Floodplain Management Committee Minutes 04/05/2010 R
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Board oi CQullly c.t)ffimk~c;iooers
Floodplain Management Planning Committee
Ray Smith, ChalTt11an
Phillip Brougham Pierre Bruno
Bob Devlin (Marco I.) Joseph Gagnier
Christa Carrera (Naples) Brooke Hollander
Lew Schmidt Dan Summers
Jim Turner Carolina Valera
Terry Smallwood (Everglades City)
John Torre, Vice-Chairman
Stan Chrzanowski Jerry Kurtz
Travis Gossard Mac Hatcher
Herb Luntz
Clarence Tears
Duke Vasey
Christine Sutherland
Meeting Minutes for 4-5-10 Regular Meeting
Start: 9:00 a.m, End: 11 :02 a.m,
Location: 2800 N. Horseshoe Drive, Room 610
Meeting Attendance: Ray Smith, Mike Bosi (alternate for Carolina Valera), Dan Summers,
Jerry Kurtz, Jim Turner, John Torre, Mac Hatcher, Stan Chrzanowski, Travis Gossard, Brooke
Hollander, Ananta Nath (alternate for Clarence Tears), Duke Vasey, Joseph Gagnier, Phillip
Brougham, Pierre Bruno, Lew Schmidt, Chuck Mohlke (alternate for Terry Smallwood) and
Robert Wiley.
Absent: Christine Sutherland (Excused), Herb Luntz, Bob Devlin, and Christa Carrera,
There were four members of the public and six additional staff in attendance.
Meeting called to order by Ray Smith, Chairman,
Mr, Chuck Moblke was introduced by Ray Smith. Mr, Moblke has been appointed by the Mayor
of Everglades City to serve as an alternate for Mr. Terry Smallwood when needed. The County
Manager has accepted this appointment,
OLD BUSINESS:
1. Approval of minutes for the 2-1-10 Regular Meeting - Motion to approve by Joe Gagnier,
Phil Brougham asked that the next meeting date shown on the last page be changed to March,
Duke asked that the CDES letterhead be omitted from the Committee"s meeting minutes, Ray
Smith requested the correction of a typographical-error on page 3 of 6 last full paragraph
third line from the bottom the sentence says ''His stated his problem" should be corrected to
"He stated his problem"; motion passed lmanlmously.
2. FMPC membership vacancy/replacement - Robert Wiley informed the Committee that we
continue to advertise monthly for the one citizen volunteer position vacancy. Ray Smith
asked about which position is vacant, and Robert WIley informed. the Committee it was for
the position formerly filled by Mr. Kokkinos,
3. FMPC Membership Attendance Policy - Phil Brougham provided comment for Item "a" for
the last sentence of that Item. He requested the inclusion of specific information for the
purpose of the statement "After the consenting vote of the Committee,". Duke Vasey offered
information for an alternative to the proposed policy, He distributed an attf?ndance policy
MISC. Corres:
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document for the Committee to review and consider. He did not recommend a change of the
By-laws, and simply recommended an attendance policy by this Committee. He stated it
looked like the Committee was looking for attendance, a way of communicating lack of
attendance, and a way to secure a policy, Phil Brougham asked Duke Vasey to again explain
his objection to amending the By-laws, Duke stated that he did not have a copy of the By-
laws, and thought we could do it by simply adopting an attendance policy. Dan Summers
asked who would grant the excused absence, he assumed it would be the Chalrman, and
Duke agreed. Phil Brougham asked if we did not amend the By-laws, where in the By-laws
does it reference currently that there is an attendance policy, He is looking for something of
a permanent nature here. Duke Vasey responded that he bad provided Robert Wiley with
changes to the staff's draft attendance policy, but the only thing left was about nine lines.
