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up, that the Lagoon needed this agreement now. So after my initial attempts to discuss those items that would be required in a rational process, I simply voted against a series of motions as Ms. Ansay's inter-local agreement was discussed and moved forward. At the end of the meeting, with the new inter-local approved by all save one, a member of the SJRWMD Governing Board, who sits on the IRL-NEP, said that now we need to go for the "Big Ask". Now "we need to ask for $1 billion dollars." So, with no discussion of goals or objectives, with no discussion about how the money could best be spent, with no structure to account for monies received and dispensed, a new organization based on an organization that in the past handled roughly $1 million dollars a year wants to be responsible for $1 billion of the taxpayers' money in the next years. A rush to a new organization, a subcommittee set up which ignores the duties charged to it by the Advisory Board. The most fundamental questions simply ignored. People regularly saying that the new IRL-NEP would result in more local control when control will clearly be in the hands of a staff controlled by the regulatory agencies. How could such an important process be moved forward in such an irrational manner? I came across, what I believe to be the answer, in documentation I received in a Public Information request I made to the SJRWMD. In the documentation was a contract. But first, a quote from the September 9, 2014 issue of the SJRWMD "Water News": "The District's Governing Board today authorized entering into an inter-local agreement that is being drafted with area stakeholders that will outline the new organization's structure and path forward. The agreement is being drafted by existing IRL NEP Advisory Board members and volunteers serving on a recently-created "Design Team" for the IRL NEP." (Emphasis added). (This was the first time I recall the subcommittee being referred to as the "Design Team".) This is what I thought was the purpose of the design team, to draft the new inter-local agreement. Clearly I was wrong in thinking this. The actual purpose of the Design Team became clearer when I read part of a contract between the SJRWD and Henry Dean and Associates, LLC., that I only came across because of my Public Information request. On page 7, Attachment B-Statement of Work, 11. Objective, it states: Objective: "To replicate the Tampa Bay Estuary Program ("TBEP") entity and operational format for the management of the IRUNEP ideally with the entity having federal tax status such that private contributions to it may be deductible as charitable contributions under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) section 170."