund budget compared to the 2026 adopted budget. The ad valorem, which is the increase on taxable values, is 7.36%. The increase in revenue from other revenue sources totals 1.3% from various sources. The sheriff's revenue is the contracted services his office provides. And the fund balance of fiscal year 26 does not include the purchase order carry forward amounts. And it does reflect the use of the reserve funds for the county's hurricane response during the current year. Below that you see the expenditures and for the expenditures we have the county department offices as a whole with an increase of $852,000. The county redevelopment agency or CRA payments are estimated on property values and came in at $17.6 million. The reduction in other grants and aids reflects the anticipated completion of the Rosenwald Gardens project in fiscal year 2026. The judicial support, which reflects the anticipated increases in IT supplies, software, utility costs, and the repairs and maintenance at 184,000. Below that you'll see the medical examiner's $315,000, which is estimated based on the increases we've seen in previous years. The constitutional budgets will be discussed further in a few slides, but the preliminary budget does fully fund all the requests. Reserves decreased from $31.6 million, which is approximately 10.87% of the general fund expenditures, and is due to the fiscal year 2026, including the purchase order and carry forward adjustments, which is gonna be calculated later in the budget cycle. Next we have our departmental budget requests. This is gonna be a recap of the requests that were presented during the department's budget workshops. The majority of the departments are seeing a slight increase related to the proposed wage adjustments and increases in insurance premiums. Keeping that in mind, the HR risk increase of 3.8 million does reflect the projections of the actuary in respect to the healthcare claims and increased wages. IT's increase of 350,000 is due to personnel GIS CAD positions in addition to software for those new positions and increases in operational costs. Parks and trails increase of 841,000 is due to the contractual costs increases. We have housing coming at 7.1, which reflects the transfer of the veteran services to housing and the allocation from SHIP to CDBG. Facilities is seeing a savings of $2.4 million, and the decrease reflects the capital projects that are expected to be completed in fiscal year 2026. And lastly, we have fleet for $262,000 for staffing, reconstructuring wage increases and increase in the insurance costs. We also have further department budget requests for planning and zoning, $412,000, which reflects the personnel services from the comp plan update in 2026 and the restructuring of the stormwater staff to planning and zoning. Fire rescue and EMS included wage adjustments, FRS insurance increases, and contractual increases, as well as the end-to-life defibrillator replacements. For transit, that reflects a decrease of $7 million due to the completion of the older grant funding, as well as carry forward for 2027, excuse me, does not include carry forward from 2027. Solid waste, the $1.99 million reflects anticipated increase to the disposal contracts. And for public works, we have $13 million, which reflects an increase for awarded FDOT grants. Next, we have the constitutional budget requests. The clerk of courts requests include increases for wage adjustments, insurance and FRS rates, and inflationary impacts due to operational costs. The property appraisers requests include an increase for the staggering amounts of the new full-time employees, their life insurance and health insurance costs, a customer queue management system, timekeeping system, other IT devices such as website redesign, employee training and development. The Sheriff's Office request includes an increase for COLA wage adjustments, GLIT upgrades, IT equipment, increase in insurance rates, and FRS contribution rates. We also have the tax collector's budget, which will be due August 1st, but this is an approximation you see here, and it's based on the increase in property values being used to estimate the subject. the value and of course it's subject to change. The increase in the county support is mainly attributable to increases related to leases, utilities and other maintenance costs. And overall, we have the increase of the constitutional offices of $18.3 million. Next we have fire rescue. This is a breakdown of the most recent fire assessment study which was presented earlier in May and there are no changes due to the current assessment rates. Next we have the solid waste assessment. Here there's a proposed solid waste assessment rates. This reflects the rate adjustments to match the increasing contract costs for hauling and disposal. The rates on the left are at one time a week, or excuse me, the left are the one time a week and right are twice a week. The proposed rate increase is $37. The minimum wage impacts the county has taken a proactive approach to stay ahead of the state schedule. The countywide minimum wage was adjusted to $16 an hour in 2026. And for fiscal year 2027, we're proposing to adjust the minimum wage to $17 an hour for all BCC employees plus adjustments for compression. What is to come? The next steps in the budget process are to be in July we'll receive the certified taxable values and adopt the initial assessment resolution and set the maximum millage rate. In July we'll hold a budget workshop and public hearing for the infrastructure sales tax plan. And in September we'll hold our public hearing to adopt the fiscal year 2026 budget. And that includes the budget presentation. Did you guys have any questions?

Just a very general question.

Just a general question. So the constitutional is a 10% increase?

Correct.

And then the county departments, that's 1%?

No, I think ours was five.

Okay, I thought I saw one in there.

Five point.

It was 1%. Yeah, I thought I saw it somewhere. That's what I wanted it. here's the constitutional budget yeah so 1% now oh yes I see and then my third question is the dollar figure the famous dollar bill figure that we show so we're still County is still about 22 to 23% of total?

I think we're about 24, 25% of the total general fund for the county departments. Gotcha, okay. The items that are in blue on the spreadsheet. And then you have the other items such as CRA's debt service are about the same, about 22 to 25%. And then the constitutionals are about 50 to 60, depending on.

And your increase is I heard you say this I think is primarily from increases in leases.

What was the awful list the increase for the constitutional support departmental budgets for the departmental budgets. A majority of it is related to health care premiums. So our health care costs over the last several years have skyrocketed to say the least. So a majority of the increases related to the county departments are the cost for each department, for each employee, for the healthcare costs.

And then just to confirm, on the FEMA money that's still outstanding on prior hurricanes, we're at, what, 15 or 18 million?

So I believe the total that we're anticipating is about 14 million on several sources. So we spent, since 2022, about $18 million on the storms that Megan outlined earlier during the Hurricane Outlook presentation. We have received... about two and a half to three million dollars so far total which leaves us with four so we're thinking that we expect to receive about 14 million or so that's correct thank you okay all right thank you

All right, we'll take a, I'm gonna say a five minute break, but we will definitely be started no later than 11 a.m. on zoning cases, but let's shoot for five to seven minutes.

Thank you.

We're going to move into the zoning cases and then we'll come back to tab 23 and tab 24. All right. So that means that Mr. Fitzgerald will be coming to the podium to help us with the presentations on the public hearings related to zonings.

Thank you, Chairman.

I do need to remind everyone that when we get to a zoning case, if you had any ex parte communications on those cases, I'll just ask you to disclose them.

Just for clarification, Chairman, 23 and 24 are being moved?

Yes, until after the zoning cases.

Okay. For the record, Mike Fitzgerald, I'm the Office of Planning and Zoning Director, presenting six cases today. On the agenda, these items have been advertised in accordance with Florida statutes. And here is today's agenda. I'll turn the meeting back over to the chairman to open the public hearing.

Okay. All right. On tabs one and two on consent, I'm not seeing any cards related to tabs one or two, which would normally mean that we're not going to take those off of consent. Do we have anyone online? Can I just check to see what they're calling in on? No one. No one online. Okay. All right. So do we have a motion on consent?

Move approval. Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That takes care of one and two. And then we move on to tab three.

Thank you, Chairman. Tab 3 is a project entitled Haynes Creek Estates PUD Amendment. The requested action is to amend and restate the Planned Unit Development Ordinance 2023-36 to amend Section D, the architectural design standards. The Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously to recommend approval of this. The location is Goose Creek Road south of Eagle Point Port. Pursuant to ordinance 2023-36, the subject property is approved to be developed as a single family residential subdivision with 145 lots. The ordinance included architectural design standards governing building design elements. Subsequent to approval of the PUD ordinance, the Florida legislature amended Florida statutes to prohibit local governments from regulating specified building design elements in a planned unit development. The applicant now seeks to amend the ordinance to Reduce the minimum square foot of living area from 1,500 square feet to 1,200. Remove the roof pitch minimum requirement. Remove the specific building material and color requirements. Remove the language requiring architectural design standards be placed in the homeowners association declarations. And there's also an update to transportation improvement agreements. And those agreements are highlighted as resurfacing Goose Creek Road from County Road 44 to the development entrance. Right turn lanes installed at eastbound County Road 44 onto Goose Creek and Shelley Drive as allowed pursuant to existing right-of-way. And then extend Eagle Point Court west to the subdivision entrance. That concludes the presentation for this agenda item. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay, first of all, anyone have ex parte communications on this matter?

I have. I've talked to the engineer of records.

Anyone else?

Not on this one.

Okay, all right. Then the next question is, is the applicant here and does the applicant wish to make a presentation?

The applicant is here.

Hey, good morning. Logan Opsall, 215 North Heola Drive. I'll be brief because I appreciate Mike's overview. I know y'all are familiar with this project. It was approved back in 2023, and the amendment being proposed today is to make the PUD tax consistent with the plan that was approved back in 2023. So at the time of PSP original submittals all the way up to approval of the PUD, the site plan showed a minimum of 1200 square feet for the single family homes. The text of the PUD said 1500, and so because the way the ordinance is written, and we need to build this project consistent with the site plan, that's what's coming forth before this board, making the square footage consistent with the approved plan, which is unchanged. When we began this conversation with staff to make sure that, again, the ordinance is consistent with the site plan, that's when we discovered we'd need to come before the board, amend the PUD, and so while we're here, address the design standards that the Florida legislature enacted relating to requirements, or I should say lack thereof, and that is the roof pitch, the architectural design standards, like building materials on the exterior of the home, and the inclusion of those standards in the HOA documents. And thirdly, the transportation improvements, those are already contained in the PUD. additional conversations and discussions with staff and some agreements in those conversations also took into account the resurfacing of of Goose Creek Road and the shoulders. So so those are the three things before the board. We have this this PD that was previously approved with the site plan. So making sure the ordinance text matches that approved site plan. And then while we're here implementing those specific changes as it relates to pitch and design standards and then incorporating our agreements with the staff as it relates to transportation improvements in the ordinance. So happy to answer any questions.

Okay, I'm a little confused about the design standards because as I understand it that that has an actual date per the Florida statutes where you were allowed to make those requirements and you predate that.

That's correct, and that was brought up in Planning Commission. Those items were implemented by ordinance after the legislature created this statute. Both those things happened after the approval of the goose of the Haines Creek PUD. However, the things like roof pitch and exterior are items that were, those are the specifics we're incorporating into this PUD. Yes, it's consistent with the statute, which I think follows in line with your standard PUD language. Your standard PUD language states that any references to statutes code as amended, and so since those statutes were amended, we're amending the PUD as it relates to the square footage. We also want to incorporate those items as well.

So it was approved before the new statute came out. And so you're asking now to go back and do what the new statute says you can do.

That's right, Commissioner, as it relates to the pitch.

And so what did the county get out of this if we do this? Do we get more roads? Do we get, I mean, what do we get? What do the residents get out of this?

