MINUTES OF MEETING DOUBLE BRANCH
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT

The regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Double Branch Community Development District was held Monday, May 13, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. at the Plantation Oaks Amenity Center, 845 Oakleaf Plantation Parkway, Orange Park, Florida 32065.

Present and constituting a quorum were:

Cindy Nelsen	Chairman
Tom Horton	Vice Chairman
Scott Thomas	Assistant Secretary
Andre Lanier	Assistant Secretary

Also present were:

Marilee Giles	District Manager
Kate John by phone	District Counsel
Jay Soriano	Field Operations Manager
Chalon Suchsland	VerdeGo

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS	Roll Call
Ms. Giles called the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m. A quorum was present.

SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS	Audience Comments
Iris Benson stated I'm a homeowner, and I'm here primarily because I want to learn a little bit about the library. I recently moved to the community, read through your minutes and got very excited because I'm a major patron of the public library, and it's hard to figure out what all is going on, but I think something is going on. My biggest question is, does someone in the room know where it's going to be located?
Mr. Soriano stated across from those fields, there's a little area labeled Village Center. It’s just a little green lawn with a parking lot that goes around it. That's where it will be. We don’t know whether it will be in the center or front or back. They're kind of redesigning the foot or their thought of what the footprint is. I don't know what the original plan was, but it's a little

smaller. We're going to talk today about some of our finalization to give them that whole green area so they can make a little bigger property than what they originally planned 20 years ago.
Iris Benson asked how close are we to getting a timeline?
Mr. Soriano stated we actually don't have that. We've been waiting for it 20 years, so we kind of been putting that on them that if we do this for you, can you hurry it up type of thing. We don't know how well that will work out.
Mr. Thomas stated I know at the last meeting, they discussed securing the funding, and then after that, there's all the government hoops that they have to jump through.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I think their last assessment was three years.
Chairperson Nelsen stated three years would be the goal. We did put in our contract with them a six and a half year cap. I believe that's what it was. Do you remember?
Ms. Giles stated we're going to ratify it tonight.

THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS	Organizational Matters
Acceptance of Resignation of Chad Davis
Ms. Giles stated items A, B, C, and D all go along with the acceptance of resignation of supervisor Chad Davis. Unless there’s any comments or questions, I look for a motion to accept the resignation.

On MOTION by Mr. Lanier seconded by Vice Chairman Horton with all in favor the resignation of Chad Davis was accepted.

Consideration of Appointing a New Supervisor to Fill the Vacancy
Items B and C go together depending on what the board wants to do today. Your rules of procedure just state that you'll fill the position. They don't tell you how you're going to fill them. So, whatever the board wants to do.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I guess we should probably poll the board and see if anybody's got any recommendations.
Mr. Soriano stated that's kind of what I would think if you guys have a recommendation seeing as how you can't pick out of a crowd and people that come on a regular basis. I know we put that on there for today, but this isn’t something you have to do today. But if you guys have

somebody that you might want to bring forward, and we do that next month, then I can get resumes before we just open it up to the general public.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I'd also mention that it's sort of a tight timeframe, because we have to have someone by November because it has to be on the election. So, if we appoint somebody from the board, they would have to get their paperwork in.
Ms. Giles stated if they wanted to run.
Mr. Lanier stated do we need a motion for that to push it to next month? Ms. Giles stated no, just guidance. I'll just table items B through D.
Mr. Thomas stated do you want to throw anything out there, Cindy?
Chairperson Nelsen stated no, I think that's an excellent idea. And then if we don't have any interest, then we can look at some other options like we have before.
Mr. Lanier stated if we don't have anybody before this, the seat has its election. Does that mean that we can still choose?
Mr. Soriano stated yeah, if no one runs for an empty seat, you can appoint after that, too.
Ms. Giles stated the only other thing for the board to consider is Chad was your vice chairman. So the resolution that you see on page nine is designating officers. Whether you do it today or we wait till we appoint the fifth supervisor, that's just something for you to consider, is who would want to be the vice chair? If you all would like, we can table items B, C, and D. Any concern with that?
Mr. Thomas stated I'm personally okay with tabling.
Ms. Giles stated B is appointing a new supervisor, C is the oath of office. And then D is consideration of designating officers.
Vice Chairman Horton stated we can go ahead and appoint a Vice Chair. Ms. Giles stated you could.
Mr. Soriano stated you can do that part now if you wanted and then just do the rest later.
Ms. Giles stated you would see the resolution again when you appoint the fifth supervisor, because the resolution has all five supervisors listed. It lists all the supervisors as either the chair, the vice chairman, or assistant secretary. So, all five of your names will be listed. So, if you do that today, you'll see this again. Resolution 2024-02, where we put the fifth supervisor.

Ms. Giles stated it sounds like you want to table consideration of appointing a new supervisor. Tabling oath of office for the new supervisor. What are you thinking for consideration of designating officers. You want to just wait and do it all at once?
Chairperson Nelsen stated we can volunteer or nominate. Mr. Thomas stated unless somebody wants to grab it.
Supervisor Horton stated I’ll volunteer.
Mr. Thomas stated I'll nominate Supervisor Horton for Vice chair.

On MOTION by Mr. Thomas seconded by Chairperson Nelsen with all in favor Resolution 2024-01, designating officers with Vice Chairman Horton added as the Vice Chair was approved.

Ms. Giles stated so the change to this resolution is adding Tom as the vice chair. Vice Chairman Horton asked do I have to do anything?
Mr. Soriano stated in the absence of a chair you would move to that role.
Ms. Giles stated you would sign the documents or in the absence of a chair, if we needed to adjust the agenda. But also, let me just clarify on this resolution is also from the GMS office, myself as your secretary and treasurer. And then from my office is Daniel Laughlin, Jim Oliver, and Darren Mossing as assistant secretary and assistant treasurers. So just to be clear on that, the resolution includes all of us. If you all do have a resume, and you want to include it in the agenda, you can just send it to me. You don't have to, but if it's there or if you want to at the last minute, send it to me, I can print four copies, however you guys want to do that, or send it to Jay, and he can print them. Whatever works best for you guys.
Vice Chairman Horton stated do any of us on the board have any idea without mentioning any names?
Mr. Thomas stated I have a couple in mind, one has recently retired. I have two and they're phase one. Now, when you say resume, do we already have, like, a preprinted form that they fill out?
Ms. Giles stated no, it can be a letter of intent.
Vice Chairman Horton stated a little background wouldn't hurt.
Mr. Thomas stated I didn't know there was like, already a prefilled out form. Ms. Giles stated no, sir.

FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Ratification of Deed to County for
Library Site
Ms. Giles stated you gave the chair the authority to sign the deed in between the meetings, and that's what's attached in the agenda package. Kate, they're familiar with the background of this, but is there anything in particular on this that needs to be discussed or pointed out?
Ms. John stated as you said, you have been working through this for months, and I don't think I have anything to add. I think I heard earlier on in the meeting, during public comment about the six and a half years. And I just wanted to confirm that, yes, the CDD has a right of reverter clause if the library is not constructed within the next six and a half years and then operated as a library for at least 25 years. So this was recorded per board direction. We're just looking for a motion to ratify.
Chairperson Nelsen stated I did want to point out that we went with the 6,800 square foot minimum because that was the size of the Middleburg library as we went into research, and that was what the county came back with. So, I think we were at 7,200, they said 6,800, and we agreed to that. Also, as you can see, they have five years, I think, but it says if they are in active construction of it, then we can extend a year and a half. That was my understanding.

On MOTION by Chairperson Nelsen seconded by Mr. Lanier with all in favor the delivery of the special warranty deed for the library site was ratified.

FIFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Authorization to Terminate Interlocal
Agreement for Library Site Maintenance
Ms. Giles stated I have a couple of copies of the interlocal agreement for library site maintenance. On there, you'll see under the recitals, it says, whereas on January 8, 2008. So, this is the original interlocal agreement for maintenance and use of the Oakleaf Plantation proposed library site. I think what we discussed at the last meeting was terminating this maintenance agreement. Jay and I were talking, our concern is there may be a need for another maintenance agreement with the library once it's there.
Mr. Soriano stated right. We're still going to maintain items on that property. They don't want the irrigation. They don't want the lights. They don't want any of the trash cans. They don't do trash removal. Even once they built the library, that'd be left to us. There's going to be a lot of

items that we still take care of, but the cutting of the lawn will come out. That's going be their property to maintain, and we'll go through the paperwork to give them an agreement that we are going to pay VerdeGo directly for that so that comes out of our contract with VerdeGo, and the county will handle that. My thought was there would still need to be an agreement to follow.
Mr. Thomas stated so when they build it, they do the landscaping. They're going to pay VerdeGo to maintain all that.
Mr. Soriano stated that’s different. I don't know what landscaping they're going to do. That hasn't been discussed because they don't have the building plan yet, but it's the cutting of the grass right now. They're actually going pay VerdeGo going forward as of now. They sent paperwork last week, but it wasn't the correct paperwork. They're going to start paying them for the cuts on that property. We've been paying for that the whole time. Even their section. They're going to pay for cutting that green area. But they don't handle anything else because they don't handle anything else anywhere else. So, the right of ways, they don't irrigate anything. They leave that to the neighborhoods to do. So, if we want to keep water in the grass there, want to keep cutting bushes, doing mulch, any of that stuff. Over the next five years, the district still handles that, and even after that, we're going to have to handle something like the mulch and trees and all of that stuff. So that will be coming later as far as what they install around the building itself, I'm sure that is going to be part of the building plan.
Ms. John stated you have copies for the chair to sign today, correct? Ms. Giles stated yes, ma'am.
Ms. John stated okay. I have nothing to add, except we're just looking for authorization to terminate the interlocal agreement for the library site maintenance.

On MOTION by Chairperson Nelsen seconded by Mr. Lanier with all in favor terminating the interlocal agreement for library site maintenance was approved.

Ms. Giles stated I think what we'll do at the next meeting is just discuss with Mike how we're going to move forward with a new maintenance agreement for the items Jay described.
Ms. John stated okay, great.

SIXTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Approval of Consent Agenda

Ms. Giles stated unless there's any corrections or changes, I look for a motion to approve the minutes of the April 8th meeting.

On MOTION by Vice Chairman Horton seconded by Mr. Lanier with all in favor the minutes of the April 8, 2024 meeting were approved.

Ms. Giles stated on page 45 are the financial statements as of March 31, 2024, followed by the assessment receipt schedule showing the District is 98% collected on page 57. Then on page 59 is the check register, and this is for the month of April, and it totals $129,862.91. I don't see any unusual variances on any of the financials. Unless there's any comments or questions, I just look for a motion to approve the check register.

On MOTION by Mr. Lanier seconded by Vice Chairman Horton with all in favor the check register was approved.

SEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Discussion of Proposed Fiscal Year 2025
Budget
Ms. Giles stated item seven on your agenda is a placeholder. We've had it here for a couple months so that we could give the opportunity to the board to talk about anything they want to see on the budget. We'll approve your budget at the next meeting. I know we've talked about hiring another maintenance person to help out, which directly affects the repair and replacement lines. So, Jay and the accountant and I will work on that. We'll go over line by line, everything on the budget. Some lines will decrease naturally, and some will increase naturally, like Clay Electric usually has an increase, and CCSO will most likely have an increase. Some of the vendors we've reached out to, and we know their increases, some of them are written into your agreement, like the second year pricing, things like that. Jay, is there anything you want to bring to the board's attention for discussion?
Mr. Soriano stated no. I do, of course, foresee an increase. I'm just figuring out how to try to keep it as low as possible for our residents. I was able to make it last year, and we did extend another year. The year previous we had an increase and we hadn't for ten years before that. I don't think that's the best way to go. I think it's better if we have smaller increases. It's easier on people’s pocketbooks and their mentality. A lot of times, nobody likes to pay an increase,

