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BCC Minutes 01/15/2002 TH (District 5)January 15, 2002 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE IMMOKALEE TOWN HALL WORKSHOP OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, NAPLES, FLORIDA, JANUARY 15, 2002 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 have conducted business herein, met on this date at 7:00 p.m. in WORKSHOP SESSION in IMMOKALEE MIDDLE SCHOOL of Immokalee, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: VICE CHAIRMAN: JIM COLETTA TOM HENNING DONNA FIALA FRED COYLE ALSO PRESENT: TOM OLLIFF, County Manager JIM MUDD, Administrator TIM WIDES, Acting Public Utilities Administrator JOSEPH SCHMIDT, Community Development Administrator Page 1 January 15, 2002 NORMAN FEDER, Transportation Administrator JOHN DUNNUCK, Public Services Administrator THOMAS STORRAR, Emergency Services Administrator Page 2 TOWN HALL MEETING AGENDA TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2002 7:00 - 9:00 P.M. IMMOKALEE MIDDLE SCHOOL HOSTED BY: JAMES N. COLETTA, DISTRICT 5 BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS CHAIRMAN · Immokalee Road - Present and Future Construction Plans · Private Roads in Mobile Home Parks · Update on the Mural Project · Immokalee Beautification Immokalee Airport o Incubator Phase II o Sienna Marble · Lake Trafford Restoration · Immokalee Initiative · Update on the Final Order- Rural Fringe and Rural Lands Process and Public Hearings Schedule January 15, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Ladies and gentlemen, would you take your seats, please. We are going to begin. I'm very pleased -- if you have picked up an agenda, great. If you haven't, there's some over there on the table coming through the door. What you are going to see is a number of items that we are going to try and cover in the impossible time of two hours. So what you are going to be seeing is the sampling of what we are all about from the County Commissioner's end. The county is going to get a little bit of sampling of about what Immokalee is about. So if we seem to be moving the agenda forward, a lot of these items we'll bring back the interest that is there on a one-to-one basis. In other words, if any one particular issue is something that the public would like to hear more about, we'll hold a meeting on that particular issue, either separate or some other group. So bear with us as we move through the schedule. We are going to save public comments to the end of the meeting. And with that, I would like to introduce the commissioners that are here. Donna Fiala to my right, your left. Fred Coyle and Tom Henning. Jim Carter sends his regrets. He had a scheduling conflict and was unable to make it. And with that, we are able to go right onto the first item, one that's very important to everyone in Immokalee, and that's the Naples/Immokalee Road. Norm Feder, are you here? Would you please make the presentation. MR. FEDER: First of all, I appreciate being out here. I'm Norman Feder. I'm transportation administrator, and I am very pleased to tell you a very significant part rests on you, on the way we plan for Immokalee Road. First of all, as you know, the section is under construction today. The Naples to Immokalee, Immokalee to Naples Road, basically 1-75 out to County Line Road 951, that work Page 3 January 15, 2002 is nearing completion. While they have a little bit more time left on their contract, the contractor feels he will be out of there the first week of February. That along with the next phase, which would be the section -- the four lanes between Wilson and 43rd as a project to be left over later this year to be followed by 951 out to Wilson, four lanes next fiscal year. We will be also moving on the six-lane of the section from 41 to 1-75 of widening the 1-75 ramps. So, effectively, we'll have under construction by the next year and a half everything from 41 on out to 43rd. Your commissioner has placed a very, very high importance on Immokalee to Naples Road project and, in particular, we've been able to work with the Florida Department of Transportation on that remaining section between 43rd and State Road 29. They have added in the fifth year of their program, which started in 2007, their first page, which is the corridor studies basically looking at alignment, environmental issues, and the like. That project developed a PD&E delegated for 2007. Your board has taken action to advance that into the next fiscal year, and we'll get paid back out into 2007. As well the five-year work program concludes out in 2004 the design for that segment of roadway, again, anticipating that the state will put it in their budget, and we'll be able to advance into 2004. Under that same schedule, construction about 2008, that's a ways out folks, but we are probably talking to the tune for right away, of construction about $70 million, and that's why we want that portion in particular to follow the federal process, therefore making it eligible for funds from the state or to try to go out of new federal legislation to keep all of our options open. The projects I mentioned just from 41 out to 43rd represent about $37 million which represents about 20 percent of the county's five-year and major capacity improvement program. So there's a very, very strong commitment. I Page 4 January 15, 2002 know this is a project that many of you have wanted for years. The good news is the work is underway. The bad news is it does take some time, but we are definitely committed to the needs to develop a multi-lane facility from Immokalee to Naples. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much, Mr. Feder. I want to make one comment. When I originally had started as a commissioner, I asked to see the Immokalee Road Plan, and when it was presented I took a look in the upper comer, and it was for the year 2020. So we've made some progress. And, hopefully, with support of this community, we'll move it forward and gain a year or two here and there as we find the advantages we can take. I personally am involved in the MPO, not only at the local level, but at the state level to try and guarantee that our progress on this road and the funding will be in place. And what I'm going to do now is move on to the next issue. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is this a time where commissioners can ask questions? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Feder, we've set up a game plan for the two funds and what kind of funding we're going to be asking for? MR. FEDER: Yes, we have. First of all, the question is on the federal funding process, we have. As I mentioned that project development environmental study tier looking for that design in subsequent phasing but, of course, it is due to come out for reapportionment actually about every six months, because they always wait a year after its expiration. We will authorize it, but with that new bill coming up, we are going to see if we can get some specific money out of that earmarked to that federal bill, and as well, we are trying to work on the state relative to State Road 29 inclusion of the highway, and both of those we are looking Page 5 January 15, 2002 strongly to federal funds to help augment our funds to get it done faster. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I think it's going to take a lot of support from the commissioners. I'm actually going to Washington D.C. myself. I plan on doing that, bring those funds back for transportation for all of Collier County. I know how it's important for all the working people here in Immokalee. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And I'll be up in Tallahassee next Wednesday and Thursday lobbying on the state level, so we are working at this from numerous sources. Is there any other questions for Mr. F eder? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We are going to move onto Ed Kant who has two subjects, and I may want to make a correction. Private roads in mobile home parks isn't the right definition by the Immokalee Initiative is that they put on new roads that are solid and pervious. What we are talking about is private roads that have fallen way beyond acceptable levels for the fire department. And what I want to do is get in discussion of some different alternatives and ideas that we want to explore, and believe me, this has to be an initiative that starts at the grass roots level. The commission itself isn't going to force anything down your throats. This is something, and this is a suggestion that we are going to present. I see a hand up, but I'm going to ask you -- all comments are going to be for the end of the meeting because of the short duration we have to work with this subject matter. Mr. Kant. MR. KANT: Good evening. I'm the transportation operations director. We are responsible for the operations and maintenance. There will be another department of transportation engineering which actually does the big jobs; for example, the four laning. We have a transportation planning Page 6 January 15, 2002 department which tries to take the long view look ahead in the future, and we also have our stormwater. We work very closely because the road and stormwater are closely integrated. The issue of the roads, the private roads, I think -- first of all, I need to give you a little information about what's private road versus what's public. A lot of you-- and I know I talked with a number of people. And the folks that weren't able to be here, you look at your deed, and it says you own a piece of land with a certain legal description less 30 feet for a roadway. That doesn't mean that's public roadway. That doesn't mean that roadway exists. That merely means whoever started that chain of title through that deeding process tried to set aside a strip of land for a roadway. In many of these deeds, especially if there's been no dedication to anybody, whoever started that may still own that land. We found situations that -- and Commissioner, you may remember the rock road situation where this has gone back through three or four changes in title where somebody owns the land that somebody before them and before them owned, and all of a sudden they have title problems because there is no legal road and no legal access. So before we can talk about how to get your road paved, we have to look at who has the legal access. owner? Has that land ever been dedicated? Who is the underlying fee So we have a lot of questions we have to ask before we can do anything else except determine what can or can't be done on that particular strip of roadway. We have a new situation which is somewhat unique to Immokalee. In Collier I haven't run across them where somebody has taken a piece of land and they have chopped it into an acre-and- less parcel, and they have given people access rights over all the Page 7 January 15, 2002 other parcels, and over time a road has occurred as homes are put in, but that's it. It's nothing more than a trail or a dirt road. And I've had a number of conversations with Mr. Rogers, Leo Rogers, about what the problems are that this creates. Because legally the county can't go in legally. There is no other entity that can go in and do any work because that's owned by private property owners. So that's the framework that we have to deal with. When I was up earlier today -- I came up earlier, and I've been driving around for several hours checking on things and looking at things. And one of the things that I noticed is on the end of Carson Road at the west end on the north side of the road in the Thomas Mobile Home Park, somebody's put a new road in there, and it's a beautiful road. I believe that Thomas is a rental park rather than a ownership park, so I assume that the owner tried to bring that up to a better standard, up to code, because our minimum standards in the county changed, and the minimum standards apply to Immokalee too. That's a start. That's the type of thing that can be done on an owner's initiative. If you happen to live in an area where you may own a small piece of property, you have a half dozen or more neighbors on that street, there's nothing at all to stop you from banding together, hiring someone independent contractor to come in, fill the holes, get it leveled out, try to create a ditching system, hopefully find a place for the water to go and not into somebody's backyard, and pave that street on your own. There's nothing to stop you if you all are property owners. It's a little tougher if you're a renter because then you have to get whoever the owner of that property is to participate. So you have a lot of hurdles there. You can also approach the county. We've had in the past a couple of places, and specifically, I'm thinking of Fially Avenue where people collected some money and said, "Look, we don't know Page 8 January 15, 2002 how to deal with contractors; you do." We went to the Board of County Commissioners, we asked permission -- or they gave us permission, and they've got a nice paved road. That's a public road. That always was a public road. It simply went from lime rock to paving. You have a different situation here where you have private roads. And this is what usually gets people's attention when they come to me and say, How can I get my road paved? I have a deed that