Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Campaign 2024 - Brian Welch, Leon County Commissioner, District 4

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Campaign 2024 - Brian Welch, Leon County Commissioner, District 4 · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  Brian Welch is the incumbent commissioner for the Leon County Commission in District four that
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  would be described as the northeastern part of the community. He's running for reelection
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  and we chatted for a good while. I feel like anybody running for office
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  ever has scars, and so I'm curious, after you've done this, you're
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  doing this again, why'd you decide to run for reelection. Well, you
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  know, I would say I don't have scars, really, I mean,
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  I don't think I have anything that haunts me. I mean, I have
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  had a relatively peaceful four years, three and a half years on the Leon
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  County Commission. Although I will tell you, you know, everything's new for
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  me, right So running for office the first time was new for me.
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  Running for reelection is new for me. So, you know, I don't
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  you know, there's been moments in the last three and a half years that
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  we're obviously very trying, you know, issues that come up that are polarizing,
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  things that are you know, things said about you in the public arena
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  on Twitter that are disconcerting and kind of you know, make you just give
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  you an unease. But I think that's just the nature of being a policymaker
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  and being a public figure to the extent that accounting commissioner is a public figure.
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  So when it comes to why I'm running for reelection, it really involves
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  the fact that you you know, you can't get a whole lot done in
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  a four year term, and that's just the reality of these deals. It's
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  been startling to me how slow progress is when it comes to government, and
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  so I think to answer that question, you have to go back to why
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  I ran for office. And so, you know, I ran for office
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  in twenty twenty because I felt like the Northeast specifically was not getting the advocacy
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  that it deserved, it that it warranted given its population, given the amount
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  of voters, given the amount of taxes that came out of the Northeast.
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  And so the most salient example of that to me was the Northeast Park.
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  But you could talk about all kinds of infrastructure projects, whether it's Walanie Boulevard,
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  a Bandonmon Road needing to be widened. You know, all of those
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  things are examples of you know, I just it begged the question, who
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  was advocating around that table for the people in Northeast Tallahassee of the twelve local
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  elective officials. And so when I ran, it was to kind of of,
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  you know, stand up and go, hey, you know, don't
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  forget about us out here in Northeast Tallassee. So I really ran as a
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  populist for Northeast Tallahassee. And so fast forward to now, you know,
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  we have all of those projects are on track to be constructed in the next
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  four years, completed, all right, started to finish, whether we're talking
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  about Bannerman or Wallauni or the Northeast Park. And so a part of running
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  for reelection is just, you know, ensuring that the things that you've spent
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  a lot of time on in the last three and a half years actually come
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  to fruition. And I think if you look at the conversations that have been
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  had over the last year, especially around the infrastructure projects, they're kind of
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  constantly under threat of being undermined by what, oh by, by other people's
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  priorities, whether you're talking about I mean, if you look at blueprint over
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  the line. I don't want to get right into the weeds with you on
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  my opening salvo here, but I mean, if you look at blueprint over
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  the last year, it's been a bit of a mess. It's been a
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  bit of a feeding frenzy. Everybody's trying to go after projects and you know,
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  move money around and things like that. And I would tell you that
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  when you live in northeast Tallahassee, that is, if you don't have somebody
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  that's up there really fighting hard and you know, you know, being consistent
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  with how they vote and how they speak, those projects are at threat of
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  being defunded. Let me ask you, do you think that's made more complicated
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  by the fact that the city doesn't engage in district representation, something that I've
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  talked a lot about. Yeah, I mean, I would tell people that
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  you have five city commissioners and all of them technically represent the northeast. So
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  I think it becomes a matter of holding them accountable for that. If constituents
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  of mine and seventy percent of my district is in the city, all right,
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  if my constituents feel like the city is not representing them, they need
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  to let the city know that, and then they need to hold those folks
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  accountable in elections. Now, I would say that, you know, is
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  it fair to suggest that we should add seats to the city commission or district,
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  the city commission. I think that those conversations are completely fair. As
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  a district representative, how can I sit here and say that that's a bad
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  model, Right, Well, it's the only city out of the top twenty
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  that isn't. Yeah, No, I get it. I mean I get
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  all the arguments for it. I understand the criticisms of it as well.
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  But at the same time, I represent a district. I am one of
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  five district representatives in a county. Serius, you were talking about, you
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  know, Blueprint is a combination for those that may not fully understand, the
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  city and the county commission kind of sit together, yep, and have to
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  sort out the use of all that money. And for most of us,
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  we like the Blueprint tax. We think it's been very useful. Not big
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  fan of opening up some of that for quote economic development. We should just
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  be using that for infrastructure as my view. But that said, do you
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  feel, as the advocate for District four, do you feel as though you
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  have someone in the city that really does get the Northeast because none of them
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  live out there. Yeah, I mean that's a hard question to answer.
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  Do I feel like any of the five get the Northeast. I don't want
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  to insult them and say they don't get the Northeast. I would say that
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  it's hard to truly understand the needs of an area, the culture of an
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  area, the people of an area, if you don't live with them,
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  if you don't live among them. So I think that that residency requirement does
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  matter. Okay, it does matter. I mean, if you look at
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  me as a again, a districted representative, I have to live in my
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  district. I ran for the county commission as a populist for my district,
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  and I think if you look around the county Commissioner Caban is a populist for
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  Woodville and Fort Braden. Commissioner Proctor is a populist for the south side.
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  Commissioner minor east you know, east side or Central, I guess you would
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  say. And then O'Keefe on the east side. I think that that's a
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  good model because people know who to call when they have an issue, right
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  and so, and I see them at the grocery store. I teach their
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  children in a school every day, I have for a long time, and
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  so there's an accountability factor there that is important. And I think that so
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  I would not so when it comes to issues that affect Fort Braden. For
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  example, I will defer in many cases to Commissioner Caban on that right,
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  that's his area. Those are the folks he represents. Now, those folks
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  can come to me. And I can give you a good example of that
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  when when Commissioner Jackson passed very sadly and unexpectedly, you know, there was
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  an effort by the county, a well intended effort to name the community center
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  after him, and the folks in Fort Braden did not like that. And
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  it was in a weird period of time between Commissioner command being elected and being
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  taken office, and so a lot of those people called me because I had
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  built a reputation at that time for being and I still would have had that
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  reputation for me very responsive to people communicating with me, whether it be social
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  media or emails or whatever, which is a pillar of what we want to
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  do in my office. And so we took a lot of calls and I
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  told those folks, listen, I will wait till Commissioner Caband takes office and
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  then let y'all talk to him and figure that out. But in the meantime,
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  I'll kind of act as a surrogate and you know, say, hey,
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  we need to slow down and pump the brakes on this little bit,
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  which was very frustrating because Commissioner Jackson was a beloved figure, certainly to me
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  as an educator, but amongst the I mean, just very well respected guy
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  on the dais And so you know, ultimately we do defer to each other
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  on those issues that are very central to our districts. And when you say
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  districts, we're talking about neighborhoods and communities, right, And so no,
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  I don't necessarily think that some of our city commissioners have a total finger on
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  the pulse of what's going on in Kolarena States or Colarn Lakes, right,
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  And I think that, you know, they should in many cases defer to
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  me to get that information. A lot of times they do, but you
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  know, that's just the nature of districting. So yeah, it's a difficult
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  thing. I just do I think that the northeast would be better served with
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  a district commissioner or somebody that lived in the district from the city maybe tell
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  me this. We were talking about the decision to re up go back through
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  the batting order one more time, at least what you learned in the first
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  four years that surprised you most. Brian oh Man, Well, you know,
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  I would say that, and I've spoken to my predecessor about this too,
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  you know, which is it's much more difficult than you think. Okay,
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  So as a candidate the first time, you know, it's kind of
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  easy to go to sort of poke holes in the defense if you will,
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  of your predecessors or the other people sitting around the table. It's much more
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  difficult when you're actually sitting around the table to be objective, because the biggest
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  disappointment to me has been that most people are not objective. They are subjective.
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  They are worried about what they see and what's close to them. And
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  I tell people all the time, as an elected official, as a policy
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  maker, I don't have that luxury. I have to be objective. I
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  have to be fair. I have to look at the analysis, I have
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  to look at the professional staff that we employ, and I have to take
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  their information. Then I have to take your information, and I have to
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  take all this information and I have to filter it into a position where I
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  can make a vote or a decision on it. And in order to do
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  that I think you have to have a lot of integrity. You have to
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  have a thick skin. You got to be able to have people breathing down
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  your neck who want you to do one thing or the other and you have
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  to say, well, no, I can't do that, and here's why.
