Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here. We're gonna give it just a a thirty second. For the record, commissioner Lockhart drove here today. She did not take scalp.

I thought about it. In hindsight, I've been

In hindsight, she would have been yes.

I probably would have been on time.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being here today. Let me start by saying happy holidays, merry Christmas, all of the things that you may celebrate. We plan to have a wonderful meeting today. And I'm gonna start by asking David Williamson from the Central Florida Free Thought community to give us an invocation.

Good morning, madam chair, commissioners, and thank you for the opportunity to join you today as we enter a season filled with many different celebrations. Homes across Seminole County are preparing for the holidays, rooted in a range of traditions, each carrying its own story of hope, renewal, and connection. With that shared sense of unity, may we take a moment to appreciate the diversity of people this body serves and the many ways they seek meaning, comfort, and joy. This week, the world also marks International Human Rights Day. It's a reminder that every person, regardless of background or belief, deserves safety, fairness, and the chance not just to live with dignity, but to thrive with it.

Those principles guide strong communities and public service as well. Let this moment of reflection invite us into a mindset of understanding and care, of compassion, and collaboration. May today's discussions be shaped by clear thinking, thoughtful listening, and a commitment to the well-being of every resident, business owner, and visitor to Seminole County. May our choices reflect the simple truth that our community is strongest when everyone feels seen and most of all valued. Thank you for your service. Thanks as well to the county staff for theirs this year. I wish you all a very happy holiday season and a prosperous New Year.

Thank you so much, sir. Santa, would you mind leading us in the pledge? Thank you, gentlemen. We're gonna move on to awards and presentations and proclamations. First is a proclamation that will be read by commissioner Lockhart for our, veteran of the month.

Good morning. Commissioners, I move the following proclamation of the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners recognizing United States Navy Petty Officer First Class Richard Kitchen for his outstanding service to The United States and Seminole County. Whereas the brave men and women of our Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Space Force demonstrate a resolute spirit and unmatched selflessness reminding us there are few things more American than giving of ourselves to make a difference in the lives of others. And whereas throughout our country's history, generations of service members have answered the call to leave their families, their jobs, and put their futures and even their lives on the line to valiantly defend our nation. And whereas, for many service members, the sacrifice has ended in permanent injury or death, yet their spirit remains in the continued preservation of our freedoms and the promise of liberty.

And whereas there are more than 30,000 living veterans in Seminole County who served our nation in times of peace and war. Through their service, they kept America strong. And whereas Petty Officer Richard Kitchen served the United States Navy from 1968 to 1989 as an electronic technician, earning both submarine and surface warfare qualifications. Throughout his career, he was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal, the Presidential Unit Citation, the Navy Unit Citation, and the Meritorious Unit Citation. Petty Officer Kitchin spent most of his service conducting testing and evaluation for the Trident d five ballistic missile program, a crucial component of The United States.

And whereas Petty Officer Richard Kitchin relocated to Orlando in 1989, where he worked for Associated TV Repair. His final employment before retirement was with AMC Theatres, where he served as a facilities manager. And whereas Petty Officer Richard Kitchen has continued his lifelong commitment to service well beyond his military career. And for many years, he has volunteered his time in partnership with local restaurants to organize and distribute toys to more than 50 children annually, ensuring that local families feel supported, valued, remembered. For the past ten years, he has embraced the role of mall Santa at the Altamont Mall and has also appeared as Santa throughout the Southeast.

In addition, he enjoys participating in five k runs, completing roughly 25 races each year. Whereas, Petty Officer Richard Kitchen has brought great credit and distinction upon himself, The United States Of America, the United States Navy, and Seminole County. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Board of County Commissioners of Seminole County, Florida, express our gratitude, admiration, and respect for Petty Officer Richard Kitchin for his outstanding service to the United States, Navy, and the residents of Seminole County. Be it further proclaimed that this proclamation is presented to Petty Officer Richard Kitchen along with our sincere congratulations and recognition as Seminole County's veteran of the month adopted this December 2025.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. There

we have it. Petty officer Kitchen, if you'd like to say a few words, we'd welcome you to do that. We have a second proclamation. We're gonna read that next, and

then we'll do pictures right after the second proclamation, but

I would welcome you to the microphone.

I'm without words.

Aw. Aw.

I do it all over again, and I thank you for the recognition. I love doing this, and I would probably go back and redo it again if I could.

Petty officer, we are blessed to have had you of service.

Thank you.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you, sir.

Our next proclamation is a resolution honoring the retirement of assistant county manager Melanie Koons. And based on our history together, I'm going to read this one. Commissioners, I offer the following resolution of the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners honoring the retirement of assistant county manager Melanie Kuntz. Whereas Melanie Kuntz, Melanie Long Kuntz, began her distinguished service to the citizens of Seminole County in April 1998 as the principal analyst in Seminole County Support Services Division, demonstrating exceptional professionalism and commitment from her first day. And whereas in May 2000, Melanie was promoted to manager of the Support Services Division, where she skillfully oversaw land management, contract administration, public records and retention, risk management, and benefits.

Yay. Because everyone likes to manage benefits, providing consistent leadership and guidance. And whereas Melanie was appointed director of central services in January 2011, assuming responsibility for human resources, information technology, and fleet and facilities where her thoughtful leadership and forward thinking approach strengthened critical county operations. And whereas in January 2015, Melanie was promoted to assistant county manager where she continued to serve with dedication, supporting numerous departments, programs, and initiatives with insight, skill, and unwavering dependability. And whereas throughout her remarkable tenure, Melanie was instrumental in supporting and advancing a multitude of countywide initiatives and projects, including state and federal legislative affairs and charter review commission, two county redistricting efforts, the development of a new county courthouse and county annex, and the establishment of the county's urban bear management area among other significant accomplishments.

And whereas during her nearly year long search during the nearly year long search process for a new county manager, Melanie played a vital role ensuring continuity and stability by providing steadfast support to several departments and leadership teams and commissioners, in case lest we forget. Whereas after twenty eight years of outstanding public service, Melanie now looks forward to a well earned retirement spending more time with her husband William, daughter Danielle, son Christopher, and her cherished grandchildren, while also enjoying travel, focusing on health and wellness, and reconnecting with friends and loved ones. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, the Board of County Commissioners of Seminole County, Florida, do hereby extend our deepest gratitude and appreciation to Melanie Kuntz for her extraordinary service, dedication, and lasting contributions, which have strengthened the organization and positively impacted countless employees and residents. Be it further resolved that this resolution is presented to Melanie Kuntz with heartfelt congratulations, admiration, and our warmest wishes for a joyful and richly rewarding retirement adopted this December 2025.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Melanie, I don't know what we're going do without you. Thank you. Good morning. This is emotional for me. I don't think I can read what I wrote.

For

the record, Dominique Drager, not Melanie Coons. Wow. This is the last time I'll be saying that at a BCC meeting. Thank you all so much for the thoughtful retirement resolution. It's hard to believe this moment has arrived. Standing here today, I find myself reflecting on one wonderful chapter that is closing and another that is just beginning. When I first joined Seminole County in 1998, I never could have imagined the journey ahead. I still remember those early days learning the ropes, meeting dedicated employees, and quickly realizing that local government isn't just about policies and paperwork. It's about people, community, and service. Over the years, I've had the privilege of growing alongside this organization, serving in many different roles.

There were challenges, of course, but the work was always meaningful and deeply rewarding. In February 2015, I was honored to become assistant county manager, a role that allowed me to collaborate with every department on initiatives, large and small, that have helped shape the community's fabric. Through that work, I gained a deep appreciation for the passion, professionalism, and commitment our employees bring to serving the public. Together, we have accomplished a great deal. I've also had the privilege of learning from an exceptional group of county managers, Gary Kaiser, Kevin Grace, Cindy Coto, Jim Hartman, Nicole Martz, and now Darren Gray.

Each brought their own leadership style and wisdom, and I am grateful for the guidance they provided. And I've been equally honored to work alongside so many dedicated commissioners. Dick Vanderweed, Carlton Henley, Darryl McLean, Randy Morris, Brenda Carey, Mike McLean, John Horan, Grant Malloy, and our current esteemed board. Each of you has played a key role in guiding Seminole County forward, and it has been my privilege to support your efforts. Looking back, what stands out most aren't the projects or the policies.

It's the people, the friendships, the teamwork, the laughter during the long meetings, and the shared sense of purpose that made Seminole County such a fulfilling place to build a career. To my colleagues, past and present, thank you for your collaboration, your support, and your friendship. To our leadership and elected officials, thank you for trusting me with the opportunity to serve. And to my family and friends, thank you for your patience, your encouragement, and for reminding me there is a world beyond the office walls. As I step into retirement, I do so with deep gratitude and tremendous pride in all we've accomplished together. Seminole County will always hold a special place in my heart. Thank you all for the memories, for the trust, and for the journey of a lifetime.

Thank you.

Commissioners, if I could have you join me on the floor for pictures. So Melanie is the queen of institutional knowledge, and I can guarantee you that we will continue phoning a friend for a while after she leaves here, without a doubt. We ready? Yep. I think next up is the county investment adviser, Scott.

We look forward to hearing all of the insights you may bring to us this morning. Okay.

Well, it's the day before the Fed meeting. Tomorrow, the Fed meets. Today and tomorrow, the Fed meets. And, we we should see government source economic data up and running within weeks. We get the employment report for both November and October, or at least the non farm payroll portion of that, the week after the Fed meeting, which is not entirely convenient as far as the Fed's concerned.

It sounds like president Trump has made his decision on the Fed chairman's replacement, and it looks like it'll be Kevin Hassett, which I think the market is is trying to decide whether that's the best move or not. Trump sort of floated that early to see if the market's gonna like it or not, and I I suspect he will be the guy because he's gonna carry the much lower interest rates in 2026 forward for for the president. Supreme Court is expected to render a verdict on the constitutionality of the reciprocal tariffs this month. Could be could be any day. That will be eventful.

I'm not even sure how the market's gonna take that one way or another, but it is on the agenda. So the two year note yield, usually, this goes back one year. So you can see yields were higher nine months ago, ten months ago. They're they're now quite a bit lower. That's in anticipation of rate cuts, of course. Current investment options, as you can see, they've continued to move lower. There's a lot of volatility right now. The market is priced entirely for a rate cut tomorrow. Whether or not that happens, I think it will because the market actually gets what the market wants in the near term. So there's about a 90% probability of a 25 basis point rate cut tomorrow to the overnight rate.

And because that's so high, it it will most certainly happen. The question is, what happens after that? Whether there are more rate cuts coming? And I I think the key is gonna be in the labor market data. So a week from the Fed meeting, again, we'll get two months' worth of payroll numbers.

If you look to the private sector employment data, you've had four out of the last six months have been negative for ADP, which is, pretty remarkable. We haven't seen that since the pandemic. There's there's another, source called called Revelio Labs, which they actually tried to duplicate the non farm payroll numbers, and they've actually been negative for the month of October and November. So it wouldn't surprise me at if a week from now, we got two straight months worth of negative payroll data, which would actually move the needle again. So maybe we'll get a a week's worth of breathe easy, and then we get all that labor market data, and things look like the economy is not in nearly as good a shape as we did the week before.

So yields are mostly reflecting that at this point. The portfolio yield because of the timing of this meeting, this happens every year, I have not seen the the report set yet to be able to to calculate our data going forward. But it appears to me that the November 30 portfolio yield was between four ten and four fifteen, just so you can get a sense of what your portfolio is yielding. Recent transactions that were approved at the last meeting were, a a palm term, which basically is a is a longer locked in pool yield to November 2026 at a four seventy eight. Two treasuries were purchased to June 2027 and May 2028 at yields of three fifty one and three forty four.

Recommended purchases, and you're you're you're in front of a lot of your tax flows. So the next time we meet, which interestingly enough will be a day before the January Fed meeting, you'll you'll have a lot more decisions to make. But for right now, in terms of liquidity, we've I'm recommending two purchases, either treasuries or agencies. I I do wanna mention one thing, and that's that we had a lot of agencies once upon a time, a very few treasuries. Now we have a lot of treasuries and very few agencies.

It's because there aren't a whole lot of agencies available, the spreads are just not there. So treasuries with full faith and credit make the most sense. I'm recommending, again, July and June 2728. Yields are roughly between $3.55 and $3.60, And that should essentially wrap us up for the year, and I'll be back at the January to have another discussion about what to do with your tax monies. But any any questions that you guys might have?

Thank you, mister McIntyre. I do wanna ask you to explain how the transition of the Fed chair works.

Okay. So Chairman Powell's term as chairman ends in May. He's actually a a Fed governor, so theoretically, he could stay on for a while longer as same way you guys do with with your rotation. Very likely, he's gonna leave. That means that there will be an appointment.

That appointment will be more dovish. In other words, more inclined to vote for lower yields. Kevin Hassett, assuming that he is the the nominee, will, go through a process where we have to be approved. But in the meantime, between the time that he is nominated and the time that he takes office as chairman, that five month time frame will mean that he'll be essentially a shadow chairman. That's a little bit disruptive to the market because every time Powell decides something and Powell's interviewed by CNBC, you're gonna Kevin Hassett is gonna be interviewed as well.