Yeah, one of the additions as it relates to transportation was the remilling, resurfacing of Goose Creek Road and the implementation of the shoulder. Those are now also being added into the PUD here.

And what's the estimated cost on that?

Of that road work? Yes.

Chuck, do you have a dollar figure?

About $200,000.

Well, I can tell you I understand why you want to go from $1,500 to $1,200 because it was a typo, let's just say, in your PUD. Your site plan had $1,200. The PUD said $1,500. I can understand it. It's consistent with the site plan before, correct? Correct. you had on the room property all of this all the same what I'm not good with is all your architectural changes I don't know why you'd are you planning on having flat roofs out there oh sir are you planning on putting metal roofing up in case you have a 112 pitch I don't believe the metal roofing is part so I'm I don't like that you're changing the stucco or the hardy board or all that I'm okay with moving it from 1500 to 1200, but everything else I'm not good with.

Well, on that 1500 to 1200, I'm a little confused why your argument is that the site plan controls, but the PUD... says $1,500. Why is it the site plan would control? I would think the PUD would control.

It's correct. The PUD would have come first. So if the site plan was inconsistent, whoever designed the site plan on the developer side did not look and follow the terms of the PUD. So the site plan would not have come before the PUD.

That was my comment. The PUD is always governed because that's what we're always talking about, what's important to put in the PUD on that as well. I mean, we're gonna have public comment. I'll reserve some of my comment. I'm just a little surprised you're coming forward with this kind of change, to be honest.

And just one other clarification, because this is residential, there is no site plan. It would be preliminary plat, construction plans, and final plat, again, all of which would come after the PUD.

All more important for the PUD, yeah.

Now, the ordinance or the statute that dealt with architectural type stuff, I thought the statute specifically said when it went into effect that this shall not impact projects that were approved before a certain date.

That's correct that statute went into effect. I believe it was July 1st of 23 or 24 23 and this project was approved about three weeks before it went into effect in June of 23 so I get that language about you know statutes as amended but

You know, I appreciate you making the argument, but I think the statute was just so clear that it was there, it was already there, and that new statute was not going to affect it.

Yeah, Commissioner, I mean, we're not disputing the dates of those things. I won't be very above board about that. The requested changes, it relates to pitch and exterior. Again, those are maybe consistent with statutes now, but we understand the timing of the projects. As it relates to the square footage, the plan I'm referencing is the PUD plan, which is part of the ordinance, and those have been consistent on our submittals. That was how this project was to be overlaid. I'll note that currently your code doesn't have the minimum square footage requirements, but again, This does require consistency with that PUD plan, and so we caught that typo and brought it to staff's attention, to which we were informed, great, we can fix it through the PUD amendment process, which is why we're here.

Okay, well, we do have speaker cards. I mean, I guess if I was strategizing and I was in your shoes, I would say, what is it that I really want? And if I really wanted that square footage change, I don't think I would start asking to water down the way these units were going to look, considering that they were not wanted by the surrounding community.

So why don't you just change your whole development to 65-foot lot lines?

So I'll save some of that responses because I'm sure we'll speak to that, but the overall impetus of the reason we're here is consistency to the PUD. So thank you for that comment.

All right, we've got two speaker cards, Gary Lipking and then Liz Jensen.

guess we're still morning good morning yes sir this is Gary weeping 160 foremost Island Road Leesburg Florida three four seven eight eight I've been up here before they were dealing with this subdivision again and I appreciate the comments the commissioners have made so far on this a concern we have in the general neighborhood is the type of housing they're going to build there we're concerned about will it affect the value of the homes in the surrounding area That's the number one concern, just based on the roof pitch, the materials that they're using, even the square footage. Are they building cottages or are they building single-family homes? Another concern is with the HOA, are they changing the fencing around the subdivision or the wall that they're going to put up? We're not sure about that. Also, back in the day, they were granted right away to Goose Creek Road, it was through the county, It was land I think belonged to the Water Authority and they were gonna put in a park and a parking lot and turn it into like a nature trail. I don't know what the status of that is, whether they're gonna do that or not because that was the only reason you all gave them the permission to have the right of way on Goose Creek Road, which leads me on to Goose Creek Road. They're gonna wanna pave it and maybe widen it. What about a right turn lane? Has that been approved? My understanding is it hasn't been approved. And we're looking at over 11,000 cars that are traveling up and down Route 441, 44, excuse me. And you know the traffic. In fact, they monitor the traffic, about 11,000 cars going over the Haines Creek Bridge, which is starting to crumble anyway. Those cars will continue on to Eustis. So that is another concern. Another concern I have is in regards to a traffic signal light at the corner of 44 and Harbor Shores Road because they not only have an entrance coming in off of Goose Creek, they also can go to Eagle Point and zigzag up to Harbor Shores and out that way. I was told by the Public Works Department, excuse me, that they were gonna start putting up a traffic signal light on the 8th of June. That was yesterday. I just went by it today. Nothing's happening. So I'd like to know what the status of that is too. Because we're looking at about, what, another 250 to 300 additional cars that'll be going through there. So those are concerns that I have. And I'd like them to address that if they could. Thank you.

Okay, and we'll definitely get you an answer about the signal. A lot of times that has to do when materials come in or don't come in. Liz Jensen.

Good morning, it is morning. Lisette Jensen, District 3. I'm also a neighbor. I would like to point out that we had no idea of this being discussed today if it wasn't for our amazing neighbors that sent out an email. That's the only reason why I'm here today and I had to finagle a bunch of stuff to come and let our voice be heard. I don't know if you guys remember me. I came out in October. My daughter was the one that was in a horrible car accident. 16 year old kid that now can no longer play because of the. Terrible traffic on 44 when she was at a complete stop and this was after a stoplight. She was at a complete stop. Someone came over the curb over Haines Creek. Sorry, I just lost my train of thought. The bridge and smashing her into a work truck. The traffic on 44 is only getting worse. I know we lowered the speed limit right in front of the fire department on Harbor Shores. People do not follow it. It went from 50 to 40 and people just keep going 60. Whenever they're coming from Leesburg, going into Grand Island and into Eustis, they're going 60. There's times that I turn out of harbor shores and I need a step on my gas to make sure that someone that's coming probably on their phone doesn't smash into me. So that is another great concern of ours. I know in October when the whole Golden Tree drive fiasco houses was trying to be implemented, I brought up the infrastructure is not there for the streets. They're not wide enough. If the second entry is going to be through Eagle Court, they have to drive through Golden Tree. They have to drive through harbor shores. Those curves are dangerous. People are constantly crossing over the double yellow lines on the curves because we cannot see. So you have to super be cautious and observe what's happening. I also would like to raise the issue that Mr. Gary brought up about our property values because yes, As my husband retired military, this is going to be our home. And we want to make sure, as I'm sure every single property owner, that our property value is not diminished. We have HOA rules. We abide by an architectural review committee. I do not see why, like as you all brought up, which I think is very fair, why is there quality of what the house is going to look like? Why does it have to change so drastically? And again, to reiterate the whole sizing of the traffic, if they have two entry points, if they do not put a right-hand turn lane coming from Leesburg onto Goose Creek on 44, there is going to be more fatalities than what there is already. And I would hate for another... person whatever their age for their life to be uprooted because we keep building without adding the infrastructure that is needed to protect the citizens of lake county and i would just leave that with you please and thank you so much thank you ray hayden

Good morning. Ray Hayden, 35121 Dennis Road, Leesburg, Florida. The first thing I want to mention is that Haynes Creek Bridge that you're all familiar with. If you've been over it recently at all, you've seen that there's a nice big steel plates that are being put in there, the 25-mile-an-hour speed limit over the bridge and the 30,000-pound limit for vehicles going over that. There's still the, you know, as Ben stated, and as we all know, people who travel that road every day, we need to go – to even with the lower speed limit, the patient's level of the drivers who don't live in the area, they're going through the area, it's a problem for those of us who live there and we have no choice, we have to go that way. The new community over there had increased the width of the road as they have to do in the front of their properties to include a turning lane into those. They need the turning lane into this particular area. We've been talking about it since day one and it's been reiterated here as well. That right turn lane is really a mandatory thing. It's got to be there for them. And the traffic light at the next intersection up really needs to be there as well. and the other concern i have is that second entry i know that it got approved there was that little water treatment thing and that little park deal that little parking area thing that was the thing that triggered that approval to you know kind of really get that to go and happen go through there but that it the second entry way is kind of a convoluted fix to that. So that also really needs to be addressed for ingress and egress of the emergency service personnel that would have to show up there in anything and larger trucks having to make those tight turns. Once you get into that other area that allows you to get down to where this community is going to be and the actual entrance is the main entrance for this community where it's going to have to be, that is going to be very difficult for the large trucks that might have to go through there, fire trucks, whatever, rescue trucks, whatever vehicles, because we've seen in other properties that we own that have tight turns, you know, the trucks do get through, but it's not an easy maneuver to get to, and it just takes that valuable time for the EMS folks to get there so that the people who are actually moving into an area like that that hadn't been built yet is gonna be a potential problem, a safety hazard for the people that are gonna be living there. So in order to help protect the people that haven't even been there yet, we need to really make sure that we take that into account in looking at the approval or amendments of this particular plan. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay, anyone online? No, okay, all right. We'll bring it back to the applicant for their closing comments.

Yeah, thank you all for your comments. A couple things. I understand, Madam Chair, I think you were talking about this traffic light. That's in design at the county stage. The turn lane that's discussed, that's in the PUD ordinance. We actually had construction plans submitted to the county on that front. I know it's tight there, but that is in the ordinance to the extent there's room to do it. Um, I want to clarify on the, on the pitch, the roof pitch, um, the code, your code no longer has the roof pitch requirements. And so I was making reference to, to statutory changes, but the roof pitch adjustment is related to, to match the code as it's written today. Um, but I'm, I'm, I'm following commissioner Smith's and, and the chair's direction on the exterior language. Um, that that's fine to keep within there. I, I, to, to clarify the, the site plan as, as has been approved is, is what we, we caught as it relates to the square footage. The thought was in discussions prior to me being before you today was while we're here we can make these adjustments. So understood we can remove those changes. You have in your packet a red line which is fairly limited. It includes just a couple of things. revisions to the entity and some dates and then a general reference to comply with the zoning code. Removal of the roof pitch. The other one, two, three red lines relating to those design standards, we're comfortable with leaving those in if that's the direction of the board. And then of course the final change, the additional transportation discussions and requirements that we're just gonna go ahead and implement following our discussions and agreements with the county.

Okay. Any questions?

What is the guarantee for the parking, the parking that we had? Is it in this PUD?