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  You have to be able to explain that. And so for me that's
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  been the most difficult part is you know, people will just be nasty with
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  you, you know, and over things that if you just had the opportunity
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  to sit and explain to them the information that you have that they may not
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  have, it would make a big difference. But people are in this environment,
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  you know, politically, I've been called a bigot, and I've been
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  called gutless and heartless, and you know, I've had mails sent to my
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  house, you know, personal, my personal address, and I hate mail
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  sent to my house, threatening, passive, aggressive, you know, and
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  it's like that has been disappointed. But I think that when you make hard
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  decisions in this business, that's what you deal with. One of the things
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  that's always fascinated me and I've done I think I calculated about eight thousand interviews
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  over the course of doing this program, and a bunch of them with want
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  of the politicians, elected officials and actual One of the things that's interesting to
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  me is each person's take on how they view their role. Some view it
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  as they elected me to represent them. I take in the information. I
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  do what I think is best. Others say no, I set aside what
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  I think, and I do my best to listen to what my constituents want.
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  And if that means tampering down what I personally believe on a given issue,
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  that's what I do. Others form a hybrid of both of those.
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  How would you describe yours? Well, say that I'm probably you know,
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  it's I don't know if I'm a hybrid or not. But I mean,
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  obviously I feel a duty to serve the people that I represent, but I
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  also feel very strongly that I share their sentiment, so I don't really have
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  to conflict myself or contort myself rather to a position that is uncomfortable for me.
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  And the reality is that the harshest critics are in the smallest groups.
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  And so I have fifty thousand constituents, Okay, about forty thousand of them.
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  Forty five thousand of them vote actually vote, So you know, Number
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  one it's impossible to make all of them happy. And so I take information
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  as much information as I can get from all sides of an issue, and
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  I try to make a decision. That's so, in other words, if
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  I take a position, it's going to be a defensible position. The idea
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  that you're going to take a position that one side wants or the other,
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  I think is a fallacy. You're just going to make a decision that you
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  think is best with the information you're given, and then kind of hope that
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  it makes the most people happy. And I can give you several examples of
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  that over the last three and a half years, and whether you want those
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  or not, it's up to you. But well, if you want to
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  share one, absolutely, because I was going to ask you if there was
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  a situation that stands out where you went into an issue that you knew was
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  coming up for a vote or discussion and you had a predetermined idea, predetermined
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  based on information whatever, but that after listening to constituents, you changed your
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  mind. Yeah. I mean I evolved on a few issues. I think
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  the biggest evolution I had was on doke on on the Stadium, which I
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  think is a great example of this you could talk about you know, Wllannie
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  Boulevards funding or comp plan amendments, or you know, any number of issues.
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  But the dope Campbell issue was a perfect example where I really did not
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  have a lot of input from the community on that, from my community in
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  the Northeast. When I first voted on that, I supported it the first
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  stop it came to us. I was like, it was a great idea.
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  You know. I looked over I'd talked to Michael Afford and the FSU
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  folks a couple of times. You know, I was skeptical, but I
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  went out and toured the stadium. I think I'm the only elected official that
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  took them up on that went out and walked around with their engineers, and
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  they showed me all the problems they had, And so I thought to myself,
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  you know, initially and those things, you know, it's like,
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  hey, this is an idea, do we want to do it or not?
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  Those those non competitive we now call them funding programs through economic development money,
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  And I was like, yeah, why wouldn't we do this right.
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  FSU's a big part of our community. I think I looked over at Michael
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  Awford in the meeting and said, you know, he was the athletic director
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  at the time. I said, mister Ofwford, do we get support from
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  around the world for FSU athletics. He goes, yeah, we do.
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  We get checks from people all over the world. It we'll only make sense
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  then that we pitch in a little bit right here locally. Well then you
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  know that had like three or four stops that it came to us. Well,
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  by the time we got to the second stop and analysis had come back
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  from our staff and that analysis and I got beat up over my initial comments.
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  Okay, I mean I got worn out by the same crowd that wants
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  to wearry out. And you know this is stadium projects are never good for
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  taxpayers. Blah blah, blah blah. And I got hits with studies and
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  the same very loud, small crowds people were wearing me out about it.
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  But I was not phased by that because ultimately I was going to lean on
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  the analysis that we got. That Again, I have to assume that our
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  staff is objective there they're just you know, hammers hitting nails. They don't
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  have an opinion. Really, I'm not supposed to. And so when that
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  analysis came back, it eviscerated that project. It just laid it bare.
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  You know, thirty five jobs for twenty seven million dollars, it was,
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  and they were like food service jobs. You know. It looked at the
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  revenue that the the Boosters generated more revenue annually than the tax in its entirety.
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  The Boosters had just given twenty million dollars to their coach to leave,
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  and now we're asking us for twenty million dollars. They were going to reduce
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  the size of the stadium from eighty thousand to sixty thousand. So there was
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  there was a ton of factors and so for me, you know, I
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  that changed my opinion. Now, again, I wasn't getting a lot of
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  input from people on the issue other than when I when I flipped the I
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  started getting hammered by the FSU crowd, okay, and a lot of guys
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  in Garnet coats started showing up to the meetings and and really that was an
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  issue that So for me, I kind of fancy myself fiscally conservative. I
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  kind of again, I'm trying to really reflect my community. I really do
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  think that I reflect my community politically, ideologically, from a values perspective,
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  all those things and so I voted no. I said I can't do this,
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  you know, and then it got real nasty, and I wrote an
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  op ed about it, sort of laying it bare again. I'm being very
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  objective. I'm not emotional about it. I'm not trying to you know.
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  It became this fs u's this greedy big entity, and it's trying to steal
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  this money from people who need it. And I think those narratives obviously serve
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  a political purpose, and it's unfortunate that those we see that repeatedly used to
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  sort of frame an issue kind of us versus them mentality. I've never taken
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  that mentality for me. It's just early objective. And so my support for
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  or my lack of support for DOAK was based on just being irresponsible with our
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  tax dollars. Okay, I mean we just didn't have, you know,
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  when you and we had at the same time done Amazon, which was a
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  two and a half million dollar allocation from the same pot of money which created
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  one thousand jobs, which we now know is created fourteen or fifteen hundred jobs.
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  And so I mean it was just the cost per job was paled in
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  comparison. So it was clear that FSU's boosters had maybe not foreseen some of
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  their financial issues that they were going to have, maybe felt like that this
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  money was kind of owed to them. Do you think that was that was
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  amplified by the money that fam you got. Oh, there's no question.
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  I mean, when you give the money to fam you you're gonna have to
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  give it to FSU and I and you know that money came first. I
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  didn't vote for that money. I wasn't on the board. I would not
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  have voted for that money at FAMU. And when they came back recently wanting
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  fifteen million more dollars, I would not have voted for that, which they've
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  since withdrawn for the same reasons. I mean, it's not political, it's
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  not personal, it's purely objective. It's just fiscally a bad investment. These
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  are economic engines that are already burning, they're already creating fires. No one
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  is going to stop going to FSU football games, right Fshu's not moving to
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  Jacksonville. And so when it ended up happening, my whole point of that
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  story is to say I voted against it, and you know after that,
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  I got many many emails, I mean seriously, many many handfuls several emails
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  from some of my most conservative constituents who said, thank you, that was
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  we didn't think that was a good idea at all. And so that turned
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  out to be a very conservative position fiscally, and I would tell you that
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  that allocation was incredibly fiscally response irresponsible at that time. And still, I
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  mean, you know, the just the simple math of it, it doesn't
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  make sense. It doesn't. You know, you have a precious amount of
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  dollars in economic development, which is really a gift if you use it right.
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  And you say, we have that one hundred and twenty million dollars of
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  the blueprint tax, which should be a big gift to us to use wisely.
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  But you see what's happened to it. It's become a slush fund and
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  more or less, and that's unfortunate. But that kind of started with FAM,
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  you and FSU in the stadium deals. And so I didn't take my
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  position on that based on popular sentiment, but it turned out that I think
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  that most of my constituents would agree with that position. You mentioned the Northeast
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  Park. Let's let's talk about that for a few minutes. First, let's
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  update when the smoke cleared what's being built. So the Northeast Park has been
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  funded at twelve million dollars. Unfortunately, took a six million dollar haircut from
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  its staff recommended fully objectively analyzed budget that was a fully accounted for and revenue
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  neutral. I'll add that caveat, but it took a haircut, unfortunately.