Duke included essentially all of his changes to the "Whereas" statements in the resolution
which were in the short document that he thought would do the same thing. Incorporating
this proposed policy into the By-laws could be done simply by renumbering the paragraphs
to conforming to the numbering of the By-laws. Either way, the proposed document could
be accepted for inclusion into the By-laws or accept it as an attendance policy.
Ray Smith stated his desire to adopt something and move so we can get to the other agenda
items, Lew Schmidt stated his understanding that the Committee would be going to quarterly
meetings so paragraph B(3) of the proposed attendance policy would need to be revised,
Duke Vasey replied that even by going to quarterly meetings it is still within a 12 month
period, not necessarily a calendar year, so if a person misses four meetings (either excused or
unexcused) they would be replaced, It could be that the time would be a full year. Ray
Smith asked for a motion to adopt one of the two attendance policies that are on the table.
Duke Vasey motioned for adoption of the policy he proposed. Stan Chrzanowski seconded
the motion. Phil Brougham stated he had no issues with Duke~ s attendance policy as long as
it is adopted into the By-laws. That was added to the motion, Ananta Nath inquired about a
policy on proxy, and how long can it go on. Duke Vasey responded that as it stands right
now, there is no provision for proxy, Duke then discussed some changes that he made to the
staff policy document and sent to Robert Wiley. But Duke didn~t like the staff's policy
document, so he drafted his simple attendance policy, If a person is not in attendance, they
are simply not there, If a person shows up, they have full voting powers, If a member can't
attend and their alternate attends, it is the alternate that votes.
Phil Brougham stated his understanding there is no proxy, but there are alternates, so if the
alternate attends, their presence is the same as if the member was in attendance, The motion
to approve the attendance policy distributed by Duke Vasey passed on a 16-1 vote,
NEW BUSINESS
1. Presen~tion on the 2010 dune repair and beach vegetation planting programs - Gary
McAlpin was not yet in attendance, so this item was passed until Mr. McAlpin could arrive
from another meeting.
Mr. McAlpin was able to give his presentation following discussion on the Amendments to
the Floodplain Management Plan (New Business Item 6). He stated that every year the
Coastal Zone Management department appropriates $75,000 through tourist development tax
funds to enhance, repair, and rebuild the dune system throughout Collier County, About 3
years ago they planted about 800,000 plants with a major beach renourishment, and they
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have maintained that with the yearly supplements, The plantings are on the leading face of
the dune systems throughout the coast, primarily with sea oats, but also with other beach
vegetation that will put down beach roots to protect the dune system, With Tropical Storm
Fay in 2009 they noticed between 1,5 to 2 feet of dune sand accretion, The program is
working, and they intend to continue the program. When they do another major beach
renourishment they will look to augment that with another major replanting. They work with
private property owners as most of the plantings are on private property.
2, NPDES Best Management Practices Outreach - Steve Preston from the Stonnwater
Management Section provided an introduction on what the NPDES program involves, It is a
federal program and generally, NPDES was for point source pollution, but in 1992 NPDES
entered into non-point source pollution permitting. Based upon the population density and
total population, Collier County was issued an NPDES MS4 Phase IT stonnwater permit in
May 2003. The permit requires the County to identify Best Management Practices that we
intend to implement throughout the County to help prevent pollution from entering
stormwater systems and then exiting into waters of the State, Of the six Best Management
Practice (BMP) areas identified in the permit:, two involve public education/outreach and
public involvement/participation. The public education/outreach BMP is currently fairly
small in effort compared to some of the other BMP areas, The County has a web site which
is an outlet to other agencies. It serves as a hub of information to all potential polluters,
Lawn care and landscape is one of the bigger pollutant sources for Collier County. The
major source of outreach is currently the PUD homeowner association meeting program.
The County provides some funding to Rookery Bay to conduct a "green industrY' training
program using the University of Florida information. There is training provided on urban
pond management These efforts are combined into a Project Greenscape effort.