says 30 feet is reserved for roadway. My neighbor has a deed that says 30 feet is reserved for roadway." Well, that's 60 feet that meets the county standards. Well, first of all, you and your neighbors get together, you donate that land as your contribution because we have to have the right-of-way for that road free and clear. And some people say, okay, I'm not using it -- but it's amazing, we find a number of people say, "I don't want to give it to you. You are going to have to buy it from me." But what happens if the neighborhood or homeowners are not willing to donate that roadway? It creates an impediment if we get nine people and one holds out; it can kill the whole thing. The other thing you can do is, you can petition the Board of County Commissioners to form a municipal services benefit. That's a long name for a very simple way to get a piece of work done, but it cost a lot more, and the reason it costs more is because when the county steps in and there are financing costs, there are staff costs, there are administrative costs, those are all added into the project. I've kind of given you a lot of information in a short period of time. It's very difficult to digest this, especially if you are not really sure what the status of the land is underneath your home; whether it's owned, rented, leased, what the rights of access are. There's a lot of questions; a lot of issues. A lot of these things are legal issues which as an engineer I can certainly have an opinion on, but I'm not Page 9 January 15, 2002 qualified to give anybody any advice on, and you need to as a group, if you have a group of homeowners, try to get the best legal advice as far as the ownership issues. I know we were talking earlier this evening, the fact that this may be the biggest obstacle to overcome, getting people to work as a group. That's why I would echo Commissioner Coletta's request that it has to be a grass roots movement. I cannot do that; it's not legal. So having said that, that's about all the information I can give you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Would you expound upon MSTU and how it works. MR. KANT: Municipal Services Taxing District is MSTU. It is a defined area and in a defined area -- it could be something as small as a single street with a dozen or more lots. It could be an entire section of land, hundreds of acres. We have both kinds in Collier County currently operating. When that entity is formed, it's a mechanism for taxing, because the taxes that are raised by the people that live in that area are used for the sole purpose for which that MSTU was created. So if you create an MSTU for road improvement and you get an estimate of cost of so many dollars to put that road in and we look at it and we say, in order to make this equitable, we are going to come up with an assessment method, very much like the tax collector does for property taxes, to see what it would cost to fund this improvement and only this improvement. Because once this improvement is in place and the road is turned over to the county, then the county takes over and the costs go into the general maintenance taxes, but the improvement is what is going to be paid for by the benefitting property owners on either side of that street. Once we get that cost, we can come back to you and say, okay, we've got several different financing methods. Some people want to pay it and be done with it. Some people can't afford that, and they Page 10 January 15, 2002 may have the option of paying it over 7 years, or 14 years, or 20 years, and that goes into the mix of how we present it to you. It has to be done through a series of public meetings -- not public meetings, public hearings, excuse me. As Commissioner Coletta pointed out, we are not going to force that on anybody. It's not our job to tell you what you have to do or not do in your own home. On the other hand, this mechanism does exist to allow you to get the improvement you need. It's not a lot different from when the sewer improvements went in or streetlighting improvements go in. All of these improvements have to be paid by the benefiting property owners. Does that help, Commissioner? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That helps a lot. Is there any questions? Don't go away, Mr. Kant. First, I would like to direct your attention that if you have an interest in that MSTU, you can definitely work through my office, but I think it would be beneficial if you work with Leo Rogers or Benny Starling from the Chamber of Commerce to express an interest in it. We can bring it back to you as a more complete format in the future, but once again, it's going to be a citizens' initiative, the grass roots. We'll help, but just let us know you are interested in this particular venture. Would you care to go into the Immokalee beautification? That will take care of your end of the program. MR. KANT: Without spending a lot of time, I'd invite you down to Main Street and see what they have accomplished in the last five years. And I see some old friends who have been here for many, many years, and they were here when there was nothing out there, and now we have some improvements that we can be very proud of. Unfortunately, one of the planters took a hit over the holidays, and we are in the process of getting that repaired. We have spent Page 11 January 15, 2002 altogether thus far just on the beautification efforts close to a half million dollars. We have received some grants from the Florida Department of Transportation, what they call enhancement grants. We have two other grants that we have just received notification we'll be getting this year. We'll be getting $196,000 to do the next phase of the project which will be from the design and construction, and I have to find it here -- I've lost my track design and construction from the phase of State Road 29 east towards the airport. And then we also have two other grants that are going to be in what are called the out years. And fiscal year '04 we have another $100,000 earmarked, and fiscal year '05 we have another $200. And the Immokalee Advisory Committee -- that's the beauty of this particular MSTU. In fact, any of the MSTUs or MSBUs that we set up, they all have an advisory of local citizens, and it's those people that determine how much do we want to spend, how much do we need to spend. It's not me or my staff telling you what you have to do. We are just a conduit to get that information and get that work back out to you. So we have a total of two, three, four -- almost another half million dollars that we are going to invest in downtown Immokalee. And it's just not all in plants. There's some lighting, street furniture. I think that's the landscape architect for benches and stuff, so we have some exciting work ahead of us, and I think you are going to see more improvements as we move forward over the next three to five years. Is there anything else I can answer? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No, I think you did a wonderful job. Any questions on behalf of the commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Kant. We are going to go onto the update on the mural project. I'm not Page 12 January 15, 2002 too sure who that is. MS. FOORD: Marlene Foord. I'm a principal in the county planning, and I'm going to follow up on some stuff that Ed Kant just told you about something that he mentioned. He wanted to make sure you all knew that we are applying for a second community development block grant for additional streetlights in Immokalee, and we'll probably have about 45 new streetlights if this grant is successful. Those are going within the Weed and Seed boundary, if you're familiar with the Weed and Seed project. Hopefully, we'll find out in the next couple of months if that grant will be successful, and the lights will start being put in sometime in the summer and fall of this year, if successful. My purpose is to update you on the Immokalee mural, and you can see the nice board that is not cooperating. This is a project that has been a long time in the works, and I am here on behalf of the Mural Society as the redevelopment planner for Immokalee to tell you a little bit about what they have been doing. So far the society formed recently out of the efforts of the Immokalee Alliance which is focusing on clean-up efforts in Immokalee. The Immokalee Alliance felt one way of instilling some community pride and cleaning up the environment would be to pursue this Immokalee mural project, and we recently went to Lake Placid and got to see the murals and brought the idea back home to see if we could implement here some of the things that were successful in Lake Placid. You can see some of the Lake Placid murals. So far they have 34 murals, and they started in 1933. They're about to finish their 33 and 34th mural. They have artists coming from all over the country, but primarily Lake Placid. We are pretty fortunate that we have several local artists that are interested in doing murals. One Wayne Chamber, Immokalee High School graduate and art Page 13 January 15, 2002 teacher. He offered to do our first mural. He already started doing sketches, and we have the potential donor. We just need a potential wall. We have 60 walls that we've identified that might be good for murals. We just need to communicate with the property owners, and hopefully some people will come forward to provide their wall. The financial and the structural component of this is the Immokalee Chamber of Commerce. Benny Starling is here if you have any questions of him. The Chamber of Commerce will provide the financial structure so the Mural Society can receive donations and apply for grants. This is intended to be privately funded. Unless there's a grant through the county, we hope we can get the first mural started fairly shortly. Wayne is interested in getting going. He has started doing the sketches, and I believe he will be doing them on the "Roberts Family and the Cattle Drive." We have a whole series of themes that we have given to him as ideas, and that's one that we think the donor of the funds is most interested in having done. Some of the themes include the Immokalee Culture and Diversity, Seminole Indians, the Annual Thanksgiving Dinner, Lake Trafford Phases of History, such as the "Pepper Family" and the "Roberts Family." So there are a lot of different themes, and we are looking to see if you have any additional themes that you think are important to depict. We hope we can have the first mural started and maybe completed by Cinco De Mayo. If you have any interest in participating in the program, the next meeting is at the Guadelupe office at Champ's (phonetic) Plaza, and you're all welcome to attend if you have any questions. I will be here afterwards, as will Benny. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have two questions. The first one is, what are the Weed and Seed boundaries? You mentioned them, Page 14 January 15, 2002 but I don't know what they are. MS. FOORD: The Weed and Seed boundary is Hope Circle area south of Hope Circle and up Immokalee Road, then going east incorporating the area north of the casino where Rose Avenue is going up to Main Street. And then on the north side, two streets north of Main Street and then over into the western part of Immokalee incorporating as far as Eden Park area. COMMISSIONER FIALA: The second question is also easy. Would the design of the murals need to be approved before they're put on the wall? MS. FOORD: Yes. What we have asked Wayne to do, as the first mural artist, is to do a couple of sketches, and then we'll ask him to present those to the Mural Society for their review and maybe some fine tuning or a few changes, and then we'll eventually get to the point of approving the final sketch and ask him to do a more complete mock-up of the mural before it gets put on the wall. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Coletta, you have to be aesthetically pleased. This sounds interesting and will really pick up the community. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You're right. I'll tell you, if there's one area, it's Immokalee. It's unbelievable the amount of projects they have undertaken and been successful with. I know you've been to the meetings before. When you see the total picture, it's quite amazing on the whole what this community has done, and most of them without any money from the Collier County Commission. And with that, we'll go onto one of the things that is under the Collier County Commission, and that's the Immokalee Airport. Mr. Drury, are you making the presentation? MR. DRURY: Yes. Commissioners, citizens, my name is John Drury. I'm executive director, and I've been asked to direct you on the incubator program. And the Collier County Airport Authority in Page 15 January 15, 2002 partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Board of County Commission funded a manufactured incubator building in Immokalee. What that basically is, is a building where entrepreneurs, small- business enterprises, can launch new ideas and new projects, and so they can save money and launch their product and ideas. The goal of the program is to basically attract new business, create jobs, high- wage jobs, for Immokalee and diversify Immokalee's economy. The first building went up two years ago and was filled, and we have a calibration lab, conference room, several businesses manufacturing everything from wireless Internet boxes to military products to aviation products. That building was completed and filled, and we are now building a new building. And if you've been up to the airport, you'll see it's up and being completed. That will include a bonded warehouse, a manufacturing assembly area, as well as a powder-coating facility, and again, the goal of the program is to get entrepreneurs to share their ideas, co- share their ideas and graduate and go off and build their own facilities. Our future plans on that are to build a training facility, and we'll be working with Vo-Tech so we can train the employees these high technical skills to operate the machinery necessary to do the manufacturing, and then we'll be building a polishing packaging facility, and the goal will be that you can come up with an idea and take it to the marketplace from the beginning all the way through to the end. The reason we did this was to attract other companies to come to Immokalee and create other than agriculture jobs, diversified areas of economy. Sienna Marble has decided to locate at the airport, and they're building a 50,000 square foot building. They will be employing 100 people to manufacturing marble products and distribute them around Page 16 January 15, 2002 the world. They're in the permitting process. We expect the permitting process to be completed within the next 60 days, and it will take four months to build their facility, and then it will be up and operating. With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions relating to those two items if you have any. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I do have some questions. What do you see as the employment that will be coming out of these two projects now and in the future? MR. DRURY: It's a mix of different types of manufacturing. For instance, in the assembly area, we'll be looking for people to assemble the products that are manufactured in the bonded warehouse. We'll be looking for people to handle the containers that come into and out of the airport. In the current facility, we have Cat operators, we have C&C equipment operators, and basically manufacturers that are building these products. The marble company is doing mosaic pieces for high-end homes, banks, different businesses where they import the marble from Italy, cut it into pieces, assemble it, package it, and send it off to Canada or Mexico or wherever they're going. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: What do you see in numbers? MR. DRURY: Oh, the numbers. The marble company predicted over a three-year period, I think, 300 employees. The incubator Phase I, we're looking at about ten to fifteen and in Phase II about ten to fifteen. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I have a two-part question, and then I'll let the other commissioners ask the questions. The people that you are going to employ, what efforts are you making that they're going to come from Immokalee and what kind of training are you going to be doing? MR. DRURY: We are applying for a grant to build a training Page 17 January 15, 2002 facility and working with Vo-Tech to do the training. If you go into the incubator now, you will see Immokalee citizens working there. You'll also see people from Naples working there. So there's a mixture of people from Immokalee and people traveling to Immokalee to do work there. We are basically letting each employer make the decision on who they are going to hire and how they are going to hire. Our focus is to attract new businesses to the Immokalee Airport, provide the training to the citizens of Immokalee who might need that additional training to learn those skills, and let the marketplace decide who they are going to hire. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, John. Commissioners? Mr. Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: What is your occupancy rate at the incubator? MR. DRURY: A hundred percent. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So it's all rented out? MR. DRURY: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Has that increased the fuel sales? MR. DRURY: The incubator is in the airport industrial park, and it's really not part of the air side operations. We do have customers for people in the incubator like Caterpillar and some of these large corporations that will fly in and bid jobs to the incubator, but the only reason the incubator is not really driving fuel sales, it's an industrial park-- COMMISSIONER HENNING: I understood. I think that Sand & Marble was flying a lot of their marble out coming in from -- imported from Italy. MR. DRURY: Right now it's shipped to Miami, and they have a bonded truck that takes it to their facility. So all of it is being shipped Page 18 January 15, 2002 by shipment to Miami and then trucked over to this coast. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And then it's trucked out by on ground? MR. DRURY: That's correct. And that particular industry, the quality of the product doesn't justify the cost of flying it. But when you get into your wireless Internet boxes and your computer chips, the value of that product and the weight does justify flying, and the goal in the future is to extend the runway so that we can have a cargo market presence. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That was my understanding is that we are going to extend the runway? MR. DRURY: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And increase some of the areas in the incubator to support larger cargo planes coming in to support that in-and-out business? MR. DRURY: That's a different building on the air side. We are building -- and I didn't talk about that -- we are building a U.S. Customs building and a cargo processing center, and that will break ground in about three months. And that facility will accommodate what you're talking about, which is the packing and shipping of cargo. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that will increase the new sales? MR. DRURY: That is correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: generating from the cargo facility? MR. DRURY: We haven't leased it out to any specific entity at this time, so we are basically going out for proposals for different entities to fill the space. And based on those proposals, we'll negotiate agreements that deal with the rate per square foot, the usage of the ramp, and obviously the fuel sales portion. So until we have What do you anticipate revenue Page 19 January 15, 2002 the actual entity identified for the facility, I couldn't give you an accurate number. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Thanks. MR. DRURY: Sure. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any other questions? (No response.) MR. DRURY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much, John. Lake Trafford Restoration will be the next subject. George? MR. YILMAZ: George Yilmaz, and I'm the liaison to Lake Trafford Task Force. The Lake Trafford Restoration Program has been a grass roots project and now a local government like our Board of County Commissioners can put together federal, state, local, regional together to address a local issue, such as Lake Trafford pollution and Lake Trafford problems on a regional, state, and federal level. Having said that, all the credit goes to you as residents and community leaders. So I would like to extend on behalf of Lake Trafford Task Force and county staff our appreciation. And your part's appreciation significantly impacted this project towards solutions. Having said that today, we have with us Ann Olesky, a Lake Trafford Task Force member, and I have Dr. Eric Flagg, a member of Lake Trafford Task Force, also a licensed professional engineer -- (Applause.) MS. OLESKY: I might have a big mouth, but I have to say thank you. In '96 when we first came to you, I know most of us thought, what are we doing? And then when we put the task force together, we put all these people in the room from the mud experts to fishery experts to a crazy guy of Thomas and Pollack and a few other people we thought, oh, my, we are going to stir the fire. We put Page 20 January 15, 2002 together this project through the graciousness of all the Immokaleans, and not just Collier County, but I think all the United States. The project is now soon to be a go. We have already had much work done, but the hard work is beginning, and I'm going to ask again for your help. I heard you say, Commissioner Henning, that you were heading to Washington D.C., and I think Mr. Coletta said that he was heading to -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Tallahassee. MS. OLESKY: A friend of ours went to Tallahassee and was at a meeting with the governor, and he so eloquently asked if the governor was familiar with the Lake Trafford project, and lo and behold the governor was. Any official that you see on a state or local or federal, anybody that you might know, even if it's not our state official, mention Lake Trafford to them and some of the other worthy projects. So I challenge you to, please, as you go about your business in the circles if you would mention Lake Trafford, because we do need more money. We need letters written. We need anything that will promote the project. As you know, we are up to a $25 million project. Thank heavens for the graciousness of our Collier County officials, and state officials and now it's up to the federal money to step to the plate because they did agree to match funds, but they have a way of swarming around this, and again, I want to say thank you, not only to all of you, but the constituents that you work with for making Lake Trafford a go. And I look forward and invite all of you to come down and take a look at the project when it's done, and that is soon. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Annie, if you'd be so kind to make your presentation, I'm sure the Board of County Commissioners will direct their Chairman to draft such a letter. Page 21 January 15, 2002 MS. OLESKY: Send money. Ask them for their support in a favorable way, and truthfully it is send money, even though the cash doesn't flow, it's paperwork, but bottom line, send money any way they can. And if there's anybody that needs help writing a letter, come see me. And I want to thank you all again for the love and support. Any questions? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any questions on behalf of the Commission? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. A comment. I think this is the opportune time to say that we are going to ask for staffers from our Florida U.S. Senators coming into Collier County next month. I think the three of us are at the Southwest Florida Transportation Initiative. The No. 1 goal is for mobility in Southwest Florida. Everybody needs that for commerce and our day-to-day life. I would be -- I'm asking if this board is willing to commit as a sideline to do that, some of the things for Immokalee like Lake Trafford. MS. OLESKY: The mural project, the roadways; there's so much. COMMISSIONER HENNING: There are a lot of them, and if we can make a priority list for Immokalee. These two senators -- I know Senator Graham is very interested in Immokalee. We just need to tell him the needs, what he can do, some of that monies that he can bring back. So, Tom, if we can get into a discussion sometime and prioritize the needs, we don't want to side step our mobility here in Collier County, but I think we have an opportunity -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: A side issue to be able to present it to them. I think we have agreement on behalf of the commissioners. I see four nods. If you would bring that back to us, Mr. Olliff. Page 22 January 15, 2002 MS. OLESKY: And another thing, Immokalee puts out the best food in the state, so our finest restaurants, just contact Benny Starling or take him to one of our fine restaurants. Another thing is they would get to see the infrastructure coming over to Immokalee, the pros and the cons. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think it's time for Commissioner Coletta to bring some of the staffers to Immokalee, because they really want to know from Senator Graham's office what is going on. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: on the Immokalee/Naples Road. I will make it a point to bring them And I was going to suggest that I have a certain time except we must delay lunch. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Go down Santa Barbara about at 4:30. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I see it's going to be a long trip. MS. OLESKY: That's okay. Thank you again for your support. MR. FLAGG: Good evening, my name is Eric Flagg. I'm here for the lake for Big Cypress Basin, and I would like to talk to you a little bit about how the project is going. Let me remind you Lake Trafford is the headwaters to the camp going down through Facahatachee draining into the Ten Thousand as well as the head draining out through the Imperial River and Facahatchee. It's an important body of water that we need to protect, and it's excellent that the grass roots has supported this project over the last year. The Corps of Engineers has done the design work and the surveying to design the project, and last summer they were able to put out requests for proposals to a traffic innovative technology for dredging and cleaning up the lake. We hope to, within the next month, execute a contract to begin the project. What will happen then is they will first build a settlement confinement facility that is about a half mile northeast of the lake. This 400-acre area will be Page 23 January 15, 2002 used to store the settlement that is being dredged from the lake. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, you will see a dredge that will begin the three-year project for dredging eight million cubic yards of flocument (phonetic) sediment. So you'll get to watch a dredge on the lake for the next three years. This dredge is going to do it section by section. And it should not interfere with fishing through a major level. So you should be able to enjoy the lake for the duration of the project. One other project that we are going to start in the near future is developing a stormwater master plan for the Immokalee area as part of the watershed protection so that we can protect Lake Trafford. And this would be cooperative between the Big Cypress and Collier County stormwater program. Thank you. Big Cypress Basin contracted with the University of Florida a year ago to develop a middle school science curriculum which has been completed, and Big Cypress has put forth the funding of the middle school. They will participate in eight different modules which include water quality, fisheries, lake restoration, watershed management, soils, endangered species and upland which will connect the learning with real hands-on operation of equipment in the field. It was first developed for Collier, but it has also been approved for Lee County. We work closely with the school district, so this fits in with their science curriculum, and it meets the state standard for middle school science. In the future we hope to extend to all the schools so they all have an opportunity to see Lake Trafford and understand the restoration process. I'm done. Any questions? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any questions? I might also mention I serve on the Lake Trafford Restoration project. If anything's possible, we made it possible. I can't picture Page 24 January 15, 2002 what you're going to do to top this next, but we'll find something for you. Immokalee Initiative, Michelle, is that you? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. Thank you for having us. I'm Michelle Arnold, Code Enforcement Director. I'm here to give you some information or update on the Immokalee Initiative. For those of you that don't know what that is, it's an initiative that the board approved a couple years ago trying to address the substandard housing conditions and other housing conditions within the Immokalee area. My staff has been working very diligently towards defining guidelines and regulations to help direct improvement for mobile home parks within the Immokalee area. And at our last Land Development Code meeting on January 9th, the Board of County Commissioners adopted those, and it's going to be very instrumental with helping the mobile home property owners and single mobile homeowners towards improving their parks. One of the challenges I think that we are going have before us is to provide assistance to some of the needy lower-income homeowners that will have to maintain or improve their mobile homes when we've concluded our inspection process. We are going to be working collaboratively with the housing department and any other agency that's out there to try to find funding, available funding to assist these homeowners and property owners. Where we are going in the future -- let me step back one moment. What we've done so far. We've been meeting with various mobile homeowners property owners, and I've identified approximately 83 park areas within the community that have more than three mobile homes on a given property. Of those 83 that have been identified, we've been speaking with 17 of those park owners, and they're working with the county staff now towards submitting Page 25 January 15, 2002 site improvement plans so that we can identify the number of mobile homes, their placement, their setbacks, the landscaping, and all that is involved with improving some of the parks, including some of the project private road issues that we discussed earlier. Our direction after we have addressed the mobile homeowners parks within the community, we are going to be looking at other dwelling unit types, single-family homes and some of the multi- family structures that are within the Immokalee community. And along with that we'll probably be enhancing the various land development regulations or guidelines so that we can address the unique conditions out in the Immokalee area. That's all I have. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I want to commend you for the tremendous work and time that you've put in to bring this to the point that it's at now. MS. ARNOLD: I'm looking forward to working with the community on this one. MS. HERNANDEZ: I have a question. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I have to ask you to step up to the microphone. MS. HERNANDEZ: This is Anna Hernandez. There's been talk in my trailer park that the mobile homes that have been there for years are going to be shut down because of their conditions. Is that part of the stuff that you're doing now? MS. ARNOLD: What we'll be doing is evaluating the mobile homes that have been there for some time and looking at their conditions and identifying those conditions that can be improved, repaired. And if there are mobile homes that are deemed substandard that are beyond repair, we'll be identifying those units and informing the property owner that they will have to be removed. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Can I ask a question? I know the Page 26 January 15, 2002 county has funds to help people out that are in the low-income bracket to repair their homes. Are those funds available? MS. ARNOLD: We do have funds through the housing and urban development department, but those funds, my belief is that they're not allowed to be utilized for mobile homeowners-type structures. They're allowed for other types of units like single family and modular homes, but not mobile homes. That's why I said one of our challenges is going to be finding alternative funding other than what we have at the county. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I might also add that we are committed, that we are not going to have somebody removed. We are committed to finding a solution for them in the way of funding or some other outside source. So no one gets left behind on this. MS. HERNANDEZ: Also, is there any funding like the homestead program that was here a few years ago that helped homeowners and mobile homes that need help in their conditions? MS. ARNOLD: I'm not familiar with that. MS. HERNANDEZ: There was a program that was called homestead low income to help people that needed doors, windows, repairs on ceilings. Is there any other programs like that in Immokalee? MS. ARNOLD: That's what we are going to be looking towards. Whether or not it's here local or federal program or statewide, we are going to be investigating that. MS. HERNANDEZ: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: What I would like to do is -- we are reaching the end of the program. I think this is the main interest that we have here tonight is the mobile homes, mobile homeowners parks, so what I'm going to do is allow for the questions and answers to continue since we did allow it. Page 27 January 15, 2002 Nora, Can I get you to make an announcement in Spanish, and if anyone wishes to speak in Spanish, they can? THE INTERPRETER: Yes. (Interpreting in Spanish.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: By any chance, do you have the list of the speakers? MR. OLLIFF: We don't have it by issue. We have 20 registered, and I'm sure most of those are on that topic. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We'll start at the first one. If it isn't on mobile homes that you wish to speak on, we'll come back to you shortly on the other subject matter. MR. MUDD: The first speaker that I have is Lorraine Soukup. Are you talking about the mobile homeowners issue? A VOICE: She left. MR. MUDD: The next one is Jeanette Porter. MS. PORTER: Not that one. MR. MUDD: The next one is Ed Golson. MR. GOLSON: No, sir. MR. MUDD: The next is James Lester. Is that on the mobile homeowners issue? MR. LESTER: No, sir. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Would you raise your hands if you wish to speak on the mobile homeowners issue. Would you come up, and I need you to state your full name for the record. MS. DeLEON: My name is Anna DeLeon, and are we going to -- the inspectors, do they have to come into our houses without our consent? Do they have to come in the houses? MS. ARNOLD: They will if there is -- from our initial inspection from the exterior it looks as though we want to investigate further to determine the structural integrity of the structure, we would Page 28 January 15, 2002 ask the tenant to sign a waiver and consent. And we do that with all our inspections, regardless of whether or not it's a mobile homeowners. MS. DeLEON: So we have the right to say -- we can refuse you if we don't want you to come in our house? MS. ARNOLD: That's absolutely right. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And the other person that had their hand up on the mobile homeowners issue. MS. CAMP: Barbara Camp, and I've lived in Immokalee since '73, and I live in the Swindles Trailer Park, and I bought my trailer new, and I've been renting from the same lady ever since I came to Immokalee, and I work at a day care. I make -- after taxes I make $240 a week. So if code enforcement tells me that I have to fix my trailer or move it, how am I going do that when I barely pay my lights and all that? I can't fix my trailer, and I can't move it. So I don't know where I'm going to go. MS. ARNOLD: Ma'am, what we would do is, we would gladly look at your trailer to let you know whether or not there's any problems with it. MS. CAMP: I already have the paper. My landlord already gave me a paper, and one man gave me an estimate, and he said, it's $3,500, and my electricity and my anchors and all that. It's been fine since '73. I don't have no problems with it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Ma'am, what did this piece of paper say, the one that your landlord gave you? MS. CAMP: That I need to redo some of my electricity and the anchor strap. COMMISSIONER HENNING: How long have you been in your trailer? MS. CAMP: Since '73. I bought it new. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that right? Page 29 January 15, 2002 MS. CAMP: And it's been sitting in the same spot. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We are trying to work in the process, and the idea is not to impose something upon you that is going to try to make life impossible or difficult. Would you be so kind to put together what you received from your landlord and give that to Michelle Arnold or myself, and we'll put together with the consorting agencies, they can step in to offer assistance where assistance is absolutely needed. I assure you our objective is not to put you out of your house and leave you so impoverished to -- MS. CAMP: Well, I live there, myself and my husband died so CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And I understand normally a commission wouldn't get involved, but this commission does care about the human element. So I would ask you to make copies or bring it into the local agency. I'm sure we can get help from a number of people. Fax them into me, and we'll take it from that point. We have to put this infrastructure together to be able to support people like you, and we'll start with you and see where it goes. MS. CAMP: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Hold on. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I have a question for Michelle. With respect to the anchoring, the requirement is a relatively new code. If she's owned her trailer since 1973 at that site, is she going to be required to comply with new codes, or is she going to be grandfathered into the old code? MS. ARNOLD: I'm not really sure with respect to the strapping, but I would think if it's meeting some sort of hurricane code, that we would allow the strapping to maintain. I don't know in this particular situation whether it's not anchored down at all. MS. CAMP: It's anchored from the frame. There's five or six Page 30 January 15, 2002 straps on each side of the trailer. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: The only thing that would present a problem if what exists there now is an immediate danger to your health and the people around you, like exposed wires, in which case something would have to be done on an expedient basis. MS. CAMP: I think they said the electricity wires have to go through a pipe. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: The conduit. what we can do and get this ball rolling. better than it was before. MS. CAMP: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Is there any other speakers? MR. MUDD: Mr. Davenport. MR. DAVENPORT: For the record, I'm Robert Davenport. I was riding with Michelle and looking over some of my projects, and a person came into my office with a similar situation. We spoke to you about it at the regular meeting of Land Development Code amendment. This lady is in litigation where she bought the trailer, so there's a lot of-- is she bought the trailer and it's substandard, but one of the big problems that I have -- and we reviewed one of the inspections. The first inspections were very, very similar, and it appears that they used a blanket inspection rather than a specific inspection of exactly what was wrong. But I do have 3 in my park that I know that need to be fixed out of 145 so -- and these are three individuals, and all of them are low income. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Davenport. Michelle Arnold? MS. ARNOLD: I'd like to address the inspections that were previously done. I'm going to have my staff go back out and provide more detailed reports to particularly those mobile homes that have Let's give it a try to see The idea is to make you Page 31 January 15, 2002 been deemed unsound so they know exactly what conditions need to be repaired. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Now, also, just to make sure this isn't going to be something where we are going to lose our ability to be able to function with it, there's a date and time where people can't now be buying substandard homes and be claiming poverty saying this homeowners doesn't measure up to what it is and they need help. The cut-off date would be back when we passed this particular ordinance; correct? Michelle? MS. ARNOLD: It's unable for us to control when people are buying and selling. A lot of times this is happening amongst friends, or they may sell each other a mobile homeowners that they're not doing an inspection on it. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I want to make it perfectly clear that the generosity that we are willing to extend can't be tampered with. If somebody is going to try to abuse it by manipulating sales dates, we are going to pay attention to that. Anything that takes place in that particular instance I want to be prosecuted. We are here to help, not to be taken advantage of, and I think that message needs to be clear. Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much, Michelle. We are going to move on to the next item, and we are doing very good on time too. Update on the Final Order. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Good evening, Commissioners. For the record, I'm Stan Chrzanowski with planning services and I just want to tell you when we talk about the Final Order, we are talking about entering a very exciting year, both from the standpoint of laying the blueprints in what we are planning to do there in the urban area. For most people that means Route 28, Route 951. Page 32 January 15, 2002 As probably most of you know, for the last two and a half years we've had two parallel studies taking place relative to how we are going to present the environmental and what do we want the future development to look like in the rural land. We have two parallel processes; one, the rural friends assessment, which is more in the immediate lands under immediate development outside the urban area close to 951. As you've driven down Immokalee Road to and from town, you've seen the signs that say you are now entering the rural friends study area and you are now exiting. But in addition you've also had working for two years a rural eastern land committee looking at the future of the area of about 194,000 acres that surrounds Immokalee and what the prospects for those lands are relative to both mandated by the state to protect those lands, protect those lands where they are environmentally sensitive, sensitive wildlife and also what type of development that we'll see in the interior portions of Florida and particularly Collier County as we move later into the century. And believe it or not, the new frontier is our central part of our state. A couple things I'd like to point out that are happening now -- and you may think that it does not effect you immediately, but it may in the future, and I would encourage you to stay involved and watch what is happening. The first thing that is happening since 29 processes are about six months separated in their progress is number one, we'll start with the rural friends area which most recently we announced our public hearing process and have published our draft proposed amendments to our comprehensive plan which will lay the blueprint for the future. If you look at your Naples Daily News you will see a full page advertisement that talks about the meeting of the Environmental Advisory Council next Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. in the Board of County Commissioners meeting room. This will be the first Page 33 January 15, 2002 full coming out of this new plan which we'll present to the public and pay public input. This will be followed up by a public hearing by the Collier County planning commission probably on February 6th or February 13th at which there will be additional discussion and debate and the opinions of all people that might be affected by these plans be taken into account as the Planning Commission form later its recommendations to take to the Board of County Commissioners for transmittal to department of Community Affairs on February 20th. We are looking to have a document amendment for the rural friends area no later than June 22nd of this coming year. These will be very critical in what this community will look like and what we think of as a rural area. We want to maintain the rural characteristics and traits, but at the same time we have to look at the possibilities for the uses of the many thousands of acres that we have to deal with in the future, 194,000, almost 200,000 surrounding Immokalee. The second process is the Rural Eastern Land Committee is entering the final phases for the eastern lands which will culminate in a similar process in April with the drafting of the Growth Management Plan amendment and public hearing process which will involve the opportunity for all citizens to be heard. We hope to adopt those amendments by October 30th. I must say we are mandated by the state to adopt by October 30th, so it will be a very busy and interesting year. It will be a lot of public debate, but it will be interesting, and we'll help lay the blueprint for our community and what we know as our rural land for the next 50 to 100 years. That's all I have. Any questions? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Questions. I think you've done an excellent job in keeping us abreast. Don't go too far because there may be some questions from the audience. At this point in time, we'll open it up to audience public Page 34 January 15, 2002 participation. Mr. Mudd, do you want to call two speakers at one time so we can have one as a backup? For any reason if you decide not to speak, waive your hand. MR. MUDD: The first is Lorraine Soukup? Has she returned? A VOICE: No. MR. MUDD: The next is Jeanette Porter followed by Ed Golson. A VOICE: No. MR. MUDD: Ed Golson followed by James Lester. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: How many speakers do we have approximately? MR. MUDD: Sir, you have about 22. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm going to limit you to three minutes. MR. GOLSON: I have a question for the commission, and my question is as follows: Who can I see or speak with about serious issues at the Immokalee Regional Airport that oversee or monitor the executive directors and airport authority board? And these issues involve safety, discrimination, liability, and commercial growth. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You can speak to me or the other commissioners. MR. GOLSON: How do I go about arranging that? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You can do it by a personal appointment, e-mail, or last choice would be a telephone call. MR. GOLSON: And I can reach you? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'll give you my card. MR. GOLSON: After the meeting? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes. MR. GOLSON: Thank you. Page 35 January 15, 2002 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Sir, just a question. You said there's a safety problem at the Immokalee Airport? MR. GOLSON: Yes. There's been several FAA violations and small children out on a ramp around unattended moving aircraft. Any other questions? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much. MR. MUDD: The next speaker is James Lester followed by Elda Maxis. MR. LESTER: My name is Jim Lester. Thank you for coming to Immokalee. Nice to be with you. The other day I saw an item in the newspaper that said the airport 400 acres was going to be developed into a motor sports complex. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I understand that's the plan, but it's not a final. MR. LESTER: Not final yet. Good. Let me throw something at you. This wouldn't bring any money into Immokalee. People maybe stop on the way out when they're racing, maybe stop out and get a six-pack, but other than that -- (Laughing.) MR. LESTER: I didn't say any alcohol -- but I'm thinking about something for the community that we can all enjoy, you know, whatever, like a swimming pool. How about tennis courts? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Golf course? MR. LESTER: How about that? I know it's a little expensive. Right now is the time to do it, I think, before I get too old to play golf. And there are many people in this community that we go to Lehigh or Naples, all over the place, to play golf and if the thing was run right, it would be packed full if we don't gouge them. The snowbirds would come over here than the expensive place. How Page 36 January 15, 2002 long would it take to get a golf course; a year a two? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: It would take the combined efforts of the community. What you're talking about is a grass roots movement. If the community is supported, then there's numerous ways it can be done. It can be done as a private golf course with the rezoning. One of the things Immokalee is rich in is in land. You have a lot of land that's prime for development sometime in the near future. I hope when the time comes -- there's going to be a mad rush for the development of this land in the near future. There's a section between Golden Gate and Immokalee that's going to have limited development. So the next prime area is Immokalee. So when it comes you might want to be ready for it. You might want to address a master plan to plan out the whole community, but you started it tonight. I suggest you get with some of your community leaders, Neil Rogers, Benny Starling, and talk to them about it. And if you like, if there's enough interest, we'll be more than happy to come down and have a public meeting, move it forward, possibly a petition drive. MR. LESTER: If you want to play golf. By the way, you were mentioning Immokalee Road. For the people who don't know any better, that's what we call Naples Road. MR. MUDD: Manuel Lopez followed by Andre Dauzable. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If you could identify yourself for the record. MR. LOPEZ: I need somebody to -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You need an interpreter? MR. LOPEZ: (Shaking head.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Here we go. MS. ORTIZ: For the record, my name is Lucy Ortiz. THE INTERPRETER: He says his name is Manuel Lopez and Page 37 January 15, 2002 he would like to know who he should speak to because he would like to present a project here in Immokalee. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: He can address it to me. I'm chairman of the board. THE INTREPRETER: He says he has plans that you can look at. He says he's Mexican, and there are a lot of people from Mexico or Mexican heritage that live here, and he would like to propose a plaza where people could go in the evenings and have some recreation. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Possibly on Sundays too. THE INTERPRETER: You can put it, like these gardens, whatever you want to call them. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Lopez, could you hold it up for the audience. MR. LOPEZ: (Indicating.) THE INTERPRETER: He says he has the plans and the sites and the idea. All you need to do is buy the land and make it. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I love the idea that you are coming forward and the participation. Go ahead. We want to meet the needs of the whole community. We are very interested in what Mr. Lopez has presented. What I would like to do is to guide him on a petition process. We'll put a petition together in Spanish for him requesting the commission to look at this. We'll get the copies to him and ask him to get the petitions passed out, sent out, and we'll start at that process. Mr. Lopez, I appreciate you stepping forward with this idea. I love it. I've been wanting to do something because I can remember being in Mexico on Sundays and they have all the people and children, and you would have special foods and music being played by a number of different bands. It was always so beautiful. I always Page 38 January 15, 2002 thought what a wonderful thing. THE INTERPRETER: And business can come around the place, like restaurants and stores. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think you have a wonderful idea. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Let's make sure we have the support of the Hispanic community, the support of the entire community. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: The support of the entire community, that's correct. THE INTERPRETER: He says because Immokalee is growing. It's going to get bigger. We need something like this. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Do you think the commission would be agreeable to have the staff bring it back at a future meeting? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think it's a great idea to put it out to the business community and present it to them and see if there's a willing person to provide a great service to the people in Immokalee That's commerce, private, public. Being the public you as commissioners can present it to the developer to make that happen. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, I would say that would probably be the end result, but if we could establish the fact that there is an interest on the part of the community with a dual petition in English and Spanish, it could go out and that would require nothing but probably a half hour or so of our county attorney's time to draft such an instrument that could be used. Is there interest on the part of the commission to have this brought back for discussion? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I could have my assistant assist to help write a petition. And we'll put names, telephone numbers, and addresses, and things of that nature. I was a little bit concerned of the wording. That's why I was suggesting the county attorney so it's not misinterpreted by the public. Page 39 January 15, 2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: At the same time they have to understand what it's saying. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's correct. COMMISSIONER COYLE: If I could interject. I think in order to get the maximum amount of public support, we should not bypass the community leaders, and I think we need to coordinate this thing with the community leaders and perhaps the Chamber Commerce in Immokalee before we start putting out a petition of some kind, because they might have significant input to help improve the petition or the idea. I'm wholly supportive of the concept. I think it's a good idea, but I'd hate to see the commission bypass the community leaders on this issue. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That was never the intent. That was to improve the issue by the signature process, and it would be a community effort. Annie, you would be a person to take something like this and make it work? MS. OLESKY: That's not what I want to do. That's a wonderful idea, but not just Hispanic. You need to elaborate and tum it into an art center. You have Hispanics, Haitians, English, and they have so much to offer in the way of art, whether it be from dancing or music. That's beautiful, and that would be perfect, but you also need a little more with it like an art center where they can go in and perform or kids can put up their pictures, or you might have somebody that's afraid to show their art on the coast and maybe do painters, do a show. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If I may suggest, why don't we make this the agenda of some upcoming civic association meeting, and we can invite all the community leaders, the Hispanic community, and bring it forward and ask for a petition to be drawn up. Of course the petition can be drawn up on the local level. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I would like to expand on Fred Page 40 January 15, 2002 Coyle's comment. When you get the community leaders, they're going to find the pockets of people and get the people interested. If something were distributed from the county commission, no good; but the community leaders, it could be the spark that could happen. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Rather than segmenting the community. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I appreciate the fact that we got an original idea coming forward. May I make a suggestion? If you can communicate to Mr. Lopez and have him talk to Leo Rogers and see when the first available time would be the civic association to bring it in, they will be able to announce a general meeting. Leo Rogers, raise your hand. MR. ROGERS: (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We have to do this by the numbers. And, of course, you have to state your name. MR. ROGERS: My name is Leo Rogers, I'm the president of the civic association, but also in the room we have the vice president of the civic association which is Ms. Terry A. Vealis (phonetic) who is fluent in Spanish, so she would be the better person to get a hold of then myself. And the next civic association meeting is on Valentine's Day at the Immokalee Community Park. MS. VEALIS: My name is Terry Vealis (phonetic), vice chair, and I've already gotten that information. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Once more, a new grass roots effort for Immokalee in case you run out. Is there any other questions or comments from Mr. Lopez before he leaves? MR. OLLIFF: I'm going to make a couple more recommendations. One, the parks and recreation department is working on a revised order where the existing airport park is, and there may be some opportunity to have our parks staff sit down and Page 41 January 15, 2002 look at a plan to see if there's a possibility of incorporating a plan there. And Dora just told me Marla is coming out on Thursday to make a presentation on the Immokalee Airport Park, and if I could get with him before he leaves and see if I can get him in touch with our parks department. And as well you have your Main Street that would probably like to see the presentation from him, as well as perhaps your Immokalee master planning program further down the line. So there are two or three different groups. So if we could get this idea in front of them, that may be an effort to keep that momentum going. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have to admire the man for having the initiative of bringing this forward. Thank you. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Next speaker. MR. MUDD: Andre Dauzable followed by Yolanda Cisneros. Is Andre here? A VOICE: No. MR. MUDD: Yolanda Cisneros? MS. CISNEROS: Thank you. Good evening. My name is Yolanda Cisneros. I am a county employee. I work for Collier County parks and recreation. The reason I'm here is to congratulate Mr. Coletta for becoming the Chairman. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. MS. CISNEROS: And also I wanted to share something with you. I belong to a number of community organizations. At a meeting we had a couple of weeks ago Mr. Coletta was a part of, we were given a little task of something to do. We were given a pad of sticky notes, and we were told to put an idea of changes we would Page 42 January 15, 2002 like to see in the next ten years. It was a very interesting, very interesting event. We would just take a sticky note and write something on and set it aside and do as much as we could. We put these up on the wall and from there we categorized them. Then we prioritized them. We came up with fifteen categories. Mr. Coletta, those were the green pages I gave to you. I also have other copies. Out of the fifteen categories under number one, one of the people chose our own city government. That was again in the center of category. I think that goes to show you that we still have some trust in our county commissioners. We still plan to look to you for our needs in the future. Eventually we would like to get to the point of where we are on our own, but for now we are depending on you to carry through on the things that you were talking about tonight and future things that I'm sure we'll come up with to give to you. I also wanted to let Mr. Lopez know that we did have that under No. 6, so that is something we were looking into. Again, I have copies of these. The responses were interesting. Just one idea from all of us. There were just a handful of people, and we came up with a number of issues that we would like changed. A lot of them are the things that you have been discussing tonight so hopefully we'll all go forward with that as well. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We are going to take a break for the stenographer. (A break was held.) MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Lionel Lemite followed by Saintserique Saintyl. I think I've got that right. Is Lionel here or has he left? (No response.) MR. MUDD: Mr. Serique, is he here or has he left? (No response.) Page 43 January 15, 2002 MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Angela Wilder, followed by Julienor Ceasar. I hope I got that right. MS. WILDER: Hello, my name is Angela Wilder and I think he answered most of my questions. I do live -- not by the mobile homes, but I do live on that dirt road area, and there was a problem as far as like EMS coming down, you know, because of the situation of the road conditions and stuff like that. So I was wondering, is it private road? I mean, is it private zoning? How do I find out if it's private or not? Who was the guy that was speaking on it? MR. FEDER: Mr. Kant's left, but ma'am -- MS. WILDER: So how do I find out if it's privately owned? MR. FEDER: I'm Norman Feder. If you will, I'll give you my name afterwards, and we'll check into whatever roadway and let you know. MS. WILDER: Okay. Thanks. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That brings up a very good point. If you ever need information on your county government or you have questions, that's what we are here for. Don't hesitate to send an e- mail or phone call or a letter. We will respond to you in a very short period of time. If you don't inquire, then we can't answer, because we don't know what the problem is. Next speaker? MR. MUDD: Julienor Ceasar, is she here? A VOICE: No. MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Juan Galleos. A VOICE: I think he left. MR. MUDD: Okay. Keila DeLeon. A VOICE: They left. MR. MUDD: Anna DeLeon. A VOICE: She left too. Page 44 January 15, 2002 MR. MUDD: Juan Gallegos -- Gallegoa. I'll get good at this I promise. (No response.) MR. MUDD: Leopoldo Rico. (No response.) MR. MUDD: Lucia Marroquin. (No response.) MR. MUDD: Carlos Gonzalez. MR. GONZALEZ: Hi. My name is Carlos Gonzalez. I have two issues to bring up. One is the MDS inspecting. It seems to me that -- I don't live in a trailer, but it appears to be just targeting these families like Mrs. Camp. We should be focusing on the trailer park owners. If you drive down the street, you can well see there's trailer owners -- actually park owners that are stuffing six, seven, eight ten individuals in a single trailer. To me that's not living conditions. I mean, I wouldn't want to live, nor my family in a single trailer like that. And the second issue is the mosquito control plan for Immokalee. We don't seem to have one, but it appears to me that if you drive down Naples at 8, 6, 7 in the morning, you'll see these crop dusters spraying for mosquitoes. I mean, not everybody in Immokalee is fortunate enough to have a patio that's screened in like most people do in Naples. So I think that we should start thinking about starting a mosquito control plan for Immokalee. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If I may comment on that, mosquito control is one of my things that when I was in my civic association in Golden Gates Estates I specialized on. If you're interested in mosquito control, it's not that difficult to do. It has to be petitioned, and they'll do a survey, and the survey will indicate if there's enough interest. Because they form a special district for mosquito spraying and that district basically pays for it. It's not expensive. I'm trying to Page 45 January 15, 2002 recall. It's, like, about eighteen dollars a year or twenty some dollars a year. It's a fairly nominal amount of money for what you get for the service. Possibly the Civic Association may wish to take this on as a future meeting to see if there would be interest on the part of the public such as yourself for a petition drive to petition mosquito control, which is a separate government entity, to do a survey and then to make a decision whether to bring it here. The process usually takes a year and a half to two years before you see the first spraying. After the community generally agrees that it's something they would like to do, they have to collect taxes for one year. The last spraying that you had was something that I worked very hard for during the peak of the mosquito season, and it was done on an emergency basis. And I assure you that whenever the count gets real high as far as the West Niles virus, then they'll respond again in sort. But still, that's not the answer. By the time they spot the virus and the chickens have got it and the tests indicate it, people can also have it too. So spraying is something that should be done on a regular basis, and it's something that the community has to undertake the initial steps. I'll be more than happy to help. And I king of hope that when the time comes we can count on you to help us through the process. MR. GONZALEZ: Oh, definitely; that's why I'm here. I have a four-year-old that can't go outside because she'll get attacked by mosquitoes, and I don't want her to get hospitalized or anything like there was an individual from Immokalee, I believe, had the West Nile virus. So thank you for your time. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What about his other question about 10 and 12 people in a trailer? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes. And that part there we're going to be addressing also. I've been involved in Immokalee since 1984, Page 46 January 15, 2002 and I've seen the problem from many different angles. And believe me, it's been a big concern with me, and this is one of the reasons why the initiative is being pushed forward, why we're so concerned about every aspect that's out there. It's going to be a little while coming. It's been 40 years in the works what we're up against. There's ordinances in place now and there's more coming limiting the amount of space or requiring a certain amount of space for each resident. In fact, it's Mr. Henning's initiative that's been taking place in Collier County. It would be for all of Collier County. Would you like to comment on that, Mr. Henning? This is on the square footage. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Residents are overcrowding in homes. It's not just in Immokalee; it's all over Golden Gate, Naples Manor, and Naples Park that we have overcrowding conditions. And in single-family house or a mobile homeowners that's not conducive. As the ordinance -- how it's written today is for the first person it's 150 square feet. Thereafter, it's 100 square feet. And if you take the average homeowners in any of those communities that I just mentioned, you can literally stuff 12 people in one single-family house. That is going to come to the Board of Commissioners next month for revision to bring it more into line of what we would want to see in a community. And that's just not in the urban area; that's county-wide. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: At that point in time, if you are available, you may wish to come to the commission and speak to them. Or if you can't make it because of employment, you may wish to write a letter that we'll circulate to all the commissioners sharing your concerns, and that will help them in making their final decision. MR. GONZALEZ: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. We appreciate your interaction with government. Believe me, if it wasn't for meetings Page 47 January 15, 2002 like this and people's comments, we would have a difficult time making the decisions that are necessary to be able to make this world work a little better. MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Daniel Gonzalez. Daniel, do you pass? MR. GONZALEZ: Yes. MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Laura Hernandez. (No response.) MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Ann Olesky. MS. OLESKY: I'm not passing. First of all, I want to say thank you. The two gorgeous young ladies back there, would you two raise your hands and just waive to everybody. Come on. (Applause.) MS. OLESKY: They busted their little buns going through Immokalee to make sure that enough people knew about this meeting tonight. I want to commend you for doing that. It's hard for us to get some of the information on the meetings, and we need to get it out, and the neat thing was they didn't do it just in English -- Spanish and Creole, which I think is very important. Again -- now I'm putting on a different hat. For the record, Pam Brown. Apologies from Pam for not being here. Her husband's brother passed away, and they had to go, but two things Pam requested that I mentioned to you is, one, when you're having meetings, anything pertaining to the Immokalee area, whether it be for the mobile homes or whether it be for Lake Trafford or anything, to find ways to get the information to the Immokaleans. A lot of us it takes time to get from Immokalee over to the county commissioner office for these meetings, and if we're only given a 12-hour notice, and a lot of us working, sometimes it's hard to get there. And as Pam, and I guess myself too, any way that you can let us know ahead of time of meetings coming up and of things that pertain to the Page 48 January 15, 2002 decision-making for Immokaleans -- again, the way you did it with the two young ladies was wonderful. I know that's impossible to do all the time, but on that note, anything that you can do to get the information to us in English, Creole, and Spanish is a great help. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If I may comment on that, I brought the subject forward. The Collier County Commission spends a considerable amount of money getting a full agenda published in the Naples Daily News. And I don't believe at this time we even print the agenda itself in the Immokalee Bulletin, possibly because the time element. I believe we need, like, a ten-day lead, and that does raise a problem. We could do a couple of things. One that comes to mind is that I'd be more than happy if someone put together a master e-mail list of everyone in the Immokalee area to make sure they're provided with up-to-date agenda packages as they come down through. And, No. 2, we'd also be able to notify them instantly through electronic mail if something is coming up that we think would be important for the Immokalee citizens to be aware of so they can interact with. That would be one part. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me stop you for that. Maybe we could even include in that list some of the radio stations that are just small but reach -- MS. OLESKY: He has the radio here in Immokalee. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. And there's quite a few Creole speaking stations. MS. OLESKY: Yes. Also, the restaurants. I understand the young ladies did a great job -- the people that they hit -- putting up on the bulletin boards in the restaurants and places -- farmer's markets. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's an excellent idea. Do you think we might be able to get you or someone else in the community to carry to the restaurants so we know it's going to get there? Right Page 49 January 15, 2002 now we do have a way to get them to the library and to the community center. And I believe over to the government building, I'm not too sure where, maybe the sheriffs office? COMMISSIONER FIALA: We could fax them to the restaurants. MS. OLESKY: Please, don't forget Cablevision. It's also in several languages. That would be an excellent source for getting people out and letting us know ahead of time. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Coletta, let me just tell you some of the things that I do in District 3 that's dealing with certain areas in my district is I will call out to those people and say, "Look, we've got this going on in our community -- or at our next meeting, what is your input?" And it's a great tool for me to find out what the citizens -- in this case, it would be Immokalee, how they feel about a certain issue. So just that one-on-one and that input, it's very important to me serving my constituents. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm here three times a week as a general rule meeting with one group or another. What we'll do is, I'll be more than happy to make sure the agenda gets to whoever needs it. Possibly the fax numbers if you like. We'll be more than happy to pass it on to you. And the agenda you can assimilate. I have one problem with the -- some time ago I made arrangements for the commission meetings to be taped and delivered to the school system. To the best of my knowledge, I don't believe they're being played yet. Have you ever seen a commission meeting? A VOICE: Nope. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, in any case, we're trying to identify what the problem is. But for some time now the tapes have been delivered, and they were supposed to be playing them over your cable T.V. network here in Immokalee. MS. OLESKY: School board meeting? Page 50 January 15, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No, the county commission meetings also. The tapes are here. They just haven't been put in in a timely manner. We'll see if we can get that corrected. And meanwhile, if there's some places in town, restaurants that would like to have the agenda faxed to them, we'll be more than happy to do that. I'll highlight some items that I think would be important to Immokaleans. We have a serious problem with the paper, how it comes out within ten-day notice as far as trying to get items in there. Even news releases of meetings I'm going to hold in Immokalee, if we don't hit it in the right sequence, almost two weeks ahead of time, then the opportunity's lost as far as having it come together. But that's something we'll try even harder at doing. And we are going to get around to everybody that wishes to speak that hasn't spoken yet. We'll even allow time for that. The next speaker? MR. MUDD: Mr. Davenport, did you get-- MR. DAVENPORT: I'm through. MR. MUDD: The last speaker, sir, is Jean Voley. MR. VOLEY: Good evening. Do I have an interpreter in Creole by any chance? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Is there an interpreter in Creole? (No response.) MR. VOLEY: I'll try in English. Excuse me if I repeat things that you may have said already. And I thank you very much for coming here to Immokalee. I am going to point out some issues. You may not answer them at one time. You may take note if you wish, and afterwards you can address them as you wish. In Immokalee we have a big problem with health care. We have a clinic here, and also we have a big building that they built recently about two years ago, but it's not working. It's not functioning. And the clinic, I myself went two weeks ago for something, and when I went there there was about 50 people waiting, and they give you a Page 51 January 15, 2002 number that was about number 55. So it took about three hours, and no one ever called me, and I went homeowners. I went there trying to be seen again, they gave me a number 63. So as you can see it's a very big problem. We have no hospital here. I think as this community is going up, many people are living here, it's important for the county commissioner to see about a way that we can improve those problems. We also have buses at our parks. I have also seen buses that are parked in residential area. I don't know whether that's a problem, but I think it might be good idea to have those buses have a place for them to park, and in the morning those drivers can drive them and pick up people instead of having them parked in a residential area. My other thing is dogs, unleashed dogs that are running all over the town. I called Animal Control several times. There will be a tape, "Leave your name, and we'll get back to you." We waited weeks and weeks. No one ever calls. I think that's important because children are going to school and riding the bicycle, dogs are running after them, and I think the county commissioners should -- it would be important if you could take a look at those things. And also another thing I would like to talk about is housing. I know you're doing very well now because there are very dilapidated houses in Immokalee that are not good for people to live in. However, when they are condemned, people have no place to go. So I don't know how to deal with that. I think it might be a good idea to start building so people can have a place to go. Otherwise, they have to sleep nowhere, I don't know. I think that's all. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, sir. And that concludes the registered speakers. Was there anyone here who failed to sign up that hasn't had a Page 52 January 15, 2002 chance to speak yet that would like to? We'll recognize you first, and you'll be second. MS. ORTIZ: For the record, I'm Lucy Ortiz. A couple of things I wanted to say. Thank you again for coming here, and I really appreciate your introduction saying you wanted to give the commissioners and other staff for the county the flavor of Immokalee, but -- I appreciate that -- but one of the reasons that I left the room several times is I noticed several people were leaving. I asked them why they were leaving, and they said (speaking Spanish). Did you get that? THE REPORTER: No. MS. ORTIZ: No, which says really, if I speak to you in Spanish and you don't -- how many of you speak Spanish? (No response.) MS. ORTIZ: Nobody is raising your hand. Creole? (No response.) MS. ORTIZ: Either. I appreciate and I helped translate the flyers in English and Spanish, and I got someone to do it in Creole, but at the beginning I raised my hand and out of respect for you I did not pursue the issue, but there were people here that also need the translation of this whole meeting. A lot of them had come and signed up and they said, "I don't understand what they're talking about." They had a whole different idea with the issues of the mobile homeowners parks. So I'm going to then refer them to the appropriate people so they can talk about the issues and have their issues addressed about the concerns that they have. So I ask a little sensitivity. When you do bring a meeting here, please make sure that you do have someone to translate. Jean Voley can translate. We have Page 53 January 15, 2002 lots of others that can translate in English and in Creole. There's a lot of people in this room, too, that can translate in Spanish. Don't hesitate to bring somebody up so they can understand. Up there is a banner that says, "Knowledge is power." One of the problems that I see in Immokalee is that a lot of people because of the language are not aware of what's happening. So they may, sometimes me too, get our own ideas. We invent things or think that's the way things are because we really don't understand it. So being here present and having you available to us is very good. I commend you in that. Now, off my soap opera, I have a couple things I wanted to talk on. One is addressing the issues, and I don't know if it was covered by transportation of sidewalks. We need more sidewalks. This is very much a pedestrian town, especially the children when they go to school. I live right in front of the school on Roberts Avenue, and I constantly see children all in the middle of the road. You would not want your children walking in the middle of the road because there's no sidewalks to go to school. Please, I ask you to make that a priority, if it's not for the transportation department or whoever it is that does sidewalks. The other, there are also, although our federal government sometimes doesn't want to acknowledge, but in Immokalee a lot of people live here that do not have papers. They are undocumented residents, but they're here, they're living here, they're working here, they're paying taxes here. You know, they're paying sales taxes, they're getting social securities taken out. There are billions of dollars in the Social Security fund that no one is ever going to claim because they have put in money into Social Security, but they don't have a document. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Don't you think they should Page 54 January 15, 2002 ask for that money? MS. ORTIZ: They should, but the government is not going to give it to them. Anyway, that's not an issue that you and I can discuss here really, but just a comment. When we look at how we are going to deal with the people who are displaced from their homes because they need to be remodeled or replaced, I ask you to also look for funds for people -- for everyone irregardless of whether they're citizens or permanent residents or undocumented, all citizens because they all live here too. A lot of the programs that we have help people who are U.S. citizens, are permanent residents, are legal residents, but they exclude a lot of those who are not documented in this country. And the reality is that they are still here, they are living here, they are working here. So I wish that you were able to find some other source of money or some other source of pockets of monies to help them with that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Most of the alien residents or illegal residents, do they own -- MS. ORTIZ: A lot of them do. They own homes or they're buying them. They own mobile homes, automobiles a lot of them are, yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I don't think that you're going see any discrimination coming from this, because they're not illegal citizens. I think what you are going to see is for this board to reach out to Tallahassee or Washington D.C. for things like that. MS. ORTIZ: Good. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: One thing before you do go. MS. ORTIZ: Do you have any questions for me? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Before the meeting was put together, it's my understanding we were going to have sufficient interpreters here. I do appreciate your help through this. The next time we hold a meeting here what I'm going to suggest is we try to come up with Page 55 January 15, 2002 some sort of an arrangement where we can have an ongoing interpretation taking place in two other languages. MS. ORTIZ: Either simultaneously or a summary of what was said. You don't have to translate everything. The church that I belong to has lots of services in trilingual. We won't go into (speaking another language) which is another language in Immokalee, but it makes our community unique, but we need to be sensitive to be able to allow everyone that understands us that want to. People take their time. I mean, it's hard when you work in the fields I've done that before, come, get dressed, and then go to a meeting, you know, and then you don't understand anything. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Or if you're homeowners taking care of the children. MS. ORTIZ: That's right. Okay. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Ma'am, when you come up to the microphone, I'll need for you to identify yourself for the record. MS. ALLEN: My name is Offilia Allen. I have two issues. One of them was discussed already. And I would like to say thank you all for coming. One of them was the dogs. And I know -- I love dogs and most people do. I work at Collier County parks and recs, and we do not allow dogs on our premises, but sometimes they will run in because we don't have a lock on our gate. And two weeks ago a dog ran in the park, and my grandson was playing, and the dog ran after him. It frightened him so much that he said, "Grandmama, I almost died." And he said, "I hate dogs." And to this day he says that he hates dogs. And that is one of the reasons that we need a leash law in our area, because it is so dangerous for us to try and walk in our area. And I live on the south side of town, and it's just -- if you call them, like others have mentioned, that you don't get a good result. And I don't know why. Page 56 January 15, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We do have a leash law, and it should be in effect in Immokalee. Obviously it's not being enforced, but I'll ask code enforcement to look into it, along with Animal Control. MS. ALLEN: How can we have anybody enforce it if we have to call -- all of our information have to go to Naples to get somebody even to give them the information? But that's a whole other issue. And my other one is that I have been very concerned. I live on Eustis Avenue and First Street which we call Naples Road and you call Immokalee Road. I'm concerned because I lost a friend some years back trying to cross Justus and Naples Road. Now that we have the casino, the traffic is a lot faster and a lot heavier. And I went over to transportation when they first put it in and asked could they put a blinking light or something there. They kind of shooed me off and said it would have to go through surveying to make sure that it was feasible to put a light there. Again, I'm asking that if it's possible would somebody look into that before we lose another citizen to a tragic accident at that comer. As it was mentioned before, this is a mobile community where we do a lot of walking. A lot of people in my area have to walk across that busy street to go shopping because they don't have transportation to go out of lmmokalee or go up to Winn-Dixie. So if you would consider that, asking them to look into it to see if it's possible for a light to be placed there. Preferably a red light, but if not, a light to at least remind the drivers to slow down. And remember when people are coming in, many of them are not from our area, and when they come in, they don't know -- they're just driving -- that this is a busy area. Thank you so much again for coming, and thank you for listening to my gripe. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mrs. Allen. Is there Page 57 January 15, 2002 anyone else that wishes to speak? Sir, I have to ask you to come up front. MR. LESTER: For the record, I'm Jim Lester again. You're talking about getting information to us. I get a lot of junk mail in my mailbox. Can you use this type of thing and write it up and mail it out to everybody? Everybody has a mailbox practically. And get information to us rather because -- you know, a lot of people don't take a newspaper, and those that do take it don't read that part of it where it is once you get past the funnies, you know. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: There's a problem with that, sir. There's 250,000 people in Collier County, and to try to do a mailing wouldn't be practical. It would be easier through a news media or through electronic or faxes. MR. LESTER: I was just asking the question. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No. That's a good question, though. MR. LESTER: As far as the interpretation is concerned, how about if we broke up into little groups when we have a meeting like this and have an interpreter that's going to interpret in Spanish, one in Creole, and then us poor old honkies. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's what I just suggested also. MR. LESTER: Yeah, okay. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Was there anybody else? Ma'am, did you wish to speak? I need you to come up front. MS. RAMOS: Sandra Ramos. I just wanted to -- the same thing Ms. Allen was talking about. There's a lot of areas over here where a lot of kids are walking, and there's a lot of traffic. I live down Lake Trafford Road, and oh, my God, there's a lot of traffic down that road, especially with Jubilation coming in. There's going Page 58 January 15, 2002 to be even more traffic down that road. It's not just one way. It's going this way and going that way (indicating). And that's it. There's no even turning lane so people can get out of the way and turn. Where I 1'' ~ve there s actually one, two, three, four, five places where people are coming out of. And when you're trying to get out of one of those places, I mean, it's almost impossible at certain times of the day. And my thing was, how do we go about trying to get a traffic light or trying to get some sort of resolution to the traffic problems, especially down Lake Trafford Road with a few of the projects that are going on down there? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Lake Trafford Road is a big concern to this commission and to Norm Feder. Norm, would you care to comment on this? MR. FEDER: First of all, there are some limited resources, but at the same time we are trying to look at those county-wide. Dawn Wolfe, the planning director on my staff, and Don Scott, there is an overall traffic circulation study being done for the Immokalee area. They are in the process of that study right now, looking at some of the improvements we need to address out here. On a signal we look at them as a specific site basis. There's certain criteria, if you will, of things that have to be met before we can put up a signal. But if you have a specific location, I'll get with you after the meeting, we'll try to look at it. Turn lanes, those type of issues are more of what will come out of that traffic circulation study as we try to develop a plan for the Immokalee area. MS. RAMOS: Thank you. MR. FEDER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I had a question also. I know it doesn't relate to traffic signals, but sidewalks, they were talking about Page 59 January 15, 2002 how difficult it is without sidewalks. Is any of that grant money dedicated to sidewalks? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, the CDBG money is available for that. MS. FOORD: For the record, Marlene Foord. Yes, the CDBG money can be used for sidewalks. The grant we're applying for for the streetlights is for streetlights only this year, but we can look at that again for next year. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, Commissioner Coletta, I want to thank you for organizing this and having everybody out here. I truly enjoy coming out to Immokalee, so I wanted to give you a round of applause. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I thank you, and believe me I really enjoy it out here. I've spent a lot of time out here for many years. I know many of you very well and consider you part of my family. And with that, is there any other comments from any of the commissioners? (No response.) COMMISSIONER COYLE: MR. OLLIFF: No, sir. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: (No response.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: adjourned. Mr. Olliff, any comments? Anyone else from staff?. I'm going to call this meeting Thank you very much. Page 60 January 15, 2002 There being no further business for the good of the County, the workshop was adjourned by order of the Chairman at 9:20 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEAL/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL J~CHAIRMAN ATTEST: D~I~E. BROCK, CLERK ..... The'se minutes approved by the Board on presented ~*' or as co~ected ,as TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY CATHERINE A. FROMMER, NOTARY PUBLIC. Page 61