BCC Minutes 11/30/2001 S (AUIR)November 30, 2001
AUIR SPECIAL MEETING
OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
NOVEMBER 30, 2001
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as
the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such
special districts as have been created according to law and having
conducted business herein, met on this date at 2 p.m. In SPECIAL
SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples,
Florida, with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
VICE-CHAIRMAN:
ABSENT:
James D. Carter, Ph.D.
Jim Coletta
Donna Fiala
Tom Henning
Fred Coyle
ALSO PRESENT:
Tom Olliff, County Manager
David C. Weigel, County Attorney
James Mudd, Deputy County Manager
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NOTICE OF BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
SPECIAL MEETING
Friday, November 30, 2001
2:00 P.M.
Notice is hereby given that the Collier County Board of County Commissioners
will hold Special Meeting on FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2001 at 2:00 P.M., in the
Board Meeting Room, Third Floor, Harmon Turner Building (Administration), at the
Collier County Government Complex, 3301 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida. The
Special Meeting will include, but may not be limited to, the following:
Presentation of the 2001 Annual Update and Inventory Report on
Public Facilities (AUIR) as required by Section 3.15.6, Collier County Land
Development Code.
The meeting is open to ~e public.
Any person who decides to appeal a decision of this Board will need a record of
the proceedings pertaining thereto, and therefore may need to ensure that a verbatim
record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence
upon which the appeal is to be based.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA
James D. Caner, Ph.D., Chairman
DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK
By:/s/Maureen Kenyon
Deputy Clerk
November 30, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Welcome. Thank you for that brief
60-second commercial in which we now return to the Board of
County Commissioners where we can move into the AUIR-- is this a
workshop or is it--
MR. OLLIFF: Special meeting.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It's a meeting, a regular scheduled
meeting. So in our tradition, I would like all of you to stand and we'll
have pledge of allegiance, and we'll continue in the meeting. (The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.)
MR. LITSINGER: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and
Commissioners. For the record, I'm Stan Litsinger, the
comprehensive planning manager, and your single agenda item on
your special meeting this afternoon will be the beginning, as I
understand it, of a two-day presentation of your AUIR. Today we're
going to concentrate solely on transportation issues.
First, before we get into the gist of the matter relative to
transportation, let me go over briefly, for the record, the nature of the
AUIR and why we are having that presentation today. As part of the
Growth Management Act and our comprehensive plan, it is required
by state statute and rule and our local ordinance that we have a
concurrency management system to ensure that we have adequate
Category A facilities to meet the needs of development at the time we
experience the impacts of that development which we have
determined in Collier County to be, at the latest, the issuance of a
building permit.
As part of our system that we developed in Collier County about
ten years ago, we have what we call the Annual Update Inventory
Report where we come to you once a year-- and it's called the
monitoring and evaluation portion of our concurrency management
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system -- and give you an assessment of all the key facilities,
including some facilities we call Category B, which are considered
important within the community but are not concurrency related.
What we are required to do is to demonstrate to you what you
have currently in your inventory, your revenues available for each
facility type to identify those facility improvements or additions that
are needed in each case in order to maintain the minimum adopted
levels of service standards and ask you to make decisions relative to
the preparation of the upcoming annual CIE update and amendment
which we will be asking you to adopt in February that reflects both
the necessary projects and both -- and also the necessary revenues
that constitute a financially feasible capital improvement element to
establish concurrency in Collier County as we go forward into the
next yearly period.
Today we will be giving you presentation primarily on
transportation, but I will tell you that your total AUIR that you will
be hearing through today and through the next continued -- this
meeting when it is continued, totals $802 million of projects and
revenues. We believe that we have identified a list of projects that is
both feasible and that can be funded with adjustment within your
available funding capabilities, both available revenues and your
statutory authority within your general fund revenues to be identified,
and we'll get into some detail later.
Not today but for future reference, at the end of the entire
presentation, we will be asking you to do several things in order to
establish a record of our concurrency status in Collier County. At the
end of the total presentation we will, number one, be asking you to
accept and approve the attached document as the 2001 Annual
Update and Inventory -- Inventory Report on public facilities. We
will ask you in each case, each individual facility, to give staff
separate motion and vote direction on Category A and B facilities
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relative to staff recommendations for projects and revenue sources
for inclusion in the FY '02 annual CIE update and amendment.
Final -- finally, we will ask you at the presentation of the entire
report to find upon analysis, review, and actions taken based on the
200 ! AUIR that adequate Category A public facilities will be
available as defined by the Collier County Concurrency Management
System and Land Development Code 3. ! 5 to support the
development or the issuance subject to the provisions of Division
3.15 of the LDC during the coming review period.
If there are no general questions on the process and nature of the
AUIR and why we have one, I'll move directly into the facilities.
MR. DUNNUCK: Stan, I'm going to take this moment to make
a quick comment. I think -- I think we may cover more of the items
in just transportation today, depending on how much we get through
transportation, so I just kind of want to leave it open-ended so that we
can get through some of those if possible.
MR. OLLIFF: John, will you cover public speakers while
you've got that microphone?
MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. While I've got the microphone, if
there's anybody out in the audience who would like to speak on the
AUIR issues, you can just drop off a speaker slip to me.
MR. LITSINGER: Very briefly, I would like to call your
attention to page 2 of your report, and I just there want to point out,
without any detailed discussion, a summary of the $802 million in
projects and associated revenues that we have identified throughout
this report of all facility types that we're going to address. If there are
no questions on that, we'll move directly into Category A facilities
which, of course, begins with your transportation network.
On page 4 of this report, you'll see a subtable of contents which
identifies those items associated with the presentation of your AUIR
on transportation or, as we know it, Collier County roads.
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November 30, 2001
The next is what we call, on page 5, the 2001 AUIR Facility
Summary Form, and what we are pointing out here in a summary
basis, which is much less complex than the nature of the detail that
Norman has to show you -- this is for comprehensive planning
purposes, a summary of the issues before you today. We identify the
fact that category -- excuse me, county arterial and collector roads are
Category A facility and, therefore, subject to concurrency and of
extreme importance. Level-of-service standard varies from D to E.
Generally speaking, cost per lane mile is about $953,000 per lane
mile.
Summarizing, again, which is consistent with Norman's outline
that he previously gave you, we've identified for CIE purposes and
AUIR purposes approximately $446 million of needed projects over
the next five-year planning period which includes the current fiscal
year through FY '06.
We've also identified, as Norman pointed out to you, $188
million of revenues that currently exist in a revenue stream through
that period. And for the projects identified in the CIE proposed
portion of the AUIR, we've identified a deficit of 257,000 -- excuse
me, $257 million over the next five years. We also identify and
outline the revenue sources, and for discussion purposes we've
identified the source of the $257 million deficit as general fund
revenues. We define "general fund revenues" as any revenues that
currently exist within the general fund, be they sales taxes or other
state-shared revenues or ad valorem within your statutory authority to
levy.
What we will ask you to do after the presentation of the detail of
this particular section of the -- the report, we will ask the staff to
direct county -- excuse me -- ask the board to direct the county staff
to include the identified county road projects appearing on county
road five-year road plan FY '02 to '06 Attachment C, and it's further
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detailed on county transportation planning data base Attachment B in
the next annual CIE update and amendment with the application of
general fund revenues established statutorily required financial
feasibility of the CIE. Also, as you'll hear further in one case, we will
be recommending a change in the level of service on one particular
roadway, Project CIE No. 77.
The next item, Attachment A is a transportation existing-
conditions report prepared by the transportation staff which, more or
less, outlines the method at which we arrived at determining the
needs we needed to ask you to address today. It ends with a list of
those projects which we feel are currently not accounted for in our
current funding stream which are also very critical to the achievement
of concurrency and the maintenance of concurrency under existing
level-of-service standards over the next five years.
The next item, which is a fold-out sheet, is what we call the
transportation planning data base which gives a detailed breakdown
of each project. It is consistent with Norman's previous presentation.
It identifies traffic volumes, existing levels of service, when
particular roads are expected to become deficient, the cost of
improvements to these roadways and the proposed timing.
On page 15, here again, is Attachment C which is ultimately the
item that we will ask you to direct us to put into the comprehensive
plan and the CIE in order to establish the fact that we have a
concurrent road program in Collier County as we discuss -- discuss
revenue options.
The other thing that I'd like to bring to your attention on roads,
before I turn the discussion over to Norman to give you some more
detail relative to the issues at hand, is from a comprehensive planning
standpoint, your comprehensive planning concurrency standpoint, the
critical list is on page 20. On page 20 we show -- which is also
visually demonstrated in your map series that I gave you -- the
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November 30, 2001
principle arterials and collectors and minor arterials that without
additional funding pose concurrency issues within the three-year
period. Theoretically, without the ability to identify financially
feasible funding sources for these particular roadways above all else
and all other priorities, we would be faced with the issue of having to
address the need to restrict development in certain areas as delineated
on the map of ASIs that I provided you earlier.
If there are no questions at this particular point, we can go
further into Norman's presentation.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think we need to go to Norman's
presentation.
MR. FEDER: Stan, can you get those maps on the overhead?
Again, for the record, Norman Feder, transportation administrator.
As I sat here and listened to Stan -- and Stan has done this so well for
so many years. It sounded very easy; all's you have to do is find
$257 million out of general revenue and direct us to put all those
projects into the plan and it's all done. What I'm here to tell you is,
that is not as easy as it sounds, and so we're beginning a process to
try and define what was so quickly pointed out that needs to be done.
Unfortunately, I'm here to tell you that in the past, boards not sitting
here in front of us said, "Well, we'll come up with that money. Just
put it in the plan," and do what Stan just said, and we went on, and
here we are today.
I will also tell you, as you look in your notebook and you look at
the process, there's an inference in there that an AUIR, Annual
Update and Inventory Report, serves as both the report card on the
one item, but also as your concurrency management system for the
next year. That is not the way we can operate. That is how we got to
where we are today. Essentially, it is a report card of where we are.
It's a slice in time; where do we stand; what do we need to address;
and what needs to be in the update of our next CIE or work program.
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But a concurrency management system, a checkbook system that
we've talked about is the only way that you manage concurrency.
You don't establish one year at a time and say, "We found two fifty-
seven. Put it in the plan. Everything is fine," because that facility that
you didn't even have to fund that had -- and we can't get it down to
that sophistication-- but one more trip available on it doesn't last for
a whole year of permitting. It needs to be addressed throughout that
process, and it's an ongoing basis.
So that's the first thing I want to call to your attention and to
note that we've got some very, very significant work ahead of us on
policy issues as well as defining the product. What are we going to
be when we grow up? There's been a lot of discussion about that.
We made some assumptions, if you will, when I developed the first
work program. I thought it was the reading or direction that we had.
About that time we also had a lot of discussion about community
character, desires of this community for at least tree-lined boulevards
with decorative streetlighting as well as that asphalt that's needed to
meet concurrency or development needs. Commitments that we
already made. We're not even talking about that two fifty-seven,
which by the way, sounds a little less than the number before because
it's already pulled out that streetlighting and that landscaping, which
is part of what we need to discuss. Do we put it back in or do we
continue with it out? What others things do we consider?
So, as I said, policy, then product, and then we get into the
funding issues and how. But the fact of the matter is, we need to
decide that. What is it this community is looking for? What is the
facility? You've got two ways you can mortgage your future. And
when we go through this process, as we evaluate everything, we need
to understand what the implications are and be very, very detailed
and deliberate in making sure that the public understands, one, that
we reviewed every option; two, if we discounted it, why; and three,
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once we make an option, it's going to have implications no matter
what it is and what are those implications and why did we choose it
over anything else.
And when I say "mortgaging the future," please don't take it as
negative as it sounds because parts of that we're probably going to be
talking about. But there's two ways you can do it. You can reduce
the nature of your facilities by lowering of levels of service, by
removing some features of those normal facilities, and allow that
system to continue to evolve in that manner to a point where people
say, "No, I can't have it," and then later on you're faced with a bill to
try to retrofit, or you can also take your future revenue stream, use it
today, and then say somebody in the future will have to figure out
how to pay for it.
So as we explore a lot of these things, I am going to try to
remind you of the implications, and as I bring up anything, you're
going to help me understand the implications, and the public out there
is also going to go through it and evaluate and know what some of
those implications are so that before we make a decision on how
we're going to respond to these issues, we've evaluated it all, and
we've made the best choice we think we can, and that's, obviously,
your decision up there. Mine is to try and make sure you have what
information you need.
So at the very start, what I'm presenting to you is the fact that we
need to look at some of our policy. We've talked about that. We're
going to have meetings up here, Land Development Code, Growth
Management. We need to consider that in how we approach this
issue. We need to consider it even in the AUIR that you just had in
front of you, our process and how we've been doing it. We need to
make sure that the way we do that is not just decide two fifty-seven
will come out of general revenue, it's okay, we're covered, onward.
So that's the start of what we're doing today.
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Product issues is something we can look at. What do we have as
options to meet that two fifty-seven you saw there. I ask that the
graph go up because, folks, one thing we don't want to talk about was
in the headline in the paper today. I can say it so that you don't have
to say it because that isn't where we want to end up, and that's called
"moratorium." Okay? But the fact of the matter is, if you look at that
graphic, that represents basically the area of influence of those
facilities in red that are deficient from a level of service. And I hate
to say it, but what it represents is a black cloud over Collier County
and pretty much encompasses almost all the county. And,
unfortunately, it doesn't get any better in the five-year. It makes an
improvement because of that item that I mentioned that
Commissioner Coletta was talking about from 43rd to Wilson, but
then in the five-year it tums, and it clears up that one spot, and then it
moves further over to the south. But I still have that large cloud.
That's, obviously, where we can end up in our discussions. But the
only thing I want to do is make sure that we understand the broad
range of things.