Duke Vasey asked Steve about the use of this training as a requirement for licensing of
people in the landscaping industry. The City of Naples and City of Marco Island both
require this, Steve confirmed that the County does not require the training as a condition for
licensing, Duke asked if there was a reason not to make the training a requirement for
landscaping occupational licensing, Steve said this has been discussed for a number of years,
and he thought this was going to be considered as an outcome of the Watershed Management
Planning effort. Steve thought the County may institute the training requirement as soon as
2011. Duke asked for an explanation of where the County's training requirement would be
included (e.g. AUIR task for budgeting, grant funding, become a task on a job description),
Steve replied that he thought it would probably be in the form of an ordinance requirement.
Duke then asked the Chairman to make it a formal request to find out when the development
of an ordinance requirement for trailiing would be done,
Duke Vasey continued his questioning by asking how the NPDES program used information
from the County's and the Big Cypress Basin's pollution sampling program, where are the
pollutants coming from, how far up the stream do they start, and how is that tied to Code
Enforcement? He is especially interested in learning how the County connects the pollution
sampling program, the stormwater drainage program, and the NPDES program. Ray Smith
provided information on the County's trend monitoring sampling program with
approximately 63 sampling locations that are sampled monthly, The data collected is
submitted quarterly to the South Florida Water Management District and is placed into the
Districes DBHYDRO database which is available to the public. Mac Hatcher then discussed
how the Watershed Management Planning effort is using the data in DBHYDRO to evaluate
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for water quality problems. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection bas used
this same data to identify water quality problems for development of impaired waters lists.
No point sources have been identified as the polluter, and it appears that water quality it is a
non-point source problem. Ray Smith stated that the County does have active programs that
go out to specific point sources to conduct compliance inspections to eliminate potential they
may have on impacting groundwater bodies in the County. Duke asked if there have been
instances where Code Enforcement has taken enforcement action on either point source or
non-point source discharge. Ray Smith confirmed enforcement action for point source non-
compliance.
Steve Preston provided additional input regarding the NPDES MS4 permitting actions when
a water body is considered impaired by FDEP and Total Maximum Daily Loads have been
established, If no point source is identified, the County"s non-point source permit becomes
the only contributor to the cause of the pollutant loading, and the County must then re-
examine its BMPs for that water body that would reduce the pollution that is apparently
overloading the system, The solutions are usually fairly general in nature (e.g, limiting use
of fertilizer, use of reuse water, limiting runoff, etc,), The County has not yet had to do this.
The FDEP has identified some impaired waters, but the ongoing County efforts to remediate
these problems were deemed sufficient to forego the development of Basin Management
Action Plans (BMAPs) which are the instrument used to get all stakeholders together and
come up with a list of remedies to reduce pollution in the impaired watersheds. The FDEP is
currently monitoring activities already taking place ~d presumed to be able to take care of
the problem,
Duke Vasey then asked how this tied into the County" s drainage plan. Steve Preston said
that the drainage plan doesn't necessarily go beyond what is required through the South
Florida Water Management District design criteria. There is still the use of presumptive
criteria for water quality treatment. Duke asked if Steve's comments were based upon use of
the 2002 South Florida Water Management District BMPs, to which Steve suggested that
perhaps Stan Chrzanowski would know the date, Duke then asked for an explanation of the
County" s funding to Rookery Bay staff, and whether the funding was specifically for them to
conduct a class for a certain group of people, or is the County just giving them money. Steve
stated the County has given $25,000 each year for the past three years towards the Project
Greenscape certification for the "green industry'" worker training. "'Ibis training works along
side of University of Florida Extension Office training programs for herbicide and pesticide
applicator training, . Steve has not asked for specific accounting of the funding, Rookery Bay
gives a report back on the number and types of training, and the number and types of
workers. Duke asked for a copy of the lesson plan used by Rookery Bay for that training
program, and wanted to know what they were doing for the money they receive, Steve
agreed to ask for that information from Rookery Bay.
