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CEB Minutes 07/25/2013 W CODE ENFORCEMENT BOARD Workshop Minutes July 25 , 2013 July 25, 2013 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY CODE ENFORCEMENT BOARD Naples, Florida, July 25, 2013 WORKSHOP LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County Code Enforcement Board, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 10:15 a.m., in WORKSHOP SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Robert Kaufman James Lavinski Tony Marino Larry Mieszcak Chris Hudson Gerald Lefebvre (Absent) Lionel L'Esperance (Excused) ALSO PRESENT: Jeffrey Wright, Code Enforcement Director Colleen Crawley, Code Enforcement Jean Rawson, Attorney to the Board Page 1 July 25, 2013 MS. GREENE: Good morning, members of the board. I guess they turned off the mike, but that's okay. My name is Colleen Greene. I'm an Assistant County Attorney. I've been working with the county for eight years and working on the Sunshine Law, public records, and ethics for the last eight years. So I'm here today just to give you a refresher course on the Sunshine Law and Public Records Law. And if you have any questions at the end of the meeting, feel free to ask or feel free to contact my office directly. In addition, we have a separate presentation on the ethics laws which, if you're interested, we can do at a second meeting. We like to keep it shorter for the advisory boards since you have your regular business to attend to. So I've given you each an outline that is a condensed version of the presentation that we do annually. In the fall usually the county attorney and I do a presentation for all of the advisory boards. Today's just a refresher course for your board. The Sunshine Law, which is found in Florida Statutes, it's a state law, was enacted in 1967, and it establishes a basic right of access to most meetings, including meetings of advisory boards and our Board of County Commissioners. That's how it applies in Collier County. The Sunshine Law is applicable to any gathering, whether formal or casual -- important to remember -- of two or more members of the same board or commission to discuss some matter on which foreseeable action will be taken by the board or commission. So if the topic is something that may foreseeably be discussed at your advisory board, it must be discussed in the Sunshine. So the question is, what are the requirements of the Sunshine Law? Meetings of the board must be open to the public, that's Number 1 . Number 2, reasonable notice of the meetings must be given, and minutes of the meeting must be taken. And with your staff liaison, you have all of that covered here. Page 2 July 25, 2013 The meeting must be first open to the public, and the location must be accessible, sufficient size for the turnout, and the facility may not discriminate based on a protected class. Clearly your meeting here at our Board of County Commissioners' chambers, you're in the right place. There is a new element to the Sunshine Law that you will take effect on October 1st of this year, and that is that the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on a proposition before a board or commission. In the past, this was not required by Florida law, but you may be aware that that is county policy. We have always had public comment at our Board of County Commissioners' meetings and our various advisory board meetings. Now that it's been codified into statute, we'll be required to follow the requirements of the statute. The board can still establish its own policy to maintain orderly conduct and decorum and to set time limits, which the county does have a current policy which we'll be looking at to see whether we need to amend it for compliance with the law. Reasonable notice must be given. Sometimes boards find that they have an emergency topic, and they want to try and meet sooner than they are regularly scheduled to meet. Reasonable notice has been interpreted to mean 72 hours. So absent extraordinary circumstances, you must give at least 72 hours notice of your meeting. And written minutes of the meeting are required. I see at the Code Enforcement Board you have verbatim minutes with a court reporter. Typically, verbatim minutes are not required. It really depends on the nature of the board. But minutes are required, and they must be taken in addition to sound recordings. Some boards say, well, we just tape record our meetings, but that is not enough. You have to take minutes contemporaneously, and the minutes must record the votes. Page 3 July 25, 2013 The Sunshine Law applies to decision-making committees and, clearly, this board is a decision-making committee. So, clearly, the Sunshine Law applies. It applies when two or more members of a governing board discuss a matter that may foreseeably come before the board. This means that if two of you are meeting to discuss a matter that comes before the board, all elements of the Sunshine Law must be met. Your discussions have to take place here in a public forum. Not necessarily in this room, but where you would normally meet, publicly noticed, minutes taken, open to the public. The advisory board members