What I'd like to do, in that sense, is to bring you back a little bit
to the material that I started talking to you about, the basis at least for
this initial material. As we look at what we consider pulling out to
balance, it shows us some of the idea of the things we're going to be
facing and what we need to define as product. Beyond capacity your
current program had some items on advocating or presenting to you,
at least with current revenue stream, that we may need to pull. That's
in that shaded blue in the last two sheets that I gave you in that
package. I'm not going to ask you to -- to make that determination
here as we speak, but I'm going to tell you, that is the type of decision
we need to make as to, do we remove most of the resurfacing from
our program?
On that set of sheets I gave you, the third page that showed what
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was pulled out of the program, if you notice there what we pulled out
was all of that landscaping, streetlighting. That was the community
character provision. We also pulled out a significant portion of the
preservation of the system which is that first line of resurfacing
enhancements up to a million five across here, instead of the 4
million that we had originally in, as well as you look across this line
we took out over the six years to the tune of $19 million in operations
and maintenance, turn lanes, streetlight, preservation of different
issues. That is an item that we need to understand as we look at the
future revenue stream, that while we need to address the capacity
issues, that we also need to define not only what level we mean by
providing that capacity and what features we will include in that, also
what we are going to do to preserve and operate and maintain our
system and what level of required operations and maintenance has to
be in there to make sure that we have a fully funded program. While
the purposes of an AUIR, the CIE, or the capital improvement
element, only has to address the capacity end. What I'm telling you,
as we move forward, as we consider the dollars, we need to figure out
that balance between that operation, maintenance and our ability to
address the capacity. Commissioner Henning, I thought --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes. Thank you. Some of
these things in the red that are not pavement on the road -- MR. FEDER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- such as drainage -- drainage
program, isn't that part of the road project? It's something that you
have to have, or is this something different?
MR. FEDER: Well -- and that's another thing. We're going to
talk about what I have to have relative to a road or capacity project,
but this here is dealing with something a little different. In this case,
throughout our system -- and I'll particularly take the estates. We've
got an off-water area where we have canal systems that need to be
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maintained. They're part of the drainage system of roadways that we
may not be widening in the future but, nonetheless, need to maintain
those canalways. And I think the estates is almost one of the most
burning examples of that. For years those canals have been there,
and there's been-- there was a lot of need for improvement and
service on them. That's what we were looking at in our budget and
anticipating over the years that we still had to maintain those. We're
saying that that's the type of thing we may pull back on. You may be
hearing many more complaints from folks if their canals -- their
drainage ditches are not maintained as well.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Feder, when we talk about
resurfacing, does that make an assumption that you're saying we
wouldn't do any in a given year?
MR. FEDER: No. What that is saying is, if you remember, we
have a level of resurfacing in our program right now, and when we
looked at that and we came to you last March, effectively, based on
life-cycle costing, looking about 12 years for a life cycle of a
pavement before it has to be replaced in general. Arterial is a little bit
more quickly, depending on truck levels; a local street, a low-volume
street, longer.
But, generally on the average, we looked at that time and two
levels of series came to you and showed you, based on anticipated
life cycle and the cost-per-lane mile for those particular facilities to
resurface, what we should be doing annually to make sure that our
system doesn't start establishing the cracking, the potting and, worse
yet, maybe subbase problems we have to reconstruct rather than just
resurface. And we showed you that probably should have been in
addition to about a million one that we spend annually that's out of
Fund 111, that's General Revenue Fund, and that's something else
we'll talk about later.
That -- other than that, we probably need to be spending about 6
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million more a year to do straight life cycle, but we only
recommended to you about 4 million more a year for two reasons.
One, because under a very, very aggressive construction program,
you're covering some of those lane miles; and, two, bluntly, the
industry could not take it. We couldn't have them diverted -- the
asphalt plants -- away from the major construction capacity program
as well as the resurfacing. So the 4 million was a considered balance
of that if we had the fund available to not allow our system to get
degraded significantly but to recognize that with the capacity
construction demands and its provision of new lanes, we would keep
our system in decent shape and probably have to increase that a little
bit in the future.
Now, what we're saying is, one option is to pull that back
further. So that's the kind of balancing decisions we're going to have
to make as to what do we want.
And it's not just the capacity. One of the first things we need to
talk about is maintenance of street lightings and that type of thing. I
know there's areas where we've had interest where we do want it,
some areas where people don't want it. So there are mixed emotions
on that one. I recognize it, but nonetheless, typically you are putting
it in for a safety purpose. A lot of people -- and I've read people
have headlights on cars and had them for a long time and also been
putting in streetlights, both for the motorist, but you also got to
recognize where we're putting them in is typically the more urban
area where you also have a sidewalk; so, therefore, you have a
pedestrian; you have bike lanes. And so the streetlights are because
you do have a mixture of an urban activity, also other modes of travel
as well as the vehicle on that side of the roadway.
Again, that has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, and we
still have some issues out there, at least on one facility. So I'm not
trying to predispose that in a blanket statement but, rather, to say,
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those are the things we have to look at. Where do we pull back the
drainage issues were the thing noted. So this gives you an idea where
we're pulling back from what we, at least as staff, told you we felt
was a reasonable and prudent level of activity to meet the system in
this area. But, nonetheless, that's based on the availability of
revenues, and as we face basically a situation where we have already
written the checks and they're coming due, that somebody else wrote
them and this board is having to sign off and pay for them. Okay? I
didn't write them for you. You didn't write them, but nonetheless,
they're due, and we're going to have to sign off on them.
So as we're facing that, what I've identified is what I'm calling a
bare-bones operation and maintenance to be able to divert as many
dollars as possible in revenues to paying off those checks. Now, in
some cases you may find I've gone too far into the bone and into the
marrow. In some cases I feel I have, but I've tried to go as far as !
can and still address basic safety issues. That was our predominant
theme in trying to pull back on that. But that's in the area that you're
going to need to look at in more detail and give us guidance as to
how you want us to come back at the continuation of at least the
transportation portion here.
The next step is, we've had a lot of discussion about what should
be included in a project -- capacity project to the issue at hand.
Those that we've written the checks on, we have to pay the check.
I've got to go out. I had a lot of discussion about a lot of things that
should be and could be considered for deletion out of a typical
project, and those range from a broad range. You had a presentation
to you about prospects or possibly eliminating not only the
streetlighting and the tree-lined, which as I've shown you, I already
pulled those concepts out until you tell me to add them back in or
keep them out. You could look at removing sidewalks from projects,
possibly allowing that to narrow down your right-of-way take. You
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November 30, 2001
could eliminate bike lanes, therefore, to a degree, reducing it. You
could narrow your medians which means very much slower speeds,
therefore, more congestion and may reverse -- hurt you relative to
meeting the requirement of what you're trying to address with added
lanes, but we could try to balance that and look at that in particular
projects.
But there's a lot of things you could look at. We were even told
to look at possibly taking out curbs. Folks, you can't take out curbs.
In an urban cross-section with drainage, you need to have the curb to
bring the drainage to the drainage. And the reason you call it urban is
not because it has to be in an urban area. That cross-section or that
typical type of roadway you usually do because your right-of-way
costs are higher than even the increased construction cost. It costs me
more to construct a curb and gutter to take care of my stormwater
than it does to do what's called a -- or is named a rural cross-section
which is where you have open swales. It requires wider right-of-way
to, obviously, have a wide-open swale, but it's cheaper to construct.
So because land costs are typically higher in an urban area, the first
one's called urban. It doesn't mean you can't use it in the rural area.
And because right-of-way is typically -- and I'm trying to find it
someplace here where I can call it typically cheaper in a rural area --
that's why it's called rural when you use the open swales typically
there.
So if I have the idea of don't use curb, then I'm being told to
expand my right-of-way takings in the urban area which isn't,
obviously, very viable on a lot of projects because right-of-way is so
dear, more dear than the cost of the construction at that point.
So those are the things we need to look at and evaluate, but
there's a long range of issues that I think we've already raised, others
have raised, that need to be looked at as to what is the product. So
the first thing I mentioned is, we've got policy issues. The second one
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November 30, 2001
is, what is the product, both the product of our operation and
maintenance as well as the product of the individual projects that
we're going to try to pay the check on that's already been written out
there for us. Then the last one is the obvious. How do we fund --
once we decided what our -- what our product is, what it looks like
and we know the price tag for it, how do we fund it7 And I think
we've got a broad range of issues there. We've got some that are no
longer on the table, others that we're going to have to consider. But
the one thing I will tell you is that it has to be a funding source that it
is both legally available and is one that truly exists. It cannot just be,
"Well, we'll commit some of our future property taxes to cover
whatever deficit there is." We're going to require that we sit down
and we come up with a plan and commit to a specific plan of dollars.
The last thing I'll throw out to you before I ask both Dawn
Wolfe and Don Scott to come up and give you some of the details of
what's in there in the projects and some of the implications is to tell
you that as we go through it, our process requires that we be able to
provide that construction within three years. That means by 2004. If
you go back to the original plan I gave you, I couldn't get a few items
in before 2005, and a couple couldn't go in -- out until 2006. So one
of the other things we're going to have to discuss is even if we had all
the monies, we've got some issues where we may not be able to
deliver the product, that construction-phased program within three
years. And that's a case where we may have to go in, look at
identifying specifically how we're going to go about establishing a
backlog situation and how we deal with it, what are we going to
allow to happen within that area.
I would tell you, we need to still fund it, acknowledge that we
can't get to that construction till that time, and then figure out what
that means for us in that process. There's going to be a lot of
discussion about that as well.
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November 30, 2001
With that said, I hope I haven't stolen their thunder because
they've done a lot of the hard work. Thank you. They've done a lot of
the hard work. I'll let them come up and let Don Scott work through
the tables specifically to tell you what he means by when something
is shown on there as coming forward as a concurrency issue and,
therefore, something that's on our plate to address, if you will, as I
said, the check that was written that we need to cash and pay for.
MR. SCOTT: Hi. Don Scott, transportation planning. I just
want to talk about a couple issues. Existing problems are easy to
define. You know, the traffic is higher than-- than the standard for,
say, a Level Service D as a certain traffic. The traffic out there is
higher than right now. The future, I did trend analysis on that. Now,
if I come back with next year's traffic, things can change, and that's
why some of these issues about what kind of a system do we want to
determine our concurrency on, like, a checkbook makes more sense
from a standpoint of things dropping in and dropping out as they have
over the years.
The other thing is, I noticed there's been some conversations
about lowering the level of service to E to try to buy some years or
also push some of the projects out that have a need. Unfortunately,
because of the -- a lot of the capacity of a roadway is dependent on
the number of signals that are in that roadway and once the signals
reach a certain capacity, it really doesn't matter from a laneage
standpoint. If you have -- you might have the Level of Service D as
the standard. Well, D and E might be the same number, because
you've reached the capacity of those signals, and you can't put any
more vehicles down on that. So does Level of Service E solve all
your problems? No. It does -- it makes more sense from a standpoint
of, if you already have a six-lane facility, you can't do anything more
than a six-lane facility, and you're not planning on some parallel
roadways to improve that six-lane to take some vehicles off that six-
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November 30, 2001
lane facility. A lot of those wants can drop out because of a level of
Service E, but it doesn't solve all the problems in the other areas.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions from the board?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: You know, if we need to pull
out some traffic lights, that is not a safety issue, we're going to have a
lot of people up here before the board of hammering us, "Well, you
don't care about our safety." Whether it is or not, that's going to be
the opinion of the people who enjoy that.
MR. FEDER: I mentioned that we're going to have a lot of
opportunity to discuss many unpopular subjects in trying to figure out
what the answer is, but one of the ways to address the level-of-
service problem on segments of roadways is to recapture that
capacity. What I mean by that is, where you have numerous median
openings, where you have a number of signals and progression, you
do lose capacity on that segment. And where we have, as Don
pointed out, six-lane segments with no real viable or practical in the
near-term option for a parallel facility to relieve, that is well -- one
that we will at least put on the table, find out if it broke the legs or
stays on the table as being asked to be put on a different table.
But, nonetheless, as I look at the section of Airport, as an
example, south of Radio with nothing in the near term in sight as to a
resolution of existing level-of-service deficiency on a six-lane
section, is there an option there to consider closing off some median
openings, be moving some signals? Would it be easy? No. Is it
possible? I don't know, and only this board can tell me if it
reasonably was. We can tell you technically whether-- what safety
issues I'd be generating. I can tell you some convenience issues I will
immediately effect in some cases, very possibly safety issues too.
And that's the way you'd have to evaluate, but that is one of the
options, is to reclaim the capacity of the roadways we have out there
today.
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November 30, 2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So what you're saying is, if we
funnel traffic into a grid system such as Naples Park -- MR. FEDER: I'd like a grid, yes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- or not Naples -- Naples
Production Park, I guess it -- or production -- you'd follow into one
source, close off the other sources, and you gain a lot of capacity. Is
that what you're saying?
MR. FEDER: Yeah. I'll give you an example. One that we did
that so far has been reasonably well received is Radio Road between
Livingston and Airport. And I think you were trying to lead me out of
my dangerous turf, so thank you, Commissioner. But, yes, there is an
example of one where we did make some modifications and some
closure of median openings, reduction in some movements allowed.
I think it was to the benefit of the -- the communities associated there
and still has not infringed terribly on -- on overall -- either residential
or commercial, industrial, in this case as well, access, and so even
looking right now at a commercial signal being removed and that
median closed off because of its close proximity to Livingston and
the access that that area has to signals on Livingston and Airport.
Again, I don't think it will be popular, but it's a reasonable action, and
it should not create a safety issue. And that's part of what we need to
possibly be looking at on the one side.
