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12/20/1982 PARAB Naples , Florida , December 20 , 1992 LET IT BE REMEMBERED that the Parks & Recreation Advisory Board met at 7 : 30 P.M. in the Coast Federal Rank on this date with the following members present : Chairman : Vince Murphy Anne Goodnight Hank Caballero ALSO PRESENT: Chris Holley, Administrative Aide; Donald Norton, Public Services Administrator , and ,James Thomas , Assistant Recreation Director . Chairman Murphy welcomed those present and introduced the Advisory Board members who were present . He explained that the Collier County Parks Program has a long history going back to 1976 when the first referendum was held and voted down. Since that time, he said , that many persons have 411 worked hard to rejuveni ate the parks system in the County which culminated in the passage of the referendum in November 1992. He said that referendum was preceeded by approximately 3 years' study on behalf of the parks by the Parks Advisory Board and the Financial Advisory Committee during which time potential park site selections were investigated . He said that the passage of the refendum by 2 to 1 was , in the minds of the Advisory Board members , a mandate from the people of Collier County who want to bring the parks program up to where it should be and that the referendum instructed the Board of County Commissioners to procure four park sites to Page 1 011 Parks & Recreation Advisory Board December 20 , 1982 • . _.- --_ to build five parks . He said that • the concept of community committees stems from the nature of the community park concept and that the committees are designed to help determine what the community park will have, adding that if the decisions were made without help from the community, for example , all the softball fields might be placed in a area that is primarily interested in having a passive park situation. Mr . Murphy said that the presence of the interested qpersons to this meeting is a manifestation of the interest bg the community to have the parks built correctly. He explained that the committees will be loosely structured , not only chaired by a member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board but that that member is basicallyA'conduit" whereby the ® community committee input can be passed onto to the BCC. Mr . Murphy said that Ms . Goodnight will chair the Immokalee Committee; Mr . Caballero will chair the Golden Gate Committee; Mr . Monaco will he on the North Naples Committee; he will chair the mainland East Naples Committee and the Marco Island representative to the Board , once that person is selected , will chair the Marco Island Committee . He said that after this meeting he doubted if there would he any more joint meetings of all the committees and that after the work is done , there may be a joint meeting to compare information regarding what the parks will he like . He said that , through Parks & Recreation Advisory Board December 20 , 1982 the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board , the information will be passed to all the committees , adding that it is important that those committees be able to function independently in order to accomplish what needs to be done on their own. He said that he hoped everyone would leave this meeting enthus- iastic about the committees and what has to be done in order to tell the Commission what the people want in the community parks . He said that there would be approximately one million to one and one-half million dollar investment in each community. Mr . Murphy referred to a handout which gave a history of what has transpired regarding the parks and he asked the people to turn to the page in front of the blue page which gives an estimate of what it will cost to build a community ® park and asked the people to keep this for reference when the committees are meeting . I `y Mr . Jim Thomas referred to a paged behind the blue sheet) .�^ ��c� 4.i41 the first reportAdone two years ago for the selection of the park sitesAwhich he will show films_ wie. In the front , he explained , is the revised copy done this year and that behind the green sheet is the information sent to the BCC on December 14 , 1982. Mr . Murphy said that in order to obtain an idea of what a 35 acre community park is like , Fleishman Park is 19 acres and therefore the community park would he approximately twice • Parks & Recreation Advisory Board December 20 , 1982 that size . He said that four bailfields , football field , tennis courts , basketball court , handball courts , and parking spaces could be placed in the parks and he referred to a configuration of Fleishman Park. Mr . Thomas said that the cost breakdown in the handout information was made up with four tennis courts . Mr . Murphy said he felt it would be appropriate to air the potential misunderstandings which went on between the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the Board of County Commissioners . He said that at the Advisory Board' s October i/ meeting , after the referendum was passed , ther Board decided that the community committee concept was something that should be done in order for the communities to be involved in the development of the parks , adding that the initial concept was that the committees would be involved in the site selec- tion process as well as the park design process . He said that the Commission was interested in getting the thing off the ground quickly in order for the park sites to be pur- chased and developed so that by the beginning of school in 1994 the parks would be ready and that the Commission felt that involvement of the committees in the first step would be an unnecessary delay in the selection of the sites and , therefore , would slow down the development of the sites and the opening of the . He explained that the selection of the sites has been taken away from the committees and that • I . AMMEMEMOW NOM Parks & Recreation Advisory Board December 20 , 1982 the Commission has said that , in lieu of the committee input , each person has the right to monitor the site selection process as it is going on and individually voice