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  But the one of these parks gonna be built. Construction should start sometime before
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  the end of the year and we'll take about two years, and it should
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  be constructed in conjunction with the second phase of Wilowney Boulevard, which will go
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  from north of it tent all the way to Roberts and Centerville Road. Right
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  there at that intersection, you felt real strongly there needed to be for baseball
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  fields out there. Yeah, no question. And I was among the sum
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  that said, that's that's absurd. Well, I will tell you that objectively,
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  it's not absurd. I would tell you that, uh, you know,
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  and people kind of pick on me because I'm a baseball guy, and
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  I get it. I get it, but like it really again, I
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  don't have the luxury of being subjective, Okay. I ran for office partially
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  over the issue of lack of baseball facilities. But really that's softball facilities too
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  in the Northeast. But if you look at that issue singularly as a sort
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  of microcosm of shortcomings of the city of Tallahassee, I will tell you that
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  that active recreational facilities in this community severely lack when you look at other communities
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  comparably hit. Our kids still play baseball at Levy Park, Myers Park,
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  Winthrop Park places built in the fifties and sixties, and they drive long distances
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  to go there. Kids from kolarn have to drive to Winthrop. That's their
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  zone. Active recreational park. Winthrop Park is in midtown. If you want
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  to play in the advanced play leagues for baseball, you're going to Levy Park
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  on Tharpe Street or Myers Park in Myers Park. These are forty five minute
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  drives from Klarnville. That's unacceptable, all right, And so you look around
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  at other communities, they have made huge investments in those types of facilities.
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  So let's talk about the Northeast Park. Well, the Northeast Park exists for
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  a reason. It was a blueprint project long before me. As a twenty
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  year old blueprint project has never received funding, was not prioritized until the twenty
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  the second round of blueprint the county. There are five county districts. Four
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  of them have county ballparks. One does not. Again, I say,
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  who's fighting for the northeast right, Well, that's the grapevine that just stays
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  alive but never produces fruit. That park has been that thing. So the
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  county had purchased the property, and I'm gonna tell you more. Do you
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  want to know about this Northeast park Preston. The county had purchased that property
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  in two thousand and six for eight hundred thousand dollars or five hundre thousand dollars.
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  That property or the proper pretty probably on Proctor High School proper, the
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  property on Proctor and Thomasville Road. They purchased it from Celebration Baptist Church in
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  a in a fire sale really as a placeholder. It's one hundred acres fifty
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  acres on either side of a dirt road that's not gonna get paved, nor
• 25:15
  should it get paved because because Proctor Road, that dirt road, section six
• 25:21
  miles of Proctor Road would costs thirty million dollars to pave and it would become
• 25:23
  the Indianapolis five hundred all right, with the high school kids cutting between Centerville
• 25:29
  and Thomasville Road. And so Horseshoe Plantation owns ten thousand acres adjacent to that
• 25:36
  property. They did not want it to be made into any kind of active
• 25:38
  recreation because they run dogs and shoot guns and hunt as a profit as they
• 25:44
  farm. They don't want adjacent properties. So that was not a good location
• 25:49
  for that park. And I would tell you there was never really an intention
• 25:52
  to actively develop it. So when I got elected, obviously that was a
• 25:56
  priority for me that we get the North East Park done. So the county
• 26:03
  we had an opportunity to Horseshoe offered to buy the property for what the county
• 26:07
  had invested in it, so a dollar for dollar exchange, so no money
• 26:10
  lost. We took that money and had the opportunity to buy a property in
• 26:15
  Wilaunie directly adjacent to Roberts Elementary School, which was a fifty acre parcel but
• 26:19
  high and dry, perfect, really nice piece of property for the same exact
• 26:25
  price. It was a dollar for dollar exchange, so we did that.
• 26:29
  We facilitated that transaction. In order to do that, there had to be
• 26:32
  a substantial amendment. At Blueprint we talk about substantial amendments, right, So
• 26:36
  this was a huge, long, year long process. My first year in
• 26:40
  office, it was very tedious and hard to get done because those substantial amendments
• 26:45
  were hard to get done. And by doing that we were able to roll
• 26:52
  it into the bond that we were taking out to accelerate projects. And so
• 26:56
  the Northeast Park was at the bottom of the list, wasn't supposed to be
• 27:00
  instructed until twenty thirty five. That will now be constructed by twenty twenty five.
• 27:03
  So accelerated it ten years. Okay, So everything was hunky dory.
• 27:07
  We were everybody agrees it's needed. Its need is without question. Okay.
• 27:17
  So fast forward, all of a sudden we want to pick apart its budgets.
• 27:22
  Now I would tell you have we picked apart any other budgets at this
• 27:26
  point on any other projects. Now that the dust has settled on the Northeast
• 27:30
  Park. No, only one project has taken a haircut that the fair Grounds
• 27:36
  has tripled in price. Northeast Park took a cut. Nothing else has taken
• 27:41
  a cut. In fact, all the other projects have gone way up in
• 27:45
  price. Northeast Park took a cut. Now, I don't want to get
• 27:49
  into why that is. It would be speculation on my point, but there
• 27:52
  was one person around the table who really pushed for that. Now you can
• 27:56
  speculate why that is. I don't know. Now to the contents of the
• 28:02
  Northeast Park and the criticism over those contents. Do you know how many baseball
• 28:07
  fields there are in District four of Leon County baseball fields, I would probably
• 28:14
  guess and say fewer than five. Two one of them is at Child's High
• 28:18
  School. If not, no, no, no, those aren't available for
• 28:22
  public recreational baseball. I'm talking about Parks Park. Well, I'd be surprised
• 28:26
  that there was that many. Mikasookie. There are two in Mikisukie Regional Mixiki
• 28:32
  County Park, which is nine miles from Roberts Elementary School almost to past Lloyd
• 28:37
  out East Okay, all on the county line. Veterans Memorial Way out there,
• 28:42
  two two Preston. Now Meridian Park is close but not in District four.
• 28:53
  Meridian Park is across the line, and Meridian Park has two dedicated baseball
• 29:00
  fields. Now there's four multi use fields at the city. You know those
• 29:04
  sort of put the temporary fences up. And so now if you look at
• 29:08
  the other county parks, Woodville, Fort, Brayden, chairs they all have
• 29:15
  three to six fields populations that pale in comparison in terms of use for baseball.
• 29:25
  So to put four baseball fields at the Northeast park was not should not
• 29:30
  have been controversial, period. Now, the county designed those fields based on
• 29:36
  an objective study that they did based on a needs assessment that was national,
• 29:41
  based on trends what was needed, and they assessment based on national They did
• 29:45
  a national needs assessment based on trends in sports that people are playing, usage,
• 29:51
  field space, capacity needs. Basically, they designed those fields around needs
• 29:56
  and trends for baseball and softball and multi use and use of your dollars,
• 30:00
  all those things. So they were large. I'm sure they distilled that towards
• 30:06
  local because I would think that the baseball programs in the area of high schools,
• 30:11
  you know, the feeder programs, whether it's Babe Ruth or Little League
• 30:14
  that feed into that would give us a little bit more accurate portrayal of how
• 30:18
  many kids are playing ball here. They did that. Okay, they did
• 30:21
  all that, so I mean I can tell you right now there are five.
• 30:23
  There are four Little League programs in Leon County in each district except one.
• 30:32
  We don't have a Little League program in the northeast. Now, this
• 30:34
  is the little league that plays in Williamsport, right, we don't have one
• 30:37
  in the northeast. Okay, you got a lot of baseball talent, has
• 30:41
  no Little League program. Okay, I can't have no chance of playing the
• 30:45
  Little League World Series unless they play in one of the other can't play if
• 30:51
  you're not districted for those parks, can't play All Stars. I'll give you
• 30:55
  an example. Chairs, which is our closest park to say Bradville, and
• 31:00
  it's a long way. You know, Chairs had three hundred kids playing in
• 31:07
  their program last spring, three hundred. How many of those three hundred do
• 31:11
  you think were out of zone and ineligible for All Stars? Of the three
• 31:15
  hundred participants in the Chairs Little League, tell me one hundred and fifty half
• 31:21
  fully half of those kids drove from Bradforville and colarn to play in Chairs County
• 31:29
  Little League program. Ineligible for All Stars. Same thing happens in the city.
• 31:36
  My kids are they using the fields? I mean, let's take those
• 31:38
  hundred and fifty out of the equation that leaves one hundred and fifty playing in
• 31:42
  the chairs league. How often are those fields in use nightly year round in
• 31:49
  the spring Baseball's not played in the fall obviously, but spring, yeah,
• 31:53
  and the spring they're used nightly. And so I mean, but again take
• 32:00
  that, just look at the cities programming. All the kids in Klarn have
• 32:04
  to go to Winthrop to play All Stars, well most of them don't.
• 32:07
  They go to Meridian, can't play All Stars. Same thing, they're district.
