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BCC Minutes 09/18/2001 W (Code Enforcement)September 18,2001 WORKSHOP MEETING OF SEPTEMBER 18,2001 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 9:08 a.m. In WORKSHOP SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with The following members present: CHAIRMAN: VICE-CHAIRMAN: James D. Carter, Ph.D. Pamela S. Mac'Kie Jim Coletta Donna Fiala Tom Henning ALSO PRESENT: Tom Olliff, County Administrator Page 1 BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS CODE ENFORCEMENT WORKSHOP AGENDA SEPTEMBER 2001 II AI 9:00 9:05 9:10 9:20 9:45 10:00 10:50 11:00 11:10 11:20 11:30 I 1:45 12:00 Welcoming Remarks James D. Carter, Ph.D., Chairman Opening Remarks Tom Olliff, County Manager John Dunnuck, Interim Administrator Introduction of Staff Janet Powers, Operations Manager Dora Viduarri, Interdepartmental Supervisor Susan Mason, Environmental Specialist Gary Dantini, Investigator Glenn Wilt, GGCA Volunteer Michelle Arnold, Director Video: The Life of an Action Order · Mandatory Lot Mowing Program Janet Powers, Operations Manager Department Structure Geographic Area Investigator Specialist Gary Dantini, Noise Code Enforcement Susan Mason. Environmental and Landscaping Enforcement Michelle Arnold, Director Comparative/Historical Statistics · By County · By Year · By Geographic Area Michelle Arnold, Director Department Proactive Efforts Code Volunteer Program · Golden Gate City · Naples Manor · Naples Park Glen Wilt Jack Mischung Code Enforcement Board Micheile Arnold, Director Public Vehicle Advisory Committee (PVAC) Annual Rental Registration Program Immokalee Initiative The Future of Code Enforcement · Enhanced Training ,/ Staff ~ Public · Neighborhood Plans Dora Viduarri, Inter-departmental Supervisor Adjourn September 18,2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. We are live. Thank you. Good morning, Commissioners-- AUDIENCE: Good morning. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- staff, friends, members of the Code Enforcement Board are here with us, our listening audience who is out there joining us to participate in this workshop, one of many which the Board of County Commissioners does to focus on specific topics that need to be addressed and reviewed so that we become better and more efficient in county government. I would like this morning that if all you -- of you would stand and join with me in a moment of silence and prayer of your choice in remembrance of-- just a week ago the enemy came out of the darkness and the shadows and, in fact, the United States of America, of which we as a nation are responding and doing everything that we can, we are united. We are together. And let us remember those who have suffered so much and our prayers be with them. (Moment of silence.) CHAIRMAN CARTER: If you would join me in the pledge of allegiance. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There's no flag. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, we-- MR. OLLIFF: There we go. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We've got one right here. All right? (Pledge of allegiance recited in unison.) MR. OLLIFF: I'll have to find out who absconded with the flag. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. I know we're -- shortage of flags in the county, but if someone really needed it that badly, God love them. We are pleased that they are -- are flying it. For those of you-- I stopped by Kinkos yesterday, and they're handing these out (indicating) and anyone that -- maybe get this on camera -- stop by and you can have them put up. I'm going to have Page 2 September 18,2001 them framed and put in my office. One says, "We will never forget September 1 lth." And the other one says, "Stars and Stripes Forever." COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, that's so neat. CHAIRMAN CARTER: So these are really kind of neat, and I see that many of them will probably be posting them in their offices and around so that we -- we have that opportunity to always keep that front and center. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Paid ad for -- by H. D. Carter. CHAIRMAN CARTER: No, sir. These are paid for and -- by Kinkos. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank our county employees, our sheriffs department and all of our government agencies through this -- through this time. It has been difficult for everyone, but we have continued to function. We have gone forward, and we're doing what we need to do, and on behalf of the board, we want to thank you all for doing what you've been doing and doing so well, never missing a beat, and we're going to do our little part in Collier County and the State of Florida to keep America strong. So thank you for doing that, and I know we all just -- we're going to do just the best we possibly can. We're going to come out of this all right because we have resolve. So with that, Mr. Olliff, I will mm it over to you for your opening remarks, you and Mr. Dunnuck, so then we can move forward on this important workshop. MR. OLLIFF' Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And welcome to -- rest of you to the workshop. I believe this is the 13th workshop this board has held, which is a phenomenal number. I don't know of any board collectively that's ever had probably more than a half dozen workshops total in a four-year tenure. So I think you need to congratulate yourselves and pat yourselves on the back Page 3 September 18, 2001 for actually spending the time to -- to understand issues in detail. This one, in particular, is one that I think affects each and every one of you. Code enforcement is something that every single commissioner deals with almost on a daily basis. We thought it was one of the important things for you to understand and for us to be able to have a discussion with you in terms of just code enforcement philosophy, to understand how the department actually functions, to understand that this is a quasi-law-enforcement-type function that we do here in county government. And to understand, in particular, in Collier County that code enforcement is a unique challenge because code enforcement in Pelican Bay, for example, means a whole different thing than it does in Immokalee, and to have your code enforcement staff with a single code that functions from one end of this county to the other and for us to try and provide consistent enforcement is one of the more difficult things that I think this county government undertakes. Michelle is going to walk you through our workshop today, and she's your code enforcement director. And you all are very familiar with Michelle. She does a great job for us. That department and, I think, our code enforcement department overall is one of the better departments that we have, and I like to hold them up -- especially when we do comparisons to other counties -- they call us often to find out how we do code enforcement. So while you may think that code enforcement is always a contentious issue, I will tell you that Collier County does it as well or better than probably anyone in Florida, and most communities look to us as an example for how to do code enforcement. And with that, Michelle, if you'll just walk us through the workshop. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Could I say one thing? MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely. Page 4 September 18,2001 COMMISSIONER FIALA: I consider code enforcement to be one of the very most important departments in our -- in our government because it makes Collier County a better place to live because you do what we need done, and it also makes a nicer place to look at. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. MS. ARNOLD: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner and Tom, for the nice words. I -- I share those sentiments, and I'm really proud of the -- my staff and all the people that help us make it all work. There's -- there's not only my staff but some of the citizens that we work with on a daily basis, and I want to just take this time to just introduce you to who's here on my staff as well as in the audience with respect to the citizens. At the end we have Susan Mason, and she's one of our environmental specialists. Gary Dantini, he's a noise specialist, sign specialist, and kind of all-around investigator. We've got Dora Viduarri. She's our Immokalee interdepartmental supervisor. We've got Janet Powers to my right, and she's my operation's manager. And then in the audience -- We're going to have two of our volunteers speak to us today. Glen Wilt is in the audience, and he's from the Golden Gate City area. And Jack Mischung is in the audience. He is from Naples Manor. I also wanted to let you know that we do have Cheryl Newman who's also a civic member of Golden Gate City and Diane Taylor who is one of our code enforcement board members. Okay. We have -- going to start out the workshop with a little video, just trying to walk you through what it -- what a -- or what one of our investigators do on a daily basis to investigate a complaint that comes into our office. (Video presentation.) MS. ARNOLD: Like the mailman, out there rain or shine; Page 5 September 18,2001 right? Okay. I would like to thank the Office of Public Information for putting that piece together for us. They did a very good job. As you can see, we have quite a bit to go through to look at a case and determine whether or not -- what is -- an activity that's being performed on a piece of property has actually been permitted to exist or not. In -- In the video you saw two examples, one where there was, in fact, authorization given by the county to do the work and the other was not. And even if there is no violations, there is awful -- an awful lot of work that the investigators have to do to verify the activity. So they -- they do quite a bit of research, and it's quite involved in some cases. You have to have the ability to read a map, scale out things, you know, measure property and all those things. So they -- they should be commended for all the efforts that they put together. I do have one other introduction. I recently hired a new supervisor to replace Bill Bolgar who was with the county for many years. His name is Kenneth Taft, and he's sitting right here. He's been with us for all of one week and two days so -- MR. OLLIFF: I have to jump in and just point out an opportunity when there is one. If you've ever seen an application that could benefit having some GIS overlay maps, that example that you just saw was one. I mean, where you have to go through that machination of screens and things to try to find out who the property owner is and all of that, that with a GIS system should be just a matter of seconds, and that's the kind of thing -- the kind of application that we're looking for to save us some time and make us a little more efficient with GIS. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. In fact, that's something that is at the end of my presentation with respect to what we're hoping to do as far as the future of code enforcement. Page 6 September 18,2001 In some of the cases that we do have, the county has to go in and abate the violation rather than have the property owner do it because, one, they may fail to respond to our complaints or they just -- they have responded but they -- they're not doing it in a timely basis. So there are some situations where we abate the violation, and I'm going to have Janet explain to you that whole process and what's involved in contracting the work and collecting and invoicing property owners. MS. POWERS: Good morning. After investigation of a code case, there are instances where, as Michelle said, there -- we're not getting compliance; more particularly, the weed violations, exotic violations. Once the investigator states that we need to do a bid out, we go through that process, the job is done, the investigator verifies that it was done correctly and that parcel is now in compliance. We require that our contractor give us before and after photographs to continue the documentation of that code case. An invoice is then sent to the property owner requesting payment for the service that was provided, and we'd like that within 20 days. However, if that does not come, we would go ahead and prepare a lien on that property to secure the public monies that were spent to abate a nuisance. As of September 6th, we have outstanding assessments for lot clearings, $308,838. Since 2000 we've been using a collection agency. With the help of that agency and working with title companies, lawyers, we've collected $220,000 of that outstanding money. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Excellent. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. I want to thank the board for giving us the ability to use that as another source of recovering funds because, as you can see from that chart, prior to that, we weren't collecting the funds and amounts that we are today. Just wanted to let you-all know how we organize the department to address the complaints that come into our office as Page 7 September 18,2001 well as our proactive efforts. The map on the screen shows you that we've got territories or the area -- the county's broken up into different geographic areas. We've got 12 geographic areas. Immokalee is not shown in its entirety on this map, but it extends from Immokalee Road -- That territory that covers Immokalee extends from Immokalee Road where it goes north-south into the Immokalee community and all the way north to our county line. So it's a pretty large area, but most of the efforts for the investigator in that territory is spent in the Immokalee proper. The investigator is responsible for handling all the complaints that come into their specific territory. And, from time to time, we do have investigators helping out each other, depending on the workload for a different area. In addition to the territory investigators, we have specialists, as previously mentioned by Susan. We have sign specialists. We have four, and so the county's broken up into four geographic areas for their consideration. And we do have an investigator who is handling our industrial park, some of our older industrial parks, to try to bring those parks up to the -- the standards of some of our new industrial areas. And we do have a noise specialist, as previously noted, and I have Gary Dantini here to just say a few words about what it is they do and to talk a little bit about the equipment that we -- we purchased recently. MR. DANTINI: Good morning. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning. MR. DANTINI: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear, does it make a noise? Anybody have a guess? No, it won't make a noise. It makes a sound. A sound is a physical disturbance in air pressure produced by vibrating objects. A noise is a disagreeable or undesirable sound to someone. So that's why it can Page 8 September 18, 2001 only be a sound in the woods. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, okay. MR. DANTINI: That's the difference between noise and sound. The primary purpose of a noise ordinance is the health and comfort of residents of the community. The primary people annoyed by noise often suffer from other stress-related physical conditions other than just hearing loss. An important criteria in land use planning and zoning is noise compatibility and reduction in sound and redirection of sound. And what I mean by "redirection of sound," say, for instance, in the planning process, a door can be -- that's facing a residential area that's a large door can be put on the other side of the building. When it's open, if there's any noise, it would be pushed out over to the other side instead of through the residential side. And just a simple little architectural change like that can make a big difference in a community as far as noise is concerned. People do respond to noises in different ways. A majority of complaints received arise from noises that interfere with your sleep, is considered unnecessary and inconsiderate, or it's just plain loud. Because of this, the goals of the noise ordinance are to protect residential areas from nighttime noises that would interfere with sleep, encourage people and businesses to think quiet, encourage noise-making machinery be manufactured and maintained with the latest noise-repression devices available to them. In conclusion, the only people or businesses who should be affected by the noise ordinances are those who deliberately make the noise or excessive noise and those who make no effort to use existing noise-repression devices or noise sources under their control. This is the equipment that you were so gracious to give us the -- the opportunity to purchase. This equipment is so sophisticated that in a large area, any one particular noise -- I can pinpoint what is making the violation just through the octave bands end of it and also - Page 9 September 18,2001 -- it also is what they call real-time source. You can see it as it's happening. And when I go to locations and people have a tough time -- sometimes when they feel that they have a noise complaint and it's -- and they think it's excessive, you can take the meter and show them physically that at the time that the noise is being produced, that it is not going over the county ordinance as far as DBAs. So it really helps us as far as any repeat complaints for the same location. And I've used this many times for that purpose alone just for people to be able to look because they are very curious too to find out what is going on. Does anybody have any questions about -- yes? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do you have somebody that has a weekend and night shift? It seems like that's when people are home and possibly either disturbed by the noise or making the noise. MR. DANTINI: Well, we're on call, and if we know that there's a source that's going to be a problem, that we do make arrangements to work the flex day or the time that is needed to correct that. Also you will have a wonderful source as far as with the sheriffs department as far as taking care of anything at nighttime. They have an ordinance as far as their nuisance and disturbing of the peace statutes that they can also -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: But the sheriff doesn't have this piece of equipment, or does he? MR. DANTINI: No. They do have a piece of equipment that's just DB ratings, decibel ratings, like our old equipment does. That's what? About 80 percent right now of our readings are -- are the decibels, so they also can do decibel readings. MS. ARNOLD: But most -- most of the times when we do get complaints people are specific about whether or not it's a reoccurring problem, and then we'll ask them around what time the problem's occurring so we can set up time frames for the investigators to Page 10 September 18, 2001 actually respond and do a more detailed reading. But, as Gary indicated, the majority of our complaints are music or those types of violations that are easy detectable with the decibel readings that the sheriffs office may have and those types of things. So the -- the violation or the complaint can be addressed simply by using the meters that we have previously. We don't need to -- really need to use the sophisticated octave band meters to determine whether or not a violation exists. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I will continue on then. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Two more. Number one is, being they don't know the music or loud noises are going to occur and the sheriffs office comes out and says, "We can't do anything about it," you know, "It's too much noise, but we don't have the right equipment. You have to call code enforcement," how do they call you? If you're on call -- I mean, what number do they call? They don't know any number but the sheriff's office. MS. ARNOLD: Well, we don't have investigators working 24 hours or on shifts. We do have some flex scheduling that we can adjust our schedule but it has to be -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How would they find out to access -- How could people take advantage of that flex scheduling? MS. ARNOLD: Well, the way that they take advantage of it -- They wouldn't be able to take advantage of it immediately. They would have to call us. We do have a voice mail message so people can call us and leave a message on our main number, but they can let us know when the problem's occurring so we'll go out there. And we have monitored situations before where a citizen has indicated to us that it's a continuing problem and it's happening on a Friday and a Saturday and we'll go out at ten o'clock on a Friday and a Saturday and do that, but there is -- Page 11 September 18, 2001 MR. DANTINI: And twelve and one o'clock. MS. ARNOLD: And twelve and one o'clock. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Michelle, would you share that number with us, please, and also your e-mail address. MS. ARNOLD: It's 403-2440. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: MS. ARNOLD: -- 2440. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So they can leave a message. 403 -- Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Does that buzz somebody to let them know that somebody needs a call back? MS. ARNOLD: No. It's just a voice mail. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Twenty-four hours on call actually -- MS. ARNOLD: We don't really have on call. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Okay. So -- and then if the sheriffs office goes out and says, "There's nothing we can do about the noise," they kind of have to bear with it until they get a hold of you the next day? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Or the next Monday. MS. ARNOLD: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Or the next Monday, right. And I don't mean that as a criticism, because you've really done so many wonderful things, but it is a problem that we have to address, and maybe there's a way we can do something about correcting it now that -- identify your problem and then solve it. MS. ARNOLD: Well, I think one of the things that we can do to resolve those types of issues is do a little bit better coordination with the sheriffs office so that they can kind of help us with the immediate problem, and we're doing a little bit of that right now. Later on in my presentation we'll be talking about -- one of the things that we're doing is our -- the taxicab regulations, and we're Page 12 September 18,2001 going to be working with the sheriff's office to get some assistance with respect to the enforcement of vehicles that are operating without permits. So, I think, in the noise side of it, we can do a little better coordination. Part of it--just like the citizens -- the sheriff's not familiar with all of the ordinances and the regulations, so we have to help them better identify what the regulations say, and they can assist us a little bit better. (Speaker in audience.) MS. ARNOLD: You'll have to get to the mike. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You'll have to come to the microphone, sir, and identify yourself. COMMISSIONER HENNING: While he's coming to the mike, I have a question. Can you give us examples of noises that fall into the ordinance and some of them that can be enforceable through the ordinances? MR. DANTINI: Well, an example of the ones that I have gone out -- of course, one of the main ones is a music -- loud music. Others are -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Barking dogs? MR. DANTINI: No, not barking dogs. We leave that to Animal Control. Other ones are -- say, for instance, you have somebody working on their property and they've got an air boat and they're -- they turn the air boat on and it's just making a horrendous racket. While -- We can't eliminate that problem as far as having him cease and desist making that noise because at any point, even at almost idle, one of those are going above the ordinances as far as noise is concerned. MS. ARNOLD: I want to make a clarification on that. The idleness is saying somebody comes in and runs their boat or air boat or vehicle and it just sits there for a continuous time frame. We can Page 13 September 18,2001 address that. But while the vehicle is in motion, we would not be addressing that. So the airboat that's on the water, we would not be addressing that. You know, the semi-truck that's in the industrial park adjacent to a residential area that's driving in the morning, we wouldn't address it, but if it's sitting idle is when we would address it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What about if my neighbor wants to bring his boat home and flush his engine out with a water hose, starts the engine up? Is that a violation? MR. DANTINI: Not if it doesn't go above the decibel limits. COMMISSIONER HENNING: There is -- Okay. That's what I was trying to identify, what is legal, allowable, and what is not. MR. DANTINI: Right. And during the day in a residential area it's 60 decibels. In the evening after ten o'clock it's 55. Five decibels is quite a bit. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But flushing out a motor is easily going to easily exceed 60; right? I mean -- MR. DANTINI: Not easily. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I thought this room is probably 45 right now. MR. DANTINI: Right now we're at -- averaging -- have averaged about 68 decibels. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we're violating our own noise ordinance right now if we were on somebody else's property line. MR. DANTINI: Well, not necessarily, because we have to be 50 feet away, and this is right on top of the source. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What I mean is if-- if this meter were on somebody else's property, then this discussion would have violated the noise ordinance. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Not necessarily. MR. DANTINI: No, not necessarily. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Why? Page 14 September 18,2001 MR. DANTINI: If you're 50 feet away, it would not be -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. If that meter were 50 feet away on somebody else's property, then we would have violated the noise ordinance. MR. DANTINI: We don't -- we don't have an ordinance against people talking and laughing and-- MS. ARNOLD: The thing is -- The distinction that we need to make is, if you're right on top of the source, you're probably going to get more sounds that are in excess of the levels that we developed, but once you're away, there's different -- there's different ways to measure the noise. If you're 50 feet away and the noise has to be a continuous -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Amount of time. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah, 60 seconds. And then there's also other criteria in the ordinance that says we have to establish what the surrounding ambient noise is. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And -- I'm sorry. I'm going to interrupt you. I didn't mean to get us off on the discussion of whether or not 60 was the right DB because I think it is, and I think we've carefully analyzed that, and it's the right thing. I just was using that as an example to address Commissioner Henning's question about flushing out a motor. If it lasts for 60 seconds and you're 50 feet away, odds are it's a violation. So what's a person to do, is, I think, your question. COMMISSIONER HENN1NG: Exactly. I think I need to flush my motor out in 60-second intervals. CHAIRMAN CARTER: By the time anybody can respond to it, it's already done, and it's a non-issue. MS. ARNOLD: Well -- and then the thing is too, when Gary mentioned in his presentation, what we're responding to is something that someone is -- considered a nuisance. Now, you're -- you're next Page 15 September 18, 2001 door, and you're flushing it out, and your neighbor knows it's not going to continue for an hour. They're probably not going to call us, and we're probably not going to address it. MR. DANTINI: Right. Just using a little common sense on that. That's why we're not inundated and flooded with phone calls all the time, is because people do use their common sense in knowing that something is going to be just short-term. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm glad about hearing that. MR. DANTINI: And there are others, of course, that are a little bit longer terms but-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let me take Mr. Mischung. He's at the microphone. Would you identify yourself, sir? Do you have a question or comment? MR. MISCHUNG: My name is Jack Mischung. I'm from Naples Manor, and I'm going to have a little presentation later, but this came up now, and I think now is the time to strike. Commissioner Fiala and I have been working in Naples Manor for the last year or so. We've had several meetings, three to be exact, and I believe it was at the first one where we spent approximately an hour on nothing but noise complaints. Noise complaints are the number two item that people are concerned about that have come to our meetings, and, unfortunately, we can't say there is a noise at such and such a place that's going to be recurrent every Friday night or every Saturday night. They may not have a party there every Friday and Saturday night. But it's all over, amplified music in the form of live bands. Sometimes it's outrageous. I can bring a string of people in here to speak before you that said they have called the sheriff's department and gotten no satisfaction, not even a deputy to come out to investigate, believe that or not. I could bring them in here that will swear that this is true. I have had occasion to make five and six, seven calls. Finally Page 16 September 18,2001 have to go to a supervisor to get someone, but the culmination of the whole thing is a very, very nasty comment that was made to me by a sheriffs department sergeant about a month and a half ago. He told me point-blank that noise is not the problem of the sheriffs department; you got a problem, call code enforcement. That's really all I have to say at this point. That's how the sheriffs department feels about it. This man was a sergeant under Collier County Sheriffs Department. That was his answer. Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. And if I could weigh in on it, realistically, as they prioritize the crimes that they have to deal with -- surprise, this isn't going to be their highest priority. And I think it just brings us back to Commissioner Fiala's issue, that we have identified a problem, that we have to address from a staffing perspective of having people available on the weekends. And, you know, that's why we're having this workshop because I really think it's a shame if we don't address that as a real problem. We need to staff. This needs to be a 24/7 on-call kind of a position. We probably have to hire more people to be able to do that, and we have to budget more money and -- but we can't keep ignoring it. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Possibly -- Possibly we can get the sheriffs department to be a little more cooperative. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well -- but, you know, they do have priorities and they have -- and perhaps -- perhaps so, and I'd be surprised if he wouldn't be willing to be more cooperative. But if you were in charge of law enforcement and you were prioritizing your resources, I bet noise would come below violent crime, you know. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I don't think anybody's asking for the sheriff not to prioritize his -- his duties there. But I'd be happy to sit down with the lieutenant in the East Naples district, and I think he needs to be aware of what's -- the importance of the community -- and has worked very well in the community of Golden Page 17 September 18, 2001 Gate in sitting down with the lieutenant-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yup. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- and saying, "This is our priority in this neighborhood. Could you please assist me," and be happy to work with -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sure. Two is always better than one. I love it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. 'Cause I don't want to step on any toes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. No. No. I always love to work with somebody. The more help you get, the better off you are. You're not stepping on mine. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You have to come to the microphone, ma'am. And I am going to move this workshop along. What I'm going to do is go back and take public comment later, but I will honor your request, ma'am. MS. RAND' And I'll be as brief as possible -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: For the record -- MS. RAND: My name's Mary Ellen Rand. I'm a resident of Naples Park, and I did want to speak later. But on the noise issue and the cooperation with the sheriffs department, one of the problems that we have on a particular property and several properties owned by the same owner-- and the sheriffs department's very cooperative about coming out repeatedly and talking to the residents. However -- and we've gone as far as having them prosecute residents who have repeatedly offended, but the problem with these properties, people move in and out, and there's no pressure from the property owner to make -- establish any kind of order for the people that live there. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's where code enforcement can -- MS. RAND' -- use the data -- use the data from the sheriffs Page 18 September 18,2001 department to maybe establish a violation for repeated offense that affects the property owner. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, I think we're taking this as direction to add it to our list to follow up onto the Board of County Commissioners. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Great. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think what I'm hearing here is you've got localized issues and you've got how to identify repeat offenders. You're going to get down to and isolate and then work with all agencies to pinpoint and how you deal with that. Then you'll find a lot of other stuff that falls outside of that area, but I'm hearing Naples Park, I'm hearing Naples Manor so ... COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If we can go to Golden Gate Estates now and Immokalee, one of the points there -- and I know you just said it's not code enforcement -- is the noise that comes from dogs barking all night long, usually not really loud, but it's continuous without break. Where -- Why is this the jurisdiction of Animal Control? It's still a noise. It's coming from a person's property. I'm a little bit confused on this. And doesn't Animal Control have the ability to follow through? Do they have the sophistication -- equipment to be able to also go forward in the field and be able to make these findings? MS. ARNOLD: Typically the -- the Animal Control will address that by complaints and they don't -- it doesn't have to be a loud noise, or if they have more than one complaint about a barking dog, they can address that particular problem, and so that's why we usually don't get the barking dog complaints. It goes to Animal Control. MR. OLLIFF: We actually have a separate ordinance -- MS. ARNOLD: Right. Page 19 September 18, 2001 MR. OLLIFF: -- in the county books for animal control-related issues, and a barking dog that is constantly barking for long periods of time is considered a nuisance dog, and as long as there are more than one neighbor who will sign a statement, a sworn statement, indicating that the dog does constantly bark, then that constitutes violation under our Animal Control ordinance. The reason it requires two is simply to make sure that the county's not getting caught simply between a neighbor dispute, one neighbor to another, and that happens more often than I like to think about. But we do that quite often when there's a constant barking dog, and Animal Control does a pretty good job of, I think, bringing that out and addressing that through the sworn statement process. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Same question. Do they work at night and weekends? MR. OLLIFF: They are actually on call 24/7, Animal Control is. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But you can actually call them and get an answer? MR. OLLIFF: Yes. Yup. Actually, they are on call through the sheriffs department. So when the complaint comes through the sheriffs department after hours, the sheriffs department has the hot line number to be able to get a hold of the Animal Control officer who's on call that evening and they come out. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Sounds like a -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Actually, Commissioner Coletta goes out and does his famous crow call and scares the dog to death and end of the problem. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And the whole neighborhood too. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. We also have environmental specialists, Page 20 September 18, 2001 as was previously mentioned. We have two, and we will be adding a third to our staff with the upcoming fiscal year, and that's going to allow us to concentrate our efforts on the larger scope environmental problems. So we're going to be doing some re-prioritizing when we have that third person on staff. But in addition to those types of violations, we will still have to respond to the day-to-day complaints that are coming in with respect to those -- those cases. The two environmental specialists I do have on staff I want to note that they are both certified arborists. They are doing a lot of presentations and discussions with association property managers. And Susan's gonna kind of go into some of the things that they are currently doing and-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: If I can, before you go back to environmental, as we're leaving -- I've forgotten your name. MR. DANTINI: Gary. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Gary. Isn't Gary the sign guy? MS. ARNOLD: Gary is the sign guy. He's also the noise guy. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So I don't see anything on the agenda about talking about signs. Are we going to talk about that? MS. ARNOLD: If you'd like to, we can talk about it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I mean, that's my -- do you mind? Is now the right time or is later? MS. ARNOLD: Sure. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, my -- I just wanted to -- while we're making a list of things that we'd like to see more attention paid to, I wish you would hire Gary some help for being the sign guy, particularly as we're working on redevelopment in East Naples -- you know, and Commissioner Carter's sign ordinance that we adopted. We're coming up on some of those deadlines for abatement and I -- I just would very much like to see -- I know you guys have to be complaint-driven, but if there were a section of code enforcement that Page 21 September 18,2001 were not complaint-driven, signs would be one of those for me. MS. ARNOLD: Let me tell you, we do have four investigators that we've already hired, and you guys have been gracious enough to give us that ability, and we are proactively addressing that issue. You're absolutely right. That's one of those violations that we have that's going to be more proactive enforcement than reactive enforcement. The four investigators have already -- some of them completed an inventory and what -- the inventory is, all the signs within the county, they're noting on there whether or not a permit number was issued. And once the inventory has been completed, we're going to go back and-- and we're thinking about sending out a notice to property owners and business owners so that they're aware of the recent sign code change and they're aware of the fact that when the business owners' shift changes or when it's sold or -- you know, those types of things, what conditions would require them to bring their sign up to code as well as the amortization deadline so that they know when it comes around to 2003 February, they're going to be required to bring their sign up to code. Before we send out those notices, however, I want to coordinate with our sign contractors because it's going to affect them. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. MS. ARNOLD: It's -- it's -- it's going to affect their business, and we need to let them know what's going on so that they know this, you know? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sounds like you got a plan in the works, and that's what I needed to hear. And the other one, I imagine, Commissioner Coletta is going to bring up, if I don't-- but it's somewhere that I didn't see on here -- is this sort of health and safety Immokalee housing and the Bayshore -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: While you're on signs, keep on Page 22 September 18, 2001 going. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Wait a minute, Commissioners. Let's -- let's go back to the signs. Let's finish that, and then let them move forward, and some of this will be covered in the process, Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Billboards. Are there -- There aren't any more billboards allowed, are there? MS. ARNOLD: No. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Because I've had some concerned citizens talk to me about billboards, and they were very concerned that there were some along the East Trail, and I just was wondering, is that 2003 February the same drop-dead date for the elimination of billboards? MR. DANTINI: It will be in 2003. If it's not February, it will be a few months after that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's why -- Excuse me. That's why it's so important that we keep pressuring the state legislatures not to allow the industry to come back in here, and they're trying to push through a bill that says they can reestablish those signs, and we have to take them by eminent domain, and then they put up these giant structures and say, you know, you want to take them down for fifty or a hundred thousand bucks a pop, do the proceedings. The billboard industry is relentless in trying to infringe their desires on local communities, and that's why we're fighting to say they have the option. Collier County -- as you've indicated, many people -- we don't want the damn things; you know, they are to be out of here, and yet the billboard industry will do everything to try to get the nose back under the tent here. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: They have a very effective lobbying in Tallahassee. MR. OLLIFF: Yes, they do. Page 23 September 18,2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: Oh, yes. So we're going to fight that very hard. And on the sign issue, I applaud what you're doing, Michelle. I know that you've got the staff, you're doing the investigation, and I encourage you to work with the Mike Davises and that to let them know, you know. And you can go section by section through these redevelopment areas. They're in the area, take them and go through and clean this up. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We've been lenient with the people on U.S. 41 North because of all the construction, and we have, you know, said, "Okay. There are some issues here. We're not going to do anything until it's finished." Well, by the end of the year, that road's open and finished. You know, they better just take this as a notice, get in compliance because here it comes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And we've been done on the East Trail for awhile, so go ahead and start citing those people. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Anywhere anytime. Let's get it cleaned up, because as the new stuff comes on, already you see a difference in the community. And even those who fought it originally are beginning to say, "You know, this is looking -- this is really looking great." MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. And I -- and what my staff has been doing, as they're addressing a new business that may have come in and unaware of some of the underlying things that are in the sign code, they're going through that whole strip plaza so that everybody is aware that this is what the regulations are so ... MR. OLLIFF: And it's going to require some support from the board because when we start to send out notices to people -- People have made investments in some of the signs that are out there, and for small businesses it's going to be a financial burden for them to Page 24 September 18, 2001 comply with the new ordinance in 2003. And I promise you, your phone will be ringing, but we will look to you to be able to provide the support that we're going to need in order to be consistent and enforce that new ordinance. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, you're actually -- you're right on target, Tom. It will come back. And this is not like we did it yesterday. I mean, we -- this has been out there for a long time. They've had plenty of lead time to budget and plan for this, but this is often the case; until it comes due -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- they're not going to pay any attention, but when they get whacked, boy, they're going to be on the phone saying, "What are you doing to my business?" Say, look, giving you a lot of time to prepare. MS. ARNOLD: And that's why I want -- I want to give them -- you know, notice. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's good. Tell them now. MR. DANTINI: We do that. We educate the people, and they still insist that they have until that date and so that's -- Just be prepared. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Human nature being what it is, they will try to get every day out of it they can. MR. DANTINI: Exactly. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: My building, personally, at $3,000 put the sign in the back and the day it has to go -- Of course, I'm no longer in business, so it's not going to be missed. But I tell you, it was always a fear that was going to take that sign down and find some other way to reach the public. Just a matter of time. I know where they're coming from, and there's a lot of money we're talking about, money that would be there, bottom line, to be able to share with the -- with their families and be able to keep the business Page 25 September 18, 2001 running so -- we have to be compassionate to a degree but be firm. MR. DANTINI: Well, that's what I was going to say. We are compassionate to -- to let them know so that they can plan and make the -- the arrangements that they need to make. It's a very difficult situation. It's going to be -- when that time comes -- we tell them that we recognize that if you do it now than do it later -- it's going to probably be less expensive to do it now than it is to do it later. COMMISSIONER FIALA: With "Open" signs in-- in establishments, one of the problems that they seem to be dealing with is they have a neon "Open" sign, and they're not allowed to have that. Are they allowed to have a regular "Open" sign inside the window, just can't have a neon sign? MR. DANTINI: As long as it doesn't cover over 25 percent of the window area-- total window area. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can we move on? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, please. MS. ARNOLD: And Susan, quickly-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: See, I get wound up on sides. Thank you, Commissioner Mac'Kie. MS. MASON: Like we were talking about earlier, my name is Susan Mason, and I'm one of the environmental specialists for code enforcement. There are two of us currently. And as environmental specialists, our focus is protecting Collier County's natural resources for the benefit of the entire community. And Collier County has some good ordinances for protecting the environment, and our job is to see that those ordinances are -- that we enforce those codes. And some of the codes that we enforce include -- as you saw in the video, is vegetation removal. There are permits that are required for that type of work to be done in the county. We also enforce rules regarding endangered-species protection, prohibit exotics on properties. There is an increase in new development -- a dramatic Page 26 September 18,2001 increase in new development in the area, and a lot of old properties where removal wasn't required or maintenance wasn't required has resulted in an increase in the complaints we receive in our department. Some of the new LDC amendments that you-all have passed concerning improvements on older properties are helping us be able to bring those new properties into compliance with the current code which helps the newer properties nearby. We also work with environmental regulations regarding PUD requirements. Most big developments have a lot of rules that -- conservation easements, different buffers and things like that, whether it be landscaping or actual natural areas, and the addition of a third person will help us be able to enforce those better. That way we can focus on these commitments that the developers have made to the community, and we can see that those are enforced. It will increase the community's value. We also enforce the landscape requirements, whether they be minimum on properties and also the pruning and maintenance of those properties. Since Alex and I were -- Alex Sulecki is the other environmental specialist. Since we've been able to become certified arborists, not only do we have the training that we can share information with the public and contractors, but we can also act as expert witnesses, if it needs -- if it comes down to an enforcement issue, before -- whether it be our code enforcement board or somebody else, that we've actually been trained and -- and know basically what we're talking about. We also enforce water-quality and erosion issues, and some of the codes protecting our beaches include the coastal construction rules which help govern, in case of storms, how much health or safety damage there may be in those areas; sea turtle lighting rules; and also vehicle-on-the-beach regulations. Alex and I are both -- try to be very proactive in educational Page 27 September 18, 2001 programs for condominium associations and also for property management companies. We have a slide presentation that we go and we'll do little presentations on exotic removal, pruning, vegetation removal, because on common areas -- they do need to have permits if they're going to be removing vegetation on these common areas in large developments, and explain to them the rules so they don't get caught in some problems. And also this past spring we sent a letter out to all the actively licensed tree-trimming contractors, giving them the pruning and maintenance requirements for the county to remind them of what their obligation is as licensed contractors to follow the county code. We're also real excited too because the department's been working with the county's extension agencies to put together a pruning workshop. It's going to be taking place tomorrow. Alex and I are both going to be discussing the county requirements for pruning and the -- and the ordinances and what the responsibilities are, and this is going to be with over 80 local contractors and county employees that do pruning for county trees. And we're also going to have a Dr. Ed Gillman of the University of Florida in Gainesville who's a -- well, very well-known tree expert. He's going to be doing presentation too with hands on, and we'll be able to get out the word to a lot of different contractors in the area about what the rules are so we can all follow them. That's just a brief overview of activities that the environmental enforcement group's been involved with. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. And I know you've made an impact with associations and the programs that you are taking to 'em because my complaints have gone down since that program has been in place. So I think they're getting better educated and understanding a lot better what you're doing. MS. MASON: I think so. We get a lot of calls before the work Page 28 September 18, 2001 is done, "Am I allowed to do this," or "What do I need to do to be allowed to do this?" MS. ARNOLD' Just wanted to mention again, the code has been modified recently to allow us to address some of the existing development that was in place prior to some of our exotic removal ordinances so that we're -- you know, as Susan mentioned, we are getting more and more complaints when a new development comes in, "Well, my neighbor has got a ton of exotics, and it's going to affect the removal that I'm doing now." So these new ordinances that have been amended allows us to address these existing developments. MR. DUNNUCK: And that's really an important issue for the board to understand because from the perspective of-- some of these developments actually use exotics as buffers to roads, and under your current ordinance, we have to go in and we would be requiring them to remove it, you know, whether it's pepper hedge where the berries can spread to the neighboring property or-- They now have an agreement through a PUD or something else that says we're going to make sure exotics are consistently removed throughout the life of the project. And they're saying to the neighbors, as Michelle pointed out, "Well, their pepper hedge -- its berries are coming onto our property. Now what are we supposed to do about that?" So that's an important issue and one in which, you know, I would anticipate that throughout your tenure as commissioners you will have an issue where a certain community will say, you know, "Why are they asking us to remove our exotics now? We like it as a buffer," you know, "Can we change this ordinance?" I just want to make sure the board understands that. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. I wanted to provide to the board some statistics with respect to our neighboring communities. As you can see, there is -- we're keeping our-- our code case numbers are in line with Lee County, dramatically higher than Sarasota County, but you Page 29 September 18, 2001 can't look at the numbers and simply understand what efforts that we do as opposed to Lee County does or Sarasota or another community. Next slide, please. This is just a historical perspective of where we are, what our population growth has been and our numbers and how they've fluctuated. We may have years that they're high. We may have years like last year where they're a little lower than a previous year. And the numbers are a reflection of whatever is going on in the community. My belief in the reduction for the 2000 year had a lot to do with the drought. We didn't have quite as much rain, so we don't have quite as many weed violations. We will have -- Our numbers fluctuate again this year because our efforts were concentrated on water-restriction violations, so it was removed from addressing other types of violations. So with our code cases, you can't expect them to go up like on a scale on a normal basis. You're going to have the fluctuation. And a reduction in number of cases is not necessarily a bad thing, similar to, you know, the sheriff's office. When you have reduced numbers, it means we're controlling crime. So you'll see with the presentation for Golden Gate, for example, we got a reduction in -- in cases out there, and that was partly because we're -- we are reducing the number of repeat offenders we had. We're going to continue to have certain violations in certain areas, but it'll be controlled if we have the increased visibility. I just wanted to kind of give you examples of what I'm talking about with the fluctuation. In Area 1, which is north of Vanderbilt Beach Road, west of U.S. 41, up to the county line, you will see, again, the fluctuation between '98 to 2001 with the types of-- or the number of cases that are handled in that particular area. The -- the Page 30 September 18,2001 case-type violations that are identified are the majority or the prominent violations that we addressed in that particular area, and it will vary from area to area. Area 4, which is the rural estates area, is not as populated, but it is getting more populated, and I think the increase in number of cases are a reflection of the population. That's the area that's growing. We have -- That's a pretty large geographic area. I think with more and more increase or influx of population out in that area, we're going to have more violations. People are going to be closer together, and they're going to notice their neighbor a little bit more, so we're going to have an increase in complaints out in that particular area. And we're probably going to have to reduce that size of that geographic area because it takes a long time to get around within that rural estates area and address the complaints. And the types of complaints that are going to be in a North Naples area are going to be very different from the rural estates. We don't have the weed violations because that regulation doesn't apply to that area, but we will have things like vegetation-removal complaints. We'll have more animals-in-residential-area complaints, even though they are permitted. So it's going to be a matter of us educating that particular community with respect to what codes apply to them. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What is AO and CC? MS. ARNOLD: Action order and code cases. When we get a complaint or initiate an investigation, it's an activity, an action order. When it's more of an involved case where we'll have to -- we've notified the property owner, told them what they need to do to correct the violation and giving -- giving them time to correct it, it becomes a code case, and that's what those numbers represent. MR. DUNNUCK: We are going to provide you back-up information on all of this so you can have it for your district. Page 31 September 18, 2001 MS. ARNOLD: You should -- You should have the actual numbers in your packets, and there is a description of the maps and everything else for you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Excellent. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Is this a good break point, Michelle, for you and our magic fingers? MS. ARNOLD: Let me just go through these next two slides, and then we can take a break. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. MS. ARNOLD: Area 7, as I indicated, this is a more urbanized area. You're going to have a fluctuation in the number of cases, and as the areas change, you're going to have a difference in concentration of types of violation. One of the things that are -- are higher violations than this is weed complaints. And then commercial vehicles is another concern, inoperable vehicles or vehicles without current tags. But the other thing that we've seen an increase in, in this particular area is the minimum housing code type violations. So depending on where you are in the county, there's going to be a different concern. The same applies to this next slide, but this one I wanted to show you because, unlike the Golden Gate area where you have a steady number of cases, the number of cases in this particular area are declining somewhat. But while the overall cases are declining, the types of violation, like your minimum housing code violation where it's more involved to -- to resolve, are increasing. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What's this area? MS. ARNOLD: This is your area. This is Naples Manor. It includes Trail Acres and Isle of Capri and those types of areas. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And the 10,000 Islands. MS. ARNOLD: Yup. CHAIRMAN CARTER: A lot of violations down there. Page 32 September 18, 2001 MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. And if you want to take a break at this point -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: That'll be great. Let's take ten, and we'll be right back. (Short recess taken.) CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, we are back together. And, Michelle, you want to take us and pick up where we left off. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. I just wanted to quickly identify for you the multitude of tools or research things that we refer to on a day-to- day basis: Our Land Development Code. We use the intemet to search for different things, whether it's corporations or anything like that and all of the development orders that are approved by our planning department and other departments. We also do a lot of coordination with other departments within the county as well as other agencies. The Health Department and -- and you -- whatever you can think of, we're coordinating with those agencies to try to get things -- either information from them or to help them resolve a problem that they may have. One of the other things that we do have, we do have weekend officers that -- What I did was I took one of our full-time positions and made it into two part-time positions. So we do have two investigators that work 20 hours a week, but they work predominantly on the weekend. And I do have another half position that -- So we do have three investigators that- out there on the weekend taking up all of the yard sale signs and all of the -- we call it snipe signs that -- all over our rights-of-way in the county. The picture that you see on the screen represents two days of their efforts. So if you take that truckload of signs and multiply it by 52, that's the garbage and -- and litter that they're keeping off of our major roadways in the county, and they're doing an excellent job of Page 33 September 18, 2001 it. I think, you know, their efforts are a big reason why our community looks the way it does. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I commend them for it. Will you be getting into what the regulations are for that? Because a lot of people like to hold yard sales on Saturdays. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. You're allowed a sign, but it needs to be on your property. You're not allowed to have signs on the telephone posts or whatever else people put it on, and they're not supposed to be off premise at all. The -- the -- One of the battles that we're -- we have to face with the yard sale, a lot of times people put their notices in the classified ads; the Naples Daily News provides them with a packet of lovely signs to put all over the place. CHAIRMAN CARTER: They are such sweethearts. MS. ARNOLD: Yes. We've sent them a letter informing them and identifying for them what the regulations are. I -- you know, I don't know if it's stopped their distribution of those packets but -- you know, we've tried to educate them as well with respect to what our regulations are, but as you can see from that truckload, we still get the homemade signs and everything else so ... CHAIRMAN CARTER: Is there any way we can -- you know, I don't want to interfere with anybody's yard sale. ! think they're great and it's wonderful, but I think people have a responsibility to put the signs out, you pick them up, and if you're not going to do that, then you ought to be fined. And I don't know where that comes into the process, but you know, I see all this stuff in the back of the truck and I -- I know the paper's only trying to help out the person placing the ad, but it would be nice to coordinate with us and understand that -- you know, are you a contributor to this; and, therefore, maybe you ought to be fined if you're going to give 'em a bunch of stuff that's going to end up all over the road -- road right-of-ways and -- you know, what's going on here? Page 34 September 18, 2001 MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I think just simply probably sitting down with them and asking them if they understand our ordinance and what we're trying to do -- You want to provide a sign for a person that's having a yard, wonderful, but don't give them 20 signs that they stick up all over the neighborhood and then be -- they're subject to fine and -- you know, what about the supplier? You know, are you perpetuating and encouraging people to be fined? I don't know. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Isn't there a permit required for these yard sales? MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. There is a permit required, and you can only have so many for the year. And the problem is that -- Well, it's not a problem. I mean, what we do is we educate the public, and so we have to give them first a notice. And if they -- they do it again after that notice, then we can fine them. But a lot of times people are cleaning out -- they're doing spring cleaning and they're getting rid of the junk that's in their garage and they're not planning on doing it again. I know I -- I did a yard sale, and I'll never do one again because -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Been down that path. MS. ARNOLD: People come -- well, anyway -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah, 5 a.m. In the morning you get a break. MS. ARNOLD: But you don't have a lot of repeat offenders with the yard sales. You do have some where we have gone to some of our storage places where people were actually doing yard sales as a business out of the storage units and -- you know, that was a problem. We've -- We're monitoring that situation, so those types of repeat offenders we're taking care of, but typically we don't have a lot of people doing it over and over again in the residential areas. Page 35 September 18, 2001 But the unfortunate part of them putting their signs out in the rights-of-way is they're not being responsible in taking them up after the sign -- or the sale is over. So I think this is going to be a continual problem. One of the things that the investigators on the weekends do as well is help us with addressing commercial vehicle violations within residential areas, and their efforts have reduced the repeat offenders that we've been addressing when we do our departmental sweeps within the evening. Part of what we do is to go out into residential areas and pick specific violations, depending on what's a concern for that neighborhood. And the efforts that the weekend officers are doing is dramatically repeat -- reduce those repeat offenses. So the increased visibility over the weekends -- A lot of times I get comments from the investigators saying, "Well, they're surprised to see us on a Sunday," you know. So the visibility is really helping cut back on those repeat offending. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I've seen them deliver notices on the weekend, driving through Palm River this summer one Sunday and there was one of your officers delivering violations. I stopped and chatted with him, and I thought, you know, it was neat because here it is letting them know, you're not going to get away with this. MS. ARNOLD: Right. Right. One of the things I instituted in the department is the flex scheduling. So an investigator not only can come in early or start the workday early to address violations that are occurring in those off hours or come in later and work later to address those violations, but they can work on a weekend and -- as opposed to a Monday or Wednesday or something so that they can address violations that -- occurring in their area off workday or off work hours and increase the contact with the -- the alleged violator. So that's one of the things that I've highlighted here for our proactive efforts, and it's really helped us get quicker compliance. Page 36 September 18,2001 One of the other things that I've done is encourage the investigators to attend-- MS. POWERS: Slow down. MS. ARNOLD: -- association meetings, putting a face with a name so the associations can get familiar with the investigators in their area. We do have evening sweeps which involves, as I said, going out into a particular area of the county with the majority of the staff and kind of-- you know, sweeping the area of that particular violation, and it's, again, cut back on repeat offenders. It hasn't cut back on the offense itself, but the repeat offenders it definitely has. Cleanup. We've done a lot of cleanup products with our solid waste -- our waste management departments, and that has helped in different neighborhoods, kind of getting out with the neighbors as well as the county departments and the like in helping clean up. So we're pretty proud of that effort. One of the things that we've done is changed our notice requirements and our weed ordinance, and you-all have helped in that respect and amended the ordinance to allow us to post on the property as opposed to repeatedly sending out certified notices to people. It was taking us up to 45 days just to, you know, go through that process before we can go and abate the violation. Now we are -- reduced it down to 11, max. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's so good. MS. ARNOLD: It's really helped out, and we appreciate it. We do have the volunteer training programs, and you'll hear from Glen Wilt, and he's instrumental in starting up that. We've gone out and met with volunteers within different neighborhoods, trained them with respect to what the different codes are, how to recognize what a violation is as opposed to what you just don't particularly like seeing, advise them as to how you can write up complaints to us. We have different patrol sheets that we've just developed for various Page 37 September 18, 2001 neighborhoods that are participating in this program, and they have a drop-off point and pick-up point. They're advised with the number -- the action order number so they can refer back to see what the status is, and that's working pretty well. And -- you know -- we -- we -- the training part of it is very important because we -- we don't -- we want to protect our citizens as well. We don't want them to, you know, invade their neighbor's privacy as well and leave the enforcement to us, but, you know, if you want to provide us information with respect to where you believe a violation is, this program is one that works out really well. Another thing that we've recently incorporated is a door-hanger customer-service system, and I just wanted to show you what those are. The first one is a warning. When the investigator goes out for the first time -- prior to the door-hanger system, they just left their card and stuck it in wherever they could. This way it -- it gives them a place to put it. There's a notation section on there that they can indicate to them why they were there. And another one of the door hangers is a "Thank you for your cooperation." That's the one to the far right. That one is left after the -- we've obtained compliance. It's letting the citizen know that, you know -- you know, you've done what we've asked you to do so there's no question in their mind whether or not they need to do more. And the center one is one that we -- I'm encouraging the investigators to hang on properties or doors of where the person or the citizen has done some improvements -- and not necessarily in response to one of our contacts -- and they've taken care of a problem that may have existed prior to us even being there. So it's -- it's you -- it's kind of like a little award-type thing and then letting them know that we recognize that they're working towards improving their property or their area and those type of things. It's one we have a big boxful. That's what the investigators tell me. Page 38 September 18,2001 But I think this door-hanger program is a good one. It's -- it's -- it's a way for us to kind of communicate back to the public as well. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that bilingual? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. Right now it's English and Spanish. We don't have any in Creole, but we're kind of working on that as well. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think it's great. We're giving them warning and thanking them for being a good neighbor and thanking them for cleaning -- or taking care of the violation. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I do too. At-a-boy award. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's right. MS. ARNOLD: Yup. Right now I'd like to ask Glen Wilt to come up and share with you all some information about the volunteer program in Golden Gate. MR. WILT: Good morning, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning, Glen. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: While you're passing your stuff out, I don't want to miss a chance to say publicly, thank you for the incredible amount of work and the -- you know, you've really made a real change and a real impact on the community with your services out there in Golden Gate, and we genuinely, sincerely appreciate all your work. MR. WILT: Well, thank you for the kind words. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You're welcome. MR. WILT: Of course, there are other people that have the other side of the picture and wish I'd leave the county. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We disagree. CHAIRMAN CARTER: No. Don't do that, Glen. No. This is great. You really have been an outstanding citizen. And I have known you for -- for years, and I can't thank you for what you have done for Collier County. Page 39 September 18, 2001 MR. WILT: Thank you, sir. Let me say just a few words, if I could, before I start into my formal presentation. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Your name for the record. MR. WILT: Glen Wilt, Golden Gate. Again, I'd like to point out that the -- working with the code enforcement volunteers, we work under the umbrella of the Golden Gate Area Civic Association, and with us today is the vice president of the civic association, Ms. Cheryl Newman, sitting back there. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Another hero. MR. WILT: So we're not out there on our own. We're out there under an official umbrella. But before I get into formal presentation, I do want to point out to you that I support what the people do in the government, but government can't do everything for the people. The people have to take it upon themselves to get things done at times. You can sit back and complain, but when a neighborhood starts going downhill, if you don't take a hold of it, government's not going to do it for you. You got to take your own neighborhood back. So six years ago about -- between six and seven years ago we decided that we could work in a cooperative agreement with government, and this is where the volunteers came from. And it's an experiment that's lasted six and a half years and I think is a very valuable experience. It's proven that you can -- it can -- it can be done. So with that -- When I moved here in 1992 and moved into Golden Gate, basically I recognized what I classify as a broken-glass syndrome. The area was on the way downhill, and the first thing you see is broken glass, vacant homes, one after another. We had drug houses. We had open prostitution. We had gangs and overgrowth of exotics on unimproved property; commercial vehicle parking in residential areas; graffiti; illegal, unpermitted land usage, and it goes on and on. Getting started. Actually, when we got started, we organized a Page 40 September 18, 2001 group of 56 volunteers, and we split the area, 4 square miles, into 56 areas. We had training with the Collier County personnel, not -- not just code enforcement, other aspects and other people within Collier County and the sheriffs office. We developed a uniform reporting system, conducted our own monthly meetings of which the code enforcement participated. And we initiated development of a definition for commercial vehicles and adopted a code, which the prior code was unenforceable. We also worked to abate the weed and ordinance, the weed and grass. We worked with them in getting the ordinance abated and changed for quicker abatement. Other actions taken by the community, which I won't go into today, was established what was known as Citizens on Patrol where we obtained our own vehicle, and we trained 21 volunteers, and we patrolled Friday and Saturday night throughout the community. The other thing was the lemonade stand we came up with which assisted in the elimination of drug houses in the area. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I love this one. MR. WILT: Once a drug house was identified, the volunteers would actually set up the lemonade stand across from the property with a couple patrol cars, a couple of guys in uniform. It deterred all of his customers, and you know, when you don't have any sales, as we said-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Tough on business; right? MR. WILT: Yeah. You can either leave -- well, first of all, you can leave Golden Gate, you can leave Collier County, you can go to jail. That's the three options. We had no -- We had some close encounters but no -- no problems with it. We had no physical encounters with them. And we had, of course, the neighborhood walks. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And, Glen, you -- you coordinated that carefully with the sheriffs office. We're not Page 41 September 18, 2001 encouraging people just to go out and do that on your own. That's something you got a lot of help from the sheriffs office on, but it was sure a very successful program. I'd love to see some of that happening in East Naples. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I would too. You know what? Commissioner Henning was really a part of that too. I remember calling him a couple of times congratulating him on his work there. Maybe he can give us some pointers. It was good. It was excellent and very effective. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And it was very effective, and it still is. The whole idea is, if you have lemons, make lemonade, and that's what we actually did. We made lemonade and gave it out to the neighbors and told them why we're -- why we're there, is -- is to give the neighborhood back to them. MR. WILT: We have actually had residents of the house -- known drug house come over and get some of the free lemonade and cookies and ask why we're there. Well, we're just there handing out lemonade and cookies. Of course, the patrol cars deterred all of his customers. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Was it hard to get them to participate in that type of a thing? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Drink the lemonade and have cookies? Probably not. COMMISSIONER FIALA: The sheriffs office -- were they able to join in on that? COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's -- it's not a problem. The sheriffs department has many programs, COP and Gang Busters and things like that. Glen Wilt and Katie Tuff would be glad to get together with any organization in East Naples that you have and start setting up programs. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Page 42 September 18, 2001 MR. WILT: You recall Fort Myers had a program where they had active neighborhood marches. That was quite a program. In working with Sheriff Hunter, he was not a proponent of a march because it was direct face-to-face confrontation in some of these areas. So trying to work in some fashion so we could make our presence known, this is where the lemonade stand came up with, and then he put the community policing officers with us in uniform out there, and he worked was -- with us very well, very cooperative with that. Okay. If I may continue and then we'll discuss more. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You bet. MR. WILT: Where are we today? As far as we know, there are no known drug houses operating in the 4 square miles in Golden Gate today. As far as we know, there's no open prostitution walking up and down the street like there was. The gang problems are being controlled with Collier County Sherifl% Office, very effective. They know who they are. They keep track of'em. In fact, they go up and ask 'em how they're doing, you know, and they let them know they know who they are. The homeless is no longer a problem because we removed all the excess vegetation from the unimproved properties and got rid of the homeless camps that you couldn't see because of all the vegetation. Well, if they can't hide, they leave. The cleanup of unimproved property, the mowing of weeds and grass enforced. Most exotics have been removed, and the litter cleanup is enforced, and unauthorized land use is rapidly corrected by code enforcement. The parking of commercial vehicles. This problem has been reduced to no more than 5 percent of the problem it was when we started. Today's problem, though -- and I want to point this out -- Page 43 September 18,2001 involves commercial equipment parked on trailers, lawn-service trailers, pool-cleaning equipment exposed in the back of trucks. I have a problem with this pool-cleaning equipment with all the acids and chlorines and everything parked in residential urban areas when children are all around there. They don't belong in the area. Unlicensed, inoperable vehicles, and through aggressive policing, this is now a very minor problem. Graffiti, of course, it's an on-and-off problem, but it's very minor in the Gate at the present time. And noncompliance with zoning codes, this still remains a problem within the city area. The other results of what are brought about -- you know, if you don't have a problem, you don't have people who want to volunteer to help. As a result of cleaning up the area, we stopped shooting back and forth across the street between drug houses, we stopped the prostitution walking up and down the street. And once it's cleaned up, your volunteers -- well, the area's cleaned up. We had a reduction in the number of available volunteers, but what we did, we increased each volunteer's area because there's less to report, less to do, and we now have 14 very active volunteers taking care of it. Our continuing problems is the parking of lawn-service equipment in residential areas; parking of pool-service trucks loaded with hazardous chemicals in residential areas; overcrowding of residential rental units -- I heard this mentioned before up here. This is a serious problem in the Gate -- parking on unimproved surfaces, grassed areas and sidewalks; removal of exotics, litter, weeds along canal banks -- along the canals, along canal banks; removal of exotics from improved property, FP&L easements, in county alleyways in the urban area; enforcement of commercial zoning; parking; road right-of-way -- this is going to require assistance of the sheriff's office, I realize -- lack of cleanup in the alleyways in Collier County and a lack of enforcement staff. Page 44 September 18,2001 I would like to interject at this point. I think Collier County probably has one of the best code enforcement operating staff in working with and talking with other counties, but like everything else, they are understaffed, as far as I'm concerned. But by the tremendous geographical area they are responsible for, they're one of the largest counties -- they may be the largest county in the State of Florida, and when you compare their staff in comparison to some of the other counties, they are woefully understaffed. They're doing a tremendous job with what they have, but they sure need -- they sure need more help. And she didn't pay me to say that either. (Laughter.) MR. WILT: Our recommendation as far as from the volunteers, establish a code prohibiting the storage of commercial equipment -- more specific, the lawn-service equipment in the urban residential areas. They park 'em in their front yard. They park in the lawn. They park them on the streets -- prohibit the overnight storage of pool-cleaning equipment in the urban residential -- it's your acids and your chlorines in the back of all these pickups sitting there exposed every night and all weekend -- create a committee, or whatever is required, to study the overcrowding problem and recommend changes to the existing regulations for overcrowding in rental units; create a code regulating parking in urban residential prohibiting the overnight parking on grass or sidewalks -- I realize this will be a problem, but people are going to have to have parties at times, and there's people that park on the sidewalk, park on the right-of-way. I'm talking about the people that use the right-of-way as their permanent parking area day in and day out and every weekend. This needs -- needs looked at -- amend the code to allow the enforcement of exotic vegetation removal on urban improved property or easements -- it always did tickle me that the code reads that you have unimproved property within Golden Gate, you have to remove all Page 45 September 18,2001 exotics on it, you've got to keep it mowed and everything else. Have a house right next door to that lot, they can plant all the Brazilian peppers and Australian pine and everything else, and now if they're bad and they're bad, they can't have them on the unimproved property. Why are they allowed on the improved property? There is a big hole in the code. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I didn't know that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's interesting, Michelle, because I know in Pelican Bay and we had some associations that we dealt with on this and got them out of there. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. It all depends on when the property was improved. Now, if it was improved prior to our ordinance requiring the removal and maintenance -- maintaining them free -- the lots free of exotics, then there's nothing more that we can do. We have recently, however, amended the code that -- that says, if you're doing improvements to your property, then that rule can apply to you. So we're in the process right now -- we're working with the building staff and planning staff to identify what sort of improvements would trigger the requirement to remove the exotics from some of these improved properties. CHAIRMAN CARTER: What if you change ownership? What if A sells it to B? MS. ARNOLD: No. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Wouldn't that trigger that -- MS. ARNOLD: No. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- in the code to say now you're the new owner; you got to be part of the deal? I mean, is that legal? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we could. MR. OLLIFF: The current code doesn't -- doesn't allow that right now. That's a policy decision for the board, and it's a lot like the sign ordinance issue. If the board feels strongly enough and Page 46 September 18,2001 recognize that in -- Especially in large developments, especially in those with large common areas, exotic removal is going to be an exceptionally expensive undertaking. I'll give you an example. A particular community park-- and we've been going back to our community parks because we fall under the same code as everyone else does. Although we have not pulled permits and not made improvements to the parks, we felt, as an example, we needed to clear out the exotics out of our community parks and we were budgeting between one hundred to $150,000 per park just to clear out the exotics, and then it's an ongoing maintenance issue after that and -- because, as you know, Brazilian peppers and Melaleucas, in particular, will sprout out consistently in places where they've been. So it's -- it's an ongoing maintenance issue. If the board wants to do that, we can certainly come back and look at perhaps some phase-in type schedules and some other tougher restrictions that would start to address existing development. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioners, is there three people here that would like to explore a process which would over time -- not to penalize somebody today -- much like the sign ordinance. You have to change properties. If you have a large place, a time line of whatever it might be to tighten up and enforce and clean out what mister-- is telling us this morning. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have some concerns about large property owners in the estates, and we do have in the urban area estates that it's going to be an economic problem for the owners to abate some of the exotics on their property. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We can be reasonable. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So, yeah, if we can, you know, Page 47 September 18, 2001 keep that in mind that -- the economic impact of it and what we do -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I would concur, Commissioner. That's why I would say I would like to look at this cautiously and conservatively. And -- and I know there's a lot of exotics, but there are some that are more prolific and causes more problems than others. Let's say the ones that suck the water out of the ground, could be the pepper trees. They may be higher on the list than others. I would look for staff to come back with a program and recommendations to us where we wouldn't cause that burden on people. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: To remind you on that, just say the average lot is 2 1/2 acres and they have 2 acres of wild natural habitat and there's some pepper bushes and a bunch of Melaleucas on there. I've heard estimates on the part of developers to restore land something like $6,000 an acre. If that's the case, it's no longer economically feasible. You might want to have something where property lines are honored, something that's going to be realistic. But to ask them -- to have them come in and spend large amounts of money where there isn't a -- an outcry in the estates at this point in time for that type of service, I think we better weigh that very, very carefully. MR. WILT: That's why-- that's why my comment in the urban area-- because I realize the estates is a different situation. My problem with the -- the exotics in the urban area -- for example, say you have 60-foot Australian pine on the canal bank. The canal bank belongs to the solid waste department here and that tree comes down from a hurricane onto my house. Now, do you pay now, or you want to pay later when that tree comes down and ruins my house? Because the tree don't belong to me. In the urban area, these are things I think we need to take care of. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sir, that's an excellent point, and Page 48 September 18, 2001 maybe we need to look at this within some guidelines like an urban area. I would set my own example. I had a pepper tree at the back -- I didn't know a pepper tree from who shot the pup except somebody came through from the county -- the water reader said -- he said, "You know, sir, you have a pepper tree back there that's causing problems in reading this meter," whatever it was. I said, I didn't know what it was. And, of course, recognizing I'm a county commissioner and I've got an exotic on my property. Point is, I had it taken out, and the whole area back there is filled in with natural stuff. It's beautiful, and it's amazing how it transformed that section of the yard by just taking the one tree out, but I'm willing to do that. MR. OLLIFF: Rather than trying to craft a policy today, I think we've heard that you'd at least like to pursue it further, and we can bring you back some options to discuss and look at. MR. WILT: If I can move on. Within the urban area of Golden Gate, we're consistently having problems in the zoning in the C-3, C- 4, and C-5 zone within Golden Gate. I don't know exactly who to point the finger at or -- or, you know, if a finger needs to be pointed, but we have things that are permitted to go into the area and if you read -- I read the code one way -- the zoning code one way -- and maybe I don't know how to read the zoning code, but I think there are things in there within the urban area, C-3, C-4, and C-5, that are being permitted to go in that don't belong in there according to the code, and I think we need to take -- the county needs aggressive action. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Where you need to do the finger pointing is -- is down here to my right, all the way down. CHAIRMAN CARTER: How far do you want to take this? COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's where it needs to be corrected and we have a little talk about that. MR. OLLIFF: I'm not sure that the poor minutes and records Page 49 September 18, 2001 person is responsible for code enforcement, but I will tell you that we have heard loud and clear, in fact, as part of our code enforcement, land development code workshops with the board, that a review, and a thorough review, of all commercial and industrial zones within the land development code is something that this board really wants to spend some time on. And, John, if you want to provide them with a schedule for that -- when we're scheduled to come back to the board. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just -- while he -- right before that, the only other comment I'd make is, I want to get an opportunity to have this board give clear direction to staff that when interpreting codes, we interpret-- when a code is grey -- and they're always going to be grey, and they're always going to require interpretation. We can't draft them black and white enough -- that a code should be interpreted in favor of an existing homeowner where possible over a proposed commercial use. And that's something that I'm seeing not happening, and I really want to see that changed. I just had to get a chance to say that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I understand what you're saying. You want to protect the neighborhoods, Commissioner, and that's what you and I are confronting in a couple of cases right now. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You bet we are. MR. DUNNUCK: Agreed. As we committed to the Board of County Commissioners, we said we were going to bring back a -- proposed amendment changes this coming fall regarding the commercial districts and the industrial districts as a whole. One of the things we're trying to schedule right now is a workshop with the commissioners individually to kind of have a preface to actually bringing back codes so we understand the direction that you-all want to take as it relates to this. I think we'd be chasing our tails a little bit if we started talking about individual uses of these commercial districts but, rather, the bigger picture, and that's your setback issues, Page 50 September 18,2001 your building heights, and the quality of what we're trying to look-- you know, how it transitions into residential communities and so forth. So that's what we're really gearing towards this Fall. I believe that the cycles are going to start in mid-October, and we anticipate that we will have amendments back to the board in January relating to the commercial districts. And certainly this is a good opportunity to be working with, you know, not only the development community but the residents and everybody else as we bring forward some changes to these districts. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, John. MR. OLLIFF: And I'll tell you, one of the things that has driven this is, as you-all are aware, the rising cost of the property. While the codes may have allowed certain things before, we didn't see a lot of those things even though, you know, they were allowed within the code. The upper end of that code, the more intense, the more dense- type development we didn't see. But as the property cost of it escalated like they have, it's pushed the development community into trying to maximize their return on their property because it cost them so much to begin with, and now we're starting to see what the upper end of our code looks like and I -- you know, I think what I hear is, we don't especially like what that upper end of the code looks like. We want to try and readdress this. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well stated. MR. WILT: If I may continue. We feel that there is a need for a cooperative effort by the Collier County Sheriff's Office and the code enforcement to aggressively stop the right-of-way parking in the urban areas. The right-of-way is put there as a safety feature for people traveling on the highway and need to get off the highway, and we have areas that -- trying to get off the highway into the right-of- way, you're better off staying on the roadway and getting hit by the Page 51 September 18,2001 car behind you because you're going to run into three or four others on the right-of-way. Require the road and bridge department to maintain the alleyways. This is a pet peeve with me. We have an aggressive program on the alleyways and the urban area of Golden Gate and, yet, we do not have an aggressive program to keep them maintained as far as -- Well, just for an example, the last time I called in, we had some peppers actually overgrowing into the alleyway. The only thing was -- keeping the peppers in control was the trucks going through there beating 'em back, you know, and stuff like that. So we need to -- I think the transportation department can take a little more effort to keep those alleys maintained and policed. The others is -- I know we just went through the -- the thing with the ordinance as far as the definition for excessive weeds and grass from -- it went from 24 inches to 18 inches. I would like to recommend that you review it again and take it down from 18 inches to 12 inches, just to start the violation at 12 inches. Then you have time to catch up with it and get it abated before it's 36 inches tall. I pointed out to Michelle that I notice that in the city, they just reduced theirs to 8 inches. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They sure did. MR. WILT: So we're behind the times. I think that we need to give the enforcement staff a head start. Instead of waiting 18 inches over 50 percent of the lot, get it down to 12 inches over 50 percent of the lot, and then when -- you get it abated better. Again, I'll close with, I think the code enforcement personnel from the aspect of speaking to commissioners -- I'd like to point out that taxes is our -- how our county is run, and if an area is allowed to run down and go into decay, that only reduces the property values there, the amount of property tax coming in, so the county loses and the people in the area lose. So we need to have the staff out there Page 52 September 18,2001 every day to not only maintain the area where we have it now, but to further increase their efforts and to eliminate those people are continuing to cause us problem and further clean up the area. It's a value to the residents in the area, and it's a value to the county. And with that, I'll close and ask if you have any questions. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Comment and question for Michelle Arnold. Comment is: Glen, I want to thank you for being proactive in your community, my community of Golden Gate. It has made a difference. The property values has increased because of your efforts and the volunteers of code enforcement. Question to Ms. Arnold: We have two items on Mr. Wilt's list here that the board has given you direction to bring back to us. Where are we at in that process of overcrowding of homes and parking on improved surfaces? MS. ARNOLD: We prepared a memorandum and provided that to John -- and I'm not sure if Tom has had an opportunity to see it yet -- with some recommendations addressing the overcrowding standards currently. It's -- For the first person, it's 150 square feet and 100 square feet thereafter and making a recommendation without a lot -- you know, other than that -- that's a good practice to look at the increase of it. When we did our research, it was -- most communities have the same standard. It's the standard that's been around for some time -- is not really reflective what -- of how our community lives. So we're making a recommendation to increase that standard and higher-- increase the amount of square footage per person. And then we're also recommending in there standards for parking within residential areas. So that should be coming to you in the near future. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So we need to -- If we have any questions, talk to Mr. Dunnuck or Mr. Olliff about when it's coming forward? Page 53 September 18,2001 MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. MR. WILT: Before I close out, let me please get the opportunity to our vice president of Golden Gate Civic, if she'd like to say anything or a few words -- Okay. That's it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you, Glen. Can we go to the next part, Ms. Arnold? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. The next part would be Jack Mischung. He's in the Naples Manor area. He's got a few photographs for you- all to see with respect to Naples Manor and the problems that they have or concerns they have. CHAIRMAN CARTER: For the record, sir, please. MR. MISCHUNG: Oh, I'm sorry. Jack Mischung, Naples Manor. Let these photographs go through first before I speak. I had them set up in five-second intervals. The majority of these were taken Sunday morning. Note the cars all the way into -- into the property. That's one apartment, one -- five cars. That's common in Naples Manor. That was Sunday morning, common. Now, please, again, note the cars all the way into the lot. This is an old picture. This was, oh, six or eight weeks ago. This was taken back at our Naples Manor cleanup. This is a code enforcement truck, one of many, many, many loads that were taken to dumpsters like that. This is another common sight in Naples Manor. This corner is an old photograph. You should see that corner today. There was a car parked there over the weekend that absolutely tore up -- completely destroyed the soil. That's a very common sight in Naples Manor, not as common as it used to be since code enforcement got involved. To the best of my knowledge, there are no repeat violators. Every time we see a dump truck out there a -- now it's a violation, a Page 54 September 18, 2001 new violator. It took -- it took a few violations, a few citations, a little bit of money, and the repeat violators finally got the word that semi-trucks and tractors do not belong in a residential neighborhood. Now, I forgot my -- my little list of things I wanted to talk about, so I'm very, very glad I followed the gentleman from Golden Gate because he made every point that I wanted to make, every one. Everything he said, the problems they have, we have. The current commission and the current staff has inherited 40 years of neglect in Naples Manor. I kid you not, 40 years -- actually, 44 years of neglect in Naples Manor. It's only in the last two years or so that we're getting the cooperation that we need out there, and this cooperation that we have gotten in the last two years has been fantastic. Young man by the name of Jason Torecky is the current code enforcement officer in Naples Manor. He's been on board about a year, maybe a little bit over. This young fella can't keep up with all the violations, and his are mostly proactive. Most of the cases being opened out there, Jason has opened himself. I ran into him one morning last week on his flex day. I was taking my wife to work at approximately 7:30. Jason said he had been in the Manor since 6 and had opened 13 or 14 cases in an hour and a half. Unbelievable. But even with what he's doing, what the weekend people are doing, with what the sweeps do, they are only scratching the surface. It would take a strike force of five or six people every day for several months to address all the violations in Naples Manor. The Manor started to evolve as a neighborhood in the very early '70s. There was an incident in the City of Naples that several of our developers took advantage of, and they put up a gob -- just unbelievable amount of cheap duplexes with the -- with the expectation of being able to make a fast buck because of what was Page 55 September 18,2001 happening in the City of Naples at the time. Well, they put up the cheap duplexes, they made their fast buck, they left. Other people have bought these duplexes. They're not being kept up. With the recent influx of people from other countries in the Naples Manor, particularly from Latin America and Haiti, it's just -- we're -- we're overcrowded to the point-- it's unbelievable up there. Approximately 1,250 homes exist in Naples Manor right now. My estimate, my guess -- and all it is, a guess -- I don't know, 15,000 people, easy. You ought to see it on school mornings, hundreds and hundreds of little kids going to school. My children were raised in Naples Manor, all of them. Three of them went to Avalon Elementary, East Naples Middle School, Lely High School. You'd see five or six kids at a bus stop. Now you see 50 to 100. It's -- it's unbelievable. I can't even-- I can't-- You'd have to see it for yourself. As far as the parking problem, the first thing it seems that folks do in Naples Manor, buy a house or rent a house, they plant a car in the front yard. It's the very first thing they do, and sometimes that car is up on blocks. And sometimes it stays there for months, not so much anymore. Jason's pretty much right on them. Something I never could understand why it was allowed in Collier County, you put a mailbox up. It has to be a break-away. You're severely restricted in what vegetation you can put in the right- of-way. You can't put a fence in the right-of-way. All of these things, there's a reason. I would imagine the main reason is so if there's an accident, a car goes off the roadway, he hits a break-away mailbox, it flies. Excuse me, a 3,000-pound car is not going to break away. They're not. Don't worry about the mailboxes. Worry about these cars. If you were to back up and look at my photographs, some of those streets -- car after car after car after car, some of them are Page 56 September 18,2001 illegally parked, I know. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I see your point. I wasn't following you, but now I do. MR. MISCHUNG: If you can't have -- if you can't have a little shrubbery in the right-of-way, why are they allowed to have cars? I didn't come here to beat up on the sheriffs department. I really didn't. But I tried to get them to do something about that, to no -- to no avail. Code enforcement is excellent in Naples Manor. They need more resources. They need more officers. They really and truly do. And from what I'm hearing, not just in Naples Manor, it's other areas. But what you really need to do, Commissioners, more than anything else to help people like Naples -- Naples Manor -- neighborhoods like Naples Manor, is go to Sheriff Hunter and get him on board. I beg you. I know he's a Constitutional officer and you have no authority over him, but beg him to get on the bandwagon. We need him. We need the sheriffs department as much or more than code enforcement. Thank you. That's really all I have to say. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Question for Commissioner Fiala. I know you were working on creating a neighborhood association in Naples Park. Will you give us an update of how that's going? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Naples Manor. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Naples Manor. Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What we first started to do was try to reach out into the community, so we've had three town hall meetings. Our next meeting, which is going to be held in October, is going to be the organization meeting, for now a homeowners' or community homeowners' association. It doesn't have to be homeowners. It really has to be -- We really just want community Page 57 September 18, 2001 residents. So we're going to have to come up with a proper name for it, but try to get people involved, actively involved, in trying to look at their own community and clean up their own community. That's where we're going with that, and I'd love to get some pointers from you, from Glen Wilt. I -- I was thinking as I was listening, maybe he could come over and speak to this group, you know, as to how -- how they started and how they were successful. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Inspire them a little bit. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Great story. MR. MISCHUNG: very quickly. I'm sorry. Golden Gate. Can I make one more comment, please, I don't remember your name, sir, from COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Wilt, W-i-l-t. MR. MISCHUNG: Mr. Wilt, you are the only person, sir, that has ever made a comment of-- let alone seem to know anything -- you called it the broken-glass theory. It's actually, I believe, the broken-windows theory. I tried to get that started too in Collier County through the sheriffs department, to no avail. I even at one time -- I gathered -- I got a computer full of information, probably outdated now. I even had a contact with somebody in the Chicago Police Department that used the broken-windows theory to great advantage to clean up some of the slum areas of Chicago. It -- it-- one more comment. It's overcrowded, people. It's overcrowded. Got to do something about the overcrowding; a lot of these problems will go away. Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But we'll -- I will work with Jack and with the other people. Of course, Michelle's department is at every one of those meetings. I'm so glad you asked that. Michelle's department comes to every single meeting. They're there long after the end of the meeting talking with people and available for everybody, and we always had the sheriffs office at these meetings Page 58 September 18, 2001 as well, so now we're going to start organizing. Now that we know somebody that knows how to do it, why try to reinvent the wheel when somebody's already started the process. Learn from others. So, Glen, you'll get a call from me. MS. ARNOLD: And Glen has offered other associations to come and talk to them. Naples Park is one that -- you know, they -- they expressed an interest in starting a volunteer program. And so I'm offering your time, Glen. MR. OLLIFF: I think the most important thing that Glen indicated, though, at the very, very beginning was that government can't do it by itself and -- and any time that there's going to be a real serious change in a neighborhood, in my opinion and in my history, I think it's because the community itself has partnered up and taken that neighborhood into their own hands and decided they were going to change that neighborhood. And I think the same thing is starting to happen in Naples Manor, especially through Jack's efforts, and I think you'll begin to see that -- that happening. I think when we start talking about some floor ratios in terms of occupancy and we start talking about some car -- number of vehicle limitations per residence and the neighborhood's involvement, I think you'll begin to see a change in Naples Manor as well. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's where we're going with it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Well said. Next, Ms. Arnold. MS. ARNOLD: Yes. Code Enforcement Board. I just wanted to briefly talk about the efforts of the Code Enforcement Board. That's another part of the -- the efforts that are taken outside of my department that makes everything work. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Were we going to hear from Naples Park prior to that? MS. ARNOLD: No. Page 59 September 18, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: No, they're waiving. Okay. I saw you on the agenda, so I just wanted to know if you wanted to comment to US. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. I -- I -- yeah. If you-all have some items that you want to discuss at this point, you -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, ma'am. That's why I saw you on the schedule. You can sit at the table, or you can be at the mike, wherever you prefer to be. MS. LALLO: I prefer to talk standing up. For the record, my name is Loretta Lallo. I'm a resident of the Naples Park, and I'm the treasurer of the property owners of Naples Park. There were three -- Glen did a terrific presentation. He hit on all the things that we were concerned about. I have a couple of additional concerns. One is when you're figuring the square footage to reduce the density of people in residences, are you considering bathroom facilities, kitchen facilities, or is this just sleeping facilities.9 Because most of these places have lots of people in 'em but are limited on bathroom facilities. That's one of them. One thing that wasn't addressed, I happen to live on a comer lot, and when I had my house built, I built to all the setbacks. I don't have a boat. I don't want a boat, you know; however, there are a lot of people that have boats that live -- live on the comer lots. So when -- when you drive by the street, you're seeing their side yard and their barnyard and they've got the boat or the RV and everything, and I think that there should be something in there that says they should be screened. If you're living on an interior lot, you're not visible to the main street, but if you're living on a comer lot, you definitely are. So that was one of the things that Vera particularly wanted me to address since she is in Canada and birding, for your information. She's having a good time. But that was one thing. But I also wanted, you know, to bring up bathroom and cooking facilities in these places that Page 60 September 18,2001 are overcrowded. Thank you, and I believe Mary Ellen has some things. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. MS. RAND: Thank you. And we're going to network with the two gentlemen from the other communities too to get us working on our own. Sounds like they -- they can advise us as to what has and hasn't worked. I just wanted to talk to you about a particular problem, and that is repeat offenders. My particular problem is a property owner who owns some -- several properties in the park and what -- I would define them as day-labor flophouses. They're basically work camps. I think they are inappropriate for our neighborhood. Technically, they're defined as residential, and in terms of violations that may come into play is -- again is overcrowding. And the question I had on the square footage was, in calculating per person, do you include the area of the kitchens and the bathrooms? Is it the total or is it the -- the living space? That -- I didn't know how -- if we could maybe see how the calculations were on that. MS. ARNOLD: I'm sorry. I didn't hear what the question was. MS. RAND: The new overcrowding standards, do you include the square footage for bathrooms and kitchens in the area -- total area? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. It's total area of the property including -- MS. RAND: -- including the bathrooms, closets and kitchens. MS. ARNOLD: -- bathroom, closets, kitchens. Yup. MS. RAND: Okay. And I think that's a much better solution than the four unrelated adults because, you know, anybody could be my cousin. The noise is another problem. With this -- With these properties the biggest problems are overcrowding, litter, disrepair, noise, and Page 61 September 18,2001 general nuisance and harassment. To cut to the chase, we end up with a house that periodically has a pile of furniture in the front that sits there for a week. We have a house that the teen-age girls on our street don't like walking by because there's 15, 20 guys sitting on their cars drinking beers turning their music up every night. You know, it's -- technically, it's hard to enforce things because -- Well, the noise is an issue, and in my suggestion about maybe using the data from the sheriffs department to take action against the property owner who rents to people who are repeated -- repeating the same violations -- but -- And the other thing that I think might help is to have a little bit more ability to increase fines with each repeated offense, and I know that does happen. The guy from waste -- and I can't remember his name -- from Waste Management tried at one point to find this property owner on a daily basis only to have a judge turn him down. So -- you know, having -- and that's -- that's nothing you can do about that but having some collaborative effort by the different departments to -- and not create a hardship on people, but for people who it's obviously no hardship, to pay these fines because they don't change, and they just keep paying the fines and continue in their operation. In those cases, have no ceiling as to how high a fine can be increased as the offense is repeated so they don't just budget that into their monthly operation. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. There's -- there is -- If we find that the citation process is not working, either because people are, as a course of business, just paying the fine or it's being thrown out when we get to the courts because they're appealing the citation, we have the Code Enforcement Board as a vehicle to address the repeat and recurring offenses, and their ability to fine is up to $250 per day. So they have the per-day fine amount that they can impose for people that we feel are repeat offenders so ... Page 62 September 18,2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I ask a question? What is the notice to neighbors for a code enforcement hearing? Like, would Mary Ellen know if this repeat offender was coming to Code Enforcement Board so she could show up and say, "Please, don't be lenient on these people. They are -- These are the bad guys"? MS. ARNOLD: There isn't a notice to the neighbors unless, as a part of initiating the violation, the neighbor left their -- his or her name. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I wonder if that might be part of -- of the solution to this too, because personally -- and I -- my feeling about Code Enforcement Board, they need to be the hammer, the enforcer, not the compassionate ones, because I know how compassionate your staff is. Before they ever get to Code Enforcement Board, they're given 5,000 chances to correct the -- the problem. But what worries me is that the person who has been cited comes to Code Enforcement Board and tells their tale of woe, but there is nobody there from the community to say, "Let me tell you how' this is affecting our neighborhood," you know, unless by happenstance they -- they show up. It seems to me for code enforcement hearings there ought to be notice to the neighbors so people can show up and plead the neighborhood's case. I know that you guys plead the technical case, but we need somebody there pleading for the community that -- that they -- I mean, they don't know about it unless we give them some kind of notice. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner, I couldn't agree with you more. I believe the Code Enforcement Board has just got to get much tougher, and "compassion" should not be in their vocabulary. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Amen. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I really believe that they need to -- Page 63 September 18,2001 maybe it's a question, and I've had some input from some members, and I sent a memo down to staff. It's probably on the way now -- is, maybe they need more orientation, maybe they need more workshops as a board, maybe they need to be better informed on who is serious about this. And repeat offenders, nail them, be tough on them. Don't give them, Well, we ought to take it easy and -- after all kind of stuff. Look, it took a long time to get 'em there. When you get 'em there, do your job, really hit 'em hard, because that's the only way you're going to get their attention. It's all economics owning these rental properties. Somebody who owns those things, it's a bottom line. I generate "X" number of dollars of income, I have "Y" number of expenses, and if I can budget in $2,000 worth of fines a year and leave the place a dump, I'm going to do it. It's horrible, but that's how they operate. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's true. MS. ARNOLD: Well -- well, as you'll see in upcoming slides, the Code Enforcement Board is imposing the fines and they are, you know, looking at the amount of time that my staff has taken to give the person an opportunity to correct the violation before it got to them. And, in fact, the slide that's on the screen right now shows that in the last year or this current year, we've had more people come into compliance after the board's order. You know, they've given an additional -- them additional time to comply, but they're not doing it in -- according to their order. So what does that mean? They're going to be fined, and they are fined on a daily basis. And, in fact, the next slide will show you, we are collecting those funds. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I agree. I don't mean, you know, first-time offender, and there's something that needs to be taken -- that's different. But I'm after these repeat offenders. That's what I hear, is the repeat offenders, the people who totally ignore any of Page 64 September 18, 2001 these processes. The only way you're going to get their attention is to slam them. MS. ARNOLD: Right. And what -- what we can do -- what we'll have to do in that respect is bring it to the board, show them the history that, you know, we've, time and time again, addressed this particular problem with this property owner or violator and, yes, they correct it, but we need to do more so they can understand that they shouldn't be doing it again. MS. RAND: An accumulative kind of history be -- be brought in. MS. ARNOLD: Yes. MS. RAND: In defense of code enforcement, this particular person has been appealed and bring in the justice system to whatever court that want. He's been taken to court several times, and he hires attorneys who manage to get him out of it. So I don't know. I think it's going to be a cooperative effort and then the cumulative history. The sheriffs department reacts to every call as though nothing had ever happened before, and I make a lot of the calls, and I say, "Well, you know, is this maybe the 300th call you got on that property?" Anyway, thank you for your time. MR. WILT: If I could comment on it just a moment. People may have -- Excuse me for interrupting. CHAIRMAN CARTER: MR. WILT: Glen Wilt. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Your name for the record, please. Thank you, sir. MR. WILT: And with one of the -- working with the Collier County Sheriffs Office, particularly in illicit drugs and other type operations in Golden Gate, within the sheriffs office he does have authority to be declared a nuisance property and taken to court and the property is erased. The subject you might want to consider on uncooperative landlords, uncooperative property owners, when you're Page 65 September 18,2001 considering the new ordinance if it's a public nuisance maybe it needs to cease to exist. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And this is the one that I came with for a question today that I wanted some stats on. And because it was -- what -- maybe three years ago -- Commissioner Carter, were you here when we adopted that nuisance abatement ordinance? And it basically says -- I think it's three times if you've been cited, county can take your land. We can take their land. We cannot just cite 'em and fine 'em. If it's a drug house or it's some historically significant problem, we can take title to their property through condemnation because of it being a nuisance, and I don't think we've done that yet. I wonder if we've done it at all. MS. ARNOLD: No. We've worked with the county attorney's office and the sheriff's office with a couple different problems in East Naples, in fact, identifying nuisance problems. I think that the ordinance that was approved, however, needs to be looked at a little further. And I have met with the county attorney's office on that, and they are looking to kind of update the ordinance so that it's consistent with what the statutes require. So that might be coming back before you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let's do that. Let's get that quickly 'cause I got to tell you, that one for me -- and, Tom, I have to say this one to you, is it's sort of-- that ordinance for me was sort of like when we budget road money and think that roads are being built and then find out later that they're not. We -- we think we've created this tool, and I've been waiting to see that hammer get used 'cause I think it's going to get some people's attention. You know, if the tool needs to be refined, bring it back then 'cause -- MS. ARNOLD: I think one of the concerns there may have been some court rulings with respect to paying for lost income to some of these properties, so we need to clarify that a little bit in the Page 66 September 18, 2001 ordinance. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Bring it. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN CARTER: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I want to take Mr. Mischung, and if you want to say something, you'll have to come to the mike. And then I'm going to have to move to the rest of the program, and at the end I will take public comment. So you have to get to the mike. MR. MISCHUNG: Jack Mischung, for the record. Just a quick -- another quick comment. We're talking about uncooperative property owners, et cetera, et cetera, and a deputy coming out maybe on the 300th call. These guys have no way of knowing, no way whatsoever, unless you get the same deputy. And very often it hasn't been an uncooperative property owner but an uncooperative deputy. Again, I don't want to be beating up on the sheriff's department because they've done a lot out there. I lived there through the big drag raids of Naples Manor in the '80s. When they cleaned the place up -- ! mean, they've done a lot, just not recently. And we are getting an awful lot of lack of cooperation. I say I don't want to beat up on them, but here I am doing it. It's all I seem to have been doing. I got to call it the way it is. That's the problem out there. I live on a street on a block-- on a block on one street. We had five drive-by shootings in two and a half years, five. The recent -- most recent was only a few months ago. Luckily, they made an arrest on that one. Okay. A young kid got -- on a Friday night got shot in the butt. This was only a few months ago. Five on my street in two and a half years. Two of them the bullets flew right across my front yard at the house next door to me. Sometimes I'm afraid to live out there, really. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But now we've got to get back on code enforcement. Page 67 September 18,2001 MR. MISCHUNG: Yeah. Okay. I'm done with the sheriffs department. I promise. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Let me take one more comment publicly, and then I will hold the rest till the end of the meeting. We do appreciate participation. Yes, ma'am, for the record. MS. TAYLOR: I'm Diane Taylor. I'm a member of the Code Enforcement Board, and the board needs to get tough. We are not tough, and we need to get tough. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The Code Enforcement Board? MS. TAYLOR: Yes. We have a couple of members on the board who refuse to face -- face the facts. They will not stick to the issues, and it's taken us way afar from what we're supposed to be doing. I have three things that I would like to have become mandatory. First of all, before someone is seated on this board, they be interviewed so that they are aware of what they're on this board for. This board is not for a personal agenda. It is not a popularity contest. It is to -- to do a very, very serious, important job in this county, and we have some members on the board who don't realize that, I don't think. I know they don't, and I would like to see anyone who is seated be interviewed. I would like it to be mandatory that anyone who is on this board spend not two hours, not half a day, but one full day in the field with an investigator to know what this is all about. They have no idea. Some of the board members have never been in the estates. They have no idea what it looks like. And the third thing, I think that we need to have workshops for our board members so that they are kept aware of what our job is and what we're in here for. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Tom, she makes some awfully good points and I have -- I have to underline those. Page 68 September 18, 2001 Is there a way that we can -- can pursue these, especially the workshop and the full-day requirement before serving on the board? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala, Ms. Taylor, she came and told me these things. I now have a memo that's off to staff on this, and I think I copied the commissioners on it. And you're right on. I think her ideas are excellent, and I sent them down and said, "Let's do it." I didn't want to name her publicly until she disclosed it herself to protect her confidentiality, but that's no longer an issue. MS. TAYLOR: Thank you very much. MR. OLLIFF: I think those are great ideas but just one clarification. When you talk about having potential candidates interviewed, you're talking about by existing Code Enforcement Board? MS. TAYLOR: No. I don't think so. I don't know who. I really don't. But somebody needs to say first thing to them: "What do you want to be on this board for? What is your reason for wanting to serve on this board?" MR. OLLIFF: Okay. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think what-- in our conversation we were trying to take it out of a political process where a person might come and talk to a commissioner and say, you know, I really want to be on this and you know 'em and -- you know, maybe you don't ask the right questions. Want it in an independent person who asked the right questions, the tough questions, and evaluates and says, "I don't know Susan Smith from Jack Jones, but based on the candidates I think that "X" is the best recommendation to make to the Board of County Commissioners." So we take us out of the process to make the decision. Right. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I recommend the productivity committee for this. Page 69 September 18,2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: It might be a good group. MS. TAYLOR: Thanks very much. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Mr. Olliff-- MR. OLLIFF: We need to change paper here, and I'm just going to remind the board that it's about ten of 12, and we promised to try and get you out of here at noon. So we're going to try to wrap this -- our part of it up. Okay. Michelle, we're ready. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. The previous slide just kind of identified for you some of the efforts of the Code Enforcement Board. They are fining. We have used the assistance from the county attorney's office about -- I guess using the ability to foreclose or -- or initiate that process. And I think, as a result, we're finding that we're actually getting collections on that particular fining process. And just for this current year alone, we've probably collected about 38 percent -- close to 40 percent of the fines that have been assessed so far. Another one of the -- the programs that we are responsible for in the department is vehicle for hire. That's all of the taxicabs, the charter companies, limo services and the like out in the community. We are working on enhancing that particular ordinance to better protect the public, looking at things like vehicle inspections and requiring the drivers to have ID's so that you know that the guy that's actually driving around has been-- a background check's been taken -- conducted on that person and they have been licensed to drive that particular car. One of the other efforts I've mentioned previously is that we're working with the sheriff's office to try to get them to assist us with the enforcement of this. This one's a little bit harder for us to enforce because, you know, we don't have the ability to stop a car that doesn't have the permit or the decal not posted on the back, and they said that Page 70 September 18, 2001 they -- they are willing to help us in this particular effort so... Rental registration is another program that we implemented. It was initiated to try to address the delays that it took for us to find the property owner. A lot of our properties in the county are owned by out-of-county, out-of-country property owners, and this program has helped in getting quicker contact and then, as a result, quicker compliance with our cases. The program requires all properties that are rented to be registered with my department. It also requires a local agent, somebody that can quickly contact the property owner and get the authorization to get the problem addressed, and that's working. We're also coordinating with the property appraiser's office. We provide them a list of our registration or properties that are registered so that they can, you know, make the proper assessments on property. As -- and on an average we have about 3,500 properties registered annually. This is a proactive -- I mean, a -- a program that we looked to the property owner to register their property with us, but when the investigators go out and find that there is a rental property and look to see whether or not we have a registration with them, if there is not one registered, then that should be another case initiated in addition to whatever other violations are maybe on the property. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is that new properties -- 3,500 new properties a year? MS. ARNOLD: Just properties in general. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MS. ARNOLD: Units. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because they reregister every year. MS. ARNOLD: One thing -- one enhancement that we're doing to this particular program, this program is very time-consuming with respect to the renewal process and paper-intensive, and we are now Page 71 September 18,2001 moving to renewals on-line with the credit card, and I think it's going to be a great thing for some of the property managers that have multiple properties. They can just come on-line and register all their properties that are under their management, and we just do it in one blank shot and not have to worry -- but mailing out 5,000, you know, renewal notices every year so... That should be on-line -- next March is when we kind of initiate the renewal process. June 30th of each year is when they become delinquent. Okay. We do have Dora Viduarri here today to kind of give you an update on the Immokalee program, but she is going to be coming back to you next month if you want to -- since we have so little time. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We had an Immokalee workshop scheduled; right? I assume this is a big part of-- I'd be happy -- MR. OLLIFF: I think, given the time, we'll just ask Dora to come back as part of the Immokalee workshop. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. Okay. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Everybody knows who you are and you're here. MS. VIDUARRI: Just let me -- I passed these out. I passed these out at the request of Commissioner Coletta. This is a draft, and we're still working on it. This is going to be part of our educational -- and also the agenda that we had discussed as far as the educational meetings in the community, that's a draft as well. We're working on it, and I just wanted to bring that up. And I'll be more detailed in the next presentation. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This brochure is fabulous. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes, it is. MR. OLLIFF: And if anybody's interested, I know John, and I went out and drove Immokalee with Dora, and I'll tell you, you can't get an appreciation for the magnitude of the problem and just how -- Page 72 September 18,2001 how much of an issue there is to be tackled out there unless you go and see it for yourself. But I'll tell you, the Immokalee initiative is one of the better things that this county commission has ever done, and I'm going to make sure that we do what we can to see it through. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have to say too, I really commend it to the new county commissioners. Under the old board, it was only -- Barbara Berry and I were the only two who were willing to go and get this tour of the housing problem in Immokalee. If it's even possible to do it before the Immokalee workshop, I would encourage you as strongly as I can. I'm sure many have already done it, but it is worth the time. You really have to see it to believe it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Call Dora and ask her for this? MS. VIDUARRI: Call me and we can go out there. MS. ARNOLD: And the number out there is 65 -- MS. VIDUARRI: 657-2525. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I also too want to add one point -- and you may very shortly be hearing the opposing forces that are going to be shortly coming out to try to shorten this -- this effort, trying to delay it, trying to ask for concessions. You have to remain firm in your resolves if we're ever going to correct this problem in Immokalee. It's been ongoing for 40 years. It's always been the last frontier, the place you ignored. Code enforcement never served a notification out there in the not-too-distant past. They never cited anyone. There's illegal buildings built. They just run -- run with whatever you want to. We have a number of efforts, and Dora's been very involved in it. The alliance out there is on top of this. We're going to need a lot of support, and we're also going to have to get another code inspector out there, because this has taken all the time and all the effort away from every other -- other code enforcement problem in Immokalee. Right now it's just dead flat. The only thing that's happening is this Page 73 September 18,2001 initiative. We need to get an inspector out there as soon as possible. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me see if I understood what you just said. Did you say that somebody is trying to thwart this thing? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Of course, you've got to remember now, there's a number of different people like property owners that have a number of trailer parks, thousands of people come in there, and they make a tremendous income. They have never been held to the fire before as far as complying with code, as far as the density requirements, and they just were allowed to go on their own. All of a sudden there's a line that's been drawn in the sand that says, you will comply, and of course, there will be a reaction, and they will be coming to see you personally to see what they can do to short circuit this whole effort. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I'm so grateful for the chance to say this in public because, otherwise, we wouldn't get to talk about it -- you know, what you're going to hear is, "Oh, what's going to happen? People are going to be homeless. It's better to live in a crummy shelter than no shelter at all." Baloney. This is our chance and this is -- for those of us that are parents, this is tough love. This is tough love for Immokalee. If we don't do it, we're never going to make a change. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One of the things that's taken place is that most of this housing is temporary housing for the migrant laborers that come. Part of the year it's empty. And we've very aggressively been going after the ones that are empty now, identifying and saying, "You can't put people in there." So now what's happening is, they're going to have to realize that there is going to be a housing shortage in Immokalee. Whose problem does it now become? It's not really ours as much as the people that are Page 74 September 18, 2001 going to use the labor, and that comes down to the agricultural interests, and I think they're already getting into gear. Greg Thomas has an initiative going forward for a large dormitory, three hundred- some homes. So when the people come down here, we won't have to say we're responsible for the living conditions. That's what we have been-- We've been allowing this to continue for years, people living in dwellings and were so far below standards, floors out of them, roofs missing in part, petitions every 6 feet so you get -- fit more bodies in there to be able to increase the income. This has all got to come to an end, and I'm glad that this commission is accepting responsibility for it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Dora, I had one question. I had the Fred Thomas tour. MS. VIDUARRI: (Laughter.) Is that similar to the tour -- I don't talk as much. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So you don't stop the car in the middle of the road and make some points? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Well, let's see. Dora, I'm going to sign up and make sure I get updated, and I will do that prior to the workshop. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Plan for Wednesday and you can catch the rotary meeting out there, and then you'll be the speaker. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's right. I think I've been hooked. MS. ARNOLD: That -- that is a tremendous program, and the efforts that Dora and her employees out there have been making, it's -- it's to be commended. We do have an investigator that's out there part time trying to keep a grasp on some of the other violations that exist outside of the initiative. That's something that I know that the community's been screaming for to increase so ... COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And with a population of Page 75 September 18, 2001 20,000 people, we could use a little more help out there. MS. VIDUARRI: Yup. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Let's continue on. Only one other thing. Commissioner Fiala, if you knew who the hidden financial interests were in these operations out there and saw a list of the people, you would be shocked of where they live and what they drive from someone else's misery. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's so sad. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. I have a closing slide. I just wanted to identify for the board what my future efforts are for the department. One of the -- the key things that I like to focus on is training. I want to enhance the training of my staff, try to incorporate -- because we have so many changing codes and ordinances and the like, that we need to do more in-service training, utilize our weekly staff meetings to highlight an ordinance or modification or even revisit something that we maybe are not doing consistently. The other thing I want to enhance is the training to the public. I want to go out into different areas that have different requirements and highlight those for them. One of the things that we're doing with the estates association is writing a monthly news article for them, highlighting them. That's something that we're going to be starting for that estates area. So -- so this is an opportunity to focus on various things that are problems in that particular area. Another thing that's been suggested that I want to develop for -- with respect to the public training is develop something similar to the driver's ed class that we all have taken once or twice -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: A couple times. MS. ARNOLD: -- to get the points off of our driver's license, something like that. So -- as in -- In lieu of payment for one of our citations or something, a code enforcement action, they would have to be required to take this four-hour class and then learn a little bit Page 76 September 18, 2001 about our rules and ordinances in the county and hopefully prevent future violations. Another thing that I'd like to do is neighborhood plans, identifying the priorities of the various neighborhoods, 'cause as I suggested earlier, every part of our community has different priorities, different needs, and go towards -- go to those neighborhoods and help them identify what -- their priorities for us so we can better address them. And then finally is enhanced technology. Tom has mentioned before GIS would be a tremendous help for our department to -- you know, instead of us manually looking up these things and try to refer back to old aerials and those types of things, the GIS program will help us tremendously do our enforcement a little bit quicker and identify problems quicker. Lap tops. There is a pilot program that we're working with the information technology department on in trying to see whether or not we can get lap tops for the investigators out in the field so that they have easy access to some of the information that they have to come back to the office and gain -- get from their computers so they can quickly find out -- like Susan did in the video for you earlier, identify if there was a permit rather than having to come all the way back to the office, going through and clicking on all these things and finding out. And the program that they're working on with us is -- would be something -- they download information on a daily basis but that would -- it still would give us more up-to-date information -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: How many would you need? MS. ARNOLD: Well, we're looking at a pilot program to see whether or not it works first. And I don't know how many they're going to do, but we're going to kind of do a pilot program first and then see how that works, and then I'm sure I'll be back. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Suggestions: How about Page 77 September 18, 2001 putting a computer in remote locations, libraries or sheriffs locations or even schools? MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. I mean-- COMMISSIONER HENNING: MS. ARNOLD: For our use? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. For-- Yeah. Because-- MR. OLLIFF: It's an alternative. I think, you know, anything that can save us -- as big as this county is -- can save us time from having to drive all the way back down to Horseshoe Drive. If you start thinking about an hour for every investigator and you start taking that times all the investigators times five days a week, I mean, you can save a lot of time by cutting down on that travel time. Anything we can do there will be a help. MS. ARNOLD: Right. MR. DUNNUCK: We're doing something similarly in the building review and permitting department where eventually our goal is to not even have the guys come into the office at all, that they'll get their assignments from a vehicle that they can park at their home and just go out and do the assignments. We can track it through GIS and GPS, and they can do it all on hand-held to make it real simple. We've been testing the cellular technology right now to make sure it works, and I have a feeling we'll be knocking that program out in the next couple months from a-- from a demonstration-type standpoint and move forward. It'll give the developer real-time and the building review -- give the developer real-time answers as far as whether they passed or not or what they need to correct and be able to keep these projects moving. MR. OLLIFF: We're actually talking about -- We have right now in the field three or four pilot hand-held wireless communication devices that can -- first thing in the morning an inspector is told exactly where he's going for the day. He can complete his reports on Page 78 September 18,2001 the hand-held and directly load them from his car to the computer at Horseshoe Drive and be able to present a printout for the actual permittee on site, a pass or fail notice on that inspection. And I just can't tell you the amount of time and efficiency that will -- will result in if it's successful, and then we hope to get some results back within the year on that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Just like turning in your rental car, right there. MR. OLLIFF: Exactly. Yup. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You get it. Cool. MS. ARNOLD: And, finally, satellite imaging. So those are things that I'm working with my department on and other departments within the county to coordinate enhancements for my department. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You caught us up, Michelle. Thank yOU. MS. ARNOLD: Right on the dot. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions from the board, and then I will come back to Mr. Olliff to kind of summarize based on what he has observed from our discussions this morning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Nothing. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: If there's no other questions, I think--just in terms of my notes for follow-up to make sure that I've caught, I think, everything that I've heard today, I think we want to look at providing back to the board at least some options in terms of improved -- what you would call 24/7 type code enforcement opportunities and perhaps looking at a DAS model as a -- perhaps something we may pattern one of the options after for you to consider. Secondly, I think we're going to try to provide for you, just for your information, a sign -- follow-up if you will, of the sign program Page 79 September 18,2001 where we will provide you the schedule for when we intend to complete our inventory of the existing signs that are out there and also the time frame for when we will send notifications out to all of the businesses affected and, finally, the deadline for compliance so that you will have that on file and know exactly what the target dates are for that. For the exotics removal, we're going to bring back for you some options for removing exotics within existing development and I think primarily focusing within the urban area but giving you some options on how to implement that. We're also going to provide you a little update on the ordinance change that was provided that would allow us to actually take properties from multiple violations of a substantial nature and any changes to the ordinance that need to be made that can make that a little more effective. Finally, we're going to follow up on that Code Enforcement Board member's recommendations, which I thought were outstanding, in terms of not only interviewing potential candidates but having the full-day in-field training with one of our code enforcement investigators and then providing some follow-up workshops with the Code Enforcement Board themselves to make sure that they stay current on our code. And those would be the items that I had listed as the follow-up items for the workshop. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you very much, Mr. Olliff, for that excellent summary. In closing, because I have legal counsel and planning services in the room and I don't get a chance to talk to the commissioners outside of the board meetings, there has been a project that has been shut down that's called the Vanderbilt Corporate Center that is not operative at this point. It hasn't gone forward, and I have requested from Mr. Dunnuck and legal an update of what's going on. I have Page 80 September 18,2001 heard that they're now under their third contractor and there's a question of financial solvency in terms of completing that project. Also it is my understanding that is the same group that is looking at the old site on U.S. 41 that Commissioner Mac'Kie represents. They call it the Sphynx kind of building. And here's the heart of my question, and it'll go to legal and for us to think about. We have never questioned a permitting or application process on what is financial solvency; I mean, do you-- are -- are you capable of completing what you start? And we have never gone in that direction, and I don't know what the boundaries are, but when we begin to see -- if there's a failure by a group in one area and they're turning around and trying to come in and do another, then I'm beginning to question, can we get some indication of whether what they start can they complete. And particularly because of the terrible things that has happened to us, we may be confronted with that more often than we have in the past. And there was another smaller project -- well, now, I understand who the people are behind wanting to do it. I would have some serious questions about their financial history in terms of what they've started and completed. So I will be looking for staff direction from both legal and from our own internal planning services group to assist the board as another part of a criteria when we evaluate that which is proposed to be done in this county. We don't want any ghost buildings out there or developments which only exasperate everything that we've been through this morning. So thank you for your patience and this opportunity to share that with you. If there's no further business in front of this board -- Thank you, again, Michelle and your staff, for an excellent presentation and discussions with us this morning and for the people who participated from the community. We now stand adjourned. Page 81 September 18, 2001 There being no further business for the good of the County, the workshop was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12'14 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ~ JAMES D~ CARTER, Ph.D., CHAIRMAN ~W,.;!GH~.~. BROCK, CLERK · ,~ ~ '* . These minutes approved by the Board on presented or ad corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY CAROLYN J. FORD Page 82