This PUD does not include the parking language that we started incorporating, I wanna say in October of last year. The only parking requirements in this one says that all single family units will have a paved two car wide driveway access from garage to street and only one driveway access per lot. So I don't know what their plan is for width of street on this, but if they do the minimum width, then you would have the same issues that you've had with other subdivisions where people could be parking in the street and blocking emergency services. I just don't know what the width of the street is for this subdivision.

14 feet. Can we get an answer to that?

Yeah, does someone know? 14 feet. Do you want us to repeat the question?

width of the internal access roads? It's 14 feet.

Good morning. Chuck Hyatt, 902 North Sinclair Avenue, with half. The internal roads meets the requirements of the county, which is 12 foot of asphalt, or excuse me, 12 foot of drivable surface. So what we've got is we've got 10 foot of asphalt and we've got two feet of drop curb which gives us the 12 feet that's per code. And that's been approved. We're waiting to go for construction. The only thing we're talking right now really is we were trying to get the square footage consistent with the PUD plan that was part of the actual document.

Just to make sure that 12 foot is 12 foot per land total of 24 foot per road.

Yes, I'm sorry. Thank you.

So just to jump in here, and Chuck may not be aware of this, but the problem that we've had in other subdivisions that are doing 12-foot wide roads, they are selling homes where people have multiple drivers. They are on very small lots. I don't know what the average lot size for the subdivision is, 50 foot, I'm assuming. And so what is happening is people are parking in in their driveway, they're using their garages for storage, and then they're parking in the street. And we've had several subdivisions where we cannot get emergency vehicles down the road. We end up in long discussions with HOAs because the HOAs can't or won't enforce garage parking and driveway parking. And Chuck, I don't know if you've worked on any projects that we've dealt with since October, so what we've been doing as a standard is we now have standard parking language that goes in our PUDs that says the road width must be a minimum of 34 feet if they're going to allow on street parking. If they're not gonna allow on street parking and they're gonna have the smaller 12 foot minimum standard, then they have to provide driveways that will accommodate four vehicles either in length or width without impeding the sidewalk or the developer has to include on each block or strip of road overflow parking because parking will not be permitted in the roadway and additionally developers are being required to put up the signage. Under the Florida Fire Prevention Code, the signage for no parking has to be placed every 60 feet on both sides of the road if you're prohibiting parking on both sides of the road. So that is all language that we've been incorporating in our PUD since October.

Could we add to this one since most of the, I'm sure most of the development planning has been done, is that it's one side parking only?

So technically under the fire prevention code, and I don't know if we've got somebody from fire here, I know Tommy's here, but If you have only the 12 foot lane widths, you're not supposed to have parking on either side. Standard fire truck is 11 foot wide, so if you've got parking on one side and you're bringing that truck down there, you could potentially be impeding them being able to get to the equipment or getting to the side of the road where people are parked all up and down the street. It's not out of the realm of possibility, but that's not what the fire prevention code provides for.

So what if they went to 1200 instead of 1500 square feet would could you design something where you could get a wider road? It's an olive branch right now

Again, the 1500, we were just trying to get to the 1200 to be consistent with the actual plan. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the other project, but the other project that was running through at the same time this was, it also has 1200 square feet. That text matched the plan. This case, the text did not match the plan. So really, that's what we're asking.

So just so you're aware that we didn't open this can of worms.

Y'all opened the can of worms.

Absolutely correct. And there are things that have changed that come to us that has been great concern. And one of them is within subdivisions because we have been having to deal with that constantly. So if we can get ahead of that, that would be great.

One thing we can do with that is... put it in the HOA docks, as far as no parking, and have the HOA most likely police it, but it's not a guarantee. It's just something that we can do to help.

You know what else you can do to help? You can widen the roads.

If you widen the roads, then it's solved. So, widening the roads, just to give you, that's a brand new PSP submittal, that's a brand new construction plan approval. We're waiting, we're ready to start construction that we already spent Well, you understand.

Again, we didn't open this can of worms.

I understand.

Yeah, my comments are we did not open the can of worms. That was a very good comment. Again, I'll go back to I'm just going to say this politely. I'm surprised that you're coming back because if you remember the hearing, how contentious it was, there was a lot of people here. There's some here that are. but there was a lot of people, it was a long hearing. And so the issues about what it would look like were very much brought forward. That's why some of the criteria that was in the PUD was in there, because it was reflective of what people were saying were big concerns. The square footage of the homes, the architectural style, And so knowing that that was how contentious that was, that's why I'm a little surprised because that's, to me, and I don't know you saying you personally feel this way, but coming back like this is like, what are your real intentions? I mean, is it to just do something really cheap? Or, I mean, I just don't understand because you said the word very well. You opened up the can of worms now. I mean, so I'm not supportive of it. I wasn't back then, as you know. But the width of the roads, I think, are important. I know that you would do the standard now, and I'm not arguing that, but the other roads that are going into the neighborhood, if you remember, those are the substandard roads. Those are where the Amazon truck can barely get by on the existing pavement, much less if you had cars that were parked out there So that's where, when you bring this neighborhood and that's where it's gonna become a real problem is getting out through that. And that goes to your point, can you help us fix all those roads? Then we might have a different story. So I, you know, I'm just, I wouldn't support the change in any way. I do think that you're on the hook for the right-hand turn lane, so I know, and it sounds like you are, you know that, but that has to be done as well, because that was discussed to mitigate traffic during the hearing, if I'm correct.

Sure, if I can respond, the can of worms was certainly never the way we looked at it. We have an approved PUD plan, and there is a typo in the PUD, and this is the only process to correct that and make sure that the ordinance is consistent.

I understand, sorry not to interrupt you, but to me it's not a typo because the PUD is a governing document. I know that the typo might have been on the plans, but yeah.

It's the other way around. And understand how the ordinance reads. We're all in agreement with that. That's why we're here. The other specific items, like pitches just to match the code, the exterior, we're here, match statute, I understand the direction of the board as it relates to that. Perfectly fair. That's not even the reasoning we came here to begin with. It was just for consistency's sake. And then lastly, while we were here is to include that additional transportation agreement. And so rather than a can of worms, we wanted to come back through the appropriate channels and make consistency with our approved PUD plan. So that's the reasoning, that's the reason we're here. I think it's been heard loud and clear as to the exterior finishes, so those can be disposed of. But those are the two now items and again, they're for consistency and to also include an obligation we told the county that we agreed to and go ahead and incorporate it in.

The Chief Kilberry is here if you would like more information on the road with versus the fire code. The other thing I wanted to point out too, the suggestion that Chuck made where they could put in the homeowner's documents that the HOA would enforce the no parking. There is some case law out there where the HOA cannot enforce parking or no parking on publicly dedicated roads. So I don't think that that's necessarily feasible. The HOA wouldn't have the ability to go in and run tags and make sure who owns the vehicles. They would have the option, though, of doing the overflow parking or the wider, longer driveway, depending on, I don't know how long these, you know, the length of these particular lots, but again, Chief Kilbury's here if you want.

But the county would have, because the roads will be dedicated, right? So the county would have the ability to put signs up that say no parking on the road?

Yes, you could incorporate in here, if you approve any of these changes, you could incorporate that the developer would have to pay for the signs at their expense.

But even if it wasn't incorporated in here, I mean, couldn't that be put within the right of way next to a dedicated road?

we can the issue that we're running into with the signage is that the signage is fairly expensive if you do have to put them every 60 feet it's about i think 315 per sign installed for us to do that we've had discussions with the sheriff's office and typically they're going to want them to be where people can't say i didn't know so we could do that just typically we would want that cost to go back to the developer if the developer is not going to design to have street parking

And it may not look very sightly either.

But I don't want the roads.

Yeah, did I just hear you say publicly dedicated roads? I thought they were keeping the roads.

No, these would be publicly dedicated.

No way. I mean, they're right away.

I mean, I want the HOA to take care of it. We don't need roads in an HOA.

I don't think this is unique to this PUD. It's right-of-way that's going into the neighborhood.

So this PUD does incorporate the language that it would be brought into the MSBU to pay for the roads? It's just a pay.

That doesn't take away your right to put a sign in the right-of-way. Correct.

And again, these are... Previously approved PUD plan. We have approved construction plans. Again, I think Commissioner Parks brings a good point. We just want to make those consistent. So thank you.

I know you're doing your job. So if I can.

So your roads are currently 10 feet asphalt, 2 feet, what is it, Miami curb? to be 24 feet, and we need how much? What do we need?

We need 24.

Well, if I can bring Chief Kilberry up.

Here comes the Chief.

Here comes Chief.

Hey, Commissioners. David Kilberry, Public Safety Director. So Chapter 18 in the Florida Fire Prevention Code requires that a street for fire department required access be 20 feet unobstructed. It requires a 13.6 feet vertical clearance. If there's an exception to that, the AHJ, being the fire marshal, can mandate additional fire protection requirements if there's difficulty in accessing some of that. But 20 feet unobstructed is no parking on the streets. The only way to overcome that is bulb outs or dedicated areas in that. And so no overnight parking, no on-street parking. An Amazon delivery truck is temporary. It's not parking. Offloading furniture, people moving. But unattended vehicles that are just on the street is not allowed. However, in a previous patch at a different larger community in Central Florida, we had to go back and put in no parking signs because the developer did not put those in there. And so it's kind of a lot of the residents like we had no idea we couldn't park here. And, you know, it is an issue that a different county, put it on the developer, as the CO of the buildings started to occur, the no parking signs had to go up. Because you've got journeymen, tradesmen, plumbers, you know, delivery, so it wouldn't be during the time of construction. But at CO, the fire inspector would make sure that those no parking signs were put up on the streets. So it is in code and codified, but the enforcement would be on the sheriff, and without the street signage, They don't enforce the fire code per se, so it's incumbent upon the developer to educate in the documents of what the buyer's getting into as well as the posting on the streets so it doesn't occur.

Okay, thank you.

All right, any, Jeff, did you want, oh, tell us about the light.

with Public Works. I just wanted to add about the traffic signal at Harbor Shores that's under contract. So if they haven't started, they should be. The PO is given. So all that work is occurring. We're just waiting on the material to come in. And if you do choose to move forward, the right turn lanes in It's extremely unlikely that there's right of way sufficient to allow that. So just FYI. And the agreement says if it's available. So if you pass it, you may want to please clarify the language.

Yes. And that's not I'll jump up on that. In my opinion, that's not our problem. They need to make the turn lane happen. It may require the purchase of right-of-way, but that's not on us. That's the mistake, sorry, my little rant here. That's the mistake I think that's happened in the past year after year, is some of these other second order effects, and yeah, there's impact fees that are paid, but there's still an impact in this case, and we would end up paying for the turn lane at some point, meaning coming out of our tax dollars, what you would argue wouldn't be needed if this wasn't approved. So I.