• 32:09
  There's zoned for the Dizzy Dean World Series. So two fields ain't gonna
• 32:16
  cut it. That doesn't even count the amount of kids that don't play recreational
• 32:22
  baseball. They play in the advanced play leagues, which exists really as booster
• 32:25
  run leagues by parents on city facilities at Levy Park and Myers Park. And
• 32:30
  so what's happened is a lot of kids just don't play recreational ball. I
• 32:36
  mean, significant numbers of kids in our community don't play wreck ball. They
• 32:40
  just do travel ball. They pay, they pay to play very expensive,
• 32:45
  very expensive, and it's frustrating when again you get back to that conversation about
• 32:50
  the Northeast where the taxes come from, you know, where you have a
• 32:57
  robust community, and I would argue that like community is built in an active
• 33:00
  recreational park, and so we don't have one. We don't have one in
• 33:06
  the Northeast. The Northeast Park will fill that void. Sadly, fifty percent
• 33:09
  of it got cut, but you know, at some point we'll seek to
• 33:15
  fund those facilities, either through the legislature or do you need more land to
• 33:19
  do it? Though? No, no, no, no, it was
• 33:22
  because I mean, isn't the other portion of the land that was going to
• 33:24
  be devoted to the other two baseball field's going to be used for other things?
• 33:28
  Just vacant? They literally just remove them from the site plan to cut
• 33:32
  the budget. So pickleball courts not going to happen still there, okay,
• 33:38
  so all that was accommodated for. So the Northeast Park as it currently was
• 33:42
  approved, will have two full size baseball fields which are fully convertible, which
• 33:49
  you know people don't understand, but like those fields will also be softball fields.
• 33:53
  They're not just baseball fields. So when baseball plays in the spring,
• 33:57
  softball can play in the fall. And that's the way it is. Pretty
• 34:00
  much at all these parks. Softball has a huge problem to no space.
• 34:02
  Well yeah, and I mean this softball season runs concurrent with baseball. Well,
• 34:07
  not those travel not those fast pitch leagues. They kind of exist in
• 34:12
  their own little bubbles and they try to find time to play wherever they can.
• 34:15
  So if they get it at the city, it can be in the
• 34:15
  fall, it can be in the spring whenever. But the point is those
• 34:20
  are full sized fields with dirt infields, mobile mounds. The mounds can be
• 34:24
  moved, the bases can be moved, you can bring the fences in or
• 34:28
  out. Also, by creating three hundred foot fields, you can play full
• 34:30
  size soccer matches in the outfields of those fields. So they're all I mean,
• 34:35
  this is all done by design. This is not just random. It's
• 34:37
  not like I can go in the room and say this is what I want.
• 34:40
  This is done by professionals, Like we paid a firm one hundred thousand
• 34:45
  dollars or something to professionally design these things, and so it'll have. Ultimately
• 34:51
  the design was it has I think it's four pickleball or three or four pickleball
• 34:57
  courts. I think it has now three or four and volleyball courts. Uh,
• 35:01
  full size basketball sport court, you know, like I know what I
• 35:06
  know the court you're talking about, uh, full size lighted football, soccer
• 35:10
  field, and all of the base the two baseball fields are lighted. The
• 35:14
  soccer field, football field is lighted, the pick all the courts are lighted.
• 35:17
  Pickleball, tennis or volleyball. No tennis. But I mean this is
• 35:23
  also the home to the Brafforville Bucks football program, which of all the Pop
• 35:28
  Warner programs, I guess which one doesn't have a home Northeast Tallahassee. So
• 35:34
  the Northeast Park will be the home of the Brafforville Bucks. They will have
• 35:37
  a they have to use deer leg or Child's Field to even have a team,
• 35:40
  which that program is kind of had kind of waned. Well, now
• 35:44
  you see it coming back. They're recruiting, they're putting together a whole new
• 35:46
  program in anticipation of this. So the park will be it is far from
• 35:53
  just a baseball facility. Any characterization of that is patently false. Yeah,
• 36:00
  baseball takes up more physical space in a park. Because baseball takes up physical
• 36:05
  space, there's also a full sized football field, and in the outfields of
• 36:08
  those baseball fields, you can play soccer. Uh, what's the English sport?
• 36:17
  Cricket? Their full sized cricket pitches cricket. I'm sorry, they're designed
• 36:23
  there. Do you want to say croquet? Fine? Whatever, Yeah,
• 36:28
  I mean, it's it's a it's a again. It's a professionally designed,
• 36:31
  objectively built, designed, active recreational area park. Any characterization of it as
• 36:40
  anything else is just not true. It's just not true. We would talk,
• 36:45
  we were talking about four baseball fields. Four We have two, and
• 36:51
  they are as we discussed way out east. There are like thirty in some
• 36:55
  of the other districts baseball fields because alahase, well it's not kept up.
• 37:01
  It ironically circles back to kind of where we started. The city does not
• 37:07
  pay much attention to where a lot of tax dollars come from. It's a
• 37:09
  salient issue across the board. So you can apply that same logic to Bannerman
• 37:15
  Road or to you know, any number of development interests about from an infrastructure
• 37:22
  standpoint, where the city seemingly annexes about everything somehow amazingly. And I well,
• 37:30
  you know, I don't think the city is out there consuming property.
• 37:35
  I think that and this is just a fact. Ninety nine percent of what
• 37:39
  the city consumes is at the request of people who developed the properties. Well,
• 37:44
  because they're giving incentives to do it. Yeah, but I mean the
• 37:46
  city obviously, the city wants the revenue from the from the utility. But
• 37:52
  you know, those are voluntary annexations. So we get all bent out of
• 37:55
  shape about it. A lot of times people want to come into the city,
• 37:59
  city doesn't want to take them. But in fairness, but those are
• 38:01
  voluntary annexations. But the point is there comes an expectation with that right that
• 38:07
  you provide services. Well, and that's the question that you know, my
• 38:09
  listeners, because obviously, I while we have managed to survive for twenty three
• 38:15
  years in a community that doesn't largely share my political beliefs, which means a
• 38:20
  lot of people that don't agree with me, listen, right, the reality
• 38:23
  is that a large percentage of people that do. They a lot of them
• 38:29
  listen from the Northeast. And what I hear is what are we getting for
• 38:35
  our tax dollars? And we're we're paying for our utility, we're paying for
• 38:38
  our emergency services, we're paying for our waste protection. So can we please
• 38:43
  get a list of what we're getting and you're touching on that. I mean,
• 38:46
  looks the reason I ran for office, Preston, I mean again,
• 38:50
  I ran for office. Oh the sort of moment that inspired me to run
• 38:54
  for office. And I've said this in a public meeting when we were going
• 38:58
  through the park thing. This is nothing I'm telling you I've not said before
• 39:00
  in public meetings. What's the point of this. Yeah, I just repeat
• 39:06
  myself a lot. That's a part of campaigning, you know, repetition,
• 39:12
  you know. And again, I'm not trying to throw any of my city
• 39:14
  colleagues under the bus either. I want to be respectful. But at the
• 39:17
  same time, I mean, I stood out on a baseball a field at
• 39:22
  Roberts Elementary School seven years ago when my son, who's twelve nine, was
• 39:28
  five six years old, and we're playing t ball and we're playing in a
• 39:32
  city league at Roberts Elementary School, which is in Leon County School's property.
• 39:38
  So the city, to its credit, brings programs out to the county and
• 39:44
  they just use the schools because they don't have facilities. The city is not
• 39:45
  built facilities, the County's not built facilities. And so I'm standing there watching
• 39:51
  my and I live in a nice area, I pay a lot of taxes,
• 39:55
  and at that time, you know, eighty the early eighty year old
• 40:00
  grandmother has to walk across that field to a porta john to go to the
• 40:05
  bathroom to watch her great grandson play t ball in a field that is not
• 40:10
  no dirt. It's just a backstop and a bunch of beat up grass and
• 40:15
  ant piles, and it's just a disaster. And you're paying your forty bucks
• 40:20
  or whatever to play a city wreck league there, which is as close to
• 40:23
  my house as you could possibly get. At Roberts Elementary School, And they
• 40:27
  do the same thing at gil Christ and they do the same thing at Deer
• 40:30
  Lake and Klara Lakes Elementary. So this is how we run our program.
• 40:35
  We use these just Leon County school that are just pe facilities. We PLoP
• 40:39
  a porta potty out there, and we call it. I'm like man.
• 40:43
  I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, Preston, which is a failed municipality
• 40:49
  in every way. Okay, I played in a part a thousand times nicer
• 40:55
  than anything you would find in Tallassic in the eighties and Jackson, Missippi.
• 41:00
  I played baseball from six years old to the end of high school in the
• 41:04
  same park. We just rote it. We moved from one field up to
• 41:07
  the next field, to the next field, all in the same park.
