good afternoon everyone thank you so much for joining us today for this historic grand opening of the Flagler County Sheriff's operations center my name is Lacey Martin I'm with Flagler County and we are so thrilled you could join us today first I'd like to recognize many of the elected officials that came out today starting with Sheriff Rick Staley chairman of the County Commission Greg Hansen Vice chair Andy dance commissioner Don O'Brien newly elected commissioner Leanne Pennington mayor of city of Palm Coast David Alvin judge Andrea Totten Senator Tom Wright State Attorney R.J lariza and if I missed anyone I'm super short and I'm very sorry haha and now I would like to invite Chaplin Ed reisterstadter for our invocation they're really excited time where we can just get Thanksgiving to the Lord for answered prayer this building is an answer to prayer let us pray Heavenly and gracious father King of the universe you are all powerful and yet loving kind and gentle with mankind for the Lord God is a son and a shield he bestows favor and honor no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly a lord of hosts happy is everyone who trusts in you can you tell us also Lord to be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving to let our requests be known to you Lord God so we thank you that we can trust you and that you have answered our prayers for the new Sheriff's Office operational Center and administrative complex we invite your presence and ask your blessing upon us today as we celebrate the ribbon cutting ceremony and grand opening of this new building we thank you Lord for everyone who's gathered here today we also thank you Lord for placing in the hearts and minds of sheriff Staley and County Commissioners the vision to have a new permanent and safe building for the flagra county sheriff's office and executing the plans and securing the resources for it to become a reality made this new building be a symbol of justice for everyone in Flagler County a symbol of safety law and order to everyone by your grace Lord bless the men and women of the Flagler County Sheriff's Office who will work at this new building providing services that protect and maintain peace and order in Flagler County keep them safe and free them from all harm we pray all these things in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit if you agree with this invocation I invite you to say amen amen thank you chaplain and I would like to direct your attention to our Flagler County Sheriff's honor guard as they raise the flag and Sheriff Rick Staley will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance thank you come on please join me in the play I pledge to the flag of the United States of America it is under the indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you thank you um thank you honor guard and now I would like to have chair Greg Hansen from the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners to say a few words thank you Lacey welcome everybody this is a beautiful day chaplain did a great job we've got beautiful weather it's a tremendous event today uh you know it's been almost two years to the day that we broke ground on this beautiful building no it's it's let me give you some stats it's two stories 51 000 square feet it cost almost 20 million dollars to build and we've got an Annex we've got another building over here just that you can see just on the other side is 6 200 square feet cost a a million and three to to build but what we've done is give the sheriff an operations venue that will support his entire staff the entire makeup of the sheriff's fire department our police department will be here it's kind of interesting that the address is E.W Johnson Boulevard that was our first sheriff and this street out here is named for him so it's a good address for our streets a good thing to start you know the sheriff has been operating out of several different locations and that's not a way to run a sheriff's office but not only did he do that but he reduced crime while he was doing that so uh great job great job in order to get this building built it was a tremendous team effort I'd like to point out kind of the members of the team that really contributed to making this work first of all the Sheriff's Office uh we couldn't have done it rick without the help of your people the architect adg he was a great great teammate the construction contractor Ajax wonderful job I mean he just fixed everything the clerk of courts Tom Bexley I wish he was here because I would try to make him feel bad but but but he did a great job of putting up with the sheriff I mean he had to house the sheriff and keep him happy and he did a great job he was a really a team member really yeah yeah he has served eviction notices already to the sheriff so uh and then our County staff which I can't say enough about our County staff the general services division did did so much 926 hours of uh of clearing the building site they cleared all the land here and then they brought in a thousand six hundred cubic yards of fill to level this place off and bring it up high enough where we don't flood so it's a great job they also installed the County Sheriff's Office K-9 Memorial and fallen heroes Memorial County staff got that got that installed and then the I.T Department we can't say enough about them they you know they did the entire design for the I.T part of this building