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Floodplain Management Committee Minutes 02/01/2010 RMeeting Minutes for 2 -1 -10 Regular Meeting Start: 9:00 a.m. End: 10:15 a.m. Location: 2800 N. Horseshoe Drive, Room 610 Meeting Attendance: Ray Smith, Dan Summers, Jerry Kurtz, Dick Noonan (substitute for Jim Turner), John Torre, Mac Hatcher, Stan Chrzanowski, Travis Gossard, Christine Sutherland, Ananta Nath (substitute for Clarence Tears), Duke Vasey, Joseph Gagnier, Phillip Brougham, Pierre Bruno, Lew Schmidt, and Robert Wiley. Absent: Carolina Valera, Brooke Hollander (Excused), Herb Luntz, Bob Devlin, Christa Carrera, and Terry Smallwood. There were three members of the public and three additional staff in attendance. Meeting called to order by Ray Smith, Chairman. OLD BUSINESS: 1. Approval of minutes for the 1 -4 -10 Regular Meeting — Motion to approve by Pierre Bruno; motion passed unanimously. 2. FMPC membership vacancy /replacement — Robert Wiley informed the Committee that we continue to advertise (2nd round of advertising) for the one citizen volunteer position vacancy. Phil Brougham asked if the vacancy jeopardized the Committee standing, and Robert responded in the negative. 3. FMPC Membership Absence Policy (review of Section 8 of Ordinance 2001 -55) — Robert Wiley presented the DRAFT Attendance Policy. The copy of Ordinance 2001 -55 was provided by Sue Filson to inform the Committee of the attendance requirements for other existing review boards under the Board of County Commissioners. The DRAFT Attendance Policy uses Section 8 of Ord. 2001 -55 to develop the basic attendance concepts for discussion by the Committee. Phil Brougham agreed that the Committee needs to adopt an attendance policy. He was concerned about impacts to the staff members. Christine Sutherland asked about the CRS requirements for certain departments to be represented on the Committee. Duke Vasey asked about having alternate members for County staff. Stan Chrzanowski asked about the poor attendance of the representatives of the three cities, and whether or not they would be removed from the Committee. Duke Vasey suggested the municipalities be given ex- officio status on the Committee and let them determine if they want to appear at the Committee meetings. Phil Brougham motioned to shorten down w by combining the membership attendance criteria into a single statement (e.g. for "Citizen Volunteer Member" combine sub - points 1 and 2), follow suit with ParNF B Page 1 of 5 Item 9 r-;�'es to: Fiala RECEIVED Halas Henning -- 'APR 13 '�.p� Coyle ` r Qoodplain Management Planning Commi tit Board of County Commissioners Ray Smith, Chairman John Torre, Vice - Chairman Phillip Brougham Pierre Bruno Stan Chrzanowski Jerry Kurtz Bob Devlin (Marco I.) Joseph Gagnier Travis Gossard Mac Hatcher Christa Carrera (Naples) Brooke Hollander Herb Luntz Lew Schmidt Dan Summers Clarence Tears Jim Turner Carolina Valera Duke Vasey Christine Sutherland Terry Smallwood (Everglades City) Meeting Minutes for 2 -1 -10 Regular Meeting Start: 9:00 a.m. End: 10:15 a.m. Location: 2800 N. Horseshoe Drive, Room 610 Meeting Attendance: Ray Smith, Dan Summers, Jerry Kurtz, Dick Noonan (substitute for Jim Turner), John Torre, Mac Hatcher, Stan Chrzanowski, Travis Gossard, Christine Sutherland, Ananta Nath (substitute for Clarence Tears), Duke Vasey, Joseph Gagnier, Phillip Brougham, Pierre Bruno, Lew Schmidt, and Robert Wiley. Absent: Carolina Valera, Brooke Hollander (Excused), Herb Luntz, Bob Devlin, Christa Carrera, and Terry Smallwood. There were three members of the public and three additional staff in attendance. Meeting called to order by Ray Smith, Chairman. OLD BUSINESS: 1. Approval of minutes for the 1 -4 -10 Regular Meeting — Motion to approve by Pierre Bruno; motion passed unanimously. 2. FMPC membership vacancy /replacement — Robert Wiley informed the Committee that we continue to advertise (2nd round of advertising) for the one citizen volunteer position vacancy. Phil Brougham asked if the vacancy jeopardized the Committee standing, and Robert responded in the negative. 3. FMPC Membership Absence Policy (review of Section 8 of Ordinance 2001 -55) — Robert Wiley presented the DRAFT Attendance Policy. The copy of Ordinance 2001 -55 was provided by Sue Filson to inform the Committee of the attendance requirements for other existing review boards under the Board of County Commissioners. The DRAFT Attendance Policy uses Section 8 of Ord. 2001 -55 to develop the basic attendance concepts for discussion by the Committee. Phil Brougham agreed that the Committee needs to adopt an attendance policy. He was concerned about impacts to the staff members. Christine Sutherland asked about the CRS requirements for certain departments to be represented on the Committee. Duke Vasey asked about having alternate members for County staff. Stan Chrzanowski asked about the poor attendance of the representatives of the three cities, and whether or not they would be removed from the Committee. Duke Vasey suggested the municipalities