Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

All right, good afternoon and welcome to the Osceola-Water County Commissioner's meeting for August 3rd, 2026. At this time, if everyone could please stand for a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Commissioner Jayner. Commissioner Jayner.

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 so much. Please be seated. Board, that now brings us to our approval of the agenda. County Attorney, are there any changes? No changes. Thank you very much. County Manager, any changes today? No, sir. All right. We'll bring it back to the board. We have a motion and a second. Seeing no further discussion, all those in favor state by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Well, that now brings us to our proclamation. The first proclamation is adopt a proclamation declaring the month of August 2026 to be known as National Emergency Management Awareness Month here in Osceola County, presented by Commissioner Greer.

You guys know the drill. Welcome.

Mustard. That's embarrassing.

Hey, looking good there. I'm suiting everything.

Whereas emergencies and disasters can occur unexpectedly, posing significant threats to life, property, and the environment, and whereas local and state emergency managers, community leaders, state governments, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, dedicate countless hours to developing preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation programs to protect the lives and property of all persons living in the United States and U.S. territories. And whereas emergency managers across the United States and its territories are charged with establishing and maintaining the capabilities necessary to effectively direct, coordinate, and support emergency and disaster response and recovery efforts. And whereas the mission areas of prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery align with the core capabilities identified in the national preparedness goal. And whereas emergency managers serve the nation by responding to countless emergencies and disasters each year, demonstrating commitment, compassion, and professionalism in protecting the public. And whereas the efforts of our nation's emergency managers have helped millions of community members across the US recover, rebuild, and become more resilient in the face of adversity. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the Osceola Board of County Commissioners does hereby proclaim the month of August 2026 to be known as National Emergency Management Awareness Month, and I so move. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, state me saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Congratulations.

Bill Linton, do you want to say a few words for emergency managers?

Sure, Commissioner Greer. Thank you. Just on behalf of my staff that's normally behind the scenes, I'd just like to recognize them, the ones that really do the efforts behind, but also our whole team. I'd like to thank the board, our county staff, and our support organizations for what they do with our emergency management program here in the county as we focus on what we call the three Cs, communication, collaboration, and coordination. So thank you all.

And county managers, they take pictures. You'll go ahead and join me down front for our recognition of years of service and the employee of the month for August 2026.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Brenda Hernandez, Human Resources, to recognize those who are celebrating milestone anniversaries and are employee of the month for August 2026. Celebrating 10 years of service, Diana Nicole Smith, Corrections Department. Also celebrating 10 years of service, Soy Rodriguez, Community Development. All right. And finally, also celebrating 10 years of service, Jodi A. Kwasnicka, Fire, Rescue, and EMS.

Woo!

Now celebrating 15 years of service, Lieutenant Nora Smith, Corrections Department. Let's see about 20 years. Here we go, celebrating 20 years of service, Luis A. Cruzado Andino from Road and Bridge. Also celebrating 20 years of service, Raven Vargas Fleet Services. and now celebrating 25 years of service, Todd W. Anderson, Parks Department. And now our employee of the month for August 2026 is Mr. Dan Andrews. Dan began his service at Osceola County Board of County Commissioners as the Information Security Manager in May 2020. The goal of Dan's work is simple, to state and hard to do, to keep the county's people, information and infrastructure safe every hour of every day. He leads the county's cybersecurity program through a constant stream of alerts and potential threats, maintaining our cybersecurity insurance without interruption while helping reduce insurance premiums over each of the last three years. Along with this, his team also oversees the county's growing physical security systems across nearly 40 facilities. Dan shares his on-call rotation with his team, quietly taking extra shifts so others can spend time with their families and never hesitates to step in whenever he's needed. With Dan, what you see is what you get. He leads with dignity, treats people with kindness and respect, and shows up the same way every single day. Dan's integrity, humility, and unwavering dedications have left a lasting impact on this organization and the people who have the privilege of working beside him. That steadiness and commitment are exactly what this recognition is meant to honor. It is for these reasons that Dan Andrews is recognized as Osceola County's Employee of the Month for August 2026. Congratulations, Dan. Thank you so much, Commissioners.

