Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signs new legislation to crack down on squatting in Sarasota, Florida.
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00:00Be with you. We're excited to be back in Sarasota. We did not get Chamber of Commerce weather today,
00:07but that's okay. You guys have had a lot of good days, certainly this spring, and I know it was a
00:12busy Taurus season. Well, we've got a great cast with us today. We have Senators Boyd and Gruters.
00:20We have Representatives Peggy Gossett-Seidman, as well as Robinson, Connerly, and Nix, and
00:27Fiona McFarlane. If she's not here yet, I think she's on her way. I know she had an appointment,
00:32so I want to thank her. We also have our Sheriff, Sarasota County, Kurt Hoffman, with us.
00:42And then we have the General Manager here from Weston, Sarasota, Gil Reyes, and he's going to be
00:47able to say a few things for us. Now, I'm going to be signing a couple pieces of legislation. I do want
00:55to acknowledge Senators Rodriguez and Leake, who were sponsors of SB 322 and SB 606, respectively.
01:05They couldn't be here today, but they had a big role to play in bringing this to the finish line.
01:10I think a lot of people remember recently, I think it was about a year ago, year and a half ago,
01:15you started to see a lot of this issue of squatting that was happening, not really in Florida,
01:23to the extent it was happening in California. I mean, the usual suspects you would see.
01:29And squatting, there's actually a basis for it in American history, because it's like when people
01:35were settling the West, when people would go on property, if no one else was using it,
01:40then you could potentially develop property rights over a time period. And that was just viewed as
01:47more efficient than if you had to track down. There's a lot of reasons for that. Bottom line
01:53is that didn't necessarily upend the way people do business normally. But to apply that in like a
01:58residential context, where you move into some house because somebody's a seasonal resident,
02:04you just start living there. And somehow you have rights all of a sudden, when you never
02:09were able to do, you literally had people just breaking into homes and just taking over homes.
02:14And then to get them out was like a huge deal. And then property owners would go back in like New
02:20York and all this stuff. They're like, I can't get my property back for nine months or a year or
02:24whatever, and all this other stuff. And it was a cottage industry. People were being told that you
02:30could do this. And it was a way to basically get, you know, quote unquote, free lodging. And so we said
02:37that is not going to fly in the state of Florida. We are not going to let people's private residences,
02:43even if it's a vacation home, be commandeered by people who aren't paying to be there, don't have a
02:50right to be there. We're not going to let the law create roadblocks for property owners just to be
02:55able to exercise their rights. So we signed the strongest anti-squatting legislation in the country
03:03last year. And that was really, really good. I know some other states have followed suit.
03:09And as good as that was, that was really focusing on residential squatting. And that's probably where
03:17you see a good chunk of it for sure. And we in Florida, you know, my thing was, is people know not
03:24to try this stuff here as easily. They know that there's much more risk for them to get held
03:30accountable than in some of these other places. I mean, you literally had, I think it was like a
03:35year ago, it even got on CNN. They were, um, uh, there were illegal alien, like theft rings, basically.
03:43And what they would do, they would steal in New York and then they take the profits of what they
03:50would sell or whatever. And then they'd come to Florida and blow the money down here, like vacationing.
03:56And then they'd go back to New York and do the same thing. And someone says, well, why don't you
04:00just stay in Florida and steal there? They said, because they put you in jail in Florida when you
04:05do that. So, so I think people kind of get like, not the most target rich environment. There's a,
04:11there's a, a huge downside for you if you try to do it. But I think with what we did with, uh,
04:16with the residential squatting, um, it's been really, really effective. Basically it just gives
04:21tools. I mean, you obviously have a, if you have a right to be there, you're going to have
04:26process to do process to be able to show that you have a right to be there. But I mean, this stuff
04:31does not require like an OJ Simpson trial, right? I mean, like literally you just, you're either there
04:36or you're not, uh, legally, and it should be very easy to establish. And so what you don't want is to
04:43create all this cumbersome bureaucracy so that incentivizes people to do this, knowing they don't
04:49have a right to do it, but also knowing that they can buy themselves six months, nine months,
04:53a year, just by all the time this goes. So on the residential, uh, we really made it so that our
04:59local law enforcement has the tools they need to be able to evict people out of private property who
05:05don't have a right to be there. And certainly in a place like Sarasota, we have seasonal residents.