And Kevin is gonna question I shouldn't refer to him as Kevin. I don't know him. But he he is gonna be asked the same questions, and he is going to, have a very different take on it. So some people are a little bit concerned about the idea of the shadow chairman, that the two different sides are going to be always, counter to each other for a period until things settle in, I assume, with with him taking office in in May as the chairman.

Thank you. Sure. Commissioner Zinbaum?

Thank you, madam chair. Scott, thank you very much. What's your take on we're now seeing the highest default rate on car loans, especially in the subprime market, as well as about seven basis point increase in second quarter in defaults of mortgage loans?

Yeah. I've I've referred to this before. Another good question. So, you know, in terms of of the mortgage rates, the the the Fed can only lower the overnight rate. The longer end of the curve reacts to inflation expectations, everything from the national debt.

Mortgage rates are based on the third I'm sorry, the ten year. So you gotta think to yourself as you're an investor, you're interested in investing in The United States and and hoping that you'll get your money back in ten years. And there is a there is a risk premium that that gets built into that ten year yield, a little bit more yield if you're gonna buy that, and that reflects mortgage rates as well. Also, if you're cutting rates when the inflation rate is 3%, you're potentially stoking additional inflation. There's also expected to be back this year.

People are gonna get bigger tax refunds this year. There's this idea of the possibility of a dividend premium being paid to people. All of that puts dollars into folks' pockets. The flip side of your question is completely different. And and the idea there is that we have a k shaped recovery.

Whereas the 10%, the top 10% are making 50% of the purchases and essentially driving the entire economy. The lower end of the k refers to the other half of The United States who is is is living day to day bill to bill. So, the idea of of defaults rising, you do have large defaults, everything from from credit cards ninety days past due to automobile loans ninety days past due to student loans being past due is is gonna be this tug of war that we have. It really gives economists the opportunity to have a really good narrative one way or another because there is no right answer. We're gonna have to see how this all unfolds.

My guess is that the economy is not as robust in in 2026. I think that, you know, a healthy economy has a very strong middle class, and our

our our middle class is is not as strong as it was. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Board members, if there are no further questions, I'll entertain a motion.

A motion to implement recommendations of our financial adviser based on the reports submitted today and recommend the clerk implement said board recommendations. Second.

First and a second? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Happy holidays. To Travel safely.

Same to you.

Ladies and gentlemen, we've come to the portion of the program where we're going to talk about the consent agenda. There will be public comment opportunity prior to our consideration of the consent agenda. If you would like to speak, please fill out a yellow form and hand it to Ms. Dreger upfront who is, managing the forms. It looks like she may have a couple up there already. If you have not turned in a form, you will not be called on to speak.

And I'll turn it over to our county attorney, Kate Latour, to read the public participation requirements. Thank you, madam chairman. Good morning. Florida law provides that members of the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on propositions before the board of county commissioners except when the board is acting on emergency or ministerial matters or conducting a meeting exempt from the requirements of the sunshine law. Individuals shall be permitted three minutes each for public comment or six minutes when the individual is an official representative of a formal association or group.

The chairman may modify the maximum time for public comment on her sole discretion when appropriate. Public comments on quasi judicial or other public hearing items will occur during the board's consideration of those items this afternoon. Public comments on pending procurement matters or on non agenda items shall not be permitted at this time. Members of the public desiring to make public comment must fill out a speaker form and present the form to staff, and forms are available in

the lobby. Madam chairman? Thank you

so much. So the public comment for this morning will be related to the consent agenda only. And commissioners, we're gonna be looking at items four, four a and four b, just calling that out to your attention, through 24. County manager, do you have any revisions that you'd like to

Thank you, madam chairman and commissioners. Yes, a couple and thanks for reminding. We have had two additions for a and four b to call to your attention. Also, I'd like to pull item 24. I'm just looking to get more information that's regarding the Bike Walk Central Florida agreement. I'm looking into that a little bit more, and I will, be bringing that back to the board.

Commissioners, are there any items that you would like to pull?

I'd like to pull 19.

We're pulling 19. Any others?

No, ma'am.

Mister Constantine?

I was just ready to make a motion. Go for it. I will move the approval of the consent agenda items Oh.

Constitutional Mister Constantine.

Oh, I'm sorry.

We didn't do public comment. You're right. Look at us. So vice chair, thank you for that. And I heard some choking going on down there, so that would have been a clue as well. Dominique, would you mind calling out the first three? How many forms do you have?

Yes, ma'am. There are seven forms, all for item 19.

Yes.

First three are Bill Hyde, Abby Sanchez, and Kimberly McHugh.

Alright. And with that so you know who's on deck. We would love for you to start your way down. And with that,

board member What did you do? Nineteen minutes, not up.

Yeah. Yeah. Nineteen. I'd like to pull 19 for discussion.

Yes. So please discuss.

Okay. So first of all, if I could take a little point of personal privilege because the arts are very near and dear to my heart and my life. And for those of you who may not know, my mother is a, thirty plus year art educator, thirty years in the classroom. She retired. She decided retirement wasn't for her, so she decided to go back to work writing art curriculum for primary, secondary, and post secondary education.

And the arts were so important to her and to our family that she spent a month in Africa teaching children about art. So note that everything that I am about to say comes from that lens. Incredibly supportive of the arts and believe that at 83, after having a stroke, she is able to function as well as she does because of the impact of the arts in her life, and it is one of the things that she still hits with a stride like you wouldn't believe. In fact, she still has classes in her studio at her home where she teaches, twice a week, because the arts are hardwired in her brain. And without that, she wouldn't have much to to be focusing on right now.

So I am we are very blessed, and I think that there are multiple public studies that show that a community that has cultural public arts programs thrives and both socioeconomically and otherwise. So that's my lens. And with that, the reason I'm pulling this is because I want to make sure that there that we are using taxpayer dollars as best we can so that the money that is allocated is going to the programs that this board intended them to go to. So this has had a lot of different iterations over the years. I was here as a staff member with miss Koons for many years.

And I remember when we gave all of the county taxpayer dollars to United Arts down in Orlando. And we didn't feel that we really got much return on that investment. And the board decided that we would take all of those Seminole County taxpayer dollars and give them to Seminole County cultural arts programs. And then we decided we would do our own grants program. And mister Durer and his team spent a boatload of time, effort, and energy, saddled with figuring out who would get these grants.

And then we said, well, you know what? Maybe that's not the best use of our staff's time. Let's give the money directly to Seminole Cultural Arts Council, who is the designated by this board entity to receive the license plate funds that come from the state of Florida. Let's just give them the funds and let them distribute them in the grants because they are closest to the agencies that are are providing services. So when I we started asking questions about this, and I I I think so much Shigi Kunya who was able to provide the documentation for me.

I have more questions that I need to have answered. Because last year of the '56 we gave $56,000 according to, I think, the information we were given to Seminole Cultural Arts Council. According if I'm reading their budget documents correctly, only 14,000 was given out by the agency in grant funds. I wanna know if this is the best way for us to utilize these funds so that we can have more of the dollars actually reaching its intended purpose. That is why I'm pulling this item to ask for more time, to ask for more information, do some comparative what we did prior, what we're doing now, is there a better way to do this?

So I just want anyone who's planning to get up here and and speak, obviously, you have the right to do that. But please understand, I'm asking for it to be pulled to be brought back at another board meeting, not to vote against it, but because I I feel personally I need more information. So that's where I'm coming from.

Mister Zandbauer?

I concur. I also have some very similar questions that I gave to the county manager earlier. So I'm okay with that, that's the pleasure of the Board.

Any further discussion before we hear public comment?

Madam Chair, it's always good to get more information. If the Board feels we need more information, that's great. I have no issues with that. But since Commissioner Lackey talked about her mother, and I know her from the time that I've been interacting with her from the art side, she's a very gifted artist, and you're very fortunate to have her as a mother.

Thank you.

So just wanted to add that.

If there's no further discussion, we'll go to public comment. Dominique, call the first one. It's mister Hyde. I can recognize the first one.

My name is Bill Hyde. 2379 Audley Street, Oviedo. So my question is, before you start my clock, is are we voting on this today, or are we pulling this for a future?

We the vote will be to pull it for future, as suggested. So that will be what we're voting on. That being said, since there's a vote on it publicly

Well, that will be on Germany.

A vote. Okay. Okay. My name is Bill Hyde. I live at 2379 Audley Street in Oviedo. I hadn't intended to speak today on this because y'all all got my email, but two things are very dangerous. One is that you publish, you know, the agenda for me to read, and the second thing is that I have lots of coffee in the morning. So you you so so you all pretty much know how I feel, but I wanna go back to a few months ago. This board increased my taxes quite a bit, not once, not twice, but three times. I didn't say anything.

I listened to them. And I when I listened, all I heard was, we can't cut anything. We're spending all of your money as close to the bone as we possibly can. So I didn't say anything. A month ago, I went over the agenda that you so graciously let me read, and there were a lot of items going out for grants and approvals of agreements with various community agencies that all provide services.

I read through them. I didn't say a word. There was a lot of buzz about it in the social media though. Believe me, I can tell you that. But I heard very clearly that all of the items that were on that agenda were for health, you know, people's health, putting a roof over somebody's head.

It was for domestic violence, and those were all great. I didn't say a word about that. But then I read this one, and I got nothing I have no gripe with community arts. I mean, I live in Oviedo. We have an icon right down there on Central Avenue, and Bob Delroy has known him for longer than I have.

A guy that that's that does ceramics in the community and and spreads the spreads the word. But as I read this, this is went from 6 $56,000 to, like, $73,000 in one fell swoop. And I can't read all the numbers because I don't have access to it, but it looks like this is mostly for salary, maybe for, like, one person. Well, your your your money is not going to what you just talked about. What you talked about was our tax money going to the grants to provide arts, but it looks like this is going to just salary.

I will remind you that there are other advisory councils in this county that don't have any paid staff, that do a lot of direct good. And I will bring up, obviously, the veterans advisory councils that that get no money, and and, actually, it directly impact people's lives. Not that the arts aren't wonderful, but that's not putting food on people's table, and it's not giving people immunizations or providing assistance for domestic violence victims. Thank you very much for your time. I got my three minutes exact.

Thank you. Well done. We appreciate that.

Madam chair.

Yes. Have you seen a chance?

If I may just follow-up with mister Hyde. To be fair, a lot of those previous ones you had referred to that were on prior agendas, those are pass through dollars, both federally and state, which are not our local dollars that we're mandated to to send to those entities. We have the discretion of who gets that, and that's about the extent of it. Just wanna make sure that was put on the record.

Thank you. Board member Sanchez?

Good morning, everyone. I'm Abby Sanchez. My address, 107 Bay Hammock Lane, Longwood, Florida. I am, ten years been on the school board as chair, vice chair, and you name it, everything else. And, I also serve as on the Seminole Cultural Arts Council as one of the board of directors.

My apologies for our president not being in attendance, Anthony Armadilla, as he is undergoing surgery right now, orthopedically, and he apologizes for not being here. We appreciate our thirty one years with you and everything that you have given us and the support that you have. And, Amy, thank you, commissioner Lockhart, for sharing what your mom has done and continues to do in our community. Each and every one of you, I know, I listen to your thoughts and and know each and every one of you feel pretty much the same about how critical it is to keep the arts alive and what it's done has done for underserved community and everything it does for everybody and from visual arts, culinary arts, to architecture, to graphics design. I can go on and on and on to film.

It has helped our children feel valued. It has helped them build self esteem. It has helped them in every which way. And when you were talking about going to Africa, I just got back from Africa, and we're helping the Maasai tribe. And to see their eyes lighten up and find their gift and their self esteem and build their growth and understanding all the things that they can do.

And with so much technology out there right now, I want our kids to have that creative feel. I want them to be able to have that balance and feel valued, and it's extremely critical for that. So I am so believe so much that the arts need to be funded, and the cultural arts program has blossomed so much. And we have done so much for the community within scholarships, to grants, to camps, you name it. And I know you received numerous emails as well from different people through the community.

And, I know you're gonna you received our budget and understanding, and you wanna have time to look over that. So I appreciate that, and I appreciate everything that you do. Thank you so much.

Board member Sanchez, before you leave, would you just clarify whether it's this organization that's doing something in Africa

or a It's separate just something separate that I'm doing on my own. It's not that

sure that was on the record. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Kimberly McHugh. Are there speakers after that?

Yes, ma'am.

Can you

call them out? Steven Young, Sharon Batty, Dawn Epps, and Virginia Poe.

So you guys are on deck. Thank you.

Kimberly McHugh, 2520 Dakota Trail from Park, Florida. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Kimberly McHugh. I serve as the PTSA president at Lake Howe High School. I'm here today to speak in support of the civil and cultural arts in County's investment in the SEAC. This investment makes a real measurable difference for students and families across Seminole County. At Lake Howe High School, SEAC funds are being used to support our winter art festival up coming up this Saturday.

I

forwarded invitations to each of you. This event showcases student musicians, visual artists, and performers across six schools in Seminole County. It brings together families, teachers, and the broader community for a completely free event. For many students, this is the first time their creative work has been celebrated publicly outside classroom. That moment matters.

Through SCC investment, also SCC PTA receives funding to support our reflections award ceremony. Similar investments have supported PTAs throughout Seminole County. These opportunities help students feel seen, valued, and encouraged to keep creating. The return on this investment is clear. The arts builds confidence.