• 41:09
  And they had these all over Jackson, Mississippi. Right, And so I
• 41:15
  thought to myself, what are we doing here? What is the failure of
• 41:19
  our government? And when it comes to this, well, then if you
• 41:22
  if you peel back that onion a little bit, you realize, well,
• 41:25
  why hasn't Bannerman Road been widened? Bannerman Road sees a lot of development,
• 41:31
  a lot of traffic. It's looked the same way since it was built thirty
• 41:38
  forty years ago. What are we doing? What is happening? Where's that
• 41:44
  money going? Okay, So that the park was just an example of what
• 41:47
  became an a lot of neglect in terms of tax dollars coming back to the
• 41:53
  Northeast for whatever reason, lack of it being a priority other priorities. So
• 42:01
  for me, that became the issue that I had to address. Right.
• 42:08
  I don't care about politics or ideology. I don't care about all the little
• 42:15
  games that politicians play. I don't care about fundraising. I don't particularly like
• 42:21
  it. I care about like I figure, what's good for me is good
• 42:25
  for everybody, Right, if my kid has that experience, then other people's
• 42:30
  kids have that experience. And I'd already gone through it with my daughters who
• 42:31
  quit softball because of that problem, and so that is unacceptable to me.
• 42:38
  And so as as I went through this as over the last three and a
• 42:40
  half years, specifically the Northeast Park, and again I posted all this on
• 42:45
  Facebook and social media at the time I was going through this fight. How
• 42:50
  many blueprint dollars have been spent in District four over the last since two thousand
• 42:55
  when it was first created. Well, you know the argument that's a that's
• 43:02
  a rhetorical question. Do you know how many dollars have been spent in Northeast
• 43:07
  District four? District four, really you could just say the Northeast zero.
• 43:15
  Not one blueprint dollar has ever until a couple of years ago, probably when
• 43:22
  we acquired the Northeast Park property. And that's really actually that wasn't blueprint money.
• 43:27
  That was counting money that used from the other part. So you know,
• 43:31
  I mean until the last few years when we started turning dirt at Phase
• 43:35
  one of Wallawnie Nothing sidewalks on Mayhan was as close as you ever got,
• 43:43
  not one dollar of a billion dollars was spent, and now you're a billion
• 43:47
  and a half into it. Because we've advanced funded all these projects. None
• 43:52
  of that money until now has started coming back to that. So and I
• 43:55
  understand that that's the reason that is is because the knee were bigger elsewhere.
• 44:00
  Okay, the first tranch of Blueprint sales tax penny sales tax went mostly to
• 44:07
  the south Side and to the big you know, widening Capital Circle, those
• 44:09
  big projects, those big regional mobility infrastructure projects where you're leveraging state money,
• 44:15
  and some of it was absolutely the argument was fairly made that it benefited the
• 44:21
  entire community, absolutely, and I agree with it. I mean, think
• 44:23
  even Famu Way, which you know all that that's a beautiful area. I
• 44:28
  mean, the Blueprint projects are beautifully done. I will defend Blueprint's work out
• 44:34
  the hilt. And so yet, now when I'm very proud of this,
• 44:38
  we have three hundred million dollars of that money coming back to the Northeast.
• 44:43
  When you talk about one hundred and fifty million for Wallani Boulevard, you talk
• 44:46
  about one hundred million for Bannerman Road, you talk about between the Northeast Park
• 44:52
  and the Market District Park roughly another thirty million. I mean, the Market
• 44:54
  District Park is going to cost more than the Northeast Park. Other example of
• 45:00
  whatever you want to say about the Northeast Park, the Market District Park was
• 45:05
  approved in the same meeting the Northeast Park was delayed for more money than the
• 45:08
  Northeast Park. The Market District Park is a city park, Northeast Park,
• 45:14
  County park. Make what you want from that, but it just speaks to
• 45:17
  the hypocripsy saying you're not saying. It just speaks to the hypocrisy of the
• 45:22
  argument that it's too much money. The Market District Park is going to cost
• 45:27
  fourteen million dollars, and that's a that's five pickleball courts, a green space
• 45:32
  going to be beautiful in the Market District, a great place making element.
• 45:37
  It's going to cost more than the active Recreational Area park off Centerville Road for
• 45:42
  baseball teams, softball teams, basketball football teams, soccer teams, pickleball activity.
• 45:51
  Frustrating, but these are the arguments yet. I mean, that was
• 45:53
  by far the most frustrating period I've had to deal with. The biggest fight
• 45:55
  I've had to deal with was the park and it's unfortunate. But again I
• 46:00
  would say, you're seeing that money return now to the district for with these
• 46:05
  big projects which are needed that I have defended and I've taken heat over.
• 46:09
  But I'm not a big fan of like def I'm not a fan at all
• 46:15
  of defunding these projects or reallocating money from these projects. I have enough deference
• 46:22
  to my predecessors to go, look, you guys designed these projects intentionally.
• 46:30
  You did it with a lot of great care over many years. So when
• 46:34
  we determine that we needed a Willawnie Boulevard going through a Willawne property that has
• 46:38
  been in the works for thirty years, Banner min Herd widening, unquestionably needed
• 46:44
  airport gateway, I would tell you that that was a smart decision to create
• 46:49
  the airport gateway the way it's designed, with the spur into the innovation park.
• 46:53
  That was done intentionally by smart people, people smarter than me. And
• 46:58
  so but we the Northeast Park really started, you know, we kicked over
• 47:02
  the anthill with those blueprint funds with the Northeast part. Let's talk about taxation
• 47:07
  in general. Sure, a few years ago some of us led the fight
• 47:13
  insisting that from a technical and legal perspective that when valuations rise, if the
• 47:22
  rollback rate is not invoked, it's called a tax increase. Yes, and
• 47:27
  both the city and the county thankfully, at least for now. We don't
• 47:31
  know how long this will last, but at least for now, valuations are
• 47:36
  up. The county has decided to hold the milage rate at this point steady.
• 47:42
  That means there's a tax increase, and now there's a discussion over what
• 47:46
  you as a body the commissioners, want to do related to keeping that millage
• 47:52
  as is rolling it back. I know that the county administrator, Vince Long.
• 47:59
  I have very high regard for Vince. I disagreed with everything he did
• 48:02
  during COVID. I think he was wrong, and I think I've been proven
• 48:05
  correct about that. That said, I think he does his job exceptionally well
• 48:09
  and I hold him in high regard. But what are your thoughts on where
• 48:14
  the county should be going there's excess revenue. Should they roll the rate back?
• 48:19
  Should they keep it for the rainy day for when the inevitable valuations come
• 48:23
  crumbling down? What are your thoughts, Brian, Well, we had a
• 48:27
  discussion about this last week. I don't know if you paid attention to it.
• 48:30
  I paid a little. We had a Tuesday budget workshop and we had
• 48:34
  some interesting conversations, you know, I think that. And I would agree
• 48:39
  with you wholeheartedly on Vince long. I think he's a fantastic administrator. In
• 48:45
  many ways, he's the glue that keeps this thing from going off the rails
• 48:47
  sometimes, especially when you have some frankly wild suggestions made by politicians, you
• 48:55
  know. And I would say that politicians, and I don't really count myself
• 49:00
  as a politician truly. We kind of come and go, you know,
• 49:02
  we're kind of like the wind. And but Vin's been there twenty six years,
• 49:07
  and I think before him, his predecessor parwez Alam, who I never
• 49:12
  met. I have a great benefit. I never met a lot of these
• 49:15
  people. I mean I never I have really no connection to any of the
• 49:20
  previous. I could not be more of a surprise outsider, I think,
• 49:22
  And so my perspective, I would hope is appreciated that from that respect.
• 49:28
  But so he was there a long time, part was and he you know,
• 49:31
  ran a good ship. And so I would tell you the county,
• 49:34
  I mean, in my experience, is profoundly well run, and that leadership
• 49:42
  from the administrative staff. I mean, they are the executive branch of our
• 49:46
  government. They execute the laws we create. Now that means they have to
• 49:51
  do they have to put themselves in weird positions to do what we ask them,
• 49:54
  because we ask crazy things sometimes and they do that. Vince and his
• 49:59
  staff that incredibly well. So they like to tout that they have not raised
• 50:05
  the militarate in thirteen years. Well, which is true, they have not
• 50:09
  raised the militarate in thirteen years. Now you think about what's happened in the
• 50:13
  last thirteen years. You know, you've had COVID, You've had recessions,
• 50:17
  ups and downs in the economy, and they've not raised the military. Yet
• 50:22
  our valuations have gone up consistently, which means we have extra money in the
• 50:28
  coffers. Now. The conversation last week really revolved around the fact that those
• 50:36
  projections are liquid. Okay, so at our last world we have and they
• 50:40
  do a great job with the budget. They bring it to us in January,
• 50:45
  you know, a budget that won't be finalized until September. They bring
• 50:47
  us preliminary projections and so the county has a really small three hundred and seventy
• 50:53
  seven million dollar budget to the city's billion. Okay, so it's a really
• 50:58
  small budget, I think about one thousand employees, very efficiently run. I
• 51:04
  mean, one of the least expensive governments from any county, like size county
• 51:08
  in the state. I mean, it's like the smallest cost per citizen,
• 51:13
  smallest you know, really small tax base. So they do a lot with
• 51:16
  a little. But we had our projection increased ten million dollars from our April
• 51:23
  workshop to our last week's June workshop. So in two months, the property
• 51:29
  praiser came back said, you guys got ten million dollars you found Okay,
• 51:35
  Well, that money was allocated a lickety split, right, and some of
• 51:40
  those things are unavoidable, right, We have insurance premium increases and fuel cost
• 51:46
  increases. The same inflationary things that impact you and me impact county government and
• 51:52
  city government. So things cost more, materials cost more, whatever. Well,
• 51:57
  the large majority of that, about five million of that nine point whatever
• 52:01
  seven million dollars was allocated. Three point six million was to our capital projects,
• 52:07
  public works, you know, increasing culverts to avoid flood mitigate, to
• 52:13
  create flood mitigation by some new tractors and dump loaders and all those things.