whether it's $10 or it's $100. But, everything around us is getting more expensive, labor is getting more expensive. A lot of these lines are going up. We've done a lot of things over the last few years to cut our lines as low as possible, especially compared to other districts. For instance, the fact that we employ a lot of our employees directly, that saves a lot of money because we don't have just extra contract fees. But it's still going to increase ultimately. So, I'm looking at ways that if we have that increase, how we can keep it low. Would this be a multi-year small step increase over time and then take years off? We have, for your side, nine more years until we get rid of that bond fee. So, once we get to that, then it's great. That's a huge savings. Even if you guys decide we're not going to drop off the full $900 to $1,000, we're going to change the O&M and stick some in the bank, you're still going to end up having a discount. All residents are going to have a much lower rate at that point. So, that is my ultimate goal. But we have nine years left, so over the next nine years on how we go about making sure we can afford everything is really what I'm looking at, and that's kind of what I'm planning this year; a small increase.
Vice Chairman Horton stated you said adding another maintenance worker. We have six full time now, right?
Mr. Soriano stated correct.
Vice Chairman Horton stated and you're talking about adding another one to make it seven, is that correct?
Mr. Soriano stated well, that would be the plan. That was something you had asked for and then we had a board member on the other side that's asked for that because over the years, when I was at a high point, I might have three guys, but still, it's split between the two districts. So even if I have six right now, and you're averaging three guys from your district full time. It's much better. I'm getting a lot more work done. Do I think I need another one? I mean, it's always nice to have more people, but, that was a request. And if I can get it done, great. Especially if it helps get a lot of things repaired quicker and things looking nice. We get hit with those complaints of, I've been here for 20 years. The thing's 20 years old, so it's going to look rough, but at the same time it means we need to put money into repairing it, so I understand. It's still the same way if I have seven full time guys. Pretty much every week I try to split it to where they're over here half the time and your side half the time. I split the guys out. So, you might have three guys on your side working one day and there's three guys on the other side working. And it works out that day where if you have seven guys, it's going to be three and a half full time

maintenance guys for your side and three and a half maintenance guys on this side for their group. Still not a lot of people when you look at the size of your neighborhood compared to other neighborhoods, but that's more than I've ever had like I said, it gets work done a lot better.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I think it's necessary. I'm totally on board with that. You’ve mentioned before that, obviously, the more workers we got, the more supplies we need, which just goes without saying. Do we have the numbers to do that this year?
Mr. Soriano stated that's what I'm looking at. So that's why I was saying a minor increase.
Right now I was looking at something more like a $50, $60 increase. Not the $200, $180 we were looking at before, but at $60, let's say that's $5 a month. It's very reasonable per household for everything we have. But if we're doing small increases. I took a ten-year plan. In that same ten year period where we did an increase, and then all of a sudden we went to $180. So if I did
$60 for the next three years and we took two years off. Three years. Two years off. That's a small portion. They're going to see these increases and they're going to be prepared for it. But in that same time period now I'm getting almost $300 for the ten years, compared to us getting $177 in ten years. And it's easier for them to handle. So, I was looking at trying to set up a plan like that so we knew and we're kind of prepared ahead of time. Doesn't mean it wouldn't change. Let's say you guys have some drastic repairs that are really draining out our capital. And we need to put more O&M in, not just the capital. You might have to take that up and it's not $60. Or we can say, hey, we're doing great this next year. Let's make it smaller, maybe $40. I do caution getting too small because you're automatically going to spend quite a few thousand dollars on our public hearing, mailing, stuff like that. When you have any type of assessment increase, we have to go through extra steps. It's automatic lost dollars. So, we have to put that out there. You already have 3,000 homes, so even the mailing costs a lot of money. So, I don't recommend going too low. It's not like we can do a $20 or $30 increase. It's just not worth it when we do that. But I do want to find a way to keep it easy on the residents, and that cuts our backlash. It is something I definitely think is needed. Not just the repair and supplies, but the landscape, there are things that we need to build in more. VerdeGo has always been really good working with us each year to keep things low. They're in their second term of a five-year contract and they work with us well, but their costs get higher, too. We may need to sink in an extra $20 or $30,000 in extra projects to meet the demand of residents that say, you need to replace a lot of these roadside grasses, trees, things like that. So with the landscape and staffing, if you look at our seasonal staffing, I

mentioned this before, that's always a tough one for me because we have this five year plan for the state that we're required to increase minimum wage all the way till 2026. When I do that, I also have to increase the other people that have worked here for three, four, five years as hourly employees. They’re I'm making a lot, but I bring in this new minimum wage person and they're almost where they're at after working for a while, that doesn't work real well, so I have to take everybody up. So, we see an increase on that district staff. So, when we put those lines in, that's where I see there's going to be a bigger budget. How low we can keep to that minimum plan is really what I'm working on right now.
Vice Chairman Horton stated you're talking about big things. You just spent $50,000 to fix that slide. We got another $7,000 pending on the pump. Those things we didn't count on, especially $50,000 to fix that leak.
Chairperson Nelsen stated and the soccer field grass.
Vice Chairman Horton stated stuff happens and we need money to cover that. The
$50,000 was a big hit.
Mr. Soriano stated a big part of that budget right now is over the last few years, we've been sinking more into our capital and we've got a great capital reserve fund. Doesn't mean we want to hit it all the time, but we've got a great reserve there so that we feel a little more comfortable. But, yes, let's say we have four or five of those things in one year that's really going to take us down.
Mr. Thomas stated speaking of all of these increases and stuff, is there anything in Tallahassee coming down the line would require districts to have more capital funds or reserves or anything like that?
Mr. Soriano stated I don't know of any specific requirements. Chairperson Nelsen stated the school boards have to have a 4% reserve.
Ms. Giles stated Kate, is there anything on the capital conversation that you see coming down the pipeline for any mandatory increases?
Ms. John stated I don't. We haven't heard anything to this point. I don't think this would be a significant cost, but I believe Mike mentioned about the goals and objectives. That's something that we're going to be sending something out. I'm sure you're aware of the new bill that's in law that's requiring CDD's to state goals of objectives and have those posted on the