They improve student engagement and communication skills. And for some students, participation in the arts is what keeps them engaged in school and motivated to succeed. If Seminole County withdraws investment in SEIC, the impact will be immediate. Student opportunities will be reduced, community events will disappear, and a proven support system for arts education will be lost. I respectfully urge the board of county commissioners to continue investing in the Simulaculture Arts Council and in students and families who benefit from its work every day.

I would also like to personally invite each of you to attend the Lake Howe High School Winter Arts Festival and see firsthand the return on your investment. You'll see students sharing their talents, standing a little taller, realizing that what they create has values. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank

you. Steven Young.

Hi. Good morning. Name is Steven Young.

I'm the

president of Seminole County Council PTA, and I'm a resident here in Seminole in Sanford specifically. And I have the honor of representing the Seminole County Council PTA in an organization that is deeply committed to supporting every child's potential. Seminole County Council PTA was honored to receive a grant funding from Seminole Cultural Arts Council earlier this fall. We will use this funding to implement a memorable award celebration this spring that marks the culmination of the PTA Reflections Art Program. This event will bring student artists and their families from across Seminole County together as we shine a spotlight on our youth who've created artwork that reflected the this year's theme, I belong.

Why do we invest our time, talent, and financial resources and reflections? Because this program provides an opportunity for young people in our community to express themselves artistically. You can take one theme and interpret it a million different ways, and they are all the right way. Our students find their voice when they create films and compose literature. They choreograph dances and compose music.

They take photographs and create paintings, sculptures, Lego structures, and self portraits. The art our young people create allows us to see the world through their eyes with all of its challenges and opportunities. SCCPTA stands with National PTA and amplifies its belief that the arts, music, literature, dance, drama, and visual arts are central to learning. Infusion of the arts in elementary, secondary, and continuing education curricula is key to the development of students. Like National PTA, we support programs that promote public awareness of the arts and arts education, which is exactly what the Seminole Cultural Arts Council does.

We are grateful we have SCAC here in our community opening doors to possibilities for people of all ages to find themselves in the arts. The arts matter in Seminole County because our children matter in Seminole County. Thank you for your support, commissioners. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Sharon Batty.

Good morning. Oh, you barely stated?

You can move that.

Good morning. My name is Sharon Beatty. I'm the PTA president at Sterling Park Elementary. Not sure if I should give you the school address or my residence because I practically live at the school. The school address is 905 South Eagle Circle. Yes. Have that memorized. My home address is 1400 Fairway Oaks Drive. I'm here as the PTA president and a resident, in favor of this bill. I had a whole speech prepared, but I do better off the cuff, so I'll just pull from here a little bit.

One of the things that I heard, mister Hyde say was it doesn't put food on the table. One thing I do would like to comment is that, in fact, it does, and it's not just based off of salary, in regards to what this what Seminole Cultural Arts does. If you look at the AEP five, they've proven that it boosts the economy. Arts help bring in people not just from our county, but from other counties. And the other county people actually, spend I have a percentage.

34% of attendees come from outside the county and spend more than twice as much as local residents. Nearly 70% of those visitors say the arts was their main reason for coming. So although I do also not particularly like paying a lot of taxes, I'm with you there, Hyde, I am in more favor of paying the taxes to put food on the table. For instance, we're a recipient, of the grant this year, and it was our first time because we, unfortunately, hadn't applied before. They are giving us money to do a fiftieth anniversary mural for our school.

That mural will put food on the table for the artists that will create it for us. That mural will show the kids in our school what art can achieve in an already depleting amount of money that's going to funds in the arts of school. My PTA board members and PTA members are here in unison speaking out that we want this to go through. As you said, miss Lockhart, your mom was an art. I just saw on your Facebook page all the lovely food you put on there. I would like to be invited to the next Sunday dinner, please. If you make the mac and cheese, I I'll put it out there. Commissioner Bob, you take photography. You you you beautiful portraits. You know art touches you firsthand.

Even mister Constantine, commissioner Constantine, you just got a life achievement award. Congratulations, by the way. And that I bet that bronze eagle looks good on your desk, doesn't it? And that was done by an artist. So, yes, I want us to be very particular about how we go about this. And I I I commend you Lockhart for wanting to look at it and go, let's make sure this is going to the right way. That's what we should do for everything. So maybe a few other items should be looked at as well, but don't take it away from the arts, please. Yes. Let's have accountability, but let's as you've heard from here today, a lot of our PTAs are benefiting from that in an already growing hard economic time.

We allocate $10,000 of our money just to go to food for the kids at our school. You know what I'm saying? Like, look at other things that need money too. We have kids who are eating off the floor in the cafeteria because they're not eating at home. And I understand that that's not on the agenda right now, that's not what we're talking about, but I would be remiss if I didn't sneak that in there somewhere. Thank you. My time is over.

Thank you.

God bless you all.

Thank you. John Epps.

Morning, madam chair, members of the board. Don Epps, Seminole County Historical Society. We're a five zero one c three that supports the Museum of Seminole County history and historical preservation. Over the past number of years, we have joined with the Arts Council to support, numerous local artists, exhibiting within the museum, various different formats. I would, encourage you to continue support as this is beneficial to our county. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Virginia Pope. Who's the next speaker, please?

Deborah Bauer, and that will be our last speaker.

Thank you.

Good morning, commissioners. I'm Virginia Poe. I live at 108 River Oaks Circle, Sanford, Florida. I live on the Wekiva River, where 46 goes across the river. And as a side, I would say thank you for all the beautiful landscaping. It's just really wonderful. I am the chair of the city of Sanford's public art commission, and I'm here to just say that we support your support of this council. Art enriches everyone. The public art commission in Sanford puts up murals. We do all those beautiful box wraps all the way downtown, and we do sculpture.

It enriches the community. It brings people to the community, and it also enriches the people who work in the community. They see the artwork every day. So thank you for your time and consideration. Obviously, the Public Art Council endorses this. Thank you.

Thank you. Deborah

Bauer. Good morning, Commissioners and Chair. My name is Doctor. Deborah Bauer. I'm the Executive Director of the Seminole Cultural Arts Council. The address is 230 East 1st Street, Sanford, Florida 32772. I want to make a few statements just to clarify a few things for the point of the record. First of all, SCAC has been a longtime partner with Seminole County and as our Board Secretary, Mrs. Sanchez said, we look forward to partnering with you and continuing that partnership. First of all, the question I think that has come to me most often because I've stood before you several times this year on behalf of SCAC already, What is SCAC?

What do we do? What do we get from the county? Who do we get one from? How do we do what we do? And the answer I have come to realize in the eleven months, because I took office in January, so we've had the transition from our previous executive director, Donna Bundy, who was there for almost thirteen years.

I came on board in January, and the number one thing that I found out is many people don't they knew about SCAC, but they didn't know what we did. And that's something over the last eleven months that I have worked very hard to let people know, for example, we are not an advisory board. We are not like the historical commission. We are not like the Veterans Affairs Commission. We have actual responsibilities that have been delegated to us from the county, from the community, and we work to fulfill those through a five zero one(three) board of directors.

That's the first thing. The second thing is we strongly believe in transparency and we welcome questions. We want to provide this information to anyone who asks. So on behalf of our board of directors and our president, Commissioner Aramendia, I invite each of you, I would love to sit down with you, answer any questions you may have so that you understand that the money that has come to SCAC from the County Commission has stayed in Seminole County. It has gone to artists, other artistic arts and cultural nonprofits.

And we want to give you the evidence of that, some of which you see here today because, for example, we've awarded just in the last three months almost $28,000 in grant money, some of which came from the state, some of which came from you all, some of which came from our private fundraising because we do take that challenge very seriously. We want to stand on our own two feet as much as possible. But during times of transition, these can be and having questions asked is never a bad thing, but we do want to have the opportunity to give you the information. And I also welcome this. The public can always go to our website.

Our contact information is there. I invite people like Mr. Hyde to ask questions so that we have a clear understanding and accurate information is being put out in the public because much as we all know, people get a tidbit of truth and then through the telephone game, things start to change. And before you know it, mistruths and inaccuracies can be compounded in the press, and I'd like to see that avoided. So I look forward to partnering with you over the next month. Hope I can address any questions, comments, or concerns, and I'm here should you have further need. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Stregor, are there any other speakers? No, ma'am. With that, we'll close public comment, and I'll come back to you, Commissioner Lockhart.

So just a couple of things that are on top of mind that I want staff to be thinking about in terms of what I'm thinking I'd like to have come back and some of the ideas. And frankly, going back and reading our minutes from the 2023 meeting when we made the decision to give SCAC additional funds on top of the funds that we had already been giving them in 2023. I think it was an additional 20 some odd thousand dollars because we split the 46 between Wayne Dench and SEAC. But Commissioner Constantine made a very wise suggestion during that discussion, and I don't know that we followed it, frankly. We probably should have.

I'm giving you credit, Lee. He suggested that perhaps we look at putting a percentage or a dollar amount of the funds that the county is giving that those be required to be used toward grants. And I I think my response was, I don't know that need to micromanage, you know, big brother telling private sector what to do even though it is taxpayer money, I get that. That's something maybe we might want to go back and look at again, maybe looking at the idea of having it be a matching grant. Just thinking about this from the perspective of not just because we've done it this way, but how can we do it better?

How can we encourage more public participation? Because I think every nonprofit that we support, we have said, whether it be the homeless shelter or any agency that comes before us for funding for community assistance funding, the the ongoing theme is how can we help these organizations stand up so that they are doing more of the support of their own organizations and not the taxpayers of Seminole County. That is the ultimate goal. So that, I will also ask not just that we bring item at the so my motion is to bring back this item at an upcoming board meeting and let staff determine what that board meeting what the timing needs to be based on when you can gather all the information. So that's my motion, and then I have another comment.

I will second that motion without going into everything, commissioner Lockhart. I think for me, it's more about seeing documents, financial documents. I can make some extrapolations based on that, on how that money is being utilized. So I'll support bringing this back and letting staff, you know, gather that information, let the council supply those documents, and then we can have the early before us to make good decisions.

Mister Constantine?

Thank you very much. On the motion, I just just feel uncomfortable. I'll support the motion, but I feel uncomfortable about keeping it at some future meeting. I know that, I I am very supportive of the arts as I believe all of us are, and I think that we should make sure that we get the right amount of money, the right suggestions in the hands of those that are required to do the job as soon as possible. So

If you'd like, I could amend the motion to make it date specific specific as the second meeting in January. And Okay. And at the same time, I believe we have the Wayne Dench agreement

Coming.

Coming. So if we could do both of those agreements Absolutely. The same agenda?

And that would be January 27.

Does the second That

would be great.

Does the

second Seconder agrees.

Thank you.

Twenty seventh. Okay. So to January 27.

Any further discussion? I'd like to add that I think I did ask to see the budget, and I think the budget was shared with everybody. I would tell you that the budget does not include enough detail from my perspective. It simply has one line item called grants for, I think, I'm doing this by memory, but $13,000 I need to see the grants spelled out. I would also tell you that I'd like to see multiple years of budgets.

I would actually be delighted with five because I think we need to see what was happening before we made the change and what's happening now. I'm thinking that five gets us there, that math may not be right. But I and I think they need to be detailed line item budgets. I think we are here because there is not enough transparency, and I think going forward we need to solve that issue. And transparency doesn't mean that we put something on a website. It means that something that's on the website spells it out in detail. Even the board item didn't have enough transparency in it, quite frankly, which is how we got here. Any further discussion? Nope. All those in favor of the motion?

Aye.

Opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. I'm so sorry. So here was my other comment. Can we please do the same thing for Wayne Dentsch? The same questions that we're asking at SCAC, I wanna be fair and consistent and also ask those for that same depth level of detail for the other arts organization that we're giving money to. And I already talked to Catherine Townsend this morning, and she knew I was gonna ask. So nobody hurry up and text her. I told her.

No texting needed. Alright. With that, we still have a consent agenda to approve. Commissioner Constantine.

Thank you. And with that, I will move the approval of the constitutional amendment constitutional officers consent agenda item four and the county manager's consent agendas, item four a, four b, through 23 with the exception of 19. Is there a second?

Second. Second.

So 24 was left out because it was pulled, it's with the exception of 24 as well. Correct. We approve that, first and the second to agree? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Alright. Moving right along. That takes that takes us to a work session on septic tanks. What could be more invigorating?

Don't leave now. This is when it gets really fun.

PTA doesn't want to stay for the septic tank discussion? So this will be Johnny Edwards, Utility Director with Kim Orenberg, Environmental Services Director. And we really do say it in just we are very appreciative of all the work that you do to keep everything going in the right direction.

Thank you very much. And good morning, Chairman, and Commissioners. We appreciate the opportunity to present your favorite topic, septic tanks, this morning. And joining me, again, presentation by committee, we have Doctor. Reiss, Doctor. Robert Reiss of Reiss Consulting Solutions and CHA Consulting, your Environmental Services Director, Kim Hornberg, and myself, your Utilities Director, Johnny Edwards. Our agenda today, we wanted to talk about the purpose of this presentation. Doctor. Reis will providing be providing some background on septic tanks. Kim Ornberg will talk about advanced septic tank, the status of our program.