One thing I'll add on the fire department access is that it's incumbent on the design professional to show through auto turn CAD that our largest fire truck can navigate and make the corners. So roundabouts intersections has to have an auto turn design on our largest apparatus. So on tight intersections and right turn lanes and all that, they have to be able to demonstrate the auto turn ability of a dual rear end axled fire truck and things such as that. So I just want to add to that if there's issues with an access to turn.

I got to agree with Commissioner Parks. I believe my approval on his vote was because of that right turn lane.

Yeah. I mean, that's...

Right turn lane's got to go in.

All right, so yeah, so a lot of discussion on the design. I know there's a lot of moving parts here. I've beat the dead horse on the reason we're here, which was for consistency's sake. But heard you, heard the concerns. So I think at this time, we'll just pull this request and we'll continue to work with staff. And I just want to thank them too, because they've been very helpful in working through this process. We'll go ahead and pull back this item. Thank you.

Do we have to take any official action?

If they pull the request, it allows them to come back with more changes, or if we deny it, they have to wait a year?

No, so if they withdraw their request, they will operate under the previously approved PUD that was approved in 23.

Yeah, and I mean, I think that's, Obviously, I mean, I wasn't going to support it, but I will go back again to the regardless, though. I don't see us, and I don't know if we need to clarify it or not, but I don't see it as the county's responsibility for the turn lane. I don't want that. That's not our problem.

I know you guys may argue over it, those of you who supported this to begin with, that your intent was that if they couldn't get the right-of-way, then the project couldn't go through. That's an issue that the county attorney's office and the owner is going to have to work out. That turn lane needs to be there. It's not safe now, and this will make it even worse.

Well, thanks for this discussion. Yeah, we appreciate it.

Okay, moving along then to tab four. Oh, ex parte communications, Commissioner Morse. Commissioner Smith? I had communications with the owner of the property, Mr. Wiggins. I also had discussions with a property owner across the street, Mr. Wilson.

Just the applicant, no other property owners. I got some e-mails too probably that everybody got as well.

Lots of e-mails. Okay, Mike.

Thank you, Chairman. For the record, Mike Fitzgerald, the Office of Planning and Zoning Director. This agenda item is Wiggins County Road 439, LLC. The requested action is a conditional use permit to allow a utility service associated with a well drilling and repair facility and other associated uses within an agricultural district. The Planning and Zoning Board recommended approval on their regular agenda at a vote of six to one. The location is east of County Road 439, south of County Road 44A. The future land use is currently rural with an existing zoning of agriculture. The proposed concept plan depicts two phases of development. Phase one includes a proposed 9,400 square foot warehouse and office and a 3,900 square foot barn for storage. Phase two is a 9,800 square foot flex space for storage and agricultural support services, including the sale and repair of electrical power equipment in case of emergency. This is considered an essential utility service for rural areas. The applicant is proposing to utilize existing tree lines on the property as a buffer. The buildings will be set back over 100 feet from the property lines. The applicant will be utilizing private well and septic for the subject property, and the proposed request is not anticipated to adversely affect transportation levels of service in the area. It's important to note that staff has received some correspondence both in opposition and in support of this, and I believe the support emails totaled 13. With that said, I believe the applicant is here to address the board.

This is in the BMAP, right? So he'd have to be DWTS?

This is in Middle St. John's BMAP, correct, sir.

okay the applicant good morning i'm dan langley with fishback dominic representing the applicant and also the intended end user of this property wiggins brothers well drilling Before you as an application that the staff has recommended approval your Planning and Zoning Board voted six to one to recommend approval the conditional use permit meets all the criteria for approval under your code your land development code is consistent with the comprehensive plan and It's important to know that this business has been around since 1939. It's a family owned business and it will continue to survive as a family owned business. Mr. Greg Wiggins is here with me and he's brought his sons and his wife who are all associated with this business. They're a great community partner and they're well known for what they do. uh... this is not as some of the neighbors are i think there were two that spoke or one to spoke to playing and zoning board hearing claimed that this was an industrial use this is not an industrial use this is an agricultural support use it's a utility support use there is no manufacturing processing this is a of service business this is a low intensity use with the minimus traffic, very low employee count. This is not some big box or retail center. And we have, Mr. Wiggins will explain more about his business in a minute. The buildings are beautiful. The architecture is exquisite and fits the role character. The buildings are set back on County Road 439, I believe over 240 feet from the road. There's adequate landscaping, natural landscaping, that will buffer the neighbors and create a beautiful environment. And there's a lot of natural vegetation there already. I will now turn it over to Mr. Wiggins to explain his business and his intended use. Again, this is consistent with the comprehensive plan, and it is vital that businesses like this go into rural areas to support your ag community. Thank you.

Hello.

My name is Greg Wiggins, president of Wiggins Brothers Well Drilling. I am the third generation of our family-owned business. My sons, Taylor Clayton and Marshall, are the fourth and they're here. The company was founded in 1939 by my grandfather and great uncle, providing the water, well and pump service needs for the agriculture and rural residential market. Today we still serve the agricultural market, mostly comprised of plant nurseries, sod farms, fresh fruit, vegetable, cattle and horse farms. There is still a significant amount of Lake County's rural population to get their water from private wells. The services we provide are essential and critical to these rural communities. When a rural residential home on a private well is not functioning, not only is the family out of water, they have cows, they got dogs, horses, goats, all that stuff too. more than people uptown, obviously. When an agricultural plant nursery has a well not functioning, they could lose the entire crop of plants if the water is not restored quickly. Our business has been located at the corner of 46 and Raleigh Road Sorrento for over 42 years. Future plans for that area are slated for high intensity growth with the city of Mount Door expanding over that area. um you know the reason why we need to move is i knew since 2020-21 that staying there was not really in our cards um we've enjoyed staying there 42 years i mean things like if you've been down 453 429 to 453 you see all of that apopka it's coming it's coming the city of apopka has run borderlines all down plymouth sorrento road on Ditch Road, all these developments and apartment complexes back there. They started doing that about 10 years ago. I'm going, what are they running these water lines out here in the middle of nowhere? Well, there was a reason. So, you know, that's moving towards us. You got Mount Dora moving towards us. Again, we moved there in 84. 46 and Round Lake was a stop sign. I mean, there were, we had a, residential house beside us, which we own now, we call it the rental house, and another house to the left. And there was farms, you know, similar to what we're talking about moving to. And knowing we had to move, what was important in looking at the future of our company, 87 years, I mean, you gotta look forward. You can't just let things happen and react to those. That's why certain companies do go out of business, because they don't plan. I spent three years looking for property when I knew it was time. And so 44, four 39, 44, a four 37 was kind of the area I was thought would be appropriate. It's still in the county. Again, the one thing I'm proud of, we are a Lake County, currently a Lake County unincorporated business. We are Lake County unincorporated residents. I want to remain a Lake County. I incorporated business. I don't want to be a city mountain door business or to varies or use this. Um, but anyway, we, we, we felt moving north to this location, put us in the state and the central location of our, our customers. Um, we just, a lot of agriculture customers out there, rural, uh, residential. And when Brown Lake gets extended eventually, we can still get back to some of those customers that are south. 439, it's not like we went down Calhoun Road and tried to put it down a side road or something like that. 439 is a substantial road. OK. Like Dan said, we have agriculture exemption on the property now. We did remove some trees, but that's under the agriculture exemption. Most of the trees in there were spindly pines after the orange grove froze out, so there really wasn't a lot of great trees in there. We left a lot of the good trees. We left the trees in the front. We left the trees on the side and left some of the interior trees that were worth saving We're building a beautiful building back there. We're going through extra expense to build a building that's attractive. That was important to us. Off the road, and if you'll see in some pictures that Cherie's going to show, we're also going to do a four-board fence around the property. We're not going to do chain-link fence, you know, around the, to try to make it look, you know, fit the rural lifestyle out there. In our cattle, we'll be able to graze all of those areas around the property, even in front of the business that's not the improved area of the business. And I think that's it.

Recording in progress.

Thank you.

Let me get this right here.

Hello, my name's Clayton Wiggins. I'm part of the fourth generation, need a longer microphone here, part of the fourth generation of Wiggins Brothers Whale Drilling along with my brothers Taylor and Marshall. The three of us graduated from Eustis High School and grew up showing pigs in the Lake County Fair. We are lifelong residents of Lake County and rural Lake County and our business proudly serves rural Lake County. We feel like this site is an ideal location for our business as it provides us a closer commute and is central to the area that we serve. As Christians, we prayed a lot about our search for this new home and asked God to show us where he wants us to be. And we believe that he brought us to this property just as he's directed our course all throughout our company's history. i wanted to address a specific concern that was raised in the planning and zoning meeting uh... it was what what if we sell the property uh... what would a new owner do here given this what we're wanting to do uh... i was not at that meeting to address that question Um, so I'm sure they looked at my 64 year old dad with gray hair and thought, you know, you're pretty close to retirement age, you know, what, what, you know, what could this be in a few years? Um, and while that's a legitimate question, you know, given those circumstances, um, and none of us can guarantee what the future holds, I'm here to say confidently, we have no intention of moving from this property. Um, I'm 34, Taylor's 36, Marshall's 25. We have no plans on leaving this business. We plan to continue in this company just the way my father, my grandfather, my great grandfather did. We're in this for the long haul. Our company's 87 years old and we've been in our current location, as they said, for 42 of those years. So what happens if we sell? You know, that's that's not going to happen. You know, we're we're we're here for the long haul. We're not the kind of business that jumps around from place to place and obviously our track record proves that. There's not many businesses in Lake County that make it to the fourth generation. We're proud of our history, but we're also excited about the future and the opportunities that this new location will provide. Right now we're a little cramped. This new bigger building would give us the ability to stock more parts and better serve our community. As residents of rural Lake County, we know that the people here are quite self-sufficient, but there are two things they need, power and water, even in a rural setting, especially in a rural setting. Our company provides these essential services, and we are pretty darn good at it, if I do say so myself. We get along well with our neighbors, as evident by all our support, and we believe we'll be a valuable addition to the area. Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Sheree Lind with LPG Urban and Regional Planners, 2050 Classique Drive, Tavares, Florida. I'm going to keep my presentation brief. I think Mr. Wiggins and his family have outlined their hearts and what their intentions are. I think the CUP itself protects the county Also, because we all understand that if you do not abide by the conditions of the CUP, it can be revoked. We do meet the comp plan and the LDRs in regards to the use and the support uses. A traffic impact analysis was done and submitted in your background data. We are considered a de minimis impact. An environmental assessment was also conducted on the site. There are no wetlands, we're not in a 100 year flood zone, and there were no protected species. I believe, I'm gonna show some photos of what they envision the site to look like and where their hearts are. Ah, okay, I'm sorry. You can tell I don't do this all the time. This is just an overview of how they envision the site being developed. I would like to point out that the entire site is 20 acres. The CUP area is 10.92 acres. meet all the impervious surface ratios. We're below the thresholds that are allowed. We're also below the floor area ratios. We will provide the 35% open spaces required, but technically we provide even more open space than that. As you can see, this is the proposed office and attached warehouse for the well drilling services. They will fence the entire site and it's the rail fencing in keeping with the rural atmosphere. We also understand that should the conditional use permit be approved, we still have to go through site plan approval through Lake County and meet all the standards within the CUP and the land development regulations, including architectural standards. This shows, um, a phase, what phase one's going to look like. And, um, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have in regards to consistency and in regards to, um, any other questions you may have, but as far as need, I would like to point out in, in the application support documents submitted to the county. The 2025 Florida estimates of population by the Bureau of Economic and Bureau of Business Research indicates 445,881 residents with approximately 200,867 residents within unincorporated Lake County. which is approximately 45% of the population within Lake County, within the rural areas. And water is an essential service for each property owner, regardless if it's the rural residential homeowner or the ornamental nursery or crop production. And based on a 2021 report put out by UFIFAS, the agricultural industry, which includes approximately 150,000 acres that are in agricultural production, which would include fruit growing, veggies, beef, ornamental, horticulture industry, brings in approximately $481.49 million annually. And that does not include the other associated food manufacturing process related to the agricultural. So there is a severe economic impact if water is not available during and after storms. And freezes, we have another client, unfortunately, that has to get out of the citrus industry again based on the last freeze. And so we all know how important our ag industry is to us and how important and essential water is. So thank you.

