County Commission Tuesday

Big day today at the BOCC meeting.

The key things of the day (in my opinion).

• 1:30pm - Budget Presentation
• 1:45pm - Nature Coast Forever Conservation Planning Study (Sales Tax talk)
• E9 - Animal Shelter discussion
• M1 - Commercial Watercraft and Tour Permit Program
• 5:01pm - VA Clinic development project Public Hearing

As you can imagine, the most popular topic of the day is the Animal Shelter discussion. Not sure why they could not do that as a time certain item, but my guess is that this will take place around 2:15-2:30pm or so if you are planning on coming.

Before we go there..

Budget Presentation.

This will be interesting. Basically, the BOCC is going to give some direction on where they want to see the budget going this year. Then as the year progresses, staff will come back with various budget proposals.

But one thing I noticed... the BOCC had asked for staff to give them an idea on what it looks like if the property tax proposals pass.

Apparently, if the HJR203 passes by voters, the county would be looking at a reduction in revenue of $54.8 million. Whoa. Yeah, that is going to be interesting.

That is going to lead to a discussion at some point on additional revenue sources to replace the lost revenue.

Remember, 2024, we paid for a consultant to build a Law Enforcement MSTU. We never did anything with it... so wasted money if it never happens.

Nature Coast Conservation Study

This is the presentation by North Florida Land Trust for the Green-printing project we did that was paid for by private donations. Yes, there is some language in there about the sales tax. It has always been a possibility that sales tax revenue goes towards conservation.

But let's not get this confused. This is NOT the sales tax presentation. That is being done by Trust for Public Lands and my understanding is that they have not started the market research for that just yet.

When they launch that, they will come back to the BOCC and show them exactly what the community will support, if anything. It will be a proper market research study.

The study/results being shown today is NOT that. So do not listen when people say "This is the sales tax talk and now its conservation and not roads because it is being done by a conservation non-profit... surprise!"... because this is a separate thing.

One slide that should be noted.

This map takes the original drinking water map (blue) and overlays it with the current major developments (black). The darker the blue, the higher the priority for that area.

Notice smack dab in the middle.. that large spot? That appears to be 486/491. Looks like it sits on a priority 2 area. Eeeek.

VA Clinic

I imagine this passes without much discussion, although traffic is an issue. The project will need to upgrade Southern Street and there are concerns with the Homosassa Trail traffic light as that will be a U-Turn area. Not sure that intersection can handle the traffic without being upgraded.

Commercial Watercraft and Tour Permit Program

This will be interesting. Apparently Commissioner Kinnard wants to talk about ideas to limit commercial tour operators using the county boat ramps. This is largely directed towards manatee tour operations I would imagine, but could be scallop season as well. This seems to be a major problem and Crystal River is partly to blame. They are closing down a ramp for the riverwalk project... so the only ramp into CR is now at Pete's Pier... so access is a bit more limited.

Animal Shelter

This will bring the crowds. Expect to see a full room for this discussion. The staff is asking BOCC to approve $20,722,900 to build the new shelter facility. After all the donations, land sale revenue, interest, grants, etc... staff recommends bonding up to $15million to get this done.

This is the bond schedule

Almost $8.5million in interest over 20 years. Ouch... but, most people agree, it is past time to get this done. We have been talking about it too much and no action and only getting more expensive.

But one question I have... what is our total bonding capacity?

The reason I ask this is because the BOCC talked about expanding 491 to Deltona. That is going to require a bond to pay for that project. If we bond the shelter for $15m, what happens if we do not have enough capacity to also bond 491?

Is this a one or the other thing or can we do both projects? I hope we have some sort of discussion on that.

My guess is this passes 4-1 with Commissioner Barek being the lone hold out. I also see Commissioner Finegan questioning every aspect of this funding, but ultimately going along with it. We will see.

I also think once its approved and shovels in the ground so to speak, we will see a lot more money come to the table from private donors... many of whom likely never thought they would see the day it finally gets approved. Many people will likely be eager to donate something.

Have a great day everyone!