which you can imagine is huge it's huge with all security cameras and everything so it's just a great team effort that this County put together and got this beautiful building done it's a great job and congratulations to everybody who participated it's a super effort thank you thank you chair Hanson next up is Ajax operations manager Lon Newman [Applause] well good afternoon everybody it is a real honor to be here uh you know we do a lot of Public Safety work and it's always so great to be able to you know turn over a building that's going to you know make the public safe and give them a you know a great place to be uh chairman Hanson really said it all is it's teamwork and that's you know I didn't write anything I'm gonna do you all the favor of keeping this relatively short but you know to really talk about my team you know the team I had out here project manager Alan Marshall Michael McKnight Nick Story Melinda Crombie they were over there in that trailer and they really took care of everything but this really is a team effort you know Sheriff Staley you know he didn't start at the beginning and say you know you all get this built and I'll just show up on at the end at the last day you know he was there at every meeting in every desire you might not be able to get everything but as a team we really figured out what it was him and chief Strawbridge every item that came up you know we really worked our way through through with the design team adg Susan Sammy gerwick same deal all the way through the design we were there to provide options possibilities and you know it seems like sometimes here somebody says we built a great building but we really did this as a team together and that's really where it went and the county staff Heidi paquito and Mike Dixon every time something needed to happen Mike was right there you know Kent wasn't in his uh vocabulary can we do this he said yep we can do it let's figure out a way to do it and then and then we got it done so we have a little over 20 million dollar facility at the beginning the purchasing building wasn't in there but we figured out a way to shoehorn that in there so we were able to bring that in here and uh you know we want to give money back so we're able to save the sales tax savings a little over 200 000 in sales tax savings so again the entire team from my side to the design team to the county to the Sheriff's office thank you very much for letting me be a part of this thank you thank you Mr Newman and next I have Susan Gantt with the architect design group Sheriff said two minutes so I'm gonna hold to that the theme today really is teamwork I'm representing the Architects interior designers and Engineers that work with uh Sheriff Staley his staff the county staff The Building Company Ajax and the local community what we know and what we've learned through the years of Designing Public Safety facilities is that it's about designing space to support law enforcement's Mission as well as provide opportunities for positive engagement with the community uh we want to make sure that we're balancing the clients needs with the available budget and the expectations that the community has for the project um so this requires us to enter into a Cooperative relationship with all of these stakeholders so that we can understand the priorities understand the workflow and make sure that we're using real-time data from those who construct the facility and those who fund the facility so that we keep a balance and in the end deliver a product that is uh not only useful but is uh something that's going to be usable into the future this this project did balance the current budget but there is the ability to expand this in the future so we see that as a success what we also tried to do was make sure that we were utilizing every square foot in this building as efficiently as possible some of these spaces have multiple uses such as the community room which is also a training space other spaces are very specialized and they require specialized technology and protocols to keep the sheriff's staff safe and the general public safe and and they're measurable and accountable uh attributes of the facility we look forward to sharing some of the specialized design considerations As We Tour the building and we welcome your questions and we want to say congratulations Sheriff I know this has been a long time coming and you're a very patient person thank you thank you and now the one and only Sheriff's daily thank you thank you Lacey before before I start my prepared comments I just want to point something out if you start with the horses you have the evolution of the Flagler County Sheriff's Office from horses to or to a modern patrol car Milestone fear of serving as the 18th Sheriff of Flagler County and I would like to thank you for joining us today as we take a giant step forward together in the history and future of the office of sheriff in Flagler County uh commissioner chair Hanson already stole a lot of what I was going to say so you're going to have to listen to it twice but I would like to start with thanking the team that made this day possible the board of County Commissioners both current and past both County administrators that served during the design and construction Architects Design Group for without their design knowledge and experience it would have been much harder to design an efficient and effective building