County manager is coming on how lively this crowd is. I don't know if they were giving out free sangria before the meeting or something, but we appreciate it. All right, board, that now brings us to hear the audience. County attorney, I don't think we had anybody sign up.

No signups.

All right, we'll go ahead and close out here the audience. That brings us now to our consent agenda, which is items four through 19. For any items the board would like to pull for a separate vote or discussion. If not, the chair will entertain a motion. All right, we have a motion and a second. Seeing no further discussion, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. That now brings us to our public hearing, our consent public hearing items, which is item 20 and 21. There are no requests to pull either item. Would the board like to pull any items for a separate vote and or discussion? If not, the chair will entertain a motion. We have a motion and a second. Seeing no further discussion, all those in favor, statement saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. We do have some school board members here. I don't know if y'all have one providing a remark. You don't have to if you don't want to, but you're more than welcome to since y'all are here.

Maybe just a thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Commissioners. Today's Today's action was ministerial in nature that the school board is the only elected body that is actually bringing the operational millage forward for consideration by the voters. We're very grateful for you taking that ministerial act. So then we can move forward and send this to the voters for their consideration. So thank you so much for the work that you continue to do. And I'll never miss an opportunity to thank you for the amazing alignment that we have between this board and our school board quite honestly you will not find it anywhere else in the state of florida and you won't find it anywhere else in the united states i would be hard-pressed to find another group of county commissioners as dedicated and as invested in the public schools and the children of this community as you are. So we're incredibly grateful for our continued partnership and thank you for your action today.

Thank you, doctor. Thank you guys for being such a professional board that we can work with to move the needle for our kids here in Osceola County. County attorney, anything to add to them?

Nothing to add. Thank you.

Thank you very much. County manager, anything to add? No, chair. Thank you. All right. Commissioner Jayner, you want to start us off?

Oh man, you started off with, I have a whole bunch of stuff. Fantastic. Okay, so they have them in a different order than I had it. First of all, I'm very happy to announce that the Osceola County's Responsible Recycling Osceola Program has been awarded the 2026 Recycle Florida Today Environmental Sustainability Outstanding Public Program Award. This is a statewide recognition that honors the program's leadership, creativity, and depth in advancing glass recycling, environmental sustainability, and community engagement through innovative education and partnerships. This is the second major recognition for the RRO program following the receipt of the 2025 Beth Brown Botner Award for Outstanding Public Education and Outreach from the National Recycling Coalition. I'm especially proud of this team. I remember when I first brought up glass recycling and these glass recycling machines. Everybody looked at me like if I had five heads because they weren't here in the United States yet. So to see over the years how we have embraced this and be able to bring this to our community and as an educational tool, especially for our children so they could learn about recycling is really, really great. So anyway, that was a long one. Everything else should be quick. What's the next slide here? So board, I attended the Buen Vecino ribbon cutting. Commissioner Booth was there as well because he was with Spectrum that gave them $15,000 for their community center computers. It was a great event. A lot of the new residents attended. I want to thank the board again for sticking with this very important development. Again, it's 60 senior housing villas where seniors will pay only 30% of their income as rent. So it's a very, very good program with lots of partners because, you know, we partnered with HUD, of course, the OCL Council on Aging, which is the lead agency on it, and many others. So great, great program. And the units, you see me there in the kitchen. They're really nice. They're small, but they're very nice. Okay, next. I had my backpack. I know that, Commissioner Grieve, I know you had your backpack giveaway. I also had my backpack giveaway, this time on a Saturday, indoors. For a change, I usually have mine outdoors. Very well attended and we gave out a lot of things and everybody was happy to say hello and pet Gigi there. She came along to welcome all the kids going back to school and wish them good luck. So next. Tomorrow, we have a special Senior Fun Day. It's going to be great. There's going to be lots of super bingo, lots of really good prizes, lunch, crafts, music, dominoes, and a lot of other fun things to do. So if you're a senior, you have nothing to do tomorrow, 10 to 1 p.m. at the Robert Guevara Community Center. Next, of course, keeping with the senior theme, next painting class is on this Thursday, August 6th, also at the Guevara Center. Next, our next Sit and Be Fit is on August 25th. So if you missed the last couple and want to go ahead and join in on the Sit and Be Fit class, class August 25th at the Robert Guevara Community Center. And I believe that's all I have.