be given ex- officio status on the Committee and let them determine if they want to appear at the Committee meetings. Phil Brougham motioned to shorten down w by combining the membership attendance criteria into a single statement (e.g. for "Citizen Volunteer Member" combine sub - points 1 and 2), follow suit with ParNF B Page 1 of 5 Item 9 r-;�'es to: 16 ltlov- p g "Appointed County Staff Members ", and have staff bring additional language from FEMA or the CRS on requirements for mandatory department memberships back to the Committee at the next meeting. Duke Vasey agreed to second the motion for purposes of discussion and suggested the Committee simply adopt the existing Ordinance 2001 -55 as the core document and put in the differences desired by the Committee. Pierre Bruno discussed his concerns with some of the detail in Ordinance in 2001 -55 that may put the Committee in jeopardy under its current arrangement. Phil Brougham withdrew his motion. Duke Vasey withdrew his second. Pierre Bruno motioned to adopt the DRAFT Attendance Policy as written. Phil Brougham seconded the motion. Christine Sutherland asked about the requirement to provide a substitute, and Robert Wiley explained that up to this point, only appointed staff members were told to provide the name of a substitute. This DRAFT Attendance Policy would require all members to identity an alternate. Duke Vasey expressed his concern that appointed staff members identify an alternate, and they should not be able to decline attendance and participation on the Committee unless there is an identified conflict of interest. Christine Sutherland asked what would happen if a Committee member could not find an alternate to attend, and it was stated that the member would be noted as having an unexcused absence. Robert Wiley explained that as the DRAFT Attendance Policy is currently written, the attendance of an alternate is still recorded as an excused absence for the Committee member. Ananta Nath asked about having a proxy, but this was not included. Motion passed 14 -1. 4. Assigned Planner for the revisions to the Floodplain Management Plan — Discussion on this item was delayed until after the presentation and discussion by Nick Casalanguida on CDES direction under New Business Item 1. Robert Wiley explained that Mike DeRuntz is scheduled to begin work as a temporary Job Bank employee for a fixed term of time, starting Tuesday morning, if everything clears Human Resources today. Phil Brougham asked for clarification on Mike's assignment, and Robert explained that it is to clean up several deficiencies, especially in Step 7 and Step 8 of the CRS evaluation of the Floodplain Management Plan. Mike is scheduled to work for 5 weeks of full time to pull the revisions together, and then 6 weeks of part time work to take the Plan through the various review boards and committees. Phil Brougham asked if Mike has a work plan, and Robert replied that he will have one when he reports to work. Phil said the Committee would like to see that work plan (what he is going to do, how long will it take, when he will complete it with incremental target dates). Duke Vasey asked if the Committee would be able to review the incremental work products, or have to wait to receive it all at the end. Phil Brougham emphasized the Committee's desire to see incremental work products, and requested that Mike's approved work plan be distributed to the Committee. NEW BUSINESS 1. CDES Direction from Nick Casalanguida — Nick introduced himself as the newly appointed CDES Interim Administrator. He started off with some questions as he tries to realign staff and resources. • There are County staff assigned as members of the Committee, and they can't really speak to each other about some of the tasks and assignments under the Florida Sunshine rules. • There are also issues with the original goals and objectives of the Committee and whether or not these need to be revisited and re- evaluated. With the limited resources available and the Committee meeting monthly, consider meeting less often and having Page 2 of 5 1611' AB staff as non - voting advisory members. Consider getting realistic goals and expectations that we can shoot for and get done. Phil Brougham referenced a telephone conversation he had with Nick a couple weeks prior when Nick called him. Phil's first concern was the membership within the Committee and the requirement for certain staff to be members of the Committee in order for it to have stature with the FEMA/CRS program. Robert Wiley provided a response that the membership requirement is there if we want to receive the CRS points for using a committee. Phil suggested we may have options on the membership, and Robert affirmed that there are options with impacts on the possible CRS point value sought. Phil also expressed concern on staff's effectiveness and productivity, while working within the Florida Sunshine Law requirements. He identified the need for staff, irrespective of the Committee, to update the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, and