And then I'm gonna talk about septic to sewer, first looking at the total program, potential cost estimates for what it might take to comply with, state requirements. And then all of these together will, help provide some focus and context for the next item and just that is our first potential septic to sewer project. And then we'll talk about next steps, and, seek board direction as we turn it over to the board for discussion. And with that, the purpose of the background, again, to update the board on the status of our septic to sewer program and advanced septic tank programs. And again, at the end of the presentation, we will seek board direction on our first septic to sewer project.

With that, I'll turn it over to doctor Rees.

Good morning, chairman, commissioners. As mister Edwards said, I'll give background on septic to sewer. The first element here, just the the one zero one, I'll I'll say is when wastewater is generated within residents that has a septic tank, it it will make its way to that septic tank, which is a buried container. It holds the wastewater long enough to allow the solids to settle, and the liquid is drained into the environment. There's significant nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient element to that leachate that enters into the environment, and it will percolate through the groundwater into the aquifer.

And if there's connectivity, in which many cases in Central Florida there is, that liquid will wind up in our springs and contribute to eutrophication and issues with flora and fauna. From a regulatory standpoint, the state has a a state mandated watershed protection program. That program is specifically the basin management action plans. Each of the b maps purpose is to restore an impaired water body by reducing the introduction of nutrients and pollutants into that geographic area, and septic tanks have been identified as a major contributor, to the nutrient pollution. Also, the state legislature has focused on the springs and identified 30 outstanding Florida springs, OFSs, that require additional protection.

And a priority focus area, PFA, is a subset of a b map where there's greatest concern about pollutant introduction and known connectivity pathways between the groundwater and the outstanding, Florida spring. There's a whole hodgepodge of, lines you see on the image to the left, but I I want to call attention to three of those. One, of course, the black boundary of, the geography of Seminole County itself. And then there's a purple boundary in the southwest bottom left corner of this image, which is the Wekiwa Springs and Rock Springs b map. The spring is Wekiwa, and the river is the Wekiwa.

They get used interchangeably, including myself, but Kim Orenberg does a fine job of reminding me that the b map is the Wekiwa b map, and it has a priority focus area within it for the Wekiwa Spring, and that is the orange boundary on the again, on the bottom left of the screen. And you'll see that priority focus area encompasses the Northwest corner of Seminole County, and that's the yellow square that you see. To the north is the Gemini Springs b map that encompasses a portion of Volusia County and Seminole County. And it also has a PFA, a priority focus area, but it's up in Volusia County to the north. There is just an overall beam at peace that's in yellow that's in Seminole County there in the Northwest corner.

I point those out from a if we look at the regulatory framework around those two geographies within Seminole County, the 2016 Springs and Aquifer Protection Act triggers action required in that southwest corner, that square that we see in yellow in this image, And it defined requirements for improving outstanding Florida Springs, and it requires that Seminole County have that remediate septic tanks within that area, and the county has until 2038 to do so. It is specific to parcels of one acre or less, of which there would be a septic tank already existing on there. The regulatory requirement is to remediate that. Subsequent to that, in 2023, House Bill thirteen seventy nine was passed that noted that if there was a priority focus area within a b map, that remediation was required within the entire b map geography. So while that previous piece of legislation that I mentioned did not capture the county's portion of the Wekiva Springs I'm sorry, the Gemini Springs b map that we see in yellow here, this bill did capture it.

So there is a requirement to remediate the existing septic tanks in this area in yellow, also by 2038. And again, this remediation is for parcels that are one acre or less that have an existing tank. So let's speak to remediation options. We took a look at this last year when we came before you. Certainly, from an environmental standpoint, these transferring from a septic tank to central sewer has significant and maximum benefits.

In that instance, that's because the wastewater is conveyed to a treatment plant for advanced treatment. The other option is having an advanced on-site septic treatment unit. There's still a tank, but additional equipment, that supports increased reduction in nutrients right there on-site at the parcel. There's some pros and cons between both of those options on the pro side for going to a treatment plant through central sewer. It eliminates the direct discharge to the groundwater.

The treated wastewater can be reused for beneficial reuse, minimal homeowner maintenance, increased property value, a lot of things we're we're quite familiar with when we switch from septic to central. But there is that monthly sewer bill that comes with it. There's high capital costs for conversion, and there is temporary roadside related construction. Flipping over to the on-site advanced treatment unit option, there is less temporary road side construction, possibly lower monthly maintenance costs, but you're not eliminating completely the pollution into the environment on the order, depending on the type of unit used, on the order of 65% reduction versus complete removal of the nutrients from the environment. And the homeowner is responsible for maintenance, and in many of the cases, these systems do have an electrical component to it, a pump or a blower, so they need to maintain that.

In the case of the proposed program for the utilities department, both options are anticipated to be utilized, and we'll talk a little bit more here momentarily about that. Let's talk quantities of of tanks, looking at the Wekaiwa PFA. The inventory that's been completed for the number of tanks estimates that there's 3,850 tanks outside of city municipal boundaries, which are the responsibility of the cities themselves. So we're talking outside, in this instance, of Altamonte Springs municipal service boundary in the the county's geography within that PFA. The utilities department has 2,932.

They're expected to be remediated within the Sunshine Utilities service area. Within their utility service area, there's an estimated 768. And then within the Altamonte Springs water and wastewater service area outside the city boundary, an estimated 150, and that reaches our total there. On the right, the Gemini b map and PFA, there's an estimated 1,109 within the utilities department area, 118 in the Sanford water and wastewater service area, 32 in FGUA's service area for a total of 1,259. There's been engineering analysis on the Wekiva PFA to assess the suitability of Central Sur as a means of connecting up, those parcels.

And, within the, utilities department's area, from an engineering standpoint, not from an economic standpoint, it looks like the vast majority of those could be reasonably connected up to central sewer. There's about 73 parcels that it felt like it it just wouldn't make sense to to do so, that they they should be granted the opportunity to do advanced septic. On the Gemini side, that split, that engineering analysis has not yet been completed. And with that, I'll turn it over to Ms. Ornberg.

Thank you. Good morning. Thank you. For the record, I'm Kim Ornberg. I'm the environmental services director, and I am here to talk very briefly about our advanced septic program.

So to get started, I'll give you a little bit of history. As you all know, we DEP gave us issued us a grant this year that you all approved in July, and it was a $2,200,000 grant that is intended to help residents that with the cost of upgrading their conventional systems to the more environmentally friendly advanced systems as part of the state mandate. The grant allows for a reimbursement of up to $10,000 per unit, and it will be paid directly to the resident once the work is complete and we have had verified it. At this point, the program is currently voluntary. It's only for existing conventional systems located within the Okeiva priority focus area and on residential homes less than an acre.

So now for the overview and steps. The goal of this program, besides helping offset the cost, is for us to provide information on the various types of systems, because there's multiple, to help our residents make informed decisions about their options and the requirements for each. And we also want to make sure that the reimbursement process is as smooth and simple as possible. And of course, we want to make sure that the installations are done properly and the systems are functioning the way they're supposed to. So with that in mind, we've been working with the Seminole County Department of Health, who you all know is in charge of issuing all of the septic tank permits.

And we're also working with the Florida On-site Wastewater Association, who provide training and certification for the installation contractors and inspectors for these types of systems. Our website that we've been developing, a user friendly web site for residents and contractors alike to use that they can apply get information and apply online. And it will be officially launching very soon, probably next week, with thanks to a lot of help from our communications team and our IT team. What's included in the website is an overview of the program, instructions for homeowners and contractors, eligibility information and a lookup tool, licensed contractor list from the state, and educational materials. And our program, like I is about to launch that.

So in addition to the website launch, we'll be sending out direct mailers to the residents that Robert had mentioned that don't necessarily meet the septic to sewer criteria in the Wekiwa priority focus area, and we'll be sending out flyers to them directly. So that will be the initiation of our proactive launch of that. And finally, we haven't been waiting until the official launch of the program. We've been assisting some residents that meet the qualifications within the area and have some failing septic tanks that our staff is already working with to shepherd them through the process and help them make sure that they are qualified for the reimbursements. So that's really all I have to update you with today, but once we get the program up and running, we'll be back to give you an update later.

So with that, I will pass it back to Mr. Edwards. Thank you.

Alright. So the next item on the agenda, we wanted to look at the total, septic to sewer, program, potential cost estimates for, what this might cost. And just looking at the three options for compliance with the legislation that Doctor. Reese, mentioned, compliance by 2038, and we understand the state of Florida is considering extending that deadline, but as it stands currently, it's 2038, so that's that's in our analysis. But the three options, again, we could, the county could craft an ordinance to basically say homeowners, you have, septic tanks.

You need to convert them to advanced and compliance with the state requirements. The second bullet, we could say, hey, we want to convert all of these septic tanks onto central sewer system. Or the third bullet, a a combination of those two previous options. So we wanna look at cost estimates that evaluate, you know, the potential costs for compliance. And the third bullet here, compliance is not cheap.

And the way of unfunded mandates, this is a pretty large one. Just to to walk through the table real quickly, the top row, reflects the number of tanks in the Wekiva area that from an engineering perspective could be eligible for septic to sewer. In the blue column, accounting for numerous variables, we provided bookends, a range of potential costs from $218,000,000 to $3.00 $4,000,000 to convert those to central sewer. On the lower end of that range, you're looking at approximately $75,000 per tank to convert to central sewer. In the purple column, we also took a look at bringing reclaimed irrigation water back into these communities, during the construction.

We know that, there's not enough supply of reclaim to bring it back everywhere, but we provided a range of cost estimates. So between the blue and the purple, you know, maybe reclaimed in some places, and not having reclaimed in others. And in the green column, we wanted to look, for comparison purposes, of the cost of advanced septic tanks. From what we understand from the Department of Health, they're seeing a range, between 20,000 and $40,000 to convert a conventional septic tank to an advanced septic tank. We've seen a contract recently in Lake County that suggests that $20,000 is, a a reasonable estimate.

And looking at the next line, in the Gemini area, Costco cost per tank, go up a little bit. And I'll say as high as in the purple column, $208,000,000 to convert those tanks bringing back reclaim. You're looking at a cost of almost a $190,000, per tank conversion. The advanced row, you see a couple items down. Again, those are the the 73 tanks that doctor Reese mentioned in the Wekiva area that would be, exceedingly challenging, from an engineering and construction standpoint to put on central sewer, so they would be likely candidates, for conversion to an advanced septic tank.

And then we total, total the columns down at the bottom. So that's a lot. Those are some large numbers, and we ask the question, okay, why is septic to sewer so expensive? With new developments, utilities are typically installed first. You got a contractor working in a dirt field.

They put the utilities in first and the costs are spread across the cost of the home, say, in in a new subdivision. With septic to sewer construction, you're looking at rebuilding a road, requiring excavation of the road, rebuilding the road, installation of sewer laterals from somebody's home through their yard, maybe landscaped areas, out into meet that gravity main installed, near or under the road, abandonment of septic tanks, new pump stations, treatment capacity costs. And contractors know they're doing construction in an occupied residential area, and that presents a host of challenges all on its own. So so we asked the question, how can this possibly, you know, how can we pay for septic to sewer? And wanted to provide a couple examples.

The first example may be somewhat extreme, but we asked the question, what if the owners of these affected septic tanks, fronted or or paid the costs, for the conversion of septic to sewer? The assumptions we list off to the left, again, compliance by 2038. We said, what if we divided these tanks into four separate projects over time? We made the assumption that there's no new grant funding to to support these septic to sewer projects. And, again, being paid by the affected, property owners or septic tank owners, the results for compliance with the state law, yielded a range of between $412,154 dollars per month for thirty years.

It has been quite some time, but my first mortgage, I will tell you, was in that range. And and that is that is, I I think anybody would agree, more than most family budgets can afford. And again, this is not a recommendation. This is just an illustration for, the expanse of this cost, nor would we recommend necessarily putting a line item on a water bill. So that's not great, those costs.

We wanted to look at how can we get those costs down. So the next option we wanted to look at is, okay, what if we had all of our utility customers help fund the subject to sewer program? Similar analysis, similar assumptions, no new grant funding, the same deadline, but we have, 46,000, give or take, existing utilities customers that we could bring into the fold. And the results of that analysis is getting the monthly payments, again, for thirty years down to a range of $31 to $113, per month to comply with the state law. Just as a comparison, our average utility bill, is just over $100 a month.

So even the reduced cost from a percent increase perspective is substantial. All right. So we wanted to provide some perspective, some context on the cost of septic to sewer, and wanted to look at our first potential project. Typically, when we talk about septic to sewer projects, there are three sources of funding. We have homeowner participation, the local government or utility, may contribute funds, and there may be grants or appropriations from external sources.

Just talking about the first two, and we'll get back to homeowner participation in just a moment. We have grant support, dollars 10,000,000 grant from DEP with a 50% match requirement. That grant does have schedule associated with it, and we've been talking with DEP about amending that schedule. We have a couple other appropriations listed. But to utilize the $10,000,000 grant from DEP, we're looking at a minimum of about a septic to sewer project.

That would be $12,600,000 from the external funds and $7,400,000 from county funds. We already have, approved in our CIP budget, a little over $9,000,000 so we have enough to handle a $20,000,000 project with some scope and bid contingency. But like I said, I'd like to get back to homeowner participation for just a moment. If a utility installs a gravity sewer main, adjacent to a lot, the Florida statutes statutes and county code currently say that that resident or septic tank owner is required to connect to that main. So these are requirements both on the state and local level.