And the other is, at the very least, we need to look at our access
controls, what we allow as new development comes forward and how
we modify the system we have out here today, if we're not in a
position to go back and do major retrofit, which is the other option
and the harder one, actually, but neither one of them is easy.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I think--
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala. I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think that we really need to
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November 30, 2001
prepare the board of what it might look like once you start doing that
of people coming to the dais and saying, "You took my traffic light
away.
MR. FEDER: I haven't advocated doing it, nor have you given
me any direction to do other than spot cases where I will bring it to
your attention and you will tell me yes or no. But -- and when we say
putting everything on the table, discussing it, evaluating it, and seeing
how we address what is not going to be an easy issue to address,
folks. I believe you know that. I think if you saw that map, it's very
clear. This is at least one of your options. It may not be one that we
can apply or we only apply in limited basis or whatever, but I do
throw it out as one of the options. And as Don pointed out, he can
give the technical end of it even better than I. You change a level of
service very quickly on the basis of how many signals you have along
the corridor.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I was going to ask you, what
access were you talking about closing?
MR. FEDER: Commercial just to the west of-- and I'm
premature because I haven't brought it to the board. But just to the
west of Livingston Commercial Boulevard opening there, we have a
signal today for traffic that comes down Livingston and takes that
right for westbound. They immediately run into a traffic light that --
that light services an area that has access to signalized locations at
both Livingston and Airport and could still receive right turn in truck
traffic, even for that matter, coming down Radio, I'd say from the
interstate, could turn north on Livingston and turn left into that area,
that signalized locations. But, more realistically, we would just come
straight down, take the right into the area, exiting the area. Most of
them actually are taking advantage right now of the Livingston.
That's why we did the dual left, come out to the signals and then go
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November 30, 2001
back out Davis and out to the interstate.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Now, Livingston is heavily traveled
right now because of all the people coming out of Golden Gate and to
their places of employment right there in the industrial center.
MR. FEDER: That's true, and what we're saying is that's good
access for that area, and -- and, again, that's something we'll have to
bring to you and the commissioners. Correct. Having brought this
one out before -- I have it on an item to bring to the board -- I'm sure
will even engender some other conversation on it.
But it's never easy talking about removing a signal, closing off a
median. Even a median is not a right -- a property right. It's still an
issue of concern to folks, but we have to -- to be able to address some
of these issues, sometimes specifically, because of safety concerns
but sometimes for operational as well. And the operational is a
harder one to work with, as the commissioner correctly points out,
but one that I'm throwing out to you on the table is at least one of the
options to be considered.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Is there some other opportunities for
interconnectivity that we're missing where we can be even tougher?
MR. FEDER: Well, that's a good part of the question. We had
put into at least the product that we thought we're looking for -- there
was about 290 million shy in the five years -- some funds for
increased work on collector roads and arterials.
Again, that was one of the components, along with landscaping
or tree-lined boulevards and streetlights that came out of the
community character study. Do we keep it in? Do we pull that out?
It's a significant number of dollars that, in and of itself, will not
totally resolve some of these capacities. There are checks you have
to write. However, we do know on a systems basis, some of them
have the opportunity to assist. There's been a lot of calls for an
opening up of a certain community that, unfortunately, I can't afford
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November 30, 2001
to buy the right-of-way back to do. But we also stopped the closure
off of other ones because they're important to keep the arterials
functioning. So we have to balance that, and we're trying to look at
it. Right now you have a study being done of the collector system,
functional classification, and an opportunity to look at a collector
road system, and that study's underway, and I know Don and Dawn
are working directly with that.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Carter?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I do believe this is a way to
assist us in the interim till we get out of it, but we are going to get
screamed at a lot.
CHAIRMAN CARTER:
screamed at a lot.
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
COMMISSIONER COLETTA:
Whatever we do, we're going to get
So why not do it then?
You haven't heard screaming
until you've heard the people along Immokalee Road.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: But, you know, I think everything is
valid that we put on the table today, and I think we owe the
community and ourselves and our professional staff to consider
everything till you say the table breaks, but put it under. See what
happens.
MR. FEDER: What I'd like to do, if there are not other
questions for Don on a technical basis or how he got there -- and did
you -- were you clear on the explanation he gave you on level of
service? As you know, right now we have Level of Service D and
some facilities E. Now, obviously, one approach that you can have to
respond to this backlog, if you will, that we face is to lower that level
of service. That's something that we, obviously, looked at in
anticipation that that may be partially or fully considered as one of
your options, and I think overall the inference is, there's not a lot of
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November 30, 2001
change. It does move a couple of projects that -- the three out into
the four and five time frame, but that does take them out of the
immediacy issue of the AUIR. But in most cases our current
situations, our volumes out there, moving from D to E, unfortunately,
doesn't take it off the list.
Is that a fair statement?
MR. SCOTT: Yes.
MR. FEDER: And which facility would be moved if you
considered Level of Service E?
MR. SCOTT: Airport Pulling Road from Radio to Davis,
Goodlette Frank from Pine Ridge to Vanderbilt and Pine Ridge from
Goodlette to Shirley.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: That was quick. I couldn't
write those down.
MR. SCOTT: I could give you a copy.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. So that is a factor that you
could-- it could be put on the table.
MR. FEDER: Yeah, very definitely. And as a matter of fact,
here's a good example. One of those, if you moved it from D where
it's set today to E, which is Pine Ridge from Airport to Shirley -- I
believe you said, Don?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Davis, Radio Road to Davis.
MR. FEDER: No, Pine Ridge.
MR. SCOTT: From--
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Goodlette to Shirley.
MR. FEDER: Goodlette to Shirley. Here's a very good
example. And Ed will probably want to jump up here, our
operation's man. Here's an example of what I mentioned to you about
access management and operational features. If we can extend turn
lanes at Shirley and at Goodlette, we may be able to recapture some
of the capacity in that segment and not necessarily have to reduce the
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November 30, 2001
level of service or be able to take it out of that list. It's already a six-
lane. There's not a lot we can do, but that comes back to --
obviously, if I remove some signals which is always so easy, as the
commissioners well pointed out, I can even do better. But there's
also -- sometimes where if you can just enhance the geometry relative
to that signalized intersection, lengthen that turn lane such that some
cars aren't backing up into that through lane and reducing some of
your capacity, there's opportunity. Don's going to tell me he's not
quite that sophisticated in his analysis, but I will tell you that that is a
lot of the problem you're experiencing out there. That is a project we
had budgeted for this year that is actually on the chopping block, at
least until we define if there are additional revenues and if they are
going to go to anything besides just capacity improvement.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I like the idea, because I hear level of
service. I hear traffic lights. I hear turn lanes. I hear combining
some things that may help the situation. Mr. Kant.
MR. KANT: Good afternoon, gentlemen-- Cormnissioners,
excuse me. Edward Kant, transportation operations director. As Mr.
Feder has pointed out, one of the key issues -- and it's one that I'm
sure that I know Commissioner Carter has heard me speak of over the
years, and that is, when you make intersection improvements,
typically you can improve the system's function without necessarily
having to add more lanes. As a perfect example, I asked you to look
up here at Airport and Golden Gate. Several'years ago I lengthened
the dual left-turn lane. That changed the time that it took to get from
Mercantile Avenue through the intersection. On the average it
decreased that travel time by almost five minutes at rush hour
through that intersection. We have -- I think now we're up to almost
3 5 intersections that we've looked at where we can do these types of
tweaks or improvements.
One that we recently did was out at Airport -- I'm sorry -- at
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November 30, 2001
Santa Barbara and Golden Gate. We just closed off a median
opening, caused a great deal of nashing of teeth then and tears and
what have you for some of the folks who live in the area and for
some of the establishments like -- there's a school and a church out
there. Unfortunately, in terms of the greater good, we are now able to
move traffic through that intersection much more efficiently, but it's a
little bit more difficult to get around for people that need to access
those particular sites. The -- what they find is, once somebody
figures out how to do it, they know, it's no longer a problem. So the
issue of, "Oh, you're going to kill my business," in my professional
opinion, it is a specious one. But we have a number of those issues,
and we would like to let you know that they're out there. We're
working on them.
MR. FEDER: Let me put it in perspective -- oh, excuse me.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Before we go is -- I received a
lot of calls on closing that off, which is the safety problem that it
created on Santa Barbara. But what it has done, only given one
person access out, and now we're talking removing traffic lights, and
that is one of the proposals, to put a traffic light there.
MR. KANT: Everything -- every action has a reaction, not
always opposite and not always equal. But what we found is that
because of the change in the traffic pattern in the adjacent
neighborhood and because of the presence of the school, St. John
Newman School, that a traffic signal at 53rd into Parkway is going to
make not only that intersection safer, but will facilitate the traffic
movement that would have used that old median opening. So, yes, in
that case, it does cause another traffic signal, but the spacing of the
traffic signals and the progression is such that we don't foresee a
problem in backing up at the intersection of Golden Gate and Santa
Barbara.
MR. FEDER: What I do want to do is put in perspective --
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November 30, 2001
there's an example of Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, my turn lanes are
not going to eliminate that -- one of us still having to pay the
checkbook or widening of that roadway to six lanes, but there are
cases; there are opportunities. I just wanted to point those out as part
of the mix. They are opportunities. I think, probably, this board
would want to direct us to identify every one of them that we feel we
could address that way so you could decide whether or not dollar-
wise you could take that off of your plate and reduce that dollar to
another dollar that you have to spend on another project. There are
not going to be a lot of those, but there are some, and I think that Pine
Ridge is possibly an example, especially on an existing six-lane. And
most of those opportunities would be in the six-lane where you don't
have a lot of other opportunities for how you're going to address it
and maintain your requirements. That's where you're going to have
to look at the access management in particular. I would venture to
say, we ought to be applying it on every roadway where it's two-lane.
It's a little harder with four-lane or six-lane anyway, but those are
cases where you may want us to look at to see if I can reduce some of
the equation, much like Level of Service E is where it's looked at and
didn't bear the fruit that we thought it might do if that were a choice
of this board to try to lower the level of service.
What I'd like to do right now and we're trying to -- I mentioned
policy, product. We talked a little bit about product and then the
funding, and we do want to get some direction from you. So the last
thing I will do is ask Dawn Wolfe to talk a little bit about policy. You
asked us, and there's been some discussion of what are we talking
about Land Development Code changes, growth management, they
all have a very strong issue to deal with relative to this. I realize they
don't fund that particular lane mile here, but they are the issue of how
we -- once we pay the outstanding checks, don't start creating a whole
bunch of additional checks that somebody else is going to have to pay
Page 26
November 30, 2001
for next round. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala, do you have a
question?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, I did. Just one simple one
before you leave. On this, showing us the maintenance costs, would
it -- would it reduce our costs to prioritize that instead?
MR. FEDER: If I understand the question -- and bear with me
to make sure I did. If the question is, if I reduce some of my level of
maintenance -- operations or maintenance expenditures, would that
give me money to be able to pay for these outstanding checks, if you
will, for this capacity improvement needs? Yes. And that's why we
presented to you what we thought was a cutback all the way to the
bear bone, and Ed thought I hit marrow but, nonetheless, way back,
to try and say, at the very least, this is the bare bones. You might
decide in an area that my pulling away from basically improving out
the roadside ditches throughout the county and not being able to
respond is too far a cutback, or you may decide that there is
something there you still see you think I can cut back a little further.
An example of something I cut back was to pull out all the
money out of our neighborhood traffic-calming program. There are
some people that were going to have a hesitation there, but it doesn't
add capacity. As a matter of fact, actually, it pulls away some
capacity. So those are the different issues that we're going to have to
try to attend to.
But, as I said, let me let Dawn cover some of the policy, and for
the remaining time, at least we have here on this portion today, I do
want to try to get some thoughts from the board as to what you want
us to look at, what you want us to bring back, as Tom pointed out.
You want me -- I know the easy one is you want me to come back
with the answer, "Nobody gets hurt; no pain; and two fifty-seven, I
put it in the CIE, and it's over with." Your successors did it that way.
Page 27
November 30, 2001
I know that's not the way you want to approach it. So we'll go from
there. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: At least you have a sense of humor,
Mr. Feder. Thank you.
Oh, we need a break for Magic Fingers, a short one. You have
it. Stand adjourned for five. (Short recess taken.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Back in session, ladies and gentlemen.
Ms. Dawn Wolfe is going to present.
MS. WOLFE: Dawn Wolfe, transportation department director.
Now that we've provided you with an overview of where we are now
and being reactive to those situations, I'd like to cover a few points of
being proactive of how -- once we do manage to find a way to resolve
the issues that are at hand today, on how we can work towards
preventing them in the future and being more aggressive in planning
towards the implementation of the program we need to have in place
to meet our furore needs.
As we indicated back in March, there are several concepts that
we are proceeding with in the next cycle of comprehensive plan
amendments that will allow us greater ability to do our measurements
outside of modifications to the comprehensive plan, such as the
removal of the specific level to service volume capacities which are
currently contained that actually at times tie our hands and our
recommendations that we make to this board.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Excuse me, Dawn. Do we have a
handout on this?
MS. WOLFE: No, we don't.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Then we'll stop looking
around.
MS. WOLFE: No handout on this.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay.
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November 30, 2001
MS. WOLFE: Trying to keep it a short overview of what you
will see in the months of February and March as we come forward
with the comprehensive plan as these are outlines of what we will be
doing with both our Land Development Code as well as our
comprehensive plan, like I said, in a proactive form versus the
reactive that we have discussed to this point.
The proactive is to allow us to be more up to date, more timely
in regards to how we look at and evaluate our level of service on our
roadways. That's to allow us to provide you with more accurate
findings of level of service. What we've shown you today in regards
to where we stand in level of service is a reflection of the updates that
we have conducted to date with the most current standards and
criteria available from a technical perspective as well as taking into
account the current roadway features, number of signals, whether we
have raised medians allowing opportunities to get turning vehicles
out of the through lane, things which either enable us to enhance the
capacity of a roadway or detract from the capacity of our roadways.