05:11Now there's people that are gone now and they won't come back until October. Well, what would you
05:16think you show up in October and you see some family just living in your house or something
05:21that they had no right to be there? I think you would want to just call the sheriff and say, Hey,
05:25I've got somebody squatting in my house. Can you take care of it? They take care of it. And then you
05:29get to use the property. If we had California laws, you'd basically be SOL for nine months. Like you would
05:35have no easy recourse there. So I'm really glad that we were able to do that. Now, after that happened,
05:41people said, well, you also have issues of squatting on commercial property as well. And so the one of
05:51the bills I'm signing today, Senate bill 322, uh, that creates similar expedited procedures for
05:58unauthorized individuals, occupying commercial spaces. So this provides those property owners with
06:04a streamlined process to regain possession of the property that is rightfully theirs under current law,
06:11the remedies to remove unauthorized applicants or occupants of a commercial property, uh, can
06:16unfortunately be lengthy and time consuming, which then incentivizes people to take advantage of the
06:22situation. Uh, and we're not going to allow that to happen. We're not going to create those perverse
06:28incentives. So this offers commercial property owners a more efficient means to reclaim possession
06:33of their properties from unauthorized, uh, occupants. And there's a lot of things in there
06:39that I think are going to be very positive. Uh, and I know, you know, even there, this is really all over the
06:44state where, where some of this stuff needs to be, needs to be used, unfortunately. So you're going to be able
06:49to get that done. And I'm really, really excited to be able to sign that. I'm also signing SB 606, which
06:57strengthens the rights of hotel and motel owners when dealing with guests who are uncooperative or not paying
07:03their bills. The bill clarifies language and current law that a guest stay at a hotel, motel, vacation,
07:09rental, bed, and breakfast, or timeshare is considered transient. Unless a written agreement states,
07:16it is the guest's sole residence. Now it does happen sometimes where someone will just have a residence,
07:23uh, at a hotel or motel. I mean, it's not, not, not a lot, but it, but it can happen depending on where
07:29they are, um, what station in life they are. Uh, but, but that's definitely the exception not to rule.
07:35And unless that's written down, we're assuming that this is for transient purposes. And I think what
07:40we've seen is, uh, hotel guests just not pay and squad in the hotel. Uh, this forces the owner of the
07:47hotel to go through, uh, basically a traditional eviction process. Like if you, uh, stop paying your rent
07:55in some apartment or didn't fulfill the obligations of your lease, um, you know, staying at a hotel,
08:00you're there, you're either paying or you're not. And if you're not, it shouldn't devolve into some
08:05major landlord tenant dispute. The person should just be, uh, escorted off the property and leave.
08:11So I think this is going to be something that's going to be really good for our economy. Property
08:16rights are really important. Uh, if you don't have private property rights, you cannot have a free society.
08:22Our founding fathers believe that, uh, you have to have things that are, uh, that are outside the,
08:28the control and direction of the government. That's part of the reason why we're so interested
08:33in taking on property taxes, because I think if you own your home, you know, at some point for them
08:38to tax you for, for decades on property that you've already purchased in home outright, uh, that undercuts
08:45the idea of having private property rights. Um, and so we're fighting that fight and we're going to
08:50continue doing a lot on that in the coming days, weeks, and months. But as a whole, you have to
08:57have rule of law and you have to have enforcement for private property rights. And when that happens,
09:03you have a chance to have a free society flourish. When it doesn't happen, it's like throwing sand in
09:08the gear of the economy. It's much harder to have strong growth. It's much harder to produce
09:14opportunities. And I think some of these states that have let this squatting get out of hand,
09:19uh, they're going to come to regret that they did that, um, in the future, because I do think
09:23people look at this and if you're, if you're going to be investing in property, you want to know that
09:28you're going to actually be able to control that property. And for Pete's sake, you shouldn't have
09:32people just show up and start squatting on that property and then all of a sudden be able to weaponize
09:37the law against you when you didn't do anything wrong. So I appreciate the folks that were involved in this
09:43legislation. Uh, we will, uh, make sure that, um, uh, that, that our folks have the tools they need
09:49to be able to uphold, uh, the very, very significance, uh, of private property rights.
09:55Okay. We're going to have a lot of great speakers here before I sign the bill. So first we're going to
09:59start with our Senator who will be the president of the Florida Senate soon, Jim Boyd. Where's he at? Come on.