• 52:17
  I don't question the county administrator's knowledge of the needs of our public works department.
• 52:22
  I believe that I have. I give them a lot of deference in
• 52:24
  that regard. Right, they tell you they need a front end loader,
• 52:28
  I trust you. I think our public works department is the best in America.
• 52:31
  I mean those folks do just look at the last three or four months
• 52:36
  with these storms. They amount of debris they've hauled, me, washed out
• 52:38
  roads getting repaired in twenty four hours. I mean, they are the best.
• 52:43
  Well, there's one point three million dollars in there for across the board
• 52:45
  five percent pay raises to the county employees, which which follows the last three
• 52:52
  years of two two years of five Yeah, where you know we've created and
• 52:55
  those are recurring expenses, right, So that's stuck in my craw a little
• 53:01
  bit. And that sort of created a discussion about rate rollbacks and things like
• 53:07
  that, which you know nobody's comfortable with. That's kind of like the you
• 53:09
  know, the don't say that word rate that phrase rate rollback when you say
• 53:15
  nobody's comfortable with, Well, here's the reality about that, right, And
• 53:20
  and I understand it. You got good years and your your revenues are up,
• 53:25
  and you got bad years and your revenues are down. And so from
• 53:30
  the county's perspective, and I understand, if you roll that rate back let's
• 53:35
  say two meals, which is what he proposed in the meeting as just in
• 53:37
  this scenario, that'd be five million dollars. Well, it's gonna be a
• 53:43
  lot harder later on to roll that militarrate back up to recover that five million
• 53:46
  dollars should you have another massive catastrophic recession, housing market crash, you know,
• 53:53
  COVID whatever. So you understand that, right, it's like going,
• 53:59
  well, I'm going to forego the raise I got because I believe the company
• 54:05
  needs the money more than me right now. But you know, hey,
• 54:10
  what if you have a death in the family or something, you know I'm
• 54:13
  saying, So it's like, so my The thing that concerned me about it
• 54:17
  philosophically was that we were doing that across the board raised. Now keep in
• 54:22
  mind, we were already we had already funded a merit based raise of zero
• 54:27
  to five percent, which was a three percent calculate on a three percent average,
• 54:30
  So that one point three million dollars is the difference in a three percent
• 54:34
  average and a five percent average. That's extra money. We didn't have to
• 54:37
  do that, okay, And when you combine that with the previous two years,
• 54:42
  that's almost five million dollars in recurring revenue we've committed to. Okay,
• 54:49
  I can't support that, right because what I what I'm saying to the public
• 54:52
  there is, oh, I found this money, and I'm going to just
• 54:57
  I'm going to Instead of saving it, we could saved it. We have
• 55:00
  a fun balance, you know, extra basically savings for a rainy day.
• 55:06
  Instead of saving that money, we allocated it in perpetuity, not just a
• 55:10
  one time. The three point six million is a one time. We allocated
• 55:15
  that one point three million in perpetuity. And just to me, it felt
• 55:17
  irresponsible fiscally because you know, I get it, everybody's experiencing inflation and salaries
• 55:28
  are having a hard time keeping up. They can't keep up. But we've
• 55:31
  given ten percent over the last two years, and this would be another three
• 55:36
  percent, so you're talking about thirteen percent already you would be giving for one
• 55:40
  point three million dollars. It's not I mean, that's a respectable amount of
• 55:45
  money in a three hundred and seventy seven million dollar budget. But again you're
• 55:49
  you're committing it in perpetuity, and that's the problem. So it was just
• 55:53
  that was my issue with it. I obviously supported the budget. I'm going
• 55:58
  to support the budget, and I don't think you you would number one.
• 56:01
  I think you'd ever have enough votes to a militarate rollback on that board.
• 56:07
  And I would not necessarily be in favor of that, simply because the point
• 56:10
  I made, I get it. I understand that it's you can't roll it
• 56:14
  back up. It's going to be a thousand times harder to roll it back
• 56:16
  up than is to roll it down. And so, but the argument is
• 56:20
  always once government levies attax, it never goes away. Once it's at a
• 56:23
  certain level, it never goes down, correct, And so you're not gonna
• 56:28
  mean that roll that valuation increase will be there. I mean unless the economy
• 56:36
  crashes. I mean again, revenues in seven and o eight you know,
• 56:38
  went down substantially. They had to wipe out their fun balance. Yeah.
• 56:43
  The difference to me now, Brian, is we're getting taxed by a Children's
• 56:46
  Services Commission that I don't think it was remotely needed. But that's what people
• 56:51
  vote for because they hear about kids and children, and know, how can
• 56:53
  we say no? Right? And you know the government can always take when
• 57:00
  you and I max out our credit limits, we're done. But governments don't
• 57:05
  ever have that limitation. Well, that's where I feel like restraint has to
• 57:08
  be put in somewhere to say, Okay, we're in remarkable inflationary times right
• 57:14
  now. We're at a nine plus month of housing sitting nationwide, and that
• 57:19
  bubble is eventually going to hit here. It's just a matter of when.
• 57:22
  And so you know, if you look at it historically, we're sitting on
• 57:25
  an economic time that it's going to happen. And people right now are going
• 57:30
  to pay more because valuations are up in their property tax bill, and we
• 57:36
  could maybe lessen that a little bit. Well, I mean, if those
• 57:38
  evaluations come down, they'd pay less in their property tax bill eventually. Yeah,
• 57:43
  no doubt, but I mean correct and I'll get it. And I
• 57:45
  made those points in the meeting. Yeah, you know, like and again,
• 57:50
  you know, like we had to raise our ems MTSU they call it
• 57:54
  MSTU Municipal service is taxing you, And I'm learning all kinds of stuff.
• 58:00
  We had to raise that this year last year in the last budget because we
• 58:02
  hadn't done it in twenty years and we've added eight or nine ambulances. You
• 58:07
  know, we raised it a half a mill or something. So the average
• 58:09
  wiminer was like one hundred dollars a year or something like that, twelve dollars
• 58:14
  a month or something. But I get it. I mean when you add
• 58:16
  all that up between waste pros increases and costs, which again was the you
• 58:22
  know, people want to wearry out about waste Pro and the lowest bitter man.
• 58:24
  They were the lowest bidder, like we could have done more. And
• 58:30
  I would say waste Pro has done really well actually as well. And I
• 58:32
  agree there's a backstory to the whole waste Pro thing. We don't have time
• 58:36
  to get it too. But but I you know, I count myself fortunate
• 58:39
  to be in the county because I'm not getting a middleman fee, which is
• 58:44
  yeah, I'm in the county as well. Yeah, I mean it's the
• 58:46
  county. We get a fee from waste Pro. They pay us a fee.
• 58:52
  Obviously that would probably come out of their revenues, but they pay us
• 58:54
  a fee. But I think we forego for we didn't ask for it in
• 58:59
  this contract to keep we pay them directly as paying through anything else. Well,
• 59:02
  I mean, but again, in all fairness, you have a The
• 59:07
  EMS MSTU did go up half a meal. I supported that because I'm going
• 59:10
  to support our EMS and our health first responders. Our services fee went up.
• 59:15
  Supported that because I'm going to support first responders. Waste pro went up.
• 59:21
  Get it. I got an issue right now in Colarna Lakes with the
• 59:22
  city and their sewer fee. I was just going to ask you about that.
• 59:27
  Well, I can tell you the notice assume you live in Unit one
• 59:30
  or two. You can assume correctly. So that's one of those deals where
• 59:34
  that's going to come to a public hearing on July ninth at the county.
• 59:37
  Do you want to set the overview of this real quickly? Quickly everybody that's
• 59:42
  going to be listening to this because is going to be hit with this notice.
