Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning and welcome to September 16, 2026, regularly scheduled board meeting of the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners. Would everyone please rise for the pledge and invocation given by our chaplain, Commissioner Gwen Myers.

Thank you, Commissioner Myers. Appreciate you also recognizing Carl Harness. He's been an outstanding public servant for over four decades, including over 20 in Hillsborough County. He's been just a great public servant and proud D2 resident. I know Carl didn't want to be recognized, but Carl, Godspeed, brother. And would you like to say a few words? No pressure, but no. I think... It's not your first rodeo. Come on. I'd rather not have my back to the board.

Thank you, Carl, for that. those heartfelt words, I've always said that the most gratifying part of this job is when you can meaningfully impact someone's life. And it's not the sexy things that might get in the press and people talk to you about, but it's when you can positively and meaningfully impact someone's life, that's what makes the job worthwhile, whether it's from a staff perspective or an elected perspective. So again, we thank you for all your service and we wish you well and Godspeed. Okay, so with that, we've got two special proclamations to present this morning. First one will b

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, everyone. Another rare proclamation given by me from my office and one that I'm proud to give because it's from the industry that I actually came from, the manufacturing industry. So who do we have here today to receive it? Thank you so much for coming. I'll call you up here in a little bit to award it to you and take a picture. But I will read it now into the record. Whereas October is nationally recognized as manufacturing month and manufacturing day is observed on the first day of October. And throughout the month, manufacturers across the county host

Thank you, Commissioner Wellstuhl. Now Commissioner Miller will present our second proclamation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before we begin, I would like to recognize the representatives from the offices of Senator Rick Scott, Senator Ashley Moody, Congresswoman Kathy Castor, Congresswoman Laurel Lee, Representative Danny Alvarez, and Representative Michael Owens, and also from the State Attorney's Office, along with so many other friends and dignitaries who have joined us to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Thank you all for being here in your continued partnership with our community. I want to take a brief moment to acknowledge last year's special speaker, Sandra Atiles-Tyro, who was meant

That's fantastic. Watch this right here. We're going to get a picture. Can you all come up to the police?

Thank you, Commissioner Miller. Bonnie, you want to review, change the agenda?

Come to motion to approve the changes. Move to approve the changes. Second. Motion, Commissioner Myers. Second, Commissioner Wohlstuhl. Please record your vote. Changes to the agenda. Motion carried seven to zero. Okay. Board will go on to the public comment portion of the agenda. The board welcomes comments from citizens about any issue or concern. Your opinions are valued in terms of providing valuable input to board members. However, at the same time, it is requested that comments are not made directly at staff or the board, but rather the issues. We set aside 45 minutes for public comment

Thank you, Mr. Covert. Next speaker, Surrogate Doss, followed by John Green, and then Bishop Michelle Patti. Good morning, sir.

Thank you, sir. John Green, followed by Bishop Michelle Patty, and then Hannah Lamport, who's virtual. Good morning, sir. Please continue. You're on the clock, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Green. Bishop Michelle Patti, followed by Hannah Lamport, and then Darrell Henderson. Good morning.

Appreciate the comments. Hannah Lamport, followed by Daryl Henderson, and then Anat Mansour. Is Hannah on the line?

I thank you. Daryl Henderson, followed by Anat Mansour and Tamir Ben-David, both virtual. Good morning, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Henderson. Appreciate the comments, sir. Next five speakers are virtual. Anat Mansour, followed by Tamir Ben-David, Is Annette on the line?

Thank you. Tamir Ben-David, then last name Latringer, and then Dawn Shimmer. Tamir on the line. Mr. Yes. Good morning.

Okay. Next three speakers. Last name, Lutringer, and Dawn Shimmer, and then Ilan Giovanni.

Next three speakers, Dawn Shimmer, virtual, followed by Ilan Giovanni, virtual, and then Catherine Vickers. Is Dawn on the line?

I thank you, Ms. Schimmer. We have Elan Giovanni virtual and then Catherine Vickers and Betsy Koval.