10:06Thank you governor. Thanks for being here. And again, sorry for the weather, but we appreciate
10:15the sunshine so much more when we have days like this. So it's all part of the plan. Um, today,
10:21really, I just want to thank you all for being here. You're a vital part of our economy. Small
10:26businesses and families is what we're all about. So fortunate to live in a state of law and order
10:31and a governor that insists on that and, and make sure that we adhere to that. Uh, these problems that
10:36we're addressing today and the bill sponsor will talk to it. It's almost unbelievable that we have
10:40to deal with those types of things, but thankfully Florida will Florida will always stand with you on
10:44your property rights, on the ability for you to raise your families the way you like and to run your
10:49businesses the way you like. So I'm proud to be part of that. The legislative friends that are here
10:53today are proud to be part of that as well. And we will always stand with you to do the right thing.
10:57So governor, thank you for always being there with us and always doing the right thing as well. And we're,
11:02we're happy to hear from those that, uh, enacted this or brought this to the table. And, uh, and
11:07thank you again for being here. Okay.
11:16Hello everyone. I'm state representative Peggy Gossett Seidman from Boca Raton,
11:20and I am proud to be the sponsor in the house of this great bill against squatting. Um, I'd like to
11:26sincerely thank the governor for listening to the people and bringing this forth today. Um, this bill is
11:31proof that we, when we listen to residents, good things happen. And it occurred because I was
11:37speaking to Senator Anna Maria Rodriguez last summer of Miami and she said, Oh, we have all these issues
11:42with commercial squatting. And I said, well, that's interesting because last week a couple called me
11:48and they are unable to get people out of their parents, then deceased parents restaurant for years
11:53and wanted to know if I could assist looking into it. We did have instances of squatting throughout the
11:58state. And it, it occurred to me that maybe we should do something about it. And we filed this bill.
12:04The rightful owners have spent a lot of money and time trying to have the, with no success, trying to
12:10have the persons evicted from this property. Often these structures throughout the state are utilized for
12:15human trafficking, drug use, and, and as the governor mentioned, theft rings. And they, they run under the
12:22radar because we didn't have the teeth and the statutes to try to remove them in all cases. Um,
12:29we've got several people in, in my county, uh, using fraudulent leases. And when law enforcement arrives,
12:36they do not always have the capacity or the ability to judge if the leases are in fact valid or not.
12:42And this is another occurrence. We have several instances in Gainesville where a motel was taken over
12:47by nine persons causing $15,000 in damage. In Melbourne, a warehouse was taken over and had been
12:54stored illicit items and trafficking, allegedly trafficking persons out of it. And nearby here
13:01in the Tampa West shore mall, several places had been, uh, abandoned and taken over by squatters.
13:08The remedy to this is our bill. It empowers law enforcement to remove squatters while they have
13:15the papers filed by the lawful owners of these properties. And these owners have the papers
13:21executed, signed, and taken to law enforcement who then accompany them to the properties where the
13:27persons are being illegally, uh, occupying. Um, the sheriffs can verify the information and peaceably
13:34remove the persons who are there perhaps unwittingly. If in fact criminal activity is discovered at the
13:41time, then they are empowered to pursue charges against those bad actors. It provides for criminal
13:48charges up to a first degree felony for authorizing or leasing properties in conjunction with criminal
13:55activities. In all squatting removes people who are should not be living in these properties and it
14:02allows our good businesses and our tourism to thrive. It will protect our $1 trillion real estate market in
14:09Florida and 3.7 million businesses in the state. It will make us a safe and, and moving forward state
14:18in order to protect our businesses, our residents, and our tourists. And with that, I thank you.
14:31Good morning, everyone. My name is Gil Reyes and I'm the Regional General Manager here at the Westin Sarasota
14:36and also the President of FRLA, the Suncoats Chapter. First and foremost, I would like to thank the Governor
14:44and extend my deepest thanks, uh, for his leadership and support in signing this bill into law. Governor,
14:51your commitment to strengthening our state's hospitality industry and ensuring clarity in our regulatory
14:56framework means a great deal to all of us of who live and work in this space every day.