3. Floodplain Management Plan Progress Report - 2009 - Robert Wiley provided information
on the purpose for the annual progress report, He stated that there were no new activities
proposed for this year beyond the "Top Five'" issues identified for completion last year. The
effort will focus on finishing those remaining items. Of those five, further action is being
deferred indefinitely on the installation of cross drain policy and the mapping of mobile
homes and mapping of flood insurance policy holder addresses. In particular a question
arose on potential privacy issues for mapping flood insurance policy addresses, so that
activity was stopped. Mobile home park: mapping was developed and will not need to be
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updated for a couple of years, The Progress Report is small and designed to identify issues
that the Board of County Commissioners needs to be aware 0:4 identifying the major things
that were or were not accomplished for the year, Phil Brougham asked about Action Plan for
2010 proposed completion dates and if they were supported by the Action Plan Work Plan
item to be reviewed next on the agenda. Robert confirmed that they are supposed to be the
same, but a final check will be made to make them the same. Phil then asked if the proposed
October completion date for the Flood Damage PreveQ,tion Ordinance is for the draft
ordinance distributed with today's agenda package. Robert confirmed that information. Dan
Summers discussed the proposed Action Plan item to discuss the All Hazards information
with the local real estate community. He discussed the efforts that the Emergency
Management department does to reach out to the business community, but noted that these
types of information are usually not well received by the business community, The real
estate industry understands these challenges, but they do not see this as a marketing
advantage to them. Duke Vasey asked that the report identify who the Board is, correct
sentences where the direct object doesn't fit the subject, and says the report needs a good
edit He also said the progress report and the action plan have differences and need a good
cross check. Ray Smith asked that an accounting be made for the sub-committee meetings
that were held, since they were also publicly noticed. Ray also requested a better referencing
of acr~nyms to identify all of them,
4. Floodplain Management Plan Action Plan Items (Director Commitments) - Robert Wiley
explained that the Action Plan lists the items proposed for this year, with category "A" items
being annual events. He then went through each of the line items to discuss what is needed
to be accomplished, Phil Brougham requested that the order of columns be changed to
identify the activity first followed by the status. Duke Vasey stated his desire to see the
columns arranged by tas~ condition and then standard. Ray Smith asked if the pmpose of
the spreadsheet was to identify what is being stated under the director commitment. Robert
Wiley said the purpose is to show the different action items for 2010, the commitments
received from the directors to get the job done on a schedule. Where Road Maintenance did
not provide an e-mail commitment, Travis Gossard provided information that Mr. Vliet is in
agreement Dan Summers provided the commi1ment at the meeting for the Storm Ready
~erti:fication program. Nick Casalanguida; CDES Interim Administrator, stated that there
Will be a consolidation of staff and agendas for some of the scheduled evening public
meetings on floodplain management information to align with annual property owner
association meetings, Upon completion of reviewing all of the action items, Travis Gossard
asked if there was a continued interest in mapping the locations of existing cross drains,
because they are currently inventorying them, Robert responded to please continue mapping
existing cross drains. Nick Casalanguida then explained that this Action Plan identifies what
we are going to accomplish, The two documents distnouted today (Flood Damage
Prevention Ordinance and Floodplain Management Plan) will receive comments from the
Committee over the next three months as the Committee starts meeting on a quarterly basis,
Phil Brougham agreed with the quarterly meeting schedule, and asked if there could be
interim e-mail status updates to keep the Committee members informed. Nick committed
staff to do that on a monthly basis. Travis requested getting a yearly schedule of the
proposed meeting dates so they can be scheduled on their calendars. Ray Smith asked about
a lead time for delivery of items to be on the Committee~s agenda, Travis then discussed a
previous request of the Committee to receive copies of all e-mails correspondence involving
the Committee, and so far he hasn't seen this happen. He asked for at least a week in
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advance for distribution of the agenda documents. Ifitems are ready earlier, send them out
as soon as they are ready. Chuck Mohlke mentioned there may be conflicts with schedules.