Thank you very much. Next speaker is Catherine Vickers in person, followed by Betsy Covell.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Vickers. Bonnie, I'm going to refer this over to you. And if you can have someone. Okay. Awesome. Ma'am, this young man here will chat with you. Next three speakers, Dr. Betsy Koval, followed by John Marinello, and then Ann Malone. Good morning.

Thank you, Dr. Cole. John Marinello, followed by Ann Malone. Good morning.

Thank you, sir. Anne Malone, and then followed by Amy Summers.

Thank you, Ms. Malone. Appreciate the comments. Last speaker this morning, Amy Summers, Good morning.

Thank you, ma'am. Are there closed public comment? Can we have a motion to approve the consent? Move to approve. Motion, Commissioner Myers. Do we have a second? Second. Second, Commissioner Cohen. Commissioner Bowles, do you want to make a comment?

Real quickly, on item A8 that was brought up before us, and we got all this documentation here, I'm assuming that our directors are doing all the things they need to do to ensure that the nonprofits are meeting the requirements that are put before them. And this is on a reimbursement basis, correct?

Okay, because we got a lot of information.

Okay, thank you. Okay, we got a motion and a second. Please record your vote.

All right, thank you, Kevin. We got one individual that signed up to speak, Tom Covert.

Thank you, sir. All right, that closes public comment. Board members, I brought the USF Fletcher District partnership to the board back in March, I believe it was, where we UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED $24 MILLION FOR KEY INFRASTRUCTURE AND PUBLIC SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE FLETCHER DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT PROJECT. LAST WEEK COMMISSIONER BOWLES, COMMISSIONER COHEN AND I ATTENDED USF'S OUTSTANDING GROUNDBREAKING EVENT THAT WAS WELL ATTENDED AND YOU COULD REALLY FEEL THE ENERGY AND EXCITEMENT ABOUT THIS PROJECT AND regarding USF's overall transformation. Well, that's where Uptown Landing USF w

And I wanna give, Julia and the County Attorney's Office, a lot of thanks and a lot of credit for working on this over the last several months and a lot of work went into it. And we certainly benefited once again from our County Attorney's experience working with USF and her relationships with the legal team over there. So good work, Julia, very much appreciated. We have a motion. Move approval. Second. Motion, Commissioner Willestoll. Second, Commissioner Myers. Please record your vote on B1.

Appreciate the presentation, Mr. Slater. Commissioner Miller.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you both for your presentation. I appreciate it, and I appreciate most that you've taken a lot of time to engage the community. I'm interested if you get the same when you're out, when you're out speaking to them, if you get the same feedback that we get, just the time frames are just... They are. They're a little overwhelming. So the reason we asked for this is so that we could have full transparency. We all want that for our constituents. And obviously, this is a highly trafficked area, and it's growing faster than the infrastructure is. And can you talk to the ti

Thank you for that clarification. I know you were a highly coveted leader to take on this role a few years back and you're doing a fabulous job and I appreciate you putting those extra details in and especially working with our planning commission to make sure that our constituents issues are addressed all along the way. So thank you for the report to both of you. Thank you.

Commissioner Wilson. Very brief. One thing that I think is often overlooked, and it's why the expansion down to 674 is so important, is the South County has the same issue that the veterans has. That took me an hour and 20 minutes to get here from Westchase this morning, which is that We really haven't grown that much it's that the surrounding counties have pounded those borders And this is something that could catch a lot of that northbound traffic in the morning and southbound in the evenings which will alleviate The lower level roads for the locals and I think that that's just a benefit you

Do you want to receive the report? Do we need a motion on that? Okay. I don't think so. Okay. Bonnie?

All right. I don't see in the queue if we have a motion. Move to approve. Second. Motion to approve the audit plan by Commissioner Meyer, second Commissioner Cohen. Please record your vote on B2.