That is a very specific issue that we're taking out of the
comprehensive plan and are going to bring back as a separate
ordinance because it is a technical tool and will require updating on a
more frequent basis and much more easily than we have to follow
through a comprehensive plan modification.
Other issues are simplification of how we describe our level-of-
service standards. We have a lot of redundancy between both the
Land Development Code and the comprehensive plan by which,
when we modify one, we create a conflict with the other. We are
simplifying the Land Development Code to the point where it will
refer back to our Growth Management Plan as the document which
establishes our standards.
That-- as we annually update through this process of bringing
you the stated conditions and defining where we sit at with our
Page 29
November 30, 2001
capital improvement element, that will be the time at which we make
modifications either to level of service or to facilities that may be
deficient or not deficient so that we have a reference to it, not having
them in both documents because a correction or a change in one will
then create either -- a conflict that has to be changed in the other.
And during that time period, we often see problems because one will
say, "Oh, but it's Level of Service D." The other one will say, "It's
Level of Service E." Then we have the fighting before you as we
bring applications before you.
So we're trying to make things clean and concise and reduce the
redundancy as well as to bring forward under Land Development
Code amendments requirements for interconnection. You will see
those amendments before you in the upcoming weeks through
workshop and through public hearing by which we will not only
encourage but possibly require during the site-development process
the interconnection of projects as they come forward.
We are also going to be coming forward with things to help us
with improving the little parts of capacity which would be through
our construction standards for works within the right-of-way. This is
how we establish how many driveways, where you can build them,
how you can connect to them, where you must be, provide that
interconnection to the adjacent properties.
Staff, including Mr. Kant from the operations department from
our engineering construction management, Mr. Kuck, from over in
our engineering services director of the development services
division and his staff, we will be working in coordination to update
those standards to maximize capacities that we already have and
insure that projects can be developed consistently rather than just off
the cuff. We want to make sure we have consistent standards out
there.
In regards to maintaining a current level of service or a
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November 30, 2001
concurrency management system, we will be having to come forward
to you, not in this cycle, but in the next cycle once we resolve the
issues here with a few additional amendments to the Land
Development Code under our Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance.
As it is written now, we do give an annual blanket level of
service. By which level of service for roadways adequate public
facilities are issued is that if the roadway facility does not lie within
an area of significant influence, it is approved. There is no condition
or method by which we can say "unless your development then
causes that roadway to go deficient." We will be making
recommendations to that language to allow the AUIR to serve as the
annual basis for updating, basically, what the balance in our
checkbook is. But as developments come on line, we will then
subtract what we have available to those developments as they come
along. That's currently not available for us to apply under the current
Land Development Code, but that will be an amendment coming up
in the next year, as well as the other amendments that I have cited for
you for the comprehensive plan amendment cycle coming up in
February.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Excuse me. That will come up in this
current cycle?
MS. WOLFE: No. It will come up--
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It will be in the June cycle?
MS. WOLFE: It will be in the June cycle.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: How come it takes so long?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: The question was, why does it take so
long?
MS. WOLFE: Why does it take so long? And that's -- that's a
valid question to ask, and it has taken the past 14 months, really, for
us to evaluate where we are at with our current system. And, quite
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November 30, 2001
frankly, my staff came on board, Mr. Scott, in March of this year. He
is the one who has gone through, on a detailed level, to update and
prepare our current level-of-service volumes and capacity by which
we have developed what we need now. We're not working off of the
tables in the comprehensive plan. We're working on the standards
that we will bring forward to you as a separate ordinance as we
remove them from the comprehensive plan. That's something that is
very time consuming, that it's a lot of data that we must collect. We
must find out the characteristics on every single road. We go through
and calculate what our traffic counts are, get them all to the same
average standard, and then we are able to compute those. They also
have to go through a review, internal, for us to be able to move
forward. Unfortunately, these all take time.
And in reviewing those and then having to go back and review
the documentation that we currently have as our regulations and the
comprehensive plan, as well as the Land Development Code, I'll say
this, the condition by which it says, "We give approval for one year,"
as I went through and reviewed and came up with a whole slew of
amendments, that one slipped past my eye. I wish I had caught it this
time around, but it's very specific there. We know what the change
needs to be, and we will bring that forward for the board's
consideration in the June cycle.
MR. FEDER: If I could, Commissioners, not in the way of
excusing, but in the way of explaining, one thing that I found very
surprising -- and, yes, it's been over a year. I would have liked to
have solved the problems in the world in a year, and actually, I came
in with some level of expectation of what would be accomplished by
now, but I will also tell you that when you come in and you find you
do not even have a roadway-classification system, you don't have the
survey and information, roadway-condition inventories, I couldn't
even tell you my spacing on certain things. These are all things we've
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November 30, 2001
had to try to develop. I don't mean it as badly as it sounds, but there's
a lot that has had to be done that one would have anticipated didn't
need to be done. I applaud what staff has done. I also acknowledge
how much more we still have to do, and so please bear with us. We
give it the same level of urgency that we hear from you because we
have to face it and come up in front of you and explain it every day.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
MS. WOLFE: And, as I said, there is other minor amendments
and changes that will all go towards meeting the goals that we have
previously outlined and talked to you about that will insure our
ability to make sure that roadway capacity, that safe operational
conditions exist at the time development occurs. And so there will be
a multitude of smaller-level amendments that work itself through the
comprehensive land cycle as well as both this cycle and the June
cycle of the Land Development Code to meet those goals of the
policy decisions that you have been making over the past year.
And if you have any more specific comments or questions, I'd
be happy to answer them; otherwise, I'll turn it back over to Mr.
Feder.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: No questions. Thank you, Dawn.
MR. FEDER: I'm making a copy of a list that we had, and if
you'd see where Tom is on that, I'd appreciate that. Tom and I had
developed a list during your break that I'm hoping he's going to bring
back to me shortly. He went to make a copy of it.
What I do want to do is tell you that, obviously, what I hope we
relayed to you so far -- and if we haven't, make sure that we have -- is
essentially part of things I know you already know, and that is that
we've got a very daunting, significant task ahead of us, one that was
basically items that were written for us, things that we have to
respond to now.
In that -- the first thing I went through for you is identification
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November 30, 2001
specifically of what -- what we have to address relative to our
existing revenue stream, and in that it identifies quite a few facilities
that we need to find another way to respond to.
There are two sides to our ability to respond. The first side, if
you will -- and we're going to try to get guidance and direction from
you on each of those two sides. The first is under what I will call the
expense or the cost sides, and my list is coming. On that expense or
cost side, the very first thing we have -- and now it's actually typed,
so I can read it.
Thank you, Tom -- is -- the first one under that expense side of
the equation, if you will, is to look at something we already
mentioned to you, and that's access management. On access
management we seek your guidance. Should we look at some of the
facilities that we have level-of-service deficiency issues in the three
years, evaluate what it would take where we think there is even a
reasonable approach to rectify or at least defer from that three-year
time period that level-of-service issue with access-management
issues, and is it even reasonable to consider the possible elimination
of a signal which we would not bring to your attention if we feel it is
truly a safety issue. But is that even an option? Is that something to
be discussed as we try to come back to you with some
recommendations?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is it -- are you going to bring
those recommendations, those single recommendations or is this a --
MR. FEDER: Those will be single recommendations. What I
am asking for you right now since -- as we noted at the beginning,
that, obviously, we could go under 4,000 different contortions here. I
don't presuppose that I'm in a position to come up with a plan, set it
out to you and recommend, nor would that be good for the public not
to hear the different issues we're considering. So what I'm asking
right now is, is that something that I should be spending the time to
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November 30, 2001
evaluate and come back to you on?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Mr. Feder?
MR. FEDER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The signals, I noticed you
brought them up several times. That would be one of the components
to be able to keep something in the way of a status quo by doing
some, selectively, elimination of these signals; is that correct? MR. FEDER: That is correct, sir.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And I don't see any reason why
we shouldn't be able to consider this, and possibly if it does come
down to it -- before you panic, Mr. Henning -- we may have to
educate the public in good manners as far as helping people get out. I
notice, for the most part, in some of these places where they don't
have signals, it takes a while, but almost every other car will let
another car out. It may have to come to that, and we'll just have to go
back to that good manners again.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Are you saying that for my
benefit or--
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I seen the shocked look
on your face for just one moment when --
MR. FEDER: I think what the commissioner was actually
asking about was, are we -- are we asking for blanket statement
today? No, we're not. What I'm trying to get a feel for is, what
should I try to apply before I come back to your --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I, for one, am willing to look at
the signal issue.
MR. FEDER: And I would be bringing back to you on those
that I think there is an opportunity for us to address and what would
be required to do it. At that time you'd have to tell me whether or not
that's something acceptable.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I'm willing to take a look
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November 30, 2001
at that. I think that's a direction I'm in favor of.
MR. FEDER: Okay. That's one of the things to look at.
The next thing is lowering the level of service. We initially
thought that might be a bigger option for us than we found, but as
you saw -- was presented out to you -- and I no longer have this
overhead, I guess -- but you've got a way to get that? Okay.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Here we go.
MR. FEDER: Okay. You had only basically three facilities,
one of which maybe we could address with the first issue I just raised
in access management, but only three were setting lower level of
service will bring what was a deficiency in the first three years out of
that equation, basically pushing it just a year or two out but,
nonetheless, pulling it out of that requirement for it to be addressed in
current funding right now.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And if we don't do this, the
outcome would be --
MR. FEDER: Additional dollars of revenue that you'd have to
address, and that's the case with all these expense sides. I'm asking
you what is the product that we need to cost out that we're going to
have to find the funds to pay for, and I'll go through some of those
options as well.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I'm not in favor of
lowering the level of service out there. I think we need to raise the
bar high in trying to achieve it well before we consider lowering it.
MR. FEDER: There are some implications there if you lower
that level of service, it allows more development, creates a problem,
you have a higher demand. When you do make an improvement,
though, I should point out to you, whatever the level of service is
when we make a design for an improvement, we do bring it up to our
Level of Service D out for that 20-year period.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Henning.
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November 30, 2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Let me throw this out there.
On these -- some of these roads that are deficient that you're
considering lowering the level, is it a viable option to have a rate of
growth on those quarters?
MR. FEDER: The rate of growth established?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes.
MR. FEDER: Yes. There are a lot of options that you have
available, yes, if-- if it'll keep it concurrent. Now, the problem is --
and let me make sure I understood the question I answered so quickly
there. If it is a existing deficiency today, obviously, a rate of growth
won't answer your problem. If it's a deficiency coming up in the three
years, if we can look at whether or not a slower rate of growth would
move it out of that three-year time frame, if that's the question, we
can look at that, and that's a good addition to the list I didn't have, if
that's the direction.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, it would be, I think, a -- I'm
sensing a better direction. You start lowering a level of service,
everybody's hair goes up on their head, and they say, "What do you
mean? It's going to be a poor road to travel."
MR. FEDER: I think, Mr. Chairman, the question that the
commissioner's asked -- and the other part of that I'm going to tell
you intuitively -- if only three facilities are pulled out of it, by
lowering level of service, which I don't think I'm hearing interest in, I
don't think there's a lot of option if we slow down growth for those
others not to become --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: No. But I think that is a better
direction, is what I meant to tack it onto.
MR. FEDER: We will look at that though.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It makes a enormous amount of sense
to slow the growth and corridors that are fast approaching a level of
service and capacity they can handle until we can find the monies to
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November 30, 2001
expand the roadway.
MR. FEDER: And to determine what vehicle is available to us
to even do that, yes. And -- but I will point out that I imagine that
there's not going to be a lot of opportunity here -- very few projects
even lowering level of service for another three years, but we'll look
at that.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. And when you do look
at it, the rate of growth of corridors, bring it back to us, and let us see
what it looks like.
MR. FEDER: Of course, that's all this.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And one of the concerns that I
have with that is, we're in an economic downturn, and whether we
like it or not, construction trade is what keeps part of Collier County's
economics up. And I think each and every one of us has constituents
-- maybe even the majority of us -- that is tied to that indirectly or
directly.
MR. FEDER: We had a three-day slowdown a little while back,
as Mr. Mudd can review with you in great detail. I know we all saw
the implications of that. So that's not what we're trying to be. So I do
appreciate the statement.
I think a very viable item for us to look at and to at least tell you
-- like we did looking at Level of Service E setting, which I don't
think you're saying is on the table -- but is to look at on those
corridors if we had some vehicle and what would that vehicle be to
slow down growth. Could we defer it out of that three-year
becoming a deficiency if it's not an existing deficiency today?
Obviously, those you couldn't do.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Unless you get creative financing to
do something like that.
MR. FEDER: It may have minimal application, but nonetheless,
we need to look at it and tell you what application it could have. Yes,
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November 30, 2001
Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Basically, tell me what the
difference is between level of D and level of E. How many cars?
MR. FEDER: Okay. I guess -- I guess the best way I can
explain it to you -- and there are so many different ways. Effectively,
it's a delay issue, how much delay and congestion.
But A would be almost like being on the Audubon by yourself.
Basically as a driver nothing is impeding your decision as you go
along that stream. You can go as fast as you want. If you want to
change lanes, nothing impedes you. You can go.
B would be a few more people on that Audobon with you, and I
say it that way because I think the chairman very correctly pointed
out A and B is a nice thing, but you basically start essentially at C
because there aren't too many sections of the Audobon with few cars
on it.
So let's get into C and into reality, if you will. That's basically
where, while you don't have free reign and choice, that would be the
few hours of airport, the interstate, or wherever where you don't have
a lot of people, and, essentially, as you want to drive along, you can
make your choices. If someone is slowing down in front of you,
you've got the ability to go around them and continue, generally, at
your pace. That would be C.
