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BCC Minutes 03/09/2001 W (Strategic Plan)March 9, 2001 STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETING OF MARCH 9, 2001 OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 2:00 p.m. in WORKSHOP SESSION in Building 'F' of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: ALSO PRESENT: JAMES D. CARTER, Ph.D. JIM COLETTA DONNA FIALA TOM HENNING PAMELA MAC'KIE (ABSENT) TOM OLLIFF, County Administrator DAVID C. WEIGEL, County Attorney. JIM MUDD NORMAN FEDER JO-ANNE VARCOE-LEAMER LEO OCHS MIKE McNEES JOHN DUNNUCK TOM STORRAR MIKE SMYKOWSKI Page NOTICE OF BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS STRATEGIC PLANNING WORKSHOP FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 2001 2:00 P.M.- 4:00 P.M. Notice is hereby given that the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County will hold a Strategic Planning Workshop on Friday, March 9, 2001 from 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. in the Boardroom, 3rd floor, W. Harmon Turner Building, Collier County Government Center, 3301 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida. The Workshop shall be televised and broadcast on Channel 54, The Collier County Government Channel. If you are a person with a disability who needs any accommodation in order to participate in this proceeding, you are entitled, at no cost to you, to the provision of certain assistance. Please contact the Collier County Facilities Management Department located at 3301 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida 34112 (941) 774-8380; assisted listening devices for the hearing impaired are available in the County Commissioner's Office. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA James D. Carter, Ph.D., Chairman DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK By:/s/Maureen Kenyon Deputy Clerk March 9, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Strategic Planning Workshop. We will now have the Pledge of Allegiance and then we will start. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Olliff, are you the facilitator this afternoon for this workshop? MR. OLLIFF: I'll kick the rock off the hill, if you will. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Here we go. I hear the choo choo started. MR. OLLIFF: I appreciate the board, especially on a Friday afternoon coming in to spend a little time on strategic planning. I will tell you from a historic perspective, we have tried to do strategic planning a number of different ways and generally we have tried to bring in outside facilitators in the past to help with the process. And because of just the unique issues within our organization and within our community, we found that we -- we felt that, frankly, we do a better job in house, I think, and we're going to try and guide and direct the board through a strategic planning process. And the goal of this process is at the end for us to agree in terms of the staff and the policy-making board as to what are the high priorities for us going into this up-coming fiscal year, '02. And I've asked -- we actually put together a division administrator team consisting of Jim Mudd, Jo-Anne Leamer and Leo Ochs, who have put together a power point presentation, and with that I'll turn it over to Mr. Mudd. MR. MUDD: We're going to break this down, commissioners, into three parts. Leo will start out, hopefully has a good joke, and then -- and then -- and then we'll intermittently go between the staff to give you the expertise that we need and when we finally finish and we'll break it down in that way. Leo? MR. OCHS: Thanks, Jim. Good afternoon, commissioners, and no, I don't have a good joke but -- although we do have black slides this afternoon and Jim thought that was a nice touch because it will keep the commission from writing too many notes on a background, so one way to keep things moving along at least. As Jim mentioned, I'm going to kind of bat lead off here this Page 2 March 9, 2001 afternoon as we work, hopefully, jointly towards the development of a strategic business plan that, frankly, we will meet not only our present needs as a community, but also our future needs as a community, and just as importantly as the county government organization. Over the last several months, nine or ten months, under Tom's leadership, the senior management team has met on different occasions to get together and look at the way we're doing our business and to start asking yours some basic questions; questions like, what kind of organization do we really want to be, what do we stand for as an organization and as individuals, what are the key or the core business goals and objectives for our agency, and just as importantly, what actions do we need to take both now and in the long term to achieve those specific objectives? The presentation that we're going to make here briefly today, we will attempt to answer those questions and really you're going to see the staff's perspective on where we think as a staff we need to go to meet some of those long-term goals and objectives. The big -- our -- our primary purpose today, obviously, is to get input from the board, get guidance and direction from the board on whether, what we're seeing for the future in our crystal balls, if you will, aligns with -- with the vision that this board has for the community and for the organization ten and 15 years out. So, with that, we'll go ahead and a start rolling. Jim. MR. MUDD: I hit the button. I'm waiting. It's stuck. MR. OCHS: That's why we give you the paper backup. MR. MUDD: There we go. All right. Anyhow, the first thing we did was come together and try to answer that question of what is it we want to be. And I'm not going to read these verbatim as we go through them, but this essentially is our vision as we move into the 21st century. You want to be an organization that employs the best people, produces results that the community expects, and in most cases exceed those expectations, creative and proactive in the way we address problems and solve problems, always be fiscally accountable and responsible and be community driven. And by that I mean do the kinds of things that the public thinks are Page 3 March 9, 2001 important. After we looked at our vision, we then went into our -- into our mission, talked about what is it that we're all about essentially and came up with this mission, and that is deliver services to our residents and visitors that exceed their expectations. And we spent a lot of time on that word "exceed". We didn't want to be a run-of-the-mill organization or settle for meeting expectations. We want to be in a leadership position and to us that means exceeding expectations every time that we can. After that we looked at the staff. What is it that we do at the core level of the organization? What are the major business processes which drive all of our other day-to-day activities? As we did that, we really boil them down to -- into three areas. What we do is -- at the end of the day is we regulate land uses, provide a variety of services and programs and employ a large number of people. Moving on from there then, we began to look at the products and services that roll out of those three main businesses and those three main processes and you have those in front of you. A lot of these are -- are pretty obvious; infrastructure management and development, everything from roads, water, sewer, airports, landfills, beaches, recreational and cultural opportunities, obviously the health, safety and welfare issues, including not only police, fire, emergency management, but also our social service agencies and veteran services and other public health requirements, code enforcement, building permitting, the whole issue of growth management, legislative development and review and then employment opportunities. After that, we stepped back and we wanted to develop as a staff kind of the answer to what is it that guides us as an organization and as individuals when we have tough decisions to make and we came up with this set of values that all the employees of this organization can fall back on as kind of our guiding principals in the way that we make decisions and do business in our -- in our day-to-day work. And they're pretty self-evident there. I'm not going to read through the list. And then using all those things as a foundation, we came up with the series of primary business goals and there's five of them there. Obviously we want to have highly skilled employees. If Page 4 March 9, 2001 we're going to be an employer that exceeds expectations, we need people with the knowledge and the skill level that know how to get that job done. We want to focus on results, not processes, not bureaucracies, but on results and services to the public and do that in a high quality way; creative and proactive in all of the things we do, fiscally responsible in our budgeting and our spending and, again, find ways to meet the public's need. Best employees, three things. We need to -- we need to be in a position as an agency to recruit and select the most qualified applicants. Once we get those folks on board, we need to put them in a program of continuous training and education, develop them, develop their skills, get them ready to step up into the next level of the organization through career paths, and we need to continue to have a competitive wage and benefit package and an organizational climate, if you will, that will want them to stay here for several years so we have some continuity in our operations. High quality results. Again, establishing those expectations from the outside in, not the inside out. Go out there and survey customers, find out continuously by whatever methods are available to us what it is that the public expects of us and then to design products and services that will not only meet but exceed those expectations. You want to be creative, proactive in the way we approach problems, encourage our people to take a reasonable risk, be innovative in trying to find solutions to problems, take advantage of the technologies that are emerging out there, always be aware of changing trends and patterns in the community, make sure we're reading, we're getting out, talking to community groups, civic organizations so that we're truly keeping our finger on the pulse of what's happening in the community and then using all that information to establish long-term plans and long-term goals. Fiscal responsibility, it's going to require that -- not necessarily that we take the Iow bid, but that we always achieve value in the way we purchase products and services and deliver those products and services. Value is the key word there. Obviously we want to plan and execute sound budgets, be prudent in the way we spend the public's dollar. Page 5 March 9, 2001 And then long-term fiscal impact. And by that what we basically mean is that when we evaluate our actions, we want to do that on a life-cycle cost basis. We don't just want to look at the up-front cost. We need to be thinking long term. When we build a park, we need to know that it's not only the capital dollars that come up front, but we need to be mindful of what it's going to cost us to staff and operate that park down the road. Then our last primary goal, again, as I mentioned before, is community driven. And that's going to require that as -- as the management of the county, that we continually get out into the community, meet with civic associations, homeowners groups, business organizations, build those relationships and then be prepared to respond to the needs that they express to us. With that, I'm going to turn the presentation over to Jim. MR. MUDD: Okay. Now, what -- commissioners, what Leo just gave you was basically where the staff and the board was a year ago. Okay. All of that stuff that was just shown to you shouldn't be new. Maybe our three ma]or processes, what regulate land and employ, and those things are new, but it shouldn't be new to us. Now what we need to do as we go through this process is to put a little bit of discipline into it so that we stay on the course and we take a look. And the one thing that we can ill afford to do is put a bias in our observations for the priorities because my priorities might be different than Commissioner Coletta's priorities or Tom's priorities. But the taxpayer out there might have a different priority and we've got to stay tuned to make sure that we're really focusing on what the priorities of the country are. And, so, what we tried to do here was to make sure that we didn't put in a staff bias, that we went out there and we used the sampling structures that were out there and the results that we've received in order to get a better idea of what's there, and basically put ourselves in the shoes of somebody else and take a good hard look at what we are and where we need to go. And what you have in front of you is the strategic planning process that we developed to try to keep us on track. The first four are basically survey mechanisms to figure out what they think, those different groups, and then to figure out Page 6 March 9, 2001 how to get at what the big issues are. And then once you're done with that, you start to merge those into steps five key strategic issues, which should be your priorities and then you need to do a financial analysis on them to see if your budget constrained, people constrained or how you're actually going to get at that to make sure that you don't bite off more than you can chew in any particular given year. And then once you have that analysis and you indeed think they're priorities and that they're resource, that you can go out there and fix them and measure them with metrics to see how well you're doing. That all happened -- transpires during a strategic priorities team that you designate for each one. They lay out a charter, they lay out those things that they're going to measure, and then they report back to you on the success to make sure that we're incorporating those changes and getting at the priority issues of the county. Now, I'll turn it over to Jo-Anne. MR. OLLIFF: I want to make sure that the board members understand what he went just through. I -- I -- is that clear? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I'm -- I'm very clear on that, but I have a strategic planning background, so I don't want to use myself as a model. COMMISSIONER FIALA: If you think it needs further explanation, because we think -- I mean, I think I understand, but I wouldn't mind having you give me an explanation. Am I different from what I interpret? MR. OLLIFF: As an example, I think for years we made decisions here based on what we thought the community wanted, what we think the community expected from us. And if you back up, if you can, to that slide, I think what we're trying to do is we are trying to find -- make sure that we take that decision-making process and that bias out of how we decide what's important, how we decide what we do every day round here. And, so, we're trying to go out and figure out what is it from a -- from the public's perspective basically of this organization. What do they think is important? What do they want us to do? What are their priorities for us? And since we're trying to take -- there's a number of survey Page 7 March 9, 2001 tools that are out there that tell us that already, that frankly we haven't done a very good job of taking advantage of over the years. And, so, we're trying to not only take advantage of the public surveys that are out there, trying to figure out who our key stakeholders are, who are those groups, find out what's important to them and then trying to manage from the outside in, as opposed to always deciding within our office what it is that county government is going to be for this community. Once we take that, we know what it is the community wants from us, then we need to develop key strategic issues; in other words, where do they want us to be, make sure that we have the resources to do that. And there's only three kinds of resources in this business. There's money, there's people and there's equipment. That's the only thing that we use in this business. So, we make sure that we have enough of those things to be able to address what the community wants from us. And then he's saying that we need to develop some benchmarks. We need to figure out how are we being successful. Once we know what they want, we've got the resources to do it, then we need to check ourselves so that at the end of the next year we know whether we provided what it is the community wanted from us or not. And this whole process has simply been lacking here. We just -- we don't have that fully integrated process as part of the strategic planning for this community. And, so, this is -- this is a different way, frankly, of doing business for us. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I guess what I would comment on, Tom, is he role of a board of directors, which we are, as polish setters in giving direction as this is the framework on which we operate. If we would continue to give mixed signals to staff and violate the strategic planning process, then they're really at a loss because they're saying if you really approve this and this is what you want us to do, then we're going to go there and they're going to do that. So, we have to keep in mind what we're saying and believe -- personally, I believe in this totally, but I don't want to come back Page 8 March 9, 2001 later and say, well, you know, that didn't fit with my own personal agenda. Can't do that. MS. VARCOE-LEAMER: Okay? MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. MS. VARCOE-LEAMER: Well, the first step was to look at our key customers, the individuals that we seek out to ask how -- how are we doing. And we define the key customers to include the taxpayers, which is not only residents, but the visitors in our community, the municipalities, special taxing districts and community associations, the business community and state and federal government agencies. Once we define those, we looked at what are our -- what are the key customers' requirements, what are the projects and services that most need improvement? And we base this on the 1999 and the 2000 annual telephone survey that was done. And what we found out was their major issues had to do with road and traffic matters, controlling and managing growth, local government problems, health concerns, public transportation, crime and safety concerns and schools. The next group we had to define were our key stakeholders. The county's mission requires us to partner with many stakeholders. Stakeholders are defined as those that we work with to produce the products that we deliver. They share in the risk with us. They don't -- they're not our customers. They don't receive the products and services, but they share in the risk and the delivery. And we identified the following as our key stakeholders; constitutional officers, advisory boards and committees, municipalities, bondholders, the school board, vendors, contractors, A/E firms and consultants. Again, once we define who the key stakeholders were, we wanted to look at what are their requirements. It's our responsibility to make sure we're aware of those. We came up with they want to know that we listen, we react and we're sensitive to their concerns, that we provide timely and competent responses, that they have happy constituent users, customers, obvious benefits to the community, county or state, improved communication, apply county resources against their concerns, we provide consistent interpretation and execution of Page 9 March 9, 200t ordinances and statutes, to please stay within budget and deliver what's promised on time, and that we make them look good and improve their image. The next group were the employees. What are their requirements? This information was taken from the work force assessment poll that was done about a year ago. What we heard in that survey was they are looking for better pay and benefits, enhanced career mobility and training, quality leadership and supervision, work standards and accountability, improved organizational efficiency and superior internal customer service. In addition to that, we have to understand the contacts under which the county manager and the board of county commissioners provide strategic direction and make decisions. It's an important key to the success of the county. The role of monitoring, searching for understanding and analyzing the strategic contacts is uniquely given to the county manager and you, the board of county commissioners. We define the strategic contacts as the following items: Smart growth, comprehensive land use plan, focus group study, environmental stewardship, community character and transportation plan; 2025. As we went through this, we made a number of assumptions. If any of these assumptions are not right, it will change the plan. Our role is to consider available data and develop plausible and probable assumptions about the business environment for the next three to five years. And we'll use that to develop our strategic plan that we can attain. Some of the assumptions that we made, growth will continue at the present rate with the corresponding demand for county services, quality of life, expectations will remain high, customers are willing to pay for certain delightful service and competition for qualified employees will continue to increase. In addition to that, there are certificates things that you need to be aware of that we're trying to juggle currently on our plates. We like to call them the glass balls. We don't want any of them to fall and break. Some of those; transportation backlog, developing a comprehensive web strategy, landfill issues, EMS facility in construction, space planning in construction, GIS, stormwater Page 10 March 9, 2001 issues, utility upgrades, recruitment retention and training of our employees and jail construction. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Jo-Anne, are all the commissioners familiar with GIS? Everybody okay with that? MS. VARCOE-LEAMER: It appears they are. Jim, you're heading up that committee. Do you have anything to add on to that? MR. MUDD: The GIS task force is on. I have to -- my hat is off to Abe Skinner, the property appraiser, for being on board to bring the -- the mapping and the planimetrics to bear. He's put in about $4 million, a little over $4 million into this process. He basically has saved the staff a lot of money. We're basically jumping right on that. He's going to give us that product here this summer. And we have a GIS task force on touching every one of the constitutional officers and the county staff to make sure that it's a complete, robust product for the entire county that everybody can use right now. We've got it defined to 55 layers on top of that base map, so that you can have utilities and transportation infrastructure, and we've got our first estimate in. We'll bring it on line in the next two and a half years for around $3 million, and that's cheap. My last organization cost me almost $15 million to bring GIS on in the same size organization. So, with Abe's foresight and what we've done with the contractor for bringing everybody on at the same time, we should have her on board here in about two years, and I'm looking forward to it. And we've laid that plan out and we meet every two weeks, so we're hammering away. It will save us lots of money once it comes on board. Mike, I think this is your part. MR. SMYKOWSKI: For the record, Mike Smykowski, budget director. There are some revenue alternatives. There's a number of those listed on the -- in the presentation with varying degrees of applicability to Collier County. Utility taxes is one that really does not have applicability to Collier County as that's only authorized for municipalities and existing charter counties. Collier County is a noncharter county. Franchise fees. The board has considered franchise fees for Page 11 March 9, 2001 use of -- by electric utilities for use of the public right-of-way. Previous revenue estimates, we're up to $1.4 million per one percent fee charge. There's a maximum allowable fee of six percent. If -- if it's imposed unilaterally on the electric utilities, the fee is considered a privilege fee. The franchise fee component is actually negotiated; however -- and David can elaborate further if need be. There are current challenges to privilege fees. There's a number of cases out there where the Florida Supreme Court ruled in Alachua County on the privilege fee, and that was also extended further to franchise fees in a Leon County case, which is now on appeal. And, David, if you have anything to add there, please feel free. MR. WEIGEL: Okay. Yeah. Just a brief distinction on the privilege fee type of funding as opposed to franchise fee, and that is the privilege fee has been a local home rule ordinance exercise in the past, which about a year ago the Supreme Court said had a significant constitutional problem, and so it's not available for local government consideration right now. And part of the issue that came up that the Court had a problem with was that the fee was based on a percentage exacted unilaterally by the adoption of an ordinance at the local level against utilities utilizing space within the county's rights-of-way. The case that's under appeal in the First District Court of Appeals right now is trying to see if the Court will agree to a more appropriate, under the Court's eyes, relationship of the fee that might be imposed unilaterally by a county as opposed to just a mere percentage; one size fits all to utilities. So, this is still in doubt. The franchise fee, which is a cousin of the privilege fee, is based upon bilateral negotiations between the local county government and the utilities, which provides benefits for both sides like a typical contract. And the idea was that if the county bargained away exclusivity a la a franchise to a utility for its right to have its facilities in county right-of-way, that provided a -- an assurance to the utility against competition in the area, and including competition that the county itself would no longer get in the Page 12 March 9, 2001 business of providing that particular utility service itself. Collier County has a history. In fact, negotiated a proffered agreement, I think with FP&L a few years ago and did not go forward with the board of county commissioners then. It still conceivably could be done now, but there's less incentive for utilities to enter into those agreements because the -- the stick of an unilateral privilege fee is currently no longer out there to catch them if they don't -- if they don't enter into an agreement on their own volition. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Independent authorities. The board -- that is an option; however, you relinquish taxing authority and fiscal control to a separately elected body as you do in the various community development districts that exist throughout the county. Sales tax is another option. We talked about that as part of a potential answer to the roads. Roads funding dilemma. Obviously, that could be adopted at a half percent or one percent level for infrastructure improvements. Again, another restriction there is that requires approval of the voters via referendum and collections must commence on January t in any given year. Special assessments are an option that's available to the board that the board has used in the past of financing both capital improvements or operational issues such as within the Pelican Bay -- Pelican Bay district. We've also used special assessment districts to finance water-sewer infrastructure and for stormwater improvements in the Naples Park area. However, this method is also somewhat a little more cumbersome than a simple ad valorem based taxation where each home owner's relative share is based on the value of their property as this requires studies demonstrating benefit accruing to individual properties. And in the stormwater area, the board's policy has been, you know, 50 percent plus one of the home owners in the given area must agree in a petition to the board prior to the board implementing a special assessment. Bonding is certainly another option available to the board. It's a legitimate means of financings infrastructure with a long useful Page 13 March 9, 2001 life such as buildings, roads or even land purchases. And a simple example in every day life is a home mortgage where a typical individual would not have cash available to finance a home -- a home purchase or construction. There are some restrictions though. General obligation bonds, which pledge future ad valorem taxes as the repayment source require voter approval via a referendum. Revenue bonds are easier to implement as they do not require voter approval; however, they also actually put a squeeze on the county's operating revenue. Currently you have sales tax revenue that's available to fund operating costs in the general fund. Obviously, if you issue bonds pledging sales tax as the repayment source, you have to first honor that debt service and then any residual cash would be available to fund operational costs in the general fund. And, certainly, increasing existing fees and/or taxes is an option that's available to the board. Fees are typically reviewed annually specifically in the water and sewer areas