Well, what would that cost? We look at we have a capacity fee or utility of just over $3,000. That is just to connect, and and that is the same fee that would be required for new development. Every home in a new development, pays that, and we have a development pays for development, policy in the county. The next line, the homeowner abandoning a septic tank would be looking at the construction cost to physically make that connection.

Those costs, we estimate, in the range of 6,000 to $10,000 per connection to abandon the septic tank and actually run the sewer lateral to the main. So the total total homeowner expense, looking out of pocket for this, would be in the range of 9,000 to $13,000, per tank. And by comparison, the advanced septic tank program, that Kim mentioned, even with the grant, those homeowners are looking at being out of pocket somewhere between $10,000 and $30,000. So to try to organize some of these numbers and make them a little bit more digestible, we did another table. And option one in this table, we just looked at, okay, what if we're doing we want to utilize the grant from DEP and we're meeting the match.

So we're just talking about the grants and the currently budgeted utilities funds. For just over $20,000,000 we estimate, we could do approximately two sixty seven tanks, remediate that number of tanks. We provided a range in options two to four, five to 15%. 5% would cover just a little bit more than the capacity, fee that we mentioned earlier. Option 15%, would cover a little bit closer to what the advanced septic tank owners would be looking to be out of pocket.

For those additional funds, we could add, you see, thirteen twenty six or approximately 40 tanks to increase the scope of a septic to sewer project, or we could use those funds to pay back the water and sewer fund for the match component of option, of the $20,000,000 project. To the right, we provided just kind of a menu, a range of monthly or annual payments over different payback periods for what the costs of the owner the homeowner participation could be in this scenario. So before we conclude the presentation, we wanted to talk briefly about next steps. Staff, in the absence of direction otherwise, plan to continue to apply for grants and appropriations to help pay for this. We do plan to schedule a septic to sewer work session next year to come back and, talk a little bit more about the total program for compliance with the state requirements, and bringing back updates that may be available.

And then the last item, in January, we're scheduled currently to talk about our draft master plan CIP, one, to look at the needs of the utility, and then two, we can talk about different scenarios that include allocations for septic to sewer. So with that, this is our final slide. I did want to read the three, decision points that we have for the Board, and then turn it over to the Board for discussion and direction. The first is whether or not the Board, wants staff to proceed with the first septic to sewer project and the Wekiva PFA to utilize the existing DEP grant. The second question would be whether the Board wants to seek homeowner participation, through either an MSBU or a special assessment district.

And we didn't get into detail on this, but these are a couple options for how those assessments could occur. MSBU, the county has several MSBU programs where, they seek residential, they seek a residential vote, and get the residents' interest. First, I think a special assessment district would be more from a leadership perspective. This is what is going to be required, and and that could come through a special assessment district. The last bullet is if we are going to seek homeowner funding, skin of the game from the septic tank owners, does the board want us to return that to the water use and sewer fund or utilize that to increase the scope of the project to remediate more tanks as indicated in the table below?

So that is a lot. I greatly appreciate your patience in this presentation. And with that, we are concluded.

Thank you very much. Great presentation. Thank you to the entire team. I will point out that they did come with contingency plan. In the lack of direction, they're still going to do stuff. I heard that loud and clear, but my goal today is to get you some direction. How about that? There is an opportunity for public comment on this item as well, so if you wish to make public comment, please turn in your forms. I see none in your hand right this minute, so I'll turn it to the board for discussion.

I'm happy to kick it off.

I was just anticipating that commissioner Constantin would kick it off, but maybe we'll end with him. Commissioner Zembauer.

So there's a lot to digest here, obviously. And the last slide answered part of my question about the Special Assessment District. Based on the numbers, I would say that 99.9% of our residents are not cost effective. They're not going to write a check. They don't want to finance for thirty years for $400 to $1,300 a month.

None of us want to do that. So my point being there is I think it's very important that, first, let me say, I think we all agree, we want to help clean the environment, we want to be kind to the environment, want to get the nutrients out of the water, etcetera, etcetera. That comes with a cost, but it's also mandated by the state, not this county. The county has to follow. So that is important.

The messaging is that this is state mandated. It's not the county coming in and saying you have to do a, b, and c. We're following what the state requires us to do. The health department, what interaction are they having? Let's say I'm in this area now and I come in and I need to pull a permit for replacement septic tank.

Are they identifying at that point, oh, by the way, you're in this particular area. You're gonna have to meet this criteria by this date, and what options am I given at that point if we know? Can I go back to what I have? Can I obviously, I could go to the enhanced septic treatment system? Lacking any laterals, I can't hook the septic. So how are they handle how how are they messaging when somebody comes in for a permit?

So if they meet the criteria and they're in the PFA, they look at I think the the state mandate or regulations allows for, I think if there's plans for septic, I mean, sewer to be coming in within the next five to ten years, then they will, you know, they're contacting us and talking to our staff, you know, so we've been interacting with them. So if there's not any plan, then they will allow them, or they will require them to upgrade their advanced systems. So that's we've been working with them on that. And, you know, it's been a little bit up in the air because we haven't gotten the board's approval to move forward with the pilot project, but so that will help us as far as identifying moving forward with that. But if they're outside of that, then they have to do the upgraded systems.

Okay, thank you. So Madam Chair, for what staff has asked for direction, I I I would be fine moving forward with the pilot project initially. I think that gives us it'll give us some experience of what we're gonna deal with across the rest of the county in those areas. We have to do it. We'll I'm assuming assuming we'll discover pickup speed bumps, errors, and all those things that we could utilize to do a better job later.

I would very much like to understand what an MSBU or special assessment district would look like and what that means to people from a cost standpoint. I also would be okay for residents who want to participate that that money go back in to help do further projects of this magnitude. All that said, I don't think it's an easy answer. It's a heavy lift financially. It's a heavy burden on our residents.

I quite frankly don't see how the state accomplishes this in the timeline that they've said it's going to occur. And of course, the other thing we know is technology continues to advance. Each and every year there's a new advanced septic system treatment that comes along or somebody's new great idea. But even if we go that route, you're two to three times what it looks like for a standard septic tank. And I will say the majority of our residents will not be able to not be able to afford to pay that even if they went to the bank and got a loan.

Who wants to pay 400 to $1,300 a month? That's a problem. So that's my direction for what it's worth.

So just for purposes of making sure we understand that direction, the cost associated with the MSBU or special assessment district, you want a further analysis beyond what's already been provided?

I want to know what that's going to look like to cost for each and every member.

Specific to each member?

Correct. What's the homeowner's cost if there there is an MSPU or a special assessment set aside? What does that look like?

Understood. I'm getting a yes down there. Commissioner DeLaury?

Thank you, madam chair. Got a couple questions because I think there are some issues here that we're not yet discussing or exploring. First of all, between the Wakava and the Gemini Springs, Wakava is two and a half times the size of the Gemini Springs with connections. Correct? So which one is more impaired? Which one is more of an issue than the other? Or are they both at the same level?

From from the regulatory standpoint, from The States, Wekiva was established as a highest priority one. We're in the PFA for that.

The reason I'm asking is that wasn't covered on your slides. Next is with the Wekiva, what percentage is Seminole County in that area? Because if you look at the aquifer, it doesn't know jurisdiction lines. It doesn't know what city or county it's in. It just looks at the area. And so Seminole County is a small portion of it. How much of a percentage is in Seminole County?

I think as far as the PFA, it's probably a third to a half of the PFA. And and the the other entities, which is mostly Orange County Mhmm. Is under the same kind of regulatory compliance.

Okay. Then the next question I have is, we're using 2038 as the target. What's the possibility of that date moving?

From what we are hearing, it is very likely that they are going to be extending that date because I don't believe that's

The reason I'm bringing that up is because we had a similar situation back in 2013 or 2014, I believe it was. And that's why we built Yankee Lake, and we wanted to make sure that we were gonna make that deadline. And all the county commissioners at that point were told by the state that it is hard and fast number. We have to make that date, and yet nothing has happened. And they kept on kicking the can down the road for groundwater.

And so even though we built Yankee Lake, now eleven years later, we're still waiting for that magical date to appear. So I just want to make sure that we're all looking at this realistically and we're spending money one time in the most effective way. So then the next issue I have is when you talk about advanced systems and septic, it really shouldn't be about homes even though we talk about the homes. It should talk about a typical home with x amount of bathrooms or fixture units because depending upon the size of the house, either the septic system is going to grow or shrink depending upon how many restrooms. So with the homes that you're talking about, what is the size of that house loading?

Because a house with five bathrooms are gonna require a bigger septic system than a house with two bathrooms.

Correct. And and as far as I know, that's what the range that we were given by the by the health department

So it's two to five?

Was $20.20 to 40,000, although we've gotten some that were a little bit lower estimates from from Lake County that they're moving forward with their program. But that range, I assume, covers, you know, a range of bathrooms.

Okay. Because when people are looking at this, they're all going to get sticker shock like commissioner Zimbaugh talked about.

But Mhmm.

To have a smaller house, even though it's sticker shock, it's a smaller sticker shock comparable because of the loading of the restrooms.

Correct.

Okay. So then the next thing I don't see in your slides is o and m, operation and maintenance. Because with the advanced systems, if it's not maintained on an annual basis, it's not gonna work. So how do we police that?

That's being done and we're coordinating with, but that's being done through the set the health department as

far as

I know. So that's why our staff has been working closely with them.

Are they are they gonna make it mandatory that they maintain it?

I believe that they do, but I would need to check to make If

could check that, that'd be Because the maintenance on that is very high. I actually checked with a couple homeowners and it's annually anywhere between a thousand and $1,400 a year. That's an additional cost just for the maintenance. And then if something breaks, they have to replace parts and pieces, so the price even goes up even higher. So the cost that we're looking at, there's some hidden costs here that we're not even addressing yet.

So I'd like to get additional information on what the enforcement issue is, how we're to be doing that, and how is the O and M going to be doing on that and what is the actual cost of running this thing on a month to month basis because it's not just put it in the ground, forget it. There's an actual cost per month.

Correct.

Okay. And what is the if it's not maintained, what happens to the aquifer at that point? You know, does the does we make our numbers? Is the numbers what happens if it's not maintained?

Then I guess we would not see the reductions that we're looking for.

Okay. So then with the pilot program that we have, that the funding for, I have no problem moving forward with that.

Mhmm.

But all these other options, we still need a lot more information before we go there. And I'm not at this point willing to give you direction because there's not enough information. And I'm not gonna saddle a resident with x amount of dollars per month if we don't even know what the O and M is going to be, and that's going to be a big issue. Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're welcome. Yes.

So I agree that this is going to be a huge amount of sticker shock and messaging is going to be incredibly important. I also have experience having served in the school board for a number of years with the state coming out with mandates that only had repealers or tweaks to a year or two later because they realized that the mandate was not reasonable. We sort of took a posture after getting burned. I'll call it burned. We wanted to be eager beavers and be the first ones to be compliant just like Yankee Lake, and we're gonna be leaders, and we're gonna get this done, and we're gonna be the first ones to implement it.

And then they withdrew the requirement after we'd done all of the training and the staffing and the funds. And and so we took we took a posture that we phrased minimally compliant for future, mandates that came out that seemed like maybe someday, maybe next session, maybe someone will have a stroke of, reasonableness and and we'll see this, you know, get modified. I have a very strong feeling that that's potentially what could be happening here. So I'm not in any huge rush to be the you know, spending all these funds and giving our citizens heart attacks. I don't wanna waste the grant funding.

I also don't wanna impose this on a neighborhood. I think if we're my personal opinion is if we're doing a pilot project, it needs to be a community that has elected and voted through, like, similar process like our MSBU process that they want to go through this. Because this isn't just money. This is a your everything is torn up. Your world is turned upside down.

The construction, upheaval, I mean, it's you think we had a hard time when Wow came through laying fiber and some sprinkler heads were broken. I mean, this is not this is gonna be ugly. And I think that we need to make sure we're doing this in partnership with whatever community we would pilot with. That would be my if we're going to pilot, that would be my thought that they have to be on board and and it has to be self selecting. It's it's just it's just totally mind boggling to think that we're going to do this to our residents.

Don't want the Makiva to run green. I don't want right? Like we all like commissioner Zambauer said at the very beginning, we want to be environmentally sensitive. We want to to be do the best that we can for our springs and and for our natural places, but, at what cost? And and I'm this is a tough pill to swallow. I don't know if that gives you the direction you're looking for or not.

Madam chair, I have a question if I can follow-up with commissioner Lockhart's comment. Can you tell us the the grant money? Is is it time sensitive? Is there a time limit on that? Yes. I believe there is, isn't there?

Well, there yeah. There is there is a schedule tied to the DEP grant. You know, we've been talking to DEP about amending that schedule. So we'd like to get back with them later this month and and amend it.

But what's the current deadline and what are they talking about possibly?

Well, so the current deadline would have us completing preconstruction services at the end of this year. So clearly, that's not happening. So we have to amend the schedule. And just based on feedback from today, we can talk to DEP about what is a reasonable time frame to complete preconstruction and then go through bidding and construction.

Yeah, that's what Paul Harvey calls the rest of the story. Okay. That that may change my direction a little bit. So thank

you. Commissioner Constantine?