OK. Any other presentation?

That's it for the applicant. I'd like to reserve time and ask that the board approve the CUP. Thank you.

OK, thank you. All right, then we have some cards. I've got, let's see, Alex Mascovicius.

Hello.

MY NAME IS ALEX. I LIVE A THOUSAND FEET FROM THIS PROPERTY. IT'S A COMMERCIAL BUSINESS HEADQUARTERS. IF YOU CALL THEM FOR SERVICE OR GO TO PAY A BILL, WANT TO STOP IN FOR A WELL PUMP SWITCH, IT'S ALL HERE. THE CURRENT LOCATION ON 46 IN LAKE COUNTY IS ALREADY ZONED COMMERCIAL WITH TWO ACRES OF VACANT LAND READY FOR EXPANSION. DURING THE ZONING MEETING, THE CLAIM WAS MOUNT DORING IS ENCROACHING ON THEM, BUT NOBODY IS PUSHING THEM OUT. MOUNT DORA ISN'T STOPPING WELL DRILLING. THEY ARE CURRENT CUSTOMERS. THEY WANT TO MOVE FIVE MILES FROM THEIR CURRENT LOCATION AND WITHIN THAT THERE ARE DOZENS OF ALREADY ZONED COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES NEAR THIS SITE INCLUDING 25 ACRES OF COMMERCIALLY ZONED PROPERTY ON 44A LESS THAN A MILE FROM THIS PROPOSAL. INSTEAD THEY WANT TO MOVE THEIR HEADQUARTERS INTO THE MIDDLE OF OUR RESIDENTIAL AREA. THIRTEEN RESIDENTIAL HOMES BORDER THIS PROPERTY, HOMES THAT WERE PURCHASED TO LIVE THE RURAL LIFESTYLE LAKE COUNTY OFFERS, RUNNING HOBBY FARMS AND TRAINING HORSES. I HAVE NO DOUBT THAT IF THE 20-ACRE PROPERTY NEXT TO ONE OF THE WIGGINS FAMILY MEMBERS WAS BEING TURNED INTO A COMMERCIAL VENGER, THEY WOULD BE THE ONES HERE OPPOSING IT. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE FEDEX DELIVERING, BUT LARGE COMMERCIAL VEHICLES. MANY ROAD FATALITIES IN THIS EXACT LOCATION HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED. MOST RECENTLY, WITHIN A YEAR, A FLAT-BED SEMI KILLED SOMEBODY AT THAT INTERSECTION. The claim that they're serving our area is why they need to turn this property into a commercial lot, but their response time for a well pump failure isn't measured in seconds. They're not the fire department. I have spoken with countless neighbors in my area and nearly everyone was horrified to hear that a business is gonna be moving in to our residential neighborhood. Most are unable to attend today because of their working to support their families. I know that they've emailed and sent in comic cards to each of you. There's little to no restriction on the current proposal when it comes to site use. There's nothing stopping it from the property being sold immediately after the green light is given. No one is questioning the values of the Wiggins family. We're trying to protect our future Lake County. I spoke with Mr. Wiggins after the meeting. We talked about how private equity can change things. They can easily, I know nobody wants to sell. They say no one wants to sell until somebody hands you a 30, $40 million check. You never know. They have many options. They can expand at their current location, purchase an already existing commercial property, or they can run their business on their 30 acre residential property. So when the employees are working at night, flood of security lights, deliveries of semis coming in and out of the property, they'll understand why we don't want it in our backyard. This is a residential area and we'd like to keep it the way it is, residential. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, next card is Tim Wilson. And then after Tim is Pamela Schneider.

Wrapping up from sitting for four hours.

Yeah. Tim Wilson. I'm at two one three four zero County road 44. I'm directly west of the proposed development. And, um, I've lived there for 44 years. Never seen anyone clear 10 acres of heavily wooded property and then come back and apply for a conditional use permit to put a business after the fact. It doesn't make sense. If Planning and Zoning approves this, they obviously don't live near there and they can see that this doesn't fit. I see the architectural renderings. Nothing around me looks like that and it's not a business for sure The plan is definitely not consistent with other properties in the area and one thing I saw in the plan was It allowed for two 35-foot high buildings that's two three-story buildings and Nothing in that area looks like two, three story buildings. So I don't know what they were thinking when they put that in the plan. It sets a bad precedent for further commercial development at that intersection. I mean, next year or the year after a guy comes in and he says he wants to put a feed store in there and it's great for agriculture Are we gonna say, okay, we can't deny him. We allow this guy to put his at that intersection and it's for agriculture. Is that word the key word, agriculture? If you just say agriculture anywhere in this state, it seems to get people ticking in their favor. So I think that this development adversely impacts my property. Mine's agricultural residential. I've lived there on 10 acres for 44 years. I've never come to the county to ask if I could put a subdivision in there. I put one house in there. I was a builder for years. I could have done that, but I didn't do that. I wanted to maintain an agricultural residential feel just like everybody around me. People next to me, I ask them, what are you doing with your property? Oh, we're not gonna sell. We want things to stay the way they are. People have 10 acres behind me, 15 acres behind me. Nobody wants a business at that intersection. And if you set a precedent that allows three other corners to become commercial, That's what you get. You get a little commercial development right there at the corner of 439 and 44A. Why doesn't this person put his new business at 150 acres he owns down the road by two miles? Why here? Why doesn't he do that? No one would have a problem with that. Hey, this looks great on paper. But it doesn't fit. I hope you vote against it. I'm against it.

All right, Pamela Snyder.

Hello. So I own the property at 36201 County Road 439 in Eustis, and our property is just north of the intersection between 439 and 44A. I bought the property 10 years ago and made a significant capital investment to improve the property as an equestrian facility. It's currently operated as an equestrian facility under the name of Brian Dressage. I'm here in support of the Wiggins application And a lot of my reasons are same thing as in the analysis, so I won't belabor the point. I would just point out that County Road 439, this corridor is already a mixed use area. It's not just residential. In addition to residential properties, the corridor includes hobby horse farms, as people have said, equestrian facilities, riding stables, a special events and wedding venue, a sawmill, commercial farming activity, and I don't know what's going on at this property, but there appears to be some kind of dump trailer storage operation going on on 439. So there's a lot in that area. I would also reemphasize that rural residents rely on wells for water, particularly if you have and are responsible for livestock. We have a barn full of horses, We can't use bottled water if the well doesn't work, and we have personal experience that Wiggins Well Drilling responds quickly to provide well repair services, and having them in our neighborhood, we believe, would be an asset. Others have noted that it's a four generation family business. I would just note that their current operation on State Route 46 is well maintained. And I fully expect that any operation on county road four 39 would be maintained at the same standard that they've demonstrated over generations in this county. And if there's any potential concerns regarding hours of operation, lighting or noise levels, those could easily be addressed in the conditional use permit. So in summary, I was, I would believe as of. somebody who is responsible for a business operating in that area, an agricultural business, that having Wiggins there would be a net benefit and would not distract or detract from the existing mixed-use rural character of the area. Thank you.

All right, and Cindy Newton.

Good afternoon. Cindy Newton, District 4. And I understand the importance of well-driven services. I've been a customer with Wiggins for about 30 years. I think every one of these gentlemen have been to my house. Unfortunately, we do have to look at the future of the language of the cup. If we're dealing with some cups 20, 30, 40 years down the road, I'd like to see some of this tightened. First of all, dark sky lighting standards should be required. The rural community should not be subjected to excessive commercial lighting that impacts neighboring properties, wildlife, and the natural nighttime environment. Any lighting should be fully shielded, low intensity, and limited to what is absolutely necessary for safety and security. And second, although the applicant has stated that the electrical and plumbing work is currently handled through outside recommended companies, the proposed language appears broad enough to allow future expansion into additional utility-related services. The CUP should clearly prohibit storefronts, retail sales areas, service counters, or other customer-facing commercial operations on site. This is especially important with the flex space since they are proposing to look at other options for that space. Conditional use permit should not create loopholes for incremental commercial expansion in any agricultural area. The CUP should also include explicit language strictly limiting the property to well drilling and directly associated operational functions with those no retail sales, no contractual storefronts or commercial showroom activity and no expansion into unrelated utility or service businesses without returning to a new public hearing for approval process. Agricultural zoning does exist for a reason and clear conditions and enforceable limitations are essential to protect the surrounding properties that preserve this royal character of the area. So thank you.

Anyone online? No. Okay. All right. So we'll bring it back to the applicant.

Appreciate the comments from everyone. You all did receive a number of letters in support of people who couldn't make it today. I wanted to address a couple of the comments. First of all, a 35-foot building height is consistent with residential zoning, so it's not out of character at all. It would be allowed 35 feet. It's not a huge height for a building. And it is set back from the road tremendously, over 240 feet, so at the road, it's not gonna even look that tall. As you get further away from a building, it looks smaller, or not as high. As far as dark skies, that's actually already in the CUP, Section E, Waikiva, the Cali Rural Protection Area. There's a provision that says this will include development meeting dark skies elimination regulations. So it's already in the CUP. There's no intention to have some huge retail center here. Most of the activity occurs off-site, and so again, that's not the way this is operated, and it's not a commercial use. I think the two gentlemen who spoke, their properties are well buffered naturally from this property, so it's not gonna be an impact visually to them. One lives across the intersection, and there's a tremendous amount of tree cover, and the other person that spoke may live across the street, but their driveway is not on the road that fronts this subject property. appears their access point goes the other direction. Okay, sorry if I misrepresented that. However, the house is in a position and there's a lot of vegetation, so it's not gonna be a visual issue.

