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BCC Minutes 04/02/2002 TH (District 3)April 2, 2002 WORKSHOP MEETING OF APRIL 2, 2002 OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 7 p.m. at a TOWN HALL WORKSHOP MEETING at Golden Gate Community Center, North Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: TOM HENNING JAMES D. CARTER, PH.D. JIM COLETTA DONNA FIALA FRED COYLE ALSO PRESENT: NORM FEDER JOHN DUNNUCK EDWARD KANT RAMIRO MANALICH JIM MUDD LEO OCHS Page 1 April 2, 2002 JOE SCHMITT TOM WIDES GEORGE YILMAZ Page 2 District 3 Town Hall Agenda Hosted by Commissioner Tom Henning April 2, 2002 Golden Gate Community Center 4701 Golden Gate Parkway 1) Golden Gate Community Center Expansion 2) Transportation Update a) Davis to Radio Road Interconnect b) Santa Barbara Expansion c) Vanderbilt Extension Widening 3) 4) Landfill Update Code Enforcement 5) New Parking Ordinance 6) 40th Terrace Progress Report 7) Volunteer Code Enforcement 8) Sheriff Substation Update 9) Citizens on Patrol 10) Golden Gate Fire Department a) CERT Program 11) Traffic Calming Device on 18th Place SW April 2, 2002 CHAIRMAN HENNING: Would you all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Welcome to the District 3 Town Hall Meeting. I'd like to introduce some of our administrators in county government. Norm Feder, our Transportation Director is over here (indicating). Joe Schmitt is our Community Development Administrator. Tom Wides is the Interim Director for Public Works. Over to my right, your left, we have Jim Mudd, Deputy County Manager; leo Ochs, Assistant County Manager; and Ramiro Manalich is from the County Attorney's Office. And we also have John Dunnuck from Public Services. And to my left we have Chairman of the Board of Commissioners, Jim Coletta, District 5 -- Golden Gate Estates I should say; Commissioner Fred Coyle from the City of Naples; We have Commissioner Carter from North Naples. And Commissioner Donna Fiala from East Naples; And we do have other directors that we're going to hear from that are on the agenda and, of course, we are here to hear from you. That's the reason we're here. We do have sign-up sheets. And I don't know who has that. Jim Mudd, do you have those? MR. MUDD: I have them right here, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: If you want to speak, we encourage you to come speak. It's going to be the last thing on the agenda, and the blank ones are up. MR. MUDD: Jean has them right on the back table. CHAIRMAN HENNING: You can sign up to speak. So with that, Commissioners, I want to welcome you to District 3. It's always great to get together, and we're going to go over some issues in Page 3 April 2, 2002 District 3 and hear what constituents in this area have to request from the Board of Commissioners. The first thing on our agenda is the Golden Gate Community Expansion here at this district for the Community Center, and Keith Larson is going to give us an update on that. Last year we had purchased seven and a half acres behind the Community Center, and now we have a master plan to develop that piece of property. Keith. MR. LARSON: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Yes, I am going to spend just a few moments and update everyone here on the expansion. Thank you all for coming out this evening, and Commissioner Henning, thank you. Before I -- I have a couple of little diagrams I want to show you. Before I do that, I want to give you a brief background of how we came to this project. When I first started at the Community Center back in '95, we had a thing here during the summer called the "Saturday Night Live." While not the most original title, the kids had a fantastic time. We opened up the gym, basketball, volleyball, we had a D.J. come play music, and the kids had an awesome time. We were also fortunate we were able to secure these ramps that we put in the parking lot for all the skateboarders and in-line skaters. And we had about four of them that summer, and each time we had it, more kids showed up. The last one that summer we had hundreds of kids here having a great time. We also noticed that about 80 percent of those kids are outside on the bikes on the ramps having a fantastic time. The next summer we offered the exact same program, but we weren't able to use the ramps that year, and we had an incredible drop off in the number of kids. We know that the kids didn't get rid of their bikes, didn't get rid Page 4 April 2, 2002 of their skateboards. They were out in the parking lots of the schools because that's all they had. After that summer we had a lot of parents coming to us, a lot of kids saying, "We need something." "We need something in this community" because most of the kids who do this activity can't get in a car and drive somewhere to do it. They're either on their bike or on the skateboard. So this past year the Advisory Board, we took it upon ourselves to figure out what can we do to make this happen. The center had expanded. We hadn't had much or anywhere to go, but we noticed there were seven and a half acres across the street. We said, "Is there any way we can be able to get and develop that, and it's about a six- year project. And last year we did approach the property across the street, and we are developing it for the kids. And I want to take a second and pull these out so you can see them. This first one is kind of how the area looks right now. This is the Community Center right here (indicating). And your substation goes off and you can see the certain road across this way (indicating). The project -- I know you won't be able to see this -- and I apologize -- as well. We'll be here (indicating). You all can hear me without the microphone, can't you? Down here is the current Community Center (indicating). This is the expanded park right here (indicating), and the first thing you'll notice, a certain road comes to an end here (indicating). We have purchased a certain road. It now belongs to us for the express purpose we're going to have kids coming from this facility going out there to take care of that and be part of that, and we didn't want them to cross traffic. So we want to keep the kids as safe as we can. So we are vacating a certain road. Page 5 April 2, 2002 And over here you'll see the BMS, bicycle motorcross skatepark (indicating). And while we're developing this, we also noticed that we put together this building; it's going have a couple meeting rooms, but more importantly it's going have a nice band shell. And we're going to offer the citizens of Golden Gate the same thing they have downtown. We're hoping to have Sunday concerts here like they do downtown so the people in this community won't have to drive downtown in the middle of season for a Sunday concert. We'll be able to have Sunday concerts here too. So that kind of brings you up to speed as to where we are at. We're hoping this project will begin in the fall and open for business next summer. That is our intended plan. Are there any questions? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any questions on the new center expansion? A VOICE: I was wondering -- COMMISSIONER CARTER: Ma'am, can you come to one of the mics, please, so we can get it on the court reporter's minutes. MS. MANN: I was wondering with the landscaping of the library and the substation and the fire station and this community would all be made into one. Right now it has an ugly fence. The library looks very good, and then the piece of property doesn't look as nice. Make it look as one, are they going to continue to be divided off?. MR. LARSON: Yes, I do understand the question. No, the plan is to bring the whole area to kind of a campus feel, in other words, the new substation, the new government office here, this facility is going to be painted this year to match that. And we're going to be landscaping it, lighting it, and it will all match. It may take a little bit of time to get there, but that is the plan. We'll get there. Page 6 April 2, 2002 CHAIRMAN HENNING: And just as to further on that, if there is anticipation and expansion of the library -- and I also talked to the county manager. We have a retention area over here next to the side of the parking lot. His idea is to make it deeper and smaller to handle the stormwater and then put a fountain in it and make it a little bit more attractive. Maybe put some lighting on, things of that nature. So it's a -- this is a great addition, but we're not done. Any other questions? A VOICE: Do I have to come to the microphone? MR. DUNNUCK: Good evening. Right now I think in our plans we have the library expansion scheduled in two years is what we're looking at right now. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And that's John Dunnuck. Any other questions? MR. LARSON: Thank you very much for your time. CHAIRMAN HENNING: The other item we have on the agenda is transportation issues in District 3. We have our transportation administrator, Norm Feder. MR. FEDER: Thank you, Commissioner. For the record, Norm Feder, transportation administrator. It's a pleasure to be here this evening. What I would like to tell you is on the major projects, very pleased to note that since August of 2001 we have been able to open up three major segments of improvement. First of all, Livingston, Phase I is the first. Back in August of 2001 between Radio and Golden Gate as well as Pine Ridge was opened and the first section of our expansion of Immokalee Road between 1-75 and 951. Later this year we should have three other segments opening; Airport-Pulling Road, Golden Gate Boulevard, work from 951 on out, and Livingston Road, Phase II which will bring the first phase from Golden Gate Parkway up to Pine Ridge Road. We should see Page 7 April 2, 2002 some substantial relief to Airport and other sections as you can access the interstate via Livingston Road. As I mentioned some other significant projects this year to be left as well we have four lettings this year. We are going to be letting between 951 all the way past to 43rd. We're also going to be widening two sections of Livingston Road to complete Phase IV, will go first from Immokalee Road up to the Lee Cotmty line and then the section from Pine Ridge up to Immokalee Road. The last will be before Goodlette-Frank Road between Pine Ridge and Vanderbilt Beach Road will be this year a short section of six laning Pine Ridge and four laning up to Immokalee Road. We have six other widenings in '03 and Waterfalls. So it's a very, very aggressive program through your support and the support of your board. I had three projects. One of the smaller projects, an important one, is the realignment of Radio Road as it meets with Davis. We are also putting a signal in right now. We're four laning that section for about just under a half a mile from Davis on up, putting in sidewalks, making some drainage improvements, and we should be completed by September. I know some folks here will be happy when that work is done as will we. We have -- on Vanderbilt Beach Road there, we are going to be six laning from Airport down to Logan and four laning from Logan down to 951. That project is 60 percent design plans which means we have identified our right-of-way and moving into the right-of-way and work with the community on that. As well, we've got 60 percent design plans for the six laning of Santa Barbara, basically Santa Barbara and Logan between Davis all the way up to Pine Ridge. Again, we'll have sidewalks on both sides of the road, bike paths and six lanes with a median. That project is scheduled to have its right-of- ways started mid 2003, construction starting up in 2004. Page 8 April 2, 2002 Those are some major projects. You have some of the details. The other items I mentioned as far as widening of the new path, I'd be happy to answer any questions. The other thing, we have computerized signaling system. The first phase of that is from all of the signals from Airport to the west, and then the second phase from everything from Airport, if you will, east over past 951. That first phase should be completed in about six months. We'll get rid of the hamster that's running around the cage and have something that allows us to respond. And based on traffic conditions, and that should be a vast improvement, although without a good system there is some limitations. But there's a lot of improvement that can be made. The other is a transit system. I think it's something working beyond human expectation. It exceeded all the numbers, and we'll continue to work with that. We have increased the routing and added buses to reduce some of the headway times, the time it takes for a business to get here. And we are very, very pleased out here in this community and throughout the county with the transit system. With that, I appreciate it, and I'm here later for any questions or afterwards as well. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do you want to hand that in now? MR. ERLICHMAN: Right now? Transportation question. Who do I give it to? CHAIRMAN HENNING: You give it to me. MR. ERLICHMAN: (Handing.) Gil Erlichman. I live in East Naples. I've been a resident here for 14 years. This is the part of the capital project from Radio Road at Davis Boulevard intersection. It says, "Concise Project Description: Four lane intersection improvements on Radio Road at Davis. Intersection Page 9 April 2, 2002 is relocated 1,000 feet west on Davis. Four lane Radio Road west approximately 2,000 feet. Provide traffic light at new intersection." Why haven't you -- why don't you continue that four laning of Radio Road completely to Santa Barbara Boulevard? Why are you going to have a bottleneck two lanes for approximately a quarter to a half a mile? MR. FEDER: The funding that we had available and the plans were for the intersection improvements. We extended that to make sure we didn't do the intersection without doing some of the four laning. The balance of that from Santa Barbara, the other half mile, if you will, will be part of the Santa Barbara project I mentioned that will be coming back in that section of Radio and completing it to four lanes to go up to the section that's included right now. MR. ERLICHMAN: How long is that going to take? MR. FEDER: Two and a half, three years. MR. ERLICHMAN: So, in other words, you're going to have a bottleneck for two and a half to three years? Now, I don't know why you said you don't have the funds. MR. FEDER: And, by the way, sir, for drainage and other issues. MR. ERLICHMAN: We live at Shorewood, and in the past two years Radio Road between Santa Barbara and where we are located at Shorewood, that section has been dug up and repaved three times. The first time was to widen the road a little bit because the two lanes were too narrow because trucks could sideswipe passenger cars, the second time was for gas pipes, and the third time is right now. It's all that money that was wasted tearing up the road, repaving, tearing up the road, repaving, that money could have been used towards the complete four laning of Radio Road up to Santa Barbara. Page 10 April 2, 2002 MR. FEDER: When utilities come in and works on the side of the road, we're required to let them work in our right-of-way. This is the project that we are pursuing, and we are four laning at this time. MR. ERLICHMAN: So the road is going to have a bottleneck for two and a half, three years? MR. FEDER: No. Wherever I start construction the bottlenecks will be. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And we have bottlenecks all over Collier County, and we are doing our best to address each and every one of them, but funding is an issue, and we are still short under transportation, road plan, and we're still dealing with those issues. Any questions from the Board? Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Norm, could you please tell people what letting means. MR. FEDER: Yes, Commissioner Fiala. First of all, I apologize. I try not to use any acronyms. I can do a whole paragraph without saying a real word. A letting is basically once we have done everything, we have done the planning, the design, acquired the right- of-way, gotten all the permits in hand, we don't actually -- the county doesn't go out and do the construction with our own crews. We bid it out. We put out for bidders based on a low bid or some of the alternate bids. Since we use time and money and other issues, that's called letting. We let it out to bid. So that's letting in construction. Thank you, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any other transportation questions from the board? Sir, do you want to come up to the mic and state your name for the record? Page 11 April 2, 2002 MR. SCHUMMER: I'm Don Schummer, and I live on Santa Barbara Boulevard. I just have a quick question on Santa Barbara Boulevard. I think it was stated that it was going to start in '03. Has the right-of-way and everything been obtained to complete that road? And they have just put a new traffic light at Coronado, and they put cement pillars in there. Now, is the road going to be within that boundary, or is it going to be beyond those cement pillars? MR. FEDER: Let me answer the first part of your question. No, we do not have the right-of-way yet. We're in the process of finishing our 60 percent design plans. Once those are completed and all the reviews are done, we'll be able to start our right-of-way process, but the access will start very shortly. We're planning to have all the right-of-way and all the issues arranged by the middle of 2003. Construction could start beginning of 2004, sir. MR. SCHUMMER: Is there a place where the landowner can see how much of his property is going to be taken? Is there a plan at the courthouse? MR. FEDER: As I mentioned, in 60 percent design plans, we have the specific right-of-way issues in hand. I'll give you a card after this. You give me a call, I'll be happy to show you where the plans are and answer any questions. MR. SCHUMMER: I thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: The second part of the question is addressing Coronado and Santa Barbara traffic light. MR. KANT: Good evening, Commissioners. Edward Kant, Transportation Operations Director. That light was put in in response to traffic conditions. That's a temporary signal. When the four to six laning is complete, the concrete poles and all the heads will be replaced with the mast arms that you'll notice in most parts of new construction across the county with new construction. We are putting Page 12 April 2, 2002 up a much more attractive cast iron-type permanent structure. The existing poles, all the heads, all the pieces and bits get used several times as we move temporary signals around the county. The only thing we can't salvage is the wire that strings between them. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Ma'am, you had a question about transportation. MS. BARKER: Yes. My name is Carolyn Barker. I live here in the city. Over the last four or five months it's been extremely difficult to get out of the City of Golden Gate. Santa Barbara Parkway backs up to St. Elizabeth, K-Mart, wherever. It takes longer to get through that intersection than from Santa Barbara coming south close to the mall. Is there any plans to six lane Golden Gate Parkway in the future? MR. FEDER: Yes, there is. First of all, what we're looking at -- the state is looking to develop an interchange at Golden Gate Parkway which will give you quicker access to the interstate but will add some traffic on that section of the roadway. We are preparing to six lane in advance of that interstate interchange the section of Golden Gate to Santa Barbara all the way over to Airport where it's widened for the turn lanes. And also to develop an overpass at Airport to give a pretty limited access facility which basically acts as points beyond Santa Barbara's over Livingston Road, one just before the overpass, one at Bears Park and the overpass, and then down to Goodlette-Frank Road. That construction of the six laning will start in 2003, the state's interchange project and our overpass in 2004. MS. BARKER: What will it do here for the city? MR. FEDER: Basically, it's going to give you a six laning through, along with the Santa Barbara improvements. Also some improvements at the intersection of 53rd. Sheer volume, I'm hoping Page 13 April 2, 2002 you get some relief in a few weeks, but it's still going to be difficult now. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sir, you had a transportation question? MR. CHAPIN: My name is Floyd Chapin. I reside at Sapphire Lakes. I'm president of our homeowners' association. I'd just like to remind you, we understand there's bottlenecks in Collier County. Radio Road specifically from where you are terminating the present project to Santa Barbara is six-tenths of a mile, and just for your edification, Twelve Lakes is going to develop on the south side of Radio Road with 900 new units, and the north side of Radio Road is Blue Heron which is another 600 new units, so the traffic is going to be relatively heavy in there. And all I ask for you is, if you find a couple dollars somewhere and if you can widen the project, I think we would appreciate it because it's really going to be a tremendous bottleneck. It's a simple request. Obviously, your hands are tied at the present time, but we would like you to keep us in mind, but I'd like the other commissioners to realize that also. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Cheatham? MR. CHEATHAM: Yes. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Are they going to come before the board of commissioners for rezone, or are they permitted? MR. CHEATHAM: They're about there. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Blue Heron? MR. CHEATHAM: That's adjacent of Sapphire Lakes. And Twelve Lakes, we were at an informational meeting about two months ago at one of the schools in town where the developer and county made a presentation. Some of the people from your planning department were there, and I think they're pretty well set to go. Page 14 April 2, 2002 CHAIRMAN HENNING: And I think they're going to come before the Board of Commissioners. MR. CHEATHAM: I have not noticed that. They have? CHAIRMAN HENNING: And I haven't seen it either. So if we do I'm sure we'll bring up the conversation that we had and the concerns. MR. CHAPIN: Thank you very much, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. MR. FEDER: Again, for the record, Norm Feder. I believe Twelve Lakes will be seen soon. The other thing I'll note -- I appreciate the concern. We did -- although it's not today, we did add it to the Santa Barbara project to at least have that setting to try to get it done. If we can advance that, of course, we'll try to look at that. MR. CHAPIN: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HENNING: One more transportation question, and we'll move on. MR. LILIENTHAL: Peter Lilienthal. Thank you. Does this have to be in the form of a question, or can I make a quick suggestion or two? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Peter Lilienthal. MR. LILIENTHAL: One good way to find money would be to mitigate traffic by larger signage to prevent people from milling around an intersection making two or three runs at it before they get sorted out where the crossing road is and where the lanes are. Maybe bigger signage would be a tremendous help. And I would also like to encourage the county with local option, fund school busing within two miles of the school. It would take a tremendous amount of traffic off the road. Anybody's whose been on the road, the schools are out, you're feeling the difference. There's a tremendous amount of traffic generated because the federal funding Page 15 April 2, 2002 goes only two miles. Anything less than that has to be funded locally. A lot cheaper than laying down pavement. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Feder. MR. FEDER: Mr. Chairman, first of all, very good comments on the signage. On the present signs, as you can see, we're putting up the larger lighted signs. There's no question, if people know where they're going, one, it's safer; and two, there's a lot less extra traffic around. The school impact fee, which actually the county establishes for the school board, the school impact fee, that methodology is being evaluated. One thing we raised to the consultants that's working on that is what they're doing in Orlando where that impact fee goes beyond just the boundaries of the site itself and has some other provisions, one of which is to help pay for busing within that two- mile area, rather than having to build the sidewalks and other features. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. The next item on the agenda is about Naples Landfill. The reason it's on the agenda is because I know a lot of people were concerned and qualified the issue about the odors coming off the landfill. We're not going to be talking tonight about the DRFP process that we're going to go in or what's going to happen in the future at the landfill, but we will be discussing what the future holds for that site and what has been done to mitigate the odor problem. Mr. Mudd, who do we have for that? MR. MUDD: Mr. Yilmaz. MR. YILMAZ: For the record, George Yilmaz, your Solid Waste Director. As some of you know, we have been diligently working on number of landfill site improvements as well as other control measures about the last one and a half years. Page 16 April 2, 2002 Today I'm pleased to report the following ten action items and milestones that I consider has been achieved. One, second largest in place and is working along with original flare for redundancies. Two, horizontal landfill gas collection has been installed under open working phase. Three, no sludge disposal at Naples Landfill has been accepted for the disposal. Four, clean cover soil being used and is not scraped. And that one specific item significantly improved our daily operations. Five, monitoring plant is being implemented, including participation of Community Odor Monitoring Panel. H2S is hydrogen sulfide, and these are the instrumentations that we have utilized. With the Board's approval, we have purchased three more, so we have much more coverage. I'd also like to thank our local odor control and monitoring panel. There has been a great deal of citizen participation in this process. So I would like to thank you for that. And, six, the stockpile of yard waste has been removed to our new compost site for bio-site. Stockpile of yard waste has also been a concern for a number of citizens for a different kind of smell and odor, so that has been pretty much addressed. Seven, backup generator in place for redundancies. In the past we didn't have power out shortages, and with the new plan we do have backup generators in place so that our primary flare and second flare as our redundancy, along with redundant power supply, our expectations are high. Eight, construction and demolition site and recycling area has been improved for two purposes; one, customer friendly traffic flow and safety; two, increasing our recycling rates from 18 percent currently to 45, and we're shooting for 50. Nine, it has been removed, separated, and diverted to Okeechobee Landfill. As some of you know, as landfill and board Page 17 April 2, 2002 mixes with water, it is a great deal of H2S again rubberneck pipe odor emissions. So that has been eliminated, and it's not being buried in our landfill. And, ten, landfill gas energy has been initiated. As you know, we have Methane, and that is our resource. Now under general direction we have received from the board and the county managers, this is being initiated, and we are looking at cost-benefit analysis. What it is, is that it fills gas, mostly Methane is planned to be converted into electricity, and there are two departments primarily who benefit from it. Our water department may recognize and expect it to recognize savings for power, and our solid waste department will generate revenues for long-term maintenance, landfill maintenance. And I think it's a great project to have. Having said that, I also have our landfill operations' manager from Waste Management, Inc. As you know, Waste Management, Inc. is our contracted landfill operator. And with that, I'll open the floor for questions. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any questions about landfill operations? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: No questions. Any questions from the Board of Commissioners? Kaydee Tuff?. MS. TUFF: Kaydee Tuff. How long until our landfill is booked? MR. YILMAZ: Two parts to that question. One is, currently we have a lime cell past the -- expected to end August of year 2004. And under the contract amendments we are looking at 15-year horizon as part of our intermediate solution. So 15 years. MS. TUFF: Where do you get the 15 years from? Page 18 April 2, 2002 MR. YILMAZ: Fifteen years is going to come from restoration of Cell I and II area, and that restoration will help us to generate more space. A VOICE: Is that space going to bring out to 15 years, or is that space going to give you more than 15 years? MR. YILMAZ: Our planning horizon is 15 years. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thanks, George. A VOICE: It's 15 years under our present operation. If we didn't do any RFPs or we didn't do anything to increase the recycling process, that is the estimate of how long it would last as far as the landfill is concerned. And then you take all those other things that we are in the process of deciding, and that changes that statement. But George gave you the present mode of operation, and we are trying to take measures to recycle, re-use, and divert as much solid waste away from the landfill and back into a recyclable product as we possibly can. CHAIRMAN HENNING: One of the things that I've been working on -- and with the help of Jim Mudd during the amendment to Waste Management contracts, the hauling contract was the carrot of the stick, and I noticed I know some of you have noticed if the other trailer does not secure its load and we see trash flying off, plastic bags or paper, so we put into the contract the stick. So if you witness it -- and I witness it, and Jim Mudd will tell you that I give them a call all the time when I do witness -- it is on the back of the truck of Waste Management's vehicles is a number. Write down that number. Write down the time and the road that were you on, and we can call. A VOICE: Who? MR. MUDD: You can call me, or you can call George, and we'll get back with Waste Management and get that site cleaned up. Page 19 April 2, 2002 They've got within 4 hours, 4 to 6 hours to have that done or they receive a fine. So you shouldn't have to accept litter on your roads. If it came off of a truck and you can identify that truck, the date and the time and the road segment that you're on so we have a general vicinity so we can get somebody out there to clean that up. And Waste Management does that as part of their contract. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I wonder if it didn't come off the truck, if it never got on the truck. Today as I was driving around I saw garbage cans that were turned over as the garbage truck was going by, and there was litter all over the ground after the guy pulled away. And I even tried to hail him down and say, "You're leaving a line of litter all the way down." I mean, there was garbage every place. So what about that? MR. MUDD: If you see those particular cases, it's the same thing as you would see it come off a truck. We talked about that when they pick the trash out of the bins, it goes into the top of the truck and comes back down, and there's litter that comes back off of it. It's the same instance. They have to come back and clean that up. You shouldn't have to accept that. And I would suggest that you don't accept that. Please give us a call so we can get them back in order to clean that up for you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And the number to call is 774-8383. Because of the location of the Naples Landfill, you are going to see it's those type of cases on Radio Road, Davis Boulevard, Golden Gate Parkway, all these roads leading to the Naples Landfill. Waste Management has been very responsible for coming out and cleaning up the mess, and if they don't there is a fine attached to it. Frank, do you have something to add to that? Page 20 April 2, 2002 MRS. ERLICHMAN: This gentleman says we should call him. Then I have to call you every single day. Radio Road east of Santa Barbara is continual. The litter is absolutely disgusting. They can come one day and clean, and it's back the same that afternoon. It's terrible and nothing's been done about it. CHAIRMAN HENNING: If you do see a Waste Management truck, get the number off of it and the time. MRS. ERLICHMAN: I don't always see a truck. The road is always littered. I don't know who does it, but it's gotten to the point where it is a health hazard. It's really, really bad. A VOICE: I think one of the things we can do is speak to our Waste Management folks and have them do a little monitoring for us for a couple days to just see what the situation is so we can be spotting and helping also. MRS. ERLICHMAN: I hope so. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If that doesn't work, I have a video camera you can borrow. MR. MUDD: George -- and we also have -- and Ed Kant can help me here a little bit. There's also a program where we have some prisoners, sheriffs and citizens. They're doing a little extracurricular activity for us on the weekends. Ed, can you help us? MR. KANT: Ed Kant, transportation operations. We actually have several different programs. We have "Adopt A Road" program, and that's been very successful where civic groups, organizations, individuals will actually adopt a section of roadway and do a Saturday cleanup. The sheriff has, what I like to call, the work study program where he uses -- community service people have been sentenced to community service hours, and they come out typically on the weekends. And then we also have -- the state uses prisoners Page 21 April 2, 2002 out of Hendry Road Camp, so we have those resources, but I would say that it's still going to be -- it's a very personal thing, people have to pick up after themselves. We do not have dedicated crews in our road and bridge department for litter pick up. Frankly, because it is illegal to litter, we never felt it was appropriate to budget for something that was not legal. And what we do is we go out and send our crews in advance of the mowers but unfortunately they're out there, something will blow off and it happens. But we do try to get as far ahead of it as we can. It's a never-ending job. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Ma'am. MS. BROWN: I want to know, is recycling cost-effective and is it something the county wants to encourage; and secondly, if that is and if we do want to reduce litter, as you said it's a personal problem, as you have more immigrants who didn't benefit from the phrase, you know, "Give a hoot, don't pollute" campaign, you have to re-educate people that are new to the area. I see that as this neighborhood has changed, the number of recycling bins that are put out has dropped off dramatically. If recycling isn't cost-effective, well, who cares. But if it is it's something that I think needs to be an education issue because people don't feel it's their civic duty. I do recycle, but I wonder is it cost-effective? Is it a feel-good thing or not? So on both of those, I think Collier County would benefit by having an education campaign for people who are not American born and throughout the schools. I don't know how, but I don't see very much being done. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And I don't think it's -- I think what we are seeing is new residents in general, especially in Golden Gate where we are having a turnover of residents. And thank you for Page 22 April 2, 2002 bringing that up. And we'll find some issues to try to get a campaign out of there, get the green containers out for recycling. George will address the monetary issue of recycling. MR. YILMAZ: Good point. For the record, George Yilmaz again. Points that we are taking and comments that we are taking -- to answer your question more specifically, the first question you had, the answer is yes, recycling in most areas is cost-effective. Secondly, recycling does preserve natural resources. There is a significant amount of environmental benefit associated with recycling. That is the heating benefit. As for as our PR campaign goes, we do have a new PR campaign coming up and someone that is bilingual, and it's going to target certain areas and we will target businesses along with residences, so that's coming along. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Commissioner Fiala, did you have a question? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. One more fast question. About road litter, that maybe isn't caused by anybody but dead animals. For instance, you drive along, and you see a dead animal, and you'd like to call somebody and say, "Please pick it up," or danger things. I was coming home from Marco Island the other night, it was dark, and there was a green plastic chair or something right in the middle of the road. It was so dark I could barely see it. Luckily I saw it, and the other cars followed me around. But there were so many cars I couldn't stop to pick it up. And I thought, who can you call to pick those things up or stop the traffic so you can pick them up? CHAIRMAN HENNING: You should have called me. I'm looking for new furniture. Page 23 April 2, 2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is there somebody to call for dead animals? MR. KANT: Yes. Among our other various sundry duties, we pick up other than domestic animals. If it's a dog or a cat, bird, goldfish, then Domestic Animal Services takes care of that. If it's a raccoon or an armadillo, we've picked up everything from cattle to you name it. It's not a pleasant thing, but somebody's got to do it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So we call road and bridge. MR. KANT: Road and bridge, yes. MR. MUDD: And, ma'am, I would say, if you have a traffic hazard in the middle of the road or it's dropped furniture, I would tell you that the sheriff, you give him a call, and he will be out there with his folks to get the traffic out of the way and clear it out of the road over to the side of the shoulder. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Would that be 774-4434 so we just get the main office? MR. KANT: If it's during the day, you can always call road and bridge. And, again, we always have somebody on call if it's something that we have to go out and clean up. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was driving, again, in Marco, and somebody had a ladder fall off. I was the car behind it, and I was able to get around it. Thank heavens there was nobody next to me, but I thought now that ladder is sliding across the road. CHAIRMAN HENNING: How long was that ladder? A VOICE: Who enforces littering laws? MR. YILMAZ: I'd just like to share a phone number, 732-2508. If you have any garbage, litter on the road, please call my office directly. Page 24 April 2, 2002 I'll take care of it, and we'll go from there. As far as our hot line goes, we have another hot line 24 hours; that's 530-5333. CHAIRMAN HENNING: We are going to move on folks. We have Michelle Arnold here. She's the director of code enforcement, and I know she's been working on specific issues here in Golden Gate. MS. ARNOLD: For the record, Michelle Arnold. Thanks for having me here today. Good evening. I have a couple items on here, and I'm going to roll one after the other-- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sounds great. MS. ARNOLD: -- unless you-all have questions. Within District 3 we have approximately four investigators that work this particular area, two in Golden Gate City, and their boundaries kind of extend to the south and include some of the areas south of Golden Gate Parkway, some of that newer development just east of Santa Barbara. And there's investigators that are also responsible for the surrounding estates area. And on an average we handle approximately 250 to 300 cases a month within that district area. Most of them are concentrated within the Golden Gate City area, and that's largely because of the volunteer program that we have, I believe, and that's one of the items on the agenda. If I can kind of skip to that item. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Michelle, we have somebody that's going to speak on that. MS. ARNOLD: Oh, all right. I won't say anything about it then. A VOICE: Say how good they are. MS. ARNOLD: They are wonderful, and we need more. Page 25 April 2, 2002 Anybody have any questions specifically about code enforcement, about what types of cases that we address in this particular area? We do get calls from many citizens. A lot of times they are not sure what department to call, so we do coordinate a lot with the various departments and try to get the calls referred to the right departments. One of the calls that we typically get is all the litter among the right-of-ways, and we refer those over to George and transportation when we get those. One of the other items that is on the agenda that I've been asked to talk about is the new parking standards. We are in the process of amending the language within the Land Development Code just to clarify the language that was previously adopted by the board, but we intend on enforcing that within this area. The Golden Gate area is one that has a tremendous concern about the excessive parking in the front yards, and that's something we're intending on going out in the evenings and addressing specifically to those residents that have excessive parking all over the lawn. What we are intending on doing is providing information as to what needs to be done to correct that particular problem. And we are going to be making a priority of those areas that have limited improved areas and parking more vehicles than can be accommodated by that improved area. Does anybody have any questions about that particular -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions from the board? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Michelle, it looks like you got off easy today. MS. BARKER: My name is Carolyn Barker again. I guess it's a twofold question. My next-door neighbor is a tenant, is not American born, and currently in the evening there is six to seven cars Page 26 April 2, 2002 in the front yard and three families living there. I was taking a walk last week, and the next block from my house there were five chickens running across the road. Do I need to call this in? I mean, chickens are not allowed in the City of Golden Gate. MS. ARNOLD: That's something we would coordinate with Animal Control on, but they're not permitted within the City of Golden Gate. MS. BARKER: Do I need to call in as far as the vehicles next door? I mean, the gentleman owns four of them himself, and he obviously can't drive more than one at a time. MS. ARNOLD: You can call those in, but we're planning on actually coming out in the evening hours and addressing those particular problems. But if you want to go ahead and call us, the number is 403-2440, and we'll address that one. MS. BARKER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Before we go to the volunteer code enforcement, if there is no more questions, I'd like to introduce an elected official that we have here this evening. Linda Abbot is a school board member, newly elected. Will you please stand. MS. ABBOT: (Standing.) (Applause.