15:01I also want to take a time to a moment, uh, take a moment to recognize and thank the Florida
15:07Restaurant Lodging Association for their tireless advocacy and collaboration. Your team has been
15:13instrumental in helping us shape this legislation and your insight was critical in making sure that it
15:19works for everyone from business owners to our guests. To my colleagues in the hotel industry and
15:26restaurant industry, some of whom are here today, thank you. Your on-the-ground experience and practical
15:34feedback helped make sure this bill addresses real-world challenges in a thoughtful and balanced way,
15:41and I thank you for that. At its core, this bill brings much-needed clarity and modernization
15:48to how we define and manage lodging establishments in Florida. It revised the definition of transient
15:55and non-transient public lodging establishments, clearly distinguishing between those rented for
16:00less than 30 days and those rented for 30 days or more. This clarity will help reduce confusion and ensure
16:08more consistent enforcement and understanding in the industry. Equally important, this bill updates the
16:17notification process for guest removal in certain situations, such as when a guest fails to check out
16:23or pay for their room. Under this new law, written notice must be provided and can now be delivered by
16:30email, text message, or in printed form. This flexibility helps meet the realities of how we communicate today,
16:39while still maintaining fairness and transparency for all parties involved.
16:46This legislation is a win for Florida's hospitality industry.
16:49It brings our laws in line with current practices, offers clear guidance, and supports both
16:55property rights and consumer understanding. Again, thank you Governor DeSantis, the Florida
17:01Restaurant Lodging Association, and all my hospitality colleagues who contributed their voices and
17:07perspectives. This was a team effort, and I'm proud of what we have accomplished together. Thank you.
17:13Good morning everyone. I'm Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman. I'd like to just start by thanking my
17:25legislative delegation, who I consider friends, and obviously the governor. The governor has mentioned
17:30that this is a state that values the rule of law in every single circumstance. And once again,
17:36I'm not surprised the legislature and Governor Yu as well have turned to the sheriffs to be able to
17:40enforce this. We're up to the task, and we're certainly going to do that. I was mentioning to
17:44the governor, we were back here before, that we do almost 700 evictions a year as a sheriff's office
17:51here in Sarasota County. So that's two or three of these a day that we're doing. On the residential side,
17:58last year's bill was very, very helpful to us. I'll just share a quick story with you. We had an elderly
18:03lady who passed away. Somebody hand wrote themselves in pencil, a lease, moved into that
18:09lady's house, and the neighborhood was up in arms. She started to destroy the house, actually cut all
18:14the plumbing and the wires and everything out of the house and tried to sell it for scrap. We went over
18:19there. We happened to go through the regular eviction process. The family of this deceased elderly lady
18:24lived in London, and her attorney was in London, and we're trying to correspond. I just couldn't understand
18:29why it was taking so long to get their loved one's house back and take control of it. We found out after we were
18:35able to get her out of there that she had been following the obituaries in the paper here in Sarasota
18:40County, and she'd done this two or three other times by writing what appeared to be a lease. So it's very
18:46important now on the residential side that we're going to be able to get those folks out of there and give the
18:50estate or the family members their property back. On the commercial side, this is extremely
18:54important. I was the general counsel for the sheriff's office, and we dealt a lot with the
18:59transient issue, Governor. So having that language in there that defines what transient is makes it
19:05easier for my deputies to go out there and get these folks out and restore that. And that's, if not, you
19:10know, equally important, more important on the commercial side because those folks are trying to
19:14make money, right? Pay their employees, pay their rent. Many times we would come in there and we would find the
19:19facilities destroyed. So putting teeth in this, and once again, the governor coming down here and my
19:25my friends in the legislature coming down here and saying, you know, to the media who will broadcast
19:29this message out there for us, if you come to Florida, uh, mess around and find out, right, Governor?
19:41All right, so we're going to sign so whoever wants to come up, you can come up and
19:46make it official.
19:47So,
20:08today is the second.
20:31I've got one peanut gallery.
21:01All right, good job guys, thanks so much.
21:16Yeah, absolutely.
21:20Oh, good, Fiona.
21:22You know, the last bill so I think my kids got a hold of the pen.
21:28They're children, this is a sharp one.
21:30That's why we have the one I threw is not permanent.
21:33So anytime we have kids, we try to do that.
21:35So, well, this is good work.
21:37I think Florida leads the way again.
21:39And we want to make sure that people respect property rights and that property owners have the ability to utilize their property and to have these scams where people come, especially when they're trying to leverage somebody's deceased relative or something.
21:57I mean, give me a break.
21:58We're not going to stand for that in the state of Florida.
22:00Okay, any questions?
22:01Yes.
22:02Can you ask to help increase security at Jewish facilities across the state and more possible across the country?