Well, thank you, commissioner and and and other commissioners. I I wanted to wait for I know you all thought that I was just chomping at the bit for this, but I'm I'm going to maybe shock some of you to say that I agree with you. The comments that have been made. And I'll tell you, but I have a different kind of I have an advantage in the fact that I've seen these numbers before. And Doctor.

Reese and staff, thank you very much for everything that you've done because this is it's not me saying this anymore. Okay? And I've been saying this because I knew this this day was going to come. And, by the way, I'm sorry that I left a few minutes ago. I had to visit our sanitary sewer system.

TMI. But let me let me just and and please let me just give a few minutes because I haven't said anything yet. But when I first saw these numbers and when I was appropriate when I was chair of environmental preservation back in 2009 and 2010, there were 2,000 2,900,000 septic tanks in Florida. So you think these numbers are mind boggling? We're only talking about 4,000 in Seminole County's system.

2,900,000. And there were a lot of different things all the way from going to sanitary sewer everywhere to whatever else we could do at a minimum. And you all have known that I, in some cases, in some places, have gotten a black eye because I suggested an inspection system once every five years. That was, quite frankly, the least of everything else that had to be done to do this. Because look at the page that they brought back to you on the, you know, in the background as far as the pros and cons.

We're talking about the water we drink, and Florida's waters are one of the most it is our economic engine, our water systems, our rivers, our streams, certainly our springs. And this was this is a catastrophe coming down the pike that that we can kick it down the curb to the people that are going to pursue follow us and to the generations that follow us, and we'd be making a grave error and absent leadership. 2,900,000 septic tanks, and the and everybody that you ask will tell you they're taking care of theirs. Mhmm. Everybody.

But do you know how many septic tanks in that year, 2,010, with 2,900,000 septic tanks were inspected voluntarily? 17,000. Less than 1%. And the program that requires people to ins that that that voluntarily inspect their septic tanks is when you add a bathroom or a bedroom to your home. And when you add a bathroom or a bedroom, you allow, at that point, the DOH, now the DEP, to come into your house and check the septic tank.

And so you think your septic tank's working or you wouldn't invite them in to do that because you're gonna add a bedroom, and therefore, you're gonna need more capacity. More than 50% of those weren't working

properly. So recommendations

Yeah. I'm I'm I'm giving you a history because I'd want you to know That's why I keep on asking where I'm coming from, please. Maintenance leak. Yeah. And that I thank you. So what we have now is, you know, where we are, and we're just a very small microcosm of the bigger picture. I, you know, I concur with all of you that we can't we can't impose this on our citizens because it's too big, too much, too large. And at some point, the legislature is going to have to bite the bullet and do what's right, which they should have been done done all along. And whether it's 2038 or 2045, it's coming, guys. It's coming.

So the the the thing that oh, and I wanted also to most of the septic tanks in in Florida, because it was done in the boom of the eighties and nineties, were over 30 years old. The life's expectancy of a septic tank is thirty years. So a lot of people are gonna come up and get that sticker shock whether we do it or not. And and in fact, I think that one person called up and said, hey. I gotta replace my septic system.

When are you gonna get a sanitary sewer? That just happened a couple of days ago. Okay. Saying all that, we know that the cost of extending lines is is just too expansive now, but we gotta start. We gotta start somewhere. And and that's what we try to do with with the inspections. Of course, it felt like commissioner Lockhart said they come back and they change it sometimes. So what is your

direction for staff, commissioner? Let me

I'm I'm I'm getting there. I have to lay the preface, please. So I think we can take steps. Clearly, the first step is we need to proceed with the first septic sewer project. We've gotta do that. We have existing grants. I know that there are you've you've said we wanted to do it voluntarily. I know there's some places that are asking for it that have talked to you all right now. So I know we can do that. So that's important.

I think the second thing we need to really consider, even if it is only 65%, and I've said this before, but now that you see the numbers, maybe you all will will think about this. We need to look at any new project putting in advanced septic tanks everywhere because it's gonna come down the pike to everybody. We also need to look at, certainly, anybody that has a septic tank that fails having to replace it if they cannot get sanitary sewer as is required by law if it's within their reach to get the advanced septic tank. Those are things that that are, you know, easy easy fruit. And then the last thing that I would say, because these guys have to continue to explore the grants and have to continue to look at other alternatives.

And there there will be, as commissioner, again, Lockhart said, there's gonna be alternatives, hopefully. We've gotta look at RMEs. It was something that I suggested a long time ago in the legislature. I think that there was a modified RMEs, res regional maintenance entities. There are some things that can be done.

I know Lake County has done a little modified one where it's actually, and you'll appreciate this, an insurance policy of for your septic tank that we because the legislature has not taken away the ability of local governments yet to come up with innovative and creative solutions, although they probably will someday. But this is something that we can do to work, and the staff knows about it. We've talked about it numerous times, where we start looking at how we can put together an RME first for the people in the MacGyver and the Gemini area, but then potentially everywhere. Economy of scale. It'll cost a whole lot less if we are able to get companies to put together or to work with companies to put together a a a type of insurance policy voluntarily, but people will see the benefit of it voluntarily, and then it can go it's very similar to what we did in Altamonte Springs when we did the Apricot project.

We we did that. And here's here here's the thing, and I just wanna tell you why I told you about the 2010. When we discussed this, and everybody talks about the maintenance and everything, when we did this, the companies, the private companies, when we were working with them on this RME and the inspection program said, unlike some people that were the naysayers, said we would use this as a lost leader. The septic the the inspection type thing is not gonna be expensive because they will use it as a loss leader if we can work with them, where people like Roto Rooter and others, you know, smaller and bigger, said, you know, we'll inspect it. We'll probably charge less than $50.

That was then. And, you know but the real problem is people are afraid of what they're gonna find. Okay? But I think that those are the three things we need to do. Start the process.

Look at advanced everywhere. I'm not saying do it now, but look at it and see if we can implement that because both for new prod new systems as well as as well as existing breakdown if they can't get sanitary sewer. And then look at a program of of regional maintenance entity to start protecting these septic tanks along the way and stop the pollution. Because folks, you know, we can't live without water, and we are polluting it every day. And it's gonna cost us more if we don't start now.

Thank you, commissioner Constantine. Any comments with regard to any of that? Commissioner Zembo?

I'll try to keep it brief.

Thank you.

Of course, many of you know my district, probably 99, 98% of it is all on septic and being the rural area. Septic systems comprise of multiple components. There's a drain field, there's a septic tank, there's a single chamber, there's a dual chamber, depending on the lineage of when it was built. The septic drain field in most cases dictates the size and the amount of bathrooms that are in the thing. I I would not be a fan of if a drain field needs to be replaced, that we automatically force someone to upgrade the entire septic system. So I I would I would wanna see more about when that is triggered, a drain field versus septic tank being bad type routine.

Thank you, madam chair. I just wanted to to clarify. You know, this is mostly for prep for for properties under an acre. Those that larger than an acre, many of them in your most of them in your area, would not be as affected because you have the drain field because it can spread, because it will not pollute as much. That's one of the reasons we said it in the inspections back then, one acre or less. So we're not looking at 10 acre per lots and five acre lots.

But, in my district, we still have a lot of quarter acre, half acre under one acre lots.

So gentlemen, can I offer this opportunity? I think if the direction is to bring it back staff to bring back information with regard to the opportunity to create that requirement, then staff needs to evaluate this discussion with the technical experts and bring it back to us. Is that fair?

Yes. Perfect. That's what I'm trying to say.

So I'll give you my direction. I do think we should proceed with the first septic to sewer project. I think it should be somebody that wants to do it. Otherwise, you'll never hit a deadline. I mean, you just you you won't be able to execute it if the if the neighborhood is not willing. I do think there should be some level of homeowner participation because there is some level of homeowner participation in a septic tank. And we can pretend that the current septic tanks, old school septic tanks, I've owned many of them, don't require monthly maintenance. It's not that they don't require it, it's that we just don't do it until the big bill comes due and we ignore that for as long as we can and just let it leach into the ground. That's how it works right now. It's just that we're not paying our fair share for those folks that are on those systems.

I don't have a recommendation with regard to the spread and the scale, although I think it's well done, and I think bringing back that type of detail will be extremely helpful. And I do think that anything that is returned back into the organization from that needs to come to remediate additional tanks, not to go back into the current utility using program.

Madam chair Yes. I make additional suggestion as well if it's okay with the board, and also look at other outside partners that we can partner with outside agencies that we can partner with.

Thank you. Do you feel like you have enough direction?

Our card is gonna ring.

Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay. I just have a question. Where are our seven cities that are within these PFAs or whatever? Where what are they doing? Are they required to do anything, or is this something the county has to do?

They are required. As far as with Wekiva, it's Altamonte, and I don't believe I think they have a very small number of septic tanks within their city boundary. The Gemini is the newer one that's been expanded. And so Sanford and Lake Mary, and I think Doctor. Reiss had it on his slide, they have some, but they are those are their responsibility. So it's

We not a can find Yeah.

I'd love to know what they're doing.

I I I could tell you. Altamonte Springs requires you to hook up to sanitary sewer. Right. Done. It's done. In fact, when I bought at my house on the lake, I found out that my the previous owner had never hooked up, and I went ahead and hooked up to sanitary sewer. But there is no how I think they said a 150 total, and that's outside the city limits. I think there's you know, Altamonte Springs does that in the Wekiva area now.

They have 12. It's on slide number six hundred And and six

I did wanna ask the chairman, when you mentioned, you know, what the direction, you did include them looking into things like RMEs and other things.

Right? Did not I did not supersede any of it is not my role to supersede any direction given by other commissioners. I simply gave my suggestion.

In your suggestion, was that I didn't hear you. I believe that

aide I really think I got that down.

Yeah. But I thought that it was kind of like, you know,

no. Her statement was you heard the conversation here. Please. Yep. Good. I'll call that back. She included all our statements.

All of your statements are included, and then I gave mine, which was specific to the direction they're asking for.

I was less curious about the number and what they're actually doing.

Yeah. Yeah. The city of Altamonte Springs has applied for a grant here this year, and their intent is to sit, obtain co funding and address the septic tanks within the municipal boundaries, which are separate from anything that's discussed here. So they are seeking to remediate through co funding supporting that effort.

What is co funding?

Getting a grant or an appropriation, to offset the cost to the utility and the homeowner. I don't know the specifics of whether they intend to have the homeowners participate, but relative to a program, they have initiated efforts to to get some grant monies to be able to move forward and remediate those tanks within the city municipal boundaries.

I think it would just be helpful for us to know where where we are in the scheme of how much we're offering to do.

Got it.

Sorry. Thank you.

All good? Thank you very much for your presentation.

Thank you all.

Chuck, can we take a five minute recess?

You Five minute recess? So we will be back here at 11:36. All right. I'll call us back to order. We are on to the next item, item number 26, basin studies. Again, this is an opportunity for public input. So should you think you'd like to speak on this, please fill out a form. And I'll turn it over to John Slott.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, John Slott, Director of Public Works. Thank you all for the opportunity to come speak to you today on our basin study. This is one of three basin studies we will groups that we will bring back to you in the coming couple of three months now. This one will happen to be around what we affectionately call the East County Basins, which actually are in the Central Seminole County.

So don't ask me why, it just happens to be that way. We'll have our newly minted Chief Design Engineer, Joe LaFosso, come up and walk us through the presentation. We're also joined by our consultants from both GeoSentec and Arduro that will be here to answer any of your questions. In addition to this presentation and the remaining presentations on the 13 basins within the county, we will also bring back the stormwater master plan, which is the composite document for all of these basin concepts. So today, we will go through an overview of the basin studies.

We'll talk to you a little bit about the timeline we've been on on these basin reviews. The key thing for the board here is we utilized this time for the 16 basins within the county. We studied 13 of them. This was a big bang approach. The one thing I think we learned as a team is that we really don't want to do a big bang again.

It takes a significant amount of time. It takes duration. We have a lot of residents and yourselves, the Board, and staff that utilize this information. So moving forward after this, we'll be coming back to you at the end, once we've encapsulated all 13 basin approvals, to change that method to an always ready method. So we will engage a consultancy to keep all of the basin models up to date, so we are, quote unquote, always ready versus a big bang approach. So today, we'll show you what we grouped as basins groups one a, b, and c, show you some next steps, and then we'll ask for requested action. With that, I'd like to bring up mister Lofaso to move us through the presentation.

Thank you, mister director, madam chairman, fellow commissioners. To begin with, for these basin studies as a program, you know, we ask, what is a drainage basin? And that is a it's also known as a watershed. It is a large area of land where all the streams and the rainfall drain into the same common body of water, and it usually will take the name of that water body. So it's gonna consist of surface water like lakes, streams, reservoirs, wetlands, and underlying groundwater.

So now why do we study basins? Well, we study them because they provide essential insights for managing our water resources, helps us to assess the flood risk, develop effective flood control measures, and to maintain water quality at safe and sustainable levels. So how do we then use that study? Well, it's actually part of a whole process that we have. You know, we use those basin studies to identify areas that are problem areas, and then those are developed into concepts, and then those concepts migrate into the stormwater master plan.