• 59:45
  But some of us got something in the mask as quick as I can
• 59:49
  describe it, when the county brought or when when the city brought the sewer
• 59:52
  lines out to Unit one and two in Colarna Lakes twenty years ago, that
• 59:58
  agreement was required a fee, a maintenance fee, a fee that you would
• 1:00:04
  have to pay as a homeowner, like a ready fee, ready for service
• 1:00:07
  fee. And so at that time, minunderstanding twenty years ago was that the
• 1:00:12
  folks in Colar Lakes wanted the sewer brought out there. They had failing septic
• 1:00:15
  tanks, it was creating all kinds of problems in their yards. And so
• 1:00:19
  one of my predecessors, Tony Grippa, fought very hard to advocate it very
• 1:00:22
  hard to get this brought out there at a significant expense to run a sewer
• 1:00:27
  main that far out, and the city did that. But with the agreement,
• 1:00:30
  I've seen the agreement, it's written in stone that you all as homeowners
• 1:00:35
  would pay a ready for service fee until the point you were ready for service,
• 1:00:38
  and then once you've got your service, you would pay the fee.
• 1:00:40
  You'd pay the service fee and that would be that. And so that's what
• 1:00:45
  we're talking about. It's one hundred currently, like one hundred and forty four
• 1:00:46
  dollars a year. It's on your tax bill. You don't probably even notice
• 1:00:50
  it. But the city has decided that they have not been raising that as
• 1:00:54
  they should incrementally over the years, and so now they're gonna ham me with
• 1:00:59
  a four hundred and forty five four dollar three hundred dollars increase. Don't quote
• 1:01:02
  me on those numbers. Roughly hundred and forty four is what was in my
• 1:01:07
  notice. Yeah, so it's like roughly a three hundred dollars increase in the
• 1:01:09
  annual fee for ready for service. The county merely processes that fee. We
• 1:01:15
  don't have any that's determined by city ordinance. So I've got folks calling me
• 1:01:22
  and I'm like, call the City Commission. The City Commission passed the ordinance.
• 1:01:27
  This will come before the County Commission in a public hearing. I intend
• 1:01:30
  to advocate against it, but well, I think the question really nothing I
• 1:01:35
  can do well the question that I'm being asked, you know, I get
• 1:01:37
  the emails from people, and obviously some of those mirror maybe what I think.
• 1:01:42
  Sure, the question I'm being asked is, Okay, we're paying a
• 1:01:45
  fee to have the water taken out. We pay Talquin a fee for the
• 1:01:49
  water to come in. We pay the city every month for the water to
• 1:01:51
  go out, and now we're being hit with an additional fee on top of
• 1:01:55
  the fee we've been paying, on top of the fifteen thousand, ten thousand,
• 1:01:59
  twelve thousand we paid to hook up. Where's our representation. That's the
• 1:02:05
  question that a lot of us are asking, which almost ironically ties us back
• 1:02:08
  to where we started part of our conversation. Full circle, right. I
• 1:02:12
  mean that's again, you know, a lot of the permitting issues, the
• 1:02:16
  development issues that people have there are city permitting issues, city development. The
• 1:02:22
  county has no jurisdiction over those things. So when you're talking about O corner
• 1:02:27
  of ox Bottom and Thomason, the road right or whatever. But this is
• 1:02:30
  weird because the city doesn't have technical jurisdiction, but they have legal jurisdiction well,
• 1:02:35
  which is weird. The city is merely using the county because they have
• 1:02:38
  to statutorily to process the assessment. The county is really just administering. Administering
• 1:02:46
  the assessment. We have to hold the public hearing in our chambers, but
• 1:02:51
  I mean, we have no say over it. We can't. It's one
• 1:02:52
  of those quo I assume it's going to be a quasi It's probably not quasi
• 1:02:55
  judicial, but it's one of those things where and I have not talk to
• 1:03:00
  the county attorney yet, she's out of town, but I'm gonna talk to
• 1:03:02
  her about it and see, you know what, what would happen if we
• 1:03:06
  said no as a body, would the city then have to come up with
• 1:03:10
  another calculation. I don't know. It may be one of those deals.
• 1:03:14
  You know, in most of those public hearings, we don't You can't really
• 1:03:17
  vote no. They're quasi judicial. If you vote no, then they're going
• 1:03:21
  to appeal it to a judge. You're acting basically as a jury on a
• 1:03:23
  lot of those development decisions, you know, comp plans or re zonings,
• 1:03:27
  things like that. That's called a quasi judicial proceeding. So you can't vote
• 1:03:30
  no unless you have a real legitimate, defensible, legally defensible position to vote.
• 1:03:35
  Know, this may be a situation like that, But either way,
• 1:03:40
  I'll make the case for the community and ask the questions that are being asked
• 1:03:45
  of me by folks who know more about sewer systems than I do that live
• 1:03:49
  in corn Lakes. But that's I mean whatever. I mean, call your
• 1:03:52
  five city community. Technically all five of them are. But you just said
• 1:03:58
  call your we don't have one. See there's the rub Well, technically you
• 1:04:01
  have five, but we don't because we're not voting in the city. I
• 1:04:05
  don't have a vote in the city, and so do and neither does anybody.
• 1:04:09
  I'm sorry, I'm sorry you're talking about Clara Lakes. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:04:12
  well in Colarna Lakes, that's a uniquely troubling situation. And we have
• 1:04:15
  that all over the district. And see, if I'm practical, I say,
• 1:04:19
  okay, if you haven't raised fees for X number of years, show
• 1:04:23
  us, cause that's fine. I'm open to being reasonable. Where I start
• 1:04:28
  getting rubbed is okay, I'm paying you for this, and I'm now paying
• 1:04:31
  you for that, And where's my say in city? Yeah, that's a
• 1:04:35
  real rub It's a real problem the utility and the fact that the utility can
• 1:04:42
  hold so much sway over homeowners taxpayers without those taxpayers being able to vote well.
• 1:04:49
  And I would harness you that with the city openly saying we transfer a
• 1:04:54
  huge dollar amount out of that utility to run our operations on Jennneral services,
• 1:05:00
  that then does become a taxing mechanism for sure, de facto for all the
• 1:05:05
  people. There's no question. I wouldn't even. I wouldn't even. I
• 1:05:10
  don't think you have to characterize it that up to it is no doubt.
• 1:05:14
  But they fight and bristle against that characterization. And I there's no question it
• 1:05:19
  may end up being illegal proceeding. There's no question that is a tax their
• 1:05:24
  roll, you know, and and their general fund budget would collapse without that
• 1:05:29
  transfer of funds. So oh, there's no question. And so the city,
• 1:05:34
  you know, and that's why they've been able to artificially keep their militarys
• 1:05:39
  suppressed, is because they use the utility as a tax form for people that
• 1:05:44
  you know, this people that they have to have that, correct, they
• 1:05:47
  got to have power. And they may not own a land or own a
• 1:05:50
  home or something, but they got to have that. And so it becomes
• 1:05:54
  a very heavy tak I've got pockets of it all over my district. Sure,
• 1:05:58
  it's not just way out in Corner Lakes. I mean even in an
• 1:06:00
  the interior of the district, I would say, like down near I Ten,
• 1:06:02
  in that area, there's little pockets of people that have city utilities but
• 1:06:05
  don't vote in city elections, aren't in the city. Before we bring this
• 1:06:10
  in for a landing, I do feel that it's important just to get your
• 1:06:14
  thoughts on this because I've asked everybody sure I've talked to about this issue,
• 1:06:19
  and it's the decision of the city commissioner Jeremy Mattlow to form a political action
• 1:06:25
  committee the last election cycle. It kind of hit me weird that he started
• 1:06:31
  attacking his colleagues and openly campaigning for and against. He's spread his wings a
• 1:06:38
  little bit. He's now involved himself in school board races and you know,
• 1:06:44
  promoting one candidate over another. I know you've written about about the vitriol the
• 1:06:54
  political orum, yeah, the lack thereof Yeah, And in my mind right
• 1:07:00
  now, and I'm not going to ask you to comment on specifically Commissioner Mattlow,
• 1:07:03
  because I view his commentary of late being the pot calling the kettle black.
• 1:07:09
  You know, you poison the water hole and now you're mad about it.
• 1:07:12
  But I'm a Republican. I don't have a dog in this fight.
• 1:07:15
  I mean, I know we're allegedly doing nonpartisan races, but you also know
• 1:07:19
  it's nothing but partisan. Yeah. I mean, I again, as I
• 1:07:24
  said earlier, I really despise politics and ideology, and I really consider myself
• 1:07:30
  a big time moderate, honestly and truly. Okay, now, when it
• 1:07:35
  comes to the the provision of service at the local level, my race is
• 1:07:44
  non partisan. Those races are non partisan. We're supposed to be not partisan.