Ajax Construction who has done just an outstanding job managing this project especially amid supply chain issues and skyrocketing prices the Flagler County General Services team I can't say enough about that entire team and if Flagler County it team not only for what commissioner Hanson already mentioned designing all the security access cameras Computer Connection so on and so forth in this building but now they get to move us all in in the next week or so um the flago County building department we wouldn't be here without them just this morning we got the co the city the city of benell CDs furniture and all the subcontractors the Sheriff's Office coordination team and above all the taxpayers of Flagler County without your Collective support and effort we would still be homeless and I've been homeless four and a half years so I'm ready to have a home and if I missed anyone I apologize but I want to thank you uh for your part in constructing this building and attending today for the elected officials city and county administrators my fellow sheriffs that are here police Chiefs here today including my friend and president of the Florida Sheriff Association Hernando County Sheriff Al nihis I don't see him right now but that's the benefit of having your own personal private plane he flew over and he brought brought his commission chair I think right but I also want to recognize and thank a special guest uh that attended today he also flew in not on a plane but a helicopter uh he was a young deputy sheriff under my command nearly 30 years ago who had dreams of going to law school and is now a highly successful attorney and a strong friend and supporter of the men and women of the Flagler County Sheriff's Office Dan Newlin I saw you here back over here thank you thank you for joining us today he's also sued me a few times when my deputies can't drive all right that was that was a joke it must be it must be your competitor I think I think I've met both of you Dan Dan has taken good care I know some of my employees have uh used his Services when people ran into him and in fact my wife's family has also so thank you for being here today it goes back a long ways from running on South Orange Blossom Trail together right yes sir this building represents a milestone in the 105 year history of the Sheriff's Office and sets the foundation for the delivery of professional law enforcement services to our community for decades to come this is the day to celebrate the reunification of our team after four and a half years of working in cramped borrowed and decentralized offices stretched across three buildings despite these working conditions I want to commend our resilient team that delivered a 54 percent reduction in crime since 2017. many of them are here today in the audience would you join me in thanking them for their dedication entrepreneurs as you will see this building is a state-of-the-art facility designed for today and the future it has the only Faraday room in Northeast Florida designed to protect digital forensic evidence so that no criminal can sit down the road or in this parking lot and try to erase evidence from a hard drive a cell phone a laptop or other digital technology before our team can conduct a forensic autopsy on it so here's my here's my message to the criminals sorry when we seize your technology you're done there's nothing you can do about it for for Pierre there I cleaned it up I didn't call him a dirtbag we now have state-of-the-art training classrooms and Technology throughout this building in fact we will be hosting specialized training classes for our team and other agencies with national instructors such as the FBI and many other highly recognized training bringing the training to us will allow enhanced training for our team in employees at a lower cost saving the taxpayers money while offering seats to other agencies which will improve law enforcement services in our entire region we now have a dedicated training and fitness center including defensive tactics so our deputies can maintain their Fitness and refine their tactical skills I would like to thank Dwayne Sizemore I don't know if he's here today or not but I would like to thank Dwayne for donating all the commercial grade fitness equipment after he sold his gym in advising us on placement of the equipment to maximize the available space this donation saved the taxpayers well over seventy five thousand dollars the fitness center will be known as the sheriff Homer Brooks training and fitness center Sheriff Brooks died while serving Flagler County from a medical episode and it's my hope that always remembering his Sacrifice by naming the training and fitness center after him will encourage our and remind our employees to maintain their Fitness the building is designed to continue full operations in the event of a natural disaster and can withstand a category four actually above a category four hurricane not only does it have a whole building generator but for the first time in agency history we have men and women locker rooms with showers we've never had that before so employees can feel refreshed after a workout in the gym or during a hurricane our CSI and evidence area state of the art it includes modern evidence processing laboratory and secure vehicle processing garage that even includes a vehicle lift our evidence area has separate ventilation so drug evidence especially marijuana