Loading...
BCC Minutes 03/02/2001 W (Transportation)March 2, 2001 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE TRANSPORTATION WORKSHOP OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida March 2, 2001 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in SPECIAL SESSION in Building 'F' of the Collier County Government Complex, 3301 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRPERSON: James R. Carter, Ph.D. Pamela S. Mac'Kie James Coletta Donna Fiala Thomas Henning ALSO PRESENT: David C. Weigel, County Attorney Marjorie Student, Assistant County Attorney Tom Olliff, County Manager Michael McNees, Assistant County Manager Edward Kant, Operations Director Norman Feder, Transportation Director Dawn Wolfe, Planning Director Page I LEGAL NOTICE OF PUBUC WORKSHOP Collier County Board of Commissioners will hold a Public Wor~h°p with the Tmnsporlation Services Division -- on March 2, 2001 lmm 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Board of County Commissioners Meeting Room, 3" Floor Harmon Tumer Building (Building "F") Collier County Government Center 3301 E. Tamtami Trail Naples The Five-Year Capital Improvement Plan and Transportation Policy Issues will be discussed. BOARD OF COUNTY COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA JAMES D. CARTER, Ph.D., DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK By: /s/Ellie Hoffman, (SEAL) COMMISSIONERS CHAIRMAN Deputy Clerk March 2, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning. I don't hear anybody responding to that. I'd like to check to see everybody is alive, awake up here. Let us begin the workshop on transportation by standing and pledging allegiance to the flag. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN CARTER: Morning, Mr. Feder. MR. FEDER: Good morning. For the record, Norman Feder, Transportation Director, and I appreciate the Board, as well as councilmen and Mayor attending today and very much appreciate that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You know, I just got here and saw I had this. It would be awfully useful if the Mayor and Mr. Gallagher -- MR. FEDER: We are in the process of developing those and handing off to them, as well. They do have the essence of the body and the rest is basically the slide presentation you see here today, and we're going to have copies for them for after the meeting, as well. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Thank you. MR. FEDER: What I want to do is be very, very brief to start things off, but I did want to introduce you -- I know the Board is very familiar but some of the others here maybe in the audience, as well -- to your new Transportation Services Division staff, if you will. Some old faces and some new faces. Obviously, I'm one of the in-betweens at this point, I guess, in many respects. I'm very pleased to have here with me today as well, Dawn Wolfe, your Planning Director, as well as Steve Miller, who is your Transportation Engineer and Construction Management Director. Ed Kant, I think you know, is your Operations and Maintenance Director, as well we have some of the other folks here from staff; Connie Dean, who is looking around the room is your Community Liaison. Diana Perryman, Sharon Newman, Beth Yang, and John Bolt, who is your other Director in stormwater and is going to have a separate workshop with you very shortly. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just want to know if you've improved Beth's office space since the last time I was over there. MR. FEDER: There is some improvement if we can get the Page 2 March 2, 2001 lights to stop flickering. We're getting there, Commissioner. Without any more ado, what I'm going to do is turn it over to Dawn Wolfe, who will start the presentation. What we are hoping to do today, there's been an awful lot of discussion about transportation. I don't think we have to convince anyone in this room that we have some needs. What we're going to try to bring to you is a set of issues and in particular, a program and some funding options that we think will get at solving those issues. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: While Dawn is making her way to the podium, I just need to point out on the agenda, there are a couple places for public comment and there are some speaker slips out in the hallway on the table in the hall. If anyone is interested in speaking, if they would just fill out of one of those slips, get it to me I'll make sure when we get to that portion of the agenda, that you get your opportunity to speak. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Mr. Olliff, and I will encourage the Board to make notes and questions as they go into a particular section, then when we cover that section, you ask all the questions you want. But I know that staff has worked very diligently to make this a presentation that will not only help us enormously in what we need to do, and I'm very pleased that the Mayor is here and Gary is here from the City of Naples and Mike Menoza from the City of Marco. That will help all of us as we go through this and deal with some very, very big issues, and we have to be prepared to make some very tough decisions coming out of this. So Dawn, thank you so much, and it's your show. MS. WOLFE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I was a little concerned we had started with the world. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Interconnectivity. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Global picture, Jim. Inspection odyssey, so true. MS. WOLFE: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Dawn Wolfe, your Transportation Planning Director, and what I'd like to start off with is the big picture. What you see before you is what we have on the books today as approved planned unit developments. They are Page 3 March 2, 2001 highlighted in pink and red, primarily within the urban area boundaries. These are currently either built out, most of which are still either under construction or yet to be started. So it covers quite a large portion of Collier County. What you see next are what in the past few months we've identified as our long range unfunded needs based on what our current revenue forecasts are. These are highlighted in yellow. They include both new facilities and needed lanes to be added to existing growthways. What we're showing you is a comparison here of what our 20-year revenue projection is versus the cost of building those needs. We've got needs of almost $900 million. These are only county roadways, I'll remind you. This is not inclusive of any of the interstate or state roadway programs. These are the local county needs. We show a revenue of just under $450 million over that time period, identifying a deficit of an equivalent amount of what revenues we'll have available of almost $415 million. One of the things we'd like to point out is that our long range needs are based on development we have approved today in those land use rights that are within the urban boundary, that we cannot deny their opportunity and ability to develop. So we're not talking about concepts of intensification of land uses. We're talking about what is here and now and people's legal rights to be able to develop, and that we have the obligation to meet the public service needs, to them. What I'd like to identify on this map is a comparison of where all of those developments that we have approved today, with where we need those improvements. Those improvements are needed where those developments are occurring. We're not talking about roads needed elsewhere. We're talking about roadway improvements needed where our development is occurring. What we're talking about also is that half of those needs that we have in our 20-Year Plan are either currently backlog deficiencies or emerging deficiencies based on how much development we have going on today. As you can see here, our five-year needs of $448 million is the equivalent of 50 percent of our 20-year needs. So we're dealing with a here and now situation of not just Page 4 March 2, 2001 five years or a quarter of those 20 years, but we have more on the front end that we have to deal with than in the long run. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Feder. MR. FEDER: Thank you, Dawn. I think the most significant issue that we're going to deal with here today is what Dawn just pointed out to you. While we have significant needs over the 20 years, the biggest issue we have to deal with is the fact that we have developed a situation where we have a level of backlog that basically half of those needs exist here and now, or are emerging over the next five. So everything that we look at we need to have an answer for you to, how do we address that five-year hurdle, if you will, because if we don't address it, it doesn't just become additive, it becomes exponential in the nature of the problems that we experience. I ask you to visualize just for a minute your travel here today or your daily trip to work, and if each one thinks about that trip, there is always that one intersection or that one spot that creates a very significant delay for you. Where we stand right now with our program and continuation of the practices we have today, you will have not only that one spot on your trip, but you will have three or four that you'll have to contend with on each one of your trips. That's the issue we need to try to address, the five-year issue as well as the 20. The first thing we're going to present to you is a work program that addresses most specifically that five-year capacity constraint, as well as a number of other issues that are very important to the county. The five-year work program, first of all, needs to address the capacity constraints. Last May, this Board acted on an accelerated construction program for 14 ma]or projects. As well, there are 13 projects that are either current deficiencies or emerging over the next five years. The graphic that you have in front of you on the work program that you see around the room basically highlights those 27 projects. What it shows you is, this first grouping is the 27 projects' identification. Those that are in blue are the projects that were that 14 accelerated last May. Those in black are the other 13 projects that, as you can see, we need to progress on Page 5 March 2, 2001 either bringing to construction to meet the needs within that five, or proceed on the production process, design a right of way towards construction if we are going to address them as they come on line as deficiencies. Here's a graphic of those projects and they total 341 million to address capacity constraints. Again, as we build on the program, the next issue we have is one that we've talked to you about some, but an issue that we have in the area of impact fee credits. In the past we've authorized impact fee credits for development around the county, and that has been some of the reason that it's been hard to pull forward with a work program that is stable. As issues move around the county to a different development, it's been more reactive than proactive. With that in mind and with in mind our recommendation, if we come out of this over the next few months with a program that is funded towards meeting the needs, there's less of a need to try and work with impact fee credits. So what we're recommending is we establish what amounts to an impact fee credit threshold of $2 million a year and that we keep that accounting on an annual basis so it gives us the flexibility to respond, where there's a desire for improvements outside of what we have programmed or coming up, but it doesn't take over the work program. We can maintain a proactive approach as opposed to a reactive. In addition, we need to maintain the base level of operations and maintenance. Again, that's the middle section as you see in the work program that we're recommending to you. Bridge repairs improvements, major intersection improvements, intersection safety capacity, signals, shoulder safety, pathways, neighborhood traffic management program, drainage and mitigation/environmental. Again, those are issues we need to address, in any event, on an ongoing basis to maintain the system, to respond to operations on a daily basis and most importantly, to address safety concerns. As we build up we add on that resurfacing and reconstruction, a recommendation of 17 million I'll detail in just a second. As you see, we're up to 392 as we build the program. In the area of resurfacing/reconstruction, our system Page 6 March 2, 2001 preservation, we have given you an idea of what it costs us to mill and overlay, about 130,000 to 140,000 a mile for an arterial, about 35 to 40,000 miles for a local road. Our current program is addressing about 5 miles of arterial and about 35 miles of local road annually. At that rate, it would take us over 36 years to pave or resurface all the county roads. We need to maintain our commitment to the investment in what we have out there. While we need to expand we need to make sure that we don't lose your investment. With that in mind, we're looking at a 36-year life cycle based on our current investment, and yet pavement life averages on arterial about 7 and on local roads about 15 years. So obviously we're a little bit out of kilter. Basically, the need would be about 6 million a year based on life cycle, but what we're recommending here in the program is 4 million annually. That's for a couple of reasons. One, we're recommending, obviously, a very aggressive construction program. With that very aggressive construction program, we'll have a lot of new pavement out there so the demand for resurfacing in the next 5 years will not be as great. The second one is just a practical aspect, both from staff, production capability, the industry, but as well, the motoring public and maintenance and traffic, we can't afford to go to a full fledged resurfacing program right now. What we are talking about is 15 miles of arterial and 100 miles of local streets, which if you remember the number of 5, and about 35 is essentially a tripling of the program, getting close to meeting those needs, and with an aggressive construction program, effectively meeting them. Landscaping and lighting. Right now, we have 5 ma]or road constructions under way. I'm here to tell you that as they get completed and while waiting for that and moving towards it, we're going to be faced with basically grass and sleeving for irrigation. That is not what this community wants or is expecting out of these projects, but that's what we have right now in those projects that we've led and are under way with. What we're recommending is that we establish a program that allows us to retrofit the 15 miles essentially 21 miles that those five projects we have under construction right now represent, about a million five annually for three years to retrofit Page 7 March 2, 2001 those miles, about 300,000 a mile and then maintain a million-five thereafter, so that we can include that into the construction projects as we move forward. Again, we're talking about a level of landscaping that includes trees through the median, trees on the side. It can be enhanced, though, as we note here, with MSTUs, but we also need to account for the fact that it's about $250,000 to maintain 25,000 mile, five lane miles added each year. So cumulatively, that is built into the work program. On lighting, as we go to a canopy approach to our roadways, we're going to need to pull the lighting lower to be under that canopy. And there's a lot of desire, as well, for more decorative street lighting, closer spaced. So we're looking to try and incorporate that. Again, here's in the work program 2 and a half million for fiscal year '02 to retrofit the current projects and 300,000 a mile after that. Basically a million five a year starting at fiscal year '03 to continue a program of decorative street lighting and a consistent theme throughout the county. We're up now, as we move forward to collector roadways, and we're recommending here in the program 6.6 million a year to allow us to address that issue of interconnection; that issue of trying to establish an expanded grid, more dispersion of traffic that you've been hearing out of the Community Character Committee, and the recommendations that they will be bringing forward to you. There's a lot of things, whether it be the landscaping, the lighting, or in this case 6.6 towards arterials, that we are bringing to you that what we feel are viable and reasonable items that we can respond to at the outset, especially when in the next five years we are trying to address a backlog and play catch-up. As I go to some funding options -- I'll get back to that a little bit later. Advanced right of way, we're recommending we continue at a million a year. And you'll hear some policy issues under thoroughfare and planning and the like that relate to that. The overall program as you saw there. Again, over the 20 years, as Dawn pointed out, we're 447 million in a deficit or shortfall situation. Over the five years, half of that is essentially Page 8 March 2, 2001 the need today. We got 448 million in need. Our current revenue stream based on our current gas tax and our impact fee collections is essentially 158 million over the next five years, leaving us a shortfall of $290 million. Obviously, we need to try and address that. If we do not change our current funding level, basically that work program that I just displayed to you that we need to address over the next five years, the backlog and emerging needs, will be reduced essentially to the base operations and maintenance. So again what we're talking about is just this portion, not all the enhanced operation and maintenance issues I reviewed with you, as well, of the 14 accelerated projects, the 5 that we currently have under construction, current commitments on some projects who are in design phase today, already started and ready to design, if you will. So those issues will continue. As well, we'll be able to add only four more for a total of nine of those 14 projects that you asked to be accelerated. Livingston Phase II and Phase III both of which we were able to get 10 million towards, otherwise they wouldn't be this long list of four new projects, if you will, from the state. Immokalee Road, from 951 to 43rd and Golden Gate Parkway, but in the case of Golden Gate Parkway it would not include the grade separation at Airport Road. Those nine projects, base operations and just continuation out of the commitments we've already made in the program -- there is very few, you'll be able to see it there -- those are on the graphic, if you will, for everybody to see it around the room Those commitments in dollars referring to a couple of small issues here that are in black beyond the projects that we can get to. The red is what we cannot get to on the projects. We cannot get to the balance, the other 5 of those 14 accelerated projects. We cannot get to the other 13 projects for the total of 27 I mentioned to you that we need to address over the next five years. The importance of that and the key issue that I need to get across today is if we do not address that half of our needs are in the five years, that situation of delay, continued congestion will not just become additive it will become exponential in the sense that as those needs are not addressed, they get pushed further out into the program and they become exponential, additive upon Page 9 March 2, 2001 each other and that's the issue we need to get to. We have a backlog, it is here today, it is upon us. So what are we talking about? We've got to have a balanced program. We need to find a way to have a five-year work program that addresses the additional resources we need, but it's got to be balanced against production capabilities, and I'm here to tell you today that what we've submitted to you not only meets the 27 projects, meets the other issues, but it is production capable. We've worked with our staff, we've worked with the other units of your staffing here in the county that are involved in the program -- that would be utilities, the right-of-way department, legal and others -- and developed a program that all have said is reasonable to be produced over that time if the revenues are available. Performance monitoring. We are working and I am working with Tom and with Mike on developing a set of performance measures. But one of the things that's held that back is we need to know what program specifically, because those performance measures are going to detail issues of number of parcels that we'd have to acquire each year if we are going to meet the program. How many contracts we have to have, the dollars and tracking of those dollars. But until we have a program that is solid and established, rather than each year come in to you with a budget request of what we'd like to do that year or what AUIR says we should do, but we don't know if we can get to but we put in there anyway, we are going to have a work program balanced against production capabilities, balanced against revenues and then a set of performance measures and reporting to you specifically on how well we're progressing on accomplishing that program. In your book you have a decision checklist. What I need for you to do is to go to that right now and yes, I am going to put you on the spot. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Where is that, Mr. Feder? MR. FEDER: It's in Tab 4. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I feel myself being boxed in, but it's already been happening. I mean, you've convinced us we need the system, that you can build the system, then you're going to ask us how to pay for the system. Page 10 March 2, 2001 MR. FEDER: Commissioner, that is precisely what I'm doing and I will take my cue obviously from you. But I think what you asked me to do is to look at the situation, evaluate how we can respond to it, and to bring that to you, and that's exactly what I'm trying to do today. What we just went over on a five-year work program, I'd like to walk through what I think are the key decisions and/or direction areas that come out of that. The first is I need to ask you is there concurrence with the issue of the 27 projects we've identified? Obviously this board took action last May to identify 14, the ones in blue, that needed to be accelerated. Your staff has looked at those -- and they are all needs, by the way, most of them backlogged -- so you did a good job of identifying those as well as looking at 13 other projects which, as I pointed out, either are issues that we've got to get to construction in the five years or we need to start the production. Because one thing when I give you the issue of stable and sustainable work program, we need to be in a situation come year six that we have some of the production already moving in the five years to be able to deliver product in year six. The same with seven. If we don't start some phases in the five years we will stop and wait and that is not what this Board wants nor what this system can afford. So do we have some level of concurrence? I will go by exception here and go on. So I won't be that mean as to require a vote on each of these, but I will go to the pleasure of the Board and how you want to approach it. The next issue is Impact Fee Credit Threshold. I went over that fairly quickly, but it's a very significant item. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I wish you would talk about that one a little bit more because I don't understand the threshold of 2 million. MR. FEDER: Okay. Essentially what we have today is a process that as development proceeds forward. If they are in the 20-year cost feasible, I mean needs plan, not even a cost feasible, we have been letting them come before the staff and then the Board and agreeing to give them Impact Fee Credits. Therefore, a reduction on our revenue stream essentially. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Even if they were in the needs and not the cost feasible, which is kind of stupid, frankly, Page 11 March 2, 2001 because we're not building the needs plan, we are trying to build the cost -- the financially feasible. MR. FEDER: I'd like to think that we're building a needs plan, but until we have it fully funded, that's all we can build, is the cost feasible. That's correct, Commissioner. So with that in mind, we've been giving out those credits. What is happening as we do that and they come due and owing within the five years essentially, but they could be the next day, the next few months or in the year. Some of the developers will tell you they haven't quite gotten them back after five years. So it's a mixed bag. But generally, we don't know when they are coming due and owing and they are a reduction to your revenue stream. How do you maintain an aggressive but stable work program, how do you know how you can fund it, let alone any issues later of bonding, but nonetheless, if you do not know when that IOU is going to come in -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I don't, personally I don't have a question about whether or not we should stop the Impact Fee Credit. My question is what is the threshold, what's that part about? MR. FEDER: The threshold, what we're saying is, rather than saying there will be no Impact Fee Credits given -- and again, I need to make a quick aside we're going after a program to have needs and cost feasible be essentially one and the same COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank God. MR. FEDER: -- within our current minimum level of service standards. With that in mind, what we're saying is the old process of when we didn't have enough revenue, where the development community was actually assisting us in developing some projects and we were using them as a way to fund them and then borrow; we'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. MR. FEDER.' -- that needs to stop. We need to fund our program, we need to define our program, and as Dawn is going to present later, there are options once we have a program if somebody wants to enter a new project beyond this 2 million. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But what is the 2 million? MR. FEDER: The 2 million is a budgeted level that we're Page 12 March 2, 2001 saying as folks come in for Impact Fee Credit, we're going to have an accounting each fiscal year and we're going to bring to this Board their request for Impact Fee Credit on a project that is outside of our work program, what its dollar impact is, what's the nature of the project, and this Board can then decide is that million dollar project one that I'm prepared to give impact fee credits for and only have another million that I can award for the rest of the year, or am I rather going to wait for some other projects and issues that are coming forward. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In other words, nobody gets sort of the automatic Impact Fee Credits anymore MR. FEDER: Right. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- and we as a Board have a budget of $2 million of Impact Fee Credits we can assign to developers on an as requested basis, but -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: On an annual basis. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Annually, but we can say zero annually if we wanted to. MR. FEDER: Thank you, Commissioner. Exactly. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that it? MR. FEDER: Yes. And essentially then what we do is say that beyond what we've planned for, other issues will and may come up, and if they are particularly good issues we didn't want to say that we have no way to respond to them. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because my predisposition coming in here let's drop the idea of Impact Fee Credits, and if developers want to build the road we thank them very much, and we assume that are building it because it's good for their project and forget Impact Fee Credits. And that's what you're saying but with a footnote that if somebody proposed something that we really, really wanted, we would still have a mechanism available to give them a credit. MR. FEDER: That is correct, with an additional footnote. That is, we are going to be very, very careful, particularly careful, to make sure that any credit is for above and beyond what is site related improvement that they make. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE'. Excellent. What if somebody comes in, though, Norm, and they want to build a road that is a part of our work plan for this year? Page 13 March 2, 2001 MR. FEDER: Okay. If it's part of the work program for this year, of course we are going to do it anyway. But if it's part of the five-year work program, let's say it's out in the third year for construction we already have the right of way, we've already designed it, and they want to accelerate that that third-year construction to the current year. Much like Florida DOT allows the county to do, we will allow them to advance their constructions, give us the dollars so we can progress if we have a production ready to that phase which are the phases, in this case construction, and we'll pay them back in that third year where it's programmed. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Norm, could we put this in a real-time, real situation? Take 951, for example, and the extension to Lee County. How would this fit into that? MR. FEDER: Okay. In this case since we don't have that program fully in the five years we've got some initial phases, they can proceed on the initial, we would pay them back in the year we have the program. And then as we develop the new five-year each year, they can come in and state their priority concern for that project for the next phase to be put in the fifth year. They could then advance that phase into, let's say, the second year, get paid back in the fifth. If there's a subsequent phase, let's say the last phase construction they continue that issue, we develop the next work program, it gets put into what then would be the new fifth or the seventh year. They progress in the third year to that construction get paid back in the seventh year. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm for whatever makes the roads go in faster. Whatever scenario of events brings them together. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But Jim -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let me ask, the payback then to them, if they do it ahead of time, comes from what? From an impact -- do we have an impact fee? MR. FEDER: No, it comes from programmed projects. CHAIRMAN CARTER: So then my question is, if we do collect road impact fees on the new development, then how will that be applied to the new construction? MR. FEDER: As it is today. They will be applied to added Page 14 March 2, 2001 capacity for new development and new growth demands. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay, and my question is if a developer chooses to accelerate a road that's in our program, so they want to build something today that's in our fourth year -- MR. FEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- in the fourth year we would pay them back, but can we have a factor in there for -- what did you call it the to your full project related -- I mean, why should we pay them everything back? And frankly, could we have the discretion to either pay them back or not? MR. FEDER: Basically if we have it planned as an improvement that we're going to make and they make it, I think we pay them back the full amount that it actually cost them or that we had budgeted for, whichever actually is going to be less in those two statements. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But couldn't the Board -- couldn't we build this in so that we have the option of -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: For a negotiating factor. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. So that okay, yes, we'll let's you build it this year, thank you very much, and we'll pay you back half of the cost of building it. MR. FEDER: And that is at the discretion of the Board. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: --- we might have some negotiating ability. If these projects are truly important, why not negotiate? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, let me take the other side of that and that is, if it's in the plan we are anticipating, based on the current need that is here today if not another unit was built or not another person arrived in Collier County. That's why it's in the plan. We have to meet the pent-up demand to do that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let me be blunt. I'm not really suggesting that what I'm saying is totally fair. But if it could get more money from developers and have -- free up more money for beautification or maintenance or something else, if it works in their pro forma, if they are willing to do it, why don't you give the Board the opportunity, at the time that we are approving the acceleration of a scheduled project, to try to get the developer to fund it. MR. FEDER.' I will never take away from the Board's ability Page 15 March 2, 2001 to take a donation or a contribution from anybody. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. MR. FEDER: The only thing I would point out, as Commissioner Carter, Dr. Carter's pointed out. If we have it in the work program, what we're saying is if you want to accelerate our program and then again the asterisk, as you said, Commissioner, is it has to be production capable to be accelerated. Okay, but they want to accelerate it. Then we're getting the product earlier to what we've already programmed, so there's a distinct advantage to the overall community. If you can then negotiate something that gives a further advantage, that's fine. But I think realistically an agreement that we would pay them back in the year that we have it programmed if they advance it -- as I said even the State's looking at that right now -- and that is a system that allows the flexibility. And I think it's probably very fair because the other part of that, where you are negotiating by allowing that, is that that facility is there that much sooner and servicing the overall community that much sooner. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'll go through this one more time and then I'll give up. But if it's in a developer's best interests -- if it's so important to him that he wants to build it today, he might be willing to absorb a third of the cost or 25 percent of the cost of the road in exchange for the payback in two years. MR. OLLIFF: It might be, and I think another way to look at what Norm is proposing is the maximum that we are going to provide back to the developer is -- MR. FEDER: Yes. MR. OLLIFF: -- repayment -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: -- of the amount in the year that we had that improvement scheduled. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But what I'd like -- personally what I would like and the Board has agreed -- is that that be a negotiable point and not an assumption that it's 100 percent payback in the program here. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We could set the benchmark that Norm's talking about and then also add that subject to the Board's approval for future negotiation. Page 16 March 2, 2001 MR. FEDER: They have to get your approval before we can agree to pay them back and allow them to advance. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But you guys have to have the mind set as they are coming in that, hey, we don't know how much the Board is going to agree to pay you back, because they may try to squeeze you for a hundred percent, you know, whatever. MR. FEDER: I think all of them have probably heard this discussion or will hear of it. So I think the mind set's being established, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Are you seeing this as some sort of a way to control growth, as far as the Board -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, it certainly has some opportunities for controlling growth, because it puts the market squeeze out there again, that it's got to be -- it makes it more expensive. COMMISSIONER FIALA'. Are we going to ask for interconnectivity -- I'm so sorry -- to make sure that now we don't block off the roads as we've done in the past. MR. FEDER: If I could let me request of the Board that we progress because -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- comment that Sarasota County has this policy in practice where you have that opportunity, Commissioner, that you and Commissioner Mac'Kie are discussing here. And that policy will be coming down to us shortly. I have requested it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE'. Sarasota County has the policy that the developer can advance the road and get back paid some proportion? CHAIRMAN CARTER: I haven't read the total policy, but they have the ability to do that. MR. FEDER: What I would note both the five-year work program and the issue of interconnectivity, we are going to be covering under policy issues after the break a little bit later. So if I could progress forward. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. FEDER: The next thing here is basically on the reconstruction/resurfacing of the system. Are there any questions on our need to go beyond basically 5 miles of arterial and 35 of roadways, or a program of 36 years, Page 17 March 2, 2001 to meet the preservation of the system when life expectancy is basically 7 to 15 years arterial to local road? COMMISSIONER HENNING: What are we spending now annually? MR. FEDER: About a-million-four, and what we're recommending is 4 million, or effectively tripling the dollars and the production. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I haven't heard a lot of complaints about the condition of our roads, and in fact even our COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- our new census shows that. And I don't know if that's really a high priority. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE'. That's exactly-- I was going to read an agreement that roads are well maintained, had remained statistically similar over a four-year period. 81 percent said the roads were well maintained in '96, 83 percent said it in '97; and 82 percent said it in '98, and 84 percent said it in '99. However, underlined in here, in 2000 that agreement decreased significantly to 69 percent, down 15 points from last year. MR. FEDER: What I will tell you is that is not unusual. You look at pavement life and you have basically a curve; it's not a bell curve. It starts at the top of the bell. You have your ultimate situation, we just paved it and we did it well. It will last for quite some time, very gradual decline. But at about five or six years on arterial you start a very slippery steep slope on your condition ratings, whether it's cracking which if it gets to the sub-base it can undermine it. Or if it be rutting, where you have the valleys and water and therefore becomes a safety hazard. It becomes a very quick slope down so you're going to find that there's almost a perfect line to that, where conditions good, good, good. All of a sudden people are going to get concerned because it starts going down very quickly. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You're exactly right, Norm. The public never complains until there's a pothole. You drive that road a hundred times and there's a pothole in it why don't you resurface the road? I think what you're asking us is, is to have a level of funding Page 18 March 2, 2001 there to make sure that we can minimize the breakup of roads and not get all of the complaints and all of the people being upset, because we'll be on top of it instead of behind it. MR. FEDER: That's correct. Additionally what I'm telling you is that we're only recommending what amounts to two-thirds of what the life cycle would call for for a number of reasons. And the last is we're instituting a pavement condition rating that will help not only refine the life cycle rule of thumb, but also identify priorities for which one do we resurface first. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. MR. FEDER: Going on -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I just say on that one as much as I absolutely agree, when it gets down to the money and we've got to find it, that would be one that maybe would phase in instead of triple the first year? MR. FEDER: I understand, and what you're talking about over the five years -- and by all means, any of this is subject to your direction -- you're talking about on your resurfacing a total of 16.6 million out of the $448 million. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So don't get excited; it's not going to solve anybody's problems on the funding. MR. FEDER: But it may be a project, and that's an issue you can come back and review with us. But we think we have the major capacity addressed, so we would wait for your guidance on it. Lighting. Again, I think we've heard very strongly that folks want the decorative street lighting that's coming out of your community character studies and issues, and if we are going to go to further landscaping, particularly trees and canopy, it makes an awful lot of sense. The collector arterials funded at 6.6 million a year. As I said, this is again back to that issue that was brought up, the need for us to develop a system beyond arterials and local roads to a level of collector system. Some interconnection between some collectors exist today, identification of new alignments, preservation of that right-of-way, other issues of the sort. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That addresses Commissioner Fiala's concerns. MR. FEDER: Yes, it does. Well, it starts at it. It won't fully address it, but yes, it starts at it. Page 19 March 2, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I would like to see a map or is there one yet of a 5 Year Plan of how you would be spending that 6.6 million a year? MR. FEDER: There is not, and I would love to have thought I had that coming from another study, but what I don't have is that. What I do have is the need to evaluate it and to develop a plan and bring that back to you. Right now, I'm basically establishing a funding level that will attend to that issue to a degree. It won't go to the degree that the study is reviewed of need for collector road development. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: See, I have a feeling that number is just way too Iow. MR. FEDER: I do not disagree with you, Commissioner, but I'm back to the 448 and when we go into funding scenarios you'll see why I didn't get too terribly aggressive with some of these other issues, although we are trying to move towards attending to them. But I again, or at least my recommendation to you is, we need to focus not only on moving toward these issues; I don't want just concrete and asphalt. But we do need to get to a point where we resolve this backlog, get ourselves out of the hole we've dug for ourselves, and then look at what we can do to expand to some of these other issues that are being raised. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This is the question -- and Commissioner Coletta, you know, we talked about on Tuesday -- that if we're really going to do this, you know, it's going to be some real tough calls, and I bet it's going to require more than this amount of money to make some roads where none are, and communities currently exist. It's going to be those hardest calls that we're going to get. CHAIRMAN CARTER: If we can fund the big picture you have a lot of flexibility within the big picture to move the little pictures around? MR. FEDER: That's correct. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I think that's what you're asking for us, Mr. Feder. MR. FEDER: Yes, it is, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think we need to talk about this little picture, and we struggled with this at our regular Page 20 March 2, 2001 meeting, is existing neighborhoods, and are we interested in preserving the integrity and the quality of life for those people who are our existing residents. I think my feeling is I think that we have to be very careful on how we do these interconnections in existing neighborhoods. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I certainly agree. That's why I'm so concerned with our northern routes as we begin to build new communities, because we don't want to impact them. But I think we have to be extremely sensitive to the ones that are existing now and pouring roads through them. I was thinking the other day of the Santa Barbara extension, which is a very important subject to me by the way, and we compare it sometimes with Vineyards and with Pelican Bay saying that, you know, they have streets and the people are all off the streets. But we don't have a 6-lane highway pouring into Vanderbilt-- I mean, into Vineyards. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I understand that, Commissioner, I really do. But if we're going to get off on those subjects this morning, I hope you allot enough time in this day to about 7 or 8 o'clock tonight, because I don't think that's the purpose of this workshop. MR. FEDER: With all due respect-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: We do have to address funding and look back at those, I couldn't agree more that you have concerns about that. But everyone sitting up here has concerns. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I was just agreeing with Tom and I'm sorry I got a little voicy. COMMISSIONER HENNING: At some point, I think we do need to get into that discussion. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. Because this Board has got to decide if are we going to belly up on that issue or are we going to roll over on that issue. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But that's going to come under policy later this afternoon. MR. FEDER: Yes. We're going to be hitting that a little bit under policies under interconnectivity. I don't think we'll resolve it today, but I think we'll raise to you a forum and then come back to you for some of that decision at subsequent meetings. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we're going to talk about that Page 21 March 2, 2001 more later? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes. MR. FEDER: You'll have some discussion on it but I imagine today we're still trying to keep the broader picture. We're getting direction for issues we need to come back to you, and I think we've gotten some of that already just now. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I don't want to cut short any of those policy discussions, and in dealing with that, But I want to stay focused on what you have us here for this morning. MR. FEDER: Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Also, I want the Board to recognize sort of an underlying philosophy in how we developed these numbers, too. Sometimes there's a tendency on the part of some staff or in some negotiation to start out with a number that is way out here and in hopes that if the Board starts making reductions or something, we're going to bring it back to what might be a reasonable, manageable plan. And that's not what we've done. What we've shown you here is what we think is a reasonable, manageable transportation improvement plan that includes, for instance, in Norman's road improvement roadway resurfacing and reconstruction number, the actual life cycle cost number is $6 million a year; we proposed $4 million a year, trying to be financially reasonable in these numbers. We have not shown you landscaping improvement numbers for your arterial roadway improvements that are the top of the line landscaping. We have tried to establish what we think is a community acceptable, minimum base level standard for transportation roads, landscaping, resurfacing, and what we are showing you is what we think is the real deal. This is the plan we think you need -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You know, I just have to say -- and I'm glad you're here and I'm glad Norm's here -- so that finally, six years after being on the Board I'm getting real numbers. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Great. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I mean, it's just infuriating, frankly, that we've been sitting here for six years being told we're doing a resurfacing job that was adequate, and it turns out tripling the budget is not even real numbers. That is infuriating, I just have to tell you. Page 22 March 2, 2001 But thank you, thank you, thank you for being here and telling us the right thing now. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, restructuring and reorganization of government creates amazing results and that's exactly what Tom and Norm and past staff was working, frankly, on the direction of policy from the prior Boards. And we put them into a piecemealing mentality, and every time we piecemealed it, we then went back and revisited it about 15 times. So if I was a staff member out there, I would have said what do you want? You're not consistent. And this Board, I believe, will be consistent and get to the big picture~ and that's what's desperately needed here. MR. FEDER.' Commissioner, thank you very much. You've wrapped up my decision checklist very well. That last item was just that -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I apologize. MR. FEDER: No, no, please. Thank you -- adoption of a work program subject to funding availability. And I'm not going to ask you to vote on it here today, what I'm asking you to do is just to take what we've given you here to understand, as Tom has pointed out, that we tried to be very responsible. We can deliver it as production capable, if you will, which means essentially that we have the resources within the schedule and time frame to do it if we have the funding. It is what is needed to resolve that backlog to start catching up to the needs as they emerge and then allowing us to move forward in the next cycle. If we look to expand on some of these issues and the like we can address that then. But the key issue is we need to find a way to basically dig our way out of the hole. If that be the case on the work program, you have a basis for why we're looking at funding options and where we're coming from, let me jump right straight into that. We already showed you that we have a very definite shortfall with existing funding revenues. Well, the first thing we looked at was reauthorization of the 5 cents of the local option gas tax which is due to sunset December of 2003. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: When are we going to vote on that? MR. FEDER: We are going to recommend to you when I get to my decision checklist -- but in answer to your question, if this Page 23 March 2, 2001 Board gives me that direction, I'm sure that Tom will ask me to have something on your agenda at the 13th meeting COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can we vote today? MR. OLLIFF: You'll give us that direction today we'll bring it back in regular Board meeting. Actually in this workshop he's proposing that we bring it back on March 15th. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't think you'll find any opposition on the Board to do it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: in. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: know where we actually stand. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We just need to get that factored You can factor it in when we I agree but when that was proposed it was a ballot question with a sunset. Are we in favor of taking it back to the voters? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I don't think it went to the voters to begin with. Wasn't it a Board move, on the part of the Board? MR. FEDER: The initial as I understand was it doesn't have to, but the Board has either the option by super majority vote to reinstate it or to bring it, a referendum to the voters. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Your understanding was it went to the voters? MR. FEDER: My understanding it was done by the Board by super majority vote. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's what I understand, too. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right, and I think that's a prerogative that we need to exercise. We have to stand up and be accounted for. MR. FEDER: The reason I was waiting to the end to address this, if I can, is let me point it to you what it does. It does some important things. And I need to also point out to you what it does not do, and the fact you may still be talking about going out to the voters if you are, in fact, going to resolve the problem you have in the 5 years in particular in the 20-year program. What it does do is it basically gives you $8 million within the five years. That's not a lot of money but you got to recognize that only a year and three quarters is that additional 5 cents applied, because it doesn't sunset until December of 2003. Page 24 March 2, 2001 But it does provide $88 million over the 20 years. That's significant dollars. But as we pointed out, we were basically having revenues, current revenue stream, was only half of what we needed over the 20 years. It's significantly a bigger problem in the five, but over 20 it's half of what we need. With that in mind, it does address 20 percent or basically a fifth of the shortfall. So you still have that other 80 percent or four-fifths of the shortfall at the end of the 20 years. Yes, Commissioner? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Question: I know that we are not really optimistic about the Legislature giving us the indexing authority for gas taxes that they have already given themselves, which is very, very frustrating. The State indexes that with the CPI and we have asked and are continuing to ask. In order to get us more excited about pressuring the Legislature, has anybody done the math on how much of our problem would that solve? MR. FEDER: We raised the issue a number of times. I think basically the best way I can answer that is the State who has had the indexing, as you point out, for some time is getting effectively 9.6 out of what was 6.9 because it's been indexed over time. I believe that indexing has been since '89, so for 11 years they have got about a 33 percent increase. So it is not the silver bullet, but it's a big help, much like continuation of the 5 cents local option, which of course if you continue, that gets additive onto it if in fact they ever took that action. So I guess, Commissioner, I'm saying it helps but it would not resolve the problem. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand. What about is that an issue -- how are we approaching the lobbying of that issue with the Legislature? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Maybe I can answer a little bit of that. I have -- Florida Association of Counties has pursued this. I have lobbied, we lobbied our delegation -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- on that issue. There are other lobbyists in Tallahassee through other constitutional officers who have asked if there is anything they could do to help. I put Page 25 March 2, 2001 that right up there and said that's one way they can help. I will be in Tallahassee for Legislature Day. I will be up there two additional days towards the end of the season, or session in April, and as I go around, I will push that issue. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What lobby defeats it every year CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, it's more the Governor's position now of not increasing taxes, it is the Legislature standing up and saying we don't increase taxes. And where they allowed themselves to do that, isn't that called a tax increase? When we wanted to do it it was perceived as a tax increase. I can't say that there's a specific lobby against it. MR. FEDER: I think you do have some, the truckers, distribution and to a degree I would say you need to check with Triple A, even. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I know at one point the county had this silly lobbying effort where we had an apartment up there and all that stuff, which I think it's very good that we're not wasting money on that. But who lobbies on behalf of Collier County, is it the FAC lobbyist? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, that's about it. We do not have a retained lobbyist to my knowledge for county government in Tallahassee. Lee County does. Lee County has shared their resources to me. If we wanted to enter into any kind of agreement with Lee to jointly use lobbyists, we could probably do that. MR. FEDER'- I would suggest to you, as well you've got some staff that can be very supportive of it. I know my experience with the Legislature and with legislation you've got some outstanding folks on staff, some new folks. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You're right, Norman, but I was referring to a paid lobbyist. You're right, like Lou Wallace, I know he's up there working on this other issue. I mean, he really has gone after that. I think-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What other issue? CHAIRMAN CARTER: That is on the telecommunications. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think we really ought to go after this and I realize that it's not, like you say, a silver bullet, but -- MR. FEDER: Every port in a storm, yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can I expand upon that? Last Page 26 March 2, 2001 week when I was at the commission, Growth Management Commission -- and I need to get that material to you -- it says in there that county imposes optional taxes like the gas tax or half cent sales tax or that, they are going to be rewarded for that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's true. That's absolutely true. And the incentive legislation that Dudley Goodlette thankfully pushed last year because we do what we're doing under the local option gas tax, that's why we get a higher grading when we go for state funds. Norman can probably even address that because we have already gotten several million dollars. MR. FEDER: That turned a little bit differently than the representative wanted, but nonetheless the application, we benefitted by his concept, even though the legislation didn't quite speak to that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So what will that do? MR. FEDER: But it's the grant program for Livingston. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What will that do? What does that legislation or any proposed legislation to do what Representive Goodlette sought, what affect does that have on our state budget? I mean, I know this year we just at MPO got a big check and we expect to get another big check. What factors should we apply to our -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't know if it ever affects the total budget -- MR. FEDER: Essentially I would't bank on it but I would utilize it. We have already incorporated 10 million and we were extremely successful in the last round of the county center grant program. Getting while the getting's good is another issue, because we know, with the high speed rail issues, where some of those programs or initiatives are going to be later on. But essentially, what I'm telling you is, while we will continue to go after every grant dollar, every opportunity and we will thank our legislators as they give us the opportunity. We are pursuing one right now, as you mentioned, lobbying on the state infrastructure bank, that I think is very important to the City of Marco Island as well as to the county, and to the city relative to Gateway and Davis Boulevard. Extremely important that we Page 27 March 2, 2001 continue to pursue that and will continue to. But from a practical aspect, what we're talking about right here is only the county road system and most of those issues are what we're going to have to do to get our fair share and resolve the issues, as well, on the state highway system whether it be 1-75, whether it be Davis Boulevard, U.S. 41 and other state facilities, 951, Marco Island Bridge. If we do not pursue those avenues, they are predominantly going to be dollars that can be applied to the state system. The county and center grant was much more money if you were on the state system, but we were very happy with 35 percent to meet our needs on the county system. But there is very few dollars that the State's working with that we can use to resolve the issue that we have in front of you today, which is the county road system. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand that the State, that the Governor's budget this year is really thin and we don't have -- it's not like in prior years where they were trying to figure out how to spend all the money they had. The question, though -- I know where you're going -- at the end of the day you're going to be talking to us about a referendum with the public, and before we can possibly do that, we're going to have to prove that we have done everything times 10 to get money out of the State. MR. FEDER: There is no question. We need to prove that we've got a plan that makes sense, show people what they are going to get when we come to this issue, show them that they can rely on the fact that what we are showing them we can deliver and will deliver on; and then we need to show them we've gone every avenue. Let me continue on and maybe we'll display some of that and discuss it further. COMMISSIONER HENNING: the 5 cent optional? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You want to do a straw poll on He can take us through that later. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I have not heard any opposition on the Board, so if I get five nods, I'd say that's like direction, go do it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm not opposed to it unless it was a ballot question. Page 28 March 2, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think the Board needs to make that decision. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm not opposed to it, in any event. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Nor am I. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Nor am I. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay, there's your answer. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That was easy. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's the easiest thing we'll get to do today. MR. FEDER: It is probably the easiest. It wasn't that easy, though. Thank you. Next thing we're looking at is okay, as I told you, even if next Board meeting -- we have now got that direction to bring it back to you -- the Board does take the action to reauthorize local option gas tax 5 cents, we need to find a way to address what still remains a shortfall. One of the issues that's been raised is the idea of bonding. But I think if you remember very quickly what we told you is half of your needs in the first five years, right, and basically, that five years worth of needs was equivalent to your current revenue stream 447, 448; awfully close figures. So in essence, if we pass the local reauthorization, it changes those figures much to the better, 88 million over the 20 years, but still leaves that 80 percent, that other four-fifths of that shortfall there. So one thought was well, we got a bond. We can bond and that will answer the question. Well, let's look at what bonding does. When we go to bond, essentially over the period of time we can generate revenue of 214 additional million, assuming we can bond not only our gas tax collections, but as well our impact fee collections. But then we have to pay for debt service on it. So what you see here is over the 20 years is an increase in the program that basically reflects the addition of that 327 million that we would have to pay to utilize that revenue of 214 million. So it increases our program, if you will, the projects and what we have to pay out for debt service, it does increase our revenue. But unfortunately it a little bit increases our overall shortfall in the 20-year time frame. What it does do though for us Page 29 March 2, 2001 to a degree but not sufficiently enough, is allows us to address that five-year shortfall or better. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Wait. Go back to what you said. I guess it's because of the cost of money that it increases the overall? MR. FEDER'. That is correct. So if I'm borrowing to address -- remember, my biggest issue is I've got half of my needs that I need to address in the first five years, otherwise I'm going to exasperate my problem of the current backlogs and deficiencies. So essentially, what this is showing you is that if I go to a bonding scenario it is not addressing my problem over the 20 years because of the debt service payment. But while it helps, it doesn't even resolve my problem over the five years. Over the five years, essentially about a quarter of what I need to address can't be addressed. I've got $116 million shortfall. And not only -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: With the maximum amount of bonding? MR. FEDER: That's with a maximum bonding of your gas tax, assuming reauthorization of the 5 cents, and your impact fee collections. COMMISSIONER COLETTA.' Question there. On the impact fees that you're projecting, are you projecting what numbers? I understand that we've dropped off about 15 percent or so? MR. FEDER: We're projecting it on, I'll say a middle of the road, a little bit conservative but more middle of the road, we're projecting it looking at our revenues and then holding that little bit of reduction stable across time. So there's going to be peaks and valleys. We're probably a little bit higher than the mid right now, but we projected that a cost and made that assumption. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: While I'm already getting hate mail from builders -- but while I'm doing that, how do our road impact fees when are they ready for reevaluation? MR. FEDER: Forgive me for just a minute, I'll go right to your question, I think. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because it's maximum, how much of that 116 can we eat up. MR. FEDER: Okay. I'm going to hit that as one of the options in just a minute. Page 30 March 2, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. FEDER'. So how do we get out of this mess? What we just said was we do need to reauthorize the 5 cents and I'm very pleased to see that that is the wish of the Board, as well. But even doing that, even trying to bond that revenue stream, we can't resolve the problem. So what are our other funding options? Well, the very first one, and Commissioner, you raised this one, is that, well, we can go out and try to increase the impact fees. Let's look at where we stand. Right now in Collier County, as you know, I believe we just recently-- I believe it was last January -- increased the impact fees, and what you're looking at here is the impact fee based on a residential dwelling unit. In the case of Collier we have basically three fees, so we took the average of the three, based on the nature of that dwelling unit as was structured. But as you can see, Collier County significantly increased its impact fees to the point where the impact fee for a dwelling unit is equivalent to what Lee County has -- and they just raised theirs about a year and a half to two years ago to that level -- and is higher than what Sarasota County is charging on impact fees today. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Where are we at with commercial? I think that's a lot softer blow. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. MR. FEDER: I don't have that and I will get it for you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's a big -- that's the one I wanted to talk about, too. And also the question which impact fee was it recently that we increased it in a stair-step method based on the size of the home instead of everybody pays the same? COMMISSIONER HENNING.' I think that was across the board, wasn't it? MR. FEDER: What I was just told is that on commercial, the change -- and I just have the dwelling unit here; I apologize on that if I had known -- but we went from about 47 to 92 percent increases on commercial. As you look at this, that may well be a bigger level of increase than you had even on your residential. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But how do they compare to other counties? Page 31 March 2, 2001 MR. FEDER: That's what I'll need to get for you and I will provide it to you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have that information. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I even wish -- MR. FEDER: And the Commissioner is going to save me. Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Go. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I mean, I have it in the workbook from the Growth Management Plan of what's happening in Tampa, Hillsborough County and it has a breakout of residential, which we're right there. I'm not sure where we are commercial per square foot and where the different uses are. So I think that we should really take a good close look at where we are with our commercial development and transportation impact. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tom, isn't that a phone call? Isn't there somebody you could call and get us that number? MR. FEDER: I was looking out at the audience. I figured I had so many experts that maybe I can get someone that deals with it on the daily basis. But I will defer to that. Please let me point out probably the next five before we get too much into that, but rest assured -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But get us that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: What amount of dollars overall that would contribute, which is a good question. And then there's always a question of, well, you have to define where you're going within commercial. If it's a furniture store or something like that COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sure. CHAIRMAN CARTER -- that's one issue. But if you're talking about new businesses coming here, I mean, high tech businesses or are you looking at medical research facilities, are you looking at the kind of things the EDC is diligently working on. If you throw one of these to the point where it becomes a negative as compares to other areas where you're trying to attract businesses which overall then decrease your ad valorem impact on the homeowners, you might end up being counterproductive. So it's a great question but it has to be taken into balance with the overall. Page 32 March 2, 2001 MR. FEDER'. And it has some other attributes, as well -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes. MR. FEDER -- and that's what I wanted to point out to you. What I can tell you again, and we will get that. I saw a couple people going out with phones and I see the commissioner with some material, so maybe we'll get some answers as we go forward. But I will point out to you as we consider that further, right now out of about that 447 million over 20 years of revenue that we have today in current income stream, 202 of that is coming out of impact fee collections. So it is a very, very sizeable portion of our revenue. So it's not like we're not collecting impact fees to manage the program COMMISSIONER FIALA: Isn't there some kind of a state limit on that, as well, on impact fees? MR. FEDER: No. There's a state process, and where there are some limits is where I'm going to hit right now. Practically speaking, if you are getting 202 in revenue and your shortfall is over 447 million, if you're looking for impact fees as a way to solve the problem, you have to effectively triple -- and you saw that graph up there with the dwelling unit pretty much in sync -- you'd have to triple your impact fees. And if you triple them you would have two things set in place: One, you'd reduce your revenue because of the nature of what would happen in growth, and that's one discussion. But the other thing you would do is, you'd probably trigger -- and that's back to the Commissioner's statement -- legal challenges. Impact fees are an evolving methodology and art, and it is a balancing of understanding truly what the impact is of the new growth versus what is the background traffic and other issues. And that's the most key point, which is the third bullet here. You cannot legally use impact fees to address a backlog. And what I told you from the start of this discussion -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: If we fund -- MR. FEDER: -- is that almost half of what we have to address in needs over the next 20 years are essentially already here or on us in the next few years. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Pause right there, Norm, because Page 33 March 2, 2001 if that's true, then what that tells me is -- I mean, I understand that was just a broad general statement -- but if that were exactly true, then half of our backlog could be collected with impact fees. If half of our backlog is current shortfall -- not talking money shortfall -- currently inadequate roads and half of it is related to growth, then half of the money should come from impact fees. I'm going to keep beating this because I know you guys are taking us to a referendum at the end of this and even I'm not going to vote for, to tax myself until you have proven to me that you have taxed new construction equal to its actual cost, no matter what that does to the market and to the rate of growth. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, you may want to seriously think that through, Commissioner, and I know you will. I'm saying here you cannot pay for the past; you can't do it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, no. I'm saying the half. If it's half past and half future, then half of the shortfall should be made up by impact fees. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'd have to see the numbers and I'd have to see what it does to everything. MR. FEDER: I just conferred with your legal staff, with Heidi Ashton. That bullet is correct and that is the statement. If it is currently backlogged today, you cannot use impact fees as a basis for resolving the problem. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Clear. MR. FEDER: Now what I need to point out to you what I said in that 50 percent of the needs in the first five years, not every bit of that is backlog, but the majority that is backlog, you can use impact fees on the issues that are emerging or coming up over the next few years as you collect them and have them in advance of these needs. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So Norm, here's an ugly question again, but I'm going to have to ask it -- that if part of our current backlog is because our old impact fees were too Iow, we're stuck with that. We can't go back and make -- you know our old impact fees, our road impact fee was too Iow for too long, in my judgment. So now the rest of us have to pay for that failure. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I disagree with that statement because we are the ones that did not pay the true cost of the impact and I'll give you a good example. Page 34 March 2, 2001 In 1974 when I was working in the City of Naples and lived in East Naples and driving down U.S. 41, I always remember I was going to stop in traffic at the St. George and The Dragon, waiting for the lights to change at Davis Boulevard intersection. At that time I had just an old beater; I only had an AM radio station, and WNOG, talk radio, and the topic was the second Gordon River Bridge back then. I don't know when everybody else was here. I think Donna was here at the same time. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Same time. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So I think that we all are responsible. MR. FEDER: As a matter of fact, DOT even, I think about 15 years ago was ready to build the bridge and got stopped, as well. So I think taking any one project out of context was the Commissioner's point. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, you know how it is, management decisions long delayed and expectations long nourished causes a morale problem in a community. MR. FEDER: What I will do, if I can, to move forward, and with all due respect, is tell you what we are here for today is not necessarily to figure out that issue. We know where we are; what are we going to do from here. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I agree with Commissioner Mac'Kie's statement that growth does need to pay for growth. MR. FEDER: And we concur, as well. What I'm pointing out is it's not necessarily the solution for a number of reasons. Please note that I'm not -- and you're going to hear a little bit more later on some issues -- we're not saying that we don't need to continually look at it and adjust as appropriate so that we respond to that. And that in fact, whether it be that or Impact Fee Credit issues, we already said that it not be for site-related improvements; that those issues get addressed. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I will add to that, Norm, then I won't interrupt again. I want balance in the funding options. I'm not here to penalize any one of those options to the point that it puts an undue burden on any part of our community. MR. FEDER: And if we do, it's just like the environment; you'll have repercussions the minute you get any portion of it out Page 35 March 2, 2001 of balance MR. McNEES: Mr. Chairman, I would just add -- Mike Mcnees from the County Manager's office -- that just for reference, that the last impact fee review that you did on early impact fees was pursuant to your direction that we bring those fees nearer their legal limit. And I'm not going to say we took them to their pinnacle, but we sure got into that neighborhood. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I know that we did. MR. McNEES: So the thought that we could solve this problem by raising impact fees two or three times what they are without severely jeopardizing that revenue stream completely, would be unrealistic. So just as an order of magnitude issue, impact fees we will continue to bring to you, according to your direction, as near the legal limit as we can. But I think what Norman is trying to tell you is, that's only one small piece of the puzzle here. MR. FEDER: Speaking of getting folks excited and waking you up, we can talk about millage. Right now your ad valorem here in Collier County is lower than what Sarasota and Lee enjoy, and I will use that phraseology, 'enjoy.' So one of the options that we had to look at was can we meet it based on an increase in the ad valorem tax. Basically you would have to, over the next four years, increase ad valorem by 2.2 mills to try and address the problem. Well, as you just saw based on our current millage, you're talking about a 63 percent increase. I'm looking at faces. I will continue on to option four. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Leave that one alone. MR. FEDER: Okay. I'm on to option four. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Be a long-term commissioner, take that option to its limit. MR. FEDER: I think also, beyond that, let me not make too light of it. While it's obviously a very significant increase that is not just the issue of one term, Commissioner. It is the issue that we need to find a way, just as you pointed out with impact fees, a balanced approach, and putting it on totally the backs of the folks that are here today is not the answer, either. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, especially when you consider that the roads that we are proposing to build, the Page 36 March 2, 2001 shortfall, are primarily outside of the areas that pay the significant portion of the property tax, which is the coast. So you know, to ask people on the coast to build the roads for the east, it's enough to ask them to pay for law enforcement, but not often. MR. FEDER: I didn't say any of this is going to get easy, but we'll go on. The next set of options that you will see are sales tax issues. There are some advantages, just as we've been talking about. Impact fees have limitations to what I can spend them on. We're pretty much, as you were shown, in line at the legally reasonable limit. We'll continue to look at that. Ad valorem, we've already discussed that issue and both of those are a piece of the puzzle, but not a solution of and by themselves. So we're looking at other options, as well. Sales tax has the added advantage, and I heard some figures that a portion of what is paid as well, not just by the folks that are here today, but also all the others that enjoy and travel our roadways, is significant enough that we need to look at the issue of sales tax. So we tried to look at what a sales tax would do. The first thing we did, we looked at a half cent sales tax. Essentially on that, we looked at for all full 20 years, and what you see in front of you is over a 20-year period a half cent would solve the issue over 20 years. In fact, it would create about $131 million surplus at the end of the 20 years. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are you going the tell us in a minute is there a chart that says if we bonded if we filled in as much of the gap with bonding as we can and as much as a gap of impact fees as we can, could we make it a quarter cent? MR. FEDER: We haven't looked at that. There is a myriad of options here. We are trying to give you a feel and get direction from the Board as to how we proceed. But in answer to your question, no, but I do have something that starts approaching that. But the key issue is, if you had a half cent, basically over the 20 years you'd meet your needs. But remember, the key issue we had was the fact that half of our needs are here today or the next five years. So unfortunately, if we have a half cent, while we can meet the needs over 20 years and actually have a little bit of a surplus, we don't need almost Page 37 March 2, 2001 half of the needs we have right now today or emerging in the next couple years. So we have a problem and what we've done is we've extended our situation of congestion, and again, as I said, it's not just adding one more to the stack. It becomes exponential, realistically. As you have congestion problems they start multiplying, not just adding. CHAIRMAN CARTER: As we get to a final discussion on this, one input I think would be important for the Board in looking at a sales tax, I've heard a lot of percentages of numbers of what visitors pay and contribute to that. Could we get some reasonable number that says because our whole system is impacted so much by those who come and enjoy this community from November to April, I would like to know what their contribution could be through any of these mechanisms. MR. FEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Likewise, wasn't there a possibility of tourist tax dollars being available? Didn't we talk about that, Tom? MR. OLLIFF: We talked about it. Orange County actually made an attempt, an unsuccessful attempt, to use some tourist tax money for transportation needs, but it's something I think from a legislative standpoint we may want to continue to pursue. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because frankly, having a way for tourists to help pay for the roads is a good thing. It's better than a sales tax, which has all of us paying; some of us paying twice, those of us who are property owners and buy our groceries here. MR. FEDER.' We will definitely get that for you. As a matter of fact, I hope that Mike Smykowski was here, but we'll see if we can get that while we're talking today. Otherwise, we'll get you that and we're taking copious notes of the direction you're giving US, If I could move on. That's the critical issue. We need to find something that allows us to fund that 5 year situation. So the next thing we looked at was what if we had a one cent sales tax. And what you're shown here is over 20 years. Now, you don't have to implement it for the full 20 years, obviously, so that surplus of $620 million doesn't have to be Page 38 March 2, 2001 something that you accrue. It also needs to be noted that what we're talking about in meeting needs are at our current minimum level of service standards as well as not meeting all the needs landscaping, collectors and the like. So that provides you some flexibility after the five years to try and respond, but you could stop a little earlier. But the key issue here is the one cent would, obviously like a half cent, meet your 20-year needs, but unfortunately doesn't meet a quarter of your current five-year needs. And again, the obvious part is it's not front loaded enough to be able to address the issue which, again, allows your backlog and your deficiencies to continue to stretch out over time, even though you can address it before the 20-year period. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Feder? MR. FEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: If, let's say that there is a half cent sales tax or even a one cent sales tax. There's a bonding revenue that we can bond that future money? MR. FEDER: Yes, and that's what I'm going to hit, it's the next one. COMMISSIONER HENNING.' Oh. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. FEDER: You're getting me right there and I appreciate the help. Let me just note very quickly to you and staff's running quickly to your items; I appreciate it. 30 percent of a sales tax is basically paid by nonresidents. About 30 percent or about a third, so that gives you a frame of reference. The next issue is we said both the half cent and one cent will meet it, but doesn't address the needs over the five-year. So we looked at what happens if we bond. Well, if we go to bond only a half cent, we find that we do basically meet the needs over 20 years we have a little less of a surplus that we generate because of debt service having to be paid, but we do meet the 20-year needs. And not only do we meet the 20-year needs we come awfully close to meeting the five-year needs a $46 million shortfall over the five years. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's bonding of a half cent? MR. FEDER: Bonding of a half cent local option gas tax. Page 39 March 2, 2001 That would allow us to address what is the key issue that I'm bringing to you today, and that is catching up on the backlog and getting us into a program of where we address the needs as they emerge, and at the same time wouldn't generate a large surplus out in the later years. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: A question, Mr. Feder, if l may. MR. FEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER COL. ETTA: Is there a possibility of a hybrid between the two, where we might be able to have a one percent to start off with to help meet the five-year need, and then have it sunset and go to a half cent for the remainder of the 20 years? MR. FEDER: There is a potential for a myriad of these options. In answer to your question, yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But even if we did the one cent for five years, it isn't going to come close to solving out five-year shortfall without bonding. MR. FEDER: Without bonding, that's correct. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We're talking about transportation, and also please keep in mind that The Conservancy is looking to go out for a referendum on a green tax. And green tax, what else could it be but out of the sales tax and revenue. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, in Lee County they did it with a property tax. I mean, that's what passed on the 20.20 in Lee County was a dedicated millage. And, you know, maybe. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Remember that we won't be the only ones going out there looking for money, that's my point. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I was going to say health care is coming up, too. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Health care is also in line. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Are we at the point where we need to take -- where are we, Norm? MR. FEDER: What I need to do is flip over to Tab 6 and we'll be very close to our schedule. Tab 6 -- I'm doing it to you again. What I'm raising to you is the need to see what we're going to do, what are the decisions that we need to make out of this issue. First of all, we have in Tab 6 in front of you is what I already related to folks and that is, that if we keep our current funding stream, essentially basic operations, these items right in here that are shown in black on the five-year work program, as well as Page 40 March 2, 2001 the five projects out of the 14 accelerated that we have under construction today. For anyone who is trying to figure out what that fifth one is, that's airport which will be very shortly under construction. In two weeks, I'm told. And then, the addition of only four more projects: The two Livingstons, the Immokalee project out to 43rd, and the construction of Golden Gate without the grade separation at Airport. If we don't do anything in funding, that is the program over five years. To put it in perspective what I would tell you is as you look at this five-year program that we put in front of you and the folks have up around the room, essentially what is in black is what you would get. Everything that is in red would't be done. So the good news and the bad news is very shortly we'll have used up the revenue for the five years because you don't see anything in 5, 4 and very little in fiscal year 2003. So we will be into basic maintenance for the three years after 2002 if we don't do something on the funding option. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Couple questions. MR. FEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I would like to know -- I'm willing to give a yes vote to that second question, but subject to the tourist tax inquiry, subject to impact fees particularly on commercial. And I'd also like to know what percentage of the five-year shortfall could be solved or addressed with the funding of the gas tax that we currently have, and with bonding I mean, with indexing of the gas tax. I mean, I just think the solution is going to be a combination of all these items or at least we have to prove to the public that those can't solve the problem before they're going to be willing to pay, to vote for a sales tax. MR. FEDER: Okay. I'll bring back to your item and yes, I appreciate that and we'll look at a number of things. Obviously today, there were so many different variables that we had to try and concentrate down and put things in perspective for you. You did ask one question, though, about our current revenue stream if we go to bonded. When I mentioned to you the half cent bonded, the idea was to keep your current income stream not bonded. There are some definite reasons why you'd like to do that. Page 41 March 2, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Why? MR. FEDER: Essentially then, as you have issues coming up you've got more flexibility than this commitment on a debt service payout in future years. So and there are some issues, what happens if, in fact, your impact fee stream isn't as you expect, plus you've got to set 125 percent, essentially when you go to bond, of your revenue stream, so that constrains some of your ability to produce. MR. McNEES: There are a couple of other bases we can cover today in your questions, and you asked about the ability to bond our current revenue stream, what does that do for us over five years. I think what Norman told you earlier was you can pretty much get there in the five-year program if you bond everything you've got to the wall. But in year six, you've got nothing, because you've pledged every dime of your revenue to the bonds and if you think that in year six we will no longer have capital needs, then that's a good answer. But I don't think anybody presumes that in year six we'll have the capital needs. MR. FEDER: Right in front of your here, as Mike is pointing out, in the five years if you bonded the revenue stream you have today 116 million of the five-year, or one-quarter of the needs, essentially aren't addressed. Maybe at the same time, though -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Maybe I could address that quarter with some impact fees and indexing gas tax. MR. FEDER: It's a possibility, but then the other point, as Mike is pointing out to you is, if you address that one-quarter, if you address that one-quarter, Commissioner, is over the 20 years you have just basically taken your revenue stream. Remember, the revenue stream produces about the same revenues you need to meet the needs in the five years. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Basically mortgage the future if we do that. MR. FEDER: Let's put it this way. I think you had four years, three years to four years of no ma]or construction that created the situation that we're facing today, the hole that we're in. What do you think 6 through 20 would create? That's basically the issue. MR. McNEES: The other one I think we can at least partially Page 42 March 2, 2001 address or already have, as you mentioned, one of your contingencies being the impact fee issue. And just for historical perspective, I'll say, we had a very similar workshop to this I'm going to say two and a half years ago, and we got to a very similar conclusion which was that there ain't enough money and we need some more. At that time what the Board said was we really have no interest in pursuing some sort of a referendum for a new revenue source until we've done certain things. One of those certain things was get back out there and review your road impact fees, bring them back at their maximum legal level. And what we're telling you today is we've been there, we've done that one. You gave us that checklist two and a half years ago and we've been ticking things on that checklist over time, and we're telling you all those other things are running out. We've answered a lot of those questions and we've done a lot of those things, in particular the tourist tax is one that we can continue to pursue. That's obviously the least within our control. So I'm not telling we won't do those things, but we've been down that road. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Lobby against that tourist tax would be huge. MR. FEDER: The first thing your Growth Management Plan directs you to do is to consider lowering the level of service. You've already done that. The next is to look at revenue sources, and as Mike has pointed out, you've already started down that road with a very significant increase in your impact fee. And at least what we've been able to show you and we will show you the others, basically in line with other communities that have recently increased their fees, as well. You continue to look at that and be vigilant, but the fact of the matter is that's why we're raising to you these other issues. With that in mind, and noting that we're talking about nine and only basic operations or the black, if you will, on the five-year work program that we are telling you needs to meet the future five-year needs, we do have two decision items we have presented in front of you. I think one we've already dispensed with and we will be coming back to you on March 13 with a request that you consider Page 43 March 2, 2001 the reauthorization of the 5 cents gas tax. The second is a concurrence that, in fact, the County Manager's office prepare and present some of these issues that you've raised, but some funding options which probably would require us to go to referendum to find a way to address the needs. One we presented to you today is the half cent bonded, but again we'll look at some of the issues you've raised, other issues, and come back to you with what we'd recommend, and answer further questions before it goes anywhere, obviously. But those are the two decisions we hope you are comfortable with leaving from the presentation we've given you here so far today. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I can't say comfortable but I sure don't see a lot of options. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think we are -- Mr. FEDER: My comment before was I felt sort of like the painter that's sitting here painting you in the corner. I apologize, but I'm not sure that I had any other options. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. Reality bites. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You had no other option and I appreciate your candor in bringing it full front and center with all the options we have, all the challenges we have in front of us. Where are you at this point, are we ready for break? MR. FEDER: Just about ready for break. The only thing I'll note to you is we need a five-year work program that's balanced against production, against performance, and you see a bigger bag there of dollars, unfortunately. But what we're going to be presenting to you this afternoon, one of the big ones being concurrency management, we need to not just address it by construction, by dollars, but also by our policies and our decisions and that's what we're going to try to address. A short break, an opportunity for comments that folks may want to make on, particularly on the funding and those issues. I won't restrict it to just that, but I set two breaks given that we have almost two parts to this effort today. Tom, do we have anyone that's shown interest in talking? MR. OLLIFF: So far, I only have one registered speaker but I know that there are more, so I think we can take a break. Page 44 March 2, 2001 MR. FEDER: Okay. Tell you what, during the break we'll see what happens from that, and appreciate your time. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay, we're in recess until 11. (A recess was taken from 10:50 a.m. to 11:10 a.m.} MR. FEDER: If we could, again for the record, Norman Feder, Transportation Administrator. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay, folks, if you'd all be seated here and we're back in session in a continuation, and going to public comments, Mr. Feder? MR. FEDER: Consistent with the theme, we're trying to make sure that your sugar level is up. What I would ask is -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: If you think that she was pretty active before, hang on, folks, you haven't seen anything yet. MR. FEDER: Okay, good. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I ate my sugar. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah. MR. FEDER: Okay. What I will tell you is I think Tom's got quite a few speakers under public comment. We had set up basically two sections, feeling some folks may want to talk more on the general funding and some on the policy issues. But what is very, very clear and I will tell you up front on the policy issues, we're bringing up some of the items some of them we talked about a little, some we haven't, to try and get your direction. We don't expect that we're going to resolve any of those here today, but we will need direction on which of the priority ones for us to start working on and bring them back to you at subsequent board meetings or workshops. With that in mind -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I ask just one question -- see, that sugar, what it did to me --just thinking on the break, the deficiency -- I just wanted to make sure I understand the problem. The deficiency that you've outlined for us is a deficiency for the lowered level of service? MR. FEDER: Correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In other words, if we can solve this -- how many millions? 400? MR. FEDER: Basically, the deficiency is about 448 million over 20 years. Page 45 March 2, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: If we can solve this half a million dollar problem and one way we could do it was with a half penny sales tax -- MR. FEDER: Half a billion. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Half a billion dollars -- see my mind -- if we can solve this half a billion dollar problem what we will be doing is getting our roads to function at level of service D. That's what hit me at the break. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, equate that on a scale, folks. If you use a 1, 2, 3 scale, you're at a level 2, because A and B are not realistic. A is I saw a car; B is two or three cars went down the street in my neighborhood. Those are not relevant to what we look at in an urban area. So I think you really have to take C, D, E and look at at it 1, 2, 3. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I guess what I'm wondering is, if we're going to referendum, what would -- would a hole penny get us to level of service C? MR. FEDER: Realistically a whole penny wouldn't quite get you there, as well. There is quite a bit of work you have to go to get from D to C. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Would it get us to level of service C on our major arterials? MR. FEDER: We are in the process of your request to doing a buildout thoroughfare plan. We'll know a little bit more about that. But what I can tell you right now, just intuitively, is no, even the one cent wouldn't get you there. But in answer to your question, yes. The half cent is working on that number 2 or that D level that you mentioned. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I guess what I'm asking the Board to consider, just in the back of our minds, is if we're going to be asking the voters to tax themselves on a sales tax I wonder if they might be more willing to pay a whole penny for level of service C roads than to pay a half a penny for level of service d roads. Because D roads are congested. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, Commissioner, if you're asking for if you want to have a better road system, I'm sure by building these roads we are going to have a much better road system. But I think there is an option of some of the things that you Page 46 March 2, 2001 brought up is making sure that growth is truly paying for growth. And also, if we could do anything with the tourist tax. That could be an added plus to the system that we have. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I guess while the speakers are coming up somebody would give me the definitions of LOS C and LOS D. MR. FEDER: The way I can characterize it, as the Commissioner pointed out, if you were on the Autobahn, no other cars on the Autobahn, you have absolutely no constraints. That's A. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't want to build that. MR. FEDER: If you're on the Autobahn and there's only a couple of other cars but you can basically get around them, you have plenty of room, nothing slows you down, nothing stops your ability to function the way you want, you're at B but you still have some other cars. The minute you put a signal generally on an arterial, you've lost your ability of B. So that's why the Commissioner's pointing out very correctly so that A and B probably don't need to be considered. You start off at C. C is essentially where you're traveling but generally you are not constrained by the other vehicles traveling in that path. You do sometimes have to platoon, but you don't have to necessarily slow down, and generally you can make the decision and you can make the flow decision. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You can travel comfortably. MR. FEDER: Comfortably. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Wasn't C the level of service we should be demanding? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, and if we did, we are another half a billion dollars away. We're a whole billion dollars away from our 20-year funding opportunity and more if we went to LOS C. This is a point I'm just putting out there, guys. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I understand your questions, and I would say I would like to know, compare that to other communities. And if you're talking those kinds of dollars, remember, we are only talking roads today. MR. FEDER: That's the other thing COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: When did we lower our LOS from Page 47 March 2, 2001 C to D in this county? What year was that? We never had C on any roads? I think we did. MR. KANT: Edward Kant, Transportation Operations Director. When we originally went to the level of service standards, there was a decision at the time by that then Board -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That was in like '86 or something? MR. KANT: That was in the late '80s early '90s -- that the acceptable level of service would be that which was achievable at that time based on the network that we had. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. KANT: There were some road segments which were at C, but the minimum acceptable level was set at D. There were also 11 or 13 segments that were pooled out, which were placed at E, given the reasonable constraints at the time, and there was one segment -- Vanderbilt Beach, to be specific, a section of Vanderbilt Beach -- which was called policy constrained. It was going to be put at E with a potential for four laning and because of the policy constraint, was determined that it would stay at two lanes or enhanced two lanes. So there was never a conscious decision to go from C to D. MR. FEDER: The other thing I think is important to point out, first of all, we can check, and my involvement statewide and in particular in the district with five other urbanized areas, was nobody was at C. D and E was pretty much the standard for every one of them. The other thing to point out too, though, is as you're considering those standards you're looking at the 250th hour, so you're not just looking the peak hour when somebody get out of the ballpark and stadium. But you are looking at a 250th hour over a whole year, so you are basically going for your peak hours. So in the off-season you don't necessarily want a C that does create Autobahn with nobody there during the off-season. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: B is peak hour, peak season. MR. FEDER: B is peak hour, peak season, about 250th hour. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What does 250th hour mean? MR. FEDER: Basically if you took all of the hours out of the year, stacked them up and came down to about the 250th, that takes off the real major peaks or anomalies and gets to your Page 48 March 2, 2001 highest hour peak season. MR. OLLIFF: 250 is the busiest hour of the year. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I see. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Norm, if we were to set it to a level C, how many grade separations would we need to have? MR. FEDER: You would need to turn most all the system into expressways. In answer to your question, basically go pretty universally to grade separation. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Isn't it part of the community character that we slow down that type of -- MR. FEDER: Type of approach. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And have more of-- MR. FEDER: And what we've presented to you is one grade separation at Airport, and I believe the provision for the potential for two other interchanges over the 20 years, or grade separations If I can, let me hand it over to Tom on public comment. Tom, did you want to try and do all the public comment at once rather than two separate sections? MR. OLLIFF: Well, we have two different sections and most of the registered speakers did not indicate whether they wanted to speak on the first part, which was the fund part, or the policy portion. So if there is somebody specifically who's registered to speak and they want to speak on the policy portion, if you just waive and let me know that, we'll hold your slip for the last portion of the agenda. Chief Diane Flagg. Following Chief Flagg will be Tom Conrecode. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I will not take your time, Chief Flagg. There we are. You're being recorded on WINK or WAVE or Fox, or whoever you are. CHIEF FLAGG: Good morning, Commissioners, Chief Diane Flagg for the record. I've been asked just to clarify what the impact of the road system is having on emergency response times. The Commission's level of service standard for the EMS department is six minutes or less response time in the urban areas to emergency 911 calls. Certainly, the increasing population has an impact because Page 49 March 2, 2001 that increases the volume of 911 calls. However, the road network does challenge us significantly, particularly in certain areas of the county when our paramedic vehicles cannot access the roadway to get through to get to the 911 call location. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is there a time? Has the number changed from six to something else? CHIEF FLAGG: Currently we are not at 100 percent six minutes or less. And again, the volume of 911 calls we're experiencing are greater than a 10 percent increase in our volume of calls annually. So that certainly has an impact. I don't want to say that the roads are the only reason. But the population increases are driving the volume. However, you will see our emergency vehicles in several of the new stations have been working with us to help drivers understand the importance of pulling to the side when emergency vehicle is behind them with lights and siren, but when they have nowhere to go, it makes it a real challenge to get through traffic. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Diane, are there areas of the county where that is more of a problem? Could you produce a map that said here's the red zone where we have trouble with our six minutes and a yellow zone -- I'd love to see something like that. CHIEF FLAGG: I can certainly work with Norm Feder to do that and highlight for you the particularly troubling spots. I will offer to you that several years ago, we had discussed doing preemption devices. Preemption devices are those electronic devices that go on the intersections, and what a preemption device does is, it actually creates a path for the cars to go so the emergency vehicles can get through. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In other words, they control the light? CHIEF FLAGG: Correct. So that would also be of assistance, because if you've got such as the Airport Road-Pine Ridge intersection -- and I'm sure y'all have at some point traveled that intersection -- it is extremely challenging for us to get emergency vehicles moving in an east-west direction along Pine Ridge Road. Where if there was a preemption device, instead of the cars being locked up, we could turn that light green, allow the cars to Page 50 March 2, 2001 move through that intersection to allow the emergency vehicle to continue to move. And I recognize that isn't part of this discussion but that is something that is also helpful. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that going to be in your budget as you propose it to the County Manager? I'd encourage you to do that. CHIEF FLAGG: That is certainly something that we could consider and it obviously would be his decision as to whose budget that would be in. That would be something that all agencies, emergency as well, would have the ability to use, the Sheriff's Office, the independent fire districts and also the EMS department CHAIRMAN CARTER: Maybe if you go that route you can get somebody else to pay two-thirds of it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It would have something to do with that map that would show what were the red zones. Maybe you only need it in certain districts, not everywhere. CHIEF FLAGG: That's actually where we have targeted intersections and areas that are extremely challenging for EMS vehicles to get through. So we'll work with Norm to produce that map for you. MR. McNEES: What we are calling the intelligent transportation system and real time ability to work with the intersections will be of assistance with that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Kant, your planning of that situation is your magic stop lights or go lights. MR. KANT: Yes, Commissioner. Phase I of that is currently under construction under the auspices of FDOT. They are in what we would call the materials ordering phase because we're getting so many of our intersections changed out from string poles to mast arms and they take a while. Remember, this is not a construction project like a Pine Ridge or Immokalee Road. These are individual intersections. A lot of the work is going to be done underground in the cabinets, so you won't see that kind of massive construction. It's more subtle COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: When will we see the first improved? MR. KANT: If, in fact, this system works the way we see it Page 51 March 2, 2001 work, you will never know it. It will be transferred to the motoring public. The first phase is about a year and two months. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: By this time next year there will be some of those intersections? MR. KANT: 64 out of a total of 140. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We'll be about half done in another year. MR. OLLIFF: Speakers are Dawn Jantsch and Tom Conrecode. I'll encourage the speakers to move it out a little. We do have a number of policy issues we need to cover. Thank you. MR. CONRECODE: Tom Conrecode, and I'm here with a number of different organizations. I was a founding member of the Southwest Florida Transportation Initiative, which has had a $5 million positive impact on Southwest Florida in moving road projects forward. The Director of the Naples Area Chamber of Commerce is very much interested in transportation and we're here to do a couple of things. One, to encourage you to act immediately and decisively to sustain and advance the program Norm has laid out today, and it's going to a take a couple of decisions I'll point out a couple of specifics on. I was going to request that you act immediately and unanimously. I'm glad I don't have to have you do that; it sounds like you're already there. Similarly, I'd like to ask you to consider on your March 13 meeting -- I won't be here in order to provide testimony then. I'll be in Tallahassee doing some of the lobbying that you were just talking about -- and instead, ask you to consider a budget policy change that would dedicate all of your gas taxes to your capital program. And in favor of moving some additional ad valorem taxes which have been sustained in an artificially Iow format for about a decade; instead, fund a lot of your road maintenance and road operations cost out of that revenue. In addition to that, replace some of that with MSTU and in the cases where it can be for beautification and some other community basic enhancements or regional basic enhancements. Next, I'd like to ask your staff to continue to augment your staff. It wasn't in Mr. Feder's presentation this morning, but he Page 52 March 2, 2001 has an incredible work program. Listen carefully to his needs in terms of staffing, in terms of consultant support, and ensure that we can act promptly to make sure that he can deliver and we don't constrain his ability to deliver projects. Next, be prepared to incur debt. I don't think there is any solution out there. Previous boards have asked not to incur debt, but I think when you look at a road transportation facility that has a life to 100 years, there is no base prepared to generate additional funding; and support it unanimously as a Board. The reason I say that is because a lot of the communities, when they look at your leadership, if they don't see you unanimously supporting a tax, they question their own ability to make that decision for you. So if you're going to put something before the voters, please be unanimous in that, not divided on it. If you are divided on it, have further debate before you present it to the vote. Next, place community needs ahead of individual interests and keep the program moving. I know this is a very controversial position. It may mean taking a house, running a road past a rather nice community. There are some things we can do to offset those impacts, but the fact of the matter is it's going to occur and we can't delay the road process. As a part of the MPO in approving the Golden Gate interchange plan, it did have some impact to the homes, and I appreciate you doing that and would encourage you to continue doing this as this goes forward. Support new funding authorization at the state level, but not look at the state level solving all problems. New gas taxes are certainly a possibility but I don't expect so in the next two years. There is proposed legislation before the Legislature this session that would impose a $2 per day rental car surcharge for rentals up to 30 days. That would, in fact, be returned to the local community where it's generated. Support that through your lobbying effort. And also, look for other opportunities for taxes, including the tourist tax. There is some discussion about that tourist tax issue, I think it again is being raised in Orange County and through the Metropolitan Planning Organization in Orange County to allow some revisions to the legislation to allow tourist tax dollars to be spent on the roads. Page 53 March 2, 2001 Regarding the policy issue on the roads, I would ask you and staff to think through that thoroughly because you could end up costing substantially more in not allowing credits. And I understand the issue in terms of not having control over your budgets when you don't do that. But be very careful the way you proceed with that. I'll cite one example. We just recently completed a donation of right-of-way for Livingston Road 275 feet wide -- If I could have another minute -- 275 feet wide the length of Vanderbilt Road to 41 that was dedicated. You appraised value in January 1995 dollars. If you were to drop by that today as you're preparing to pave that road, you would be paying 10 times as much for that right of way now as you did then. We haven't been pushing to get that road completed because it didn't really serve the development; it severed off existing roadway. Credits we received for that particular project have, in fact, been paid back at 2001 dollars; much higher. I would encourage you to have staff stand on top of FDOT. And as far as the Metropolitan Concurrency Program, be happy to provide staff to that. And I know you haven't addressed that issue yet, but it's certainly one that we expect the FDOT will take action on in the coming year, and there is a draft policy before them now. Next, I would ask you not to look to the State to solve the funding dilemma. The State's looking at a $25 billion shortfall in their 20-year building program, and they are looking, believe it or not, at your surface transportation dollars as part of the solution to that problem, which means your surface transportation dollars are coming back before the MPO in August will get smaller not larger. I would encourage the county also to have representation in Tallahassee, both in session and out of session, on such issues as diversions, indexing, grants and other funding opportunities that we can take advantage of here in Southwest Florida. In response to discussion of impact fees, commercial, residential, whatever, I would ask you please rely on the nexus issue. It's not a panacea and make sure we aren't in a protracted lawsuit in on that issue. Let me try and conclude with a comment on deficit Page 54 March 2, 2001 budgeting. I had mentioned earlier that ad valorem had been artificially Iow for some time. That's really what you're dealing with today, the fact that deficit budgeting was done. I remind you in 1995 when the flooding occurred, a lot of the problems was because of a lack of stormwater management. It had been years and years of budget cuts; all of a sudden there was a multimillion dollar increase in that particular budget to solve that particular problem. We can't operate in deficit today, and I think the community is ready for an increase in ad valorem if it's to support the program. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Are we ready? MS. JANTSCH: Good morning. Dawn Jantsch representing the Naples area Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Conrecode is the chairman of our transportation task force for the Chamber, and I think I can pretty much echo what he just said. He obviously is the technical expert of the group. I would like to commend the Board for your obvious support of the extension of the gas tax. That is crucial to the future of the success of this, and I would also like to commend Mr. Feder. He has been in our community a very short time, but I think we have seen the specifics of what we need to do. I also think that a good public relations campaign in showing the specific roads that are going to be built and what will not be built, if we do not look at the options he's presenting, will be the way to pass this. I also, again, want to issue support for a unified Board as we move forward on these options. It will be a tough decision, but it is one that definitely needs the unified support of leaders such as yourself. You were elected for a reason. We know that you can move the community forward. We have spent several years and been somewhat stagnant since on the roads. We know that. It's all over the papers; it's all over the media. It's been said at this board level, and it's time to move forward. So I wish you the best in taking that strong unified support. And, Mr. Feder, I would like to say that if I had a nickel for every time somebody was late for a meeting and used the roads as an excuse, I could probably pay for your roads. MR. OLLIFF: Mayor MacKenzie will be followed by Mike Minozzi. Page 55 March 2, 2001 MS. MACKENZIE: I, too, will only take a moment to thank you for what seems to be a unified commitment to continue the local tax. It seems as though it's a very obvious first step, but it was still one that was in doubt. I appreciate the fact that you do seem to be united in supporting it. It is the clearest and most easily defined as a user fee, and I think that's where we need to be going with -- when we explain to the other people that -- who possibly don't drive -- that we're going to have to look at other revenue sources. This one is an obvious one. I thank you very much for your support of it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Mike Minozzi followed by Reed Jarvi. MR. MINOZZI: Mike Minozzi, councilman from Marco Island. Just a couple of short comments and one question. First, I want to congratulate Norm and his staff for doing such a thorough job in this presentation. I also want to thank the commissioners for such an understanding and the work you're doing on this. Another comment. I was a little bit surprised to hear that only 30 percent of the sales taxes are borne by our welcomed visitors, and it just seems to me as if that's just not a fair thing. I believe that their impact on our infrastructure is more than that. But that's something just to think about for the future. Along with that, just a kind of a personal pet peeve of mine, a one cent sales tax -- I think using that term is misleading. It's one percent. Maybe it's neither here nor there, but I'm wondering if people think that one cent sales tax means one cent on my entire purchase rather that one percent of my entire purchase. Again, that's just like a personal thing. I agree that growth should pay for growth. There's no question about that, and I want to ask a question, and maybe it's because of my background in the city because we are very limited, at least Marco Island and how we can tax. The differential in the accessible values due to new construction each year is considerable, with all the building that's going on around here, and I'm wondering if some of that money should be allocated towards some of these capital expenditures. I know that there's -- obviously everything's, I'm Page 56 March 2, 2001 sure, spoken for, but it's just something I wanted to raise. That should be an area that should looked at. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Reed Jarvi followed by Gary Galleberg. MR. Jarvi: My name is Reed Jarvi. I'm a professional engineer in the community. Been here for about 11 or 12 years. Today I'm speaking on behalf -- or as a member of the Chamber of Commerce Transportation Committee. Most of what I have to say Tom Conrecode said much better than I would have been able to,but I do want to encourage you on a couple of points of transferring funds or reallocating the funds for the gas tax towards capital projects, I'd like to voice that, away from maintenance and find other sources for maintenance funds, and also encourage every opportunity for funding options. From our presentation today, I think we saw that there are potential funding options that will add to it, but it's one percent here, two percent, three percent. It's not going to solve the problem, but I encourage you to do that as a balanced approach as much as you can and take a little bit from everybody and maybe every source. It seems to me that a sales tax of some sort, whether it's one percent or half a percent, is the only way that we're going to make up the shortfall, so I encourage you to look at that. And one last point is, if we go that route, I encourage you strongly to keep it separate as a transportation sales tax and not put other items on it that would dilute its value and possibly cause its defeat. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF-' Next speaker is Gary Galleberg followed by Dex Groose. MR. Galleberg: Good morning. Gary Galleberg, Naples City Council. I want to speak for a moment on the possible funding alternatives and to emphasize to the commission that you really need to put every ounce of effort you can into impact fees, I mean on a couple of different levels, in collecting all the fees that you can. I think that's a first imperative. Also, in educating the public on what impact fees are, what has been the history of how they've been handled, and where they should stand in the pecking order. As Commissioner Henning pointed out, I think almost Page 57 March 2, 2001 universally in our community, we expect growth to pay for growth. Common sense shows everyone that growth has not paid for growth, and a lot of that is water under the bridge. I understand that we can't go back today and pay for past mistakes, but that needs to be explained, and it can't be explained away. It just simply needs to be explained. And going forward, while I understand impact fees are not going to solve the entire funding program, I'd like to point out that in my view, politically, you're not going to get anywhere on anything unless everyone is convinced that the commission's done everything possible on impact fees And for the development community, human nature is that you don't want to pay more than you have to. That's understandable, but I am an elected official. I'm in touch with the development community a good deal, and I think it's safe to say they understand in the pecking order of possibilities they are at or near the top, behind perhaps just the gas tax. And while we can't go back and charge for past mistakes, as a community, I think the developers understand that we cannot continue making that mistake going forward, and we need to be at or very near the maximum and not worry, frankly, about what Lee County is charging or what Hillsborough is charging or anything else. There is a lot of demand to be in Collier County, and people will pay for that. We cannot be externalizing the cost of development on the citizens already here. It just won't fly, and you'll never get to a sales tax question or to an ad valorem question. So I just want to emphasize for you to continue to put a lot of work into the impact fee issue. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Councilman, may I ask you a question? Are you familiar in any community where they use real estate transfer fees towards a dedicated source such as roads? MR. Jarvi: I am not familiar with any, but I don't feel that I'm knowledgeable enough to say that that doesn't occur. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Appreciate that because that's a thought that always enters my mind that since we didn't collect it in the past, the buying and selling in established areas might be a contributing factor, if there was a transfer fee which some communities already impose within their gates on the residents to fund part of their operation. Page 58 March 2, 2001 MR. Jarvi: I think off the cuff that would be worth looking at because we have the segment of growth paying for growth, the existing residents have benefitted both from the economic times but also from the demand of people to move in Collier County from transfers of real estate. I think that might be a viable thing to look at. CHAIRMAN CARTER: It may not be a huge number, but it certainly would demonstrate another piece of the puzzle. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: A good point that was brought up, and I think we missed when we talked about the gas tax, reinstating it, was going and maybe directing staff to come back with a proposal that we could take to the other gas tax and redirect it back toward the capital improvements. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We'll be getting that opportunity at budget policy real soon. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It would be great to be able to know ahead of time where we're heading, so they can come up with a logical budget for where we're talking about for the roads. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think that's great, Commissioner, and under policies this afternoon, we can discuss that. MR. OLLIFF: Dex Groose is your next speaker followed by Bruce Anderson. MR. GROOSE: Good morning. I think we are all concerned about transportation, not because of the flow of traffic, but when we have to stop, and it's been my experience that while we have a lot of our intersections controlled by computerized traffic signals, these computerized boxes at the intersections are not acting as smart boxes. I think we've got a lot of dumb boxes out there, and it's nothing more exasperating than to be sitting at a light unnecessarily because the computer didn't sense that no traffic's coming in either direction. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Excuse me just a second. Do we have computerized boxes in place yet? No, sir. MR. FEDER: No, they're all dumb yet. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They're all still dumb boxes. MR. GROOSE: Well, they're not integrated yet, but we have the -- each intersection is controlled and can be tweaked. It's my position that we ought to tweak these intersections that are unnecessarily impeding traffic, and we have a number of Page 59 March 2, 2001 them. I live near Pine Ridge and Airport, so I'm very familiar with some of the hot spots. Secondly, if you want to look at a balanced approach to a sales tax, you may want to consider a winter tax, a November through April tax. That would be shared equally then by full-time residents and our part-time residents or visitors. Right now the full-time residents are absorbing the bulk of that tax, of course. And lastly, I would like to encourage that all future roads and some under construction right now like Pine Ridge and Livingston be landscaped. I think it's the right approach. I think the county needs to put in the power for street lights and the irrigation for landscaping as well as the appropriate topsoil,and then through MSTUs let the local communities decide how much they want to enhance it. That might help drive down the cost of the $300,000 per mile that you're planning on right now. But we are doing that. As a resident of Kensington, we're looking at Livingston road, and we're coming forth and planning to pick up part of the cost of enhancing that corridor, but I think you can consider it like a linear park, and if you put in the infrastructure, the power for the street lights, the irrigation and the appropriate soil for the landscaping, then we can do the rest, the MSTUs. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you and that community. And others, by the way, has participated. In our last Board meeting, we did give staff direction to make sure we had an integration between what I called the public and private sector on all of our meeting improvements in the county. So they're working on that now. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Your next speaker is Bruce Anderson, who will be followed by Ken Drum. MR. ANDERSON: Good morning. My name is Bruce Anderson. I'm with the law firm of Young, Van Assenderp, Varnadoe and Anderson. I'm on the Chamber of Commerce's issue advisory council and a member of your development services advisory committee. I've been a resident since 1982. Since we're having a reality check today on the road situation in our community, I'd like to give you a little perspective from the other side of the roadway. First, I'd like to talk about the impact fee credits and the proposed limitation on them annually each year and the rationale. Page 60 March 2, 2001 In most cases, impact fee credits come about as a result of the county requesting a right-of-way dedication that's not related to the impacts of development, and the county forces the property owner to accept road impact fee credits, rather than paying cash up front. This has worked greatly to the advantage of the county, who got road right-of-way and use of the money due to the property owner until the road impact fee credits were actually used when development commenced on the property. Next item I'd like to touch on is the road impact fee increase that occurred last year and the deficiency in the backlog of our roads. If part of the deficiency in our road system is because road impact fees were too Iow in the past, it is because the county failed to follow the requirements of its own road impact fee ordinance, which required the county to review and adjust road impact fees every three years. That did not happen. It was a seven-year time span that passed for any road impact fee review and adjustment until the increase that occurred last year, and in connection with that, your staff is still tinkering with a consolidation of the various impact fees into one ordinance. That is scheduled to come before you in less than two weeks. Such a consolidation is long overdue and much needed, but it should not be rushed through without adequate, practical review by those in the private sector that also have to work with the new consolidated ordinance. That adequate, practical review will not occur if the ordinance is voted on on March 13th, as presently scheduled. I would encourage you to delay that vote until March 27th. I'd also like to talk -- since I'm a lawyer, I'd like to talk about a rule of law for a moment. It's called rational nexus, and that is a legal principle that the dedication of road right-of-way or impact fee requirements must be rationally and proportionately related to the impacts caused by a particular development. This rule of law has been approved by both the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, and it does place a limitation on your otherwise broad powers. And lastly, I would just make the point that the real problem with the existing deficiencies in our road system and existing residents is that most folks want fine champagne for the price of Page 61 March 2, 2001 a six-pack of beer, and roads are no different than most things in life. You get what you're willing to pay for. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Bruce, I wouldn't say this except for, you know, it bothers me. You're right, of course, when you said that the county did not look at its impact ordinance every three years like it was supposed to, but if anybody wasn't paying for the champagne, it was the developers. So, you know, kind of-- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You didn't give us the bill. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think it was ultimately the residents that benefitted from that because you pay $2 for a set of shoes or is it really worth $4, so -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Add a couple of zeros to that, and I'll follow it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I'm a Kmart shopper, I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Next speaker, please. MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker's Ken Drum, followed by your last registered speaker, Michael Kirk. MR. DRUM: Speakers have a good time at the meeting because I just heard about champagne and beer. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You may be able to go there, but we won't. MR. DRUM: So I'll try to hurry this up. What I'd like to talk to you just a little bit today is about the idea of public support for any kind of initiate you might have in regard to roads. It's one thing to dream about what an ideal system is or should be. It's another thing to garner public support for it. The sales tax, by the way, is a regressive tax, as you know. Its burden falls most heavily on the ones who can least afford it. I come from a community where we're fortunate enough, Lely Resort, to be able to afford it. The problem is that in many of these communities, including ours, this road program jeopardizes the very ambiance, way of life, that we enjoy. Our residents probably, in a one percent increase, would probably pay anywhere between $500 and $1000 a year. I don't know of one person who would pay one red cent if they thought that their community was going to be ruined by a highway right Page 62 March 2, 2001 through the middle of it,and so what I would urge you to do is to continue a process of meeting with the communities and working out these problems. Otherwise, this whole program and all the effort and experience that went into it is going to fail. Thank you for listening to me today, and I guess the champagne's out in the hall. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Out in the back. MR. OLLIFF: Your last speaker is Michael Kirk. MR. KIRK: Hello, commission. My name is Michael Kirk. I am a civil engineer, long-range planner for Collier County public schools. First of all, I want to thank you for the opportunity to come in and speak before you. You have to excuse my dress, it's casual Friday in the district, and I had not planned to speak on this matter, but I think this is a wonderful opportunity to let you know that we have a stake in this as a district. I want to commend your staff for taking the time to actually put together a plan that is -- that adequately addresses not only the needs that you currently have and addresses the deficiencies that we currently have in the county, but a plan that they are aggressively trying to seek your support in order to fund. We have and will continue to work with your staff in letting them be aware of the schools that we're building, as well as property that we are acquiring to meet the needs that we have. Our current capital plan shows a need for 11 elementary schools, three middle schools, and two high schools in the next 20 years. However, I can say that, based on the figures that we have now, our 2001 capital plan will require even more, and because of this need that we will have -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Would you say that number again? How many schools? MR. KIRK: Eleven elementary schools, three middle schools, and two high schools over the next 20 years. And I do say that that number will increase. We -- from the projections that we have, we see a need that -- there will be a need for a lot more schools. But what we desire to do is to work closely with your staff and to keep them aware of the things that we are doing because currently as we are in need of these existing school sites and to Page 63 March 2, 2001 build schools, what we want to do and have launched on is an aggressive site acquisition, a program in which we are trying to obtain all the property that we will need for our schools for the next 20 years within the next three to five years. With some to the changes that have been made in Tallahassee, there might be a need for us to acquire even more school sites, and because of this, we understand that what you do with the roads is very, very much important to providing facilities and infrastructure to the schools when they are built, and we are trying to work as much as possible with your staff to allow that to occur. One of the things that I've come today to say is, in April of this year we will be presenting our 2001 capital plan for approval by our school board, and what we would like to do is, after that, is approve -- that we would come back and make a presentation to the commission and to your staff as to where we are planning to acquire property, deal with the properties that we are presently in the negotiation stages, and to paint a picture of what we plan to do over the next 20 years. And hopefully by doing this, that we can work jointly in cooperation in providing what we need, not only for the citizens, but for the students of Collier County. That's what I would like to say this morning. Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: May I just -- one message that I would encourage you, if you haven't already, to meet with Bob Mulhere, who's our planning director, because it occurs to me from time to time as we approve large PUDs that perhaps some portion of land or some contribution should be required for or set aside for schools. MR. KIRK: Yes. We are actually right now getting our forces together to address those issues and seeing how we can actually take advantage of those opportunities. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I was going to say -- and I thank you for being here this morning, Mr. Kirk. And it will be helpful for planning services and transportation both to know what your anticipated plan is. How does that integrate into what we're talking in five years to 25, so that we are aware of the impacts those locations will have on our proposed road networks? I think that it is very important to us to know that, so that we Page 64 March 2, 2001 can cooperatively work together to do better what we haven't done in the past to protect those areas, so that we don't have congested traffic moving in and out of those locations. MR. KIRK: Your staff is getting very, very familiar with my face and have worked with me very well over the last couple of years since I've been with the district, and it is my charge to actually build bridges, in order that we can work together in meeting the needs of Collier County. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. One really quick question is, within all the PUDs approved and everything we looked in within the urban boundary line, are there more schools scheduled to go in that area? MR. KIRK: Presently we are looking at several sites, and hopefully before the end of this year, we will tie up all the need that we have currently within the urban area, and we are focusing on the rural and Golden Gate Estates area. COMMISSIONER HENNING: With that, I've got to say that we're looking at the Golden Gate Master Plan -- is coming up, so your input is going to be valuable. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a couple of things that I got out of the speakers that I would like to have staff do some research on. I think we have -- Heidi, just nod at me -- didn't we already research the calendar on a sales tax? You can't do it for a partial year, is what I recall, but that was such a good idea. I wanted to do it, but I thought I remembered we couldn't. MS. ASHTON: For the record, Heidi Ashton, assistant county attorney. It has to start January 1st, is my recollection when I reviewed the statute a couple of years ago. I do believe you could do it for six months, but it would have to start January 1st. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That was our problem. It was the wrong six months. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I'm not so sure. That's January, February, March, April. That's four out of six where a lot of folks COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's something to think about. And the other, I'm very much interested in this real estate transfer fees. MR. OLLIFF: I've got a note. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. I guess that was it. Page 65 March 2, 2001 *** MR. OLLIFF: Dawn's here to kick us off on the second half of your workshop, which is primarily focused on policy related issues. MS. WOLFF: Thank you. Dawn Wolff, for the record, transportation planning department director. Now that we've looked at what we need and how much it's going to cost us to get there, we want to look beyond the obvious, our policy issues. Policy issues we'll be discussing in the second half will be in regards to concurrency management interconnection, impacts of disconnected development, functional classification, access management, and right-of-way use permits. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Are we on Section 7? MR. OLLIFF: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It looks like we are under tab 2, about halfway back. MS. WOLFF: Okay. I want to take you down a little bit of memory lane here. We selected an area which is bounded by Immokalee on the north, Pine Ridge on the south, goes on both sides of the interstate, one of our major development areas today. Taking us back between 1975 and 1990, the red-boxed areas highlight planned approvals. Those developments, single-family or commercial development that were approved during that time period and would be affecting the roadway network in that area. When we compare those approvals to the amount of trips they would potentially generate -- how many cars we'd see on the road every day -- was just under 24,000 vehicles on the road per day, making trips in and out of those developments. Now, let's glance into the next five years, 1991 through 1995. We see several more of the planned unit developments which were approved within this area. Comparing those to how many trips they generate per day, we're up over 87,000 on the roadway network in that very same area. Between 1996 and the year 2000, we see a much greater amount of planned unit developments in that area. The number of trips generated by these developments is over 210,000 trips per day. That is the potential under standard traffic engineering procedures. These 210,000 plus trips have to be absorbed onto our roadway network system. What we have today is a checks and Page 66 March 2, 2001 balance -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have got to pause you there for a second because that looks really, really scary, and I know it's a really valid piece of information, but you're not suggesting that the approval of -- I would suggest that the actual on-the-road traffic impacts that are hitting right now have more to do with the '91 to '95 approvals and less to do with the '96 to 2000 approvals because they don't build them that fast. MS. WOLFF: Yes and no. The answer to that is, to a greater degree, yes, the '91 through '95, but as we've been in an extremely fast-paced development condition in the past several years, projects which are being approved a year ago are in 25 to 50 percent of development today. They're developing faster. This is the fastest growing area in the country. It is the most desirable location. So those projects which 10 years ago would have taken 10 years to develop are now being developed at half that amount of time because of the desirability of this area. That's why we're all here today. We like this area. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And in addition, though, what this tells us is that if we think it's bad right now, wait until we see when 210,000 trips really do hit, if 25 percent of them are on the road today. MS. WOLFF: Exactly. Thank you very much. That is very much on the point. So, having seen that, I want to talk to you just briefly about our current currency management practices that we utilize in our annual update and inventory report, versus what we're missing. And you said it quite clearly. We're only seeing 25 percent today. We're missing the other 75 percent for which our program is not based -- our work program for necessary road improvements is not based on. We use a snapshot picture using somewhat of historic traffic trends which are not always relevant to the development patterns that we're seeing right now and saying, this is when we think this road is going to need to be put in. What we are suggesting, to bring back to you in policy, is a methodology by which we will actually take a picture of what we've got today, relook at those approvals we have already in the bank and have been writing checks out, and saying, you're consuming so much capacity on our roads, make an accounting Page 67 March 2, 2001 of those approvals on a system-wide level, and say, this is really where we stand at, inasmuch as what we've committed, somewhat similar with what we do with our utilities, with our water and sewer, which back in '98 we found ourselves in such a shortage as inasmuch as capacity available, we had to actually start counting and earmarking every single permit that we issued, saying, yes, we have the facility to provide for them. We need to -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I be sure I'm understanding because this is -- when we do a rezone, we get told that we have traffic capacity for this approval. Therefore, it didn't trigger any of the five percent, blah, blah, blah, and so we approve it. Likewise, we get the same information on water and sewer. Doesn't trigger anything, so we approve it. What you're saying is that now, instead of going on estimates for how many cars are on the road when we actually approve or disapprove a building permit, we will go with real numbers and say, we may find ourselves saying even though you have an approved PUD, you can't build a house in there because that road is actually constrained even though we didn't expect it to be when we approved the PUD. MS. WOLFF: That's absolutely part of the policy that we want to bring forward to you later this year in detail. It is a reaccounting of how we deal with how much capacity we have out there on the roads, how much capacity is being consumed by all these developments. It's looking at how we approach evaluating our PUDs or rezones, whereby if you have land zoned for three units per acre today, and you come in with a planned unit rezone for four units per acre, our past policy, which is currently in place today, is to say we only look at the difference. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: At the one instead of the four. MS. WOLFF: We're saying you look at what's existing, if it's cows, then there's none. If there's a preexisting use that is currently in use today, then, yes, there may be credits given for that, but you do a comparison to the physical use today, versus what may be because otherwise, we're not counting them. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Instead of like what we do right now is, if you've got a piece of land that's zoned RSF6 and you come in for RSF8, even though it's a vacant piece of land, you Page 68 March 2, 2001 guys only measured the two, the difference between the six and the eight? MS. WOLFF: That's correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that's not working. MS. WOLFF: That is something that was questioned a couple of months back, I believe in December, when we had a couple come in that said the vacant piece of land -- and it had zero impact -- and I saw lights go on, and that's one of the reasons we're bringing this issue here to you today because we did see those lights go on. There were questions that were raised from the time that Mr. Feder came on board as well as myself. I have a history of working both with the county and state level in these areas, and this is a little different than some of the others. We're talking about establishing a concurrency tracking system that says, you've been given a certain amount of capacity, an approval for three years, for instance, of an example of a time frame, if you've not built out within that time frame, it expires, just as if you had a planned unit development. If you haven't developed it after a certain time, you have to come in and have it reevaluated and come back before the board for approval. And that's keeping up-to-date on your checkbook, so to speak. You can't just call the bank and say, okay, I have $500 in my bank account, I can go spend $500. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm in favor of changing that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't think you'll find any disagreement here. I guess what I'm hearing from you, Dawn, is that we could change it today. You don't have the system in place in order to meet the policy, be able to address that policy, because we've got more work to do to get there. So that's -- I guess that's what I'm -- MS. WOLFF: We are going to be coming forward with some ma]or comprehensive plan amendment changes to you in this next cycle, is one thing that we want to come forward to you. The other thing is, yes, it will be quite intensive, but with utilization of staff that has been approved to work in the transportation planning department, as well as perhaps consultant services to supplement that support. We are trying to plan a goal that within one year's time, we Page 69 March 2, 2001 will have a working system in place, whereby we can say within three years we would expect, within a system area of roadway, this is what our impact should be, and then can we meet it, or do we need to say, whoa, either you need to mitigate, if you want to develop, or you wait. COMMISSIONER COLETTA'- Took a long time to get to this point, didn't it? CHAIRMAN CARTER: My concern is what do we do in exacerbating the situation in the next 12 months while we're waiting for that policy? MS. WOLFF: We can make some changes today, but they're not written policy. One of them being the issue of, basically, the vesting of existing zoning rights, regardless of what the existing land use. There is nothing explicitly written that -- in the Growth Management Plan or the Land Development Code that says this. This was a policy where in the '80s, when we originally had the Growth Management Plan developed, we actually had a cost feasible plan that was also our needs plan. That no longer exists today. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In fact, it's -- legally the requirement is the opposite. In fact, you can't have a vested rights claim on zoning. MS. WOLFF: And that's what we've been assuming. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And we've been assuming you do. That's how we have been acting in this county, and you can't. MS. WOLFF: It has been an accepted policy, and at board direction, we can work towards modifying that policy on all new applications that come forward. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I guess what I would like is an interim tool to do whatever I can, so I don't create more of a problem, and then get to the final -- I won't say final -- solution, but one everyone is comfortable with. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And at the same time, while we're at this, you know, we do that sunsetting of PUDs, but it's been pretty meaningless as we have gone through. When we get the PUD sunsets in front of us, we have looked at them to see if they need changes for landscaping or something, just totally meaningless. Could we use this real ground count for looking at PUD Page 70 March 2, 2001 sunsets, as well? MS. WOLFF: Absolutely. That's one of the intents of the establishment of the department that I'm over, is to put into place qualified individuals who will help guide us in making these determinations. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, you're going to be my new hero, Dawn. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And within this, I would hope we could shorten our review cycle from five to three -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Or two. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I question whether it gives enough time. I don't want to be unreasonable, but I would certainly like to peel off a couple of years. So if you're going to do it -- MS. WOLFF: We will be looking at having some level of consistency between the approval length of zonings, the approval lengths of your site development plans, as well as for the Certificates of adequate public facilities. So we will be looking at all those together. We will be working with the county attorney's office, insuring we are not stepping on any land use rights as we develop these policies. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So far this second half is as encouraging as the first half was discouraging. CHAIRMAN CARTER: If you don't do this right, you won't have to worry about the first half. MR. OLLIFF: And in the meantime, I need to tell you that in sitting here in a workshop, this is the easy part, talking philosophically. We think this sounds good. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm watching the back of the room. MR. OLLIFF: And when we come back with the specific land use policy changes that need to make this occur, you will hear what the impact may or may not be out there, and that is not going to be an easy decision for you. But I'm telling you from a transportation planning standpoint, it has been so difficult to try and figure out where you need to build these roads and stay ahead of what has been the development pattern here. We have to do something different. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I agree, Tom, because we have not managed where we want to go. We have been driven by where we want to go by approvals in the past, so we just really don't know what's going to happen. Page 71 March 2, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And a process that, Jim, you and I sat on the board voting for approvals that if we had known what the policies -- what their effect was on the road, we might not. I can say for myself I would not have. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, that was always my concern. They said it's only five percent impact. Impact of what and what's the total? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And measured against the real or the theoretical. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And as time goes along, the impact on the road gets greater and greater, and that five percent becomes more meaningless, and that's something we have to do away with just as soon as possible. MR. OLLIFF: Dawn, you need to keep us moving. MS. WOLFF: Yes. Thank you. We will take that as direction from the board to move forward on these policy issues. *** If you flip forward in your booklet a few pages, and I'm just going to briefly run through this one. I think we've talked this one out quite a bit. We have received a lot of direction from the board in the past week on it, interconnection of local roadways. We need to specifically define what interconnection really means and provide you with the ability to say, yes, we shall have it, not just make recommendations. And we will also be dealing with what is the true definition of public streets, making sure that those words are there for you to be able to enforce what your direction is. So I'm going to move through those quickly and go to a brand new one. If you saw their eye shock before, wait until you see them now, *** Impacts of large unconnected developments. This goes towards impact fees. It also goes towards interconnection. When we approve major areas for golf courses or for gated communities, one thing we do is we eliminate our opportunities for providing localized interconnection to get local traffic off of our major arterials. One of the components of generating our impact fee schedule is our trip length. When you have to use the arterial system consistently to make all of your trips, it's kind of simple that your trip length is going to be longer. We want to come forward and look at this and see if there is a Page 72 March 2, 2001 difference between being a gated community or getting rid of our future opportunities for connectivity and see what kind of influence that can have on the impact fee structure, and perhaps come back to you in the near future with the concept of a sliding scale. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because a gated community is going to cost more because it has a greater impact, logically. MS. WOLFF: The logic -- we have to put the numbers behind it and provide that opportunity for you to consider, perhaps not only a differentiation between square footages, but a differentiation of impact fees, based on what the opportunities they either eliminate or provide. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That would be the rational nexus there, Bruce. He's not smiling back at me. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You keep this up, you're going to send him back for another heart operation. *** MS. WOLFF: I have finished with my easy pieces here. I am going to turn it over to Steve Miller, our director of engineering construction management now, on functional classification. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, I had a question, Dawn. When might we see those definitions of public street and what is an interconnect and a policy that requires it as opposed to -- MS. WOLFF: The next amendment cycle, we will be providing those to you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that's like June or something? MS. WOLFF: Right. We're going to be working with development services and meeting with them and their schedule and make sure that at least the policy components, if not the full implementation tools, come into the next cycle of amendments. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think that's a good point, but for our listening audience who may not be familiar with Land Development Codes and amendment cycles, each June and each December, we have an opportunity to make changes, and that's what's being discussed here, so that we can approach doing those in this upcoming June cycle. So that may help you for clarification -- understanding. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Although we can always do a standalone ordinance at any time, and we do our sort of maintenance review of our ordinances in June and December, Page 73 March 2, 2001 but any time we think there's a change that's important, it can be implemented as fast as it can be drafted and adopted. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Correct. So we have two options, two opportunities. MR. MILLER: Good afternoon. I'm Steve Miller, the director of transportation engineering. Two other policy issues that we wanted to bring before you this morning to talk a little bit -- or this afternoon -- a little bit about is the functional classification of our roadways, and that will be the first one I'll talk about. In your booklet, you should be at the current practice. This is what we're currently doing now, and that regard is -- I'll try to read through it real briefly for you, but you've got it there in front of you, but facility-type maps and the Growth Management Plan are based on outdated methodology, currently. Secondly, the responsibility for maintaining and updating those functional classifications. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is whose? Nobody's? MR. MILLER: I'm going to have to refer to my planning -- MS. WOLFF: Actually, it's not defined. That's part of our problem is, there's not definition of responsibility, and we're working on completely outdated maps, so keep pushing the buttons on down, and you'll see. MR. MILLER: Reason for change. These are some of the reasons functional classifications should be based on actual facility function, not jurisdictional responsibility. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I've got a question, I'm sorry. What's functional classification? Is that the A, B, C, D, E only as it's operating, instead of as it's classified or something? What is that? MR. FEDER: It's a little bit unfair of us because I've thrown Steve into one of planning ones. MR. MILLER: I'm a construction management engineer. This is a little out of my territory. MR. FEDER: This is by design, so bear with us. If you ask us a construction item, I'm going to jump down and ask him to come up, Functional classification is essentially trying to look at the purpose that is addressed by a roadway, and I'll be very quick. If you look at a continuum that says mobility is your only issue on one side, and a continuum says access to abutting properties Page 74 March 2, 2001 is your only one on the other end of the continuum, the interstate functions, if you will, mostly for mobility and through movement, not really land access. A local street is really access to abutting properties, and your classifications in between would go down from the interstate to an arterial, to a minor arterial, major collector to minor collector to local road. So the real issue is, is the function mainly to move traffic or to have traffic access abutting land uses? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. Sorry for the interruption, Steve. MR. MILLER: Okay. I'm going to just go through a couple of slides here. This is Pine Ridge, which is currently classified as a minor arterial. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Pine Ridge Road? As a minor arterial? MR. MILLER: Yes, ma'am. MR. FEDER: That's one of our problems. MR. MILLER: Here's Airport, which is a minor arterial; Orange Blossom, which is a local road. That's recently -- that's considered a local road. Okay. Here is our recommended policy. We want to establish a policy, responsibility for designating and maintaining the functional classifications. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I've got another dumb question. If -- is the significance of changing the functional classification because you apply a different formula to the road to see if it's meeting capacity? MR. FEDER: Yes. There's a number of areas, not only that. Our access management, how frequently we provide access again to that function. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But, like right now, you're measuring Pine Ridge Road on whether it passes or fails based on the standards for a minor arterial? MR. FEDER'. Yes. And when you do the workup table and issues -- but it's more so, although it is in that area, it's also for the other issues, design features, access standard. All the other things -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But I've got a question, just because I'm not -- I haven't got this all in my head yet. Page 75 March 2, 2001 If Pine Ridge Road is failing under minor arterial standards -- I'm not saying -- just if it is -- if it were classified appropriately as a ma]or arterial, would it be failing worse or doing better? MR. FEDER: I guess when you're saying, "failing worse," is a bit of an oxymoron, but, yes. Generally, yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In other words, the standard -- MR. FEDER: It still remains, but the bigger issue is, as I point out, is the issues of our design features, typical cross-section, access controls, and other issues that are built into your Land Development Code and your Growth Management as we go to refine those. We need to have our facilities identified. Another thing is, we talk about traffic calming, a neighborhood traffic calming. We need to calm the local streets. We need to protect our collector roads, and yet we have no definition of which is which today, and the nature of features and treatments need to be consistent with this function and purpose. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Which comes right back to the point Commissioner Henning was making about are we going to protect neighborhood streets or not. Well, first we've got to know which ones are neighborhood streets. MR. OLLIFF: Functional classification has a whole lot less to do with level of service issues than it does for us doing development review, making those decisions that we recommend to you in terms of PUD documents, where accesses are going to be, and all of those other access type issues. That's probably what's most important to us. To be able to put those definitions -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Would it also affect funding from outside sources, making applications in any way because we identified it more realistically and the impact on the community? MR. FEDER: Not necessarily now. And that's what's really changed. The reason it's so out of whack today is functional class did relate to funding. If it was an arterial, it was basically -- if it was a ma]or arterial, principal arterial, it was on the state highway system. So you can imagine why a lot of them are called minor arterials. They didn't end up in the state highway system. That changed about six or seven years ago, and yet it hasn't been resolved yet here in the county. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Page 76 March 2, 2001 MR. MILLER: We're going to talk a little bit about access management standards. In 1992, we implemented in Collier County the first access management standards. We're a couple of pages ahead of those lovely intersection shots. And at the time, we basically mimicked what FDOT had done. FDOT had done some pioneering work here in the state on access management, and access management was really in its infancy all over the country. We did that at the time in an attempt to get a handle on what we could see as a burgeoning problem. Everything you've heard today is a recognition that this problem has kind of ballooned a lot faster than any of us could ever have predicted back in 1991 or 1992. One of the problems with the resolution is that while it exercises or sets forth the will of the Board, it doesn't have the force of law, and as a result, there is always a lot of opportunity for negotiation, for looking at individual situations. And then the other issue was, we were looking at roadway segments rather than at roadway corridors, and so you need to look at the overall impacts. As I said earlier, one of the other issues was that it was used as a negotiation, so our approach to this today, since we haven't had any revisions or updates -- not that we haven't recognized the need for it, there have been several constraints, several reasons why not -- but the point we want to get across, in order to continue to conserve our roadway capacity, regardless of whether we're going to all six-lane roads, or however we're doing it, we're not going to achieve that goal if we don't also handle the access issues. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let me just say -- MR. MILLER: We're talking about driveway connections, we're talking about median openings, we're talking about traffic signal facings. These are the issues that have to do with access management. I'm sorry, Commissioner, you had a question? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, I just wanted to make a point for board members, and forgive me if I'm overdoing this, but I'd just like to get it down to its simplest terms and that is what we're really talking about here, is that transportation -- cars move faster on roads with fewer median cuts, fewer driveways, Page 77 March 2, 2001 fewer accesses, so -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Like we're doing on Livingston Road. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So, to the extent we build roads with a small amount, a fewer number of access points -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Maybe have collective access points. MR. MILLER: I would invite your attention today, for example, to Airport Road, right outside this facility up to roughly Golden Gate Parkway, and compare that ride with, say, Golden Gate Parkway up to Pine Ridge Road, where you have a total of three driveways on the east side of the road. Makes a big difference. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Big. MR. MILLER: What we're recommending to you is that we review and update that 1992 resolution, possibly with and eye of turning that from a resolution into an ordinance, to consider establishing access controls and also to look at some of our newer corridors and some of our existing corridors and making those controlled access or trying to limit the types of access that we have along those corridors. And we may want to come back to you and recommend, as Dawn pointed out a little earlier, that a lot of this be a part of Land Development Code update. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Are you talking about existing accesses? Limiting or closing some of those off? MR. MILLER: That is entirely possible, Commissioner. We do have some controls under the permitting process. I'm going to talk about that in a few minutes, but we also need to strengthen the county's ability to recognize that for the good of the many, we sometimes have to work with the few and make those changes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I think policy gives you a broad basis in which to consider, and ultimately the board can make decisions accordingly. But do keep in mind that when you have a policy in place, if you keep violating it, then we have not effectively supported what we said we were going to do. MR. FEDER: Commissioner, if I could, for the record, Norman Feder, transportation administrator. Most of what we're looking at would be related to development as it comes forward and gets permitted, as opposed to an effort to retrofit, acknowledging that Page 78 March 2, 2001 we've got some situations out there that may not meet our new desired standards. We're not looking at a wholesale effort to retrofit. The only area that I think probably that issue comes in, and it has a very important aspect that has been raised already today, it allows us by that control not only for operations or safety to look at some limitations. For instance, on the issue of Santa Barbara, just an issue that can take a while, so I'll try to be brief. We're looking at 951 and the ability maybe to take that six lanes, control its access as stringently as we reasonably can and still provide legally defensible and valid and reasonable access to abutting property, but to really control its movement. Set it for mobility to allow us maybe to try to reduce the lane cause that we would have on any Santa Barbara extension or on other facilities. Just as a way to explain some of what we're trying to get at with this effort. MR. MILLER: One of the issues that we've been dealing with, of course, is that we have some different review processes, and we want to make sure that transportation services does get included in the review process. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I've got a question about that. For six years I've been looking at PUD applications that say, transportation has reviewed this PUD and approves the -- whatever the application is, and now you're saying a new policy would be required for the transportation division to concur? MR. FEDER: It's not a new policy, ma'am -- Commissioner. It's already there today. What we're talking about is continuing to refine what we're looking at in those reviews and how we look at them. I think a lot of what you're hearing is a change of orientation to some degree about how they're looked at, and that's more what we're relating to. Transportation, first of all, is a new division only of recent creation, but public works has always had people looking at it. And as a matter of fact, Mr. Kant has been involved in the reviews over time. But we're looking at refining those efforts and creating even further coordination in transportation review of development as they come forward. Page 79 March 2, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And, Tom, if that is necessary, then perhaps it's also necessary for storm water management to have a more thorough review, and maybe it's necessary for the water utility. I mean, I have been assuming that all of those items were reviewed by the departments referenced on the staff reports. If that's not the case, it needs to be. MR. FEDER.' I will answer at least on storm water because that obviously is with me, as well. As a matter of fact, storm water and community development are sharing a new position that you approved last budget cycle. That, in fact, is even further enhancing that coordination review between storm water. So that effort is underway. I know Tom is pursuing that because I've been at meetings since I've been here in August, and every one of them has been oriented at making sure that we have the good coordination and interaction between the groups. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And you're right. Public utilities needs to be integrated into that process. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And, you know, I assume -- and let's just pause for one second to talk about this -- that environmental checkoff is because Bill Lorenz or somebody who works for him has looked at this and says, these are the environmental impacts, and same thing for storm water, same thing for roads, same thing for utilities. Is that happening? MR. OLLIFF: Yes. We have spent a lot of time rereviewing the development review process, and a lot of the things that you just mentioned are in-house within development services, so it makes it much easier in terms of development review. This was one of those disjointed efforts, especially when we did a reorganization and created a transportation division with storm water as part of that division, that we needed to come up with some new ways to make sure that that development review happened and happened appropriately because what was happening is, the transportation staff that wasn't development services didn't also have their foot in a "transportation world." So they were reviewing things from what they thought was a transportation view and requirement, while not spending time knowing what it was that the transportation construction staff, planning staff, was actually doing. So I think we've got most of that issue worked out. I won't Page 80 March 2, 2001 say that it's completely worked out. But as you have your workshop for the development review process, I think you'll get a lot better feel for what actually happens to property when it comes in for review. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And you've looked at that, and I understand you've looked at it for transportation because you created a new division, but you're looking or have looked at that for everything else? MR. OLLIFF: Storm water, environment. Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But Tom, I think, is saying in management terms, he wants a "seamless review" to bring to the Board of County Commissioners, so that we don't have people looking at things independently and throwing it over the wall. That's how we used to build automobiles, and we know what happened to the auto industry. And when we build on a platform car, that's where we're trying to go in county management. MR. MILLER: To wind up, Commissioners, we are going to be coming back to you with a recommendation to establish some different minimum criteria for inclusion in the Land Development Code and also to look at how those access management standards are developed. I would like to switch gears for a moment and talk about right-of-way use permits. This is another issue which deals with some of the frustrations you heard earlier during some of the public comment, and some of the frustrations that I'm sure that you hear daily in some of the phone calls you get to your office. I certainly get them in my office, and I can sympathize. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We sent all of ours to you then. MR. MILLER: We deal with permit -- we deal with closures of -- partial closures or closures of roadways, land closures, work in the medians, and unfortunately over the years, our permitting for right-of-way use has not really kept up with the burgeoning growth. We do have a permit process. That permit process that is in place has worked reasonably well. But again, it was set in place -- well, I've been here 20 some years, and it's basically the same process we've been working with. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Ed? MR. MILLER: Yes, ma'am? Page 81 March 2, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Besides road maintenance, which you would be doing, and landscape maintenance or installation which we would know about, what other -- under what other circumstances do people get right-of-way closure, right-of-way use permits? MR. MILLER: You get a lot of development activity for adding new turning lanes. You get a lot of utility work. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Putting a culvert in. MR. MILLER: Some drainage work. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Aren't those all projects that we're controlling? MR. MILLER: Not necessarily, ma'am. If you'll let me just run through this quickly, then I can kind of backtrack over that aspect of it. One of the other issues is not just the fact that we don't exercise a lot of restrictions over lane closures in our present ordinance, but we don't always coordinate well with other activities. We have, as you're aware, and I know that Mr. Wallace, Bleu Wallace, has brought several issues to your attention with respect to the utilities, if I may use the expression, usurping some of our own right of way. And in trying to control that through the permitting process, we've not always been successful. That's not unique to Collier County. That's something that's happening all over Florida. In fact, it's happening all over the country. Some of this is even a child of Federal legislation. But we need -- we can get a handle on it. One of the other issues that we deal with is the fact that typically we issue a right-of-way permit, it's good for about six months. If they don't get it done, they just come in and ask for renewal, and they get a renewal. This issue is becoming even more exacerbated by the number of roads that we do have under construction and that we do have under our control, as Commissioner Mac'kie was pointing out. One of the other issues, and I don't know why, but it seems like the worst time to close the lane is when they close it, which is at one of our peek hours. While we have restrictions on when they can work, for whatever reason, sometimes we don't get those restrictions complied with. Page 82 March 2, 2001 One of the issues is, we have so many permits out there, it would be almost impossible to fully police that activity on an ongoing basis. And the other big problem is that there doesn't seem to be adequate notification to the motoring public when a lane closure is going to take place, even if that's only for a day or two. So what we're going to recommend to you is that we change the mold a little bit. We've been looking at some other methodologies, and frankly, one of the better methodologies, again, was implemented by FDOT in a two-step process. Rather than simply going out and issuing a permit when somebody came in for an application, they issue what's called a "Notice of Intent to Issue." What they do is they review the project just like they would review it under any other permit application. They dot the i's, they cross the t's. They get all the conditions set up. And they say, okay, this looks good. When you're ready, we'll issue the permit, so you don't have a permit hanging out there. Assuming that everything else stays equal, then that applicant comes back, maybe it's six months later, maybe a year, two years later, and they say, okay, now we want our permit. They take another look. Is everything still the same as when we issued this notice? If it is, fine, they issue the permit. If it isn't, they have to tweak the clauses and the conditions, then they can issue the permits. There's a better control there. We're going to be making that recommendation. We're also going to be looking much more closely at the coordination of permitting with other departments. With the utilities, we want to try to bring not only our own utility department, but the external utilities. Frankly, the work that we do and the coordination that we have internally -- and I don't say this for points; I really mean this -- is exceptional. I couldn't have made that statement five years ago, but I can make it today. It's the external utilities that we have much more of an issue with. The other issue that we want to bring out and make part of our permit applications is motorist advisories. We want to make the permittee much more responsible for letting the public know when something is happening out there. Page 83 March 2, 2001 We want to begin to look at what is the cost to the public for somebody closing a lane. And other jurisdictions have tried and successfully implemented something called a "fee for a lane rental." If they're going to close a lane off, what does that cost the public? And again, with respect to our good friends, the attorneys, we want to make sure there is a rational nexus between what we charge and what that cost is. We don't want to make it so onerous that we can't get it done. We also want to look at requiring, rather than requesting, that certain work be done at night or on the weekends. It's more expensive. It is a little more dangerous, but with the proper application and maintenance of traffic methods, it can be done. We want to look obviously to the single-family home. We don't want to put the same requirement on somebody who's building a driveway in the Estates, let's say, as somebody that's putting a turn lane on Airport Road. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In addition to night work, could there be hours of day that work is prohibited on constrained roadways? MR. MILLER: That's correct. And we do that now, and we need to make sure that we can strengthen that, and again, enforce that. And we also want to look at making sure we have this in ordinance form, so that we can go through -- we have the force of law behind it. The other issue, of course, is we have one of fees. We want to make sure the fees are commensurate with what it takes to actually monitor that process. Very quickly, I just want to give you an idea of some issues that you're going to be seeing coming from us. And by "us," I'm talking about the entire transportation division -- that's planning, engineering, operations, storm water -- over the next probably four to six months, just so you have an idea of some of the things we have been thinking about. We have a new transit system, and so far I know I've seen a few of the buses. I've seen that there are actually people riding the buses. So to some extent, they're very successful in the first few weeks. We're going to be looking at transit passes as a county Page 84 March 2, 2001 employee benefit, maybe doing a 50-50 split to try to encourage county employees, where it's appropriate, to use the transit instead of coming out here and having to fight for a parking space with everybody else. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And that would -- say other major establishments that have employee usage could privately do the same thing. MR. MILLER: That would be a policy decision that the board could easily work out, I'm sure. We want to look -- we want to go back, and we want to look at our roadway sections. About a year ago, we stood up here, and we asked you to adopt a typical ultimate roadway section with space for landscaping and sidewalks and all those things. And one of the things we want to make sure of is that we are dealing now with these mobility issues. It was brought up at one of your meetings earlier-- I'm sorry, this is already March -- last month, that we have different modes of transportation now. We have a lot more interest in walking, in bicycling. We have a number of other modes we have to look at and make sure we account for all this in our roadway cross-sections. We're looking at a thoroughfare plan that is -- what's going to happen at build out? How are we going to get to build out? So Ms. Wolff and her staff are -- with consultants, are going to be looking at this long-range thoroughfare plan. And also, how do we preserve -- earlier this morning we talked about right of way and the fact that we have an idea where we're going, but one of the things we want to make sure of is that we are able to preserve the right of way. Several years ago, we started to put money in the budget for what we called "advance right of way acquisition." That has been somewhat successful, but I think you're going to see a little bit more aggressive stance on right-of-way acquisition. We need to look at activity centers. We're going to come back and see, how do we treat activity centers? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Abolish them? MR. MILLER: One of the things that we would like to see, for example, if you go up to the intersection of Pine Ridge and Airport Road, everybody says, well, that doesn't work very well, and yet, we have Naples Boulevard, which forms a kind of a bypass. Page 85 March 2, 2001 If we can begin to look at those types of things and find out is there a way that we move traffic through the activity center and get that access off of the ma]or intersection. We need to begin to examine those things, and we will be bringing back some ideas to you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I concur with that. I think that's a beautiful start, and it's just tragic that we can't get an interconnection between Trade Center Way and J And C Boulevard because if we connected all of that up, we would probably save ourselves a lot of -- MR. MILLER: I got that close to buying a property, until the price tripled, about a year and a half ago. But that's another story. And last but not least, we are going to be bringing to you, as Ms. Wolff pointed out, during this next LDC amendment cycle and possibly for the next several LDC amendment cycles, some new provisions and some revisions to the transportation issue -- issues that have come before you. I know that I've kind of blown pretty quickly through this, but if you have any questions on the access classifications or right-of-way permits, I'll try to answer them. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I just see it as a way of transportation taking control of the roads and what's happening on them. I think it's a great idea. MR. MILLER: I'd love to do that, sir. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: What you've heard is a lot of small improvements that are necessary, but if we don't start taking advantage of every little tweak that we can make here, there, and everywhere, over the long haul, I don't care how many improvements you make, we're still going to be in a bind. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I do have a question. In all this discussion we've had, have we completely eliminated the possibility of flyovers, grade separations at Airport and Pine Ridge and at Airport and the Parkway? MR. FEDER: No, we haven't. First of all, Airport and Golden Gate Parkway, we are proposing in the five years, if we have the funding, to, in fact, proceed with a grade separation there. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's the first one? MR. FEDER: Yes. The overall dollars over 20 years, that's the only one in the five years. In the overall plan over 20 years, the Page 86 March 2, 2001 dollars are in there for two other additional, but only two other additional, grade separations, whether on Livingston, on Airport, or wherever they get deemed most needed as time goes along. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just a reality check. I want to make sure it wasn't removed from the -- MR. FEDER: And it is not 23, sir. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just -- Norm, I don't know if this is a function of all the construction projects or what is causing it, but I have to agree with the gentleman who said that our lights are not coordinated. What's happening? Why is that -- it used to work a lot better than it's working right now. MR. FEDER: I think Ed is going to lump up and hit it. The other thing I am going to tell you is that when you have the lack of a grid system, which is -- I hear everybody telling me they're worried about gridlock, and I tell them they don't have to worry about it, we don't have a grid. Basically, what we're facing is unlike most situations, we have a grid and you can disperse the volumes over time. You've got the six-on-six arterials, and they are controlling your ability, and they're not spaced uniformly even for a grid. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But it was better than it is. MR. FEDER: Of course it was. There was less traffic utilizing that, and they were four-on-fours instead of six-on-six, with dual lefts, a right, and the other issues that you're having to tend to today. So what I'm going to tell you is, relief is at hand with the first phase and then the subsequent, which is you advance the design for advancement of payback with the state on the computerized signal system. But having said that, I do want to put it in perspective. We are never going to have the ability to structure it where whichever route you're on, as you progress to the next light, it turns green for you. We're not going to get there, and I don't want to mislead you. But, yes, there's improvements we can make. The gentleman has raised issues, and I can fix it in one corridor and exacerbate the other corridor. We have to balance all of them. But still we need to look at -- he's very, very correct, always try to fine tune it. And with the new system, we will have the ability to monitor Page 87 March 2, 2001 and to work with them. Having said that, Ed? MR. MILLER: I agree. Thank you very much, Norman. I just want to make the point that I and I think Norman said it somewhat nicer than I would put it, you can't put five pounds of potatoes in a one-pound bag, and when you have a constrained arterial network -- by constrained, I don't mean necessarily constrained in what -- in policy constraint. I'm talking about physically constrained to what we have, and that is six ma]or north/south routes, six ma]or east/west routes, in what I have fondly taken recently to calling from 151 west as the "City of Collier County." When you have that type of situation, as Mr. Feder points out, you are not going to be able to just go from light to light to light. And we have had, typically, in the last 10 years, anywhere from a six to eight percent overall increase in our traffic volumes. That is, vehicle miles traveled in this county. But that -- you know, I love statistics because you can make them do just about anything you want to make them do. I have some road segments where we've had 20 and 30 percent increases in season, and I can remember and most people in this room can remember, that in June, July, August, you could fire a cannon down US41 and not hit anything, and I'm only talking 20, 22 years ago. Today our traffic volumes on Airport Road, for example, from peek to annual -- that is how is the differentiation -- back in the late 80s, early 90s, we were running 15 to 18 percent. Today it's two and three percent, and our volumes in August are almost what they are today. Until we look at these network issues, the issues that have been presented to you today, the idea that we're going to get some magic to push, and all the lights are going to work, is just not out there, and even when it's always out there, like I said, it should be transparent, you're not going to make it from the courthouse to North Collier Hospital, say, up there, which is now about a 20 to 25-minute trip, you're not going to make that in five minutes. But if I can tell you that you're going to take 10 percent off your trip, 10 percent is significant, but it's still only two or three minutes. Thank you. *** MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, we've gotten to the portion of Page 88 March 2, 2001 the agenda where you take public comment again. And I have one registered speaker, if you'd like to hear. Janet Vasey, followed by David Ellis. MS. VASEY: For the record, Janet Vasey. I'd like to speak initially for the productivity committee, and then I'd like to make a couple of personal comments. I just wanted you to know that the productivity committee has been looking at the transportation issue for over a year now, and we thoroughly agree that the problem is huge and the way to solve it is through bonding. We wrote a paper in September and said bonding is the way to go, and with the possibility of a half-cent sales tax to service the debt. So I think we're all going in the right direction with that. And we spent a lot of time, too, with Norm and his staff and his predecessors looking at the issue, and I think they've got a really good handle on it. Also, we talked at our last meeting about looking into the tourist development tax, and I think there's some real possibilities there. I just got back from vacation about a week and a half ago, and everywhere I went the bed tax was six percent, seven percent, eight percent. The first thing we need to do is get that legislation changed so that we can charge more and so we can get to use some of that money for roads and things that also are impacted by tourists. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So that people understand -- because I was surprised to learn -- we are maxed out on the amount of bed tax we can charge, unless we want to build a sports stadium or something stupid like that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Or a convention center. We only have two options, Commissioner, and I agree. I'm like Janet Vasey. When I travel, I see that bed tax and always said, why isn't ours higher, but we are restricted by the State. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's a real good question. During the break I talked to Steve Hart (phonetic) and I asked him to pass that on to Dudley Goodlette that we'd like to have him research that for us. MS. VASEY: And these places that are charging eight percent are crummy places. I mean, we've got a great place. We ought to be able to charge more. Page 89 March 2, 2001 Personally, I would like to address some of the things -- a couple of years ago we kind of floated the issue of a sales tax, and I can remember seeing Commissioner Carter rotate around to all the different meetings and discuss that. And one of the things that everyone said at the time was, not until we raise the impact fees. Well, you've really done that, and I think now the community might be very receptive to a sales tax or some other method of paying for things; you know, bonding or general obligation bond or sales tax or something like that, since you've already taken the heart of it first. You've gotten what needed to be done first, and so I think the community would be more receptive now. Also, at the time that that was being discussed, the sales tax had not only the roads, it had government buildings and it had storm water stuff. I think you've got to keep it really clean. Don't put a lot of junk in it that's not going to have community support. If you go out there at this time and talk about roads, you're going to find a lot of people frustrated with the roads and a lot of people who are going to be responsive to the request. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And that's one bit of advice we haven't received yet. That's a very good piece of advice. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I was there and got bloodied on it enough, I can tell you, and so did Mike McNees, that we went out and stuck our chin out and got punched a few times, and we came back and said, well, I hear what they're saying. That's just not going to work with the way it's constituted today. But I thank you, Janet, for your work. MS. VASEY: But you've really done it. You've tackled what they said to do first, and so now I think you can go back with a really tight package and show the impacts of doing it and the impacts of not doing it, and I think you could sell it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Couple of points, Janet. Please -- thank you for saying that in this public forum, and please say it every opportunity you get because people are going to wonder, have they done what they said they were -- you know, have they filled in those gaps from two years ago? And the second is, when productivity committee looked at bonding, its recommendation included bonding the sales tax revenue or included a general obligation bond? Page 90 March 2, 2001 MS. VASEY.' Well, our first -- what we were looking at was a much lower level of requirements at the time. I think we were dealing -- like last summer we were talking about $180 million deficit, which is, of course, a lot bigger now. And I think at that time we were looking very much at general obligation bonding. But, you know, somewhere you've got to pay for that, and so we did talk about the possibility of gas taxes -- not gas, sales tax being the source of the debt financing. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd love to get the productivity committee's -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I can get that for you. It was all here, and I'm sure Trish can dig it out of the file, but we have a pretty thorough analysis that was done by them, and we can get it to each commissioner for review. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Actually, I think they did, but wasn't that a GO one? MS. VASEY: We did talk -- it was very strongly at the time, we were talking general obligation bonding. The numbers that we're looking at now are substantially larger, and I think perhaps we might reconsider that. But we did at the time even -- even though we talked about general obligation, we did talk about the possibility of a sales tax. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Bottom line for me is I think that taking this to the public with an endorsement from the productivity committee goes farther than taking it without one. I'd like to have the bonding of sales tax go to productivity committee to get their review of that specific topic because we know they've recommended bonding as a good idea, but I think it was a general obligation bond. And Norm, I don't think we got numbers on what the general obligation bonding opportunity is and how much of our problem it could solve, acknowledging it also requires a referendum. But -- MR. FEDER: It does, and we've got some figures on that. Again, like some of these others, we'll continue to share with you and the productivity committee. I think that's what you're asking us to do. MS. VASEY: We would be happy to do that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's great. And whatever we decide though, if the productivity committee endorses it, it does carry significant impact into the community. Page 91 March 2, 2001 COMMISSIONER COLETTA.' That's true with any part of the community that endorses it. I think we have received a number of endorsements today already from the Chamber of Commerce and some others. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I've made a note on having a good public relations program established using every vehicle we have, well orchestrated, coordinated, using every resource in the community to really be a part of understanding what it's all about and not feeling like they've been left out of the process. MR. ELLIS: Good morning, or good afternoon now. My name is David Ellis, and I'm the executive officer of the Collier Building Industry Association, and I really wanted to come today to reiterate, about a year and a half ago, for those of you that were here and those of you that weren't actually involved at the time, the Collier Building Industry Association came forward with some recommendations directly with roads. There were really three things. We asked you to look at your transportation team and how it worked together, and maybe we could reorganize that. And I compliment you on what you've done to grow that into more of a seamless process. I think it's something you've done that's very positive, results even today in what Norm was able to present and bring in the different departments. We're very excited about that, and we would encourage you to continue to promote that within the department. Also, we said we need to bolster and sustain the funding sources that we had presently. We urged you to do what you did today by a straw poll with the five-cent local option to continue that. We also said, at the same time, look at impact fees. As a matter of fact, if you will recall, during that process the day you approved the increase, I was the only one who spoke and I said, and I will continue to say, the building and construction industry is willing to continue to collect its fair share. But we'd also say that the general public also needs to be a part of their fair share into that process. That was really the third thing. We encouraged you at that time to also look at other broad-based bondable funding sources that the community could use to meet what we knew was a shortfall at the time. Page 92 March 2, 2001 Again, I compliment your staff for bringing forward a cogent and a well-thought-out plan that the community can now evaluate in that regard. In terms of impact fees, I did want to make a few quick statements. When we talked about them -- and I will tell you a year ago when we went through that process, although it was important at the time, it was certainly a painful process, and I'll assure you, we maximize impact fees. As a matter of fact, we could have a long rhetorical discussion whether or not we went a little further than was legally allowable, but at the same time, we did it, and it was done, and it has been accepted, and we're moving through that. What I will say, and there's a couple of things I think we can assure the general public about in regard to that now, things we can also remind them about. First of all, I never talk about impact fees without reminding you that it's not paid by the developers, it's certainly paid by the people who are building homes and building new businesses in our community. We always need to remember that in relation to those fees, and although it's not somebody else paying it, it's us. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, and I think people that are moving into the community recognize their obligation in that regard, but it does affect the affordability of housing, and it does affect what it costs to do business in our community, and I always like to remind us of that in that discussion. When you talk to the general public, remind them of that as well. I got a new hat a few weeks ago. I'm now the chairman of our affordable housing commission, and I'll be back here in a couple of months to talk about that on May 15th at the workshop, and we'll talk about some of those issues in relation to Collier County, as well,but the other thing about the impact fees that I think we can assure the community of now is in the new impact fee ordinance you're going to be hearing in the next month. There's mechanisms that's more directly set in place that will bring the fee schedules back to be reviewed by the commission on a very regular basis, and the hiring and putting in place of Phil Tindall as your impact fee coordinator, I think, is also going to keep us a little more honest and directed and on task with those types of things. So as we talk to the general public, I think we can offer them Page 93 March 2, 2001 some very good assurances about impact fees as well. But really, back to the real topic at hand about roads and transportation. I would continue to encourage you to be diligent in the task, to keep it, as we said two years ago or a year and a half ago when we brought that, all the commissioners said it was their number one priority. I would continue to urge you to keep it your number one priority as we dig into some of these tougher issues. You know, the concurrency management things we talked about. There will be some issues that we're going to have to work through in that regard, but generally and specifically about the chart behind us and the funding mechanisms it takes us to get there. Know that the industry that I work with and represent is excited about what you're doing and look to support you in that, and again, would encourage you to keep that out front and keep it moving because it's something our community desperately needs. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, David. MR. OLLIFF: That's all your registered speakers, but just in follow up to one item that was raised a little earlier about how much or what was the extent of the impact fee increases, I don't have the executive summary here in front of me, but I do have some spot examples for you to tell you what the Board did when they just most recently reviewed your transportation impact fees. The Board was cognizant, I think, clearly by the kind of increases that they had on affordable housing because when I look at the list, for example, houses of less than 1,500 square feet went up on average 32 percent, while on the other hand, houses of 2,500 square feet or larger went up 108 percent. As I run down the commercial list, primarily I'm looking at increases that are generally above 89 percent and up to 92 percent, in terms of the increase in the fee that we charge to commercial construction in this town. It went 91 percent for less than 50,000 square feet all the way up to greater than 1,000 square feet at 87 percent. So in most cases, I'd say somewhere between 85 and 100 percent was the magnitude of the rate increase on your transportation impact fee adjustment recently. And you can look at that two ways. That's a good thing, and Page 94 March 2, 2001 from a historical perspective in terms of should that fee have been raised more often and reviewed more often, I think that's probably a poor thing in terms of not looking at it for a seven-year period. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Like I said, we didn't give them the bill for the champagne, and that's the truth. MR. OLLIFF: Exactly. And I think Mr. Ellis' point is very good in that the new ordinance that you have is going to put us in a position where, I think, on an absolute fixed basis, you will be looking at all of your impact fee ordinances regularly. MR. FEDER: Mr. Chairman, to show you our commitment as we work forward with you to deliver, we've got by my watch about two minutes before 1:00, and we do want to wrap up. With that in mind, what I'd like to do, if you will indulge me for just a second, first of all, I want to recognize in the first two rows here your staff for the new Division of Transportation, all the work that they've done to bring this forward to you today, as well as some of my folks I see hiding in the back there in storm water, who will be coming to you very shortly, as well. I think you've got an outstanding staff that's being assembled, and we look forward to good things from them. I also want to recognize the mayor and Councilman Galleberg, who I believe the other people on your planning organization and our efforts to make sure as we address this issue countywide. We are, in fact, countywide, especially the issues we're talking about right now. I not only echo what was said to you by some folks about the need to make sure that we have all the debate we need to make sure we are unanimous in the way we go. If we are not unanimous, be it on this Board or with our municipalities, we're not going to have the likelihood of its success as we go out and try to explain to people what we're trying to do. With that being said, I'll entertain any questions from the Board. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Henning and then Commissioner Mac'kie? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have some things that wasn't brought up today, one being PR program to let the people know where our road construction projects are. I think that's very important, as we drive down these roads month after month and Page 95 March 2, 2001 a year and the next year. I think it would be important to let them know how long the project is, where it is -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Have a sign out there that says, "20 percent complete." COMMISSIONER HENNING: Either that or in the local media. I don't know if we want that on our medians. MR. FEDER: We have a couple of things going on on that front, and I do appreciate that. Connie is onboard specifically for that. We've buried her as we tried to staff up, and she's tried to help fill some other holes in the organization. But the other part of that, too, is we needed to develop the work program, a five-year work program. I found myself out and have been at many neighborhood associations, other areas, trying to talk about our work program, and I keep making that caveat subject to funding availability. We need to decide what our program is, so that when we do go out, we can tell people what they can expect and what's going to be delivered, not only with the construction underway, but the program to come. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Some other points; sidewalks. You know, we bring in the community character. The sidewalks we develop when we build these new roadways are right up against the road, and I think that what I would like to see is, more of a quality of life and safety and whatever, is put them into the development or next to the developments. It's a more pleasurable -- MR. FEDER: We are looking at a number of things. Of course, on Marco we went to a meandering sidewalk, gently meandering. We are looking at the possibility of establishing basically a tree line between curb and sidewalk, if not all the way to what you're saying, Commissioner. I think though, the critical part on that is, and please bear with us as we try to retrofit existing facilities where in the past the six lanes right of way was bought before the four-lane was developed, and then we come in, we're trying to balance that take and the impact on properties and additional right of way to those cross-sections. So within that balance, we agree with you wholeheartedly. MR. OLLIFF: Norman, correct me if I'm wrong, but just prior to this Board's coming on, we actually had a minor transportation Page 96 March 2, 2001 workshop, if you will, where we talked about a number of these little things, and we showed the Board and got the Board's approval for what we called the "new typical cross-section" for a roadway for us, for an arterial roadway. That roadway design does include an off-pavement sidewalk as well as a bike path. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because of the Immokalee mess. MR. FEDER: So that is now typical and would be maintained. CHAIRMAN CARTER: One of your promises has already been met, Commissioner. MR. OLLIFF: But you need to recognize that those roads that we've got under construction were designed under an old system, so that when he talks about retrofitting, all five of the major road arterial programs that we have are not built to that cross-section, so they're going to require that we try to go back and do some retrofitting within the available right of way that we have, which is limited. MR. FEDER: And in some cases we've had to make adjustments. For instance, on Immokalee between Radio and Golden Gate, there really isn't a lot of impact specifically on the west side, so we were able to put the sidewalk on the east side, put some spacing in there and develop something a little better on one side, rather than both, although the desire is on both. So we are trying to work on -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: It sounds like you're really on top of it. I just have two more questions. Tom Conrecode brought up an interesting point. It's shifting the maintenance and the landscaping into ad valorem and have the dedication to the five-cent gas tax, and that would that get us where we need to be? MR. FEDER: No. Right now where you are is, you've got about -- you had ad valorem assistance to transportation, and then there was a decision to start moving back on that and get it refunded by gas tax, and it's only about $3 million right now, and the decision will come to your budget. But that is only about $3 million, and it won't make a big difference on the overall numbers, and that's something that administration management office is going to be bringing to you. MR. OLLIFF: I think the previous Board policy was to start moving a million dollars a year more from the gas tax side over to your operations side. Frankly, and that was, again, previous Page 97 March 2, 2001 Board policy to try and do whatever we could to limit ad valorem impacts anywhere we could. And our recommendation to you when we sit down and budget this year is going to be, there's probably some reasonable amount to fund out of your ad valorem fee, but we think we're probably at that amount and that we don't continue that trend and we leave it at a $3 million subsidy, period. And we move on from there, without putting any more of your gas tax money into operations. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The final is, what I learned in Orlando on a Growth Management seminar is that the hallmark to making things happen is public participation, and I know that we have one court order study under way. And if we could get -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Two. Vanderbilt and Livingston. COMMISSIONER HENNING: If we could get some -- for the consultant to go out there and talk to the people or schedule meetings with the people. MR. FEDER: In both of those cases, we don't have the consultant onboard who set up the scope and are going forward, but the scopes on those, not only for the staff, but for the consultant, are very, very significant. Early and often is the way we label it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's great, thank you. I didn't even have to bring all those up. You're already doing every one of those. MR. FEDER: I appreciate the straight line, though, thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Mac'kie? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a question, I guess for legal. The transfer tax, is that something that is a local option, or is that something we would require state approval to implement? MS. ASHTON: For the record, Heidi Ashton, assistant county attorney. I think that's something we are going to have to research for you. I'm not familiar with that particular charge myself. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is the Board interested in that? I mean, I'd love to know. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes. And I think you get the answer from Lee County. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, FAC should be a contributor to that. I'm sure even our area Board of Realtors would have Page 98 March 2, 2001 something to say about that. MS. ASHTON: Certainly I'll make David Weigel aware, and he'll have something for you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sooner rather than later because as we go toward the question of a referendum, I'd like to know if there's a portion of this shortfall that could be made up with -- because, you know, what we've talked about is if you move to town, you pay an impact fee, but that's not necessarily true. You move to town, you pay an impact fee if you buy new construction. Some people move to town and buy existing homes. Surprise, surprise. So we ought to be trying to capture some portion of that, too. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I understand at the state level they're looking at it as a replacement for impact fees. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd like to look at it as an addition to. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We might want to get ahead of the curve and just ask the legalities and that's something, if it did not require taking it out for referendum, then it would be a decision by the Board of County Commissioners that we could integrate that into our revenue stream. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And then my only other question is, what is the elections calendar, or can a referendum like this be done in a mail ballot and et cetera. COMMISSIONER COLETTA.' COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You should know. You mean sooner than November? Yes. You're on the canvassing board. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. MR. OLLIFF: The Supervisor of Elections has indicated that she needs six months in order to be able to put together a referendum like the one that we're talking about. And also, I think -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: On a mail ballot basis? MR. OLLIFF: We didn't ask a mail ballot, so I will have to go back and see if that time frame changes, based on a mail ballot. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And cost. MR. OLLIFF: And cost. And the other thing that Heidi mentioned to you before was, I think, the statute is set up so that if you're going to implement such a tax, it has to begin in Page 99 March 2, 2001 January. So you can back up from January and figure when you would need to actually give a go to the supervisor in order to have something in place by January. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Like 60 days from now is when we'd have to be telling the Supervisor of Elections to do something, if we want a tax to begin in 2002. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Good point, Pam. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And if you want it on like a fall ballot, historically November, when there's some sort of election for something. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We have August. Do we have an August primary this year?. Anybody know? MR. OLLIFF: Not that I'm aware of, but we'll -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't guess we do. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We'll get that answered. It's a great question. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that something we could get for our next agenda? You could just give us some information about costs and timing on potential ballot questions because, frankly, we got to get out there on this if it's going to compete with other ballot questions. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's something that we can control. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, but we've got, you know -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Got to look at what everybody else is doing, too. MR. OLLIFF: This community has a miserable track record in terms of referendums for sales taxes or for any type of tax, and my recommendation to you is always going to be that we try to keep this thing as narrowly focused, as clean, and as limited as you can. So I think if there is one tax out there that I think has an opportunity to pass currently in this community, I think it's a transportation tax. And I think in this particular case, you've got an ability to be able to show the public a fix limited agenda of roads that will be built in return for a limited period sales tax. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And then if we are going to do that, and that, I guess, makes us sort of a preemptive strike on, we want a transportation tax over a green tax, over a health care Page 100 March 2, 2001 tax. Does this Board have the authority to tax for the other two purposes? I mean, could we dedicate a percentage of millage for green space acquisition? Because if we don't, we're going to lose it. Could we dedicate a percentage of millage for health care issues? Can we tell the public, this is how we're going to solve the other two problems, so we aren't out there competing with the other two problems? MR. OLLIFF: The millage is completely at your control. So, I mean -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But can we dedicate millage? I understand that on a year-to-year basis, this Board says what the millage is going to be. My question is, do we have the authority to say, A tenth of a mil is going to be for green space? MR. OLLIFF: You can't tie the hands of a future Board's decision on millage. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Without a referendum? Because in Lee County, they do have a dedicated millage. MR. OLLIFF: Without a referendum. For example, your pollution control tax comes out of your ad valorem, and it is a dedicated percentage of your tax that is dedicated, that is dedicated to pollution control, but that was voter approved. We used to have, as a policy of the Board, a dedicated portion of your budget for capital improvements program, but the Board from year to year to year decided to lower that percentage, so there's no way without a referendum that I am aware of. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I am pleased the way we're going today. I still have serious concerns on what we're going to do when the tires meet the road. We have to deal with John Q. Public out there. I don't think it's going to be so much a dollar issue. It's going to be an access issue. We're going to have to deal with real people and feelings. We're going to have to be realistic. We're going to have to know where we're going. And I suggest that this Board seriously consider adopting a policy that if we're going to be in the position of taking a home or homes, that we devote an entire meeting just to that one issue. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You're raising some issues that have a lot of emotional impact, and what we don't want to do is Page 101 March 2, 2001 continue to violate a policy or policies overall, but there might be exceptions, too, and we've got to be very careful on that. New development -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Like last Tuesday, you mean, day before yesterday, when we didn't interconnect something that we should have? COMMISSIONER HENNING.' We didn't know taking a home. MR. FEDER: If I can, I really do appreciate your time. I think as the slide says here, what's next? I think you've given us a very good feel for that. First of all, we look forward to coming to you next board meeting with the issue of reauthorization. I think you've given us a good feel for a number of policy areas that we're going to continue refining and bringing back to you at future board meetings. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can we get a recap of what you heard us say? MR. FEDER: Yes, you will. I'm going to ask that I get the minutes as soon as they are transcribed and available, and we will be sending back to you something that you can put in the back of your notebook that specifically says what transpired out of this meeting and where we're going from here. MR. OLI. IFF: Along with an implementation schedule, so you have some idea of when these things are going to come to pass in policy format for you to approve. MR. FEDER: I thank you very much for your time. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I, for one, have no opposition to as many workshops as we need to do. I think these are the best way to do it. Keep it outside of the meeting. Keep the issue right up front where we can concentrate on the one issue, separate from everything else. So if you need to carry it to another workshop in another week or two, that's fine by me. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. You've got a Board here that's actually willing to show up and work instead of do a few hours on Tuesday. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You are absolutely right, and it's always been by the theme "back to the community," is that it's better to focus on individual issues like we're doing this morning than trying to have weekly meetings where you've got to put other things on the agenda, and you can't devote the appropriate time Page 102 March 2, 2001 to a subject. MR. OLLIFF: In closing, I cannot thank that staff enough because we've been beating them to death over the last couple of months, not only in terms of meeting your Tuesday agendas, reviewing all those developments that you've got. And you all individually know how many meetings you've been dragging this staff to to try and deal with the issues that are out there in the community and have them put together this level of detail for you for this workshop. I'm not kidding you, they have been killing themselves to get here. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They're good. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Compliments go to you, too, for putting this staff together. MR. OLLIFF: That's a good group of people, but we've been burning them out lately. So they just -- a great deal of credit goes to them for that. And secondly, in terms of workshops and the Board, I got to get this Board to understand what a workshop is, so the next workshop we have, unless there's some objection, we're going to be down on the floor, and I'm going to ask you not to wear your jackets and to take your ties off, and we're going to roll up our sleeves, and we're going to go to work a little bit. So in the future, all these workshops are designed to actually be working workshops. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We're going to come in dressed down Friday stuff. Right? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: May I make one suggestion before we close, just to make the workshops flow a little bit smoother? Possibly what we may do is have in there a point where after a presentation, you'll have questions for the commission to ask. I'm finding that quite often during the presentation we're interrupting the speaker, when the answer's on the next page. It would be something that would just make it flow a little bit smoother. Write down your questions, and if they're not answered by the time we reach that point, then we can bring up the issues. MR. OLLIFF: That's a good point. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We need to do that not only in workshops, we need to do that in commission meetings. Page 103 March 2, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And maybe, one other point, while we're talking about making meetings flow more smoothly, we need to stop debating the speakers as they come to us on Tuesday. We've got to stop doing that, or our meetings are going to continue to last for 12 hours. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I violated that last meeting, and I apologize to this Board and to the community. I have a tendency to just sit still and listen, but sometimes it got the better of me. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You want to be a participant. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, and I'm in the wrong ]ob if I want to do that. Also, on meetings, while we're here, I would strongly recommend that we work with our county manager on additions to the agenda because they have a lot of things they're trying to get in front of us, and we keep adding things to the agenda, and it's in the middle of the program. People are here for specific variances. Zoning, whatever it is, we end up keeping them in this room late at night, and I don't really think that's fair to the public, so we have to reorder that. I have a very difficult one that will come back at the next meeting, but that will at the end. I am requesting it be at the end because it does not affect 99 percent of the county. Why should they have to sit there through all of that discussion when they're just waiting to get to their agenda item? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are we going to talk about Pelican Bay again? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Hot dog. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And that's another thing. I'd have absolutely no problem if we had just the workshop on Pelican Bay. Give these people a chance to vent their feelings -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, they've done that pretty well. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Not in the middle of a meeting. It disrupted the whole schedule to the point that we were not very effective. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I would comment on that because there is such emotion on each side of that. We will not have a town hall meeting. It's getting to the point where it's going to be one way or the other. They can come, and you will have sufficient information coming to you over the next couple of weeks, a lot of input, and each commissioner that can Page 104 March 2, 2001 participate, which are four of the five, will need to review that and make your decisions accordingly. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But if we're going to hear a lot of information, it would be really useful, on not just Pelican Bay but other issues when we're going to hear a lot of information, let's have a question at the end of that information put to the Board. Yes or no. Santa Barbara, that's another one. When we talk about that one again, please, put it to us in the form of a question at the end of the discussion, so we haven't heard input for no purpose. MR. OLLIFF: One suggestion. You told me to tell you things you may not want to hear. This is a suggestion for you to just mill over. I was told the other day that the City of Marco does not allow their Council to put anything on the agenda unless they bring it up the week before and decide whether or not there's a majority of the council who is willing and wants to have it on an agenda -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: City of Naples, too. MR. OLLIFF: -- the following meeting. And it prevents us from, in some cases, backing up and discussing items where a majority of the commission has already voted on an item, and we may be not even outside of the reconsideration ordinance, but that's a policy that you may want to consider as a Board, as a way of helping to streamline what it is we talk about and avoid talking about some things over and over and over. COMMISSIONER COLETTA.' Can we do that for next meeting and bring it back to us? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I would like for staff to look at that and any other suggestions you have for improving that, bring it to us in a paper that we can read ahead of time, and I think that we can individually make some comments to ourselves on that, then we bring it back to the meeting. We can just -- we can put that on there, and we can roll through it. Not to shortchange the ideas, again, I think that kind of thing needs to be at the end because I don't think most of the listening people out here really care how we run our agenda. They just want to know, can I get in there and get my item taken care of and not spend seven or eight hours taking care of business, and that's what we're trying to do. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I like that idea, Tom. Even though Page 105 March 2, 2001 it might mean often that I've got some idea that the majority of the board doesn't agree with and doesn't want to talk about again. I think that's a very good policy we ought to consider implementing. MR. OLLIFF: I've got another page full of ideas that I'll sit down with your Chair and work on them, and we'll bring back a list of recommendations for you to consider. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Any other questions from the Board while we're still in session? That's why we do this, because we can't talk to each other outside of session. Anything else we need to address? MR. OLLIFF: Nothing from your staff. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Thank you so much. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. You've all done just an outstanding job. I thank everybody who was here. I thank the community for those who tuned in today, but this will be rerun several times on 54. And I do believe that we have provided the City of Naples and Marco City copies of this, so they can use this to review in their own organizations. So, we have all those services available. If people don't take advantage of them, I don't know what else to suggest, but we are here to provide as much information as possible. Thank everybody for being here. Have a great rest of the Friday and a wonderful weekend. Page 106 March 2, 200t There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 1:26 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIA_L~R ITS CONTROL . ATTEST: · '* DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK Attest as to ChairIan $ These minutes approved by the Board on presented / or as corrected , as TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY KAYE GRAY AND TONI SHEARER Page 107