And then from those, they become projects in that master plan, which are approved projects that are then used to design improvements throughout the county to help with our stormwater issues. So we use some key terms here to help describe what we're looking at in the basin study. So a key term is level of service, which is essentially describing, you know, the level of inundation in a given area based on an ABCD grading scale. And then also, we evaluate that level of service during particular storm events. So whether you have a hundred year storm or a ten year storm, we're looking to see what is your level of service in an area for that event.

Then once we have all that information, we develop some concepts. Once we identify problem areas, we then rank those concepts. And we rank them using the scale that Seminole County has developed as part of our stormwater master plan, and it has these seven criteria. And that is how you combine your score in each of the seven, and then you get a number, and that is the score for the project. So our approach here is we have 13 out of 16 basins currently studied.

They are divided into groups as the director was saying. This is the last time we're gonna sequence it in this manner. After this, we're gonna do sort of a continuous update approach to the models. The current studies began in 2019, and the group of basins we're gonna discuss today are those in the gray on this map. This is an overall timeline of our basin study program. It began in 2019 as I said. Between then and now, we had public meetings and incorporated those comments into the basin studies. And today, here at the 12/09/2025, this is the BCC meeting. We're here to discuss the East County basins. So we'll begin by doing East County basins groups a and c.

Those are Soldiers Creek, G Creek, Little Lake Howell, and Lake Jessup basins. The Soldiers Creek Basin is 19.8 square miles. It includes unincorporated Seminole County, but also portions of the cities of Castleberry, Longwood, Sanford, and Winter Springs. There are a total of seven project concepts and a total of 848 sub basins that compose this one Soldiers Creek Basin, and a 180 of them are closed sub basins. Now a closed sub basin is a sub basin that does not have any means of draining out of it to the adjacent water body.

And so that's a topic, you know, just keep that in your mind as we go forward. So the other thing to keep in mind is that the project concepts are developed for the areas of the basin that are in unincorporated Seminole County. So we're still working with our partners in our seven cities, but these these concepts are developed specifically for the unincorporated regions of the basins. So moving on, G Creek, it's 11.4 square miles. It includes Altamonte Springs, Casselberry Longwoods, and Winter Springs.

It has one project concept, 566 sub basins, and 77 closed sub basins. The Little Lake Howell Basin is 4.3 square miles. It includes Casselberry and Winter Springs. It has a total of five project concepts with a 153 subbasins, 31 of which are closed. And then the largest of this group is Lake Jessup Basin.

It is 63 square miles. It includes Lake Mary, Obito, Sanford, and Winter Springs. It has a total of nine project concepts, 2,010 sub basins, eight 593 of which are closed. As an overall timeline for this packet of basins, the studies commenced in 2023 in which we also held a public meeting that year, and we completed our data collection. In 2024, we had the base and model development completed as well as the LOS analysis completed.

And then the initial draft of the base and study was submitted for review. In 2025, they submitted a final draft base and study based on our comments. We held a second public meeting, and now here we are before you today at the BCC meeting asking for approval to accept into service. So these four basins were prepared by our consultant, Geosyntech, as part of their scope for the East County Basins, Soldiers Creek, G Creek, Little Lake Howell. They would prepare the scope of work, which is to develop a hydraulic model to do flood inundation mapping, flooding assessment, deficiency identification, product scoring recommendations, improved project prioritization, and to evaluate the conceptual capital improvement projects to serve to alleviate flooding.

So jumping right into it, the results for the Lake Jessup Watershed. What we're showing here is the Lake Jessup FEMA flood map as it's currently displayed on the current FEMA firm maps from 2007. As part of our study, we looked at the updated flood inundation based on our current modeling. So here at the bottom left, we show a table which gives the changes overall to the number of parcels within the floodplain, to the total number of buildings within the floodplain, and to the total square area within the floodplain. And it's important to note that in these updates, some parcels came in that weren't in previously, some parcels that were in or out, and then others, you know, it was they were in to begin with and they remain within it.

And then moving on, this map shows the Lake Jessup Basin proposed, you know, concept project areas. The the important thing to note is that the concept areas were identified early on as we did the level of service analysis. And then once we identified the areas, we prepared those initial concepts for how to treat each area. And then once we got that concept to a point where we could use that scoring rubric to evaluate it, then we rank them by order of priority based on the score. So that far right column where it says project priority, that is the order in which they would be built if the late Jessup we're going through late Jessup and constructing these in order of priority.

And so the other thing to note is the small asterisk adjacent, the flood mitigation project also has a water quality benefit associated with it as well. Moving on to Soldiers Creek. Again, this is the extent FEMA flood map, and then this slide will show the change based on our current modeling with the same data presented. So, again, total parcels, total buildings, and total area. And then here is the concept areas, same system.

So, again, the far left column is the order in which the concept area was identified based on our criteria, for, like, level of service. And then on the far right is once we develop that concept far enough along to understand that, you know, the sort of mitigation treatment that we would need as part of these projects, we then ranked it using the rubric. Moving on to G Creek, you see the FEMA flood map in its current state. We can see our projected changes, and then we can also see here the one concept area. And this is where it's important to understand again, as I said, you know, these areas are really developed.

These concept areas are in the unincorporated portions of the basin. So we can see this basin is 90% incorporated, which is why there's only a single concept identified within it because the unincorporated area is so small. Moving on to Little Lake Howell, you have, again, the current FEMA flood map, our updated flood inundation map with the changes as described, and then the concept area map. And this is another one where that, again, that south clustering of the concept areas is because, again, 90% of this basin is incorporated as part of Winter Springs or Castleberry. That was the second group, which is East County Basins Group b, which is a single basin of Howell Creek.

This is the location of that basin. It is 54 square miles. It includes the city of Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Vito, and Winter Springs. It has a total 13 project concepts, 315 sub basins, and eight closed sub basins are in this. Now this is important to note that these are only the portion of the Howell Creek Basin, which is within Seminole County. So Howell Creek actually extends the basin itself is larger than what's shown here. It actually extends south into Orange County, and you'll see that in just a second as we move on. This is a timeline for this. It is identical to the East Basins Group a and c timeline. The two were companion projects, and so they were brought along essentially along the same timeline as before.

So moving into that more specific breakdown of the Howell Creek Watershed, again, you can see on this map in the black outline is the entirety of the basin, and it extends south into a significant portion of Orange County. And it has, you know, several water bodies within it, like Lake Howell, Howell Creek, Bear Gully, Lake, Bear Creek, Redbug Lake. So this is a significant large basin in South Central Seminole County that has, again, multiple, you know, cities such as Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Eatonville. All of them are contributing to this basin from the south. This is the current FEMA flood map.

So, again, it's showing those areas in the 2007 firm maps that are within the floodplain. And then this is the map that's showing our projected changes with the bottom table showing, you know, again, the number of structures, the parcels, and the increase in the inundated area. And now this basin was such an extent we actually split the projects onto two slides using Tuskewila Road as a point of division, but the breakdown is exactly the same. So the project number on the left is the the order in which it was identified during our LOS evaluation process, and then on the right is the ranking once we were able to develop the concept to the point where we could use the rubric to score it. And, again, this is the project areas now east of Tuscaloosa Road.

And now our next steps going forward, these basin studies themselves, we will provide to development review for use as best available information during permitting. And then we also will submit this to our partners at FEMA for their use in updating their firm maps. In addition, the remainder of the program will be concluded in January 2027. So starting on January 13, we're gonna bring the Lake Monroe and Big And Little Econ basing groups to you for a similar presentation and approval, and then the same thing in the second meeting in January for Big And Little Wekiva and Yankee Lake basins. And then once all three of these basin study groups are approved, we will use them to then finalize the county stormwater master plan, which we anticipate being completed in the 2026.

At this time, our requested actions for board approval for acceptance into service of the basin studies for East County Basins Group A, B, and C as recommended by staff. I'd to thank you for your time, and we open the floor to any questions.

Thank you. Fantastic presentation. Commissioners? Commissioner Zinbauer?

As it pertains to, the other government entities, the cities here in Seminole County as well as Orange County and its municipalities, what level of coordination has been occurring there during this process, and where are they at in this stage? I know Orange County has already done a great deal of studies on their side, but how is that interacting with the cities in Orange County going at this point? Are they in lockstep with us, or are they doing side by side work, or are we ahead of them? What what's happening there?

So what I'll say is you're correct. Everyone is in the process of studying these, and we do coordinate with them. We have great interest from our cities such as Winter Springs to coordinate with them on projects. As for Orange County and, Winter Park and those, we do discuss with them, but there's not been any firm commitment one way or the other as to these as to, you know, joint projects or anything like that at this time.

But we're monitoring whatever projects they're doing?

So whenever they have projects, we have projects with them whenever they impact, like, hours of when we have an overlapping jurisdiction where we touch, we do coordinate on those projects, but there is no, in terms of the stormwater, there's no significant joint stormwater project in Right. Coordination at this point.

Okay. And I think I heard you are gonna be firing low mars on as this information comes in?

So at this time, we are providing the information to FEMA as part of their process. They are in the process of doing the map revisions themselves at this point. We have not made formal requests for Lomars to them at at this time.

Do you anticipate doing so at some some juncture?

It's I think I know. Have you have you don't. Okay.

Thank you, commissioner. So our our intention would be to get direction from the board to the county manager if this board would like us to pursue the map revision as a county. Be happy to pursue that. We do know that FEMA right now is working on several and will, at some time, come back and do it. So it depends at the Board's discretion if the county would like to lead those public discussions or if we would like FEMA to lead those discussions.

Okay. Fair enough, sir. And this may be more of a question for Tim here. County manager may have this What portion of this is being funded by the infrastructure sales tax?

It well, that and that's the whole purpose of identifying the projects because when we bring the stormwater master plan back back to you all, we have as you know, we have identified a certain percentage for stormwater projects, and then we'll review that with the Board and then you can prioritize those projects for us.

Good. That's what I expected, so good. The LOMOR is an interesting discussion we've had on this Board previously, And I would tell you that, at least my opinion, this has changed since I arrived here from the standpoint of what we have experienced in the last five years with flooding and identifying, and it's it's a double edged sword. People get I think it was well stated that you're finding properties that are in the flood plain now that shouldn't be, and there's others that aren't that should be. And we just went through approving not long ago a joint project which we purchased in my district properties through a FEMA grant to take that off the market so it doesn't become an ongoing problem.

And we do have ongoing problems within the the county, areas that continue to flood. And I'm a fan, I think, of making sure everybody gets the transparent information of you're in the floodplain or you're out of the floodplain, you weren't in, you are now. That's gonna be a FEMA level determination. We're just feeding the information. So I would be a fan of making sure that information all gets to FEMA and and making that request on behalf of our citizens.

Thank you, commissioner Zembaou. Anyone else? Commissioner Lockhart?

I think, again, the way that we message and communicate with the community on that is going to be significant. I I would throw my hat in the ring on moving forward with Alomar just because it it's when you have new data and when you know better, you do better. Right? Right. And so I think it would be important for us to do that. Great work. Glad to be able to get it all done. Love the new mindset of having this on a continuum. I think that's great. Really appreciate that. It's good work. So thank you. Thank you to our consultants. Commissioner DeLaury?

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, well done. And being that this is the first time we really got into all the basins, I do realize as well as the other commissioners, this was a heavy lift. So again, well done. And I do like the idea of continuing moving forward and updating us as a regular process.

We talked about the seven cities, but we did not talk about the agencies like DOT or the Turnpike. I know the 417, there's gonna be some stormwater work done on that as well. I just wanna make sure that we're looking at that to make sure their projects are in our basin because there was a level of commitment from the Turnpike. We do have the correspondence from them several years ago that says that the work on the 417, if there are mitigation projects, they'll be in Seminole County, and we need to make sure that we're working with them on that as well as DOT. And with the priorities that you're going be presenting to us, I would like to know how they affect the seven cities and if the cities are participating.

Thank you, madam chair.

Mister Constantine?

Well done. And I also throw my hat in the ring to move forward.

Thank you. My comments with regard to the present first of all, very well done. I do believe that we need to push FEMA to update. There's a lot of confusion with regard to, oh, I'm not in a flood zone, so I don't need flood insurance, etcetera, etcetera. Any better information that we can have out there for our citizens is is truly valuable.

I do think it would be worthy of clarifying that priority for the sake of anyone listening that the priorities will change as these all come together and move forward into the plan. I think you said that, but I'm gonna repeat it because at some point, we're gonna have somebody that stands here and says, I was it's a high priority and you haven't done it. It is a high priority in the isolation of it that's little area alone. So, just a clarifying statement. With that, I'll look for a motion.

Motion to move forward as staff's requested.

Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you very much for your presentation. Any anything for the good of the order before we close out the morning? Hearing none, meeting adjourned until 01:30. Ladies and gentlemen, I see 01:30, and it is officially time to start our afternoon session. First, I'll look for proof of publication.

So moved. Second. All

those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Any ex parte communication to disclose? None.

I have one. None. I have one, and I'll hand it down to and I'm sorry, no ex parte communication.

Okay. So I hear five none's for the record. And the first item up is item number 27, Palmer's Subdivision right away vacate, and this is going to be presented by Caitlin Apgar. Caitlin?

Madam chair, if I could interject, we should read the rules for quasi judicial procedures.

Yes. Should. I skipped that. Thank you. No problem. And you can interject any time you'd like. Well, I

don't know if you wanna give me that amount. I'm way back.

You be careful with that one of the attorneys. You'll be here for a couple hours.