the Committee had given direction to use the State of Florida model ordinance. Phil also identified the need to update the Floodplain Management Plan to address the deficiencies identified by the ISO. Hopefully the assigned planner can get that work completed. Overall, his recommendation would be for the Committee to meet once a quarter unless there is a significant need to hold additional meetings. Most importantly is to agree what the priorities are, go back to the staff administrative department head with those priorities, get a firm estimate on the manpower needed to accomplish a task on the part of the staff member, get concurrence that those hours are going to be made available, set a realistic completion date, and mission the staff to work on it. He has been very frustrated in setting priorities and not seeing things getting done. Duke Vasey spoke to extend Phil's comments a little differently. To Duke, the number of CRS points is insignificant to tie up a large amount of staff. However, he does think it important to evaluate the CRS manual to take advantage of all of the CRS activities for which the County should be receiving credit. Also, the CRS manual should be used against the AUIR. If we are funding in the AUIR programs, and we are accomplishing through current budget programs, then we have a complete action. There has not been a success in getting staff to evaluate the CRS manual to identify all of the CRS activities that we can receive immediate credit for without any expenditure of time, other than the evaluation. Duke expressed concern over the higher regulatory standards that always seem to creep into the model ordinance. He stated his problem is that he doesn't know who on staff does a cost benefit analysis, how much of staff's time it would take, and how we could ever put in a criteria on the community that we did not know what the cost would ultimately be. Nick responded that he thought these were all great ideas. Mike DeRuntz is going to be coming back as a job banker to finish up revisions to the Floodplain Management Plan. He agrees with priorities and scheduling. Let's agree where the low hanging fiuit is and what is realistic. The key is value added to the community for the work and effort expended. He agreed with Duke's point about looking at the points received for what we do in the CRS and the staff hours required to get it done. He agreed with meeting quarterly, get some realistic goals and expectations, and get the things done that bring value to the community. Ray Smith suggested putting together a work plan and approve specific target dates for completion in accordance with when FEMA is expecting certain tasks to be completed. This would provide a commitment for both staff and the Committee to achieve the targets. Nick proposed it be a draft work plan for the administrators and County Manager to review and see if they can do it. Phil Brougham added to the thought by suggesting the Committee identify the top five priorities, and include the completion of the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance from the model ordinance Page 3 of 5 16 1 11� and the CRS rating point cleanups. The work plan should also identify what value there is in the completion of the prioritized task, so we would have the task, the proposed responsible department to complete the task, an estimated number of work hours to complete the task, the benefit associated with completion of the task, an assigned completion date, and an assigned staff member. Dan Summers asked that the department administrators be allowed to put a budget to the assigned tasks. There are currently no overhead dollars to absorb the work tasks in the plan. Duke Vasey responded to Nick Casalanguida's comments by saying the Committee has already asked for a review of the CRS manual by the staff. He asked for Robert Wiley to put together a report on the tasks that have not been completed, using the top five priorities, to be used as a template to show at least one director, division chief or department head to look at what is funded in the AUIR and for Utilities, what is in the 30 -year plan, which may also apply to Transportation. A quarterly meeting should be purpose -based upon the work plan and the approved year, and it should be consistent with what FEMA is asking the County to provide, the time ahead to review it, and tied to coincide with other activities that are taking place that would lend themselves to just appending that report to our request. Ray Smith discussed the timing of the start of the County's budget preparation cycle in March, so if the Committee meets quarterly, we will miss the opportunity this year. There needs to be a Committee meeting next month so the Committee can review the work plan in advance and provide feedback and comments for the administrators buy -in and the department directors can factor it into their budget. Ray discussed having Robert Wiley work with individual Committee staff members to provide feedback and do