22:09Well, first, just let me say we have a huge, huge problem with anti-Semitism running wild in this country right now.
22:22And I know it doesn't represent the vast majority of people, particularly in the state of Florida.
22:28But why are we letting people like this guy into the country from Colorado?
22:33He should have never been here to begin with, and he sure as hell should have been sent home when this visa expired.
22:39And this is the wages of having basically an open border for four years under the previous administration.
22:46But this whole thing where, and you saw it starting on October 7th, you saw what's happened at our universities.
22:55You've seen attacks against Jews.
22:58You saw the two Israelis in D.C.
23:01You see this Colorado.
23:03You know, this is really sick, but we've got to take this seriously.
23:08And you shouldn't be allowing this, having policies that allow this to foment.
23:14I do think that there's a lot that goes on, quite frankly, in some of the lies that get spread in the media that probably get some of these guys wound up.
23:23But it's really now we've we've done a lot in Florida over the years.
23:28This is nothing new for us to be to be responding.
23:32When October 7th happened, we were rescuing Americans out of Israel.
23:37We did that before Biden even did it.
23:39And, you know, he was the president of the United States.
23:41So we have done security for Jewish day schools.
23:44We after October 7th, we sent highway patrol and other other assets.
23:49So I don't know what we've received.
23:52I haven't personally.
23:53That doesn't mean that one of our agencies hasn't.
23:55But we'll continue to respond the way that we've always responded.
24:00This type of stuff will not fly in Florida.
24:03And and we will we will do we can obviously to prevent.
24:06And certainly if anyone makes the mistake of doing what with this guy in Colorado, you know, you will absolutely live to regret that.
24:14Yes.
24:15What I would say is prepare now.
24:28What I found is if you don't prepare, then it just seems like then you end up getting one right when people prepare.
24:35I think it's like I just it's just weird the way it goes.
24:40But but prepare.
24:42Now, I will say this.
24:43We had three Gulf Coast hurricanes last year.
24:48Two majors.
24:49Debbie didn't probably impact this area as much as the other two did.
24:54But but it did have impacts across the West Coast of Florida for sure.
24:58And so and these are not not easy things to deal with.
25:03I would say this, though, in spite of all the challenges, find me another part of the country that would have bounced back as quick.
25:12You just would not see it.
25:13I mean, I know there's a lot more that needs to be done.
25:16Don't get me wrong.
25:17But most of these areas that would get hit like this, a lot of them, they would be they'd be like a lost decade.
25:25Right. It would just that that's typically what happens in other parts of the country.
25:29So I think that that Floridians take this stuff seriously and they respond.
25:36And look, we do stuff at the state level.
25:38The local folks do stuff leading up to it to prepare any search and rescue.
25:44And then we're going to get the power on the debris, all that stuff.
25:47And then we'll do that again if it's called on it.
25:49I do think that just on the heels of Milton and Helene, one of the things that was the most frustrating for people is dealing with FEMA.
25:58The FEMA, they want to be able to rebuild or this or that.
26:02And all of a sudden you have to go through this massive bureaucracy.
26:06And I know local governments, some of the local governments have been difficult.
26:10I do think we're going to be signing legislation that's going to try to streamline some of that,
26:14that I know some of our legislators in those affected areas where we're talking about.
26:19But, you know, our view when we're preparing and helping to meet the immediate needs and the state level is we do not want to get ground down in bureaucracy.
26:27I mean, that is just that's the enemy of these things.
26:30I don't know what FEMA is going to look like this hurricane season.
26:34I know that's kind of in flux, but certainly hopefully we don't get anything.
26:39But if you do, you know, I know President Trump is committed to clearing through bureaucracy.
26:45How that happened with Milton and Helene was not good for our property owners, our homeowners who were just trying trying to rebuild.
26:55So hopefully we get a break.
26:58You always knock on wood.
26:59I mean, we've had six major hurricanes in seven years.
27:02The previous 10 years, we didn't have a single hurricane hit.
27:05And historically, sometimes that's the way these things go.
27:08So I think it would be really good for the state to not have.
27:11We are, of course, at the state level, preparing as if we are going to have to face some of these events.
27:17And I think that Floridian should do the same.
27:19Now, I know that we've had a well, I shouldn't say we as some have had difficulty, you know, getting the budget teed up and that includes some tax breaks.
27:29You got to have the tax breaks for the disaster preparedness.
27:32I mean, people Floridians are able to go in.