D is where you're starting to get influenced in that stream.
You're starting to (inaudible) in that stream. If the stream slows
down, you slow down.
E is where that stream has totally influenced your traffic, and
you're most likely slowing down quite frequently, and you're sitting
through more than one set of signal progression as you're going
along.
F is, effectively, parking lot. Okay? If that gives you an
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November 30, 2001
illustration.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Perfect.
MR. FEDER: Thank you.
Okay. Another area of expense items are to reduce or maybe
even increase, if the guidance is there, the cost is roadway features.
What things are we or are we not going to try to look at? Do we --
we remove sidewalks from projects? Is that a viable item for me to
look at? I need your guidance on that.
If we remove sidewalks, and the other one is bike paths, do I do
that to reduce my right-of-way needs? Now, in many cases, I've got
the right-of-ways, but if I do that, then your ability to come in later in
the future to retrofit is very high and your cost to retrofit anyway is
high, but what is the guidance?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I may defer putting those in, but I
want those -- I want the dirt to put them on.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right. We want the right-of-
way there. If we don't have that, we don't have the future for our
children. I won't go for that at all.
MR. FEDER: Then are you saying possibly then -- I don't want
to put in words.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If it's enough of a savings not
to put the sidewalks on the right-of-way or the bike paths along the
right-of-way, if there is enough of a dollar savings, then let's not do
that, but let's have the right-of-way for future commissions and future
generations have the right to be able to use it.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Or local MSTUs in a given area may
have an opportunity to put those in.
MR. FEDER: Okay. We will go back to the projects, try to
evaluate if we used a blanket approach, assuming we're still buying
the right-of-way for it, how much would we save off of the projects,
and what is that dollar level so we can come back and relay that to
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November 30, 2001
you?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And we might want to consider
streetlights to be an option where the neighbors can have them put
MR. FEDER: I am coming down to that one now. So I
appreciate it, Commissioner. You, obviously, saw my list. No.
Streetlighting is the next issue.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: When are you going to choose
that?
MR. OLLIFF: I'm -- I think what I heard the board say is, you
don't want us spending time looking at the option of removing the
right-of-way that would be available for future bike paths, so we're
not even going to spend the time of developing what that cost --
MR. FEDER: No. No. No. And I appreciate that, Tom, thank
you. Please make sure we're clear on it because I want to be very
clear what the board's direction is. My understanding is, I still keep
the right-of-way issue in there. What I will look at and come back
and give the -- you information on, if I decided not to add the
sidewalks and bike paths as part of that initial construction, how
much savings would you experience so you can then evaluate if you
want to apply universally or which projects you want to apply it on
and how that changes the expense side of the equation.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Here's the way I look at this, is,
let's say that we buy right-of-way today. We're buying at today's
dollar. If we wait until tomorrow or future, with the assessed values
in Collier County keep on increasing, it's just going to cost us more,
and sometimes we have to do the pain to get the gain later on, and
that's the way--
MR. FEDER: But not only will it cost you more, in some cases
it may cost so much as to be prohibitive.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Prohibitive. No. I concur,
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November 30, 2001
Commissioner Henning. I don't want to give up the -- the land, but
when you put down the other things on it, that becomes an option.
MR. FEDER: And we will give you an idea on what those cost
issues might be or possible reductions in the overall price tag, if you
will.
Streetlighting, as Commissioner Coletta mentioned next, both --
either just decorative or streetlighting in general. Streetlighting
decorative, as I mentioned, we made some pullout already. As you
noticed, when we went over this material, we had had streetlighting
in to the tune of about 8 1/2 million. We pulled all of that out, at
least in initial discussions with you. And what is your pleasure on
that? The idea is decorative streetlighting was coming out of the
community-character issue. Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. I was just going to say, if
we're not going to go with streetlighting, there should be something
in the infrastructure that will allow somebody in the future to put it in
without tearing away part of the roadway or, you know, if it's far
enough into the right-of-way where it's not going to raise a problem,
but it should be so planned now that it's not going to impede
somebody in the future to be able to install it and it's not going to cost
them five times as much.
MR. FEDER: And what I will tell you is, we will, obviously, do
as this board directs. There's an awful lot of cost in doing your
wiring and getting your base and your setup, and that is very
dependent on whether or not you do the shorter, more -- more closely
spaced or the taller, more -- more separated lighting. And so if you're
saying, basically, set it up for a retrofit for lighting, that's a big
proportion of the cost of lighting. But, again, we will evaluate that
savings if that's the line you're asking me to try to draw and bring
back to you.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: If I could expand on
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November 30, 2001
Commissioner Coletta, his comments is if we have to tear up
pavement to put that conduit in or -- or the wiring. I think that's what
he's wanting to say but --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Basically, that's it. I don't want
to saddle someone ten years down the road with an unbelievable bill
and then look back and say, "What were those people thinking about
back then?" Let's look at both options if we could.
MR. FEDER: We'll take a look at it and make sure. What I'm
saying, sort of intuitively, give you a number so you get better than
intuition. What I think you're asking me to do is somewhat like
we've done on irrigation. We put the sleeves in so that you can run
the irrigation out to a median. You don't put the irrigation in initially.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's true. Right.
MR. FEDER: Same thing here, put in the sleeving for lighting,
not necessarily putting in the lighting, and see what that cost
differential would be.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think, project by project,
communities will have a great deal of input for us, and there may be
these collective groups that get together and do a MSTU and make it
happen. So we're going to give communities a lot of flexibility to do
these. We'll just -- we're going to do the base, and if you want to do it
now, you really have to raise it locally in your community to do it. If
you don't, the option is there for the future.
MR. FEDER: Okay. Next one I had here was landscaping.
Community character, we're looking at least tree-lined. We have
utilized, as you know, as the commissioner just mentioned,
municipal-taxing units to basically go generally after the more
detailed landscaping. But as I got more information on -- we have a
number of areas where we're maintaining the landscaping out there
today, either by prior agreements that then expired and had the
county take over, or even with the state where we are doing the
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November 30, 2001
operation and maintenance and agreed to it by them planning it. We
then maintained it. So the question is, do we continue to maintain
what we have out there, which is a rather radical question, but I told
you, all of it's fair game. Do we convert that back to grass, if you
will? Do we consider adding any more? Do we only allow MSTUs if
they are going to operate it in perpetuity forever, if you will? What is
your direction there?
Landscaping in or out? How do we treat it, and what do we do with
what we have?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And what do we do with what we
have? What about privatizing it again? You give us one figure -- I'd
love to know how that figure balances out with privatizing that
maintenance of the medians.
MR. FEDER: I'd be happy to do that. Actually, what we've
seen as our cost in-house maintenance is cheaper than the private.
We're already doing that. We've got portions of it where we are using
private maintenance and portions where you have given us the crew
because we've been able to show you it's cheaper for us with crews
in-house to maintain. But I think I hear, looking at that on the
operational end, is a savings there, and of course, we'll look at that
for you.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Norman, we're getting down to
the very basics of what Collier County is all about, especially in the
coastal area. We may want to come up with some sort of directive in
the near future where within a certain number of months or years,
that the landscaping has to become the product of a MSTU within the
community, and those that don't wish to do that would return to some
sort of xeriscaping or something that would require little or no
maintenance. That's a thought that we might want to look at, and
then it becomes community personal character. The only thing is that
some of your more rural areas, like 951, I'm not too sure what would
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November 30, 2001
happen there.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, part of that -- I have a problem
with some of this because your coastal areas are your donor
communities. They pay a far higher percentage of taxes in this
county than anyone else, so they have an expectation level. And I
think to balance that, we have some gateways that come into the
county and I
-- we have prided ourselves on those gateways.
So I think we've got a mix here. You've got gateways. You've
got opportunities -- what do you do with existing landscaping? Is
there a way to find a more cost-effective way to deal with all that? I
don't know the answers. What would we do in some sort of a master
plan with options for communities to do this, and what are the bare
minimums that we'll go in? It's like saying, you go in and buy a car,
here's the engine and the frame and steering wheel, you want to put
this stuff around it, okay, but there's going to be a lot of local options
to that. But we -- my greatest concern is we need a good framework,
and I don't want to have some piecemeal thing here that just doesn't
work.
Maybe that's too much to ask staff at this time in what they're
trying to do, but can we get some cost-benefit analysis?
MR. FEDER: What I will tell you is -- we will try to do
anything that you ask for, Commissioner, as best we can, obviously.
What I will tell you is this: We had about 10 million that we're
looking at to add and then maintain a tree-lined concept of
landscaping. Is that a desire or is the desire, at least initially -- let me
forget for a second what we have out there in existing landscaping
and are maintaining. But in new landscaping, do we want to pull
back from that to basically sod and irrigation sleeving which would
save about that 10 million over that five-year period?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think we're almost in that crunch
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November 30, 2001
down where we have to make that sacrifice. Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I even have a question
about sod because that requires maintenance, and we need to look at
alternatives for that sod.
MR. FEDER: Astro turf?. I'm being facetious.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: You and I had a conversation
about peanut grass that they have at the Haag Center. You don't have
to mow it and it -- and it flowers and turns into a yellow color, and at
-- at maturity, it's that high (indicating). So, I mean, that's an option.
And, Commissioner Carter, your comment about the coastal
community, I agree with that, and even though-- I have constituents
that tell me how much they pay in their taxes, but the bottom line is,
we are all here together, and we all need each other. We need the
people from District 5 to help us out with our service industry, just
like District 3, and we enjoy the beaches on the coastal area and those
people that you serve.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: When we can find a place to
park down there, right, Commissioner Henning?
MR. FEDER: What I think I heard on the issue of landscaping
is, first of all, obviously, to pull back to, at the most, on new
facilities, if you will, basically sod and irrigation; also look at if there
are some other options, peanut grass and the like.
Relative to existing landscape maintenance, one possibility is to
-- to go to a county-wide MSTU as opposed to the individual ones we
have and to try and address it in that manner. Is that an area of
interest to this board?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that a separate line item on
your -- on your tech sheet? MR. OLLIFF: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think that's an interesting idea.
There's also the idea of maybe doing district MSTUs. I'm looking for
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November 30, 2001
a bigger -- a bigger footprint of which to make decisions. I want to
do -- again, we're going to give you the base, and then what do you
want to add around the base?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: District 5 has a lot of green
area in it, but it's all natural. We'd be very receptive to a district-wide
MSTU.
MR. FEDER: And even district-wide, county-wide or the like,
what do you do about existing -- existing MSTUs that we have out
there? And I can name a number of them that are already taxing
themselves. Would they want to join in on this? How do they go?
There's one at a higher level.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think that's an option. You know,
once again, what's the cost-benefit ratio? Everybody wants to know
numbers. What's it going to cost me? What's coming out of my
pocketbook?
MR. FEDER: Okay. But at Pelican Bay, are they going to go to
the level that an overall county-wide or a District 1 would want to do,
Bayshore, other issues. So there are a lot of issues associated with it.
I just throw it out as something you want us to try and at least bring
back for further discussion.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think it's an option and let -- let -- let
communities begin to make some of those decisions. MR. FEDER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Carter, what we
might want to consider is -- I mean, every one of these MSTUs has
advisory boards that figure out how they want to spend their money
for beautification -- some sort of a workshop with the board of
commissioners and the advisory board members and get their input,
the people who we work for.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: The whole thing is -- it's publicly
noticed and everything. That would probably work to get at least
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November 30, 2001
something along those lines.
MR. FEDER: Again, I'll call your attention to that fourth page
that I gave you, that one that looked like it was bleeding red,
unfortunately, the table which was where we had pulled back, if you
will, over the five years. And if you look at basically your base
operations and maintenance, we had pulled about 19.3 million out.
And, as I said-- and I think if you look at even the page before that,
which is what we kept in, those, obviously, are the differences
between that original concept. There's very little left into base
operations and maintenance, but at the same time, I think if we
haven't cut all the way to the bone, we've cut awfully close and
chipped it. So my question is, is that where we want to be?
One question was drainage. Obviously, if I get calls from folks
that want their canals improved and I'm not able to be as responsive.
If people want neighborhood traffic-calming programs, the issue is
totally removed, not partially. If I've got some of these other areas --
I'm not advocating for them. I'm presenting to you, given our time
and circumstances and the crunch we're under, my approach, at least
in bringing the discussion to you to get your guidance, was to cut it
all the way down to the bare knowing that I have an off-water
requirement for dollar to meet capacity needs, at least at this time.
But again, your guidance in general on any or all of these areas.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If I may, on the drainage issue,
let's talk a little bit about it. And excuse me for being selfish, but I
want to talk about District 5 and, of course, the great expanse we
have out there, beautiful wilderness, Mr. Henning, with the cockatoo
woodpecker.
I heard about that area.
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
Somewhere between--
COMMISSIONER COLETTA:
it--
But in any case, getting back to
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November 30, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think you guys are for the birds, but
go ahead. Just go on.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The ditches out there require
regular maintenance to be able to keep them at a depth to be able to
allow something for reasonable drainage on something that's almost
totally flat. And I know that even though we've been putting our
greatest effort into maintaining them and doing everything possible to
make it work, we still have a tremendous number of complaints to the
time of a main rain event. I would be very leery to recommend
cutting drainage out and then find out in a year or two these ditches
have come together and we have a major event. Then now we're
talking safety, health, and welfare of the community. I don't think
that's a component that we can really play with.
MR. FEDER: And what I tell you is, Commissioner-- and I
appreciate that. As a matter of fact, we came to you last budget cycle
requesting an additional crew to work out in the estates. As a matter
of fact, that's part of what we offered up and what was noted as just
shifting money and not that substantial. I found it very substantial
because that crew is no longer in. You just recently took that crew
out.