Phil Brougham re-emphasized the early delivery of work products was desirable, and not
waiting to deliver the items in a large single package. They could be distributed once they
have reached the stage of being ready for review by the Committee.
Duke Vasey asked that the information distributed to the Committee be put on the web site.
There is a broader audience that may want to review and provide comment. . Use of the web
site could allow for review and placement of comments, John Torre said the infonnation
could be posted on the web site, ifhe was just notified of what to post. Setting up an
interactive site would take some work, such as a share-point site, but then the issue of
complying with the Florida Sunshine Law may become an issue. Ray Smith agreed with
posting on the web site for public availability, but all comments would need to be sent to the
staff coordinator and not to each Committee member,
5". Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance - Ray Smith stated his concern for the Division
administrators to be given time to review and provide comment on the draft ordinance. Duke
Vasey made a motion to table the item and to be brought back at the next regularly scheduled
. meeting, Dan Summers discussed the items that Emergency Management had inserted into
the draft ordinance with the concurrence of the County Attorney. Dan supported the tabling,
but is willing to address the items he added to the draft ordinance if someone has questions.
Duke Vasey appreciated the brevity of the draft ordinance, but felt that the glossary needed
changes so he has dealt only with glossary comments. Nick Casalanguida asked for this draft
ordinance to be reviewed during the three months between meetings to see if there are any
glaring comments and get those back to staff. Tabling the item and not providing feedback
over the next three months may create a situation where other Administrators provide
comment and then the Committee has to start its review all over again, He would like to be
able to compile all the comments and be able to come back with them in the July meeting,
Duke Vasey stated he had provided both an electronic version and a printed version ofhis
comments to Robert Wiley.
Dan Summers provided additional discussion on the intent of the provisions for FEMA
temporary housing and the need for Emergency Management to write a strategic post disaster
housing plan for the community. The FEMA national housing strategy has gone through
many changes over the past year, and is about a year late in coming out. !fthere is a huge
housing loss in Collier County, it is important to be able to have an option to provide
temporary housing close to neighborhoods, schools and communities so people cari. get back
on their feet and not have a mass exodus of disaster victims. The wording also clearly has an
exit strategy. Ray Smith asked about the schedule for adoption of the ordinance and Dan
Summers~ need to have his work effort go forward. Ray asked Robert Wiley on the
ordinance's schedule, and was told the goal was for adoption in October. Dan said he was
agreeable with the ordinance adoption schedule, Dan put forth the option for the Board of
County Commissioners to use a state of emergency proclamation if needed for the FEMA
temporary housing issue.
Pierre Bruno brought forth a point of order that although there was a motion for tabling the
item, discussion had continued, so perhaps there should be some consideration to either
withdraw the motion or vote the motion down, Perhaps the Committee could simply vacate
further discussion on the issue as a Committee of the whole, so the issue would not be on the
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table and essentially dead. Duke Vasey agreed to withdraw the motion to allow for the
discussion, He then asked when the next part of the or9ffiance would be provided for
evaluation to which Ray Smith responded the next discussion would be at the July meeting.