27:34They're able to get what they need and they're able to save money on those disaster preparedness holidays.
27:40We normally would have we normally would be in one right now, usually the first two weeks of hurricane season.
27:45Then we do another two weeks kind of at the height of hurricane season as we get in to late August, early September.
27:51And so hopefully we'll get that so that folks get relief on that.
27:55But there's different storms have different things that happen.
27:59So Hurricane Ian, you know, obviously it impacted this area and impacted Fort Myers most dramatically.
28:06But within like 36 hours, you know, Wawa was open, Publix was open, gas stations were home.
28:13I mean, it was a massive storm. And yet you go down there and you had that.
28:17You had Helene. It was a lot of surge, obviously didn't necessarily disable the ports.
28:24But then with Milton, you had Port Manatee and you had Tampa that that were offline for a little bit that interrupted their ability to receive fuel.
28:34So you ended up having gas stations that weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
28:40Some of them didn't have the power, you know, they're supposed to have generators.
28:43So they didn't have their generators, others with the fuel.
28:45So we set up these these gas stations and basically people could go and get fuel and do that.
28:51And we did them. I remember we did it. We UK where you're with us.
28:55We were here doing that. We did it in Hillsborough County. We did it there.
28:58And it's fine. We're happy to do it. But literally, we had those same fuel contracts ready for Ian.
29:03We just didn't really need to use them. We ended up going in some of the more rural areas where we had some problems.
29:09So there's all these all these different things that can happen.
29:12But I do think that folks that have been through this, you know, kind of understand the drill.
29:17You may not immediately be able to get fuel at a gas station after a storm.
29:22So have some fuel, pop off your tank and and have a canister in your garage.
29:26That'll be good for you. Assume that, you know, you may need to have a few days worth of food.
29:31Now, we've been able to set up these pods where you have the food.
29:34Well, mostly the water, but also some some snacks.
29:38We've set those up within 24 hours, 36 hours of these recent hurricanes.
29:42That is not the norm. Normally it's at least 72 hours before you set up any of these points of distribution.
29:49And it may be that some of those things may not be able to be set up depending on if there's damage.
29:53So just prepare to have that. Prepare to be without power.
29:57Florida and the hurricane responses in the last four years have had the fastest power restoration in the history of hurricanes.
30:04That's just a fact. I mean, Milton had 4.2 million restored in under seven days.
30:09You don't you don't see that. That is not the norm.
30:12And I'm people who who are native Floridians or have been here a long time.
30:16No, historically, that wasn't the norm.
30:18And we've had great buy in from the utilities, even the coops, everyone down the line.
30:24And that's huge if you can get things back on quick.
30:27But that may not be doable. Right.
30:29So assume you're going to go days, many days.
30:33And we say seven days on everything food, non non perishable food, water, ability to generate electricity.
30:40If you want to have that, whether it's a generator or whatnot, having a fuel supply, all those things,
30:46which you don't want to do is like kind of get hit with the rush right before.
30:50That's when you have the long lines. That's when you have some of the shelves.
30:53I mean, look, we do sometimes we'll have panic buying.
30:56Now, I think given what the West Coast of Florida has been through, I think probably you probably wouldn't see as much panic.
31:03I mean, I remember when Irma came down and I mean, I wasn't governor, but you had Miami.
31:08It was like every water was off the shelf.
31:10Like at one point it was gone. So just prepare.
31:13Just know that this is something that could happen.
31:16You guys have a lot of great folks at the local level here, law enforcement, first responders.
31:22We've got the strongest emergency management state agency in the country, and then we'll be in that fight with everybody.
31:29So prepare. But I just hope that we just have an uneventful summer.
31:34We've got some stuff on the horizon, you know, that'll that'll be fun for the state.
31:38And let's just do that and then get into get into the fall and winter without having it would would be my would be my hope.
31:46But we would definitely never assume that that's going to happen and we will always prepare us if we're going to have other events.
31:52Manatee County Commissioners are trying to restore wetland buffers that have been removed from the past commission war.
31:59They say they're being met with some pushback from the state. Do you have any comment on that?
32:04Who in the state is doing that?
32:06The Department of the DEP.
32:10The Florida Department. You have to talk to them about it. I mean, I'm not sure exactly what was said or not said.
32:17So I would just refer you to the DEP on that one.
32:21OK, thanks, everybody. Thanks for coming. Appreciate it.