district website and updated every year. But beyond that, there's not a specific capital reserve increase requirement.
Mr. Soriano stated that might be administrative costs, that might be small, but, yeah, items like that we have to look at and prepare for.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I think we need to make some kind of decision here if you're going to raise the rates like every two years starting this year and determine how much that should be.
Mr. Soriano stated we haven't gotten our first round, so you're going to see those numbers from us next month. So, if you decide it’s minimal and you’d like to see more, I can still plan on that, but that was the plan for doing two years, three years at a time, and taking a couple years off, if we can, and building up that budget, just O&M and capital even more. But that's where you would tell me what you think it's about. I'm going to be the one that's always a little low, so I don't think you have to worry about that part. That's going to be up to you guys to say if it comes out like that to get everything done that we want to get done this next year, if it's a $50 increase, that would be for you guys to say, if we’re looking at three years and it's only $50, I want $180 in the three years instead of $150 in the three years. That's going to take me up. All I'm going to do is increase one of those lines like your capital or your repair and replacement so that we can do more of these projects or the landscaping so we can add on some of those roadside projects.
We'll just increase it from what I bring you back next month. So, until you got to see some of those numbers I don't know that you can really make a decision unless you tell me I want an automatic increase of $60 or $70. I don't know if you want to do that tonight.
Vice Chairman Horton stated so you say we need to wait till the next meeting.
Mr. Soriano stated no you can give me your suggestion tonight but I don't know if you want to make a decision is what I was saying.
Vice Chairman Horton stated that's why I'm just putting it out there.
Mr. Soriano stated oh yeah, that's what this is, a discussion. So, if you have an idea of where you'd like me to be and for what reasons and the board pretty much agrees that's what I'm going to go towards.
Ms. Giles stated or projects you want us to include in the budget next month. We can always take it back down when we adopt in August but we need to come in with your wish list

on the budget, the projects that you want and if that's too high then we can back those numbers out.
Mr. Thomas stated is there anything that we pay for that we can do in house or cheaper?
Mr. Soriano stated I think we're already at that point. Over the years I've tried to cut everything I could. Your district has always been better. If you remember when I first came in your sister district was $250,000 thousand dollars in the red. So, I've worked over the years to really do as much as I could with my lines on that and they're much better. So, I don't know that we can cut any more on our end. Most of your major increases come from just standard contract fees which really aren't a lot but the last couple years they were high. You're seeing 7%. I don't see that as much this year. I see everybody going back down to more like a four or five. You might get a six here and there or something but before seven, eight even higher. But then who wants more landscaping projects? That might be a $20,000 chunk we want to put in. Insurance was a big jump. Hopefully they won't jump like that this year. We don't ever know until unfortunately right after our budget plan. But that was a big jump last year as far as where I'm going to be able to cut, I think I've run out of lines that I could cut.
Ms. Giles stated we use your capital reserve study as a guide. It tells us based on the assets in the reserve study, if they all break coming up, this is what it would cost. And Jay and the staff has been able to say, well, I can make that flagpole last another five years. I don't have to fix that next year, so we use that as a guide for what we need to put into the capital reserve fund. It's kind of an art and a science, I guess, with that. But what are the big projects you want us to consider so that we include that in this first go at the budget?
Vice Chairman Horton stated let me add one more thing in here. The grass for the soccer field. That's not chump change. That's a large amount of money right there.
Ms. Giles stated if you all want to see that in this one, we'll add it. And then at the June meeting, Jay will be able to talk you through that. It's higher because of the soccer field project. That was an additional x dollars. And you all can say, no, let's back that out.
Mr. Thomas stated then we can also maybe look at increasing fees for the actual field usage as well.
Mr. Soriano stated we could. Up until maybe six years ago, we didn't even have that line.
But that is a sports revenue line and we would just increase that. It's offsetting. We're never going to make money off of that. After 2020, everything really slowed down. All sports

organizations kind of dropped off a little bit. I'm seeing higher numbers from registration, from soccer and I-9 and I mentioned in my report on the swim team, they're back up to, I think it's 125 kids and they're not even done registering. So, we have some of our biggest teams. It's not a lot of money, but it does help offset because it's usage on the facilities. And then of course, that's what I get the complaints from. Heavy usage heats things up. So, yeah, we can discuss then even increasing those lines, increasing rental room costs. We keep everything extremely low to make it cheaper on our residents. But that's where I also remind residents, that's the offset. We're keeping it low for you to take care of the room. They beat the place up and we got to do extra, it almost forces us to increase those rates because now we're spending more time on repairs and replacements. We want it to be nice and cheap for our residents, but at the same time, that's the hard part of keeping that balance.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I noticed on the budget there was the sports, but it was quite high this time. I wondered at the time if that wasn't the catch up for the last couple of years.
Mr. Soriano stated that's why it was.
Vice Chairman Horton stated so that's not really an indicator of how much we get off of
it.
Mr. Soriano stated right. This was just from registration numbers that they report to me. I
haven't received the season they're in right now. I haven't received payment for soccer for this season. That was the catch up before. I-9 is good about it. And I-9 has paid more now than they have in the past. But then again, we're going to go through, I think, some changes with that because we need to get more kids and more usage, like I said, more vandalism, things like that. Everybody should pay their part, I think that helps with that budget.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I guess we've got some things to think about for next year.
Chairperson Nelsen stated the one thing I would love to see is the thing at the amenity center with the water, the bricks? I don't think that's a high dollar amount, but still, that and sign replacement would be my top two things.
Mr. Soriano stated we talked about that one last week, updating those. That's another one.
It doesn't sound like that's a lot. Once we add all that up, it's going to be $85 a month.
Ms. Giles stated we can include a cost in the budget next month for that and we'll be able to talk through it. You can say, maybe we plan for that in 2026, but today is the day that we need to know what you want to see in the budget, if it's above and beyond our normal business.

Mr. Thomas stated I think really looking at those fields because they're way overdue and then looking at the cost of using those fields.
Ms. Giles stated is that you want to see the cost to replace all nine acres in 2025.
Mr. Soriano stated I’d probably do it the same way where we do the rotating. I would have to put something in. We had it in there already where not only was there revenue, but there's like a $20,000 line for the sprigging. Even though we didn't do it, it's in there already. That would be increased because we're not getting $20,000 anymore.
Chairperson Nelsen stated right. That's what I think we're talking about. We just can't do all nine acres in a year because it's got to have the recovery time and not shut everything down.
Ms. Giles stated are there any other projects? I've got all those so far.
Vice Chairman Horton stated if we're going to raise the rates this year, I’m going to suggest $150. I’ll just throw that out and you can agree, or not agree. I think that would be a good starting point. Like you said, we don't have to do that two years from then. That's a good starting point and see how that works out. If we hire more maintenance people, we’re going to use more materials, we’re replace the grass, all these other things that come up, who knows what's going to be?
Chairperson Nelsen stated what's your opinion on spreading that over a three year period where we would do $50 next year and then $50 and then $50, and that's what Jay is proposing.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I’m saying $150 for this coming year. Then play it by ear the next two years.
Mr. Soriano stated I can take that in. Like I said, I'll put all the things you guys talked about into this and see where we're at. I don't know I'd be at 150 total right now because we just increased a couple years ago, and I'm going to be behind this year, but not much. I was hoping I could make it last year, and I did. This year it's going to be a little tighter, but I don't know that I have the need right away for $150. It gives us that amount so that we can have extra spending room for all that. So then I'll leave it to you guys to decide at that point if you want to just take it up to $150 or $90. If you say that's going to make it just till next year. We don't want to do it that way. Let's make it a bigger one. That's why I leave it to you guys.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I'd rather get it over with in one year, and then two years from then look at it and see what we've got and go from there. We might not have to do it.