will not smell up the entire building a real-time crime Center which started basically in a closet in 2018 has a state-of-the-art room full of technology so we can monitor critical incidents in real time and respond quickly to solve crimes it even has a tactical conference room I personally call it the War Room in the event we have a critical incident such as an active shooter a hostage situation that allows leadership if not on the scene to see what is occurring directly from deputy sheriff's body cameras or drones transmitting images back to the real-time crime Center who are viewing other available cameras all in real time our secondary building that commissioner Hanson mentioned is a building that is behind us is almost done it will serve our purchasing and supply unit along with providing enclosed garage space for our specialty Vehicles keeping them out of the weather to extend their life expectancy and I want to thank Heidi Patito for bringing that Forefront it was in a CIP for what's now this year and she was able to bring it forward to the board of County Commissioners and ask them to build it now so that we wouldn't be under construction as when we move in for another year so thank you Heidi this building and site plan allows for a future 30 000 square foot addition as our community grows at ten thousand square foot single story addition on the South Side in a twenty thousand square foot Edition on the North side as a result of planning for the future growth of Flagler County which whether we like it or not it's here and it's coming fast the Flagler County Sheriff's Office operations center is ready to serve our community for the next 50 to 100 years I would also like to mention a few unique things about this building and complex that you may not know or recognize we had the opportunity to name the streets so we named it after the first sheriff of Flagler County Sheriff E.W Johnston and and yes the family is related to your current tax collector you will note the address is 61-1 Sheriff E.W Johnston drive to 61 recognizes that Flagler County was the 61st out of 67 counties created in Florida's history by the Florida legislature the one while technically means building one because we actually have two other uh buildings here between the power plant and the purchasing building uh the bill the one technically means building one for number one purposes on this complex but when you combine the 61 it reads 61-1 and is the sheriff's call sign on the radio we will also be burying two times time capsules on the property one that will be opened in 2067 that contains items from the Flagler County Sheriff's Office 100th anniversary that was celebrated in 2017. in the second time capsule to be opened in 2072 will commemorates today's grand opening at ribbon cutting so in closing I'd like to highlight a conversation I had with a longtime employee I don't know if he's here I don't see I can't see everybody in the audience that really reflects what this building means to our employees and why it was so critical the Border County Commissioners made the hard decision to build this building just a few weeks ago this longtime employee came up to me as we were preparing a raid on a drug dealer's home and told me that while on patrol he had found an Open Door on the new building with an alarm going off and he went inside to make sure everything was okay now I really think the Curiosity and excitement just got to him and he just wanted to see the building because at that time there was no alarm set but what he said speaks volumes to how much this building means to the employees in the future of the sheriff's office he told me that as long as a long time employee of the Sheriff's Office and I quote he never thought that in his career we would have such a professional building to work from so with that I say to our employees welcome home and we got the CEO at 10 o'clock today so so welcome home employees to your new home now we're about to do the ribbon cutting after the ribbon cutting everyone is invited to tour the building and our volunteer cops and Sheriff's Citizens Academy alumni will be your guides but I ask you to allow our elected officials the sheriffs that came here today to support us in the county and City administrators that are here today along with Mr Newland to come in first and join me in the lobby after the ribbon cutting so they can join me as I provide those special guests not that anyone's not special we all are but I would like to give them a tour of the building everyone will have the opportunity to tour the building after your guided tour I encourage you to spend some time in the public lobby area of the building and visit our Museum where you can see the history of the Sheriff's Office and historical photos and artifacts including the 2013 Harley-Davidson police motorcycle that have been used by the fcso motor unit I would also encourage you to watch a six minute time lapse video of the construction of this building that will be constantly playing in the training classroom I'd like to thank you again for joining us today as we celebrate this milestone in the history of the Flagler County Sheriff's Office may God bless this building and watch over the men and women that serve our community today and in the future from this building God bless and thank you [Applause] foreign [Music] is tomorrow yeah all right you ready three two one congratulations