must strictly adhere to all aspects of the Sunshine Law, and I've given you some reminders based on things we've learned along the way. Number 1, no pre-and post-meeting discussions. Sometimes members are tempted to talk in the hallway about something that's on the agenda before you get to your seat and call the meeting to order; we ask that you refrain from doing that. No private conversations on the dais. I can see at this board it isn't a problem, but sometimes we have nine members, and it's hard; it's tempting to have a conversation over here when there's another conversation going on on the other side of the dais. You need to try to avoid that. Avoid texting on the dais. It gives the impression that there may be a violation of the Sunshine Law taking place. Of course, you could be texting home to say, you know, I'll be home after the meeting, but you want to avoid conduct that gives any indication that there may be a violation of the Sunshine Law. You may not use nonmembers as a liaison to transfer information between each other. In other words, you can't use your staff liaison to courier information between members outside of a regularly scheduled meeting. And the last one is just remember to avoid the appearance of Page 4 July 25, 2013 impropriety so that you won't be criticized by members of the public. On the second page, written correspondence, the Sunshine Law applies to written correspondence and emails. So you cannot have two-way communication in an email communication on something that may foreseeably come before the board. Now, I understand that sometimes there's information a board member may learn that you would like to share prior to the next meeting. What I recommend is that the information be emailed to your staff liaison and that the staff liaison sends out a one-way communication reminding all members of the board to please not respond to the email. So any two-way communication must be held in the Sunshine regarding matters that may foreseeably come before the board. So you see in my last bullet point it says social events are, of course, permissible, but be mindful of the Sunshine Law. A lot of people will meet outside of your regularly scheduled meeting, maybe at a Chamber of Commerce meeting or homeowners' meeting, or even at Publix. The issue is it's okay to talk to a fellow board member, but you cannot discuss anything that may foreseeably come before your board. Some boards ask for permission to go on inspection trips. I'm not sure if this has been an issue for the Code Enforcement Board. We recommend against two or more members traveling together to view a location or to do a site inspection. If the board chooses to do a site inspection, we ask that you work, you know, with the County Attorney's Office -- and I'm aware that you have your own counsel -- but all of the elements of the Sunshine Law must be strictly followed. So if you go to a remote site, you need to have it open to the public, you need to have minutes taken, and you need to have reasonable notice provided to all of the public. Telephone participation. I see no one called into the meeting today; however, a member may call in to participate by phone, but Page 5 July 25, 2013 before the member is allowed to participate, the board must make a finding that the member is absent due to an extraordinary circumstance and then vote to allow the member to appear by phone. The key element is, pursuant to the Attorney General's Office, you must have a quorum physically present in the room. The person on the phone does not count toward contributing towards your quorum. And then I did include penalties. It's a second degree misdemeanor to knowingly violate the Sunshine Law. And, of course, now that you're aware of all of the elements of the Sunshine Law, we know that that's not an issue for this board. Another -- a companion to the Sunshine Law is the Public Records Law found in Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes. And people think of public records as documents, but really public records include all forms of material, documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, et cetera, regardless of the physical form if they are received pursuant to law in connection with a transaction of official business by the agency. So clearly today the photographs that were presented and put on the overhead, those become a public record and are subject to disclosure should anybody seek to review them. I advise my advisory boards that I work with to create a binder to try and keep track of any public records that you may create, and then at the end of your service as an advisory board member, you can turn over your public records to your staff liaison so that you don't need to worry about maintaining them in compliance with the records retention law. If you create a document for this board, you should always give a copy to your staff liaison, and if it's part of the record, then it needs to go to your minute keeper or the court reporter. Remember that emails are public records, too. I don't know whether this board has Collier County email addresses or whether you may have your own Yahoo email address, but if