Mr. Soriano stated the only reason I was looking at a smaller one is I get more in a ten year period, doing it that way, than $150 at a time. Unless you guys look at doing $150 every couple of years.
Mr. Thomas stated can you just run it both ways?
Mr. Soriano stated yes, I'm going to run it. I'm going to give you what I know I need based on what we talked about here tonight and the thoughts of I need staff to increase this much, because your minimum wage increase every year goes here, you need your landscaping. There's already a contract increase, but if we want to do some of these other projects, we look at not only what do we spend right now, so, each year you might spend ten to 15 extra. We want to do even more than that. So, I'm going to bump that up to, say, 20, 25, or 30 extra each year. I'm going to put all those numbers in, and that's going to give us that increase. But then you're going to tell me what you want more than that, if you want more than that. Or we go to a smaller increase, and we do a sectional economy where we just kind of do it like a Band-Aid, one and done and rip it off. I just always am afraid that, we're still going to come back in two or three years, and things are going to be expensive, and we do it again.
Ms. Giles stated what will happen at the next meeting is we'll run the numbers like Jay just described. We'll bring it to the board at the meeting. You'll have this type of discussion, and then there'll be a motion, and that motion will be to approve the budget as it is, or it'll be to approve it in substantial form with changes that you give us at that time. If the changes are to increase it, I won't be able to do the exact math in the middle of the meeting, but you'll give us that guidance, and then in July, that approved budget will be in the agenda, and then in August, you'll adopt it. So, when you go to adopt it, you can still make another change. The only other thing I have about this is for June's meeting, June 10th, I'm just looking to see if we're going to have quorum. If we could just do a roll call if you are going to be present at the June 10th meeting.
Chairperson Nelsen stated no. I have a state finance reporting for schools, a conference that I have to be at, so I can't be here.
Ms. Giles stated if there's any doubt in your mind on the other three, we can have a different discussion about changing this date.
Chairperson Nelsen stated because we have to notice that, right?
Ms. Giles stated we have to notice this date. Right now, it's scheduled for June 10th.

right?

Mr. Lanier stated it should be good for me. Vice Chairman Horton stated I should be good.
Mr. Lanier stated if we bring in another member, then that would also happen that night,

Ms. Giles stated that would be at the same meeting, and that would be at the top of the

agenda.
Chairperson Nelsen stated you'd have to have quorum to vote that person in anyway. So, three bodies.
Ms. Giles stated we'll notice that meeting a couple weeks out from it. So, if something changes on your schedule, just let me know as soon as possible, and then we'll look at changing the date. But with being down by two, I need quorum from the other three.

EIGHTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Consideration of Resolution 2024-03,
Confirming Use of the Clay County Supervisor of Elections to Conduct the District’s 2024 Election of Supervisors
Ms. Giles stated you'll see on page 111, in section three at the bottom, that seats one, three and five are scheduled for the general elections in November. Tom, I see that you've pre- qualified, and I see your name on the supervisor of elections website. So, seat three is the one that we discussed already. Seat one, if you need any help, let me know.
Mr. Thomas stated I just need to file it.
Ms. Giles stated you can pre-qualify now, but on June 10th, during that qualifying period, you'll still need to do some paperwork.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I would suggest that you call the office down there. There's a lady that will tell you exactly what you have to do.
Ms. Giles stated I can send you her contact information if you want. Mr. Thomas stated that would be fantastic.
Chairperson Nelsen stated it's on their website.
Mr. Thomas stated I went on the ethics website today.
Ms. Giles stated unless there's any comments or questions on resolution 2024-03, I just look for a motion to approve.

On MOTION by Chairperson Nelsen seconded by Mr. Lanier with all in favor Resolution 2024-03, confirming use of the Clay County Supervisor of Elections to Conduct the District’s 2024 election of supervisors was approved.

NINTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Staff Reports
District Counsel
There being no report, the next item followed.

District Engineer
There being no report, the next item followed.

District Manager – Report on the Number of Registered Voters (4,837)
Ms. Giles stated on page 115 is a report on the number of registered voters. Florida statute 190 requires us to provide that number to you. As of April 15th of this year, there were 4,837 registered voters in your community. Also, just a reminder your Form 1 is due online by July 1st and then your ethics training is due by December 31st. Next year I think we'll be in a rhythm a little better, and I probably won't remind you as many times. I have no problem reminding you. The Form 1 is not as difficult. I think you're going to like it once you do it, because it's always there, and then you just update it every year.
Chairperson Nelsen stated I did get an email from them. Did you guys get one where you had to go in and register?
Vice Chairman Horton stated I filled out Form 1 already.
Mr. Thomas stated I didn't get the Form 1. I got the email for the ethics thing.
Ms. Giles stated now, be careful with the ethics because it's a new requirement. There are some companies that are emailing the supervisors because you're a public record and they're emailing you the opportunity to pay for the classes with them.
Mr. Thomas stated it’s FASD.
Ms. Giles stated I’m not sure if that's the one that has been soliciting for you to pay for the classes.
Mr. Thomas stated it says that I have to pay for it.

