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BCC Minutes 01/16/2002 W (Public Relations and Marketing & Information Technology)January 16, 2002 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE IT WORKSHOP OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS NAPLES, FLORIDA, JANUARY 16, 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 having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9 a.m. in WORKSHOP SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: JIM COLETTA VICE CHAIRMAN: TOM HENNING JAMES D. CARTER, PH.D DONNA FIALA FRED COYLE ALSO PRESENT: TOM OLLIFF, County Manager LEO OCHS, Assistant County Manager JO-ANN VARCOE-LEAMER, Administrator of the Administrative Services Division Page 1 NOTICE OF BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS WORKSHOP Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:00 A.M. Notice is hereby given that the Collier County Board of County Commissioners will hold Workshop on WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2002 at 9:00 A.M., in the Board of County Commissioners Boardroom, Third Floor, W. Harmon Turner Building (Administration), at the Collier County Government Complex, 3301 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida. The Workshop will include, but may not be limited to, the following: Department of Public Information: Presentation on Public Relations and Marketing in Collier County Information Technology: Presentation on Technology in Collier County The meeting is open to the public. Any person who decides to appeal a decision of this Board will need a record of the proceedings pertaining thereto, and therefore may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA James D. Carter, Ph.D., Chairman DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK By: Is/Maureen Kenyon Deputy Clerk January 16, 2002 (Proceedings commenced, Commissioners Coletta and Carter not present.) ACTING CHAIRMAN HENNING: Morning, folks. Welcome to the workshop for information technology. If you-all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance as recited in unison.) ACTING CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Olliff, you go ahead and start us off, please. MS. LEAMER: Good morning, and welcome to the information technology and public information workshop. We're going to be spending the next three hours together discussing the history of these two departments, their current roles and responsibilities in this organization, their major inich -- initiatives and projects and, finally, the strategic priorities for the furore. We will be leading the discussions but encourage you to participate and ask questions. We want to hear from you. Your input is important in developing the furore division for these departments. The first two hours of the workshop will be on information technology, and our latest or newest director, Barry Axelrod, will be leading that discussion. Barry joined us in the middle of December. We'll take about a five-minute break around eleven o'clock, let the court reporter have a break and allow public information to get set up, and then the last hour of the workshop we will be led in discussion by -- by Jean Merritt on public information. And with that I'm going to mm it over to Barry so we can get started right away, and thank you. MR. AXELROD: Good morning. I'm really happy to have this opportunity to talk to you about the IT department, our work, and our furore. And I know it's something that you're interested in. I want to just take this opportunity to say that the technology that we'll be talking about is complicated in some respects, and it -- as things Page 2 January 16, 2002 evolve, it gets more complicated, and I'm encouraging you to stop me if-- if my explanations are not sufficient. We have a number of experts in the room who can address these issues in any -- in any depth that you like, and it is our intent today to demystify some of these things, so we're trying our best to -- to give you a clear view of what we do. Starting with a little bit of history, we'll try to reorient you with what's been going on in the IT department, with the departments that we serve, the issues that we have adapted to, and the direction we're taking to the future. The -- the presentation is really put into two halves. One is an operational half from what we currently do, and the second half is really a -- a strategic view of the things coming down the pike in the directions that we feel are important to the future. Those things involve agency-wide technology initiatives like the GIS project, which is the geographic information system, which we're already embarked on; the new financial management system which is agency-wide; and some things that we really haven't formally started like an E-government initiative, and-- which we're employed and ready to do. And, of course, this provides you with an opportunity to apply policy direction to the -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: May I -- may I ask one question right off the bat? Does that mean now that all of our computers will talk to each other within the county system? MR. AXELROD: That -- that's the ultimate goal, and we're achieving that in larger and larger degrees. We have some hurdles to overcome. We have a broad geographic reach that isn't served very well by commercial infrastructure, so some of those problems are expensive to solve. We'll talk about those. We have decentralized some of our offices to move out into those geographic areas which provides us both a problem, sometimes in connectivity and sometimes in extending our personnel for Page 3 January 16, 2002 services out there. We'll talk about that too. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Then one more question. Do at least each department -- or does each department talk to one another? MR. AXELROD: Very much so. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MR. AXELROD: Very much so. And we will explain that in depth. And if you have further questions after you see how connected they are, we'll for sure answer those. All right. So this is basically our agenda half and half, and we'll get right into it right now. This is a bit of a picture to give you an idea of how our services have been built over time. In the beginning, before there were computers, there was, you know, the -- the effective policies, how are we going to handle these things, how were we going to give them out. Remember the days when there was only one fax machine in the building? Well, that happened with PCs as well, and we had to plan how to proliferate them and to create the policies that would allow us to use them cost effectively. We still do that; there's still new technologies coming out. We're dealing with handheld PCs as a new thing right now, and we have to develop the policies for that. We're also looking at what we call virtual private networking which will allow county employees to operate securely in the county networks from their homes, and that requires policy direction as well. As we deployed computers, we had computer support services that became necessary. We have a thousand computers out there now in the organization. And, of course, you know, the departments do very different things with them, and they have very different problems. That we are continual solving, and we'll talk about that. We have now a extremely broad communications infrastructure, data communications, telecommunications, and radio communications. Page 4 January 16, 2002 And we'll talk all about that as well. On top of that, those bottom three layers we kind of consider a platform. Those are the things that you've invested in over the past five, six years, and that has formed a platform that is now robust enough where we can put departmental and agency-wide applications on these things. So it's becoming more and more like the phone system where, you know, you take it for granted. The phone just is there, and it works, and it's part of your productivity tools. And in more and more departments things that they did manually are converting over to automatic processes, and these platforms are rock solid, by and large, and provide them to do their business on in a very cost-effective manner. On top of that we are also engaged in an ongoing expensive process of obtaining software for the county, replacing software, replacing hardware. And for that a department may engage in that activity once every five years. We do it two or three or four times a year. So our staff has become the county's experts in guiding departments down those -- down those RFP cycles, those acquisition cycles, those long-term financial plans. So we provide those services out to the departments for obtaining services for contractors, outsourcing, that kind of thing. So this is a basic view of what we do. And you'll be hearing today from the managers of each one of these functions in -- in the departments as far as the status of affairs in those groups. This is -- this is the art chart for the group, current art chart. It's 34 people. 34 full-time equivalents to budget for FY '02 was 3.16; rounded up, 3.2 million. Functionally organized in the -- in the lines you'll see computer support line, a telecommunications line, a network operations line, an application services line, and that's the way we're -- we're going to talk about it today. Page 5 January 16, 2002 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Barry, can I ask you a question? We have a couple of managers who are managing one or two people. Do you plan expansions in those departments, or are you going to keep it that way? MR. AXELROD: There is only one manager here with a short line. That's telecommunications manager, and his functions are largely outsource services, and it's -- it's a very broad service area, and we'll talk more about that. The rest of the lines are -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: How about web manager? Do you have two people? MR. AXELROD: That -- that position right now is not staffed, and it's not -- we're not certain that we're going to proceed with it as a management position at this time. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. AXELROD: And I could tell you that as we get into the E- government discussion, it will require organizational changes. And if we proceed to get into E-government, it will become a larger function as time goes on. So it depends on our strategic direction. All right. The next chart is a -- a pie chart basically that shows the breakout of the 3.2 million in the various functions. It's pretty straightforward. It's basically our -- our -- our budget is basically salaries. It's where the people live and the salaries. The discretionary budgets in our group are operational, very small compared to the personal services, so it goes by person. The only exception to this is in the business applications area, which we provide applicate -- departmental application services back to the departments which we are reimbursed for, so there's a -- a line in our budget that gets -- that gets transfers from various departments in order to offset that, so that's the difference between the top line and the net. Page 6 January 16, 2002 Just to give you a -- a view of the status and the -- the -- the depth of coverage right now, the organization is using about 2400 800-megahertz radios. That's our responsibility for that infrastructure. We're up in the 1600 telephones -- excuse me, that -- that covers all the constitutional officers as well. The sheriff's department is the -- one of the biggest users of 800-megahertz radios, but it's our responsibility to maintain that infrastructure. Phones, the middle line there is flattening out. That's a mature technology, and it basically runs with head count in the organization. That line just shows the BCC organization. And computers you can see at the bottom line is still increasing its penetration into the BCC organization. We're at about a thousand computers right now. So that's the scope of the customer base that we serve. All right. At this point I'd like to ask Sue Buck, who is the manager of computer support, to give you a brief overview of her function. MS. BUCK: Computer support is made up of ten employees. We support the hardware and the software for those thousand computers that Barry mentioned. Also we handle on the hardware side anything related to those computers: Scanners, digital cameras, PDAs. As you're probably very familiar with, there's a lot of things that can connect to a computer these days, and we handle all of those. We also support the software, the standard core software package that is associated with those computers. That's the software that all county employees, all BCC county employees use every day. We troubleshoot that, repair it, install -- install it, and we also train all the county employees on those standard software applications. We have training available through cust -- through computer support at no charge to county employees. What we're working on right now is firming up our measurements and analyzing all our numbers so we can provide Page 7 January 16, 2002 better support in all the various areas, for example, how many service calls we get from a particular department or a particular division, how many computers we have at different locations, and how we can better serve those customers. We also recently created a team of employees for each division. Each team would have what we're calling an account manager who would act as a liaison, if you will, between the IT department and those divisions so we can better serve their needs; their concerns, if they have any; their plans for future projects; and so on and so forth. We're also updating our policies. We've had policies in place, but as time goes by, they need to be updated and firmed up. We're also very busy creating standards so the customer will know just what we can do for them, and it's very clear what our services are. So we're updating standards and policies. (Commissioner Coletta entered the room.) MS. BUCK: Does anybody have any questions? MS. LEAMER: I just wanted to note that in this group, if you look at the industry standard, it's 1 FTE or one support person to 75 computers. In Collier County we're at a ratio of 1 to 100, so we're -- we're above the industry standard and still providing service. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Tell me what those figures are one more time. MS. LEAMER: The industry standard is 1 support person per 75 computers. We're at 1 to 100. MS. BUCK: Any other questions? (No response.) MR. AXELROD: We'll move on. I'll introduce John Daly who is the telecommunications manager. MR. DALY: Good morning. The first slide here is more of a technical schematic. But we use this in management of the phone system, and it gives you a sense of-- of where our telephone switches Page 8 January 16, 2002 are located and also includes the voice mail system at the bottom there. And, like I said, we primarily use this as kind of a management tool as we get requests for phone service to make sure we have capacity and connectivity, you know, to these switches. Some of the issues on the telephone side, we're -- we're using a world-class phone system provided by Avaya, which -- which has thousands of installations throughout the world. It's highly scalable. There's a lot of features and options in that phone system which we have not purchased or activated yet. And looking at what we do with the phone system, compared with the variety of features it has, it's underutilized at this point. The system -- the phone system has primarily been managed operationally meaning when it's -- when it's broke, we fix it. And -- and our investment has primarily been to maintain service levels, mainly switch capacity that needs additional, you know, FTEs that are added or expanding the number of switches to -- to accommodate, you know, leased space, such as up at South Horseshoe. We're looking at the telephone system as being able to be more of a strategic ass -- asset. And the long-term vision for some of what the phone system can provide will be covered later in the E- government plan. But we've got a significant investment in the phone system, and it -- and it has a lot of capabilities to support what our customers are telling us what they want, the public to be able to access without, you know, necessarily a-- an employee intervention, you know, being able to get information from county computer systems after hours. And we're also looking at some of the technology which may allow us to provide better telecommunications services to some of the remote locations that currently just, you know, get services from the local phone companies, such as some of the parks and those types of things. Page 9 January 16, 2002 We are -- we do see that a lot of the -- the data that we want people to be able to get, universal access to county records and that type of stuff, can be done through the phone system, through advanced call routing and from after-hour call attendant-type features. Customer would be able to access, really, county information 24 -7. Anything that can be accessed via a web page can actually be accessed via telephone. And we realize that a lot of-- there may be a lot of people out there that don't necessarily have computer access but have telephone access to retrieve information. And the first part of this that we will be looking at, the bottom bullet there, the call statistics is, we need information. We need some measurements to be able to decide, you know, what's the best way to go. And one of the first things that we'll be bringing back to you will be some type of measurement system so we can see what our call activity is, times a day, you know, what switches are getting the most use. We can run some of that now, but it's not as detailed as we need to make some of the assessments that need to be made for this. MR. AXELROD: Right. The key -- the key behind the measurement system statistics is that we will then be able to substantiate future investments and also be able to measurement -- measure the effectiveness of those investments so we'll know which departments are getting calls, what -- what peak times, how much after-hours,calling is happening. If we initiate a program for shifting business to after hours, and even do advertising behind it, we'll be able to measure the effectiveness, so we'll get a cause and effect that will be advantageous going forward for future investments. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Will this also work as a tool to be able to track customers' concerns, complaints, or suggestions? MR. AXELROD: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And when do we think we'll be able to implement this? Page 10 January 16, 2002 MR. AXELROD: If I could ask you to wait until the second half of the presentation -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I will. MR. AXELROD: -- I have more -- much more to say about that. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: This is something that I'm very interested in and asking for its arrival. MR. AXELROD: Yes, sir. All right. The other -- the other portion of the telecommunications section is the 800-megahertz radio network. This slide indicates where our current sites are. The TL dots indicates some closed expansion to meet some of the growth that we are seeing out there, both in call volume and in population. The radio system, as -- as Barry said earlier, has about 2400 mobile, portable, and base-station radios. The system is being used by 37 departments or agencies, including the two municipalities in the county. The system processes approximately 2 million radio transmissions, and at this point we are finalizing a lease agreement with our vender who is developing a state-wide radio system for the State of Florida. (Commissioner Carter entered the room.) MR. AXELROD: They're going to use some of our -- our sites and some of our space and, you know, generators and those types of things to facilitate their limitation in the state-wide project. And in exchange for that, we would develop a lease agreement. We're estimating the revenue would be approximately 60,000 a year. They would not be using any of our actual communication assets like, you know, the radio frequencies. They would be installing their own for the state, but they would be using our microwave network and some of our space and shelters where we have space available. We should have that agreement finalized fairly soon to bring back, you know, Page 11 January 16, 2002 for your approval. MR. OCHS: John, when you say State of Florida, which agency are you talking about primarily? MR. DALY: The state-wide radio system is going to serve all state law enforcement, FDLE, highway patrol, game and fish. And it's going to include six consolidated dispatch centers state-wide. The one for this region would be in Fort Myers. MR. OCHS: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: This is important for you to know that -- that one of the functions of this department is maintaining this system. The reason this system is so important, it is the backbone of pretty much county-wide public safety agency work. I mean from fire departments to sheriffs' departments to EMS. Communication is vitally important out in the field, and reliability is extremely important when you've got deputies out in the field. They need to know when they hit that radio that they're going to be able to back up when they need it and they're going to be able to get to -- to the central dispatch when they need to. So there's a tremendous amount of responsibility being borne by your IT department to make sure that system is functional. And if the board will recall, you recently made a fairly significant investment in the switchover of the 800 megahertz going from an analog to a digital-type system. And we had our bumpy roads. And you may have heard a little bit about that early on. But, John, I believe today I believe we can fairly safely say that the system is in pretty good shape. I believe we've got pretty good buy-in from most of the public services. MR. DALY: We -- we have -- we have a few issues there that we're getting through, but yeah. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Tom, I seem to recall that we had some difficulty with respect to the vender changing the specifications Page 12 January 16, 2002 of their equipment and -- and the equipment we had procured was no longer capable of being commanded. Am I understanding that correctly or not? MR. DALY: The digital upgrade did require replacement of some of the portable radios or a large percentage of them due to the fact that -- I mean, it was a significant change in operation. It actually was a board change-out in the radio; that would have not been easy to facilitate in the field. So it did require a change-out of the portable radios, but that was negotiated at a significant discount to the county. We negotiated a fairly attractive -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. DALY: -- migration plan. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So there's no -- no real problem supporting or expanding 800 megahertz? MR. DALY: No. The system has a lot of expansion capability. MR. OCHS: I might just expand on that for just a minute without belaboring it. I think the big issue that we're facing right now -- and John touched on it -- is the application of the digital portion of the radio system, vis-a-vis the analog system. And the digital was primarily requested by public safety agencies because it's more secure, and there's some encryption capabilities. But that is a relatively young technology, and there's still some -- some differences in it when it comes through the handheld radio that are causing some concerns from the -- from the public safety community and the sheriff and the sheriffs agency specifically. So we continue to try to work those out. They're not stopping the day-to-day business in anyway, and -- but those are some of the issues that -- that John alluded to that -- that we're still trying to work through with -- with the sheriff. The other issue -- and he'll touch on it -- is continuing to maintain adequate coverage as the county grows and expands in new Page 13 January 16, 2002 areas that used to be fairly uninhabited that are now becoming more and more urbanized. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, are we converting everything to digital, or is there going to be a period of time when we have to have dual digital, analog? MR. DALY: The system will continue to support analog, especially for general government, you know, our-- our county government agencies, road and bridge, building inspectors, code enforcement. Those people would remain analog. The digital is a more expensive technology, and they will probably not see the benefit of digital in those agencies. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But the digital radios that we are acquiring or converting or upgrading, will they have both digital and analog capabilities? MR. DALY: Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So they can interface with the -- MR. DALY: Yes, yes. And the system carries analog and digital the same. The system doesn't really care how the radio wants to transmit. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. DALY: The system has that capability. The basic issues we have -- the first I've got there is channel expansion. Probably in FY '04 we would need to at some sites add channels. The more radios you put out on the streets, the busier those channels get, and you need the additional capacity just so that the users don't get cued or, you know, get busies at the site. That's not a significant expense. And -- basically, you know, we can monitor system reports and see where we have busies. And that can actually be done incrementally as -- you know, as we determine the need. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: One question, other than possibly the sheriffs department or EMS. The inspectors that are out in the field, Page 14 January 16, 2002 why couldn't they just use cell phones? Wouldn't that be a lot less expensive than handheld radios? MR. DALY: It -- that would be a possibility. However, it wouldn't give them dedicated communication. We also have the issue that in the event of some type of disaster the cell networks tend to get busy. And I think if we have a vital communication need that we have -- road and bridge is an excellent example. They need continual communication with their people, and cell phones really wouldn't be practical in that application. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: The intent is that we have -- be able to send these signals out, they're secure and they'll be able to withstand the force of a tropical storm or hurricane. MR. DALY: Yeah. We've been-- I mean, you know, we've been through it. We've -- we've had some minor antenna damage. But the storms we've had since the systems been -- in '96, we've never actually lost an antenna off the site. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Has there been an actual study done to see the cost benefit against the occasional difficulty of communications? MR. OCHS: With cell phones you mean? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's correct. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, you-- you definitely can't use it in the cell blocks. You remember during fire -- fire season. You know, there's some difficulty with rave -- wave radio and the communication in that. And that might go away once the -- well, I shouldn't say that. The fish and wildlife will be controlling that area, but it's still going to need a lot of support from the fire districts. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I agree. And that's an isolated example. Somebody like an inspector that may occasionally like a couple of times a year be unable to reach you from the south block Page 15 January 16, 2002 where there's no building going on as opposed to when he gets to the next stop might be a little closer to the tenant -- I'm wondering what the cost -- the dollar and cents value is from one to the other. Cell phones are something that I believe just about every county employee has. Is there a neces -- is there a necessity to be able to follow -- do we have to follow two lines of communications, both cell phones and radios, for someone that might be a low user on the system or they might not have to operate in an emergency capacity? Just -- that's a question that I really think is a fair -- a fair question. MR. DALY: I think in those situations like the building inspectors, code enforcement you really have a dispatch-type environment. I think the amount of traffic that the building inspectors put on the radio system would be difficult for them to do on cell phones. I mean, they are calling and continually looking for information on building permits, checking status of inspections, that type of stuff. If you ever get a chance to listen -- you know, we can provide a radio for you if you want to listen. I mean, there's a lot of building inspector activity. Code enforcement and road and bridge are fairly high end. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I would like to have a radio at some off time maybe when somebody is on vacation for about a week. MR. DALY: We have some spares; we could turn them up, take a look. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: And this is supported by permit fees? MR. DALY: We -- well, we maintain the infrastructure with the traffic ticket money, the $12.50 surcharge, traffic tickets. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. DALY: The individual departments maintain their mobile and portable radio inventory. They pay a monthly fee for those radios to be on maintenance -- Page 16 January 16, 2002 MR. OLLIFF: John, there's actually a -- a cost that the community development fund pays to the general fund that we do an-- an update on that formula. In fact, we're in the process of doing it right now, an update. And it covers the cost of maintenance on their centralized phone system. It covers the cost of even the attomey services that they receive, and everything that they would generally get from a general fund and department is offset by building permit fees. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Tom, I'd just like to bring up an issue here. I'm not sure it's relevant. But Mr. Coletta hit on something that I think at least someone should take a look at. We have a lot of cell phones, and I imagine the cell phone bills are rather expensive based upon the number of calls we get. There are calling plans that permit calls between one cell phone and another cell phone in the same -- enrolled in the same program to be doing free of charge, unlimited number of minutes. Are we doing that? MS. LEAMER: That's correct. With the Nextel phones that is in place. So if it's Nextel to Nextel, there is no charge. And the representative from Nextel is actually working with our county departments to review their bills and make sure they're on the appropriate plans. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Good. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If I may expound upon that, but that was number one on the hit parade and I had down there too and was waiting for an opportunity. Wouldn't there -- wouldn't there be a savings, though, if all the departments within the county had the same provider? Have we ever done research? I asked the question before and never got an answer. MS. LEAMER: For cell service? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Cell phones. In other words, all departments using the same provider. Page 17 January 16, 2002 MS. LEAMER: That has been out for purchasing on a cyclical basis. I believe it's a two-year contract, and right now we're with Nextel and All-Tel (sic), so purchasing is trying to bid that out as one county service so we can leverage our -- our dollars and that we don't have people signing up for service with Cellular One or -- or Nextel individually. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If you would be so kind as to supply me with a copy of the last bid and the results of it. MS. LEAMER: Sure. MR. OLLIFF: Commissioner Coletta, I need you to talk into a microphone when you talk just so we can get it on the system. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'd be more than happy to. I'll share this with them. MS. LEAMER: I'd be happy to provide that with you. The last time we bid, we did move from Cellular One to Nextel, and I'll get that information for you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: John ... MR. DALY: The -- the other bullet we have there is probably the need to add additional sites to maintain and improve the level of service, particularly in those rural areas where we never had population, and based upon the population at the time the RFP was written, you know, the coverage specifications, you know, kind of varied from one area of the county to the another based upon the density of the population. We estimate that to be about 4 million, and we put up it there in FY '03. We do have some opportunity to save some money on that expansion if we do that fairly quickly, but we're still looking at some of those issues. And then the bottom bullet there is we continue hardware and software maintenance services which keep us fairly current with Page 18 January 16, 2002 technology and allows the system to carry, you know, some of the features that the users may decide. We have software support on our radio system so that as the vender comes out with -- with changes to their technology, we get those software upgrades, and then the users can simply, you know, enable their radios to access some of those things that they so determine. It's trying to keep the infrastructure current. COMMISSIONER COYLE: With respect to the additional sites -- MR. DALY: Yeah. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- what constitutes that cost? Are -- are we talking about additional hardware, or are we talking about antennas or a combination of the two? MR. DALY: It's hardware and the antennas installed on the existing towers. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So -- so current capacity is not sufficient to deal with forecast growth? MR. DALY: That's correct. MR. AXELROD: All right. At this point we'll move on to the -- to the data communications infrastructure. Mike Berrios will present that. MR. BERRIOS: Good morning. Network operations is responsible for maintaining all of the servers and equipment that are used to interconnect all the key -- computers on a countywide basis. This diagram represents the reach of the county's network, and the county's network was built over the course of the last five or six years. We have -- most of the county locations are permanently networked. The areas where we are continuing to expand our network are primarily those areas where there are a very small number of county employees, one or two employees. And because of the geographic Page 19 January 16, 2002 disbursing of the county and the lack of competition for commercial infrastructure, the cost of networking those sites is very expensive on a per-user basis. So the departments involved to fund many of those expansions have decided that the cost versus the benefit isn't -- isn't there. We do network most of those facilities using dialup networking. I'm sure you guys have all worked with that. We're doing -- we have some initiatives to upgrade that service and make it perform better. If-- if you look over at the very large map that's sitting on the floor over here, you can get an idea of how spread out the county facilities are. The orange blocks -- and there's some light gray blocks -- represent all of the Board of County Commissioners' facilities. The other -- the other blocks in different colors represent school board facilities, sheriff, the clerk of the circuit court. And we are working with those agencies looking for opportunities to kind of share the cost of infrastructure where we're co-located and it makes good business sense. So this kind of give you an idea of how spread out the county is from a facilities perspective. The box on the top and the box on the bottom represent Everglades City and Immokalee which wouldn't fit on that map. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Question: Is it your department that is working on the fiberoptic line to be able to connect us with Immokalee? MR. BERRIOS: We're involved with the public information office, the school board, and-- and IT is involved in that, yes. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: How is this most important cooperative arrangement coming together? MR. BERRIOS: There's a meeting scheduled for -- MR. OCHS: February the 5th, the workshop you're talking Page 20 January 16, 2002 about? MS. LEAMER: That will be discussed at the workshop coming up in February between the school board and the Board of County Commissioners. There are a number of initiatives going on, staff- level initiatives, between the school board and the county, as well as the EDC. Economic Development Council is working with the private business -- businesses in Collier, as well as the government entities, to try and find a solution for this. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Anything we can do to expediate that fiberoptic line would be greatly appreciated. MS. LEAMER: We're also going to be looking for grant opportunities. There may be some opportunities to get money from USDA to build a fiberoptic line. So we're going to look for any opportunity for cost sharing, collaborative efforts, because it is an expensive problem to solve. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Commissioner Coletta, maybe it would be helpful. Leo Ochs and I met with a representative from the school system, and that's what's triggering into our workshop on the 5th. And that came out of the meeting that we all participated in with the EDC, which was in -- in January. So there's been some step process to bring it to this board where we've laid the groundwork for what can we do on an interim basis and finally get to the cable, fiberoptic cable basis. It will be a two-step process, Leo, if I remember our conversation correctly, in order to get us to that point, not only to benefit government but the business communities in Immokalee. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Commissioner Carter. I appreciate the work you did on that when you were the chair. MR. BERRIOS: I think it's also important to note that we work very closely with the other government agencies, as well as the EDC. Page 21 January 16, 2002 We're participating in several committees, as it relates to technology, always looking for opportunities to solve the -- the communication bottlenecks that we have for the small locations or the very far away locations. Any questions about -- at this point? No? Network operations: We continue, again, to have initiatives to expand and complete our connectivity. We're also looking at increasing the level of fault tolerance for mission-critical applications and for some of our key infrastructure components. The network is very reliable but has a number of single points of failure. And we're looking at -- the cost of eliminating the single points of failure is very high, and so we're looking for good business reasons for doing that. We're also looking at business continuity. A lot of our planning has changed in light of recent events. Our planning was related mostly to storms and natural disasters and didn't really take into consideration that we may lose a number of facilities through other means or be denied access to those facilities. Our security section within the department is working to create some business continuity planning and do some business needs analysis on that so that we can come up with a prudent plan to address those concerns. We're also trying to respond to changing -- changes in our customers' demand. New applications that the county is bringing on on an agency-wide basis, particularly the geographic infra -- excuse me, information systems, and some of our E-government initiatives will require us to change the way that we do business and also to increase the capacity of our network to be able to carry the large amounts of data that are associated with those initiatives. We're also working on how we are going to accommodate 24- hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week support as we move into -- into the world where the public will be doing business with the county at all hours, Page 22 January 16, 2002 how do we maintain that infrastructure, know that it's working properly outside of normal business hours. We're looking at a number of options, including outsourcing some of that after-hour support to be able to accommodate that demand. We're also struggling with the impact of decentralization and how it relates to the costs and challenges associated with maintaining a network infrastructure. Whenever you are so geographically disbursed, the cost of maintaining that network goes up, and we are actually working to relocate some of our network operation staff to the areas where we have a lot of county employees, such as North and South Horseshoe Drive to provide a higher level of service for those operating departments. Some of the highlights that we're looking at for this fiscal year are the extension of Sprint SONET network. That will increase the level of fault tolerance for the county. Increasing our network coverage, we're going to be networking for the parks locations. We're going to be upgrading our dialup services to increase the level of performance, decrease the number of busy signals, and to make it a more seamless sign-on. We're also working on introducing VPN or virtual private networking services, and that is something that would have a direct impact on you if you have a DSL or a cable modem at your home. It will allow you to access safely and securely the county's network through those connections. That will also provide a number of opportunities to reduce the cost of networking those smaller locations by taking advantage of the lower costs of cable modems and DSL service. We will be increasing the performance of our network infrastructure where required to accommodate new business applications. Mapping is one of them. And we're also positioning ourselves so that as the business demand requires, we'll be able to Page 23 January 16, 2002 support some of the voice and video communications over the data network in the future. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Excuse me. Who's requiring you to make these improvements? MR. BERRIOS: For ... VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: You said we're required to make these improvements. You're just -- your last statement. MR. BERRIOS: Well, required probably was a poor choices of words. The -- the -- the improvements are being made to handle the additional capacity requirements that the geographic information system will need to be able to function as well as it should. MS. LEAMER: They're being driven by our business needs in the various areas, whether it's parks or the people who are going to use maps. MR. AXELROD: I'll address that. I've done some surveying with the customer departments. And, for example, I could give you one thing that the dialup service has always been at the top of the list of complaints of almost everybody I talked to. We took that as a requirement to upgrade that. And I'll -- I'll address more of that. MR. BERRIOS: We're also working on improving our level of connectivity to the various constitutional officers. We are currently working on connecting the sheriffs department to the Board of County Commission network to allow interchange of data and e-mail. That process is -- is in the last technical stages, and we're hoping to bring that connection on line in the very near future. We're also working on replacing and improving the performance of our connection to the property appraiser, clerk of the circuit court, public defender, state's attorney, and court administration. All of those connections will provide us with opportunities in the future to leverage communications where we have co-located facilities. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Can you tell me what SONET Page 24 January 16, 2002 means? MR. BERRIOS: SONET basically is a infrastructure that Sprint has in place throughout the county that uses fiberoptics to provide voice communications. So when you pick up your telephone, ultimate your -- ultimately your call ends up on their fiberoptic infrastructure. And SONET is a -- a physical ring of fiber that runs around the county, and the intent is is that if you cut it with a backhoe the data goes the other way around the ring so it doesn't isolate facilities in the event of a cable cut or an equipment failure, things of that nature. So they're going to expand that around the perimeter of our campus so that 911 and all of our voice communications and all of our data communications are then directly on their SONET infrastructure. So if we have a cable cut on the campus, unless they run a trench all the way across the campus and cut it in two places, we won't be put out of service. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Hmm. Okay. MS. LEAMER: The SONET ring will improve our reliability of service. There have been some issues with Sprint's reliability in the past, and -- and this will help. MR. BERRIOS: Any other questions I can answer? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I -- I -- you may have covered it either in the book. I'm not too sure. But what about data protection? What about a catastrophe, something like a heavy magnetic field due to terrorist acts? How is our data protected? MR. BERRIOS: We are currently revising our business continuity plans and disaster recovery plans to incorporate those types of challenges. It's not something that our initial planning ever contemplated that we would become a target for terrorists for some of the things that we do. We have an initiative right now where we're working with each of the operating departments within the Board of County Commissioners to determine what the cost of loss of systems Page 25 January 16, 2002 are going to be, what the loss of productivity is going to be so that we can prioritize and address those issues. Some of the things that we are looking at are -- are potentially creating data centers at remote locations. We looked at the emergency services facility that's being contemplated and -- and the possibility of putting a data center there and then setting up our computer systems so all the data lives there as well, and if in the event of a problem at this facility, we can simply switch to that data center. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Isn't there a provider already someplace in Iron Mountain that stores data retrieved later.9 MR. BERRIOS: Those are for off-site data tape storage. We're working right now with the county attorney's office negotiating a contract with actually AT&T. We looked at Iron Mountain, but they're not really geared to deliver the tapes on the basis that we do, as well as to cut out -- accommodate the need to move the data tapes off site in the event of a storm. So when we have a hurricane, we want to get the data out of the county -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I really wasn't too concerned about a hurricane -- MR. BERRIOS: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's -- that we can recover from. We're ready to -- I'm concerned about electromagnetic waves -- MR. BERRIOS: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- anything from an atomic weapon to a device that could destruct all computer chips and all data and completely wipe it off and -- I know it's a little far-fetched at this point in time, but so was 9/11 back prior to that date. As you move into this, I'd like to see the reports that are generated -- MR. BERRIOS: Certainly, certainly. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- from the study. Page 26 January 16, 2002 MR. BERRIOS: Most -- most of-- almost all of our planning incorporates components that gets the data out of the county on a regular basis nightly in some cases so that it's -- it's out of the county. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Then where would that be -- those -- I mean, are there -- we probably don't want to let that out. Never mind. I withdraw the question. I don't want to know. MR. AXELROD: You know, one other -- one other point here is that we have a dedicated staff member, Jeff Bolen, who is the security administrator. And you'll see later in the presentation where he's got a deliverable that he's working on with a committee right now for a business continuity plan which updates to all these new concerns. So that's something that we will be delivering as a matter of business. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. MR. AXELROD: Just -- also, those two senior staff members, Jeff and Ray Higdon, the database administrator for the county, I just want to let you know that they're here, and that they're here to support any requests that come up and, of course, the key members of the IT staff, as well as the managers. Any other questions about data communications? We're about ready to move into applications. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You mentioned dialup. What is a dialup? MR. AXELROD: Dialup -- dialup is the method of access that most people used -- used to, for instance, get on AOL, you know, where you will have a phone line and a modem that will dial the phone. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MR. AXELROD: As -- as opposed to the connections that are emerging now that are always on, like, the DSL or the cable modems where you don't have to physically dial a phone in order to make a connection with a data network. Page 27 January 16, 2002 So the dialup infrastructure, of course, was the way to connect the remote locations and before we -- if we couldn't get the more robust networking to them, and it still serves as the backup in a lot of cases to the county's network if-- if something catastrophic were to happen. But the infrastructure is old. It's obsolete. You know, at your home now for $49 you can get a modem that will connect at 56 K. Our stuff works at 33 K right now which is slow, half the speed, just about. And the number of lines we had was insufficient to handle the - the needs of the people who dialed up. So we're make -- we're doing two things: both improving the speed up to 56 K which would make for shorter connections; we're adding a number of lines; and we're also going to employ this VPN technology which will take some of the people who had a dialup, get them off of the dialup and onto the -- onto the -- always on network connectivity. So overall the situation with dialups will get a lot better. As we do this, we're also going to look at the way that the software works so, for instance, you don't have to log in four times in order to do something. You know, so we're going to be attacking that whole thing during this next couple months. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: This is absolutely wonderful. Now when we can leave at five o'clock, go home, get on our computers and work right on through the night, 24-7 work. And I have noted prior during some of my nighttime hours that a number of county employees are on there continuously. I don't think they ever go to bed. COMMISSIONER COYLE: They just mm them on and leave them. MR. AXELROD: All right. At this point we're ready to talk about the application work that we do, and that would be from Tammy Smith who manages that area. Page 28 January 16, 2002 MS. SMITH: Good morning. Our area is formally known as the client system support section. We're comprised of 12 staff members and 3 separate sections. One is the web technology section. One is the GIS section, geographical information systems, and the other is the applications analysts, the core group of application analysts which is our project management team. We provide operational and technical support for all applications that meet very specific business needs throughout the county. And at this point departments rely highly on the applications that we support to meet their everyday business needs. You can see nine of the significant applications that we support here. There are a list of many, many more, but these are the significant major applications that support business functions across the county. Most of these applications are written by outside venders and then implemented with technical IT support, and then after the implementation we stay on to maintain the application and manage the vender through the -- the full life cycle of the application. It's our job to form relationships with -- with these departments to learn their very specific business needs and to -- to meet their needs as their systems grow in a more efficient manner. This slide is a list of services that our section provides throughout the county on an internal basis. Because we are an internal consulting service, we train our staff in the business areas of the divisions and the departments that they support. We walk departments through the process hand in hand of selecting venders and procuring software and hardware technology to meet their business needs. We also provide necessary skills to assist with the purchasing of new technology and the replacement of existing technology as their needs -- as their business needs changes. Page 29 January 16, 2002 Again, we do maintain their systems through -- through their full life cycle from the inception of the application through the replacement of another application. Right now we are currently acquiring up to three business systems annually. And since the inception of IT in 1995, we replace -- we have installed and implemented 7 major systems. This slide is a quick look at our highlights for the second quarter of this year. In this slide you'll see that there are three agency-wide applications that we're working on, the geographical information systems, the financial management system, and the electronic document management system. These three systems are -- are full speed ahead, and they're all on the plate to -- to implement as -- as soon as possible and as diligently as possible. The FMS system, we're currently working with the clerk of courts to implement this system agency wide. It's on a very, very aggressive schedule and a very challenging schedule as October 1st is our cutover date for the new system. The vender that we've selected is SAP. And SAP brings a great deal of opportunities to the county for present and future needs. They've got a lot of exciting modules that we can implement on a future basis that we won't have to pay for later. This system will integrate the human resources department, the risk management department, the purchasing department, the budget department, and all aspects of finance into one integrated system. Electronic document management, we have a main goal with this system to provide a cost-effective method of converting paper documents to digital records which provides reduced time for retrieval of documents and a cost-efficient way of freeing up office space for county staff. We're gaining momentum on this project as we're implementing it department by department. Currently we have several departments that utilize this system starting with the Page 30 January 16, 2002 community department and environmental services division. The entire division uses the system: EMS billing, risk management, purchasing, human resources, and utility billing, customer service, and the -- and the transportation engineering department. And coming up, next phase, which will probably be next fiscal year or at the end of this fiscal year, we have a transportation-- transportation operations, transportation administration, utilities engineering and transportation storm water that are also trying to come up on this system. And GIS, last but not least, is a full-speed-ahead project. You're about to see a demo after I complete this of the EDMS piece and the GIS piece. Currently we're implementing all software and hardware required to kick this project off officially. We'll have three to four applications live for everybody to see and use by June 1st of this year. Those applications have yet to be determined exactly what pieces they're going to be. That will be determined later by the departments and the -- the GIS committee that we put together. Our goal with GIS is to make more current data available to more people electronically utilizing less paper. Anybody have questions? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes, a couple. You're going right in the direction that I was hoping we would be going. A little bit of concern, though, with the hardware and the software that we're going to be contracting for. Is it -- is it a system that's put into place that only this one vender can ever service, or is it open-ended that we can switch venders and reach a point? In -- in other words, would the equipment be dated by the vender you have in place and you're going to be locked in forever for the life of the equipment? MS. SMITH: For which system? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: For the one there that will do all the Page 31 January 16, 2002 bills and do all the work, integrate the system. MS. SMITH: The financial management system? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes. MS. SMITH: The -- the financial management system, SAP, is a vender. Most of the hardware should be able to be used, utilized for other systems. But you have to realize that life cycles of software and hardware are -- are over in about five years. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I understand. MS. SMITH: So by the time the software has reached its life cycle, more than likely the hardware has also reached its life cycle. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I had a vender myself that was a 15- year marriage because of the fact there was no way to ever switch from the use of it. You could discontinue the service, but then there would be no more support. And it wasn't exactly an unfavorable arrangement; it worked fine. But I was -- I had no freedom of movement to another vender unless I wanted to hand enter all my data back in again. Just a concern, and I'm sure that you people, being experts in the field, have thought this out. MR. AXELROD: Yes. But -- but we -- these are excellent points. The current financial system, I -- again, I'm new here -- but I'm told is 15 years here. And, you know, changing financial systems is a hard thing to do, so when we pick venders for these, we're looking for venders that are world class, well known, well supported. And SAP is the provider of this. And their business is basic -- basically the Fortune 2000. And they are in doing what they're doing for us with, you know, most major corporations in -- in the country worldwide, as a matter of fact. And we look for that commitment from the vender to make sure that they're going to maintain and support this for the long run. And for this system, the long run is a long time. It's not 5 years; it's more like 15 or 20 years. During that time it's likely that the hardware's going to swap out a couple of times Page 32 January 16, 2002 because applications get bigger; they get to do more. Computing power is doubling every year type of thing. So we expect that we'll be doing hardware migrations. Hopefully you won't notice those things, but the applications will continue to run, continue to expand for a long time. But vender selection for these things is a major point because, as you know, the switching costs are very high. And we are involved in some switching right now, and the departments that are, you know, going through this are -- you know, it's a struggle. So we are really looking to make sure that the quality of our venders is good. We do a lot of reference checking. We want to see, you know, good financial strength and, you know, all those things in order to make sure that we're not going to be doing a panic migration. We want these things to go in the long run. We regard these -- these venders as strategic partners. We can't switch on a whim. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. That answered my question. MR. OCHS: Barry, you may also just want to touch on the concurrent internal technical and business application support that goes along with that FMS project. In other words, when the vender leaves, it's not as if we have no one left here on staff, either in the clerk's agency or ours, to make minor tweaks and to maintain that application on a -- on a daily basis and address new needs as they come along. MR. AXELROD: That's -- that's a really good point, too, Leo. These -- when we buy these systems, we are not buying them without help. They usually come with some required services to either help in a migration or help with an initial implementation. And all of the agency-wide systems that we're dealing with right now, that is the case, and that is probably anticipated to become the -- you know, the defacto way of doing things. Page 33 January 16, 2002 While this happens, we are adding positions within our organization or sometimes out in the departments that are being trained on the technologies, the specific technologies, because that department or our support is going to go on for a long time. So we learn what needs to be learned, and we become competent in the basics of sustaining these applications. And from time to time we will require specialized consulting help if-- if a particular situation pro -- is -- is out of the norm and beyond the expertise of what we have. But over time you will accumulate these things. It's another reason why you don't want to be -- you know, you need to make long-term decisions in this area. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Right. And basically it boils down to being able to convert the format of what's in there, something that will be acceptable by standard technology that's out there for another vender in the future. If you have that covered, you have everything covered. MR. AXELROD: Yeah. That's right. All of the systems that we are procuring are what they call open systems now where, you know, most of the time we're dictating, you know, what our environment is. And the successful bidders will be capable of running on a number of environments, ours being one of them. Our database standards, we're not about to go changing that. It's too much of an investment. You know, our -- our hardware platform standards, you know, requires expertise. We have those expertise, and it's an industry standard platform. We're not going to go about changing those things. So all of the successful bidders are running on a variety of platforms that the industry considers standard, and we are very much an industry standard platform as well. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: The other thing I wanted the board to get from Page 34 January 16, 2002 this particular segment is just an understanding that there is a parallel, in my mind, between your internal systems and the -- the capital infrastructure on the outside that we've been supporting and -- and you seem to understand very well that -- that we have been in a catchup mode in terms of getting roads built and getting water and wastewater plants built and doing some of those kinds of things. Well, I'll tell you that it's not very different when you look inside. And if you look at the size, the magnitude of the projects that we have taken ahold of, they are enormous. And -- and we've got a number of overlapping major projects going on at the same time that, frankly, in my opinion, we are behind and -- and should have probably been doing for a number of years. GIS is a great example. GIS has everyday applications that -- that benefit the public, your operating departments, and save money on a day-to-day basis, and we should have been doing that for years. But we are now trying to catch up and get GIS in place. FMS system is another, which is just an enormous project. And it is one that it -- it encompasses a number of different agencies, not only the Board of County Commissioners -- and you're going to have a tremendous amount of internal staff work acquired to get us -- required to get us to an October 1 cutover date. And EDMS is another very, very large project when we start going to electronic data management systems, something we should have been doing. And we have rooms and rooms and rooms of paper files that we are required by law to keep, in some cases, HR files. For example, I know the old role -- it used to be a hundred years we used to have to keep. And I think that role still stands today. The volume of paper in an organization like this, trying to mm that into electronic data is a huge task, but you have to get started sometime, and so we've decided as an agency, get started, for better for worse, and start moving ahead on some of these things, but they Page 35 January 16, 2002 have got a -- a large tiger by the tail here, and we're trying to keep that whole thing managed. MR. AXELROD: Every once in a while somebody asks you to find one of those pieces too. So, in any case, I'd like to introduce Don Blalock, who is going to give a short demo of both the EDMS and the GIS capabilities. MR. BLALOCK: The EDMS project has a nice website, which is beneficial to everybody because you really don't have to have any special software installed on your computer. If you have a dialup from home you can access this system. We had one person who was pregnant, had her baby, and she was doing work from home editing some of these EDMS files and could -- could keep working doing that. So there's a lot of-- the ease of operations thing is very apparent. MR. OCHS: Don, again, the EDMS is ... MR. BLALOCK: -- is electronic document management system, also known as document imaging, also known as document scanning. MR. OCHS: Thank you. MR. BLALOCK: Okay. About I think it was in 1998 the community development-- and environmental services staff felt that they had a -- a records problem. And it was threefold: records retrieval, records retention, and storage. The records retrieval was a problem because when somebody wanted to come in for, let's say, an SDP, a site development plan, they had to come into community development. They had to request that particular SPD. And if it wasn't there, they had to get it from the Iron Mountain. And it took anywhere from ten or -- five to ten working days. When you're a staff member, it's very frustrating. But, also, people that were requesting this were land development attorneys and engineering companies and development companies. Page 36 January 16, 2002 So everybody was a little bit frustrated with it. An RFP was put out for document imaging; a company was selected. They were called Image One. Image One is a vender for Canon and also for a software program called OTG. Now, OTG is also used by Xerox, so there's a lot of companies that use this particular database which kind of pulls all the pictures together that we scan in. These are the community development various applications: building permits; code enforcement files; drawings or the as-builts for site development -- or excuse me, for subdivisions; miscellaneous documents that people need from time to time. We have people come in, say, "I need to have this scanned. I need to have it burnt to a disc so that I can view it at home." We can do that for them. That's another benefit to this program. And the nice thing about the CD that you burn is that when you throw it into your computer at home, you don't need any special software, and it's self-activating. It opens up, and it's -- it's very easy to use. So that's a cost saving as well.. The site development plans are in the zoning area. There's several different fields that you can search on. If you don't know a particular project name but you know one of the words in the name -- like we're going to use Bello Medical Center, and we're going to type in B-e-l-l-o with an asterisk. And this shows you all the various document types that go with that SDP. Now, if you said you wanted to have this burned on a CD because there were some problems occurring with this SPD, you could request it from community development, and they would burn a disk for you, and you could view it at your leisure. We'll go down to site plan because that always has a lot of color, and you can see the real ability of this particular product. Not only will this -- this particular software store images but Page 37 January 16, 2002 also store voice files. It will store video files, just about anything that has a file extension on it, if we can just get to it come up here quickly. This only takes a second or two. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You notice how easy he makes it look. MR. BLALOCK: This will already be taken care of. I apologize for it. We switched laptops at the last second. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: How come my laptop doesn't work that fast? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You've got to push the keys, Tom. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Oh. I'll remember that. MR. BLALOCK: Okay. I told you it wouldn't take that long. Okay. The nice thing about this, it's all wireless, too, so we just download it that fast over a wireless connection. Okay. This is -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: This is for the wireless connection, or is that throughout the whole county complex? MR. BLALOCK: This -- this is just a particular setup. The wireless connection over here is -- I think one of the commissioners used to use a lot. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Pam Mac'Kie. MR. BLALOCK: Pam Mac'Kie used to use a lot. MS. LEAMER: In this building the first, second, and third floor have wireless and the fifth floor. MR. BLALOCK: Every -- every time they scan in a particular document, they put a cover page that shows basic information. This is Bello Medical Offices. We're going to take a look at the -- what the building actually looks like, and I just happen to know it's on page 20. So we can go to any page we want to go to. And that's what the building actually looks like. Now, we can also scan in 3-D things, like, siding. So let's say Page 38 January 16, 2002 we wanted to see what the siding really was supposed to look like, and I just happen to know that's the last one. There you go. Now, obviously, we can't scan in 4-by-4s and things like that, but we can scan in things like brick veneers or paint chips. And here's a copy of-- or here's an example of paint chips that we scanned in. Now, why is this important? For monitoring. You want to go out there and make sure when they said they were going to paint this thing coral or peach or whatever that it's actually painted that color. How many times have you seen in the last part of the site development the dollars are getting stretched real thin and things that get kind of skimpier are the landscaping or the painting and the awnings and so forth? So this way, we could print this out, take it to the site -- one of our monitors could take it to the site and actually see if, in fact, the trim was painted the way it was supposed to be painted, that the siding is the color that it is supposed to be, that it actually is vinyl siding, that it's not something else. So this is -- this saves time, effort. And when you have it, proof is in the pudding. When you have it, you show the contractor this is what you said you were going to do, there's no argument. And the nice thing about this is, as I said, there were three different problems: records retentions, records retrieval, and storage. When you have a site development plan and you have, let's say, a strip store and you have 13 businesses going in there, you have a site plan for each one of those businesses. How many times would a person touch this particular site plan? It could be up to 25 -- 20 times that they have to retrieve this information. You're going to lose things if it's loose. If you have it scanned in, you're not going to lose it. This thing's backed up every night. The indexing that we get is backed up as well. Page 39 January 16, 2002 MR. AXELROD: As -- as you go on to the GIS -- MR. BLALOCK: Uh-huh. MR. AXELROD: -- start, you have to realize that -- that the process that this is replacing is totally manual. So, you know, you would maybe expect there to be some automation there, but the improvement that this represents is substantial. MR. OLLIFF: And -- and how far back have we already got site development plans scanned in? MR. BLALOCK: We're keeping current with what we have, so anything new that comes in gets scanned right away as soon as it's approved, not as soon as it's applied for. So if you don't see something on there, it may not have been approved. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Question-- MR. BLALOCK: It will scan back all the way -- we've scanned back to 1996, and we're going to keep going. COMMISSIONER COYLE: How far back are you going to go? MR. BLALOCK: I believe we have -- we have things back in the '70s. We have -- we have some -- they're -- site improvement plans I think they were called back then. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is that cost effective? Do you have to access those on a frequent basis sufficient to justify the conversion? MR. BLALOCK: Sure. Some -- some of the real old ones, those historic documents are very important because there are things that were agreed to. And a lot of those people aren't around anymore. So we want -- we want to make sure that what's agreed to is adhered to, yeah. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: The data that's going to be on there, suppose I'm John Q. Public and I want to see if a certain shopping center met all the qualifications. Would I be able to access it? MR. BLALOCK: No. Not -- not at this point in time. Let me Page 40 January 16, 2002 tell you why. Right now this is an intranet system, which means we're on this side of the firewall. We are working very diligent-- very diligently about getting it out to the public so that land development attorneys and engineers could look at what we are looking at, and we could talk over the phone about it. But in the events of 9/11, we're having to rethink that do you really want to have worldwide access for everyone to a bank plan, a school system -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Water. MR. BLALOCK: -- water, yeah, because utility-- utility is coming on next with this, utilities and transportation. They're going to be putting all the roads in there, all the -- the junction boxes, the lift stations. We really have to think about what -- how much information do you want to give people? Now -- now, it's public record; there's no doubt about that. But if you come in and ask for this information, we have a face. Before we don't. Could be somewhere -- we don't know where. I had a gentleman e-mail me the other day from New Zealand asking me for information. You talk about 24-7. It's coming so -- anything else? (No response.) MR. BLALOCK: Okay. Let's take a look at Mr. Bello's property. Whoops. Sorry about that. Where we're at right now is the property appraiser's office, and I'm doing a search for any property that belongs to this person. MR. AXELROD: This is the GIS system. MR. BLALOCK: This is the GIS. Try it again. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: While we're trying to pull that up, I was on there last night showing my wife some of the neat stuff that you can do with that, actually get down to -- yeah, we get into Leo's backyard and see if he's cut his grass. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll be joking; you can get that Page 41 January 16, 2002 close? COMMISSIONER CARTER: You be careful what you put in your backyard these days. MR. BLALOCK: I happen to know this particular property is -- is the one we are talking about on Ridge Street. Now, this down here are the details (indicating). This -- this tells you a little bit about the property, who owns it and the millage and the amount paid and so forth. Now, if we come back, you'll know that this (indicating) is the selected area of the property we were just viewing in the EDMS system. If you want to find out who owns this property over here (indicating), you would just click identify and then point to it somewhere within this parameter, and that would give you all the information on that. So if there was a complaint that came in, you could find out. "Well, give me your address. We'll type it in. Where is this person?" You can do it right over the phone. "Okay. I know exactly the person you're talking about. That's Mr. So and So or Mrs. So and So." So it's a benefit to you as well, because I'm sure you get calls like that from time to time. Is there anybody's particular home they want to look at or -- okay. You can also draw -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Or Leo's backyard. MR. BLALOCK: Yeah, you can -- you can zoom in. Let's say we just want to see the property itself. And that's the property. If we wanted to, we could print it right now, see if it will print. And what it does, it creates an HTML page, like a web page. Then all you have to do is print it like you would a web page on the internet. I don't know if everybody's familiar with that, but here it is right here. There's the picture. I would just go up to file and click print and send it to whatever printer I want to send it to. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Then you can e-mail that to somebody. Page 42 January 16, 2002 MR. BLALOCK: You sure could. Sure could. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: So there is a way to accommodate the public to some degree. MR. BLALOCK: Sure. And I've tried it on slower lines. It's pretty nice now. We have a product that -- that we're working on in the county manager's agency that's going to be -- that's going to have this -- this type of capability, but it's also going to have other information regarding environmental, land use, and things -- things of that sort, and we've got our connection just about completed today. It's just -- just -- I think they're doing it even now as we speak, so we should be all hooked up, ready to go. Okay? MR. AXELROD: Good. exciting stuff, I think. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: So that's -- that's a pretty -- pretty It is. MR. AXELROD: All right. We're a little bit behind time right now, so we're going to go a little quick. This organizational diagram shows the departments, the divisions that I have surveyed, you know, in trying to figure out what -- where the IT department stands and get some feedback for them. And basically the bottom line here is that we're doing pretty good. Things are getting better. We need to just get some discipline, more discipline in accumulating data so that we can show you metrics, why we're looking to make certain investments because certain business reasons, certain departments want to us do more for them in certain areas or our -- our practice and procedures aren't up to snuff in certain areas. We're going to be doing a lot of measuring in a lot of different areas. And when we talk to you in the future, you'll be seeing some numbers that kind of give us management direction. That -- that's pretty much the bottom -- the bottom line here. As we go forward now, we're finished with the first half of the Page 43 January 16, 2002 presentation. We're going into the future now and a little bit of the -- the strategic direction areas. What's happened over time here is that computers came into the organization; people started doing spreadsheets on them and realizing that they could do things in -- by themselves, and then Phase 2 we started to get some reliable infrastructure; the band width started to increase. We started to see departmental business applications emerge. People realized they could do things for the department. In the -- in Phase 3 the infrastructure became mission critical. It's really robust now. It's way up more than it's down. And the first- generation network application started to appear. This was about three, four years ago where the department started making the investments in the software that currently run their business. At the same time we started to see a grass-roots internet initiative where things started occurring, but really nobody knew what was going on and how big it was going to get. And in Phase 4, where we kind of are now, we're seeing agency- wide application deployments; you just seen that. We're seeing more attention paid to life cy -- life-cycle application costs and support. And we now have a real issue because we're behind an E- government, what we're doing for the public. So one way of looking at this is that over time we had a technology focus early on. We needed to because we were building infrastructure. Now we have an application focus. We're thinking about more -- what are we doing with this infrastructure. What are we doing as a business? We're not thinking about the pieces and parts underneath. Another way of looking at that is we had an internal focus. We were serving the business of the county from the departmental view. And what we're really doing now and what we're ready to do is to serve and provide information to the constituents and to the Page 44 January 16, 2002 customers, both internal and external. So all of this up until now, what I'm telling you is, the investments that you made over the last five years have given us the position, and we're poised now to do with incremental investments, not major ones, to get to the point where we can share this information with the public and bring the services to 24 by 7. So we're going to be talking about that. Now when we talk about what's going on, if we look at the chargeable hours that we provide in the applications area, 57 percent of the hours that we charge now are in the category of agency-wide applications. So we have really made the break from the departmental focus to the agency-wide focus. The infrastructure is now broad enough to do that. And connecting it to the internet, as you'll see, you know, it's been done but not really done well from -- from the holistic perspective. Well, when we talked about our strategic responsibilities, now, we've done a pretty good job, I think, in the top two. You know, we're continuing to grow in those areas, but I think if you look at other counties, other cities, we're behind in E-government. And I think that, you know, that's where we are, but we're ready to go now. The first thing we need to do is define what we mean by government, and I'm offering this as a -- as a discussion right now. Any unattended exchange of information between the county and noncounty by any means of telecommunications, which includes both telephone system and the internet, is what I'm considering E- government. In a lot of respects, you know, when you look at the constituent base, you have to take into account universal access, and we can do an awful lot with the phones, and the phones are more widespread than the internet right now, although there is a very good base of internet users as well. Now, we have -- we have a couple different types of internet Page 45 January 16, 2002 presence right now. We have -- we call static information pages where people just put contact information up. The content really doesn't change all that much. And if you want to change it, it's right now kind of hard and labor intensive to create that content on a repetitive basis. We've seen this a lot. The departments have gone out and created a web page, and it was a -- you know, somebody had a hobby, and they -- they did a gung-ho job on it, and they went out and updated it. The first time it was a little less fun. The second time they updated it was a little less fun. And, you know, the third update didn't happen for a While. It was hard work. And they're -- they had jobs to do. There's no positions allocated to this; there's no budget for it. So this was just -- because it was the right thing to do and they could do it, it was done. But we're really not providing any infrastructure to them in order to help them do this. Now, we've also got some what we call dynamic websites, which means that they actually touch county databases, so somebody could get on and actually ask for something that's current. And it changes on a day-to-day basis. And we have a number of those services out there too. And then you have interactive web services where we're really just getting into that where we will show you an application that does take a credit card transaction for -- for permits, and we do that. Just to show you the breadth of stuff out there, I have two pages, this page and this page. These are all websites, all department websites that the county departments have put up there. And if you look, I would -- I would say that if you -- you tried to find out how much explicit budget you have put forward for people to do internet work, you know, you might not find much. But look how much has happened. There's a lot -- there's a lot of pages out there. There's a lot of good pages out there. Page 46 January 16, 2002 One of the problems right now is that there's no thematic tie between these. They don't look like they're part of the same organization. Some of them are kind of hard to find, even though we've kind of covered them in the colliergov.net portal. And then within their pages some of the information is still yet harder to find. But if you go further, this page on web services, these are actually services that are live on the internet that dip into county databases. When we did the -- we attended the economic development commission's connecting Collier County session. There was a consultant there that asked a couple questions about what services we had up on the internet. And every one of the questions he said, well, yeah, we do that. There was two things that happened. First of all, a lot of people in the room didn't know that we did that because we haven't told anybody. And -- and I -- I come from -- to the county from a dot com that proved build it and they will come doesn't work. You really have to tell people what's on the internet. So that was one thing. But the other thing is that the services that he uses as a benchmark for whether a county has appropriate -- has achieved an appropriate level of internet services, we answered yes to all those questions. So we -- we took each other's cards, and we talked a little bit later. And he ranks us very highly as far as the number of web services and the type of web services that we have. The problem is, you know, it-- it kind of looks disconnected, and it's really hard to find. And most of these are business-to- government niches, for instance, you know, in the community development area where it's a very small group of people. It's good -- I mean, it's good for the interaction of the community development business, but it's not focused to public generally. Okay. And when you start doing that, of course, you have to be able to tell people about it. Page 47 January 16, 2002 Now, I'm just looking at the time. And I'd like to give a quick demo of a couple of these services, but we really need to go quick. George Santos who wrote most of these applications will do a quick overview of them. Warp speed, my man. MR. SANTOS: Okay. MR. OCHS: Warp speed, George. MR. SANTOS: I'll get to the internet. MR. AXELROD: Those mikes are live, George. MR. SANTOS: Let me just bring up -- I'll go through the Collier Gov portal just to show you what that looks like and how you access these. Well, this is the new portal page that was up a couple months ago. And I want to, first, start off by showing you the -- the E- permits on line. That is the first and only site that we have that accepts credit cards. This is set up where right now only three types of applications for permits can be -- can be done on line. A user will come in, and they would select the type of permit, one of these three, fill in all the information that is necessary to -- to -- to process that permit, and they would have to -- all this data would then be verified against existing databases within these CD plus Perconte system, and I'll just put my address in here. I know it's interesting, because I know who I am. And you can select -- and to verify, I'd have to -- you'd have to match the address with the owners' names. MR. OLLIFF: Last name first. MR. SANTOS: It doesn't really matter. I can cheat -- I can put in -- as long as these names are in the address line, on the owner's address line, they'll come out. Now, if I was a contractor, I'd click here contractor, and I would put in my certification number, the name of my business, and my PIN. In order for a contractor to use this system, they have to come in and register with CD Plus with their PIN number so they can access the system. And in order for legality Page 48 January 16, 2002 purposes, I have to put in my name here which would actually be printed out on the permit receipt. I must have hit it too quickly. Then I click submit. And it will process that. If everything is correct, my address is correct, the -- it will go through the tables, figure out what my -- my fee is, and then I'll make the credit card payment. And I'll go in here and fill out this information. And once I fill out all this information, I would actually proceed to secure server where I would pass my credit card number and expiration date. And this is handed off to the vender, I-Transact, who actually does the credit card transaction, will send us back a code saying it's approved, and we would go on and present the -- the applicant with a listing that they can print out a receipt for that permit, the inspection, his -- the inspection permit receipt, as well as the actual permit. So they can print all that out. Everything is done on line. The only time the CD knows about it is when it comes up in the inspection report and they go out there and inspect the property. So it's completely hands off. So that's one of them. The other one I wanted to show you -- is there any questions about that one in particular? (No response.) MR. SANTOS: The other I wanted to show you was from a different agency, just to give you an idea that we're -- we're looking at everybody. Became more familiar with this laptop before I came up here. Under pollution control, this website was developed. Ray Smith asked me if there was some way to put up all the -- the monitoring and -- and measurements that they do for all the surface water throughout the county. And we came up with this system where you can go to any one of these different basins and-- and click on a particular system, and you'll come up with all the different measuring sites that they have and see what the -- where it's located and what the water quality is. Page 49 January 16, 2002 And you can further drill down into particular measuring site and look at all this very technical measurements. But you can see the different water quality index and-- and all the information about that. And if there's a particular measurement you want to look, say magnesium at that particular site, you can further drill down and get all the measurements for that site, the date it was taken, and what the measurement is. So it goes into a lot of detail. And, again, this is an example of how you can get into -- into databases in the county. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How often this is updated, water quality, for instance? MR. SANTOS: That's something at pollution control. They're responsible for making those measurements and updating the database. And Ray Smith is going -- going through that and updating that now. MR. AXELROD: The beauty of this is they do this as a matter of course. Whenever they update their database, this information is posted in this application. For instance, we -- we just have to make sure that the application runs. But they, by doing the normal course of their business, update their database, and it's updated to the public. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Does that mean that two -- September 20th of 2000 was the last time it was updated? MR. SANTOS: That's the last piece of information they have. MR. AXELROD: From that site. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Water quality sure could change. MR. AXELROD: Well, I don't know what their cycle is, but that's what's in their database right now. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MR. SANTOS: The other one I wanted to show you was under community development. A lot of these -- a lot of these programs I've got to -- to mention Don Blalock's name. He was the driving Page 50 January 16, 2002 force behind it coming to us and asking us if we could put this sort of information on line, and we did. There's one -- oh, I know where I want to go. Now, this is one that a -- a administrative clerk in community development was putting these reports together every month. She would run this report, make a number of copies of each one of these reports, put them together, and snail mail them out to different people who -- who wanted these reports, gave summaries of-- of the type of permits. For example, say you wanted to look at well permits by issue date. Now you can just click on it, and it will go in and get the actual document that she prepared, and you can download it. But this -- now she doesn't have to mail it out. She just puts it on line. If you want it, you can look at it. Now, from there we went to the point, well, if it's -- what if it's not exactly what you wanted, you can come in here and customize your own report right now. You can go in there and put in your own parameters for a particular report that you wanted from permitting. For example, once this loads, it will take all the information from permitting with the parameters that you insert and give you a report for it, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now it's beginning to look more like my computer. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: While we're waiting for that, a question: What kind of income are -- are we looking for in the future, E-government, are we looking for in the future? MR. AXELROD: What-- what kind? There's own-- you know, at -- at this point I'm looking at two major areas. One is information presentation and the ability to do very efficient updates of information to keep it current. So, for instance, you know, we're talking about sites, for instance, like the parks that have new events going on every week. Right now it's a major issue for them to be Page 51 January 16, 2002 able to update the website that often because the content generation tools that they have are not -- are not sufficient. So if we could provide all the departments ways of doing that efficiently so that their current staffer with minimal additions, we could -- we could keep that information current, that would be the first thing. So we'd have -- we'd have a thematic tie, tools to provide to the -- to the departments, and ways for them to update information easily. The other aspect of E-government is transactional where people could come in and request information, essentially avoiding trips to counter services at the government offices, you know, that are running 8 to 5 Monday through Friday now where they would be able to transact that sort of business 24 hours a day at their leisure, you know, from their home. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do we know what the demand is for that type of service? MR. AXELROD: In some cases, we -- we have some inclination of it. But in others, what we are looking at is the business experts who know what the counter demand is; they know their transactions; we can see that in some of the departmental applications. So that would give us the first targets. But the other thing that we need to do -- and that's one thing that we -- we have instituted here -- is the ability to measure exactly what happens on the internet so that we have a measurement of-- of cause and effect. If we -- if we put a service up and we do a certain advertising campaign behind it, how much traffic is driven to the internet, measure it again with counter service off-loading to determine if that's, you know, an incremental load or a taking-off- load. So we have those pieces that are being put into place in small scale right now. But right now it's also only the -- the -- it's really -- the enterprise division is the one that are enterprise funded that are Page 52 January 16, 2002 doing most of this, and it's mostly targeted at the business transactions as opposed to public transactions. MR. OCHS: We're done. George, we've got to move on. MR. SANTOS: I was going to show as an example, these are some of the hits. We've had 20 -- 2400 hits to these interactive web pages since the 9th of January. MR. AXELROD: Thanks, George. MS. LEAMER: As Barry mentioned earlier, too, Commissioner, another key component of the E-government strategy going forward is going to be our phone system. And we are going to put some measurement tools in place so we can start to see where -- where the calls are coming from, when they're calling, what services are being demanded. And we're going to get into some more details now on the citizen relationship management, call center, managing complaints, using the phones and the web services for the whole E- government initiative. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: All right. MR. AXELROD: I just want to point, this is exactly what Commissioner Henning just asked about, which is a measurement system home brewed. You know, we basically did this ourselves, but the idea is that every one of those web services that have been identified George put -- put a metric behind. And you could see that in about a week which services are getting -- you know, there are some that are getting very little activity, and there are some that are getting a lot of activity. And we will over time be able to look at that data, analyze it, go back to the departments, share that with them and make directions and recommendations, both to them and to you. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's great. MR. AXELROD: All right. Go find where I got killed here. I've got a lot of things I have to kill here. All right. All right. So we're going to start with the discussion on E- Page 53 January 16, 2002 government right now. We have found out some pretty interesting things. The -- the SAP suite of software that has already been licensed by the county for the financial management system has E- government modules to it that we have already licensed. So the major costs of acquiring the software licenses for E-government have been done, and it was done as part of suite of software that was part of the FMS purchase. Now, what we -- what we don't have is an implementation plan. They're not being touched this year. This year we're implementing the financials only, and that's nonnegotiable, folks. That's a really aggressive project, so we're not looking to do more with that this year. But next year, you would with implementation fees that we -- that, you know, we can budget for next year, we could implement these E-government services or these modules and roll these services out. You know, again, it's -- it's one of the things that we're going to be looking to do. MS. LEAMER: Can you explain what some of those modules will do? MR. AXELROD: There's two major modules. One of them is what they call portals, which is the management system for the static web pages, more or less. It gives all of the departments the means to create web pages within a standard consistent framework, which will, you know, automatically give you the consistent look and feel to thematic ties that we want. That's number one. That's a six-figure tool. And, you know, it came as -- bundled in with the FMS purchase. The other tool is what they call an interaction center, which is exactly what -- what Chairman Coletta asked about as far as contact management. And, you know, it's -- it's part of a bigger industry product called CRM, which is customer relationship management. So we own a professional tool. Of course, we haven't implemented it Page 54 January 16, 2002 yet, but that is the long-term solution, because it will sit on an infrastructure that we can support from a major vender for a long time. So those are the -- those are the two modules that we own. There might be a third module that we don't own that may be -- may be needed. But it's not very expensive. I've just begun the research on this. And that will be part of the discussion we can have during the FY '03 budget cycle. All right. In the meantime -- in the meantime, between now and then, you know, we want to keep doing what we're doing, because there's an awful lot of good work and a lot of good people doing a lot of good things to provide services for their customers in the departments. But, you know, it -- if we keep doing what we're doing, we're not going to get where we want to go, so we have to do something different. Now, when you look at the -- at your organization, I imagine you see it somewhat like this. Now, this is a little weird, but I need you to take a look at this. When we see it, we see it like this. What we see is a bunch of applications, a bunch of hardware servers, a bunch of databases. That's what those -- those -- the bottom icons are all sitting on a network. That's -- that's by necessity how the IT department sees the organization. Now, what -- what we want to do is, you know, we've connected those databases to the internet, and we do that through a secure firewall. But that was the first step. So we have the infrastructure in place to do that. What we don't have is the framework. So