concerns about where the sites will be. He said that some of the community park sites which were selected over the two year period have been developed and cannot be bought•- therefore , but that there are other sites which are not identified in the handout . He said that if anyone knows of a site , he should let the Commission know and that the Commission and County staff will come up with potential sites which are not in the handout. He said that he thinks that there is a concern that the County may be "stuck" with a piece of swampland that a developer wants to "get rid of" and he urged the people to be on the lookout for that sort of thing in order to keep that from happening . He said that the invest- ment for the sites is something that the people of Collier County will live with for years and he encouraged those persons present to voice their views while the site selection is going on within the staff to result in a nice site . Mr . Murphy said that the committees , as a group, will be involved in the design of the park and actual construction of t' the park site , adding that the Parks and ROcr,ti.on Advisory Board has discussed the situation at length and it is the Board' s feeling that the community should have a bottom layer of services , in other words , there should be no park that has • Parks & Recreation Advisory Board December 20 , 1982 no basketball court or a couple of tennis courts . He said that after the fundamental services for each park site is provided for , each community committee would be free to recommend to the Commission that the park have a community center or extra tennis courts or socker fields , etc . A question was asked if Mr . Murphy knew what the basic, fundamental park would consist of , and Mr. Murphy referred to a page in the handout which is a type park but not a funda- mental park. He said that his concept is that that page does not represent what has to be in each park, adding that some of the parks may not want four ballfields . A discussion was held regarding how the money is planned to be invested . Administrative Assistant Chris Holley ICI introduced Don Norton , Public Services Administrator who is ru• in charge of Parks and Recreation Department4a-a� said that he has been assigned to assist with the community parks project. He said that the taxes that would be levied to collect debt service money for the Park Bond cannot be levied until ti/ November or December 1983, adding that the %ney cannot be spent now. He explained that i the financial plan of the Bond Issue investiamg. the money and recoupi-sg -h� the interest from those investments andApayinft the debt service on the bonds that were issued in November 1952 . He said that staff has been directed to get commitments on sites and that the Mrs . Pat Carroll , staff engineer with the Public Parks & Recreation Advisory Board December 20, l942 Works Division , has been assigned to be responsible for 111 developing site selections reports , and that he had brought y informationAwh ch resulted from a meeting between the County Manager , Mr . Norton , Parks Director Rollie Rice and other staff people from the Public Works Department who will be working on the site selection reports and that lengthy discussions have been held regarding community involvement. He said that staff was directed to proceed with site selec- tion but that they did not want to exclude the community from input in that process . He said that Mrs . Carroll' s telephone number is in the handout and that she is more than willing to xreceive input from any community member, alselPeopies of the x, aforementioned information wMtdistri.huted to those present. He explained that the information was written in press release form. He said that the first report will be on the East Naples District to he given to the Board in January and he requested if anyone had information on a favorable park site in that area , based on the criteria in the handout , he should contact Mrs . Carroll and that she will investigate any positive parcel of property suggested . He said that the Public Works Division has more experience in property acqui- sition and doing site surveys and appraisals than any of the staff . At this time , a slide presentation was given of poten- tial park sites in the County with Mr . Thomas describing Parks & Recreation Advisory Board December 20, 1982 them. The slides covered various sites in North Naples , East CNaples , Golden Gate , and Immokalee . Mr . Murphy said that there are a lot more park sites which have not been ident- ified and he encouraged the people to let Mrs . Carroll know of any. He said he would give the Community Committee Chairmen maps identifying the sites shown in the slide presentation and he encouraged the people to let Mr . Rice know if they need anything . A question was asked if it would be a good idea to have one or two persons from each Community Committee monitor what the staff is doing regarding site selections and Mr. Murphy said he thought that would be a good idea but he did not know if forming subcommittees from the Community Committees would be a good idea . He suggested that the people contact Mrs . 401) Carroll every week, especially from the East Naples area , to see what other sites the staff is investigating . Mr . Murphy said that the Parks and Advisory Board want the site selec- tion to be a well thought out process . Responding to Mr . Murphy, Mr. Holley said that he felt /ACC rvuLatfrit LI that either January 11 or the meeting after would he when the East Naples park site would be before the BCC. He said that the BCC meetings are planned well in advance with Executive Summary required to be in the County Manager' s office two weeks prior to the Board meeting . He said that , since the Advisory Board members will be the chairpeople of each (:) Parks & Recreation Advisory Board December 20 , 19$2 Community Committee , they may want to appoint two Community Committee members to work closer and that the Executive Summaries , dealing with the parks issue , should be sent to the Advisory Board members and they would have time to coordinate communication with the BCC.