Ms. Giles stated no, don't click on that one then. The list that Mike Eckert gave us at the meeting in the agenda package has the free classes listed. If I need to resurface that in your email, I'm happy to do that.
Vice Chairman Horton stated how did we lose 1,121 voters? Ms. Giles stated I saw that last year you had 5,598.
Vice Chairman Horton stated yeah, we lost over 1,000 registered voters. That doesn't make sense.
Mr. Soriano stated I can tell you, just looking at your data that we get a lot of the changeovers last year there were a lot of home sales, but what we got was a lot of them were purchased by investment companies. So, we have a lot of rentals. What happens with that is in the last year, if they don't change their driver's license over to this address, they can't register to vote here. So even though we know we have a lot more than even 10,000 people on your side, most of them don't. That is what we've seen when we're doing cards. How many more rental homes in the last year compared to new purchase or homeownership that we're dealing with the actual owner when we do the cards has been higher in the last year.
Ms. Giles stated it's a decrease of 761. On average, if there's two adults in the household, that's 380 houses.
Mr. Soriano stated even as a rental, as soon as they change their driver's license to match this address, they qualify in your precinct, then they can register to vote here. But until then, a lot of them I don’t think change their driver's licenses because they don't want to.
Vice Chairman Horton stated just out of curiosity, I looked at Middle Village. They lost about 600.
Chairperson Nelsen stated what's their number?
Vice Chairman Horton stated 4,374. This year in South Village, they lost a couple hundred.
Chairperson Nelsen stated they sure are all the first people to complain on social media.

Operations Manager
Mr. Soriano stated in April, we had our movie and our yard sale. We were supposed to have a movie this past Friday. Unfortunately, because of that storm coming through, I made the decision to cancel it and about an hour after we sent out that email it cleared up. Even our trucks,

they had to cancel because, just driving from wherever they're coming through with that wind. We had two trucks still come out. We just weren't going to do the movie. We had more trees down Friday than that during some of our big storms the last couple of years and we're still cleaning up. I'm getting some emails here and there from residents to check out a tree. So, Friday was a little tough because it's part of our dive in and we've been doing the last few years is a series. Typically, when we cancel the movies, I don't do rain dates, but I'm going to have to come up with something because we're doing Kung Fu Panda in order, and we've already paid for the licenses. So, I'm looking at changing that to the Memorial Day Friday. It's going to make it a long weekend for our aquatic staff, makes it a little more hectic, but we have to get it done. Then not even two weeks later, we're over here with our first dive in to show Kung Fu Panda 2 in June. So as soon as the food trucks tell me they can supply food trucks for the event that night, and they're good with being able to get us a few. I'll make that decision and send that out by email so we can have a fun movie night that Friday. We're still on the alternating schedule with the pools, but after that weekend with the movie and Memorial Day, we will be on that full time operating schedule. I did want to mention, we have a very large recreational swim team, 120 some registrations already and they're not completely done. It's been a while since they've been that large, but that makes for hectic times over here in this pool. They don't use your pool. If you look down a couple spots later, the high school swim teams I do allow the use your pool every once in a while. So, we have two high schools here that utilize the pools, Ridgeview and Oakleaf. Basically, what I do is I put the two coaches in a room and let them fight out for their schedules as far as practice and swim meets. But then on days where Ridgeview doesn't have an away meet, they can't go someplace and Oakleaf already has a meet at home, if they're practicing, they would need a place to practice. That's when I bring them over to your side. Every once in a while, we will get some overflow usage on your pools. We don't like to do it too much because they have to change how they practice. They can't dive. Your pool is not deep enough to dive even from the side where they can do that here. So, it just changes their practice a little bit. But the last few years, it's been two, maybe three times a season that we've had to do that. They tend to work together pretty well and squeeze into this pool. But just to be aware, that doesn't really happen until late August, beginning of September when the high school teams come back on. Our card usage and assignments have picked up. We're seeing more and more people, but this is not the normal numbers I expect for summertime. We will get to that point where we're

printing 500, 600, 700 cards a month. So, this is kind of low. On the maintenance side, I do have a couple of open items for you. The Nature’s Hammock playground slide; I did finally locate one about a week ago and it was only going to be about $2,500. So not as bad as I was thinking. A little cheaper than some of our Burke slides that we’ve replaced in the past. So that is on the way to us. I know we wanted to put it off as long as possible, but I will have to bring back some quotes for you for the next playground structure. Waverly is causing problems where I'm out there replacing a gate or a play piece on the structure pretty much every month. That is the next one that's going to fall apart on you and we really need to look at replacing that one. So, I'll bring back some quotes. Of course, it takes two or three months to get it. So, it may not happen until the next fiscal year, but you may want to look at purchasing that now so we have it in the works and I can let all of the parents know because they send me pictures of a rusted part or something like that. So, we do need to get that in there.
Vice Chairman Horton stated can you use what we did for the playground in the neighborhood down that has the orange slide on it?
Mr. Soriano stated that big one did take us about a year, actually more to get in. That was the Ellie the Elephant. That one was a little more expensive. That was the heavy duty five-inch post one that you guys did pick out that one specifically because that is a more durable one. That one was closer to $48,000 for that one. I don't mind, and it wasn't that hard to put up compared to the other ones. It's a little bigger, but it is just sturdier all around. So that's why it's more expensive. But I can bring that back to you.
Vice Chairman Horton stated I'm just curious. It seemed pretty nice.
Mr. Soriano stated it is really nice. The legs on the gazebo; there are quite a few of these out there. I've talked to a couple of you guys before. This is going to be getting into high dollar. I did finally locate where I could get these legs from the manufacturer. They will ship them down from Michigan. They are individual posts. What happens is we would have to lift the roof up.
They actually unbolt from that structure and we have to take out that four by four post. They're just surface mounted on the concrete. They were designed with a hand hole so you could run things like your gutter system through. Or if you want a conduit for lighting in the inside of the gazebos. They do have access holes in the bottom. The biggest problem with that is it's also where it starts to rust out from the gut to the bottom. Some of these are 20 years old and the legs are holding on with a little bit of metal. Now, there are eight legs around these things, so they're