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Talking to Linda, we were elected the same time, along with Commissioner Coletta and Commissioner Fiala, and once in awhile we get a chance to chat. I asked Linda tonight, "How is it going? Are you enjoying it? Are you finding enough time for yourself?." And it's quite amazing how much time Linda Abbot puts in being a school board director. And I know that the Board of Commissioners spends a tremendous amount of time. I Page 27 April 2, 2002 was quite surprised about the duties of the school board. And, Linda, I want to thank you for coming out this evening. We have Peter Lilienthal who is with volunteer code enforcement. And, Peter, would you share with us some of the things that you do and what volunteer code enforcement is all about? MR. LILIENTHAL: I'm speaking on behalf of Glen Wilke who is really the driving force behind most of this and couldn't make it this evening. I'm here to give you a history of Golden Gate code enforcement volunteer program. We started out with the broken window syndrome with increasing grafitti, illegal parked heavy commercial vehicles and dead cars in yards with overgrown lots, paralleled by the gangs and drug dealers. To re-establish Golden Gate as a family community, we organized a group of 56 volunteer code enforcement personnel. Training was conducted with the assistance of Collier personnel and the Sheriff's Department. Monthly meetings were conducted. A standard reporting form was developed. The county codes have been redesigned or rewritten to make them practical and enforceable. Other actions taken by the community include the lemonade stand setup near the suspected areas of drug activity. Citizens on patrol, which has 21 volunteers from the Collier County Sheriff's Office and neighborhood watch. As a result, today there are no known drug houses operating in the area, gang problems, and people living on empty lots is controlled. Unauthorized land use and commercial parking in residential areas is greatly reduced. Because of these improvements in conditions, we have lost volunteers because people feel things are okay now. The reality is, just like cutting the lawn, the problems grow back. Some of the issues we face today are parking of lawn and Page 28 April 2, 2002 pool service equipment in residential areas, overcrowding on residential property with front yards becoming parking lots instead of yards. The alleyways and utility rights-of-ways are in need of brush and litter cleanup by Florida Power & Light and the county. There's inadequate resourcing to provide sufficient county code enforcement staffing. Our recommendations: The commercial equipment code needs to be specific with regards to lawn service equipment, overnight storage of pool, chlorine and acid should be banned in residential areas. Define acceptable parking in residential areas. I understand we're working on that one. Van parking on yards or sidewalks. Change the code. Permit the removal of exotics to improve property and easements. Study and redefine the use of those in C-3, C-4, and C-5 zoning. We need a cooperative effort by the Collier County Sheriff's Office and Code Enforcement to stop right-of-way parking. The Department of Transportation must be required to maintain the alleyways. Provide for additional staff for code enforcement. Change the permitted maximum height for weeds and grass from 18 inches to 12. Major problem: When Golden Gate was platted, the plan mixed residential with single-family houses and did not provide for adequate parking. The solution, in part, is to install alleyways along the east and west respectively of Sunshine Boulevard, 40th and 41st. This will allow tenant and public service access, such as fire, police, trash and mail delivery to the rear of the multi-family units. There's a significant hazard in safety. Thank you very much for listening to our comments tonight, and I'd like to encourage anybody here that's listening, if you'd like to take control and shape the character of your community, the Golden Gate code enforcement volunteers is an excellent place to start. You Page 29 April 2, 2002 can approach anybody and join the Golden Gate Civic Association. Anybody here that represents them, we have something on the bulletin board out there, and get on board with that great program and help shape the character of the community in a positive way. Thank you. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any questions, comments from the board? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Peter, I want to thank you for coming here tonight. Volunteer code enforcement has really made a huge difference in Golden Gate. Commissioners, the reason I asked Peter to kind of give us an update of what volunteer code enforcement is, is we know that we have issues in each one of our districts, and this is just one tool that community used to enhance their neighborhood. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Commissioner Henning, I want to thank Peter and Glen Wilke for your assistance with our volunteer code enforcement in Naples Park. We are a community within District 2 that's going through the same kind of problems that you're encountering here in Golden Gate City and other parts of Golden Gate. It has worked very well. We appreciate all your assistance. CHAIRMAN HENNING: We're going to move on to the next item which is -- and then after that we're going to take a short break. The Civic Association -- Cheryl Newman is here. Cheryl, could you stand up. MS. NEWMAN: (Standing.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Cheryl is the vice president of your civic association. Glen Wilke is out of town, could not be here. The Page 30 April 2, 2002 civic association has provided coffee and cookies, so I want to thank you, Cheryl, for doing that. After the update from the sheriffs substation, we're going to take a short break, and I'm sure that Sergeant Wolfgram has something he wants to share with us as far as what's going on in the community and actual visual stuff. And this evening we have Sergeant Wolfgram here to explain to us what's happening in the Golden Gate area, Golden Gate Estates. SERGEANT WOLFGRAM: Good evening. I'm Sergeant Wolfgram with the Sheriff's Office. I've been with them six years in Golden Gate, almost 14 years all together. We have a number of things going on to aid the community right now. There's a lot of issues out here, many of which has been outlined tonight. Drug problems: There are some here. We have done a lot over the years to try to eliminate them as best we can. You have parking. You have the different code enforcement things, many of which we get called on and try to refer them to the appropriate agencies when we get the call. One of the biggest problems we have is we have about 