Sorry, you can't blurt out because we have to get everything recorded and you have to be at a microphone.

This is gonna fit in with the role character of the community. It is not out of character all the way these buildings are gonna be designed and implemented and where they're gonna be located on the property with all this natural buffering. tremendous setbacks remember this is a 20 acre property the development envelope is small comparison to the acreage there's going to be cattle still there's cattle now there's going to be cattle remaining so there's going to be an ag use on the property conjunction with this ag support use so again we're here to try to answer any questions you may have again we ask that you approve the CUP as recommended by staff, as recommended by your planning zoning board. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. And just a couple observations I wanted to make since it is in my district. Just a few things. One, we spent a lot of time on this board trying to come up with ways to protect and preserve and promote rural land uses. So I think the last thing that we want to do is interject commercial uses into rural communities. The distinction here I see is the support nature. No different than a power company no different than any utility, essential utility provider. So that kind of jumped out at me right off the bat, that we can't have rural uses and we can't promote farming if we don't have services like well services. So that jumped out at me. Another thing that jumped out at me is that if you go around the corner and take 44A East, you're gonna come to a marijuana growing and production facility that's zoned ag, and it's in the rural land use, and it's in the Weki River. It's in the rural protection area. Those uses are intense. Somebody today could do that on any of these properties up and down 439. Any of the properties along 44A. Those are intense uses. We didn't create that. I mean, that is a function of something that came out of the state legislature. Just like so many ag uses today, we don't have a say over setbacks. We don't have a say over how they're... developed because we've been preempted on Things like that. So I guess when I look at it and I think yes, I understand 100% I understand the property owners and the Residences that are nearby that don't want something to change the reality is that it can change and it can be an AG use that changes it and it can change it pretty drastically and it will feel like an industrial use this on the other hand is looks more like a farm use. They graze cattle around the property, around their buildings, and the buildings are used for the purpose of providing a service that directly supports rural uses. So somebody that doesn't want it will say that what I'm saying is a rationalization. But I'm looking at like what are the alternatives and what could happen versus this actually creating a use that's there. You know what it is and you know what the purpose is. The key is making sure that the ordinance itself doesn't open up the door for uses that are commercial in nature so that we're not opening the door for things that really don't belong there. So that's kind of where I'm coming from. I think the way they've designed it, the way they're using an agricultural architecture, the fact that they're putting board fences up so they can graze cattle, they're trying to fit into that rural feel and they're trying to be good neighbors in that respect. They could do a lot of other things with it that wouldn't be being good neighbors, and we've already seen that all along. We've seen that on 44A. We've seen it on 439. We know what that looks like, and we have no control over it. This you have control over, and the conditional use permit gives... that level of control. So I think in the end run, it actually creates a better scenario. As long as it's used for that purpose, I think that's the key, is the buildings will be there, let's just say something does happen along the way and the Wiggins family decides to sell off the property. If somebody wants to use it for a different use, this is what the use says. It's a big risk on their part because it says you have to use it for this purpose, you can't use it for something else. So, you know, from their standpoint, I would imagine what would probably happen is probably an ag use would go, you know, that would be the alternative would be an ag use later. But for it to turn commercial, that's not allowed by this ordinance. So, I mean, that's kind of how my analysis looks. I want to just put that out there.

Yeah, that's 100% correct. Once we do this conditional use permit, if you want to make any changes, you've got to come back to the board for any changes whatsoever. So it is a specific purpose that I agree with. The only thing that I'm kind of wondering is, I'm sorry, I forgot what your name was. Clayton, Clayton, you said your dad was 65 and fixing to retire?

Four. I think he said four. He looks like he is.

Because my dad's 97 and he's not retired. So hang in there.

Wonderful.

Yeah, I think that my questions were around the same thing. CUP, so if somebody comes in and that's a good question, what happens if they sell? Well, they'll have to apply for an amendment to the CUP if it doesn't match, yeah, exactly.

Trucks, I am interested in trucks. How often do trucks come to bring items, to bring supplies, or is it semi-trucks, and is it a lot often?

That's a good question. That's one of the beauties of, you know, the bill at current office we have is 4,000 square feet, including the office, so it's not real big. So this will be larger, obviously, and one of the beauties of that will be able to store more. And that's important in the way we'd like, like when we had, uh, the COVID thing, you know, supply chain and borders important. So we want to be able to stop more. So when we order, we order larger amounts rather than a half a truck. So when a truck comes out, it's full of, and these are box trucks or flatbed trucks, straight trucks, not semis, uh, from local suppliers. So on the supply side, that's what comes a couple of times, usually two or three times a week we might have a delivery. We're big on safety when it comes to that. If we get a driver from a, we have a zero tolerance policy with this. If we have a driver from one of our suppliers and he comes in faster, he's on a forklift, he's not coming back there. We take that very seriously. We have only two or three main suppliers. They come in this flat bag or box trucks deliver every once in a while. We may get an over the road delivery. It's not very often, probably three or four times a year. We might get something that comes in like that. Our trucks are like our service truck that like if we went out at night, like a service call, somebody called at eight 30 and one of the guys went and do a call. Where's that picture? How do you put this down?

Slide it up to where the X is. Put it over the X.

That's a 550 service truck that You know, they would pull up in their truck and that's what we, we use. Of course we have a drill rig is larger than that, but that goes out. The service trucks, what comes in and out more, but they usually leave in the morning and come out. They might come back to the shop once or twice a day. Uh, a lot of times they're gone all day and don't come back until till later. But that's the size of the trucks. Was there any other?

Would you ordinarily be doing business in the evening as far as, you know, if there's an emergency, does somebody have to come get the truck and leave or they just get supplies and then they go? How often does that happen?

You know, we don't want to go out there any more than anybody as far as, you know, but our job is, we have a serious occupation. And, you know, if a horse farm calls at 830 at night, we're going to go. So, you know, it's usually one of the guys, unless it's a larger pump, then maybe two of my sons would go and get a truck and go. But they're usually there for an hour or two and come back and put the truck up. And as far as the lighting thing, our plan is to really have, it's a low crime area. We're not planning on running outside lights. We really, my thought was to have lights, but they're motion sense lights. So if they pulled up, or let's say a burglar pulled up, the light's gonna pop on, right? But they could pull up, the light would pop on, they could get the truck, leave, and it would automatically turn off, let's say we set it for 15 minutes, and it would shut down, back to dark.

What about retail sales? Do y'all do any of that?

Our retail sales are so incidental, it's crazy. We're not into retail sales. I got a picture. I came up some in PNZ with some people. That's the front of our business right now. I just took that picture, and you see it says Wiggins Brothers Well Drilling, well drilling and pump repair. It doesn't say come get parts. It doesn't say we have a sale this week. People come, actually even our customers, the only customers we usually get to the business are the old school person that likes to pay the bill. They want to see the older person that wants to see their check and see the paid receipt. But most people just pay credit card or by mail. You get a few people come in, but we're not, you know, if you go by our business, you don't see, I don't think anybody here can say that they went by Wiggins Well Drilling and seen a wad of traffic out.

so i i'm thinking um knowing a little bit about your business that you would have less traffic at your business at night than a family with a teenager absolutely one of them going to that's a good point one of them one of my sons going to get a truck would be exactly would be no different than a residence pulling up there to the house for 20 minutes and the truck leaving that's

It's not like we leave there with sirens or there's something that's gonna pop off there. As far as retail, like at the business, we don't have a counter up there or things in the front to sell things. We're a service business. However, I could have a situation where, I've had situations where somebody, we were really busy and it was a nursery man and their tank messed up and they wanted a tank and they had a guy that knew how to put it on. It was able to get them in water. We were able to help them by getting the tank. That's the incidental type thing I'm talking about.

Okay, I'm good. Any other questions?

Oh, but the hours, that was something that You know, Sheree had asked me, what are your business hours? And I said 8 to 5, Monday through Friday. And I didn't say that to be deceiving. That is the time that my secretary's there. We get deliveries. A customer can come if they wanted to. But you know, we do, we're like a utility. I mean, we could get called Christmas Day. I mean, we get calls, we don't have to, you know, we have to go if it, you know, the duty calls. So planning and zoning, I think, put in some language of except for emergency general hours I mean, I would prefer it to be similar to other utilities in that there are no operating hours. We don't want to be over there. We're not over there doing anything other than if we need to go there to service someone and leave. So I don't know how y'all feel about that.

Well, I mean, I would hate like it become an issue that if you come and go sometimes at night to grab something, then that becomes an argument. Well, you're outside the eight to five. I mean, is there a way to word that? So it's like predominantly eight to five with the understanding that there will be times when it's used without it being, quote, emergency.

Like I mentioned, you know, just being completely upfront, you know, we may have a safety class after after. where we have a product person come do a safety class with the guys we do that from time to time or i might invite one of the things i'd envision i might be able to invite some of my nursery accounts the ag accounts and bring one of the water management district officials in to be able to talk about consumptive use permits and maybe that kind of thing that we might I might have them out I'm talking a couple times a year I'm not talking about every week or anything like that but I wouldn't want to be doing something like that and I feel like I'm in violation or Alex didn't like it he's gonna be calling hey I've seen a bunch of different vehicles over there I'm not sure I'm not doing a wedding I'm not playing loud music or anything like that we're just trying to is it you

Do you have any suggestions on how that might be worded?

Well, I think we need to keep the eight to five Monday through Friday with emergency services allowable.

Do you have any issues with them having people over to do safety training or have meetings and stuff like that? Or is that just understood that that's something that you do on your you could do on your property?

It's a regular business, so he's got to run it like a business with that.

The reason why I bring up I didn't want to get in a situation where somebody that didn't like this calls code enforcement and we get into that, you know, trying to be, you know, and I'm not really trying to be being honest about what we, what we do.

And I can appreciate that. I'm wondering if you just inserted the word emergency service calls.

Yeah, so we can change it to emergency service calls. We can allow training and incidental use. If the bigger concern is deliveries, I'm assuming your deliveries probably don't come after 5 o'clock, so maybe the delivery hours are 8 to 5. That's it.

I think make sure your delivery is stuck in that time frame.