not going to fall over. But they cost me $5,000 to $7,000 to replace one leg at a time, because I have to bring in equipment to lift that roof up, pull the leg off, pop the new leg on and lower it back down. It's not something we can do with a maintenance guy and a screwdriver. So, I’ll be bringing this back to you. But I was able to locate those legs from Polygon. There is probably at least one on almost every gazebo you have that I need to look at replacing. Some have two or three. I've had somebody ask me, why don't you just replace the whole thing? Those things are about $30,000 to $40,000 for the gazebo, and then I still have to have somebody put it up.
Because they're structures, I have to be able to permit it. It's actually a roof. It falls under a building department, I have to go through a whole process. So, I'd rather not replace the whole gazebo, if we can. But I will bring that back to you guys because that's going to add on to some of the costs for our playground repairs. We have this step plan for the next seven to nine years to replace all of your playgrounds doing one or two each year. We just finished the third year and, we've got four done now working on our fifth.
Chairperson Nelsen stated what about the aesthetics of the Gazebos? You can just paint the poles and they'll all look fine?
Mr. Soriano stated we can paint the poles. It's not going to be as tough as its original design. They're powder coated. So, when they make them, they send them to the powder coater in a big warehouse and they ship them out to us. It's not going to be as hard as powder coating. When you put the enamel on it's still going to be something that every few years, especially if the kids are beating them up and trying to cut into them or draw on them and we're pressure washing it, we're going to have to go back out. But a two-part epoxy of the hard enamel lasts a lot longer, we found, than doing regular paint. So, we go out and paint the poles, but we can also get the roofs painted. The roofs are regular tin roofs. But if you notice what we did on the fitness center, the metal roofing and the field house, that paint made a big difference. It makes that roof look a lot better. So, it may be something I get Tito's to give me a price just to paint a roof at a time and we hit some of those gazebos to make those look better. Like everything else they are 20 years old. Unless there's any questions on some of those other maintenance items, that is it for me. The slide will be up and running this next week, and everything's in. I don't have word whether the drive is programmed yet or not. I told him I need it Monday morning.
Vice Chairman Horton stated you still don't have the pump, though, right?

Mr. Soriano stated right. It's at Compac. The pump, the volute, and the drive. When I went out to get bids to replace the current pump and motor, I do have multiple suppliers. The current pump and motor is not a design they even make anymore. So, the newest design was around $5,500, $6,000. Compac for a little more than $7,000 gives us their design with a new VFD drive. And as they do custom work, everything. So they put everything together, they test it out in their vaults up there on Beaver street, in the warehouse to make sure it has the right gallon flow and there's no leaks whatsoever. So, I'm waiting on them. It makes it easy on our contractor. Once we get it down here, all they have to do is bolt it in place. We've been waiting two months for this thing. We sent out a check already, so I did bug them and told them I wanted it this week. I’ve been bugging them every week, but I told them this is kind of a grand opening weekend.
We're not really full until Memorial Day, but I wanted to see if we're falling behind. We've got the slide painted, so all the gel coat is on there. The lifeguards will help me polish and wax it up this week so it's nice and slippery and fast, but I need the motor to push the water.
Vice Chairman Horton stated you ordered some benches for the pickleball courts?
Mr. Soriano stated yes. If you've been out there, I actually like them, and they match well. There are benches for both in between the courts. So, I took their little makeshift blockades out of the way that we talked about. And that's benches there now on the sides. But then we also purchased bleachers that go in the grass area for when they have viewing. It was a little more money than I probably would have wanted to spend on pickleball, but they did give us a donation out of their last set of tournaments and clinics. They gave us a few hundred bucks to go towards a purchase of the benches and the bleachers.
Vice Chairman Horton stated are they staying pretty active? Mr. Soriano stated extremely.
Mr. Thomas stated what about the lights at the basketball court?
Mr. Soriano stated we were actually scheduled Friday for that. My electrician canceled because of the weather. You will see a cost for rental on the lift. The RMS lift is down. Normally you guys don't pay much extra for that. You pay more for their electrician, but I don't have their lift right now, so we'll rent that. And my electrician will be the one putting that up. He's usually pretty quick, so we should be able to get back to it this week. But all the lights are sitting in my office ready to go, and all.
Mr. Thomas stated all of the lawn chairs and everything are good to go around the pools?

Mr. Soriano stated yes, and if you guys have been down there, we did just pressure wash that building. If you haven't seen, I would like you to take a look at it. The white on the building looks pretty good. I think it is something that we'll look at doing paint on trim work. And the upper part, like the where the chimney's at and have it cleaned up pretty good. But you can tell that paint is old. The roof, though, is extremely thick, so I'm going to look at getting that sealed. They are concrete tiles, so they can't be sealed. But after pressure washing and all the chemicals and high pressure, once it dried up, it looks more gray to me than black. Nice and clean. So, if you get a chance to go down there and take a look at it, you can tell that the whole building was washed really good. But now it's also a lot of colors are faded, so we'll look at updating that, too.
Vice Chairman Horton stated there’s a the receipt in there. I'm just curious what this is. A cargo climb rope net.
Mr. Soriano stated that was not yours. You do have some rope on there, on the spray ground. It's split. I pull the pricing for the smaller rope that's on the bottom of your spray ground. It stops the kids from running underneath the decking of the spray ground. We have to replace that every few years because the kids like to climb on it and it rips a hole in the netting. The big cargo one, which is the more expensive one, is for this spray ground. But I ordered it all together, so you'll see a split of price on there for what your district covers and what Middle Village covers. That net is expensive just for this little four by eight net. It's outrageous. That's what happens when you have the water park. There's only so many companies that deal with that.

TENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Audience Comments / Supervisor
Requests
Iris Benson stated are the supervisors residents in this area?
Vice Chairman Horton stated you have to be. We’re all neighbors here. Mr. Thomas stated yes, ma’am.
Stephen Fagan stated what is the apprehension in making an increase to the residents for stuff like playgrounds, landscaping, benches, everything is going up; eggs, gas, mortgages. Why not pass this cost on to the residents? Because that's just the natural order of things. If everything has gone up, it's labor, for instance, materials. That cost must be offset by something. The residents who live here, you are going to have to pay more. If we don't start paying more, the community is going to start showing its age very badly and very rapidly.