• 1:07:47
  And I would tell you that what's going on at the city particularly transcends
• 1:07:51
  partisanship. It's personal and that is unfortunate. And I think that personal animus
• 1:07:59
  developed before or I was there. I mean, you know, Jeremy's been
• 1:08:01
  there six years now. Well, the county doesn't really have that. No,
• 1:08:05
  it's a safe thing, and largely it's never had that. And I
• 1:08:10
  will go back to because of districts. Yeah, well, I think it's
• 1:08:15
  more than that. I think it's personalities. Well, there's no doubt,
• 1:08:16
  but but but districts bring a level of fairness to the discussion. You get
• 1:08:23
  some things on the table simply because you've got reps in each of the communities.
• 1:08:28
  And you got to look. You shop out in District four, you
• 1:08:30
  hang out in District four. I seen at the restaurants in D four.
• 1:08:34
  I don't ever see them out there in D four. And my point is
• 1:08:38
  they don't have to face they're what they're sewing. Here's another startling little anecdote
• 1:08:43
  for you. When I ran for office, I said this a lot,
• 1:08:45
  and I say this again because it's still true. Of the twelve local elected
• 1:08:49
  policymakers, how many of them live north of Ien. Oh, trust me,
• 1:08:55
  I know, yeah, me, So I get it. I get
• 1:09:00
  it. But I think that what you're seeing there, and I see it
• 1:09:01
  up close and personal in those meetings, and the general public probably doesn't pay
• 1:09:05
  attention to it is it's very unfortunate. And again it transcends politics. It's
• 1:09:13
  personal. I think that's personalities have a lot to do with that. I
• 1:09:18
  had. If you recall when we were talking about the Northeast Park a year
• 1:09:23
  ago, Commissioner Caban came at me pretty strong, had some real strong words
• 1:09:28
  for me on Northeast Park. Read some of my social media posts in a
• 1:09:31
  public meeting into the public record where I was ragging on the mayor. I
• 1:09:36
  could have made that uncomfortable for all of us, right, my county colleague.
• 1:09:45
  I chose not to. I chose not to go after him, right
• 1:09:48
  because I have no interest in going after him. It does not serve my
• 1:09:53
  constituents well if I am up there in these petty, petulant, little childlike
• 1:09:59
  fights with my colleagues. So I put collegiality above all out and I have
• 1:10:03
  slipped, okay, some of my mistakes. I've made some mistakes well my
• 1:10:09
  three and a half years though, as an elect official. I've made mistakes.
• 1:10:12
  If you recall, I I texted that Bill Procter was a coward and
• 1:10:16
  when we were talking about Doak Campbell Stadium, huge, huge mistake on my
• 1:10:21
  part. Right got kind of wrapped up in the in the moment, and
• 1:10:27
  it really wasn't me. It wasn't trying to be callous so much as this
• 1:10:30
  observant. But I had to apologize to Bill. I wanted to. I
• 1:10:34
  did not want to offend him. I respect him tremendously as the dean of
• 1:10:39
  our commission. And you know that was a low moment for me. Okay,
• 1:10:44
  But I mean it gets it gets wild in there, man, when
• 1:10:46
  the emotions start flowing and things start happening, and so I want to give
• 1:10:54
  some level of I mean, I respect all of them, and I try
• 1:10:58
  to maintain that. Unfor fortunately they have not been able to maintain that with
• 1:11:02
  themselves, particularly at the city. And so when you talk about getting involved
• 1:11:09
  in other people's races and packs specifically designed to try and defeat other people,
• 1:11:15
  I would say that is a bad practice. I will not be doing that,
• 1:11:21
  will I don't endorse in local races. I'm not saying I won't,
• 1:11:27
  but I'm at this point if it's a competitive race, I'm not you know,
• 1:11:32
  getting involved in competitive races with your colleagues that sit out no wonder you
• 1:11:36
  have dysfunction on your dais you say really nasty things about each other in the
• 1:11:42
  political arena that just erodes any ability to succeed from a policy standpoint. Do
• 1:11:48
  you think it's incumbent upon elected officials city and county to speak against where that's
• 1:11:57
  going. I think that I think it's uncumbent on the city, Okay,
• 1:12:03
  and the county again, because the city is the county. Well, we're
• 1:12:09
  simpatico over there at the county, right, So like, I'm not trying
• 1:12:13
  to make enemies, I'm trying to make friends. I'm trying to be I'm
• 1:12:15
  trying to have policy successes that improve the lives of my constituents. And so
• 1:12:23
  it's a very fragile egos. Man. You look at some of the problems
• 1:12:28
  that you run into about the Northeast Park. You know, people's egos get
• 1:12:32
  get bruised, they act out in retribution, they get vindictive. I'm not
• 1:12:39
  trying to be involved in that, man. I'm trying to create policy outcomes
• 1:12:43
  that impact my constituents positively. So you don't see me at the press conferences,
• 1:12:47
  you don't see me in the newspaper, you don't see me grand standing
• 1:12:51
  at all these events. You don't see me at political events. You don't
• 1:12:54
  see me at party events. You know, you don't see me at any
• 1:12:57
  of that stuff. I don't want to be involved in that. I just
• 1:13:00
  want to serve my constituents. And so that just functioned at the city.
• 1:13:05
  That has to be fleshed out by voters. That's my opinion of that.
• 1:13:09
  So yeah, I think that, yeah, it's it's it's bad. I
• 1:13:15
  mean, I've witnessed it only I only witnessed it around the blueprint table,
• 1:13:18
  and I think that some of the dysfunction that you see eking over to blueprint
• 1:13:23
  is coming from that side. So it's difficult. I think everybody over there
• 1:13:28
  is in a very tense situation. Things have eroded substantially to the point where
• 1:13:32
  you know they are on I've seen some very bizarre interactions Preston not you know,
• 1:13:39
  behind the mics. Just it's it's very it's bizarre, man, and
• 1:13:43
  it's unfortunate. And I would say I think it's very fair to say it
• 1:13:46
  does not serve the community. Well, anything else you want to get out
• 1:13:50
  there before we wrap up. No, I you know, obviously, I
• 1:13:55
  appreciate the opportunity to come and speak, and I could talk to you for
• 1:14:00
  hours and hours about all kinds of things, and I think that, you
• 1:14:03
  know, at the end of the day, I just want to do a
• 1:14:06
  good job. That's the lens that I look through every morning. I'm not
• 1:14:11
  trying to I'm not like running for Congress or anything like that. I'm not
• 1:14:15
  trying to be something I'm not. I My number one concern in this job
• 1:14:24
  is doing it well. I wake up every day. I have a great
• 1:14:27
  privilege in this new position relatively, you know, as a county commissioner.
• 1:14:31
  I never expected to be a county commissioner, but I have the opportunity to
• 1:14:35
  help people every day, which I relish. That's why I'm a school teacher.
• 1:14:41
  I like to impact lives and I just want the best for my community,
• 1:14:45
  and so I hope folks appreciate. You know, we have a really
• 1:14:51
  robust outreach. We try to communicate really effectively. I ran for the county
• 1:14:58
  commission essentially on as I talked about the beginning, being like a real advocate
• 1:15:02
  for my constituents in the Northeast, which really my neighbors and friends, and
• 1:15:08
  then secondarily communicating really really well with them. Those are the two things I
• 1:15:13
  felt like we did not get in in spades and nothing. I think we've
• 1:15:16
  done a really good job of that. My aid and I have done a
• 1:15:20
  really good job of communicating well. We try to make friends, we try
• 1:15:25
  to solve problems, and every day our mottos to just help people. And
• 1:15:30
  so there are all kinds of other issues we could talk about, big broader
• 1:15:33
  issues, you know, in the county and economic development and and you know,
• 1:15:39
  growing a private sector economy and all those things, and and those are
• 1:15:42
  certainly things I want to talk about. But you know, again, I
• 1:15:45
  I encourage anybody out there that listens to this to reach out to me if
• 1:15:50
  they have any questions themselves about anything. I can tell you I am very
• 1:15:56
  proud of every vote I've taken. I can plain and defend any votes I've
• 1:16:01
  taken, every word I've said. I'm very proud of the way we've conducted
• 1:16:08
  ourselves, and I look forward to doing it, you know, as long
• 1:16:12
  as the voters will have me. I fully recognize this is that not my
• 1:16:15
  seat. The seat belongs to the community and it is a privilege for me
• 1:16:20
  every day to sit in it. Welch for Leon dot com is the website
• 1:16:28
  you can drill down on some issues that he has listed there for you.
• 1:16:30
  You'll also see that he elevates his elbow very nicely when throwing a baseball and
• 1:16:34
  has pretty good rotation. Brian, thanks for the time. Thank you pressing