Yeah, there's only maybe a couple. I have had maybe a. couple times a year where a guy calls and says I have you know and he might come at 5 can you wait for me at 525 you know but that's really rare really rare yeah that seems to be I think an important part of it that you're not getting things coming in at crazy hours and you want to do that

So you want to change it to instead of general hours of 8 to 5, delivery hours of 8 to 5, Monday through Friday. You could then get rid of the excluding times of necessary emergency operations, or you could leave that as a separate sentence with other incidental uses, including training, employee meetings, whatever.

It sounds like the only issue is just deliveries and any, the small, tiny bit amount of retail that they do. So it would just be retail and build liveries would be dated five, right?

But I wouldn't want to say, you don't say retail because we say retail now. You've opened the door for retail. You have to like make sure that, I just don't think you should do that because that then creates that ambiguity or at least it's expressed. It actually says retail.

Okay, I can see that.

We'll see if their lawyer has something to offer.

Yeah, I think the intent of the language, by the way, originally was consistent with what Mr. Wiggins is telling you how he operates, because it talks about general hours. Those are generally when the office is open. I do appreciate the language. I think we can expand it to say, I'm doing this on the fly, too, and Melanie and I can work together on this. General hours of... 8 a.m. To 5 p.m. Monday through Friday Excluding necessary emergency service calls and operations and On-site after-hours pickups for customer service calls. And then maybe add another sentence that addresses the concern about deliveries. Deliveries should generally be consistent with the 8 to 5 PM Monday through Friday time frame.

Got that, Melanie?

Right, so what we could do is just combine that into the first sentence that'll say general office hours and deliveries between the hours of eight to five, Monday through Friday, and then the, I'm fine with the emergency service calls and or operations or incidental training or, other Employee related types of things in the evening.

We can come up with something more legal It's along the lines of like incidental as opposed to something that's expected to be a regular thing So if it were to be a regular thing, that would be problematic That's where you have to you got a tie The word is incidental to the business.

So in other words, you're not going to go off and have parties and stuff related. I

Yeah, you're not gonna turn it into a training facility. You're going to sometimes have some training. To meet with them as a place where they could have that discussion.

And we know generally businesses, when they have business hours, that the owner of the business is there before business hours to open up the business, the janitors there after hours, cleaning. Those are all incidental things that happen outside of business hours. Mr. Wiggins is just trying to clarify that those sort of things that normal businesses do outside of business hours on site are not intended to be prohibited. And we just wanted to get that on the record. Thank you.

Okay.

You all are staring at me. We're not looking at you. Like standing over me when I'm typing. So we could, again, we could do general office and delivery hours eight to five after our emergency calls or operations permitted, employee training or educational seminars permitted as an incidental use.

Okay, and then you meant to say Monday through Friday? Yes. Okay. All right. Now it's back to the board.

And I can't hear you. Okay, well, you're supportive, but you're the next closest district, so do you want to?

Move to approve.

I'll second that, obviously with the changes that Melanie just wrote out. Correct. Okay.

Okay. All right. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. We have another. We have two more. We have five, which is Jones Property, Whitney Road. And then we also have Jones. Well, we have five and six that are Jones Property, Whitney Road.

Ex parte. Aye.

Ex parte. Commissioner Morris.

I had an email from Mr. Jones that I answered.

All right, anybody else?

I have no, no, nothing else.

Mike, do we have anybody not that was opposed to this?

Not that I recall, no.

Trying to figure out why it wasn't on consent.

I think there might have been one email sent, one opposition.

We have no cards on it, do we? Nope.

I don't have any cards. Nope. Nope.

I mean, I'm...

I must have got... All right, Cindy says she's got a card. Oh, wait, there's four.

This is pretty straightforward.

All right, if Cindy says she put a card in, we're going to believe Cindy that she put a card in. Cindy, do you want to come up and tell us what your issues are?

For the record, Cindy Newton, District 4. I only have one.

Question.

This is the map that was in the material. And it looks like there's only one house here. But when you look at the county map, there appears to be two. And when you zoom in, It looks like two separate residents. So with changing this to R1 zoning, are they, besides the one extra house, are they looking at putting more homes on here with the zoning change? Thank you.

All right. Mike, if you can at least address, can you help us address that question?

The subject parcel is highlighted here in the aerial. The aerial that we had on file shows that there was one home. This illustrates the original lot split parcel A and B. They were at one time A single parcel and then the rezoning and the and the request for an additional parcel is running concurrently here this will show a potential sketch of what the new parcel will look like in front of the residential home and If the board does approve the additional lot split, the applicant will have to come back for a variance request to have the 50 foot wide road frontage. The minimum requirement is 100 feet. So there will be a next step if the additional lot split is approved. The additional home that is shown on the aerial that Ms. Newton has, we believe is an ADU.

Right there before the lot split, right? The original lot split?

They're down here at the bottom. Well, if she wants to bring her map back up, it looks like she has two homes located on 111, 1315.

So the property appraiser's office shows a home built in 2022 with a total living area of about 5,000 square feet. And then there is a secondary residential structure built in 2024 at about 2,700 square feet. So it's possible that it is an ADU that's showing, but this area just predated the construction.

All right. So the question about being able to divide more, I don't see how you could ever divide more. There wouldn't be any place to divide more. Could you? The blue line is your proposed.

This is an illustration of the proposed lot.

I mean, that's what they're proposing right there. So when she, I guess when Cindy asked, she said more than the two or more than like what they're asking for, which is... The additional one, and we're under the impression that the two is a primary and an ADU. And they still have to come back for the 50 foot wide.

They still have to request a variance for that road frontage, yes ma'am.

Okay. And you talked to Mr. Jones?

Yes.

Can you give us any insight?

I'd like him to come up, if you don't mind. He can explain what's on his property now.

So while he's coming up, the building permit that was issued in 23 is for an ADU total area of 4430 square feet.

Okay. All right, Mr. Jones, welcome. If you could state your name for the record.

Randy Jones, 32600 Whitney Road, Leesburg. Currently, here's my primary residence along with a ADU that my mother and father-in-law live in. And we're just requesting to go R1 to add the one additional minor lot split.

I didn't hear that. Can you explain that all over again? Sure.

Uh, currently your original ADU is for your mother and father-in-law own a home right next to us, that ADU. And then I'm trying to rezone from agriculture to R1 to do the minor lot split, to add one additional home to the property.

Is the intent, are you selling it off, or is it something within your family as well? I mean, it's just for... Yeah, it's a family compound.

The other lot split is my brother and sister-in-law. Okay. We have 24 acres, and it's just family.

Okay. And around you? I mean, we can't really back out from this map to see.

This new home will be behind a church building, To the north of us, we have a nursery, and to the south of us, we have a 10-acre track. Across the street is R1, I believe, probably three or four homes across the front of the property.

So you're out, is Whitney Road the one that's out there off of 44 near the gun range or the gun shop? Okay. Oh, and Penbrook Fairways is near you.

It's down the street, yes, ma'am.

So it's kind of a mixture of, you see some smaller lots, you see some bigger lots. Right. We see some different uses, ag uses.

Right. Our parcel's 18 acres.

I got it now on my little aerial map. Oh, and that's the church. We can see that right there.

Yes, ma'am.

All tree line, you're not even gonna see the home. From the road, you can't even see my home.

Yeah.

I mean, I, to me, this looks like this, this looks like classic. Somebody wants to use their property for the highest and best use, and it's not gonna affect anybody else in a bad way.

We're not selling off parcels or just trying to keep our family together.

Highest and best use being keeping the family to back together.

I don't have, I don't have a problem with it. I'll make a motion to approve second.

All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. All right. Good luck. And that was for both five and six. Correct. Yes. All right, then we're going to bump back to the two public hearings. This is yours. You better get back in a hurry. I know, this is... All right, let's do tab 24 first.

So tab 24, this will be an ordinance of the Board of County Commissioners of Lake County, Florida, repealing Article 8, Chapter 3, Lake County Code entitled Pain Management Clinics, providing for severability, providing for inclusion in the code, providing filing to the Department of State, and providing for an effective date. If you choose to approve this today, it will become Ordinance 2026-25.

All right, do we have anyone here speaking on behalf of us repealing the code section entitled pain management clinics? Do we have anyone online?

And Madam Chairman, I'm gonna switch that to 24 because if you don't approve the gas tax, then I don't need a gap in the numbers. So if you approve it, it'll be ordinance 2026-24. Okay.

All right, do we have a motion to approve the repeal of the code provision entitled Pain Management Clinics.

Move to approve. Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Counter is aye. Okay, that passes unanimously. Four to zero. All right, now we're going to go to tab 23, and this has to do with the five cent local option fuel tax and a request to put approved ballot language.

So this will be an ordinance of Lake County, Florida, providing for the levy of a five cent local option fuel tax in Lake County, providing for approval of the levy by voters in a referendum, providing that the imposition shall be effective for a period of 10 years beginning January 1st, 2028, providing for the administration of the fuel tax, providing for the fuel tax proceeds to be distributed among Lake County and the municipalities, providing for a special election to be held on November 3rd, 2026, providing valid language, providing for notice of special election, providing for notification to the State of Florida Department of Revenue, providing for amendments to Lake County Code Chapter 13, Article 2, providing for severability, providing for inclusion in code, providing for conflict clause, providing for filing with Department of State, and providing for an effective date. If you choose to approve this today, I become ordinance 2026-25. Okay, all right, I have one card, Brian Lewis.

Good morning, or good afternoon now. My name is Brian Luth. I live at 12713 Piney Woods Way in unincorporated Claremont. My comments today are a question and a comment on this. The question is, will this gas tax provide funds for internal subdivision roads? Simply, and my question comes from that because my current community of 548 homes has approximately eight and a half miles of roads and our phase one roads met their 30 year on paper expiration two years ago. And they haven't been repaved according to the memory of anybody in the community and some of them that have been there for 30 years saying that our roads have not been touched. And like I said, so phase one was two years ago that reached, we have 10 phases, each phase is going to be sequentially meeting that 30 year mark, which means that the roads are gonna be exponentially deteriorating. And so we're part of the Lake County Road Management System. In ordinance 2023-30 that you guys passed a couple years ago where you did the MSBUs for all the new communities, that made sense, made the funding available for the new communities. Some of us in our community are just wondering what's going on with the older communities that have been here for decades. Because you said when you passed that ordinance that there was no dedicated funding source to address repairs or resurfacing needs. to internal subdivision roads even though residential development within the county continues at a rapid pace. So if the five cent sales tax is not made available for internal roads and Lake County doesn't have an identified funding source, what is the financial mechanism for these repairs and maintenance of the internal subdivision roads when it changes from a to maintain and repair to a we need to repair and maintain.

So thank you. And what's the name of your subdivision?

I'm in one of the greater communities.