Vice Chairman Horton stated we actually did that two years ago and didn't get very much. I think Jay got some emails on it, but he told them what it was for, and they were okay with that. So basically, there was no kickback on it. And I think everybody understands that it takes money to run this place. So that's what we're looking at in the budget and what we got.
Stephen Fagan stated that’s the $150 you spoke about earlier? Over what, three years? Mr. Thomas stated well, that's to be determined.
Mr. Soriano stated the budget can only be done one year at a time. That was just a bigger plan. The worry is how much and how far do we go to push it, to get more money without too many people showing up with torches and pitchforks. But I think that's where everybody's at. All of us have been here for many years, so we definitely see that, but it's always helpful when we have some residents in there. When we do that increase, to say this is needed. Most people do understand it. That's what I got last time was more questions of like, well, what are you guys planning on doing? Yes, it’s definitely needed, go for it. I didn't get a lot of pushback.
Chairperson Nelsen stated we live here. We want the community to look well, too. We just want to be good stewards of the money that we bring in, and we do understand.
Stephen Fagan stated I see you all are good stewards. It's just a balancing act. Chairperson Nelsen stated it is.
Stephen Fagan stated I get it, but you have to pay to play. Chairperson Nelsen stated I agree.
Stephen Fagan stated it’s just one of those necessary evils.
Iris Benson stated when you were talking about $50 for the next three years versus $150 for the set of three years, what's to say in the second year, you have to raise it again, and then you start losing credibility with the residents. Has that happened in the past?
Vice Chairman Horton stated no, because we've only done it one time in the last ten years. That's why I like to make it a little bit higher than people would normally like to do it. Because you can do it one and done. You're better off than chump changing everybody down the road. That’s my thinking.
Iris Benson stated the one and done is fine as long as it is done. That was my point. It could creep back up on it.
Stephen Fagan stated and it’s substantial enough to carry through the three years. Some escalation costs need to be included in it.

Vice Chairman Horton stated all our costs go up every year.
Mr. Thomas stated I just saw on the way in, in Briar Oaks there's a dead tree if you’re facing the entrance on the right-hand side. One of the things I needed to bring up tonight was that truck parking, because it seems like those two trucks are taking turns now. I personally have called FHP, but it seems like that the turnaround time. There's a white and a blue truck. I'm going to call it blue. The blue one was there for several days, and I get to the point where I can call you, and there's only so much you can do. So, I call my buddy, who's FHP, and then he calls, you know, blah, blah, blah. But now the white one's coming back. Can we put a sign there that says no overnight parking? Because I know that it’s DOT and it’s going by the county and everything. Then the county has to enforce it. But we also tow cars who are illegally parked and the Village Center. Can we ask their tow company? If there's anybody there, it's got to go.
Mr. Soriano stated since we don't own the roads, we can't tow. I can put a sign there. I just don’t have a way to enforce it.
Mr. Thomas stated is there a way that we can actually enforce it? Ms. Giles stated is it district property?
Mr. Soriano stated no, it’s not.
Mr. Thomas stated it's that emergency pull off. There are two trucks in particular, one I know that we've had an issue with in the past that my friend has called their company in Texas and told them and all of a sudden it got towed. But it's just very aggravating to listen all my neighbors. Oh, that truck is there again. I even called on Chalon’s truck that one time and it ended up being her landscaping truck. But I'm just saying it's very unsightly. It can cause a danger.
Mr. Soriano stated there's a couple of homeowners in Canon’s Point there. They sit on the other side of the fence there where he parks. Well, the white truck runs generators and you can actually hear it in their house. And that's where I would hope either CCSO or FHP could get involved because of code enforcement, and it's a noise ordinance type thing, but they say they'd call, and code enforcement won't really get involved. The white truck has taken off his placard.
So I figure he owns a vehicle now, which could be the case. If he's working for somebody else they have to have all that information on there so we can call the company, but if we don't have any authority on the county roads not to tow we have to deal with code enforcement and CCSO to help us out.

Vice Chairman Horton stated what are we talking about?
Mr. Soriano stated as you're going down Oakleaf Village Parkway, the elementary school's on your right, right past that intersection where you would turn to go towards a little shopping center. The road goes from a two-lane road down to a single lane, and you have that emergency area on the right where there's the yellow striping. They pull up and park. They're big rigs.
Mr. Thomas stated it's multiple rigs. What’s to say they don't call their friends, and now all of a sudden, we have a truck stop right there.
Vice Chairman Horton stated when I was liaison with the sheriff's department, we had a guy park in this truck, and I had him go by there and tell him, you can't park there and it worked. He went away. If you just have just had the deputy go by and tell him he can't park there.
Mr. Lanier stated why can't park there? I'm asking out of ignorance. I mean, if Clay County's not going to enforce it, I'm not saying that he should, but what's to stop him legally?
Mr. Thomas stated from what I've been told, it’s supposed to act as an emergency parking area where the two lanes go into one. They're using it for overnight and actually multiple day parking.
Chairperson Nelsen stated so what do we call? Clay County non-emergency? Mr. Thomas stated don't we have an off duty officer that comes out here?
Mr. Soriano stated you got two sides. Code enforcement can do it. They can call CCSO and say, you need to tow or remove the vehicle. They have certain rules that they'll follow to say whether it can be towed or not. So, they don't always do much. If you have an abandoned vehicle without a tag or up on blocks, they're much quicker. But with the semi they haven’t really got involved. CCSO could tow or remove if there's an emergency issue so the rule stands so that you can get an emergency vehicle through. I don't think an ambulance is going to have a problem going through, but realistically, that side is for emergency because of the two lanes coming through. So, I think that's kind of where our FHP guy was using that as you can't be in that lane and staying there to back up the fact that he was going to have a guy towed, that would really be up to CCSO, but they haven't talked to him about it. We haven't really gotten any resolution from code enforcement or CCSO. I mean, we can continue to call, but, we typically don't have any authority.

results.

Chairperson Nelsen stated put the number out there for everybody to call. Numbers get

Mr. Thomas stated so when the residents call, are they calling you for the overnight

listening to the generator for the noise component right now or should they start calling the HOA?
Mr. Soriano stated when they call me, I direct them to code enforcement and CCSO. It's kind of like our, if you remember our barber shop that was up here on the roundabout, our mobile barbers, that took six or seven weeks to deal with, but that was a code enforcement. And then, you know, the county commissioners had to get involved and then they finally did have them removed. But it took a lot of residents from Eagle Landing and Middle Village all calling and complaining to code enforcement, so I direct them there.

ELEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Next Scheduled Meeting – June 10, 2024
@ 4:00 p.m. at the Plantation Oaks Amenity Center

TWELFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Adjournment

On MOTION by Chairperson Nelsen seconded by Vice Chairman Horton with all in favor the meeting was adjourned.

Secretary/Assistant Secretary	Chairman/Vice Chairman