some of the legwork in hopes to bring it to their administrators for their authorization and approval before bringing it back to the Committee. Nick Casalanguida said that would need to be distributed to the administrators and County Manager at least a week before the Committee meeting to give them time to comment. He was on board for having that done. Pierre Bruno commented that increasing our CRS scoring can give the County a better rating, which can lead to a better discount for certain people on their flood insurance. Also, the County has to have a Floodplain Management Plan. No matter what else we go for, we really need to look at how much money we are really going to save for how many people. Until that cost benefit analysis is completed, the other efforts are just being batted around. Dan Summers commented on the connectivity between Emergency Management and Floodplain Management. In the FEMA world of building a disaster resistant community, there has been a good history of preventing damage from wind, but not from flooding. There is a cost benefit relationship between disaster response and disaster recovery and FEMA will leverage one against the other. Cost benefit analysis is important to look at, but he asked that we not cease the momentum to build disaster resistance, whether in wind or flooding, because the FEMA is going to put more responsibility on the community to become disaster resilient and the incentive is less reimbursement for post - disaster. Phil Brougham provided a wrap up by saying he understood the Committee would be meeting next month, there will be a draft work plan that has been presented to the appropriate department administrators in advance of the meeting so they can provide comments, the components of the work plan will be the tasks, the benefit quoted with the task, the responsible department, estimated man hours, and prospective completion date. Then after the Committee approves the work plan, start meeting quarterly. Page 4of5 1611 A9'" Ray Smith asked a question about bringing the temporary planner position on board now or wait until the Committee has reviewed and approved the work plan. Nick Casalanguida said it was better to bring the planner on board now to address the Floodplain Management Plan. Duke Vasey then asked about the appropriateness of using the Environmental Services Division on the letterhead of the Committee meeting minutes when the Committee is under the direction of the County Manager. Stan Chrzanowski discussed that the most contentious part of the original Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance was the inspections part. He stated that it had been taken out of the previous ordinance language and nothing else done with it. He asked if we were going ahead with the new ordinance without the inspections part. Robert Wiley confirmed that the State's model ordinance did not include inspections. Nick said he would be back next month when he gets the read -ahead from Robert Wiley with comments on where we stand. Meeting returned to Old Business, Agenda Item 4 2. Public Comments — Lew Schmitt asked about some previous discussions during the meeting regarding how much and how many will be impacted by the floodplain management issues. He thinks that depends upon the changes to take place with the new FEMA flood maps and asked when will we get the new FEMA maps. Robert Wiley said the staff is scheduled to receive the Preliminary DFIRMs by mid- March, and they will be going public in mid -April. From the DRAFT information the County's consultant gave to FEMA, there will be roughly 50,000 to 51,000 structures affected that will need to be evaluated for flood insurance requirements. AE or AH flood zones are expanding out into the current X and D flood zones. He also discussed the Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA) options and the need for elevation certificates. In the CRS program, Collier County is rated as a Class 7 community, and as a result of the 2008 site visit, we have a draft letter indicating we will become a Class 6 community. This provides an overall savings to flood insurance policy holders of roughly 4 to 5 million dollars. As the number of flood insurance policies increases due to the expansion of the area requiring flood insurance, the total discount will also increase. Duke Vasey asked if there will be any workshops on how to apply for a LOMA. Robert discussed the proposed arrangement for the series of evening public meetings where information will be provided, including information on LOMAs. Staff will also be available to meet with groups and organizations to provide information and help them get answers to their questions. Stan Chrzanowski asked about the logistics of reviewing the thousands of potential LOMA applications. Next Meeting: Monday, March 1, 2010 starting at 9:00 a.m. in Room 610 of the CDES building located at 2800 North Horseshoe Drive, Naples, FL 34104. Motion to adjour Schmitt passed unanimously at 10:15 a.m. S C an Robert Wiley, SPff Coordinator Page 5 of 5