All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Got a couple things. We had the Community Resource Fair, and over 100 people attend, over four hours, we had 55 vendors, and we also had a mobile unit outside that was providing health services, so very successful event. Always love to have more folks, but glad that we had the folks we had there. Next, also our backpack giveaway. Love having it at the Central Library at Hart Memorial because not only do the kids get the backpack, which there is also supplies inside, but then they set up like a STEM room to the side. And so the kids, depending on their age group, had different activities that they could do, sign up for library cards if they didn't have one, things of that sort. So great event. Next. Our next senior initiative is the hurricane dingo. Wednesday, August 12th, also at the Hart Memorial Library. It's not going to be in the same room because they have another event going on. I believe they're going to have it on the first floor. But come on out if you're 55 or older. It's a lot of fun. Lots of great prizes. That's it.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Commissioner Chauver, anything to add today?

Yeah, just a couple of things. First, I wanted to first thank Commissioner Jaynor because the glass recycling is amazing. We went and showed some of our residents in one of the events. And they were putting all the glass in and turning it into the sand and not believing that it could happen. And also, fun fact, we don't recycle glass and we also can't sell it. And so that was one of the reasons why I'm so glad that we're doing it and being one of the first to do it here. So kudos for that, Commissioner Jane. I think that was great. Now, we did have an Intercession City. Oh, go backwards. At Intercession City, I partnered with the nonprofit there, with the Weavers, and we did a Community Affairs Day. What's great about this, it wasn't just one day. They actually had a camp throughout the summer and had a lot of the kids within Intercession City area and around that area to come in and learn just a bunch of a lot of fun stuff with arts and crafts. And you could see some of the kids there from the final day that they were there. I thought that was really cool. They gave away also backpacks and a bunch of other stuff, food and all these things to make it an actual full day for families. So I want to thank them for all their efforts that they're making in that community. Also, we are going, I'm gonna be partnering, oh wait, okay. So also wanted to remind students that of course, now that summer is over and you're going back to school, you could always join the student committee if you're looking for volunteer hours for any of the programs and grants that you're looking for and for college. So we meet every single month, you could contact me If you're interested, and here's all the details, you can see our kids committee is growing. We have kids from fifth grade all the way up to college that participate, and they actually help plan events throughout the year, also help nonprofits, volunteer throughout the community, so it's a great opportunity to get involved. The last thing I have is I am partnering again with the Salvation Army. However, this time we're going into the schools and actually speaking to the teachers to see what types of backpacks and some supplies that they would like. So we're going to be doing that coming up soon. And it's just going to have it so that teachers have it in the school in case they are not able to go to any of the events that are great out in our community offering the supplies that are needed. So just another way to get the help if they need it. That's all I have.

Thanks. Thank you so much. That's a good job. That's what I do, too, is I go to the schools and drop it off so they can give it out to the kids who most need it. It's worked out really well for me as well. So just a couple quick things. Kudos to all of our team that worked on the free microchip event we had out of Valencia. I'm laughing so hard with those Huskies because one of them would not stop talking. So it was really comical. But really great event. I really appreciate it to all of our animal services staff and also just all the guys that come and help make all these events happen each time we decide to do one. Also, just next, we have senior initiatives. Here again, get ready for that hurricane bingo. Get blown around to a win. Come on out if you haven't had a chance to join us yet. Always a great time to get together. And board, I want to go ahead and make appointments to the Lakes Advisory Board as well. County Attorney, can I do them both in one or do I need to do them individually? You can do them both. Okay. I want to nominate Terry Seagraves and Donita Dampier to fill my two spots. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Motion passes unanimously. And board, that is all I have on this meeting. Don't go anywhere because we are going to gavel out and then gavel right back into our CRA meeting and then gavel out of that and a couple of Neo City meetings. So done with the first one. Let me know where you go in the next one. No, it's just immediately following.