Yeah, Commissioner, motion to waive the rules. Motion to waive the rules. Motion, Commissioner Walsh. Second, Commissioner Bowles. Please record your vote.

And can we just have your name for the record?

The revenue that we collected, that went towards the sheriff's office, or does that go towards general fund? Do you know? I do. That's just Hillsborough County, generally speaking? Yes, sir, not the sheriff's office. Okay, and Bonnie, would that kind of, where does that money go to? Ultimately to the sheriff's budget. Big kind of rolls back. Yes, sir. So is that through the countywide or county, it's not unincorporated, it's countywide funds then, right? Oh, it's unincorporated. Okay, thank you.

Motion, Commissioner Wohlstolz. Second, Commissioner Bowles. Please record your vote on B3.

Move to approve. Second. Commissioner Meyer, second Commissioner Wohlstuhl, please record your vote on B4.

Commissioner Bowles. Thank you. This is really just a follow-up. And is Attorney Hatemoder here? Just in case there's a question I want to come up to the item that was brought up earlier this during this year that we had a few months ago regarding this well and water conservation district. We had some discussion on that and some things came to light that I thought were kind of interesting. There was a motion made by Commissioner Myers, I believe, that kind of wanted to align our processes that would kind of go along with the nonprofit policies that we have. However, I kind of had some thoughts

I'm not sure if you're going to put in the form of a motion, but I would like to be considered in there that have a look back. So we talked, he talked about, you know, capturing the finances around, you know, attorneys fees and other expenses that we may not be aware of. If those can be included whenever something's brought back for us to make a decision or whatever that looks like, if it comes to us in the form of a letter to our offices, I'd be interested in that information because as Commissioner Bowles stated, I don't think the full picture of the cost of this agency is clear to even thos

Thanks, can you give me an idea of, there's no backup. So can you give me an idea of like what deliverables you're going to seek from them? Especially since they're a state agency and they are, most people forget, but they are elected officials.

do they report to Soil and Water, not to FDACS directly?

But their oversight is from FDACS, right?

Yeah, I mean, the... The look back that's been kicked around so much, there was new requirements put in a couple of years ago that said the people on the Soil and Water District Supervisor Boards, that they had a requirement to meet eligibility such as actually being in agriculture and then basically none of them that were on the board at one point had anything to do with agriculture. It just, that office at one point was used for many years as a political stepping stone. And so most of our supervisors actually had to resign themselves from the board because they didn't meet the qualifications

I'll end on this. I think that, and I share the same concerns across the board that both Commissioner Miller and Commissioner Wistel just pointed out. But I think that certainly from what we heard from the executive director that was here a few months ago, that the liberals have been pretty weak and nonexistent for our farmers here, that we have five visits over a year and 10 phone calls and we're giving them the $650,000, I think is pretty sad state of affairs. Beyond that though, what I'd like to see, and I think if we go back in history, even beyond the current board that exists today, we c

Second. Okay, we got a motion, Commissioner Bowles, second, Commissioner Miller. Don't see anyone else in the queue, so please record your vote on F1.

All right, thanks, Adam. Commissioner Wilson. And this one won't have serious question on whether it helps farmers or not like the past one. I was surprised. Can you estimate how much the school impact fee per unit on farm worker housing is?

Yeah, it's a lot of money and some of our berry farmers, particularly the ranchers, don't really utilize this mechanism, but they have tens of thousands a year of H-2A visa workers on their Hillsborough County farms. And this is gonna be a huge and long time known, I would add, and needed relief that should not have been impacting them. I'm really grateful for all of your work on this. I'm still yet to find one that can provide me an H-4 visa, which is the required company dependent visa. The school's revenue consultant claimed that they did find one. I said, please provide me the H-4 visa, an

Second. I got a motion by Commissioner Wohlstuhl, second. Commissioner Bowles and Miller, don't see anyone in the queue. Please record your vote.

Oh, sorry. I was on to the next one already.