what we want to see happen is the CRM framework which basically dips into all these databases on demand and can put that in connection with the phone system or the internet, and that's what customer relationship management is. Page 55 January 16, 2002 So, for instance, if you have a constituent that is -- is active with the county government and a couple of different departments -- they may have a permitting request; they may have a special request going on; they may have a financial request. And they have, right now, three separate actions -- that's very hard for us to tie together that -- that one constituent or one company may be making requests of us. The CRM system is built to look into these databases, look for common identifiers, like a name, and be able to bring that up on a -- on a single screen to say that Constituent Smith has got these current activities going, and here's his request history and those sort of things so that we can provide better services to customers. Now, this whole genre of products -- CRM is -- you know, you interact with them as a customer of big businesses all the time. I mean, you call up any company, you know, a brokerage house, a phone company or whatever, they have a record of your contact. So when you tell them your phone number or whatever mechanism they use to identify you and they bring that information up and you can tell when that happens because they're telling you things about conversations that happened before. It might be in a giant call center where your call -- your call hardly ever, you know, would go to the same person twice, but yet that other person can pick up the ball and provide continuity of service to you because they have that record. Well, this is the system that they have, and the good news is that we own that module as well or at least a good major portion of it. And the -- the requests that have been coming to us about contact management, managing issues and providing better customer service and tying these things together, well, this is our -- our view of what is needed to do that. And what we're going to do is evaluate the options that we have, both within this SAP infrastructure and with other products to determine what the best one is, and we will present that to you in the FY '03 budget discussion. But, again, that implementation Page 56 January 16, 2002 in -- in a major sense is not going to happen this year. It will be a candidate for next year's -- next year's tasks. All right. So I -- I wanted to get you comfortable with the term CRM and the definition that we're using for it, okay, because that's going to be part of what we're going to be seeing in the -- in the budget submissions. MR. OLLIFF: But -- I want to interrupt here because this is really important to me personally because I think 70 percent of the calls that you get are constituents who are calling you because they don't know where else to call. And they're simply trying to get an answer. They're trying to get some service. They're trying to get a response of some kind out of this organization. And we're trying to develop a system that will allow the public to be able to have easy access and get what they're looking for without having to know what our org chart looks like. Right now they pretty much have to know what section it is. And if I want to know, because I've got flooding water in a drainage ditch in front of my house, I don't know, looking at org chart, whether that's road and bridge or storm water or whom that may be. And I've got to find a way to make our services easier to access, rather than going through the elected policy making Board of County Commissioners in order to have somebody take a look at that ditch in front of my house. And so this is important to me, from that perspective, because I think it will put us in a much better position to be able to do that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Then how do you report the problem? Can you report the problem through the system? MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely. Not only does it report it, it provides a history then of what we've done before, and it provides responses back to the customer, and it keeps a history of what we've done in that particular location. Page 57 January 16, 2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: So somebody that calls daily, every day, every day, two, three, four times a day to report code enforcement violations, right, they can actually do that through the computer instead? MR. OLLIFF: Well, they can do it through this customer relations center, if you will. And -- and we can set that up a number of ways so that it is digitally entered through a phone, hand pad, or-- or they can do it face to face or customer to customer, voice to voice, so that we actually have personal contact, because one of the things that I don't think you as a board want to lose is the ability for the customer to have personal contact with the organization because I think this community continues to think that is very, very important, and so do we. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, that -- that leads to a question that I'd written down. Maybe is not the time. Maybe I should ask for it later. But what are we trying to do to personalize this service rather than -- than just have machines in place? But maybe you could answer that later. MR. AXELROD: Well, you know, I think it's actually an appropriate time to answer that. When -- the feedback we've been getting from the departments is that whatever we do is going to augment all of the existing means. It's going to provide more choices to the constituents on how they want to interact with the government so the existing means are not going to go away. But by the same token, with the growth we're seeing in the area, it's an expensive proposition to try to staff the government to keep up with that kind of service. So what we're going to do is provide more options. You can do it by phone; you can do it by intemet; you can do it in person. And you can do it on your time, or you can do it on our time. And it's not going to diminish the -- the -- the way the services are provided now at all. It will be in addition to them. Page 58 January 16, 2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: So there are some departments that seem to have their answering machine on 24-7, but there's never a call-back made or -- and for people who aren't computerized or who are maybe computer illiterate like moi, for instance, maybe they need to talk to somebody to find out how to obtain that information. But when they call and they only get a machine answering and then they don't get a return call, that's very frustrating, so then they call us. MR. AXELROD: Right. That's a very good point. In fact, in the discussions that we've had with the departments, they understand that as we move to more access methods that their business, that their operations have to adapt. They have to change. And in some cases they're going to come back to you and say I need to staff and other positions to be able to handle this extra load or to handle this extra mode of communications. So when we expect the agencies or the departments to be able to handle 24-hour service and be able to clear their cues every morning for things that came in overnight, you know, that is going to become part of their expectation, and it will have an impact. But the service impact is what's going to be noted too. If I could just give you one story -- this is a very simple example. We talked with the department of animal services, because there's a very interesting simple, from an implementation point of view, web application that we -- that we talked about, which is every time an animal comes into the shelter, take a picture of it so we can put it on the web. Every time an animal leaves the shelter, take it off the web so that if anybody wants to look at the inventory and decide to come down and pick up a puppy that they can do it on the web by a picture before they come in. And the answer was, we thought of that already. But, you know, animals come in at two o'clock in the morning. And, you know, during the day where, you know, we don't have the staff to guarantee Page 59 January 16, 2002 that, the inventory isn't going to be right. Animals may leave that their pictures don't get taken off timely, and animals may be in there. They thought that that was actually a worse service to the public than not doing it at all. So they've thought through the impact of these other services and options that we can provide, and they said, you know, we can't do it right now. But they're thinking about it, and it will be a discussion that they're going to have with -- with management, you know, going forward. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Speaking of animal services, they're ones that have their phones on 24-7. And as we heard last night in our workshop, some of the calls don't get replaced for two and three weeks. And would people be able to report animals running loose and then have that -- that -- that concern responded to immediately? Is there a capability of doing that? MR. AXELROD: Basic business services, you know, those are the type of decisions have to be made at the department levels. What -- what I'm saying is that we can provide the technical means to provide more communications options for the constituents to make those requests, and how they handle them is going to be a business process issue for each individual department. MS. LEAMER: The CRM will also track activity so you'll have work flow. You'll know a call came in and didn't get answered. So there will be better service to the customer and more personalized service, because whoever takes that call will be able to look at the entire history of that-- that individual. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: A good comparison would be very similar to when you receive a request by e-mail now, you forward it on, and it's moved from department to department as they move forward towards an answer; then the final conclusion comes back, and you can see that whole history. I would take it this would be Page 60 January 16, 2002 something very similar to that. MS. LEAMER: Correct. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And we would be able to access it and be able to find out what's happening on matters of importance to our own constituents. MR. OCHS: Barry, we need to keep moving. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Commissioner, just one thing, and, Tom, I really read where you're coming from because we've got a couple issues here. One, we want a user-friendly system that says the people -- this is the easiest way to reach anybody, and this is how you can get the quickest response. But out there as a customer, I have to know how to get to it. I have to know what it is for those who are computer illiterate and are wanting to use that process. It all takes it -- it also takes us back into an ordinance which in some ways have caused some confusion on what we can do and can't do as body politics. This helps clean that system because people get what they're looking for. The other thing that I see is that, frankly, leaving things on a voice mail are pretty outdated because a long time ago IBM had a system on complaint calls. Those were computerized. You could pick those off the screen. You don't need more people. All you need was the software to pick up the call, puts it in there, you come in, click on a screen in the morning, go right down that list at any time and pick them off. So those are the kinds of things that I see us doing to enhance customer service because that's the number one goal. We don't have any cust -- I mean we -- you say you always have customers, but customers are our business. That's what we're all about. And sometimes I think we lose sight of that, and it gets lost in the system where we're not user friendly. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Speaking of user friendly and lost in Page 61 January 16, 2002 the system, at last night's meeting one of the biggest problems they were having within Immokalee was the lack of access to government, especially when it comes to the regular meeting agendas. We went to great lengths to provide tapes to the school system to play a -- play, as far as our commission meetings went. It hasn't been done yet. And the residents out there feel quite disenfranchised. We talked some time ago and I heard it mentioned here about going on line with our county commission meetings. How about Channel 54 being on a voice type of system? It can't be that difficult. I know a number of radio stations have done it. It would be something that would help in the short run. And, also, too, is there any way we could get the complete agenda on line where a person could pull it up as they so choose? This is a big problem. People would like to have access to it out there, not only in Immokalee, but the south Golden Gate Estates and Everglades City. They don't get the Naples Daily News. And they just feel like -- they feel like they find out about everything after the fact when they can no longer react. MR. AXELROD: Sure. Those things can be done. And I don't know what the cost involved with the voice transmission of Channel 54 is, but the web contents certainly can be done. MR. OLLIFF: Barry, keep it moving. MR. AXELROD: Right. We have got basically two slides left to go, so we're close to -- close on schedule here. Final recommendations for E-government is that this year we would like to implement a measurement system for the phone system. This is just to understand what the load is on that means of electronic communication so we can -- we can make investment decisions and then evaluate the effectiveness of them in the future. And we'd like to do that this year. The measurement system for the website that you saw that we've Page 62 January 16, 2002 kind of got something going there, we're really not going to ask -- do more this year there but we are -- everything we do on the web needs to be measured again. It's a very important factor. Just as Commissioner Carter just pointed out, some of the advanced phone features are already being asked for by some of the operating units. This year utilities is asking for what they call integrated voice response which is the ability to get on after hours and have, you know, what's my bill balance, you know, can I -- can I pay, this type of thing. And you do that by touch tone on the phone system. They're asking to do that now. Of course, that could be leveraged if we do it right -- more broadly throughout the other departments. And the -- the ability, for instance, to get voice mails and present them to e-mail and have e-mails presented on voice mail, that capability exists as well within the phone-switching capability that we have. But it's additional features that we need to evaluate and costs before we're ready to make a recommendation on that, but we're doing that. We are involved with them now on that evaluation. We are strongly suggesting that we do an implement -- implementation of the CRM in the E-government modules of the SAP system for next year and be able to roll that out probably in the second half of FY '03. Operational direction, from a staffing point of view, we are making sure that our people are working on the customer relationships inside the county government, and we will, of course, extend that to the constituents as the E-government rolls out. And we are looking for some targeted opportunities to -- to use variable costing, outsource services to -- to do some of the things that we have been doing on the technology platform basis so that we could pay attention to these growth barriers and provide these services with local -- with local support. Internally what the feedback said is we need to tell people what Page 63 January 16, 2002 we do, what we don't do, and how to interact with us better. And that's part of this customer team initiative that we talked about. And we also maintained the capability to serving new technology so that when things become ready and we can take advantage of them like handheld computers and like video conferencing, that we give those opportunities to businesses to make those decisions as their business needs demand it. And finally, the deliverables, what you can expect to see from us in the future. We have a lot of planning to do, a lot of-- you know, the dollars that we deal with demand it. We are going to be doing a two-year rolling IT plan that's going to be based -- used as a basis for the service offerings and budgets admissions in the future. That one -- you'll see the first one of those in a couple of months. We're going to be preparing an E-government master plan, and this is also part of the two-year IT plan. It will be part of that. But that's a little bit more complex right now because we're behind in that area. So we're going to be doing some external benchmarking of other similar-size counties, find out what they did, how they did it, what works. We'll understand their cost structure of supporting it in the long run, some of their policy issues as well, and we'll be covering that. Business continuity plan, this is a major deliverable right now that we're working on which has to take into account the issues that we discussed in the new -- new world that we live in. We are also recognizing -- I think that you'll see this as well -- the databases. The databases are really the strategic IT asset of the county. And a lot of them are under our care through our database administration and the applications that sit on top of them. But there's an awful lot -- we suspect there's really valuable information that is, like, on people's Excel spreadsheets. And we're trying to go through a -- an exercise right now to flush them out and to put them Page 64 January 16, 2002 under maintenance and support them properly where they exist because we can build valuable applications around those databases. We also need to do a -- a long-term financial plan, very much like what facilities has done because, you know, we have an infrastructure that needs to be maintained. And there are planned expenses, for instance, you know, operating system upgrades, you know, obsolescence of equipment, obsolescence of applications where we can do long-term financial planning, and we can give you long-term financial options, whether or not you want to, you know, bond things or -- or whatever financing mechanisms you want to use. So we are going to embark upon that as well, and that will improve over time, but we'll have a first cut at that this year. And, again, you know, we go -- we continue to look at work methods, you know, which include the -- the ability to use local contract resources in order to keep our costs under control but keep the service levels up to the standards that we want to provide and that the departments expect of us. And that concludes the presentation. So at this point we're open for discussion. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Questions on behalf of the commissioners? VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Just a comment for myself. It looks like a lot of these improvements are going to come under the general fund. And knowing the struggles that we have with the general fund, I appreciate the efforts, and I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like during the budget process. MR. AXELROD: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think that's a very important observation. I don't believe you're asking us for any decisions or guidance right now, because I think we would all need some -- some Page 65 January 16, 2002 fairly detailed cost-benefit analysis. But the other -- other thing I'd like to ask you is -- and I think the presentation has been very good. It's been very informative, and I -- I benefitted from it. But I believe that the need for the services is driven by your customers. And -- and I presume that -- that those are the people who are going to be providing the rationale for doing the kinds of things you're doing. So I presume you're doing this kind of presentation for the customers you serve within the government structure itself. MR. AXELROD: Very much so. In fact, we -- we have embarked upon, you know, monthly meetings at the division level. We haven't fully rolled that out yet. But, you know, I've only been here a month. We've started that with two divisions. And when we come to ask for funding, which is inevitable, we will come with customers, and we'll come with data, and that will be the basis. You know, we're not building infrastructure anymore for the sake of building infrastructure. Now there needs to be a business motivator in order to do this. COMMISSIONER COYLE: It would be helpful when you do that -- and I'm sure this must be your intent -- is to provide a cost- benefit analysis for each of these investments. MR. AXELROD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Questions? Comments? COMMISSIONER CARTER: I'd like to only second what you see -- say, Commissioner Coyle, cost-benefit analysis. I would also encourage you to see if there are any other possible revenue streams outside of the general fund or other op -- option funding for any of these initiation of certain programs and what I'm going to refer to as infrastructure that may be available through Page 66 January 16, 2002 whatever resource. So I would say get creative, think outside the box to find funding so that we can meet the customer needs. And I think one of the key things that you hit back on websites, to me, was there are no thematic -- no theme tie. And this is an overriding problem in this county; we don't have a theme. What do we look like? We do some great stuff, but there is not uniformity, other than probably the seal up there of the -- of the -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Osceola turkey. COMMISSIONER CARTER: And that's whatever happens to be. But I would encourage you to -- to really think about that so that when you bring all this back to us, looking at everything we're trying to, it's easier for the customer to get focused -- it's easier for the customer to say, "This is what I want. And when I see this, I know that's what I want because there's the theme." COMMISSIONER COYLE: That-- that brings up another point, Commissioner Carter, and I think it's a very important one. When we're looking at -- at funding methods, the transfers from departments to pay for the services you provide are very important. And -- and some of the departments who require your services can certainly relate some benefit of those services to their specific job, whether it's building roads or issuing permits or -- or doing things of that nature, in which case I -- I would presume the impact fees would cover part of this -- this cost. It would not. MR. OLLIFF: No. You-- you generally are restricted to using impact fees for capital improvements that are going to be used by the development, if you will, that it's going to benefit from them. We do have the ability on-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: User fees? MR. OLLIFF: -- user fee side to pay for. In fact, I think this department is probably almost one-third completely supported by enterprise funds today. And with the -- the current update in the Page 67 January 16, 2002 formula, that's probably going to even increase some. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good. MR. OLLIFF: But one of the things I do want the board to see is that if you look at where the aggressive customer service efforts have been made historically, they have been made by those enterprise funds that had the resources to be able to fund and get their work done. Your general fund applications are the ones that have lagged significantly behind and why your FMS system is what it is and has been for a decade, why your GIS system hasn't been accomplished like it should have been over the years as well. So I think Barry clearly sees, in looking at the organization, that we -- we need to provide some balance from the -- the public demand side of the house because right now it's simply the paying customers who are starting to get the benefit of the services from IT and the easier access to our government. That -- that probably needs to be balanced out some in the long run. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: The only comment I'd like to make is that Collier County -- Collier County, more or less, they say it sells itself, location, location, location. But when it comes to government, I think the important thing is access, access, access. And it's so refreshing to hear the ideas that we came forward and presented at our original orientations and at some of our beginning meetings. And some of the requests that we made seem to be -- being -- taking place before us today. I -- I just love some of these ideas if we can become more user friendly on all avenues, not only on the computer end but on the phone end so that we can get to the consumer reasonable answers in reasonable points of times and also we can spot our deficiencies by the fact that we'll have the playback from the public. I think we're getting there. I'm very proud of what you're doing. And, of course, we've got a long ways to go. This particular workshop has been, well, for the lack of a better words, Page 68 January 16, 2002 very informative. MR. AXELROD: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And I thank you. Is there any other comments or questions from the commissioners? I call this meeting -- MR. OLLIFF: No, no, no. MS. LEAMER: We're going to take a five-minute break and, yeah, when we come back-- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I assumed when we reached the end of the book, that was it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You've got another book. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: With more detailed information. (A short break was held.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Take your seats. We'll continue with the meeting. MS. LEAMER: Okay. This second half of the workshop is going to be discussing public information and public relations. Jean Merritt's going to lead us through this discussion. One thing I'd like you to keep in mind as we go through this presentation is -- is what -- what you would like to see for this department in the future. Would you like to see our efforts in the area of marketing and public relations stay where they are at now or take it to the next level? And we'll be looking for some feedback from the commissioners on that. And, Jean, why don't you go ahead and start. MS. MERRITT: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure for me to be here this morning. Our department is based on a multi-media approach, and we have two major missions. Our -- our two major missions are, of course, to provide timely and accurate information to the public. That is number one. Number two is to provide support to our fellow departments, because they, too, have stories to tell and-- Page 69 January 16, 2002 so those are our two main missions. Generally people like to get their information by looking, and that's why television has really made it difficult for newspapers to survive in this economy and in this -- in this country. Even though you get much more in-depth news in the newspaper, people still want to get their three-minutes bites in -- in television. Having said that, I'm going to show you a little five-minute film right now. It's a kaleidoscope of some of the films and programs that we produced. Most of them were produced this summer, but all of them were produced in the last year. So if-- Jay, if you'll turn this up, you will see all of these programs were done by our staff. (CCTV, CH11 award-winning program was played on TV screen.) MS. MERRITT: Well, as you could see, we have showcased a lot of the departments within government. We do quality work. We have a very unusually good professional staff. I want to introduce them to you right now. They're -- we have a small staff. It is remarkable what we do on the television end with basically 2 1/2 people. But let me introduce to you our print coordinator, Debbie White. This is Debbie. She does all of our print work, and I'll go over that in just a couple of minutes. And our television coordinator everybody knows is Kady. Kady is responsible for all of the meetings. Government television has as its goal the -- the motto that we have adopted, bringing government home. That is exactly what we try to do. And we believe that people should be able to participate in their government even if they are not able to come to the meetings. And we know for a fact that we are reaching homes, and we are reaching people. And if you've looked at the last survey, you will see that the -- there were 3 questions that were dedicated to Channel 54, and we Page 70 January 16, 2002 were very pleased to see that more than half of the people said they did watch the meetings on government access television. So Kady is in charge of all that. We have a good control room. I know you-all have seen it. It's a modestly priced control room. Even though $250,000 seems like a lot of money, in the television end, it's not. It's very modest, but it does do a good job for us. Jay Seidl, who is our professional videographer, editor, has done it all. He's worked in commercial television. Jay, stand up. You-- Jay doesn't need any introduction because his face is seen a lot. He's now doing our little morning minute that we have "Good Morning, Collier County." I hope you've seen it. It's a very short presentation, but it's kind of a nice way to start the day. And then we have our other videographer, editor who is new. His name is David Wells. Unfortunately, he's across the hall running the system because we are live, so he'll be over here in a minute when Kady goes over there to relieve him. And my assistant, Barbara Pedone, who -- who keeps me straight, Barb, and our clerical -- professional/clerical, I should say, because she's professional as well as being clerical and does all the dubbing for us. You would be surprised how many -- in fact, we made almost $10,000 last year in selling tapes for people who wanted copies of the meetings. So that's Helene LeCompte. And then our graphic artist -- we're so pleased to have added her to our staff because she's done all kinds of work, including designing the new government logo and -- and works for a lot of departments. And that's Lavah Hetzel over here. The reason she's standing over here is because you have a book in front of you, and the people at home can't see that book. So we're putting the pages on the visualizer so they can see what we are doing. I have -- I apologize that the pages weren't numbered, but we put Page 71 January 16, 2002 this book together in sections. That was really impossible for us to do, so we have tabbed your books. We are not going to go through this page by page. I'm sure you're very happy about that. But I do want to draw your attention to a certain number of pages. So if you will look at -- at No. 2 -- I do also want to tell you that we have won some -- we won two national awards, one from the National Association of Counties and one from -- which is called the Tele Award. And we're very, very proud of that award because we competed with things like the Disney Corporation and -- and some other places like that. So if you happen to walk into our department, you will see a little display case where we -- and I guarantee you, we will be adding some more awards. As a matter of fact, the Collier County department of public information is being considered as one of the top public information vehicles in the state of Florida as far as the counties are concerned. So we're -- we're very proud of that, particularly since, if you will pay -- turn to page 3, you will see that this is a very, very new department. There has been a public information effort for some time, but it has not been a concerted effort. And only in 1998 was this office really upgraded into a department. And this occurred because the county management believed that the dissemination of public information was critical and should be given more attention. And, as I earlier said but I think it bears repeating, that we have two major missions. One is to inform the public and to deal with the media and to attempt to get our story, the county's story and the department's stories, out into the public. Unfortunately, as you well know, newspapers tend to dwell on the negative and the things that they believe that will sell newspapers. And we have a myriad of wonderful things happening in this government that need to be brought to the attention of the public. And on that score, we do attempt to deal with other departments. Page 72 January 16, 2002 This has been difficult because, as I said, we're a new department, and some departments have their own efforts. And we have tried to serve as a clearing house, but that has -- that has met -- met with some mixed results, but we are making progress in that area. On the next page, still in Section 3, I have given you a very brief overview of our budget. I'm sure you're quite aware but I want to bring to your attention a couple of things. Our -- our department budget is $767,000, which includes $480,000 for personnel and $261,000 for operating costs. Almost half of this appropriation comes from Fund 11 -- 111, which holds the cable franchise fee. So cable franchise fees pays for 47.5 percent of our budget. It is important to note that of the $261,000 operating funds, 40,000 of the operating costs are spent for the printing of the agendas and legal advertising. And then costs for printing the agenda in the Naples Daily News is extremely expensive. It averages $6500 a month or approximately sixty-five to seventy thousand dollars a year. And I think you ought to be aware of how much that is costing us, particularly when the appropriation for that line item was -- was $36,000. So -- VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Question -- question while we're here. MS. MERRITT: Yes. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: While we're in the cost-cutting mode, you know that -- that agenda is something that we're trying to bring information to the public. It's not something that is required. Before we used to print a summary agenda -- or stating when the meeting was going to be, and I don't know if it's -- some of the board members, if they're desiring to go back to that and try to get them to get on line -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I agree with you, Commissioner. I couldn't agree with you more. It does not meet the needs of District Page 73 January 16, 2002 5. In fact, I think our efforts being -- spending so much money and effort to put it in the Naples Daily News has caused the rest of the county to fall behind the -- what? We're paying thirty-some thousand dollars a year is it? MS. MERRITT: We project 65,000. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think it's a wonderful idea to -- to run something. It used to be run at no cost, I know, in the distant past. However, I think there are a lot of places that we can pick up the slack. I do think maybe we need to run a brief summary of the agenda, possibly-- VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, that's what we're doing. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, no. I know, but the size of it is unbelievable. I -- I just question -- I don't see a benefit to where I am. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Excuse me, Commissioner, if I might, because I've been through this, and I remember when this was a line item, and we went to the Naples Daily News, and we talked to Corbin Wyatt. He gave us the thirty-six two for that line item, and now we're getting sixty-five thousand. MS. MERRITT: Right. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I really have some serious questions about that and what happened. I mean, after all, a paper-- on the amount of revenue that this newspaper in this town generates, what is their commitment to public service to either, A, go back to the original agreement or to print it in -- in such a way -- I mean, I find it disturbing, because if we can't do that, then I think we've got to find other ways to do it, because I'd rather be spending $65,000 on a lot of other ways to communicate than I would by printing an agenda in the newspaper. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Think about this for just a second. If we had the agenda put together in the form of a memo or whatever as Page 74 January 16, 2002 an attachment, we could come up with a mailing that could cover thousands and thousands of people with the push of a button. MR. OLLIFF: You do -- you do have some legal requirements to publish a notice of the meeting in a newspaper of general circulation is, I believe, the way the statute reads. But if the board would be interested in seeing some options in that regard, we'd be happy to be able to develop those and bring those back to you for your consideration. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: I think Commissioner Carter made some great remarks on an agreement. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I thought -- thank you. My thought was, instead of publishing it in the Naples Daily News, just publish something to say that they could find the agenda either on the computer or on the television and what days and what time. MS. MERRITT: We already do that, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But then -- you know, most people who don't take the newspaper can either access through a computer or through a television. Everybody has television in their house, if not more than one. MS. MERRITT: I -- we do -- we do put the agenda on Channel 11. We start on -- as soon as we get the agenda on Thursday, we -- it starts on Thursday evening. It goes Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and at -- and at published times. We run this notice (indicating) as well in the newspaper. We also make sure that all libraries, public libraries, have copies of the agenda and -- and we know for a fact that occurs. So I -- I just wanted to bring that to your attention. And -- and, like Tom says, if you'd like for us to look at some other alternatives, we'd be happy to do that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, as Commissioner Carter brought up, if the agreement isn't in place anymore that we originally Page 75 January 16, 2002 negotiated and, as Tom said, we must at least publicize it, that to me tells everybody in a lot less cost manner where to find the agenda. And-- and the two -- the two points of access everyone has. If they don't have one, they have the other. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And I agree with you. And if I may, please, this absolutely has to appear in the Immokalee Bulletin and the Echo. I mean, these people are deprived of this information. COMMISSIONER FIALA: See, and she can publish that in the Echo -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Exactly. Satisfying some--. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- or The Bulletin. MS. MERRITT: See, that is one of the problems, because those are weeklies, and the deadline for getting anything published is -- does not fit with when we get the agenda. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: But the general notice could be the week before. MS. MERRITT: The general notice could be put in it. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That would suffice with giving them notice that we do care about them. And that was a big complaint, as you know, at the meeting last night in Immokalee was the -- a lack of interreaction between the government and the residents in that area. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do we have this on -- on computer, the agenda on the computer? MR. OLLIFF: Yes. MS. MERRITT: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So, in other words, the Immokaleeans who cannot get it on Channel 1 1 or whatever channel and they don't buy the Naples Daily News, the same with the Everglades people, they can get it on the computer. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's correct. But still I would like to see them made available -- this made available to them also --. Page 76 January 16, 2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sure. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- so that they're aware of it -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sure. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- because not all of them have computers. MS. MERRITT: Okay. Moving along, would you turn to Tab 4, please. That's the print media. These are the things that we do now, and that's really what I'm doing, going over the -- our present programs and what we are now doing. As you know, we publish an annual report. We expect that within the next two weeks. I think you're going to be very, very happy with it. We also do a year of progress annual newspaper insert. Last year it appeared in about the second or third week in March. We plan -- it will go in March 15th or 16th of this year. Last year it is estimated we reached 90,000 homes with that insert. And that's proved to be a very popular thing. We also have the Collier County Journal, which I'm sure or at least hope you have seen. Debbie's done a very good job with that. We've dressed it up. We've made it more user friendly. We've tried to -- excuse me -- enlist the help of-- of our divisions so that everybody can get their specific news in there. We have a department web page. I'm sorry. I am suffering a little bit today from laryngitis. We are redoing the brochure. It's in their packet -- I think it's in the front right here in the sleeve. You will see that. You can pull it out, Commissioner Coyle. It does have your picture in it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, no. MS. MERRITT: It's not out yet because we had to wait until we knew who the chairman and the vice chairman was. So it's at the printers presently. And we use that a great deal. We will send some up to you for your own use, of course. Page 77 January ! 6, 2002 We -- the department disseminates good-news items. We try to let not only you know about what's going on but let the public know. We also publish an interpreter's guide. Incidentally, there are examples of all of these things in your books you can look at later. It is amazing. You will be shocked if you look at that interpreter's guide to see how many county employees can speak other languages. I think there's something like 60, I believe. It's really quite amazing. News releases, we do most of the news releases for the -- for the county, not all of them. Some departments still do their own, but most of them do come through us now or a great many of them do. And Debbie's charged with that. I would say on an average day we do three or four news releases. Some days we do a great many more than that, and a lot of times we will have four and five o'clock deadlines that -- that we have to meet. We have our graphics arts services, and Lavah's done a wonderful job with that. We from time to time send articles to the national -- to national publications. In April of this month (sic) Collier County will be showcased in the Florida Association of Counties' magazine, Florida Counties. We are preparing that. We were asked to do that by the Florida Association of Counties. We're pleased to do that. The new resident packet that we have back here, it -- it gives a brief synopsis of what the different divisions do. That's being disseminated in various places, including the Chamber of Commerce and other places within the community. And then we do a great many other routine activities. On Tab 5 are our television efforts. As you know, we have been moved down to -- on the television spectrum to Channel 11 by Comcast from 54. And I made a phone call to Marco Island Cable, and they also moved their Channel 54 down to Channel 11. And we were not quite as successful with Time Warner. But they are moving Page 78 January 16, 2002 us to a Channel 16. Frankly, Time Warner has been out of compliance because the government access television station must be put on the basic tier of offerings to anybody. Let me explain, please, the difference between government and public television. The FCC says that when you no -- renegotiate or negotiate a contract with the cable company, because, as you know, they must get a franchise agreement with the municipality or the government entity that they're dealing with, permission to use the rights-of-ways and permission to televise. So the FCC has deemed that they must provide stations for government access. They are called PEG stations. P stands for public; E stands for education; and G stands for government. It doesn't mean you have to have all of those. It means that there have to be some channels set aside for those activities if the municipality or the government entity desires to have that. Several years ago when we negotiated the contract, the commission decided that we would not entertain public entertain -- television. Public television basically adheres to the Constitution and says that people can say or do whatever they want. And if you have been to New York City or even Tampa and seen their public television efforts, you will understand why the commission, in its wisdom, decided that Collier County probably didn't to want participate in that. We have been very, very careful about who we allow on our government channel. It -- it's very, very easy to open the door up, and so we do not allow nongovernment bodies or entities to televise on our station. It is strictly a government access television. Now, as you know, we negotiated for two channels, and we turned one channel over to the education system. And in order to make sure that that happened, that language was placed in the franchise agreement so that there would be no future possibilities of Page 79 January 16, 2002 that channel being used as a public television station. So in our franchise agreement, it doesn't say PEG; it says EGG. And so I did want to make that distinction, because I know that at times we get requests from different organizations to either publicize their events or even televise their events, and we -- we do turn those requests away. We have some very -- Collier 2002, it -- it was 2001 when you saw it, but it's now 2002. That's our most professionally done program. It's done in conjunction with a professional company. All of the news and all of the -- the content is controlled by us. The script is done by us. And, of course, as you know, Jay hosts that. Social Securi _ty and Other Good Things is our most popular show. Given the demographics of this area, it's probably not a surprise. But it is hosted by Jack Fordham who is the regional director of social security; very, very knowledgeable, very personable. Does a wonderful job. We do On the Job, which is a program in conjunction with the North Naples Fire Department. We do a program called EMS Today with our own EMS department and our new effort, Good Morning, Collier County. As I mentioned, that we duplicate tapes. We also do election coverage. And our election coverage has been unique in that we have a direct fiber to the supervisor of elections' office. As soon as she gets them, we get them. We have them before the commercial television stations do. We are working to improve the format because it was hard to read. It came right off and -- but it was -- people were -- were standing around in this room around the television watching it because it is up to date. We have waited to upgrade that until the new technology has come, and we're beginning those efforts right now, and we will be doing that. Page 80 January 16, 2002 We have various production activities. We've talked about that. Our number-one mission is to cover the meetings and to -- we tape most all of them and replay it because not everybody can watch them live and people who work. And it is absolutely amazing. If something goes wrong with our audio, we have 40, 50 calls, so we know people are watching. We also get complaints too, you know, we can't hear or something like that. MR. OCHS: Jean, excuse me. We want to keep moving because I think a couple of commissioners are going to have to leave. MS. MERRITT: I'll do that. Thank you, Leo. You have to keep telling me. On -- on No. 6, I do want to pull -- just point out one thing. This is our bulletin board that goes on the television. And on one particular day I asked Kady to list what's on there. It was on November 16th. These are everything that was on that day. That is another way people get a lot of information, and we update that every -- every day or so. Our summer shows, No. 7, we've gone over some of them. We are continuing our relationship with Florida Gulf Coast University to use their studios that are to die for, believe me. And next week we are filming two more shows. One is on security and the new security techniques that we have use -- that we are using in the county. And the other one is on the RSVP Program, the very popular program. We also -- I want to point out on page -- on -- on Tab 8, additional strategies that we're working for, probably our most visible thing that we do in the public is held on April 21st and 22nd. Those are our government -- county government days that we in the last couple of years have held in the Coastland Mall. They've been very, very successful, and we intend to do the same. We support during a local emergency. I've become the public information officer under the emergency support function of 14. And Page 81 January 16, 2002 our staff is available 24 hours, if-- if necessary. We -- we distribute the agenda, and we take care of all the billing for the agenda, for the different companies and corporations that have ordered the agendas. We have a speaker's bureau. We handle the on-hold telephone recording system. We have a newspaper clipping service. You should be getting copies of those. And, of course, we have media liaison activities. I interact with the press a great deal. I've worked very hard to get good relationships, and the press will call me for information and ask me who -- who to go to to -- and it -- it's not necessarily an easy thing, but I have found that if you are honest and up front with the press most of the time, not always, most of the time they will be up front and honest with you. We are getting e-mail requests from the public now that we are treating just like telephone calls. They go out to the front desk as soon as we get them, and they're handled that way, and it's -- it's really a very good thing. The new projects at Tab 10, we would like very much to do a survey. However, we probably will just have more questions in the county survey that's done by -- in conjunction with the League of Women Voters and Chuck Mohlke. So probably we'll -- we'll do that. We are looking to start a children's show on Saturday morning -- we hope to get that off the ground -- in conjunction with the library. It will be done and held at the library, and we hope to have that going in the fall. One of the most exciting things -- and I really do want to get to this -- is that the government access -- state government access station is called for-- the Florida Channel. It's out of Tallahassee. And we are getting the equipment so that we can now cover -- we can carry the Florida legislature. And we will be doing that -- we hope to Page 82 January 16, 2002 be able to have this accomplished so that we'll be able to cover some of the legislative hearings and legislature meetings themselves during this session. For a modest cost -- we have worked with the State Department of Education for a modest cost of $3,000, which is in my budget, so I'm not asking for it. We will be able to hook into the Florida Channel. The State Department of Education would have paid for that had we agreed to carry all of it. But, of course, we cannot do that. But we will be the only station in Southwest Florida carrying any of the legislature. And we're very, very pleased about that. We think that's a very good public service. The Immokalee connection, we've been working very hard on that, Commissioner Coletta. I know that is near and dear to your heart. As I know you heard earlier from Jo-Ann that there are some strides being made that in effort. Hopefully my recommenda -- my recommendation is that in the interim we do go to a microwave because I think that it probably will be the quickest and the best way to go. We -- we have included -- because I'm very proud of my staff, we have included biographies, bios of them. And when you get a chance, I hope you'll have a chance to -- to take a look at it. It -- there are so many other things that we could do, but we work very hard to -- to make a credible department. We think we have succeeded somewhat, and we definitely would like to hear from you, if not today, what some of your ideas and things are that you think we ought to be doing. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, I personally think you're doing an absolutely wonderful job. I mean, you rate right up there with the libraries as far as public acceptance and -- Commissioner Henning? VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Page 83 January 16, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You cleared your voice for a second there, so I assume you wished to speak. VICE CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, I was doing two things: I was clearing my voice, and I did want to speak. I don't know if the board is interested in something similar that the sheriff's department has. They have a public information person that is the spokesman for that department, and I don't know if-- I mean, I think it's a good thing that -- that we can do, and it's not something -- I'm not trying to say stifle the commissioners. We just have so many activities going on, and I know that so many different things in different departments, they come to the Board of Commissioners, and we're out there seeking information all over. And I don't know if it was a desire there to have a point person. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Carter. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I real track with you, Commissioner Henning. I had made a note. One of my major concerns is we often get caught off guard and respond to situations, and we begin to look negative to the community. We don't intend to do that, but it happens. And I made a note that I would really like to see us expand and work in that area for public information officer. We need an executive and orientation on how to handle the press and media. We really need to all get better at this so that no one is ever compelled to answer a question when you're asked by the media. You can take time to answer that. You can get the right information. And if we all work together on that, it gives us -- it's image, and it gives better information. So I would heartily support doing a public information officer that works with all of us and body politic and with professional staff because sometimes I think things get in the paper from professional staff that "I can't believe they ever said that." And then I find out I didn't say that, and I'm saying -- let's find out how we do this so that Page 84 January 16, 2002 if there's an issue, like we have one currently, we can go and say, "Hey, we want a retraction on this because we gave it to you in writing. This is what it said, and you printed it differently." I think you have to be held accountable for that. But if you don't do it right, you never have a chance to -- to get to that point. I think it's absolutely a hundred percent kind of thing we ought to be doing. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think basically what we're saying is be weary of quick-draw comments to a reporter that calls up and says, "This guy just fell on Chicken Little. What do you have to say about that?" I agree with you. I'd just plainly say, "I don't know about it at this point in time." A public information officer, they could disseminate that information to us in a timely basis. Of course, we always seem to be the last to know. If you want to know what's going on in the county real quick, call Judy downstairs or get ahold of Dennis Husty. They'll tell you what's going on. COMMISSIONER CARTER: One of the things -- maybe the tie to Commissioner Henning is -- one of the things that came out in the information technology section, a uniform look, and that is, what do you want to look like in Collier County? We have -- you know, whether it's reviewing of IT or public relations or tourist development, we've got some great pieces. But how do you really identify this is Collier County? And we don't have a theme. And I would like to see us in that -- have some visioning group that would sit down and look at that and say, "Here's everything we want to be. How do we make that happen" so that we don't take all of these pieces which are wonderful. Everybody says, "Well, that's nice, but how does that tie to this?" So I would like to tag with that and -- and ask that we might begin to look for a uniform look, revisioning process, however you want -- Page 85 January 16, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I was just going suggest we might want to consider bringing it back as a workshop with a visioning process. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Or you get some interested people in the community from the various entities here, reach out and say, "What do you think we should look like?" from our -- you know, from our tourism industry, from our -- from everything that we do here and say, let's get these collective people together and -- and process it. And Jean would probably be a likely person to pull these people together and say, "Let's talk." So I don't know. Whatever the board wants to do, that's -- that's a suggestion I would make. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle, do you want to add anything to that? COMMISSIONER COYLE: said. your No. I think everything has been CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Nothing, except you do great work, whole department. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER FIALA: They're wonderful. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Just in closing, Mr. Chairman, I just -- I want to -- one of the highlights that I wanted to get across was I think you have a fairly small compact PIO department. And I think if you look at the production of work and the number of things that they are involved with and are responsible for, they are producing a great deal of what I think is first-class public information and in a number of different medias. And they're responsible for it. They keep it current. They do a great job. But the point that we were trying to make to you is I -- I think you're getting about all you're going to get out of this PIO department. I mean, we are running on all cylinders there. And there Page 86 January 16, 2002 continues to be, I think, some desire on -- on the part of the board, and perhaps collectively you need to think about do you want to take another step forward? And if you do, I guess my suggestion to you is to consider that -- that it is going to take an enhancement of the resource level that is currently there if you want to take that next step or do some additional type outreaches into the community. And you simply need to decide whether we want to restructure what we're currently doing with the resources that we have, or do you wanted to expand and do some -- some larger, more intensive type things. And we'll have some options for you to consider as we go through the budget process this summer. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'd like to see the options. MR. OLLIFF: Yup. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I certainly would too, Chairman Coletta. And I would like to incorporate that in -- into a visioning process. Personally I would like to go to the next level. We are a three-quarter-of-a-billion-dollar-a-year corporation, and we better do it right. And for what it is costing us -- I mean, this is, like, you know, almost half of it's paying out of a franchise fee and what they're able to accomplish -- this is the best bargain we have. I think we better invest in a piece that we have, I think, in my opinion, neglected for too long. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If there is no other comments ... (No response.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Good job. MS. LEAMER: Thank you, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And this meeting is adjourned. There being no further business for the good of the County, the Page 87 January 16, 2002 meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12:06 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL JAMES N. LETTA, CHAIRMAN ATTEST: _I~a~;,~. BROCK, CLERK ~,?:,:~;-.:~tL~m~nutes approved by the Board on oo ~ oras o ected . , as TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY BARBARA A. DONOVAN, RMR, CRR Page 88