While the board welcomes comments from all persons with an interest in these proceedings, Florida law requires that the board's decision in quasi judicial actions be supported by competent substantial evidence presented to the board during the hearings on the applications. Competent substantial evidence is such evidence as a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion. There must be a factual basis in the record to support opinion testimony from both expert and nonexpert witnesses. Persons presenting testimony may rely on factual information that they present, information presented by county staff, information the applicant presented, or on factual information included in the county staff report to support their testimony. All persons who present written materials to the board for consideration must ensure that a copy of such materials is provided to the clerk for inclusion in the board's record of the proceedings and the official minutes.

Madam chairman.

Thank you so much. And I'm gonna give a shout out to miss Apgar, who actually sat reluctantly before she walked up giving me the clue that I had forgotten something. So please take it away.

Thank you. Caitlin Avgar, planning and development services. The applicant, Constance Silver, PEE with Tri Civil Engineering Design Studio, who represents the owner, Jesus Image Incorporated, has petitioned the county to vacate and abandon an undeveloped portion of an unnamed right of way in the Palmer Subdivision plat as recorded in plat book two, page 41 of the public records of Seminole County, Florida. The right of way area subject to the vacate request is located approximately 1,200 feet west of Sipes Avenue between the south perimeter of Lot 15 of Palmer Subdivision and along the north perimeter of Lot 22 of Palmer Subdivision. The owner of Lot 15 and Lot 22 is Jesus Image Incorporated and will acquire portions of the vacated right of way abutting those properties.

Vacating the right of way will not affect access to adjacent properties and therefore does not result in adjacent parcels becoming landlocked. Lot 15 and Lot 22 are located within the City Of Sanford municipal limits. Therefore, use, zoning, and site development approvals are under the City Of Sanford's jurisdiction. However, the adjacent paper right of way proposed for the vacation is under Seminole County's jurisdiction and does require review and approval through the county. This request complies with the requirements for vacating a right of way under section 35.184 of the Seminole County Land Development Code and the authority of Florida statute three hundred thirty six point zero nine and three hundred thirty six point one zero.

Staff requests the Board of County Commissioners adopt the resolution vacating and abandoning an undeveloped portion of an unnamed right of way in the Palmer Subdivision plat as recorded in plat book two, page 41 of the public records of Seminole County, Florida. Concludes my presentation.

Thank you very much. We'll go to public comment. Is there any public comment on this item? No, ma'am. Alright. Thank you.

What about the applicant?

Oh, thank you. Applicant? Would you like to speak?

Hi. I'm Constance Silver. I'm just here in case anybody has any questions about the application.

Terrific. Thank you And so there's no public comment? The applicant. Thank you. Alright. Commissioner Zinbauer, this is in your district?

It is in my district. I will move to approve the resolution vacating and abandoning an undeveloped portion of an unnamed right of way in the Palmer Subdivision plant as recorded in plant book two, page 41, of the public records of Seminole County, Florida for properly located property located approximately 1,200 feet west of Sipes Avenue, South of East Lake Mary Boulevard. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Commissioners, is there a discussion? Hearing none, I'll take, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed?

The motion

carries unanimously. Thank you, miss Apgar. The next item

Yes. Was there public comment? Did did that individual fill

out a form? No,

ma'am. Okay.

And she did not fill out a form. Next item is 28, comprehensive plan amendment, and this will be David German, senior planner. And this time it is David German. And this item was continued from the 11/1825 meeting. Mister German.

Thank you. David German, senior planner development services. I'll be presenting with NACE support for deputy county attorney. This item is a proposed amendment to the Seminole County comprehensive plan to implement the 2021 school interlocal agreement for public school facility planning and school concurrency, expand options for transportation services, and provide a definition for micro transit. The item has been reviewed at previous board sessions, transmitted to the state, and is being brought back for adoption today.

The 2021 interlocal agreement was formally adopted on 12/09/2024 and requires this amendment to the comprehensive plan to update definitions and the level of service and facility standards to reflect current school district practices and procedures. Additionally, the agreement requires the county to incorporate the school districts five year capital improvement plan, which was done by reference to the school district's budget book, which houses their capital improvement plan. The amendments to the comprehensive plan related to the school ILA are intended to create consistency with the school district practices and achieve compliance with the agreement. The other updates in this amendment are due to the expansion of the transportation system in Seminole County. Scout, the county's new micro transit system is being added to the comprehensive plan through new language and a definition.

This includes a definition of micro transit in the introduction element and language to specify funding sources in the transportation element. There was also a minor correction to the transportation element deleting a reference to an unadopted plan. These changes are consistent with the plan that the county voted to implement for the new micro transit system and its funding. At the 08/11/2025 board meeting, the Board of County Commissioners voted to enact a 5¢ fuel tax. Adopting the proposed updates by 01/01/2026 will make Scout eligible for funding by the fuel tax.

Seminole County staff transmitted these amendments to the State Department of Commerce, which was approved the amendments with no official comments. However, the state provided technical assistance comments related to certain policies that may be more restrictive or burdensome. As discussed at the last meeting, the board responded to the state with a letter requesting specific reasons for the comment. As of the time of this meeting, the county has not received a response. I will pass the presentation to NASA for comments related to the state's review.

Good afternoon, commissioners. If you remember the letter that we received I'm I'm I apologize. Daisy Parker, deputy county attorney for the record. Record. The letter from the from Florida Commerce that we received basically said, these are not comments that are actionable from the state.

They're not comments that's just because we're giving you these comments doesn't mean that you have to change anything. They're just suggestions. And after further look at the technical comments, they only referenced three different policies and didn't say why or how they had come to the opinion that these policies may be more restrictive or burdensome under the new Senate Bill one eighty language. We had a meeting with the school district. You will find a memo in our in the end of the agenda packet for this matter that summarizes why each policy referenced does not will not result in being more restrictive or burdensome to developers that come in.

We feel strongly that that these are okay to pass, and the state is incorrect in their analysis of these policies. They don't maybe truly understand the effect of them. I'm happy to go through each one, but they are in the record for the agenda. So at the pleasure of the board, I'm happy to discuss them further.

Board members, does anybody feel compelled to have her go through each one of them?

I do not.

Each one of the suggestions?

Yeah. I

think we are well aware.

Hearing none, you're Okay, well thank you. You're welcome. Mr. German, does that conclude your presentation?

Yes, that concludes my presentation.

So I think the next slide has the requested board action. Board, I'll ask for a motion.

Any public input? Public comments?

Ma'am.

Madam Chair

I'll make a motion to adopt the ordinance amending the Seminole County comprehensive plan by revising the introduction transportation public school facilities, intergovernmental coordination, and capital improvement elements to implement the 2021 school interlocal agreement.

Second. Any further discussion?

I would just say my review of that document, was a convenient CYA from the state, in my opinion. I don't think they're gonna weigh in either way. So I think we're absolutely correct moving forward.

Any further discussion?

I would just like to clarify for the record that commissioner Lockhart's motion includes

the transit and provide services a definition microtransit. Just for the record.

Just for the

I was Yeah.

I was still hung up on 2021. My apologies.

We're finally here.

We're fine. Thank you, Vanya.

We need to start the next one.

Yeah. Alright.

Thank you for that clarification. I'm gonna call for the vote. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Alright. Thank you very much. We're now gonna go to the county attorney's report. I have no report today, chairman. Good job. Amazing. County manager.

Doctor. You don't get that lucky with me. Doctor. No. I just have a couple of items. Just wanted to congratulate our Animal Services team. Last Saturday, the Seminole County Animal Services hosted another successful Paws and Claws event. The team provided nearly 100 vaccinations and microchips, helped more than 20 pets find new homes, and captured close to two fifty Santa photos with families. So that event continues to get bigger and bigger every year. Also want to congratulate Steven Lerner, just to let you know that he was awarded the 2025 Leader of the Year by the Central Florida Disaster Medical Coalition, and he was just awarded that.

So great kudos to Steven. He does always does a great job for us. And then once again, to congratulate Melanie. Is she still here? Oh, Melanie Kunz for your twenty eight years of service. Appreciate your commitment to Seminole County and to the residents and business owners. So that's all. Oh, and happy holidays.

Thank you, Kate, for whispering happy holidays into Darren's ear to wish us happy holidays. So it comes from Kate as well.

It was very sincerely from me as well.

Oh, my goodness. All right. The next item on and there are several items on the agenda. It's items 29 through 34. And there is a document that's been handed out just in case you haven't reviewed this in advance. I believe everybody did. And I have cleared it with the county attorney that instead of reading all of these appointments and reappointments, that we can take one motion with a second to appoint all of them. They are in the board book for the record.

Motion to approve the slate of appointees to the appropriate boards as listed on the document before us, and I'll be happy to give a copy to the clerk if she needs such. Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Alright. That takes us to district commissioner report. District one, Bob Delari. Mr. Delari.

Thank you, madam chairman. First, I just want to talk a little bit about the pause and clause event. And Darren Gray was absolutely right. It was an amazing event. Staff did such a phenomenal job.

The reason why I'd like to talk about it is that not only the staff do a wonderful job, and they did. Anyone that was there, thank you, but the amount of volunteer hours was astronomical. There were so many volunteers there that I don't know how we would have been able to pull off not just that event but so many other events if we didn't have the volunteers that we have. And I just wanted to just expound on that a little bit, Darren, because I think it's important that we recognize that. And it was truly amazing to see.

And I don't know how many animals were adopted out, but when I was there towards the end of the day, I think they told me it was like there was close to 25 adoptions, and it was pretty nice to see. So as we all know, Mr. Hyde was here a little bit earlier today, and he asked me to bring this up so he didn't have to stick around. The reach around National Reach Across America Day is going to be December 13, and it's going to be at the Boston Hill Cemetery as well as the Oviedo Cemetery. And I wanted to make sure that we gave everyone the flyer so that everyone had it.

And, mister Hyde, just to let you know, I did what you requested so you could have gone. I'm glad you left early. Not that you're not welcome, you are welcome, but it's always good to have you here. The other thing I want to talk about briefly is I received a phone call from one of our residents in the Chiliota area regarding access links. They have a special needs child, and one of the issues that they had was that when Access Links is called upon and they have a reservation and they go to pick up their child, the amount of time that it takes because of all the different stops from where the child was picked up to where the child was dropped off took hours.

And I just wanted to make sure that we should be talking, and I know we have a representative from I'm

representative on links.

Excuse me?

I'm I'm I'm with a representative on links. I'm not a representative from links.

I know that.

I just wanna make sure it's really clear.

I realize that. Okay.

Cool. What I'm trying to say is that I know you represent us on links. Okay? And I don't want to have this conversation outside of the public forum because we don't know what could potentially happen. So I wanted to make sure that we have a little bit of dialogue here. First of I want to thank our staff. Darren, your staff has been very helpful. We've put the parents in touch with the staff, and they're trying to get them connected to Scout, and I think that would be a great alternative. And so far, they seem to be very happy with the dialogue they're having with our staff. But I wanted to make sure that we know what's happening with what's going on at AccessLinks.

And the irresponsibility on my part that I can hear from those parents that they spoke to the driver and they said, well, it's just the way it is. Talk to someone at corporate or headquarters or I don't remember exact words that she told me. But it's upsetting to hear the frustration from the parents' perspective about their special needs child using access links to get to and from. And I know that it will change if they can use Scout, and I know that staff is trying to make that happen. But I think there needed to be some dialogue here so people realize that there are some issues with access links. That's all I was trying to do, commissioner.

Do you Commissioner Do you know if they did reach out to someone at Links Corporate?

They have. Okay. The parents have.

Okay.

And they're not satisfied. That's why they called since I represented Chiliota area, they called us. And I didn't want to just refer them to our representative on links. I referred them directly to our staff, and I think that staff has done a phenomenal job helping him through that. And so I just wanted to bring that up.

And

then If I inquire on that? Sure.

You're going to try to

transition to Scout? Scout doesn't go to Chuleotra.

Right.

They're gonna try to see if they can do something along those lines. But let let staff work through it. Okay. Yes. It's you don't know what we don't know yet, and they're trying to work through all of that right now.

What I do know is scout don't go to Julie Hill.

I understand. I know that.

That's a very good pickup, Commissioner Zimbabwe.

I mean, if it's going to

go there, they come on out to Geneva and pick my folks up.

Here we go.

I realize that, but I think they're in good hands with staff. Thank you. And then I just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy holidays. I know this is our last meeting before the end of the year. Merry Christmas and I look forward to working with everyone next year. And in my report, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much. Commissioner Zinbauer, District 2.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First, everybody, my colleagues and those in the audience and those that tuned in. I wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, safe, and I hope you get to spend time with your family and your friends celebrating the festivities, and you do it so in a safe fashion. In Geneva, December 19, six to 9PM, we will have the village of Geneva's lighting of the lights. You can pick up a map at the Geneva Community Center at 161 1st Street in Geneva.

So basically, it's a tour to go see all the different lights to the Geneva rural area. And then you end up at the grand finale, which is going be hosted by Horsepower Ranch for entertainment and light hors d'oeuvres and so forth. So if you all have nothing going on, come on out to the country and help us celebrate for that. And of course, this Saturday, December 13, twelve to 4PM is the St. Lucia Festival, which will be held over at the Museum of Seminole County History.