Okay, thank you. I don't see any queues. I'll say from my perspective, and Greg was essentially asking for it, there needs to be a process. And I think I made similar comments during the last discussion that I felt that we needed to review all of the cultural institutions collectively and have some type of, Greg said minimum standards, I would say metrics, and then just collectively review all of them. I don't think we should cherry pick one over the other or essentially have a first come first serve basis plus really one and a half times the amount that we set aside for the entire, all the cu

Thank you. I agree with you wholeheartedly on that. And I also would mention that at least I know of one institution, the Tampa Museum of Art, that I think would also like to be at least considered as part of whatever process we come up with. I agree that we, I'm agnostic in the sense that I want to help all these organizations. I just think that they need to be considered as a group with us looking at whatever the total amount of money we have available is and then figuring out almost maybe in a pro rata type way how to accommodate everyone to to the ability that that we have to do so so i wo

Well, I would, before making a motion, I would ask Greg or John for their suggestions as far as is it simply to come back with a process or what would you recommend?

All right, so essentially... We can present options. Yeah. An appropriate motion would be to request a process to come back to the board for us to consider with options on the best way to provide funding to the cultural institutions. Is that a fair characterization?

motion commissioner second commissioner myers uh commissioner wellstone thank you and um just be prepared for a substitute motion mr chair um all of the agencies that were shown on the on your spreadsheet today um and and i will i will handle um staffs um and what my opinion is disobedience in this matter the motion in april was for you to enter into a negotiation of a public-private partnership with the zoo. And we won't get in that today, because today is a positive meeting about the Board of County Commissioners partnering with ISWADA at least a three-year project and ask from Zoo Tampa to

Well, I have already verified it for the board. And I actually have some numbers for you. Specifically, the Tampa Museum of Art was mentioned earlier. they received $24 million of the CRA in a three-year period, much more per year on schedule and pace for what the zoo is asking for. Can somebody confirm, most people don't understand the CRAs, but that's actually the county contributing their countywide funds to those districts, correct?

Not the one that you got us removed from. None of those are in there. The point is that the Board of County Commissioners is already substantially partnering financially in all of those other cultural assets. The interesting thing about the zoo is that they are uniquely left out, Commissioner Cepeda, of all of the CRAs. They don't have... access to those additional funding sources. They're the ones that kind of get left behind. We partner pretty heavily with some of the organizations that asked for money as well through tourist development taxes pretty substantially. Actually, one of the agenc

All right, so we have a substantive motion to receive staff's report. Second by Commissioner Cameron Cepeda. Commissioner Bowles.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So to... I want to say that Krishna Wustl took some of my talking points, but he did actually. Some of the things that I brought up with certainly staff and on this was about people coming after the fact. And to some degree, you alluded to it, like with the bucks coming, saying, hey, what about us in a way? Totally get it. There's only limited amount of funds that are coming in. We have to kind of allocate those as we see fit. We've found a way to make it work You guys did a fantastic job of making lemonade out of lemons, I guess, from the money that we have allocated wit

I actually agree with you, Commissioner Wastl, that I think that when we evaluate all of these organizations, part of the evaluation should include not just the CRA support that they get, but any other public support that they get, perhaps from the state or other funding, so we have a holistic view of how everybody is funding their operations. but I still think it's better to do it all at once when we have everybody in front of us and can sort of evaluate them based on the same criteria. So I don't object at all to the CRA contributions being considered absolutely as part of the discussion, bu

Okay, Commissioner Wohlstuhl. Thanks, I would just close in saying thank you Commissioner Cepeda for seconding the motion and Commissioner Bowles for your exact points. You stole some of my future talking points about their visitors. And look, commissioners champion items of their priorities all the time, including cultural centers that are randomly getting money that is having money depreciating for like five years right now of people's taxpayers money and those commissioners bring their items and they fight for their priority and this is one that i felt like is just going to be such a commun

um discussing the final contract right afterwards thank you okay uh final comments and then we'll vote on the substitute motion um i want to be very clear i fully support zoo tampa as i said last meeting and i went back and found the minutes i think in 05 i championed 3.76 million and then in 08 3.8 million this isn't about the zoo this is about not cherry picking one institution over another I mean, it's pretty simple, really. We've always had the, I'll call it county-city rub on what's the city's commitment or what's their level of funding on our partnerships, particularly when the instituti