And so what I'm saying to you, there's very significant issues
we're dealing with here. I don't minimize it for a minute. That's one
among many that I could sit here and tell you that we're dealing with,
but those are the decisions I'm asking you, how do we make?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I must have been asleep for a
moment or two. You say that this crew has already been removed
from the estates?
MR. FEDER: This crew, I believe -- and I will defer to Tom on
this -- was part of our -- our provisions of possible cuts because Tom
twisted my arm extremely hard, and I had to offer up something, and
that was one of the things that he presented to you. So I believe that
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November 30, 2001
may be included in that. Is it, Tom?
MR. OLLIFF: It maybe what we had originally done what was
asked of them for 5 percent reductions. When I looked at the original
list for 5 percent reductions, there were some things on there, like this
particular crew, that I thought we needed to go back and reassess, and
that's why we ended up submitting to you a 3 percent operating cost-
reduction list.
MR. FEDER: So it may or may not be right at this point, yes.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We definitely need to
reevaluate where we are on that. I hate to tell you, when that rain
does come, I'm going to give them your cell phone number.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: If I could just say --
MR. FEDER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- if I remember those cuts, it
was, like, 357,000 from transportation. I don't think that -- I mean,
the item that Commissioner Coletta is talking about, that expense was
quite a bit more than that.
So, I mean, I don't -- here's where I'd like to go on -- with cuts
on this. I would like to stay with the sheet that we just discussed,
keep this stuff in, and look at other ways within general fund to cut
instead of these -- the ones in the red. I mean, obviously, we got the
landscaping and other things.
MR. FEDER: I'm -- actually, may be incorrect, Commissioner.
I'll try to finish this, if it's okay, but I put that under the revenue side.
I'm seeing that as -- as -- although it's a diversion of revenue, it's a
revenue stream to address the transportation. So if you want me to
switch that over-- but in any case, we have to address both, but I saw
that as a possible revenue-side issue.
Right now I'm trying to look at just the expenses of the product,
what is that product? We know we have to address the capacity
issues on those roadways. What is our product? Remember, I said I
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November 30, 2001
have to address what's my minimum operations and maintenance
because I have to fund that each year. Then on those product issues,
what's their cost.'? And we're trying to figure out, does that include
sidewalks and other things so I can cost it out. And then we'll go
over to the side on the revenue, and in the case of reductions out of
our current budget and programs. At the same time I'm looking to
reduce maybe on the transportation side, obviously, a very viable part
of those discussions, I would think, as well.
Let me finish off on the expense side, if that's okay. On
operations and maintenance levels, what we're talking about, I don't
necessarily expect you to conclude today and -- and I know we hit
you with an awful lot of material here, all of which you dealt with
over the last year, but nonetheless, it's all coming at you at once right
now.
I'd ask you to sort of look at that list of material that I gave you
and give me a feel which one of those do or do not make some sense
to you. And ! think the commissioner has one that he's already told
me on drainage. I heard that message, Commissioner. I already
wrote it down. But what I'm saying is rather than requiring you, as
you sit there, to tell me if you can tell me over the next couple of
days which ones you want me to try to factor in and not, when I try to
come back to you with a dollar figure. That's what I'm trying to do
here, is look at those, give you an item and have at least some
variables to put something in, not put it in and tell you what that
dollar figure is that we then go on the next side and figure out how
we fund.
So look at that, and if you have some and -- you want me to
address a little differently -- I think I've already got a little bit of a
message of drainage. Although, obviously, when I come back, if I
show that drainage added in, I'll try to show the cost of it. Well, you
have it here, actually. Then the full board has to tell me to keep it in
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November 30, 2001
or not keep it in. It's the same if somebody raises another item to me,
but if you'll get that to me.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have my list right now.
MR. FEDER: You do have it right now. Okay. Then let me
take it if you have it now, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Impact fee credit threshold,
major roadway resurfacing, landscaping maintenance, streetlighting -
- and the others I see as a safety issue. Well, you have mitigation on
environment, and you're talking about roadway acquisition.
MR. FEDER: Actually, those were in roadway projects. What
those are is our ongoing agreements in some areas where we've
committed to mitigations, why you see it. There's a couple where we
anticipated some ongoing, but generally those are ongoing
commitments and mitigation, Livingston Road payments of credits
out into the future, other issues of the sort, but are you saying this list
here of impact fees, resurfacing -- are those meant as things that
you're comfortable pulling out, but not others?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Exactly. I'll give you this.
MR. FEDER: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: But I just --
MR. FEDER: Any others just for now before I go forward?
Otherwise, if you can get me any thoughts you have and we'll try to
evaluate. I'm trying to come back to you not with a solution but with
at least the pieces that reasonably I can put together as you try to
come to your solution.
MR. OLLIFF: And then just so the board's aware, this list under
-- under "Operations and Maintenance" is a reduction from your
current level of operations and maintenance. I want to be clear, this
is not in addition. This is not what we had recommended, which was
a significantly higher level of operations and maintenance with road
resurfacing occurring at a much frequent pace -- much more frequent
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November 30, 2001
pace. This is, in essence, $4 million a year off of your current level --
MR. FEDER: That base of operation and maintenance. That is
correct, other than that that was enhanced. Enhanced is a different
item.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I'll make some more
check marks then.
MR. FEDER: Thank you. Okay. Last item--
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Before you go forward, I need to
clarify one thing on this MSTU subject. MR. FEDER: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We have arterials. We have
collectors. When I talk about district MSTUs, I'm referring to that
internal MSTU within communities, whether it's Pelican Bay or
whether it's Vanderbilt. These are internal roads. I think it's up to
those communities to determine what they want to do. I was talking
arterials and collectors. If there's a bigger footprint in which
everybody can get to some agreement, that's what I think if you're
going to do enhancements. That might be applicable.
MR. FEDER: Okay. I appreciate that, Commissioner. Thank
you for the clarification.
Let me -- I know this isn't very visible. This is what I was
looking at on current -- on current program. And under -- under that
item, I'm going to call your attention to what we've raised as possible
reductions. And, again, I don't anticipate going through it one on one
today, but I do need your input back to issues, and we'll try to
acknowledge it when we come back in. What I will do, though, is
sort ofjump through some of them to sort of bring implications to
your attention.
Essentially, as you know, we have an adopted work program.
That adopted work program needs to be pulled back, as I mentioned,
because 33.9, even with what I recommended in blue being reduced
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November 30, 2001
here, is over our revenue stream and would, therefore, be revenue
stream that needs to be funded as well as the issues of new capacity.
So going down this list, I'll just call a couple to your attention
just to sort of give you a feel for it. As you look at a streetlighting
program, we said take it all out in this year, as is the issue we just
talked about. So that's consistent. Landscaping maintenance.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: When you say "landscaping
maintenance," Norman --
MR. FEDER: That's the enhanced. That was the enhanced.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Regular -- the landscaping that's in
now --
MR. FEDER: -- is still -- is still in here, yes. Yes, that was the
enhanced.
The drainage program which is an issue of question, that's been
raised on that. Okay? Landscaping retrofit, that was enhanced. That
was the tree-lined boulevards. Again, recommended out.
I won't cover every one of them, other than to cover some. We
tried to keep in some of what I am going to call -- and that's what I'm
really raising to you right now -- is another on the expense side, these
non-capacity non-concurrency projects, but still quite important, 13th
Street Bridge being an example of that. We are moving on the bridge.
We anticipate we probably will not be able to immediately address
the roadway -- adjacent roadway and sidewalks, but we know that's a
commitment that we have out in the future, and we may well have to
move forward on the bridge and post it for no trucks other than
emergency trucks to respond to rather narrow lanes out there, which
is not where we want to be. I think Commissioner Coletta is aware of
some of that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm in agreement with Ed, even
when we get the sidewalks and the road improved, to still limit the
truck traffic in that area just to the local pickup trucks and that's
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November 30, 2001
about -- MR. FEDER: At least not the big trucks, yes, other than
emergency.
Going down here, I'm not going -- as I said -- hit every one of
them. I am going to call your attention to some issues that are going
to be maybe as contentious as the traffic signals I mentioned. That's
why I'm asking you to go through this list. One of them, for an
example, is Whippoorwill. I had $1 million to buy the right-of-way
on Whippoorwill North-South. You went through and by board
action told me to buy those outparcels if the other parcels came
through. We've been working through a developer-contribution
agreement and working with folks on that, but at this point in time, at
least my recommendation is that we pull that out, given what we face
financially in trying to respond. But the board needs to tell me, and
obviously, that's going to be an issue of some consternation that
you'll be facing if I take that action.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I would like to talk to you in
private about that, see if there are future benefits from it that the
community might benefit by doing it now instead --
MR. FEDER: I'd be happy to and then come back to the -- the
board for anything we might discuss if it's different. Again, I'm
asking you to go through this list. Is it something I've recommended
to pull out? Like outparcels, like drainage that you don't feel we
reasonably can, I need to know it. It's always going to change that
price-tag issue. That's why I'm calling this the expense side of the
equation.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: A question on the
Whippoorwill section, you're talk being as far as the right-of-way, if
we fail to get the right-of-way, will it be turned into commercial or
something where that option will never come back to us? Is that
what's going to happen?
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November 30, 2001
MR. FEDER: No. Essentially, what you've got right now -- and
I'm going to oversimplify it, and I apologize to folks in this if I don't
do it justice. But, essentially, you've got four different PUDs that,
while they have easement access, don't have sufficient access in some
cases for the level of development that they've gotten granted in their
PUDs. In their PUDs they had various agreements about provision of
right-of-way and then getting impact-fee credits for building a two-
lane roadway.
From the day I came on board -- and this won't make me popular
to some, but I've questioned the issue of whether or not a two-lane
roadway serves a public purpose, or is it really the driveway
connection to this development? In working with them, they've
agreed to go to a four-lane general cross-section, so in the future
possibly with an east-west, it does have that flavor of being
something above and beyond just the driveway, and maybe the deals
and the issues talked about make more sense, and we've been trying
to find a way to make it work. Okay?
Having said that, though, I'm talking about $1 million I've tied
up in current budget. You have a very significant nut to crack in cost,
and that's why I offered it out as a potential.
Now, having said that, that's why I'm asking you to go through
this list and why I'm being rather laborious about it right now for you
to tell me if there is some things here either I haven't taken off that
you think I should -- in some cases, maybe because I've already gone
too far down the poor back.
Remember, these are current-year items, but I'll look at those --
or is something I recommended pulling that you feel we cannot and I
have to put into that dollar equation when we figure out how we
finance.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Grade separation you have or
overpass.
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November 30, 2001
MR. FEDER: That was -- that was just the remaining dollars of
that grade-separation study. The study's been completed. That was
just remaining dollars. That's a cleanup. That's a housecleaning.
That's an easier one. That's one of the easier ones to take out.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, we might as well
continue on the discussion of Whippoorwill. MR. FEDER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: You were just going to buy
road right-of-way?
MR. FEDER: Basically, what the provisions -- at least the latest
round of that was -- is that the four PUDs would provide right-of-way
without compensation, that the remaining parcels that were outside of
theirs would be purchased by the county by its eminent domain
powers, and you had authorized $1 million towards that effort of
what it might cost out there with, you know, it costing what it cost.
Then the development community was going to build the road and
receive impact fee credits for that two-lane road that they built.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And where does that road --
from Pine Ridge and how far?
MR. FEDER: Pine Ridge for about a mile and a half down.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And it's a dead-end?
MR. FEDER: Unless you develop east-west which is basically
Green Boulevard Extension, which has been in our needs plan for a
long time but nowhere near the cost-feasible plan ever.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: But that's way out there that I
see, and the recommendation is to cut that.
What about if the developers create a CDD? Does the CDD
have the ability to do eminent domain?
MR. FEDER: One option, if we did this, that I was going to
throw out to them, and there's many options, and we'll entertain them.
We're not looking to penalize them because of our financial situation.
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November 30, 2001
One thought that I had was, if they're ready to pay for those
outparcels, if they pay the county what the costs are, that we use our
eminent domain to pay for it and then question of whether or not we
do impact fee credits for the two-lane roadway, which I'm sure I'll
hear from certain parties about any of these thoughts, but what I'm
saying is, they're not easy recommendations, solutions. I don't take
this one lightly. Don't recommend that you do either. But it's one I
proposed, given the constraints we're in.
MR. OLLIFF: But, in essence, this overall category that he's
talking about or projects, that if you'll look at your list, we're calling
non-capacity, non-concurrency-related projects, and if there's board
direction for us to go back and, obviously, look at all of the projects
that are on the table that fall under those categories -- in other words,
they don't provide us any enhanced capacity out there in your road
network system, or they're not driving your concurrency management
system and -- I'll put another qualifier on it -- and if we don't have
existing contracts that have been -- for some reason legally bind us to
the agreements that are already in place --
MR. FEDER: We've recommended pulling.
MR. OLLIFF: -- that we would recommend pulling those.
MR. FEDER: And also -- like, for instance, here -- and I'm not
trying to pick on Whippoorwill. I brought it to your attention to show
you, these aren't going to be easy solutions. Another example that is
not only the million that we've got committed in this budget year you
see here, is that commitment, if we keep to it, of the impact fee losses
for the construction.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Carter, I don't
see a true public benefit to keep this in there. If we do the
percentages, I think that the public can benefit by not doing this
project.
And I'll tell you one that is a public benefit is the 13th Street
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November 30, 2001
Bridge. That is, you know, one of those safety things.
MR. FEDER: And that does -- that does address some capacity
items that was already under contract and design build, and because it
was that far along in its purposes, as you notice, we didn't
recommend pulling that one out. But, again, that's open for the
debate of this board and direction.
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
COMMISSIONER COLETTA:
You owe me one.