you create an email regarding your public business on the advisory board, that is a Page 6 July 25, 2013 public record. Just because you do it on your personal computer with your personal email address, it still becomes a public record if it is about the official business of your advisory board. There are, of course, exemptions to the Public Records Law. We try to maintain a centralized public records system in Collier County. We have our customer communications relation department that will handle and reply to most public records requests. If your board gets a public records request, we'll work through your staff liaison. And if you have any question as to whether a document is a public record or whether there are exemptions that apply, you need to work with the County Attorney's Office and your staff liaison, you know, to confirm. Because when in doubt, you know, we need to be in compliance with the Public Records Act. So anything regarding official business before your board is a public record. There are exemptions. Your email address is not exempted from the public records, but social security numbers are exempted, sealed bids or proposals, documents prepared in anticipation. There is a laundry list of exemptions. So if you have any questions, be sure to contact the County Attorney's Office. We'll work with you. We have a public records resolution in Collier County so that the public is aware of what the public needs to do in terms of requesting public records and how to go about doing that. Public records may be made verbally or in writing by any person, and the county staff person receiving the public records request may not require a person to give his or her name and may not require the person to give the reason why they are requesting the public records. So it really becomes an issue mostly for county staff, because I suspect the public records request wouldn't go to you directly. But as I said, if it does, please immediately contact your staff liaison. She'll work with the County Attorney's Office, and we'll help you comply with the request. Again, there are penalties for failing to comply with Page 7 July 25, 2013 the Public Records Law. I've added a reminder at the end of my notes here to remind you that the Sunshine Law and the Public Records Law applies to social media and social EMT networking. I'm not sure whether you are on Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, but if you are on any of these social media sites and you are talking about business that may come before your board, that becomes a public record, and it needs to be something that we can maintain for the future. So if you're on Facebook, be careful what you're posting about your role on your advisory board; be careful not to have a two-way communication with one or more members on Facebook or on one of these social media sites. Any two-way communication has to be done in the Sunshine. That's just a quick reminder on the Sunshine Law and public records. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly or work through your staff liaison or your director, and let me know how the County Attorney's Office can help. CHAIRMAN KAUFMAN: Okay. Eileen, would you send a copy of this to Lionel and Gerald? I think that's all we're missing right now. MR. LAVINSKI: So this two people getting together has nothing to do with a quorum? MS. GREENE: It does not. If there are two members talking about business that may foreseeably come before the board, then that needs to be a meeting held in compliance with the Sunshine Law. MR. LAVINSKI: Okay. So if our chairman were to take us out to lunch, which he doesn't do, how do you stay away from the possibility that someone's going to say, hey, these three dudes went to lunch and there's no doubt in my mind they talked about business? MS. GREENE: Well, it's very difficult, and that's why we can only say to avoid the appearance of impropriety; however, it happens. And there have been headlines. You may remember we Page 8 July 25, 2013 used to have a Subway out in the front of the campus here, and there were Planning Commission members who were eating lunch together on their break, and it became a headline. Now, you have to be able to say that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about, you know, the upcoming football season. You have to use your best judgment. And when you can avoid the appearance of impropriety, then I recommend that you do that. MR. MIESZCAK: Well, I learned one thing Mr. Hudson told me earlier; he said, don't talk about anything that you do, so -- CHAIRMAN KAUFMAN: Well, that's easy for you to say since you don't do anything. MS. GREENE: If it's a matter that may foreseeably come before this board, it should only be discussed in the Sunshine. MR. MIESZCAK: Right. MS. GREENE: If you have any other questions, please let me know. Thank you. CHAIRMAN KAUFMAN: Thank you. ***** Page 9 July 25, 2013 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 10:28 p.m. C• : NF 3 RCEMENT BOARD r • :E''7 UFMAN, Chairman These minutes approved by the Board on as presented or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, NOTARY PUBLIC/COURT REPORTER. Page 10