Thank you very much. And John, I don't know if you were intending or needed to speak to any of the... portions of the contract if you do. I'm happy to afford you that opportunity. I would point out to my colleagues that there's various members of Zoo Tampa here, including their CFO, if you had any financial questions. Speaking of the financials, I will tell you that not even the zoo got everything they wanted. There was scheduling pro forma kind of challenges with the bigger ticket items that we had to rearrange in the funding schedule. There is a clause that was intentionally itemized in ther

Correct, which I was aware that we would need to, and I'll discuss that later. But as I said earlier in the previous discussion, this is not a hasty appeal. I know that I've been hearing about this item almost since the time that I arrived here on the board in the end of 2022, probably started hearing about it in 2023. This is an exciting enhancement to the community. As I said in April, this is not about the zoo. This is about the many endangered species that the zoo provides, not only a safe haven, but in many cases, another unique aspect of our zoo is the rehabilitation efforts that they of

That's fine. John, can you tell me about how much time you'll need to finalize the contract then? Or I guess we could technically, I don't know. Do you want the public hearing? We approved Commissioner Hagan's Fletcher District and the funding prior to the CIT project list. We just did that today. So what's the timeline that you'd need?

So you want me to motion to proceed forward with finalizing the contract with Zoo Tampa and bring back the item to the next regularly scheduled Board of County Commissioners meeting, which is October 7th. How could I forget, unfortunately? And is that good?

We got a motion by Commissioner Wohlstuhl. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second, Commissioner Miller. Before we vote, one question, Bonnie. I'm not going to say contract, but the proposal in front of us, does staff have an opinion on that, or do you recommend it, or what are your thoughts?

Okay, Commissioner Wohlstuhl? Yeah, this is empowering and authorized the County Attorney's Office to finalize the contract agreement. John and I talked about this, that they would need to be empowered to make any legalese changes or scrivener's errors that may or may not exist throughout the document. So we're aware of that.

Okay, so we've got a motion and a second. And I just want to say that my no vote today is not against the zoo. It's standing with all the other cultural institutions that we're giving the shaft to today. And I don't want them contacting me when they're looking for money. They can contact the rest of the board. So we've got a motion. Commissioner Wohlstuhl, second Commissioner Cameron Cepeda, please record your vote.

Okay, there's a motion, Commissioner Meyer, second, Commissioner Cohen. Commissioner Wohlstal.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see you queued up, Commissioner Bowles. So you can go ahead and then,

Thank you. I presumed since you made the previous motion to change this. In my short time on the board here so far, at least I'm just going to use numbers from 2025. We've had roughly 452 procurement items under the procurement tab. Out of the 452 items from 2025 to this agenda, I think at least that I can recall, we've had less than a handful of items that are being referred to that we've had to come before the board and make an adjustment to or make a change that may be different than what happened during the process. And with that kind of mindset, I think that this is kind of a solution loo

My main interest here is clarity. And I just want to make sure that whatever the rules are, they're clear. That's to me the most important thing. In terms of the details of it, As far as I'm concerned, I like the stricter rules better. It's easier to know exactly where the lines are. And I would prefer not to be lobbied on any of these issues at all and to simply have it out here in the boardroom without having all these meetings going on. So for that reason, I'm inclined to want to go back to the more stringent requirements but either way however it turns out what i really want is clarity cla

Thank you. All that the change really did was the old rules required the duly elected officials to vote on something without them ever getting to engage with the people involved. And you and I have thought a lot of life today in each of these items. You stole my point is that there's so many RFPs that are out there. One thing that particularly, you know, Other than one comment that former Commissioner Kemp made that was just grossly inappropriate to Commissioner Owen at the time, I've never really wanted to say anything to another commissioner until this was brought up where an inference was m

And I would just say that the CDBGDR program would be nowhere as award-winning, whatever efficient compliment staff's getting if we weren't able to engage with those subject matter experts, because I don't know anything about CDBGR program. So I will be a no vote on this. I believe that the current one protects the process and also equally protects our constituency. Commissioner Myers.