and certainly in the community development areas to make sure that they're set at a level to cover the full cost of providing a given service. And the board, certainly one of the greatest powers given the board is the annual adoption of the millage rate and the establishment thereof. MS. VARCOE-LEAMER: This like talks about the issues that senior management that were of most important. Tom got the administrators together and we brainstormed about these issues and came up with overhauling contract management, a customer outreach plan, looking at our organizational and business management processes, and an employee investment plan, E-government, decentralized government, technology management, a grant acquisition program, quality assurance and quality control plan, government facilities master plan and capital funding plan. Jim? MR. MUDD.' I'd like to go back to the process just to kind of let you know where -- where we've come from before we go stretching out as now it gets to be the hard part. We've gone over what we've done a year ago as far as what our mission and vision, our goals and objectives were, what our Page 14 March 9, 2001 key business processes were. Now we've talked about sections one, two, three and four, and we've taken a look at what the customer -- who the customers are, what they wanted, who the stakeholders were in county government that are there with us sharing risk. We talked about what their requirements are. We went and looked at the employee vis a vis and study and assessment that transpired here in county government here in this last year and laid those processes out. We've showed -- we showed you what the county administrators had -- administrators had come up with along with -- along with the county manager and his executive staff as we sat down and we wickered out what we thought were some of the key issues. And now we're ready to go into transition to take a look at all those inputs and start taking a look at what are the key strategic issues and start ferreting out those particular issues and looking at those priorities. One of the things you have to do to get at those key issues is to figure out what your key business drivers are. What are the things that -- what are this things that -- that -- that we have to have success in that are critical to achieving overall success in the county? And -- and when we sat down and we looked at it, it is protect the public health and safety. That's our -- that's our number one issue. Political community support. We're trying to do what the taxpayers want. We're trying to exceed their expectations in everything we do. We want to get out of mode where, well, that's just a bunch of government workers, or that's good enough for the government. Well, it's not good enough for the government. We want to be the best and we want to make sure that we give that taxpayer what we can rightfully give him and exceed his expectations. We need to invest in the future. We just can't let everything sit around, may it be a road, may it be a utility, may it be an employee, and just let them stay stagnant or her stay stagnant in the position and never get any -- never get those mental juices flowing, never get that excitement in there. They'll never been able to exceed if they're just happy with the status quo. Page 15 March 9, 2001 And then we've got to make sure all those programs that we bring to bear that we've got effective program management and execution, that we're accountable for the taxpayers' dollars, that we're good stewards. And by the way we bring good projects and programs to bear and we get the best product for the dollar that the taxpayer gives LIS. As we sat there and we said, well, what are the hot key business drivers of those five? One is, and it goes along with our mission, exceed those customer expectations, invest in the future. We're playing catch-up right now in the county. And then we've got to make sure that we've got the political and community support in order to do those things. Now, this is where we're going to get some input, I hope, okay? I have noticed the silence. This is the first time we're almost finished with the briefing and it's getting close to being an hour early. CHAIRMAN CARTER: It won't last, Jim. MR. MUDD: Okay. Good, sir. As you look at -- as we started to break out those -- the staff's, senior staff input, we started to break those out and said, okay, what things can the county -- what things can the staff do, what things do we need to elevate to the -- to the commission and to the board and what things are going to transpire in every division as a shadow program? We tried to break those 11 items out. And we were able to break it out into eight because the -- the capital funding plan also kind of encompassed the government facilities master plan. But in this one, we basically said, you know, the BCC employee investment plan, and one of those things that the folks had to say, what are we talking about? We're talking about trying to get our employment opportunities filled, the positions that are vacant. I mean, employment right now in -- to get people to come and work in our -- and work in our vacancies and work for the county is very difficult for us to do it. We've got employment at an all time high. Everywhere you go in this county, and probably in most of Florida, you see help wanted signs. Well, you just can't seem to get enough people to do the jobs that you got and county positions are no different. Page t6 March 9~ 2001 They're taking a look at improving training opportunities. They're taking a look at their benefits. They're talking a look at their pay, career planning. You know, how do you a get ascension planning into this process? How do you develop that employee to take your place? How do we lay out as leaders, a legacy for future generations instead of saying, well, it's a hot item now and I don't want to be around here when we have the shipwreck, so I'm ditching and I'm going to another job. I think we've seen that revolving door a lot in this county. I can't say it in particular. I've only been here for four months, but I can tell you -- I can't tell you how many public utility administrators there have been in the last ten years. That exceeds my number of times I've taken my wife out to lunch for the last 26. And, so, we're trying to look for less turnover, because if you're training your employees and you're really serious about that training program, you're investing dollars. You can ill afford to have that employee walk out the door after you spend thousands of dollars to get them up to speed and licensed in those things that they need to have and the credentials they need to be efficient and effective operators and employees in the county. So, you've got to try to get that, and you -- and there is a -- it's a juggling act. And you got to make sure that you balance them all as you do that process. You can't -- you can't give everybody the sky. You got to balance it out with everything else that you have. I always look at it in two different ways. You're trying to delight the customer and you're trying to satisfy the employee and try not to get them mixed up as far as delight and satisfy. The next thing is decentralized government. What are we talking about? We're talking about I government, interaction between the government and the community and the taxpayer, seamless, the point where they don't have to drive down to the -- the -- the county campus in order to get business done. They can go to Horseshoe or they can go to another satellite place to get their -- to get their permits put in, to get their employment applications processed, to pay a fee if they need to, to get their beach parking sticker so that we don't have traffic Page 17 March 9, 2001 jams all over the place, trying to get into one place and you find that the parking lot is full. But it only happens on Tuesday when there's commission meetings that you can never find a parking space. But we're trying to make it seamless government. If somebody wants to pay a bill, why not be able to do it on the web? Why can't we pick that up and do it? Why do they have to go anywhere? And that's kind of what we're trying to get to to make sure that we're better servants for the public. And that capital funding plan. We're talking about government facilities master plan. We're talking how do we fund all the capital improvements that the county needs in the next 20 years without breaking the bank and the taxpayer? And that's one of those things you got to have, and if you don't do it smart, you're going to be stepping on everybody all the time and you won't get the high priority things done that you want to because we're dealing with the finite set of resources. Next slide. These are some things that we thought that really are hot button issues with the taxpayers but -- sir, go ahead. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Nothing. MR. MUDD: Oh, okay. The -- these are -- these are items that -- that I think the commissioners need to get to help us to get some outside help with, maybe a committee here or whatever to make sure we are doing affordable house and we're not talking about 140 units. It wasn't a year that Mr. Dunnuck ceased. He misspoke the other day. That's total, okay? And, so, do we need more than that? And then Commissioner Coletta is saying -- he's nodding north and south, saying yes. Well, we need to take a look at that issue and figure out where it is and make sure we have a plan for it, and it just isn't a Band-Aid where it -- where it doesn't fit in or it isn't the right thing to do, and we -- we're really not putting that together. And that's one of the things that we need to get at. Purchase green space, open space. We need to figure out what that is and it's a hot topic for many. And we just had to talk about the beach issue where the house and -- and how the -- the board answered that call for -- for green space and open space. Page 18 March 9, 2001 And it's got to be a planned thing. And I think at this juncture, we're taking the -- where -- well, wherever they put it, a golf course is where the next green space is going to be. I'm not too sure that might be the right thing to do or not the right thing to do. And we need to make sure we have an integrated plan. Indigent health care. This is one of Leo's hot topics. We've got to make sure that that's the right thing to do with -- with the folks that we have in the county. Transportation planning. We're spent four hours, six hours, eight hours in the last workshop? It went on a long time, talking about how we're going to do transportation for the next 25 years and how we're going to pay for it. Economic development and redevelopment. We do that little triangle area down here in East Naples and how we're going to do that. And that's a big -- that's a big issue. How do we bring that to bear and how do we identify those areas that are going to get run down or going to become vacant? And what's the next thing that we would like to have happen so that we get that community character that we want and it just isn't one person's vision. It's the community's vision on what it needs to be. And then smart growth. How do we do that? And those are the things that we -- we kind of laid down that we're going to need that we would like to have some help from the commissioners on in relation to the community to -- to try to assess what those things are and to come up with some good plans and some good ideas. Tom, do you want to interject on that? MR. OLLIFF: Yeah. I guess I'll jump in here as opposed to at the end. A lot of what you're seeing is a resource issue for us. I think we told you before that we have a large plate of things to do currently. And catching up in transportation is just an example of in each and every division a list of things that we've been calling our bag of old projects. And from a staff perspective, we have been carrying around these major decisions and ma]or projects that haven't gotten done that need to be done in this county for years. These are things that need to be done in this community now, but I'm telling you from the county manager's standpoint, I don't Page 19 March 9, 2001 have the resources to be able to take care of all of the issues like catching up on transportation, construction and planning, catching up on wastewater plant constructions and in water plant constructions to be able to do both and do them well. So, either we've got resource to be able to devote to this list of old issues that we need to get off our plate, and if we don't do something with these and we just wait or I have to look around our room here and decide where are the resources available for us to be able to address some of these issues that are not within our agency right now, under the county manager's agency. Now, if you want us to be able to do the things that we've all agreed need to be done, whether it be landfill construction, road condition, wastewater plant construction, all those things, I'm going to be looking to you to help us with some of these things that are community important priority issues that, frankly, I agree with you. I don't think we can wait two years for us to catch up on all of these other things at a staff level before we start heading out and doing something progressive on these kinds of issues. But the resource that we do have available to us is you, as county commissioners, and the community. And I think what I'm looking to you for is to say there's a certain number of things that we can do in-house and we're going to do everything that we can, but we need some help if we're going to actually make some progress on some of these major policy issues. And I'm going to be looking for the board members to create perhaps some citizens committees and actually spend your time serving on some of those committees to try and bring some recommendations of a policy nature back so that these things can be progressing at the same time your staff is trying to take care of what we call sins of the past. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I -- I know that all -- all of the commissioners are -- would be delighted to participate in that. And you want us to then involve the community as well. I mean, we're -- we're able to do that? Did you want us to head these committees? Did you want us to serve on these committees? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, it's not what he wants, it's what we want, Donna. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And may I make some Page 20 March 9, 200t suggestions here or -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If I may, we have already been active, I think, individually. I mean, I'm many times -- going right down through these issues; affordable housing, I don't know how many times I've been hammering away at these various meetings. I've probably put some burdens on some developers out there unnecessarily. I've met with many, many people on that and I know you have been doing it, too, independently. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's something maybe we can handle when we do our -- take a look at the impact fees. There might be something in there when we go back at it. The purchase of green open space. There's numerous people here that have been looking at that from a number of directions. We have a lot of hot issues. I don't think we've given this a top priority, but we know it's very important. I know we meet with the conservancy, we meet with the wildlife federation, we carry this to the public meetings. So, I think we're pretty much on top of it. The question is on some of these other ones, do we have enough staff to do what we want to do? MR. OLLIFF: That's what I'm telling you. I don't have the staff resource, whether it be equipment, manpower or money to be able to do a legitimate job on trying to move these issues forward and do the things that are already on our plate, bottom line. So, I'm asking you -- for affordable housing, for example, we have done affordable housing through policies that are incentive based and we have tried tweaking the incentives a number of different ways, and I think you would have to agree with us that they have not been overwhelmingly successful by any stretch of the imagination. And I will tell you in terms of policy level issues that have just incredibly huge impacts on this community, the lack of affordable housing is one that is affecting every -- every corner of our community and something that needs to be done about -- something, policy level and aggressive, needs to happen in affordable housing. Page 21 March 9, 2001 COMMISSIONER HENNING.' Can I say something? Why don't we take affordable housing and move it into growth management and smart growth, because that's where it needs to be. It's a policy decision that you and I, at least our five elected officials~ to make that happen through growth management. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Tom's right. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I think so, but if you look at the whole list it's under growth management and smart growth. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's true. CHAIRMAN CARTER: It's a linking pain relationship. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And we can say that to economic development. We just need to make those policy decisions. Now .. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, they're -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- how -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Economic development is with us. If there's any one growth that we really have the attention to support, it's the EDC, who has been a good partner with us and continue to be a good partner in looking for more ways to be effective, but, you know, you're absolutely right. They can't accomplish what want to do if you don't have the other things here. And I've sat here long enough to know that this is a great list and we all want to support it, and then when it comes down to where are the resources, how much are you willing to go on the line to commit to those opportunities and everybody backs up because you're going to get to political community support. And if you don't have the community support, then how could the people in political positions justify or even explain why they're doing what they're doing? You can't leave one without the other. And we say, well, we're elected to provide these services. Absolutely. They want the services. And are they willing to participate in getting those services to what Tom is suggesting to us and every opportunity we have; public, private, whatever it is to get there as a community. And we haven't sold this to the community, ladies and gentlemen. The community out there: I want everything, I want to pay for it, or let them pay for it someplace else. It's not realistic. And that's the tough bullet that we're going to have to bite here. And I think that's what I hear Tom tell me Page 22 March 9, 2001 over and over and over. MR. OLLIFF: One of the things I keep -- keep trying to tell you ail is that -- and -- and without offending any previous boards, I will tell you that from our perspective at a staff level, boards of the past have not spent nearly the right proportion of their time dealing with policy versus operational day-to-day issues. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's right. MR. OLLIFF: And I think our boards have not functioned as board of directors in the post. We have been much more concerned about Mrs. Jones' pothole than we have been about looking at the horizon to see from an economic development perspective, for example, that development will come to an end as we know it within the foreseeable future. We know we can see what that horizon is going to be. At that point, should we let things continue to go as they are, we are going to be a serviced based economy, if that's okay as long as we -- we end up there in 20 years and we did that by intention. But if we end up there in 20 years and we're a service based economy, and we got there because we didn't realize it, we didn't stop to think about it or we didn't make the changes in policy 20 years ago to be able to have a different kind of an economy or a community, shame on us. You know, from a policy maker standpoint, we ought to be looking at the horizon and the community is going to be looking to you to make those policy level decisions that are going to change the way this community is going to develop over the next decade in 20 years. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: A couple of thoughts to add to that, Tom. I think one of the things we can do is start making reports back to each commissioner through our memorandums with meetings that we're going to in the direction that the public is looking at. When it comes to the contact from the government to the public, it's the commissioners, five commissioners. I think what we're seeing here is the staff gets out there and they talk to the public and they answer questions, but they're not in there day in and day out, hour by hour. They haven't led the civic associations, been members of the board of directors for the Chambers of Commerce. They haven't Page 23 March 9, 2001 been involved in the some of the grassroot issues. They see them when they reach the point that they have to reach resolution. I think maybe the commissioners need to have a little closer contact with staff with their memorandums, come up with a procedure we can report on the last board of directors meeting we went and what the particular end of the committee as far as a civic association or a chamber and what that end of the committee was looking for so we can keep well informed. Maybe we might come to a consensus of opinion that way. Also on your end, Tom, I think you need to do an inventory, of which you have, as far as the physical resources in the way of people to see what you can meet what we currently got on the plate, and what is it going to take to go to the next step? And I think we went through an example of this when we came up with the Golden Gate master plan. MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And we brought everything out in the open with the fact that inadequate staff exists to do it there now and we either have to hire more staff or we have to bring in outside resources. So, possibly an inventory to be able to show us where we are, and the next step is going to be what and what the dollar and cents issue would be so we can weigh that and where we're going with the rest of this. And then we can come up with several different alternatives in what we're looking at. Affordable housing. I still think that's saying it should be tied in with impact fees. I really do. Any time you got growth, growth should pay for growth. Affordable housing, which I -- I resent the term affordable. I think it should be called work force housing. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I agree. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I -- you know, when you -- affordable makes it sound like we're running a social service agency here. But work force housing is what we need to be able to make this economy be the way it is. And that includes such people as our police force, our firemen and whatever else. And you can go right down through these in order. The green space, I think that's something that we need to try to get closer and closer in the environmental community and Page 24 March 9, 2001 bring them into the fold and start working with them. I think each commissioner should fill an obligation to meet three or four times a week -- a month with different people from the environmental community to try to get a better feel for what's going on. Indigent health care. You've heard this many times. If there's no money, people don't want to spend it. But ! tell you there is money out there and I think we're going to be able to find it, especially in this budget cycle, not so much for indigent but for children and 0for expecting mothers that have been going -- needs have been unfulfilled that are just nickels and dimes that will prevent additional costs later in our system. Economical development and redevelopment. That's something that I think is going to start taking care of itself -- with itself especially when we get more staff aboard. And growth management and smart growth are all the above. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think -- I think each one of us needs to focus on one particular subject because if we focus our attention on that particular one -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah. This is the whole thing. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- instead of getting each one scatter shod. But I notice that a lot of the overlap like you -- you've got the redevelopment, but that can overlap right into smart growth and growth management as affordable housing as -- as well. All three of those would overlap into one another and, of course, you'd want green space to be playing an important part in all of that as well. So, somehow each one of us needs to focus on one of these topics and yet at the same time we need to communicate enough with each other so that -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And back to staff. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- we don't duplicate each other's Efforts and we support one other's efforts. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I wouldn't -- you know, I agree with that. I have focused on economic development through the EDC because they -- they deal with all these issues and they're looking at their strategic planning process, how to better deal with them, and so they can aid -- help grow businesses that are here and attract new businesses that diversify your economy, which diversifies your tax base so you're not leaning so heavily Page 25 March 9, 2001 on ad valorem taxes. I don't know what the number is, Mike, but what is it, 87 percent of our -- somebody, if I'm pretty close to that of our ad valorem taxes come right off of the home owner versus -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commercial. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- versus commercial. And it's not because it's an unfair rate. It's a fact that we're an askewed community as you look at that ad valorem tax base. So, I mean, I would willingly continue in that effort to try to get them and continue to work with them to make that happen. And they're a willing partner. They are a great example of the private public partnership, which they've already established with us, to try to address some of these needs. And they, too, are frustrated. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I think what we need to do as government is supply the land, the raw land, for economic development. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, we don't have much, but we have identified some areas that might be better utilized with different kinds of business parks or smart parks. And that needs to be a part of your total planning process. Where do you locate these? Where are the people coming who work in those parks and it may be coming from the east, so you don't build your smart park way down in an area where you got everybody traversing to the city. Maybe you build it right on the border of your boundary line, in those areas. Where people come in, they have all the opportunities to do their job and find services, but they're not going further down into the city to compact your roads and congestion and everything else, so -- I know the EDC will be coming to us shortly with their strategic plan and that will be one piece that we'll have on this. And I know the other things are going, too, so -- Health care. You'll get that report, I guess, what, next year, Tom, about this time? They're going to tell you -- MR. OCHS: Well, technically it's due in -- in August. They'll probably ask for a bit of an extension, but they're working hard towards that -- that August deadline. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You may -- you may be able to set it in the fall, but whatever you see, they've addressed how we're Page 26 March 9, 2001 going to fix the problem and then they're going to tell you what they believe are the resources to do that. And I'm looking forward to that because that should assist us and then we can get the rest of the community involved and say, look, this is the problem. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm very interested in work force housing. I have a tendency to want to look more closely at that unless there is somebody else that -- that would like to vie for that position but I am very interested in affordable housing. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I don't think there's any harm in maybe naming you as the number one person. We can complement you along the way with what we pick up or what we bring into-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I would need you to, yeah. That's right. I -- I would think that -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I have a personal interest in transportation and in indigent health care, but transportation is the most critical issue, and I have been working with the chambers and the different civic associations, many different entities out there on that. I wouldn't mind taking a front row on that particular thing and be supplemented by everybody else. We're looking for front people on this. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I definitely think Jim would be the right one for the EDC. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. He seems to be -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No doubt about it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- the perfect fit, yeah. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I thank you for you that and they're going to look to what everything else is going on in here, believe me. Again, we can't look at them separately, but I -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, no. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- agree. Sometimes one or more of us because of sunshine. We don't know. I don't know that Tom Henning is doing something. He doesn't know I'm doing something. And recently he kind of circulated a memorandum of what he was doing and that was information and I thought that was great -- Page 27 March 9, 2001 COMMISSIONER FIALA: That was a great idea -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- idea. COMMISSIONER FIALA.' -- by the way. CHAIRMAN CARTER: So, we've got to find a better way to do that and certainly not violate the sunshine. And you're not asking for information back. You're not asking for anything. It's for your information. This is where I am. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You know, and the memorandums are open to the public -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sure. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- for review at any point in time. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I guess if we have any question, all we have to do is ask our legal counsel, and he will say, ah, I think you're in an area where you better not do that and then we can -- we can back away from that. MR. OLLIFF: My hope was here that we could get some direction from you to bring back a process where we could have a commissioner serving on some independent committees, and these are -- these are very detailed, indepth issues that are going to require some very ma]or policy decisions in order to make any real impact or change in this community. Affordable housing is not just simply a defining of a problem, we ain't got enough, but it's where does it need to be, what incentives do we need to be able to build in or what restrictions in terms of future development do we need in our lands development code, what are other communities doing, bringing back a whole list of policy recommendation then for this board to consider in changes in both your growth management plan, your land development code and all of the other ordinances that we have that are going to be recommended in order to make real viable change in terms of how we do affordable housing. I think we're in a great position timing wise, because I think the business community and the economic development community from an affordable housing standpoint is feeling so much pain -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. MR. OLLIFF: -- at this point that they are going to be willing to work with us as partners to try and develop some -- some real -- COMMISSIONER FIALA.' I think so, too. Page 28 March 9, 2001 MR. OLLIFF: -- change there. But for every one those issues, there are major policies that need to be brought forward. To bring those forward means somebody's got to do the research, the leg work, the actual drafting to bring some of these -- these policies back for the full board's consideration. CHAIRMAN CARTER: So, you're asking us, Tom, to make sure -- you're going to give us a criteria in which you want the designated commissioner to work on, and we'll have a limited amount of staff time to do some of these. And I guess what I hear you saying, Commissioner Fiala and everybody else says, who do you want us to get involved in this and what are some of the resources? And we can do that. I mean, on this water thing, I found in one meeting there was a lot of different resources and people who with a little time were willing to participate and accomplish something. And that makes a lot of sense. And the universities might in their graduate programs have students that can do a lot of leg work. I mean, they're looking for an opportunity. I've got to fulfill this course requirement, here's the criteria. Commissioner Henning want you to look at all of these, poll this stuff up, and at least get it in some reasonable collection of material that we can begin to look at. So, I think we can probably find some legs out there that will work for everybody. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: All right. Well, transportation is one that I've already really put together a committee on. And I -- with your permission, I'd like to serve on that committee and I'll bring it out to you. And I think it would be a great buffer between what's here now and the community at large, where we will be able to go out there and take the show on the roads more or less, show them what's being thought of and plan so we can give you a feedback. Be glad to do it. I've already done it twice and would be happy to continue doing that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's good, Commissioner Coletta. I mean, we know that Norman Feder has given us a challenge. There's no question about what we need to do. And I think that's key for all of us, is that we don't want to go out without the key administrators here under -- we both are on Page 29 March 9, 2001 the same page as far as criteria. What do you want, Mr. Transportation Director? What do you want, Mr. McNees? Do you want, Mr. Dunnuck? Are we on the same page? And if he says, yeah, this is what we need, then I think we can go out and do that and then develop discussions at the board level once we've got some opportunity to come back with something substantial. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have a question. With regard to the redevelopment, being that we have a great deal of redevelopment to be done in East Naples, I've put together a small little group -- I've begun to put together a small group to turn to certain things like the Town Center -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, and I think in that case, commissioner -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- or something, but then if you would be handling that end, may I then with our little committee focusing on one area, then could we submit those things to you to let you know what we're doing and then maybe your -- your group as a -- as an overrule umbrella to us, we would at least have somebody to go to and -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- and then somebody also to -- to advise on what you're doing and what we can do better. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, it makes a lot of sense to me because we need to make sure that everybody does it the way that it needs to be done. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And rightly so -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- under the sunshine laws. You and I can't sit together in a joint meeting of redevelopment and economic development people. We can't to that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. CHAIRMAN CARTER: However, if you have a group that focuses on redevelopment --. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- and you bring that back and I take it to the Economic Development Counsel and say, well, this is what the redevelopment piece is looking like -- Page 30 March 9, 2001 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- what you think, I don't see -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: You'll probably be so good as -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- we're not in any trouble -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- to feed to us. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- are we, Mr. Weigel, if we do that? MR. WEIGEL: No, but as you fine tune that, I'd like to look at it, make sure that I assist you to some degree to make sure we're on the straight and narrow. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Very good. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- I -- absolutely. Because our objective is to get the Information as much help as we can and do it in the most efficient way that we can with public input. MR. WEIGEL: Right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I see -- I see some great things happening from that. Here maybe we would be targeting on the redevelopment of Town Center, and then passing that on to you, you discussing it with your economic development, who knows? They might find the people to come in to redevelop that area. Boy, this could be a -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, there's an inventory, I think, Mike, or you or John did before. The Economic Development Counsel said, here are the existing land that could be used. They're going to go through a sorting process because some of that stuff, where it is, doesn't make any sense to have it out there and say this is an area that we can use for economic development, meaning business development. It doesn't fit. What we want to do is get down to the point as a board and in these support groups to say if these are the most logical areas to do these things, then let's stay focused on that, and then we can maybe -- that is the -- Tom's -- policy changes, land development code changes. At least you've got a basis to make the decision. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Tom, is this the direction you're thinking of as possibly us to be able to go out there and do some work to take some of the pressure off staff? Is that some of the thought process or -- MR. OLLIFF: It is. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- are we going the way you're Page 31 March 9, 2001 suggesting? MR. OLLIFF-' Absolutely. I think if you expect to see some real movement in these areas, and these areas are important to you, I guess what I'm telling you is you don't have the resource in-house right now in just around the room and the staff that these -- that work for these people to be able to do what's on their plate and do a reasonable job of bringing you back any real change or movement on these issues. So, if we're going to go anywhere with these, I think a lot of it is policy decision that needs to be made first before we end up having staff work afterwards. The policies are what need to be brought back to this board. I think the policies need to be developed in conjunction with policy makers and the community that are affected, involved in the stakeholders in each of these issues. So, just getting right down to examples, I think for affordable housing, for example, I'm just taking them right off the list, I would see those people who are affected most by affordable housing, whether it be business community people, people who are actually in the affordable housing business, the finance banking people, all of those people coming together serving on a community committee that is led by a county commissioner. They are looking then at trying to define what the problems are in this community. Let's come up with problem statements that we can all agree on; what are the problems with affordable housing; we don't have enough, it's located in the wrong places, the business is building where the affordable housing isn't, those kinds of things. Let's define the problems, let's find out what other communities are doing, let's bring back some policy recommendations to the board within some regulated time frame so that then the board adopts policy, then staff has more work to do after that. Then once the policies are in place, then we have marching orders after that. And it's the same with each and every one of those. Let's define our problems. Let's go look at what other communities are doing, what other ordinances are out there, bring back some policy changes, because in each of these areas, the community is not happy with what is happening there. And, frankly, from a board perspective, I keep hearing Page 32 March 9, 2001 consistently from each of you that these things are important. We can't wait. We need to do something. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And the thing about us going out now, each one of us individually and selecting people to work with us, we're going out of the box. We're going to get fresh new ideas, which is something I think we need. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And you're going to bring the public in to -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Public unbiased opinions, yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA'. Right. Bring the public into the mainstream. MR. OLLIFF: What I would like or what I would propose is that you allow us to bring back on a regular board agenda a program with some parameters on it so that we go ahead and set these up as county commission -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Viability. MR. OLLIFF: Well, committees that are actually created by and have the standing of the full board so that then we go ahead and advertise them and they would be ad hoc in nature because they would be a short period of time and there is sort of a new way. I think we ought to look at some committees where we create citizens committees dedicated to specific issues. They get in. They research. They provide recommendations and then they go away. We don't need to have committees that stay on forever and ever and ever. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And, yeah. Tom's right. By doing this, too, we don't start have -- we don't have to hire as many special consultants out there. We're using the resources of the community. We did this years ago with the master plan when we put it together. We just used the resources of the community and got it involved. And I think it's an excellent idea. I got two interests in here. One is transportation, one, and I -- if you drop the word indigent from health care, I'd love the health care issue. COMMISSIONER FIALA.' Well, I think indigent is not a word to use in that -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA.' I don't either -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- particular area. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Health care is everyone. Page 33 March 9, 2001 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Because indigent patients are already cared for coming from that industry. Indigents are already covered by Medicare -- I mend Medicaid and Social Services. It's the -- it's the working class people who are uninsured, so I think maybe we ought to identify it as uninsured health care. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Or better yet, Donna, we got a problem out there right now with emergency rooms, where you have like four to six hours of wait. We don't have a trauma center. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We're talking about the population at large. So, I would -- I would think it would be much more comfortable just calling it health care. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Great. MR. OLLIFF: Well, I think if you look on your -- your slide, it's now work force housing -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, that's amazing. MR. OLLIFF: -- and it's now health care. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: How do people can look so far ahead and read our minds. CHAIRMAN CARTER: It's called let them kick it around and make the decision and commit to what they want to do and then show them what we think they should do. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: In other words, they let us down the green path to wherever they wanted us to be. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Before we continue on, I'd just say growth management and smart growth is part of the Governor's past, and I did attend that meeting in Orlando, and so I could grapple with that item. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, great. MR. MUDD: Does that mean that through Commissioner Mac'Kie's absence that she gets the one that's left over? CHAIRMAN CARTER: She's going to love the -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: She would love that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- green space and environment. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, yeah. That's a natural. I mean, everybody -- everybody knows Pam is the green person here. MR. MUDD: From the last, of course. Page 34 March 9, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: You miss a meeting and you know what happens. COMMISSIONER COLETTA.' Should have given all six of them to her. MR. MUDD.' Shadow staff actions, E-government, and that goes back to that list of 11. E-government and grand acquisition plans. They're ongoing in every -- in every division in the county in order to -- to make that work. As -- as Leo said this morning, I've got to have a -- a structure for -- for information and for information technology. And we think of highways as one thing, but you got to think of that information technology issue as another highway, and you can't -- and you can't think of it as a -- as a second thought. It's got to be right up there in the front part if we're really going to do things smarter and better in the future. And that's one of those things that the staff is devoting some time to. Grant acquisition. We're trying to go get as much free money as we possibly can. And one thing you've told us to do is go out there and be aggressive there, and we're trying to share the different grant programs and the idea. Sometimes I'll get a piece of paper to talk about this grant thing. Two of them work, one of them doesn't. I'm making sure that the other staff person where that grant falls under gets that information so it just doesn't fall out and we don't miss an opportunity. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Are we -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Question. COMMISSIONER HENNING.' -- at the point -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Go ahead. Ladies first. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, thank you, sir. Is there a possibility of us hiring somebody who just specializes in grant -- grant -- what would you call it? COMMISSIONER HENNING.' Grant acquisition. COMMISSIONER FIALA-' Yeah. Grant acquisitions. And the acquisition or the grant writing would pay for that person's salary as well, but he would work for all departments. He or she would work for all departments just researching for Page 35 March 9, 2001 other grants. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And also what we have in the community, too, there are a lot of great organizations that -- well, the Abused Women Shelter is one example. Is -- can we assist them in their grant applications, too? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, they're good at that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Tom, what do we have on grant writers? Do we have one in each division or do we have none or -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: They don't have any. MR. OLLIFF: Oh, we have pretty much relied on staff that do other things all day to try and become self-educated grant writers. And it is one -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, we got people in this community that did that for a living. I mean, we need to get that source and find out how we can utilize that and maybe transform that into having our own person but maybe we can start getting there. MR. OL. LIFF: Well, you -- that's why you see this on our list and I'm glad I hear the response that I do, because these are the things -- what you're beginning to see are the things that we thought needed to be on the board's priority list. Now, you're seeing what we call shadow staff. And by shadow staff, I mean there is a county organization that you are very familiar with with six division administrators and departments that line up underneath them. But there are a number of programs that come up that don't fit within that organization anywhere. GIS is a good example. GIS is currently being done by what we would call a shadow staff organization. GIS pulls together a team of people from each of these divisions, who are all interested and very a dog in that GIS hunt. That is a shadow staff group. It doesn't really fit within that organization. Grant acquisition plan is something we think is important enough that it needs to be one of our shadow staff priorities for you, so as a staff we want to put together a grant acquisition plan. In some cases grants are so specialized that you need specialized people to be able to go get those. The ones that come to mind are the ones in social service agencies where you're going after federal aging grants. Page 36 March 9, 2001 Those are very, very complicated specific type grants. We have people that are there and have done that for years. Some grant generalist is not going to be very good in getting that kind of grant for us. But we need to put together a complete plan for you that says for certain types of grants, we need a grants generalist. For other types of grants, we need to be able to train our staff better, and Jo-Anne is already working out some grants application and writing training amongst our own staff, to be able to do that, but we want to put together a whole plan that says, we haven't done a real good ]ob of getting grants, we want to do a whole lot better ]ob and here's the best way that we think that we can do it and then show you a form. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Tom, I'd like to see an accounting of what we're doing on grants some day and then I'd like to set a goal, whatever, two, 300 percent to try to make a difference. If we need examples on grant writing, go to Everglades City, if you want to see a community that's been extremely successful with their grants. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Look at John Drury, too. MR. OLLIFF: Well, I will tell you, we do get -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Oh, yeah. John is an amazing grant writer. I mean, he knows how to do that. MR. OLLIFF: We do get millions of dollars a year in grant money here, but I will tell you that there -- we believe we leave a lot on the table as well. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, it's like going for a scholarship. COMMISSIONER FIALA: He's got what, $9 million or something like that. MR. OLLIFF: Yeah. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, speaking of great grant writers. MR. OLLIFF: Almost ten. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Would it be a possibility maybe John Drury might have a little extra time in his schedule where he might help to put together some sort of staff on this or a study group? MR. OLLIFF: You know who wrote most of his grants, don't you? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. Page 37 March 9, 2001 COMMISSIONER FIALA: No kidding. MS. VARCOE-LEAMER: Yeah. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You already had the resource. She will help us find and tell us what we need to do, it gives us the basis for the policy. Make sure we tap that resource. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Now I know where I got the fluffy memo. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Can we go back to E-government? MR. MUDD: Certainly can. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One of the things I strongly believe in is public access to government records. I know that in some cases we charge for records. Is there -- if there's any way that we might be able to over a period of time open up more and more records to the public so that they can access them at home and maybe a start would be to have a computer set right up in commissioners' office where people coming off the street could see the memos that go on between the commissioners, be able to read the E-mail that takes place, the answers that go out. This is all public record and it should be accessible at the easiest convenient for the public out there to be able to get a feel for how the commissioners are influenced by outside forces. Also, I would say with any kind of records that could come up with that are -- should be a public domain, should be accessible by computers. Over a period of time I would think that this would be something we should be aiming at with some sort of point in time that we can say we'll reach a level of performance that will be available to the public. And also with E.government, while we're at it, I would like to see the commission meetings and all these special meetings, work house meetings, to be able to be put over the internet so that people at home that don't have Channel 54 or any place in the world will be able to listen to the dialogue that takes place. Make people involved and the government runs a lot smoother. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I don't know what the technology barriers are out of that and what our capabilities are. I don't disagree with the theory, but I think -- maybe I'm not understanding. E-government is -- perhaps, Tom, you are asking or sharing Page 38 March 9, 2001 how do people pay bills, do all that kind of things by E-government where you don't have to make trips, trips saving to be able to do business on the internet just like they go and buy a pair of shoes if they choose to do that. Personally, I would prefer to make that a top priority for people to get and be able to do government services. While public information is important, they do vehicles right now where they can get it. Any memorandum that is sent between commissioners goes into a file that sets out there. Anybody can walk in here at any time of the day and have access to it. So, I guess from my judgment, I just want to really be able to have government services be the priority on E-government in that respect of making it easier for the citizen out there to pay bills and do that kind of things. Not that the other is important, but I wouldn't personally give it as a high priority. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I give it a very high priority but, you know, I'm sure both of them have some importance, but I would like to -- since you mentioned the other subject, I would like to see the permitting department be on E-commerce where we can try to avoid a lot of the coming and the going, the exchange of information that where a majority of it could be done right over the internet, but possibly if we get to the point where they'd have nothing more to do than go in and prove they're the person that put in the application, show their driver's license and pay with a credit card and leave. And they could pay even pay over the internet. MR. OLLIFF: I think there's two parts to E-government. And one is the traditional portion where you're trying to provide business applications out there to the public where they can conduct as much business electronically with us as opposed to having them physically come, but I think we have recognized that access from the public to information is also a very key component for us. And just as an example, I know that as part of your land development workshop that will come up, you will see a plan that we have for additional public access to what we get a lot of requests for, which is access to a lot of the land development, PUD documents, site development plans and all of that. Page 39 March 9, 200t John, why don't you just give us a little preview update? MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. Actually, Tom's right on the mark right there. You're going to see two things during the development review workshop. One, it's going to be exactly what you're talking about. We're in the process of developing a strategic plan for our division for long range to handle the permitting aspect electronically. Exactly what you're talking about. The example I can think of right off the hand is our records room has just finished up boxing 500 boxes of paper since 1998 and, boy, it sure would be nice to be able to do a lot of that electronically. The other aspect of it is, and I think we alluded to it a couple of weeks ago, the public participation aspect. And that's when you get into the development review process early on. What we're hearing from the community is we want to be involved during the application process. We don't want it coming before the board and then having our opportunity to speak. We want to provide public comment at the time during the application and we're headed that way as well. And we'll give you much more detail during those workshops. But we're on target there and working with the IT master plan, got a new director over there and how it fits into the whole organizational schedule. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, that sure meets, I think, both Commissioner Coletta's and my agenda. And I really would like to see that. That is really great, what I would call true public access to be as part of our smart growth management plans. That to me would have a very high priority to give them access. To go back into some historical files, they may have to look at, you know, what's important that they know today and then if they need to know something from the past, that would be a lower priority to me as long as we're given what you need today and keep you updated and informed and so you can participate. That would be ideal. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One question, if I play, John. I'm curious. The maps that are provided to us by such place as Wilson and Miller, do they have a copyright to them? Are we free to put them on the internet and give them out? MR. DUNNUCK: Well, certainly. If we're paying for that map, Page 40 March 9, 2001 it's ours. Depending on which map you're talking about, but -- but, yeah, I believe when we can work -- work something out along those lines. MR. OLLIFF: I think he's talking about maps that are submitted as part of an application package or something like that. Those are all public record once they get submitted to us. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. MR. OLLIFF: And so you know, we have been scanning in all of the documents that have been received since 1999, I believe, and at the same time going back in and scanning in as much old information into the system as we can. And I believe we're back to 1997 in terms of what we've scanned in, so the public has electronic access now to all of those land developments applications back to 1997, but we've got a long -- a period still to put into the system. MR. DUNNUCK-' And just to add on to that a little bit, for the future we're looking at providing incentives to development communities so that they provide it to us electronically right off the bat. So, from the standpoint of catching up, we're getting it ahead of time. MR. MUDD.' And this ties in to GIS, because the mechanism they're going to do it in is going to be tied in that system. So not only are you going to put all the plans and specs and whatnot of the community of the entire county out there electronically, but they're going to have the ability to go to our web site and pull that information so they know exactly what this land is coded and so there's no mystery or give it to me and then they have to pluck on it twice and it brings them down and focuses in and then they bring that exact map back out again and get into the details that they need in order to do those plans to figure out what properties they need to buy to figure out what the development process is. And then when they submit that PUD plan, it comes to us in an electronic format that goes right into GIS. So that there is -- we try to get away from all of that paper so that you really have a transparent system that's moving and saving money for the entire community. MR. OLLIFF: Ideally, you have a system we're on a computer screen the public can pull up and pull down a PUD map, for example, and they see what are the approved PUDs out. And Page 4t March 9, 2001 they see a PUD with the vacant piece out front, they can go to that and they can find the actual PUD document on the system and they can read that. And they can find out what are the allowable uses under that PUD for that vacant piece of parcel property, and all of that information being easily, readily accessible on the web. And that's where we're heading. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's great customer service. If Mr. and Mrs. Jones are thinking about buying something in Y project, they see that vacant land, they get told many different stories, they go right to the computer, access it and find out what potentially could be there before they make that buying decision. And that just opens up another avenue for them to be informed. MR. OLLIFF: Jim, keep us moving. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Organizational action. These are the things that we're trying to do. Technology management. We're try to do that. Jo-Anne is the lead on that process within our organization. And then quality assurance, quality control. Right now we're doing that at the division processes that are pretty much stovepiped, but in those instances where they cross the different divisions, we need to do a better job as far as how that paperwork gets -- gets tossed over the cubicle divider, okay, to make sure that if it was your priority, the person on the other side, even though they were in another division, know it's a priority for the county for you in order to do that. And it has everything to do to make sure not only the quality control plans for the individual projects are being done but that you have a quality assurance process throughout the county and the county government. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I would agree. Let's make it a seamless organization. That's the overriding goal. MR. MUDD: Future actions, that of those senior staff identified needs that we're going to have to get at to at a different time. It's a little bit too much for our plate for '01 our overhaul of contract management. Right now we have a contract management group that's working to identify the problem. It's -- it's a perception that it is Page 42 March 9, 2001 a problem. They're taking a look at it to get their arms around it to try to define it a little bit better and then to entertain how much of a resource we're going to have to put against it in the '02, '03 time frame in order to get -- in order to get some solution within the county. Is it a centralized area? How does it work? Right now PMs have their own contract officers. Depending on the diligence of that project manager, it's how well that contractor gives you, it stays within the contract and the quality of the product that you get at the other end. Not necessarily the best thing to do when you're into a bigger organization like the county is right now with all the capital budget items that are happening. The customer outreach plan. Telling the citizens of this county what and who we are, what we do for them and then at the same time that outreach is not only us telling them but it's also listening, okay, and being able to figure out how and what they need into being receptive to their wishes and that's what that outreach plan does. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: How other than the commissioners would you do that? MR. MUDD: How would we do it? With the -- you'd get -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Other than the commissioners. MR. MUDD: Oh, when you get -- once you get the plan and you start laying out those mechanisms, may it be town hall meetings on a regular basis instead of, well, this is time to have one~ but we don't have it on a regular basis because we don't a crisis but we'll have one in two years, those things are scheduled. They're repetitive. And you get those issues out there. Once those things are done and you listen, the commissioners could be a part of that process as you do those town halls. We take the minutes. We take down the issues and the problem and that gets back to what we started with, identifying the problems in the county and making sure that we don't have a bias on them, and that helps us draw -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I like that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah. MR. MUDD: -- that issue out. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I like that word, what you just said, because too often we try to listen to one side and make up Page 43 March 9, 200t our minds and we're off and running. I personally call the opposition on some things if they don't come to me. I call them and bring them in just to try to get a balance. But that's good. MR. OLLIFF: But, for instance, we need to know what our customers want from us at levels of the organization that most of us will never deal in. Children's libraries. Let's go there and let's figure out from the mothers who have toddlers at home that are preschool age. What is it that they're looking to our library system for? What times for programs work for them and don't work for them. We don't have a formalized way of listening to the customers that are taking advantage of those programs so that we know we're providing the kind of service that they want from us. And, so, at every level of our organization, whether it's big, huge community issues, all the way down to the little children's library issue, we need to have ways that we are listening to our customers so that we know what it is that they want from us. MR. MUDD: And the last bullet there is organization business process management. How do we lay a project management or a business process on the county? And I -- and I've always said in my previous life, and I'll say it today, good organizations, they get by. Great organizations do routine things routinely. They're not emergencies. And every action isn't something different, okay? It pretty much falls in a process that you can get at. For instance, and I'll bring up one that came up yesterday. Mr. Carrington, brand new, Chuck's a great guy. We got a real find there when we brought him on to the county staff relatively new. He does real property. My old life, real estate. Real estate has got to be the slowest process of all time, and it holds up every capital project unless you bring your real estate folks on up front to get that stuff laid out, your easements done and whatever. Norm goes to Chuck and says, Chuck, this is the most important thing in the county. I go to Chuck and say that water plant in the south is the south is the most important thing in the county. Leo goes, man, my library is the most important thing in the county or it's the dog catching facility or whatever it is, and he's Page 44 March 9, 2001 got a million priorities. Well, how does he fit into that business process and really what are the county priorities and what does he need to work on first? That's happening. That's -- I just eyeballed them one time, but that's -- that's -- that's inherent. Whenever you go into a different level, you find that throughout the county. We really need to work that to make sure it is seamless, that the priorities of the county basically go throughout everybody in the staff and they all know it and they can realize it. And that's kind of where we started with this process today, really what are the county's priorities so that we can get it to the staff and we can get it to the taxpayer so that they know what to expect from us in the next year or so. What's next? This is the last slide. I love it when we're on time. We need to do a financial analysis of those resources to figure out what it's going to take in order to get at those issues. We need to make sure we have your input and we're doing what you want the staff to do. We work for you. Then we need to identify those things that are really the hot button items that we're going to handle and get at. You can have a thousand items that are hot, but you're never going to do a thousand. You might get at two or three and really make a difference. Or you can do a thousand and never really get anywhere, just everybody's got them on their plate and it never moves because everybody gets so overwhelmed. And the key is once you identify those priorities, develop those teams, they develop the charters, they lay out their goals and objectives, those things that they're going to measure, and they measure the difference that they're making in the county and the county government and for the taxpayer. Subject to your questions, that ends what -- what Leo, Jo-Anne, and a lot of other people have done and given to us as far as this presentation to give it to you in a succinct manner. This normally takes three days, sir. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, sir. I know, and what I like about this is you're telling us -- you are capsulizing what needs to be done. And this should be something that you have an annual, Page 45 March 9, 2001 strategic planning workshop and everybody says, well, we did that for the year. Let's go back and do business as usual. It's like putting the planning manuals on the shelf and we'll go do what we've always done. And I don't know how many organizations I've been in, they get the best developed plans I have ever seen. They are articulate. They get everything spelled out and they never change the behavior in the organization. And that's what we got to do here. We change our behavior. We get everybody to change their behavior. We make this thing work. Norman. MR. FEDER: An outstanding job on it. The only thing I'd add is the last slide. Then what? And the then what is once you've identified the priorities, the real critical aspects of that is while we go out and continually -- really often and continuous get input from the taxpayer, we need to define what we're going to do and stay to it, and stay the course to get something completed, because -- I speak in transportation. One of the biggest problems we're going to have is if we can't define what our program is and then hold to it. And that's what I think my predecessors had, was a continuous change of direction. We need to define our direction, mid course correction continuously as we get input, but nonetheless define that direction and hold to it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think you're right, Norman. That's what it says to me is, you know, plans are not stagnant. These are evolving. And what you do is you have the opportunities to make necessary changes when it's appropriate, but you don't keep doing that out of the system. Now, of course, you've got a hurricane here. That's -- you know, that's -- I can find all kinds of different situations. But, normally, if you do it and do it well, then you have a system to get there. And I think this is great, Tom. I would hope that, you know, maybe semiannually that we might even update ourselves and maybe this other stuff would get it. But we need to constantly ask yourselves how are we doing on the plan? How are we doing on the plan? And am I violating it? Is one of my fellow Page 46 March 9, 2001 commissioners violating it? Is it a staff member violating it? We got to know. I leave that to the county manager to keep -- and keep the team on focus, but we've got to keep ourselves on focus. MR. OLLIFF.' I'll just -- from our perspective, we cannot do -- we cannot exceed our customers' expectations if, one, we don't know what they are. So, as a staff, we have decided customer outreach plan is our highest priority for next year. But beyond that, we have got to develop some systems, some contract management support. We've got to maintain some consistency. We've got to get the board focused on policy or we're going to continue to have years like we have this year and last year and the year before where, frankly, your staff is running around with their hair on fire dealing with things like putting out solid waste landfill fires where you've got, frankly, less time then -- then you -- you have -- your plans tell you you can have or we're behind the eight bail in transportation construction by years. We've got to quit doing business that way. And the only way we can quit that is by getting all of us who are on the same page deciding what that page is and then sticking with that page. And I think that's sort of what Norman's point was. Once we get there and we decide what's important to us, give us that marching order and then make sure that that marching order stays the same for us. We'll talk about resources in order to be able to pull all this off when we sit down and talk to you about the budget. And some of your priorities may change based on your ability to fund or not fund some of these priorities, and I mean when we actually look at the price tag associated with some of this stuff, you may or may not be willing to bite off that much, and we made peal back some or we may add some, depending on how much you want add in the way of resources, but this is the first step in the budget process from our perspective. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I would agree, Tom. And one of the constitutional officers that has a great deal of effect on our budget is the Sheriff and we need to be in tune with what's happening as far as that operation. Currently, I understand we'll do -- we'll have a correction center built pretty soon, but there's some funding problems going Page 47 March 9, 2001 on at the state level. You may not be able to test and provide aftercare, so you've got a beautiful building and there is no way that you can effectively utilize it to meet the needs of the community. And we ought to be in tune with that. And we need to be able to watch that because we could say we got the greatest thing going here, and he comes to us and says~ guys~ you know, here's a big problem. We've got to deal with this community. And we're going, oh. So we got to integrate that in the process. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You're right~ Jim. The Sheriff's budget is what, $75 million of our total budget possibly; 70, 75 million? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Pretty big budget. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's pretty big. I think what we ought to do is sometime in the near future before we get in the final budget talk is have a workshop just with the Sheriff's Department where we can devote our full time to it. I think that that would be very valuable rather than trying to handle everything on a regular budget meeting with a whole bunch of other issues. CHAIRMAN CARTER: See, and this ties with what Tom and I did this morning in meeting with the mayors and the managers and the school board and their superintendent and their chair~ is that we have a lot of opportunities to coordinate things when it comes to legislative issues. We're not on the same page often. Now, what do we need unilaterally that will help Collier County? So, the same thing applies in these other areas, because there may know ways to get things that we're not even aware of. So, we continue to try to improve that fee, but if we don't stay in touch and in tune, then one piece of this goes this way and we go, whoops. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well~ I agree with you~ Jim. Let's find a way to work very carefully with the person that has enormous budget implications and provides a tremendous service to the community, and we really need to know what's going on there. And if there's some squiggles like there's going on now at the state level, which I can't understand, ladies and gentlemen, why we're adopting a plan at the state level that failed in California, Page 48 March 9, 200t but we're doing that, and why is it popular?. You lock up criminals and you don't do anything about it. They go away. You don't see them. Now, that may have worked in California, which I don't think it is. I would rather deal with the real issues instead of building institutions and spend the money more effectively, but that's a state policy direction that we're all going to be affected by. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We need to bring Doug Hendry back. That was the good old days. Some of us can remember that. MR. OLLIFF: Was there anything that you saw in the strategic plan that you -- or let me put it another way. Was there anything missing? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, there was. MR. OLLIFF: Okay. COMMISSIONER COLETTA.' Landfill. We should have one person to represent us to the community on that and I'd recommend Tom Henning if he's -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I've been working pretty close with the solid waste department, and Jim Mudd just gave me some information and if you're going to -- you need some company on that road trip, I'll see if I can clear my schedule. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Then you would act as our ambassador out there? MR. OLLIFF: I also think the board has given us the policy decisions, to date anyway, you know, to bring back certain decision points that we need. You know, there will be some decisions to be made certainly down the road, but I think that at least the board has adopted a tentative plan for solid waste. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I think that's great -- great, commissioner. I really believe that. And one of the things I will always recommended to this board when it gets down to a major issue like that, long range, long term, that when it gets narrowed down, they're looking at this technology versus that technology, and there's a couple really good operating systems somewhere. And we got to make it a point that we, the board of county commissioners, however we can do it, is get there and see it. You can't make those decisions setting keester in Collier County. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I agree. That's how we turned Page 49 March 9, 2001 around the Lely Barefoot Beach, the preserve area. I feel a site visit is the way to do it. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Can we count on you then to find some of these opportunities for us to go to view them? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I think that's what staff is doing now and -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: With the recommendations of staff, and then I think from that, that we could identify models, hopefully some good models. MR. OLLIFF: Anything else that was missing from that list that you could -- have we targeted what you think we ought to target? CHAIRMAN CARTER: I feel that you have, Tom, for whatever my sentiments are, and I'm looking -- I lay a lot of emphasize again on the economic analysis that accompanies all of this, because that's where the rubber really hits the pavement. And we need that as an important part. With that, and I think it's covered in here, then through all our policy making and advisory committees, we have to do an a number one on communication and education to the community. They really need to understand where we are and how we're doing it and why we want to do it the best that we can. And we need every media outlet and everyone working with us so that we get that story told. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Norm Feder said something a little while ago. Where do we go now? And that's the truth. How are we going to be able to evaluate if we actually did anything like you said. You've seen a lot of good plans come up and I have, too, business plans or whatever. They've been laid out before you and they were great, but six months later, nothing was implemented. We need to have some sort of accounting here where we can take a look at what we said here today and it's brought back out before it's like two, three months from now and see that as individuals in this group, what will we have done to take this forward? CHAIRMAN CARTER: What are the opportunities for that, Tom, to do, you know, somewhat like a quarterly review that says how we're doing and what we said we were going to do? MR. OLLIFF: Well, we'll end -- Page 50 March 9, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: That gives it a process to do that? MR. OLLIFF: We'll end up taking this from -- from the broad picture that you see here to a specific plan that will be part of your budget. And then as part of your budget, then we will be able to provide you with some specific updates about where are we in terms of accomplishments for that, and then when we get the other for strategic planning next year, frankly, we expect you to hold us accountable for the plan that we put forward as part of the budget and then whether we were successful or not. And then you should have some measurables and in Jim's terminology, it's a matrix or a -- MR. MUDD: Metrix. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Metrics. MR. OLLIFF: -- metrics that we put in place that are measurable performances that you're going to expect from us and that will be part of the budget. Mike, or any of the other administrators, anything else on strategic planning that you want to add? Okay. Then there's one other issue that Norman wanted to bring up while you were here together in session. MR. FEDER: If I could, let me hold off on that, go back to your first question -- MR. OLLIFF-' Okay. MR. FEDER: -- if I could. One other one that we might want to talk about is a lot of what we do gets influenced by what happens up in Tallahassee. One thing we haven't talked about is we don't a lobbyist. I've heard the board raise this before. I think you've got a lot of expertise here in this room and supported by folks in this room. The question is do we want to define who's going to be monitoring, what issues are we going to try to track and monitor, and how are we going to try to be effective in lobbying? And what does that mean? Our certain commission is going to go up and work on certain issues, bring certain staff with him, and try to lobby on those issues in Tallahassee. That's another one. I'll just go out for the goose CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's got to be an integral part of this. There's no question. I know everyone knows I'm up there for legislative day and two days in April. And I've got the list that we took to the -- our own legislative Page 51 March 9, 200t delegation, and we can add to that and some of the stuff involves through the legislature. We just need -- we need to get better at this and we really need to have a lobbyist. We talked about that this morning in this informal meeting. We got to get some people that can work both sides of the aisle for us, folks, and we got to -- we've got to know what we're doing. MR. FEDER: You've got a lot in the community as well when we talked about that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. MR. FEDER: We've got a lot of resources in the community -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. MR. FEDER: -- and on staff. The thing that Tom raised, and I'll go off of that in this discussion. While you're here and convened as a group, the state infrastructure bank, a grant application we put in, I've been asked by Florida DOT whether or not we would consider any interest on that loan. When I brought it up to Met-Bom Planning Organization, so you represent a portion of that group, and I'll poll the other members. We -- we'd be willing to offer a two percent interest rate is the question. And if I'm out of place here, ! apologize, but it sounds like am I pushed to try and get that and I've got to get them an answer fairly soon. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I guess I'm reading from what Mike Rip is saying is if we want to have a more powerful input to gain an opportunity to get what we're looking for, two percent is really very inexpensive money, and it's nice if you get it for nothing. And that was your recommendation to us. Let's fly it up there and see what happens and now I think we're getting some feedback that says, will you do this. And if we do this and end up with, you know, a sizable funds coming here, then I think in my judgment it's a smart thing to do to test it out. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner, if I remember right, two percent was the peak, the highest that was offered. MR. FEDER: Yeah. Two and a half and I was wondering about offering two. Page 52 March 9, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah. I'd stay under the cap and let's see what happens at two. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Five-sixteenths. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I know there must be a lot of competition for it is what I would assume. MR. FEDER: There is a lot of competition. I'm just trying to see if we can bring it home but I wanted you to be aware of that, because at the MPO board meeting, there was some inference of allowing me to negotiate on it and I said, no, let me go this way, and now I'm finding out that we have some meat to negotiate with. CHAIRMAN CARTER: So, your recommendation to us is that we do two and it enhances our possibility and I will ask the commissioners here to entertain a motion to -- if it's needed, a motion to just give you direction that we pursue that. MR. FEDER: If that is possible and appropriate at this meeting, I'll refer to our legal advice on that. MR. WEIGEL.' You can operate by a consensus. You really don't need a motion. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Well, I will -- I support it. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So do I. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Me, too. COMMISSIONER HENNING.' Fine with me. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. You got four out of four. MR. FEDER: I'll pole the other commissioner and the other members of the board. Thank you very much. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, unless there's anything else, that's all we had for you this afternoon. It's Friday. It's four o'clock. CHAIRMAN CARTER: It's Friday, it's four o'clock, great for those of you who are joining me Sunday. It starts at 2:30. We'll have you out by five. That's a Pelican Bay information meeting, so those that can be there, we welcome you. I think you'll find it interesting and informative. Meeting adjourned. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:00 p.m. Page 53 March 9, 2001 BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL JAM E~ CHAIRMAN DWIGHT E. 'B~OCK, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on ~[~c I0, ~o 0 ~ , as TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY ROSE M. WITT, RPR Page 54