I'll give you a woodpecker.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't know if I'm ready yet. I don't
want to make a decision today on Whippoorwill but --
MR. FEDER: I understand, and I'm not asking you today --
what I'm asking you today --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I have real concerns about anytime
that I pull away from the opportunity owned or right-of-way at
today's dollars, unless I can be shown that there's another way
through collective effort to protect that so we have an opportunity to
get it. I have been here three years, and I have lived with enough
nightmares of the past already where people failed to acquire land
when they needed to acquire it, and I don't want to put future
commissioners in that position.
MR. FEDER: And I agree, Commissioner. I'm not sure that's
the case here, and that's why I recommend. But, again, as Tom
pointed out, the reason that I'm calling your attention here -- and
that's the last item we're showing you on the expense side -- is if
something is non-capacity, I haven't committed so far that I can't
move on it and it doesn't have some safety, welfare issues that are
significant. I believe you'll find that the blue recommended
reductions pretty much fit that, and that's what I'm asking you to do,
is to look at that list, see if maybe I didn't apply that well enough, or
if there's something that in spite of the fact that it's going to add to
that cost side and not help us move to those capacity -- that big-ticket
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November 30, 2001
item that we have to address that you feel we should. That's why I'm
asking you to bring to my attention -- we'll bring back at the next
meeting as we come up with that -- what I'm calling the product-- the
cost side of the equation.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: When do we need to have a decision
on this by this board so that we can move forward?
MR. FEDER: Obviously, as soon as possible. I'll defer in a few
minutes and I hope very shortly to stand and let him review with you
the process. But, obviously, we would anticipate and desire that this
board would set the follow-up and the remainder of this discussion as
reasonably close as possible but also with enough time for us to go
back and do what you've given us. That will -- so far the list is going
to keep us fairly busy, but nonetheless, we are here to be as
responsive as we can, knowing that we need a quicker turnaround
time frame for the next meeting.
I think there was some thoughts as to options relative to other
workshops you had, like information technology. And I don't mean
to be slighting those folks, but if that one can be deferred to come to
this -- I don't know when that was.
MR. OLLIFF: December 18th.
MR. FEDER: December 18th, or whatever the board's pleasure
is. You tell us when. But, obviously, in answer to your question, we
generally do it in the December-January time frame. We do -- we do
have to have these answers, decisions and-- finalized to put into our
Growth Management Plan in the February-March. But, again, I'll
defer to Stan and let the board decide that, if I've answered your
question as best I could, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. I think it's important that
we have some period to digest this before --
MR. FEDER: Yes. There's -- there's an awful lot here, as you're
well aware, and I'm sure -- with this now over the air and -- and with
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November 30, 2001
other people getting involved and the media bringing this out to
people, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of folks that would like to
bring in their thoughts. And I think that's important to have that time
period for those people to do that as well.
Revenue options. Again, let me go a little faster down this one
because I think they're all on the table, unless you tell me something
isn't, but which ones focus or if there are ones we haven't thought of.
That's probably the more significant statement here.
First of all, bonding of gas taxes. One option is to bond all of
our local option gas tax, all 11 cents. That does present us a problem
with financing in the future. We can consider other options to that.
So any of these options, obviously, singularly probably won't apply,
but singularly or collectively can be applied. Another option is to
bond part of it. Maybe only the 5 cents that you recently extended
out to 2023 which wouldn't put as big a hole in your year '06 through
the '20, but would generate about 60 million, roughly, and we'll get
you the exact figures on that in the process as opposed to the full 11
cents being bonded. And those are things to look at, and we'll try to
tell you what we see as pros and cons on it. But I believe, obviously,
bonding of our gas tax is one item on the table; is that correct?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Absolutely.
MR. FEDER: Bonding of your available sales taxes. Right now
you've got some sales tax revenue. They are supporting an awful lot
of other functions other than transportation. And so this is one where
all of a sudden stepped over and said, I'm not just asking, would I
pull back in transportation. I'm asking you where you pull back in
county government in general. And I'll defer to Tom a little bit on
this one. I don't want to have everybody hate me.
MR. OLLIFF: Your-- your sales tax is part of your general
fund, your 001 Fund. It is the only -- that I'm aware of-- bondable
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November 30, 2001
source of revenue within your general fund that does not require a
referenda. You've currently got about -- you have some bondable
capacity left in that end, and if you'd like for us to consider that as
part of the mix, we just simply need to know that that's on the table.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you,
Tom. Could you speak a little bit closer to the mike?
MR. OLLIFF: We just need to know if bonding part of your
current general fund revenue stream is on the table, just tell us that,
and then I've got to assume that it is and that we're going to spend
some time looking at that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I think it's worth looking at, but
my concern is, that's covering items that eventually has got to be
covered by ad valorem. So, in effect, what we're doing is we're
raising ad valorem one way or the other, because these items are
going to be met. Still look at it, but I think the public has to be aware
of what we're doing here.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I think that's a given and -- but I
want to look at it.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I do too.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I want to look at it.
MR. FEDER: And, Commissioners, I will -- I will just bring it
to your attention because we want to make sure this is aboveboard
and direct in everything we're doing here, and that's the purpose.
Most of these items that we look at, over time they're eventually
going to have to be replaced in some manner. We don't have a lot of
options. We recognized that before; however, we want to get as
creative as we can, both on the cost side and the financing. So if I
talk about bonding the gas tax, am I talking about possibility of ad
valorem property tax increase in the future? Yes, if there's not some
other avenue or source of money.
So when we consider these, we will tell you what they'll
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November 30, 2001
generate. We'll also try to tell you what the implications are beyond
just the immediate time frame for the future, because we should be
looking at that when we decide what we're going to do.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. Here's my
Christmas list, is --
MR. FEDER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- bond the gas tax, bond the
remainder in sales tax. And I challenge you, Tom Olliff, to find the
funds to replace those in that -- in that sixth year. And I think with
the help from our constitutional officers and the creative staff that
you have, I think we could get as close as we can so we do not have
to raise the millage rate. So that's the challenge I'm throwing out to
you, and I want you to do your best.
MR. FEDER: And we have that duly noted, and I'm sure we
will, sir. But I'll also tell you, we're going to look at some other
funds.
MR. OLLIFF: It's a heck of a Christmas list.
MR. FEDER: Yes.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sounded to me like you got coal in
your sock.
MR. FEDER: I'll tell you what. When we come back with all
of these and try to look at the combination, there's a lot of coal out
there. Okay. So -- but anyways, general fund. One of the issues is,
obviously, increases. That's been raised. A lot of concerns about that
and desire to avoid it, I'm aware. I'm going to tell you, it's on the
table. I'm not sure it's going to be a preference item, but it's in the
mix.
Reductions. What we've done to reduce applying that, one
thought is, if you bonded, let's say, a portion of the gas tax, you take
some of that reduction and commit it out to transportation in the
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November 30, 2001
future to make up that lost revenue stream so you didn't mortgage the
future, an option -- options to be considered, and I think one that
nobody seems to sign on.
Pledging future assessed value increases. In this county we've
had, obviously, a growth over time. Our assessed values have gone
up. We can try and look at that and see how we can apply that and
how we can be creative. And I had somebody shaking their head
"no" before is shaking "yes," and they brought it to us, so ...
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think that's very creative, and if we
can go back in time and look at that -- I want to look at everything.
I've not made a decision, ladies and gentlemen. I want to know
everything. I think every citizen needs to look at everything.
MR. FEDER: I agree, Commissioner. Impact fees, increasing
impact fees, obviously, there's going to be a lot of demand and desire
for us to look at that. Please know that we are. We're going to try and
figure out in what we've told you in revenue stream if we can
guesstimate, but obviously, we have to go through that process.
We're doing the study right now. We are going to increase impact
fees. If we can try to look at it and see if we can comfortably tell
you. But I assure you, when we leave this, I want to make sure that
those revenue streams are valid. We tell people we solved the
problem. We're going to have solved the problem. So I will look at
that. I can't just all of a sudden establish an impact fee and put it in,
and we can't go back to the past. We've already had that discussion.
But we can look at impact fees and evaluate whether or not the
assumed stream over that period of time makes sense and evaluate
with that again.
The other one is MSTUs shifting some of these activities, some
of the operations or maintenance maybe over to benefit districts. I
think the commissioner brought up the issue of, like, core services,
anything above and beyond. Maybe as MSTUs -- I'm getting pretty
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November 30, 2001
far afield here, but I was trying to make sure I covered the full
waterfront. Is there anything we haven't covered? Anything you
heard there that you don't even want to see me coming back to you
with?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: The bed tax that Jim was --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, that -- that possibility this
year and a very good possibility the following year, that 1 percent,
but you can't put something in the equation that we don't have.
MR. FEDER: No. It has to be something that you can legally
work with, and until the law changes, that's not a legal funding source
now. Should it happen, should it become revenue stream, then
whatever you decided, you could utilize that stream and modify it in
the future.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That would -- you know, that changes
the whole equation of everything we're doing today, but until it
happens you can't -- or if it happens.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: All the more reason to try to
get the public behind us to help us pull this off.
MR. FEDER: Well, that, of course, and everything we're trying
to do -- excuse me, I'm losing my voice -- to bring other revenues in
the area. We've been pretty successful. We're going to continue
trying to do that. We're not going to pull back on trying to get our
dollar back in Collier County.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I guess a couple other things that are
in the legislature somewhere was real estate transfer fees. That's still
alive. They were also looking at--
MR. FEDER: -- partial year assessments.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I mean, all of these are alive
somewhere in the system. We have no idea what will happen.
MR. FEDER: This session with reapportionment, with the
shortfalls they're dealing with, I will tell you, I'm extremely excited
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November 30, 2001
about what we got in there logging, but I will also tell you, I wouldn't
hold my breath.
MR. OLLIFF: It's not going to -- for this particular AUIR, we're
certainly not going to make a difference because we've got to submit
-- we've got to submit well before that, and like Norman says, it has
to be a current legal source of revenue, but there are certainly some
possibilities for future years.
Mr. Chairman, we've talked Norman's voice completely out, and
-- and we do have a couple of registered speakers on transportation.
And then for the balance of-- of your time -- and we are committed
to try and get you out of here at five o'clock today. It is Friday. We
would like to at least cover water and wastewater on AUIR side so
that you can at least get a brief of that prior to your November -- or
December 11 th meeting.
Jim, if we could go ahead and go to the public speakers because
I think they are on transportation.
MR. MUDD: You have two public speakers. The first one is
Ty Agoston followed by Sally Barker.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Is Sally still here?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You're not wearing your suit
jacket.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let's let him do his five minutes.
MR. AGOSTON: Well, I don't own one that fits me, I should
say. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ty Agoston. I -- I'm a
resident of Golden Gate Estates. I'm also the co-president of
Taxpayers Action Group, and I am here speaking for them.
A couple of nights ago your chairman for indigent care
mentioned that he was a compassionate Republican. (Buzzer sounds.)
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
MR. AGOSTON: It's that fast, huh? My time went that fast.
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November 30, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We really appreciated your
presentation.
MR. OLLIFF: Next.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Next speaker. No.
MR. AGOSTON: Oh, well. At any rate, as I was listening to
the gentleman, I came to the conclusion that he was a compassionate
Republican with other people's money. I am a compassionate
Republican for the taxpayer. And I would like to get you enthusiastic
with a compassion to them. You know, we have not done anything
with indigent care. We're still holding onto 700,000, not to mention
the fact that we're holding the door open to --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- sir, would you stay with the subject?
MR. AGOSTON: Bear with me, sir. I will get to it.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I'd like you to speak on
transportation. I think we'd all really appreciate your -- your inputs
and your opinions on indigent health care, but I'd really like to know
what you have to tell me on transportation.
MR. AGOSTON: What we are talking here, sir, are taxes. You
have -- you wouldn't have this hearing if you had sufficient money.
Now, if you want me to write down what I should say, I'll be more
than happy to.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: No, sir.
MR. AGOSTON: Other than that, please allow me to use my
own intelligence to tell you what I want to tell you rather than you
interrupting, trying to lose the train of my thought. I mean, that's not
necessary, sir.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: No. I just want to know your
solutions and ideas on transportation, sir. I really want those.
MR. AGOSTON: Well, our club have researched (inaudible)
Oliver Consultants report back ten years ago. The county web site
for the Clerk of Court has detailed reports by meetings. And if you
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November 30, 2001
read the minutes of those meetings, it's pretty much the same stow
that was said ten years ago as it is being said today. We don't have
sufficient roads. The roads are overcrowded. We don't have enough
money. And, no, the impact fees are too high now, and if we are
going to raise it, we will hurt the first-time buyer. I mean, there's a
million other reasons why you can't raise the impact fees. But be as it
may, that is not really the focus of my comment.
The focus of my comment is that even today, when we know
that you have a difficult time financially to support what is needed, I
don't see the staff giving you a presentation that, well, yeah, we can
go to a Cadillac level or, no, we can just simply lay two strips of
asphalt, whether it's temporary or whether it's long term. Hey, some
of the roads -- Immokalee Road you would consider temporary
because all that is is a strip of asphalt. So for you to put another strip
of asphalt alongside of it is very, very cheap, but it will solve and
possibly save a life. And I don't -- I probably shouldn't say this
because I certainly don't want to sound ethnic, but it might save a
Mexican's life, and that goes from the altars they get built. Those
people die on Immokalee Road.
(Commissioner Henning leaves meeting.)
MR. AGOSTON: So what I'm saying, there has to be a number
of methods presented to you on a parallel basis. And we have heard
all about the Cadillac format. Everybody knows in this county how
to spend big money. That's not a problem. How do you spend small
dollars?
I believe that the answer on the sales-tax issue where it was
defeated 71 percent had to mean something to you, and it was not just
the sales tax. I believe that the answer was overall a kind of a
warning that, Hey, guys, stay within the amount of money you have
available, and don't spend it on frivolous items.