Oh, one of the greater communities, okay. All right, one of the greatest. Is it Greater Pines? It is. Okay, all right. I don't know whether anybody's here that could tell us where we're at on the schedule as far as, okay, we're looking up Greater Pines right now. What is the main street name that comes into your neighborhood? Greater Pines Boulevard.

The short answer is that gas tax is used for resurfacing in general, not just neighborhood roads, but other roads too. Yeah, but there is a plan for neighborhoods that she's going to find out here.

Yeah.

need some music that plays when we're waiting for answers

So I'm not seeing greater pines on the list of fours and fives, which are the ones that are the highest priority. So we would have to take some public work staff out to that area to take a look and do a pavement rating, because we want to address the fours first and the fives. So we'll take a look at it. How about that?

Because you might be a six or a seven, but that... Yeah.

Yeah, so... They can be used for subdivision roads if they're county roads. Yes, the answer to that is yes. And like I said, we would address the pavement level fours. Those are in worse shape than anything else. We'd address those first, then move up to fives.

Okay.

And I got to ride along with Mike, our engineer, so we'll drive through the neighborhood, too. Look at those roads.

Okay, all right, anyone else online? Anyone online? Okay, bringing it back to the board, Commissioner Morris?

Well, I'm sure everybody got the calls. There's some concern now with the referendum because the school board has a referendum. Northlake Hospital District has a referendum, and now we've got the referendum coming from the state. So I'm a little concerned about the timing now with all of these referendums going on.

Yeah, so am I.

Is there a motion to move forward?

Yeah, I don't have any concern. I think we should bring it to the voters and let the voters vote whether they want to have the gas tax put on or not. Just like any other, if they want to add to the school tax, let them vote on that. They want to add to the referendum of the homeowners or the exemption, let them vote on that. Let the people vote.

Why don't we wait and see, though, because of things that are playing out? I do agree you want to be careful with the school referendum. Why don't we wait and see as things play out? Because, you know, again, I'll say that we could do it with a 4-0 vote on the commission at any time. We just got to advertise it as well. So maybe we see what happens and how budgets are going to change and things will move around a little bit. This is more of a true user fee. It is absolutely a user fee.

I think what you're trying to say, though, and what Commissioner Morris is saying, is that when you grip it with a whole bunch of other stuff, people may look at it differently than they may look at it if it's not gripped with a bunch of stuff.

I'll be the first one to say we need it. I just think the timing is the most important part. I think there's going to be so much confusion with what's going on at the state level compared to the Northlake Hospital District also. There's going to be a lot of social media, shall I say, on it. So waiting for a 4-1 vote or we could put it on the following year. Yeah. Yeah.

We could always do that, but again, you've got to run a campaign on it. I know we can't, but personally you can, though. Personally you could.

Personally we can, and I think the three of us personally stated what the intents were to begin with, because this is a user fee, and we need it for greater pines, subdivisions. We need it for our roads. The government's responsible for public safety, infrastructure, and some well-being, so. At the top of the list, yeah.

But you would want it to pass.

I would want it to pass, and I wanted it to pass four months ago.

And I did too, but it won't, but it.

If it's gonna muddy the waters, is what I'm saying. Yeah, it's.

And I think it withstands a better chance if we wait. We can take it, there's another, we can take it up at any time again. Again, either way, either route, the referendum or the, 4-0 vote, 4-1, yeah.

So just keep in mind, you can call a special referendum at any time, but if you do it in an off year where you don't necessarily have a general, then you're going to have to pay for the cost of the election. Right.

There's that.

There's that. Yeah. Supermajority, one is you do a special referendum if you don't want to wait until the new years.

Or it doesn't take away our ability for a supermajority, correct?

Right. I think that's a better way to go. I never thought I'd say that.

All right.

I want it to pass. And I think if we lump it in with everything else that's going on, that it's just going to fail. Yeah.

All right. So we don't have anyone willing to make a motion. So is that correct? We don't have to do anything. All right.

Well, you made a motion. You made a motion, but it wasn't seconded.

Well, I know, but he doesn't even have to do that. If nobody makes a second, then it fails. Right.

So I do need a motion because this is a public hearing.

He made a motion, but then nobody else made a second. Who made a motion? I thought you did. You didn't? Are we just imagining that? We're all imagining that. Okay. All right. Nobody made a motion. We need some more. We need a motion to deny based on what everybody said. Deny it at this time. We need a motion to not place that on the ballot at this time. Commissioner Morris. I like that motion. I'll second that. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. That passes. Opposed. One, two, oh, three to one. All right. Moving now to tab 28. This is a discussion about Public Safety Coordinating Council and applicable waivers and recommendation to approve John Aquash, Stephanie Boyd, and Ashley Henry to the Public Safety Coordinating Council.

Madam Chairman, we do need to go back to 26 and 27.

Oh, okay. All right, we're going back to 26.

26. So 26, this is a certified recovery residence. If you recall, we brought this forward to you a couple of meetings ago. It's required by the state of Florida under 2025 legislation that we have to make provisions for certified recovery residents and create basically an ADA process if they need an exception. At that meeting, I believe Commissioner Campion, you were concerned about people coming in and asking for ADA accommodations for zoning, which is a legitimate concern. So we talked to, or I talked to a few of my counterparts in other counties. What we have brought back to you today is an ordinance that would expand it. Originally, we were gonna allow it as permitted in C2, C3, and CP. and we have brought back additional allowances. So it will be a CUP and AG, R6, R7, R10, RP, C1, and then your industrial zonings. By allowing it to come back as a conditional use permit and those other additional zonings, you would have more control over it versus somebody coming in and saying, I'm an R7 and I want an ADA accommodation, which would be granted by the staff. So with those additional additions to the zoning matrix, we would ask for you to give us the ability to advertise this ordinance. I'm in support of that.

Move to approve.

Second.

All right, we have a first second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right.

Just to clarify, that also will authorize us to have the second public hearing at 9 a.m. because it's going to require two. So both of those public hearings will be at 9 a.m. And then we'll go to tab 27. So this is recommending approval to advertise an ordinance dissolving the Board of Adjustment and transferring those functions to the Board of County Commissioners. If you approve this for advertising, we're going to bring it back. I believe it's your June 23rd meeting to go into effect July. So you would start seeing variances on your rezoning agenda starting July 14th. The Board has discussed this several times in the past. We did make some changes versus dissolving it where we moved BOA from a separate day of the week to the same day as the planning board. Unfortunately, we are now down to two members on the BOA, so we had to cancel June. So we are requesting to move it to the BCC. It would be more efficient. You guys are already granting waivers as part of conditional zonings, so this would just bring it back to you for variance purposes.

See that's always been my thought is that you're already as a BCC doing the variances when it comes to the conditional uses. You also do them on PUDs because PUDs often have modifications to what would otherwise be required. So that's the whole thought process behind it.

It's just more efficient.

I think other boards in the past sometimes have wanted to have them separate just because they want to take the heat off the board because sometimes there can be difficult cases, right, if you have neighbors that don't agree about something. But I don't think that's a good reason to give it to a separate board.

I'm going to oppose it. I still believe in that process of having it separate. It's been kind of time honored here in Lake County. I think we can make changes if we need to to address not having enough board members now. to continue to kind of tweak that, but it is still kind of roll up your sleeves when you're trying to get people involved. There's work with that sometimes, and I understand it's up and down. It's not a bad, I mean, either way, I understand it can go, a lot of other counties don't even have it, so I understand both sides of it, but I'm just gonna kind of stay where I was at on that, so.

Well, the question is what do we do to the public out there that's waiting on a decision from the BOA and they can't move forward because they have to keep canceling because they don't have a quorum. But there is a viable option sitting right here that ‑‑ Yeah, no, I agree. But I think ‑‑ So it's not that the BOA is bad. It's just we can't get people to volunteer.

Well, that's part of it. I mean, a part of it is that it's erratic. But I also think some of the technical issues that have come up before that group are issues that were immersed in already. And I don't think it's fair then to force somebody to then go to a court of law because they don't like the way a decision came out or for decisions to come out that are just I feel like it. it's in the public's interest for it to be with a group that has more day-to-day involvement with some of the questions that come up in front of a variance.

And we always go back. I mean, P and Z would, you know, you can make the same argument. Like, there's a lot of people's applications, fate, in a sense, ultimately with us, but the same thing, you know, that they're, they can make decisions as well.

Well, they send them to us, but P&Z sends it to us for that ultimate decision.

Yeah, I'm just saying that there's qualified people on P&Z. There can also be qualified people on the Board of Adjustments, but...

It's not. I mean, there's a lot of... I mean, it's being qualified. There's a lot of people that are super qualified. It's just that the issues themselves are issues that we're, like, super familiar with already, and I think that's helpful. I think it's helpful to the public. I think it's helpful to the applicant to have... that as the scenario when their cases come before board.

So Madam Chair, just one more bit of information. So far in 2026, as of May, we have only had 10 cases for variances. So we've seen a significant decline in the number of variances that are being requested.

And if we do move forward today and we have advertising, then we can get the ones that otherwise would have gone to the BOA, those can come forward.

Correct. I think there were about four or five cases that we had to postpone because we did not have a sufficient number of board members.

At least we would address those cases, and if later, a year from now, everybody says, no, this isn't working out, we need a separate board, you can set a separate board up.

Right. I agree.

I second that agreement.

All right, Commissioner Morris, was that a motion? Yes. And Commissioner Smith seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Opposed. All right, that passes three to one. Then moving over to tab 28, this is to make these appointments to the Public Safety Coordinating Council. Do we have a motion for John Aquash, Stephanie Boyd, Ashley Henry with applicable waivers? So moved.

Second.

All right, and just under discussion, just so it's clear, John Aquash would be, there's no term. Stephanie Boyd, there's no term. And then there's Ashley Henry is a four-year term. Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, then on Keep Lake Beautiful Committee, this is a recommend approval to appoint Michael J. Cox with a conflict waiver as the elected municipal representative on Keep Lake Beautiful Advisory Board.

I'll second that.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that passes unanimously. Then moving on to board discussion with regard to the value adjustment board. We need two county commissioners.

I nominate Commissioner Sabatini. And... Commissioner Morris.

I'll second that.

And one of those, this says that we need to select a chairperson.

I'll volunteer for that. Okay. I don't mind.

All right, so we have a motion, we have a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes four to zero. And then with regard to Lake Sumter MPO Community Advisory Committee, this is a request to appoint Amelia Swart to that advisory committee.

I'll make a motion for approval, and I'll recognize that she was here. Yes, she was. For a while, so. Second that motion.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

All right, reports. Madam Chair, one other item we need for Tab 30. We do need an appointment of one citizen member as well for the VAB. We have Jennifer Hill was applying for reappointment, and there was Christopher Gonzalez that applied as well.

I nominate Jennifer Hill. Second.