Nick Casalanguida said that as review comments are provided to staff by the administrators,
DSAC, etc. these comments would be provided to the FMPC so they would have the benefit
of seeing all the comments by the July meeting, A discussion ensued on when the FMPC
members should complete their individual reviews and submit their comments to Robert
Wiley. Phil Brougham inquired as to the order of presentation to the various review boards
(FMPC, DSAC, CCPC and then BCC) and which version of the ordinance is presented as the
review continues. Nick sai~ the ordinance would be taken to DSAC before the July FMPC
meeting so he could get their comments early. Ray Smith proposed that staff comments be
provided to Robert within 30 days, Duke Vasey addressed adding some definitions and a
glossary of acronyms into the ordinance to help people better understand some terms,
including a definition of the new digital flood insurance rate maps (DFIRMs),
Robert Wiley discussed an e-mailed suggestion from the State to remove the word
"cumulative" from the definition of "substantial improvement" to avoid the possible
assumption that the ordinance was creating a "cumulative substantial improvement" term
which requires additional record keeping on the County and impacts to the owner. A second
point that Robert identified is the use offloodproofing for non-residential structures. The
state's model ordinance include language to require floodproofing to one foot above the base
flood elevation (BFE), but since that is a higher regulatory requirement than FEMA" s
minimum requirement to flood proof to the BFE staff removed the additional foot
requirement. Robert noted that there is an impact to the property owner of a floodproofed
structure in that flood insurance rating requires rating at one foot below the level of the
floodproofing, By flood proofing only to the BFE, it can increase flood insurance costs
roughly five fold. Ray asked Robert to bring these points to the FMPC's attention when the
comments received from staff and DSAC are distributed. Stan Chrzanowski. asked about an
owner making improvements to a structure for less than the 50% value threshold, thereby
increasing the value of the structure, and then two years later the owner making
improvements using the increased value of the structure as the 50% threshold number.
Robert confirmed that was correct and was one of the reasons that FEMA wants to have
cumulative consideration,
Travis asked if there was ever a cost benefit analysis done for homeowners to use in
considering whether it will cost them more to raise it one foot or pay the additional insurance
cost, Robert Wiley clarified that floodproofing is only allowed for a non-residential
structure, so it would not be a home.
6. Amendments to the Floodplain Management Plan - Mike DeRuntz discussed his task to
modify the Floodplain Management Plan (FMP) to make it less cumbersome, reorganize it to
follow the CRS numbering structure and address comments on crosswalk steps 7and 8 by the
Insurance Services Office (ISO) during their previous review, Mike briefly described how
the materials were arranged on the CD that was distributed to all the FMPC members, his
working with Sherry Harper at ISO to get her comments on the revised step 7 and 8 areas,
and additional information placed in the Plan to increase our CRS point scoring in the next
crosswalk review. Mike felt the County may be able to pick up an additiona1174 CRS points
with these revisions. Mike discussed the Action Plan activity prioritization process
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developed for inclusion in the FMP and how this affected the order of priority of the current
Action Items.
7, Public Comments - Tim Nance spoke to address some of the factors in the draft flood
damage prevention ordinance, He felt there were a couple of very significant needs that will
make the document much clearer and reach its objectives without having unintended
consequences. The definition of "accessory structure" is on page 3 of the draft but the term
is not addressed anywhere at all in the ordinance document Golden Gate Estates are rural
residential areas intended to be residences but people also use agricultural sorts of buildings
as part of the lifestyle included in the development of Golden Gate Estates, Elsewhere in
rural Collier County, there are agricultural properties which have agricultural structures
which are not permitted by the County, meaning they can be constructed without permits.
He then listed some types of accessory structures which were omitted, which were
agricultural structures (e.g. head houses, bams, greenhouses, shade houses, kennels, stables
and aviaries) that he considered well to address, The current draft ordinance document, in
Section 5(B) Specific Standards, it would appear that all structures regulated under the
ordinance are classified as either residential construction or non-residential construction,
There is no specific mention made of accessory structures and he felt it would provide clarity
to include a section on accessory structures and how they are to be handled, Golden Gate
Estates currently has 30,000 residents which is approximately 10% of the Collier County
pppulation, Including those people who live in agricultural lands may increase that
percentage to 15% of the people who will be regulated. The people in Golden Gate Estates
would not like to see all accessory structures elevated. Adding that sort of fill might
exacerbate the flooding situation to the occupied residences,
Next Meeting: Monday, July 12, 2010 starting at 9:00 am. in Room 610 of the CDES building
located at 2800 North Horseshoe Drive, Naples, FL 34104.
'er passed unanimously at 11 :02 a,m.
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