Okay, we got a motion. Commissioner Meyer, second Commissioner Cohen, please record your vote.

All right, can we have a motion just to receive the report? So moved. Motion, Commissioner Walsall, second, Commissioner Cohen. Please record your vote.

My questions are very basic. What source of money is being used to pay for this?

So you're going to advance the development and funding agreement?

That helps me get to my point. Which funding source is it?

So general fund property taxes is what's gonna be used for this. And we're gonna advance it. When do these money start getting spent?

That would maybe be a question. Are you going to expend it before the myriad of other agreements still have to cross the finish line?

Sure, so you're gonna start expending it now. There's a myriad of other legal documents that the board has to approve. They approve the first one, that's fine. But the... licensing user and fee agreement. At the last meeting, you said that the raise were still stuck at 100% of revenue from all sources.

Sure, but you're not speaking to my point, which is that do you have a clawback mechanism for all of these monies if the board says, hey, they won't budge off the 100% and then they don't get their votes? Is the taxpayers' property taxes just gone? I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're saying. You have a myriad of legal documents remaining. I do. Okay. if they don't budge from all of their huge asks that they still have 100% revenue from all sources and the board says, you know what, you're being too greedy and we've already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of property taxes, is

Oh, I have no idea that they're going to get their votes. I'm just making those board members aware since it was buried under consent with no conversation. and the public aware that you're about to expend hundreds of thousands of dollars of property taxes for a stadium that isn't even finalized, and if it falls through, all of that money goes away, which, off topic, vote yes on Amendment 3 to increase your homestead exemptions, since we obviously have ample money. I think that that's a real risk. and it's abusive to the taxpayers that you're gonna proceed with expenditures prior to having subs

It's a CIT project that has a legal requirement to be advertised and added to the CIT project list, correct?

And we're going to start spending money before that's done?

prior to the legal requirements of posting a public hearing and changing the project list. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. All right, Commissioner Cohen.

Yeah, I would like to move this item and I would like to just point out in doing so that this is what is going to give the county the ability to value engineer the project and actually achieve some cost savings if they are available to us. It would be very penny wise and pound foolish not to approve this.

100%, Commissioner Cohen. And I will tell you, Julia, Bonnie, and our team fought extremely hard to ensure that we would have a seat at the table so we could be involved in the design process with the goal of value engineering the project cost down. So, okay, I've got a motion, Commissioner Cohen. Second, Commissioner Myers. Please record your vote.

Any future issues? Commissioners? Commissioner Miller?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In light of the many guests we've had regarding the Pet Resources Center, I have two items and then I have a third. The first is I would like to request that staff provide the board with quarterly updates on the status of the county's Pet Resource Center facility improvement project, including current planning and evaluation efforts, funding identified or programmed, anticipated scope, major milestones and timelines, and any decisions or actions needed from the board. Update should also flag any significant changes to the approach, funding, schedule, or scope so that the

Oh, I second that. It's just not a motion.

The second, my final request, future item please would be, I would like to request that staff provide the board with quarterly updates on the status and progression of the Lithia Pinecrest Road, widening and corridor improvement efforts, including the current phase, schedule, funding status, design, and right of way activities, and any significant milestones, challenges, or changes affecting delivery. Update should specifically address progression toward the Lithia Pinecrest Road widening and the Lithia Pinecrest Road, County Road 39 intersection so that the board and the public have clear und

Anything else? You're good? Okay. All right, Bonnie, you get all that? That was a mouthful. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Hopefully someone did. All right. Don't see anyone else in the queue. We're adjourned.