Now, of course, frivolous spending depends on whose side
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November 30, 2001
you're on. You know, you could talk about staffing. Maybe you
should go back staffing to last year's level. Maybe you should go
back salary levels of last year's level. But, again, you know, I'm
standing here. There are many options that should be considered, and
they are not being considered. And I believe -- and we have pleaded
with you before to examine that budget, but examine it item by item.
Don't just come up with isolated areas. Look at it line by line,
because you have increased your spending from last year to this year
by some $60 million. And I'm talking about the county portion, not
the school-budget portion. Where is it? You have to go back to it.
You know, the -- the floating ideas that you're going to put a
building moratorium is disingenuous. You know damn well that you
are not going to do that. I mean, those people from Golden Gate City
and from your area, Mr. Coletta, would be coming down here and
they wouldn't be very friendly visitors. So, I mean, let's be honest
here. We're not going to do that.
On the flip side of that, I mentioned to you once that the city I
come from, let alone that they required you to put in the sidewalk,
they also required to remove the snow off that sidewalk. I don't see
why not you requiring the developers for the infrastructure, they own
the property to the center of the road.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We do require them too.
MR. AGOSTON: Let them put it in. Why you put it in?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We require them to put it in,
the sidewalks.
MR. AGOSTON: I don't see it.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We do.
MR. AGOSTON: You know, be as it may. How about the
road? I mean -- you know, as far as I am concerned, you know, New
York City, you put everything in but that's --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But the taxes are higher in New
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November 30, 2001
York City.
MR. AGOSTON: I'm sorry?
COMMISSIONERS FIALA: But the taxes are really high in
New York City too; right?
MR. AGOSTON: Well, I don't know about New York State. A
very myopic area, New York City. But I believe that you
approaching this entire problem very lightly, very similarly to how
the people approached it ten years ago, and ten years ago it was an
emergency. Well, it's still an emergency, and I don't see the urgency
on anyone's part except the people who are waiting in line or on the
people who are essentially dying on the road.
So I would wish, again, for you to go back to square one,
examine your budget. And I don't believe that you really want to
threaten people with an increased ad valorem tax. I don't believe that
you would survive that politically. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Norm, I don't mean to jump in
front, but would you address the lane of asphalt down just to make
two more lanes.
MR. FEDER: We have a number of requirements. First of all, if
I go to add lanes, of course, I have to get permitting. I have to
address drainage issues. I typically have to have the right-of-way. I
still have to design it. There are costs. Again, that was back to that
curb issue. But there are things which you asked us to look at today,
possibly pulling out the sidewalks, the bike lanes, and see what the
savings would be. So I think, in a way, we're responding, but there is
not the
-- just the ability to say from here to here, just put down another 5
feet of asphalt and call it a lane and let's go.
(Commissioner Henning returns to meeting.)
MR. FEDER: And I think, hopefully, what we did today -- and
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November 30, 2001
if I didn't, I apologize -- was present to you that there is not an easy
solution, that we need to address it both from policy, product, and
funding scenarios, and I think it's very clear that it's not going to be
an easy choice, and we recognize that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Feder.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Is Ms. Barker still here? I don't see
her in the room. Okay. That's all the public speakers, sir.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, we'd just like to take the balance
of the afternoon to run through water and wastewater, if we could.
MR. LITSINGER: Stan Litsinger, again, Commissioners. Tom,
if you will go to slide 38. I assume the road portion is continued to a
date certain.
MR. OLLIFF: We'll end up continuing the entire hearing.
MR. LITSINGER: I'll start the presentation potable water and
potable sewer by telling you that generally the presentation I'm going
to give you today shows you that we have, for the most part -- for the
whole part, in fact, got the water and sewer situation under control.
We are not identifying any deficiencies either long term or in the
short term, other than a technical difficulty in one specific area which
Mr. Mudd, I'm sure, will address.
Revenues are in place. Impact fees are being adjusted. The
revenue sources do not need any more attention other than you're
currently in the process of doing.
As we look here at the chart on the screen we have up here, what
we have demonstrated graphically is your potable water capacity
versus your population demand over the planning time frame. And
what it shows you here as a result of the planned additions being
shown at the date they come on line, that we appear to have a pretty
good situation relative to potable water treatment capacity as we go
into the future.
Now, a point that I want to make on this, which is where we
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November 30, 2001
have made a change to be more -- err on the side of conservative side
is the fact that in previous years, we used to show plant capacity as
being available at the time it was contracted, which is some months
before it actually is on line. Tom, if you would put up slide 40.
Now, this shows you it looks like if we demonstrate that our
plant capacity comes on line at the date of contract, someone would
have to ask you the question, why are we building so much capacity?
What we're demonstrating here is -- is that in previous years you
would have seen the presentation of a capacity being available at the
time that it came on line. And when we get to sewer, you'll see how
in previous years this -- if we had had a new methodology, we would
have not possibly dealt with the situation we had to deal with last
winter.
MR. MUDD:
County Manager.
Stan, if I could interrupt. Jim Mudd, Deputy
One of the things that Ex-commissioner Mac'Kie
scratched her head about when she sat up on the dais was, how come
in previous years when we got the AUIR we didn't see this? Okay.
And what Stan's trying to show you is why you didn't see it in
previous years.
MR. OLLIFF: And I also have to take a moment just to point
out this format. This format is something that's never been used
before with AUIR updates and Stan and -- I think most of the
operating departments that have an element in the comp plan deserve
some credit for putting together some something simple to see graphs
for the first time. All of this stuff used to be on little bitty
spreadsheets with lots of numbers that were really difficult to make
any sense out of, and I think they've tried to take it and turn it into
picture format which are very, very easy to be able to see and be able
to understand and then quickly grasp where we are in terms of the
population and our need to service people.
MR. MUDD: What the previous slide did give you -- Jim
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November 30, 2001
Mudd, again. What the previous slide did give you -- if we can go
back to 38. What it did show you is that the 8 million-gallon reverse-
osmosis addition at the south -- at the south plant needs to come on
line on time or we run ourselves into a problem as far as water supply
is concerned, and that's basically that bottom -- the bottom part as it
touches the green line before that 8 million-gallon comes on line.
You're within 300,000 gallons of water to the good at that particular
juncture, and it's a little too close to call. Don't ever want to be there
again.
MR. LITSINGER: That concludes the potable water portion of
this, and I would ask that the board simply give us a motion and a
vote to include the identified projects and the financial feasible CIE
with the identified revenues and impact fees that are currently in
place for potable water systems.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So moved.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Second.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I have a motion by Commissioner
Henning. I have a second by Commissioner Coletta. All in favor
signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Opposed by the same sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Motion carries. Thank you.
MR. LITSINGER: Moving on to page 41 in your report. And,
Tom, if you would put up slide 43. Here we're showing the north
county plant which we are so familiar with. Here again, I will point
out that based on actions in the past year expediting construction and
adding new capacity and also the fact that we are in the process of
looking at our impact fee structure and our revenue stream that we
have on line from the AUIR standpoint and concurrency, we are not
predicting any concurrency issues either revenue or capacity-wise
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November 30, 2001
during the planning time frame.
Here again, if you're interested, I also have the demonstration of
the old way of doing things on slide 45.
MR. MUDD: If you could keep it there for just a second. Can
you go back to 43? Let's talk about how tight we are. Let's talk
about the first increment as it goes to FY '01. Had we been using
those in previous years, you would have known that we were going to
have a problem in the spring of this year with the plant, and it would
have jumped right out of the piece of paper. I will tell you, on the
north side, as you go to the next increment of five before you bring
your next increment on -- go up to the next -- go out to the right,
please. When you look right there, when you get out around FY '04,
you're going to need some -- probably some additions, and by that
time the south increment will be on. So the two of them together
with interconnects will work hand in hand to make up for the
shortages.
And when we get to the south plant, Commissioner Fiala, you'll
see where the north plant having that bow up there with the first
increment of five is going to be able to help the south area out once
the interconnects are in. Stan.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: In reality, if we had an overlay
showing both, you would get the balance to see how the two plants
are working in sync. We will not be in trouble again, is what I'm
understanding.
MR. OLLIFF: You won't, but you need to keep in mind how --
how important it is that every capital project on this plan go well and
it get done on time and that the whole system works together when
we're finished with this, and there's just -- there's not a lot of room to
play in this -- in this capital improvement plan.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm leaving it up to professional
management to make sure that whoever's here will not be caught in
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November 30, 2001
that bad position.
MR. LITSINGER: Tom, slide 45. Here, just a quick reminder
of-- the old way of doing things tended to leave us with the situation
where we didn't know we had a problem until we were standing in it.
So moving on to the south county plant, Tom, if you would put
up slide 48. Okay. Here we're showing the increased capacity at the
south county plant, and it's coming on line in -- MR. MUDD: 2003.
MR. LITSINGER: Correct. Thank you. And what we're
showing here is what we would call a logistical temporary deficiency.
This is not a concurrency deficiency due to the rules, and as a result
of the interconnection of the two plants, the capacities will be melted
together in order to eliminate any operational deficiency that might
actually occur for that short period of time.
One other note that I'd like to make here is, you see at the top, it
says, 100 gallons per day per capita proposed. We're proposing to
amend the level of service standard from 121 gallons per day to 100
gallons per day -- excuse me -- 100 gallons per day per customer to
reflect the actual flows that we're experiencing, and we would ask
your direction to also go forward with that amendment on the south
plant.
Here again, I have the demonstration of the effect that -- very
quickly -- not to take up your time this lately. Slide 50 would be
somewhat misleading if we use the old methodology of showing
plant capacity as being available on the day that the contract was
awarded, which we have gotten away from that methodology as we
will demonstrate on the continuation of this meeting on the other
facilities also. We're trying to be more in tune with when the -- even
though from a concurrency standpoint it's available when it goes
under contract. That doesn't help you, if you don't have operating
capacity. So--
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November 30, 2001
MR. OLLIFF: Gentlemen, I want to make sure you understand
what this slide is that he's pointing out. This is the -- this is a legal
way of looking at concurrency, and if you remember, the last slide
showed you -- us dipping down below the line and us experiencing a
portion of the period in red. This is legally meeting concurrency, and
you can see, this is the way we used to do it, and this is why you
would never have seen that there was a problem coming because
there is no red on this slide. There is never a period when we are
below the level-of-service standard because technically on paper
we're not. But out there in the field using that slide, you would never
have seen that period of red coming, and the board would have been
blind sided by that again.
So what we're telling you is, we're trying to -- especially on the
utilities side -- show you actual concurrency plant capacity, what's
available, what's on line. That's what we're using for concurrency
definitions for you.
MR. LITSINGER: There's also one other important change,
Tom, if I may point that out. We are now doing all our projection of
need for utilities based on peak population, peak population of the
service area. And there's no need to go into the extended discussion
that we had the other day as to the types of problem that that caused
for us in the past. So we're also amending the comp plan to reflect
the peak population as the standard on which we plan the facilities in
this particular area.
All right. And, here again, on water and sewer we would merely
ask the board to direct us to include the identified projects in the
upcoming CIE amendment with the identified revenues, and that
would conclude this portion on utilities if there are no further
questions.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Question.
MR. LITSINGER: Yes, sir.
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November 30, 2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: What do you mean 100 gallons
per day? Is that what you figure that's what the average person is
using or adjusting?
MR. LITSINGER: It's a float.
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. What we showed you in the master plan
a couple days ago and a consultant was sitting up there talking about
it. He was saying on the north side we're getting 145 gallons per
person per day going through the sewer system. Down on the south
end, because we don't have the businesses and we don't have the
restaurants and we don't have the high-rises that are there, we're only
seeing about 100 gallons a day that are going to the south plant.
I will say that the BOD, the concentrated liquid that we get on
the south side is higher as far as BOD content is concerned. So the
organics are a lot higher on the south side, but we're only seeing 100
gallons. So the plant, as we designed it on the south side, can take a
higher BOD. We're designing it that way so that it -- so that we won't
have a problem with the sludge settling out. And on the north end,
we're going with the average plant, because we're getting an average
type organic load to that float.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that's all due to what you
believe is business?
MR. MUDD: Businesses and high-rises and-- yes, sir-- versus
the residences. There's a lot more people just in residences, single-
family homes, two-story condos, that kind of business -- or kind of
resident down in the south side versus the north end. Those high-rises
have a lot of air-conditioning that have condensate that goes into the
sewer system that has a tendency to dilute some of that organic load.
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
an ordinance change, doesn't it?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Why?
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
Interesting. This sounds like
Why would you want
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November 30, 2001
condensation to go into the sewer?
MR. MUDD: We're looking at that process. As we look at the
evaporation from the water that goes into their air-handling systems,
we're also taking a look at the condensate that's going to the sewer
system.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Motion to approve the
recommendations by staff.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I have a motion by Commissioner
Henning, a second by Commissioner Fiala. All in favor signify by
saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All opposed by the same sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Motion carries.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, unless you want to try and tackle
any of the other elements -- and we certainly can-- our
recommendation would be that you continue this special meeting.
And as much as I hate to do it, I would cannibalize your workshop
date of December 18th -- it was set aside for information technology -
- and continue this hearing to that date, and we can cover the balance
of the elements on that day.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And also we'll be coming back and by
that time making some decisions on the transportation presentation
that was made to us today.
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. If the board is in favor of
that, this meeting stands adjourned or continued? MR. MUDD: Continued, sir.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Meeting stands only to be continued to
December the 18th. Continued to December 18th. Note that as a
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November 30, 2001
correction on tape and in the minutes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was continued to December 18, 2001 by order of the Chair at
4:55 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
ATteST: '' .-
DW~HT E. ~BROCK, CLERK
Theseminutes approved by the Board on
,as
presented
or as corrected
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN
COURT REPORTING, INC., CAROLYN J. FORD
Page 79