300 plus square miles that is District 2, Golden Gate. We don't have that many people patrolling in that area. The only way you can be in two places at one time is to have two people. One of the programs that we have running right now is the COP Program, Citizens on Patrol. Community Observer Patrol. Volunteers from the community, people like yourself, get involved with the Sheriff's Office to help us in locating areas of crime, areas of violation, and we then respond to those or directly respond to the appropriate agency to help us out with that. This program is a non-confrontational position, meaning, unlike the Sheriff's Office, we will directly get involved with the code violator or criminal, that type of thing. The COP people do not have Page 31 April 2, 2002 radios, cannot contact us directly. They're issued cell phones. They have vehicles that we issue to them. One is parked right outside the front door. Feel free to look at that on the way out. It's out there for you to see. It will be patrolling around the community. You've probably seen it already. The people that volunteer go through a fairly extensive screening program. Background checks. They do a physical and so forth, and when they're taken on board, they have time frames that they're in the vehicle patrolling around. One of the big issues right now is we do have a water problem that is in effect, I think, until this coming Friday. And the watering using city water as opposed to none, or well water in an area, such as where I am, the water comes from a well. The citizens are on patrol targeting these areas to aid in that. We are getting a lot of calls on that, responding, issuing warnings on that. So the Community Observer Patrol is an excellent program. It has been extensively researched by some of our people in areas where it has worked very well, and one of the communities -- I don't have the information at the moment, but one of the communities where this program has been input received some type of national recognition for reduction in crime in the area where it was in effect. So if you have any thoughts of getting involved with this program and aiding us in any way, contact the Sheriff's Office, and we'll direct you to the appropriate people to get you signed up and tell you all about the program. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions from the board? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. The citizens on parole -- patrol. That's good. Just a little slip of the tongue there. Do they enforce the litter laws, I mean, if they see somebody throwing stuff out of their car? Page 32 April 2, 2002 SERGEANT WOLFGRAM: They do not actually confront anyone. They are strictly an observer. They will call into the Sheriff's Office, advise us whatever information that they can on what they have observed, and we'll respond to that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: There was a lady in the audience that asked me before who patrols or who enforces the litter law. Do you guys? Do we? Who does enforce the litter law? SERGEANT WOLFGRAM: We can't, obviously, in situations like that. We have to either observe something of that nature so that we can target the correct person to issue them a citation or arrest, which we have done in the cases of illegal dumping and things like that. So we'll target them directly if we have enough information to deal with the particular individual or complaint or whatever the case may be. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sergeant, thank you for being here this evening. And Gil Erlichman has a question. Gil, do you want to come up to the mic? MR. ERLICHMAN: Yes. I don't have a slip for this. Addressing the question about somebody observing somebody throwing something out of a car, littering a road, I was told that we call this into the Sheriff's Office. They said they can't do anything about it because they did not witness the person or people littering the road. They have to witness it. In other words, a deputy has to witness it. In other words, I cannot testify that I saw it to a deputy and then they will enforce the law. I was told that you can't do that. Is that correct? SERGEANT WOLFGRAM: That is correct only to a degree. Let me qualify that. For example, just take traffic laws in general. The Sheriff's Office or any law enforcement agency must Page 33 April 2, 2002 observe a traffic violation, such as running a stop sign. If you were to say you observed a car running a stop sign, you can identify the person, you can identify the car. Unfortunately, the law is very particular. We must see that. When you come to violations that fall into a criminal category, such as littering and so forth, if you were able to specifically identify an individual and a car and tag numbers, which is, obviously, very difficult in a moving traffic situation. If we have a enough particulars, we can do it. But it gets difficult, as you indicated, in high traffic in order to be able to do that. That is the problem that we have with many things. You might see a vehicle. We have seen it where they have been speeding at high speed or something. When we catch up to them, there is no driver in the vehicle. We have no way to identify who that driver was in the vehicle, and our hands are tied. MR. ERLICHMAN: So I don't think you're going to control or cure road littering. In fact, several times a week usually I'm going to Fort Myers and returning. That strip, the strip onto 1-75 between Naples and Fort Myers is litter alley, both sides of the road. It's a disgrace. You'll never catch any of those people. But during the fire season, the ones that flip cigarettes out there, the ones that cause the fires along 1-75, I don't know how you catch them. SERGEANT WOLFGRAM: It's a difficult process, but cigarette butts are part of the litter program if we observe them, whether it's at intersections. If we see them, we do it. MR. ERLICHMAN: Oh yeah, at your stop lights. You look -- you'll open up your vehicle door, and you'll look out and see all these cigarette butts and, of course, the idea of the use of filter cigarettes, they're not biodegradable, so they will lay there for years and years and just pile up. Thank you. Page 34 April 2, 2002 CHAIRMAN HENNING: Kaydee, do you have a question? MS. TUFF: In all respect to the sergeant here, I think Golden Gate is not on county water, although I think it's really good that we all conserve water. I don't think that we should be cited. Is that so, Mr. Mudd? We are not on the county water system. MR. WIDES: Tom Wides, public utilities administrator. Kaydee, you are correct. The Golden Gate community is not on the county water system, but I believe there are some folks here from possibly other areas that are and would be on our water sewer system and they would be taken care of by the recent resolution the board passed. So that is a good correction. CHAIRMAN HENNING: We're going to take a short break. The stenographer-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Can I ask one more question? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Before the sergeant leaves, to expand on what Gil Erlichman just said, how many actual litter tickets are given out per month? SERGEANT WOLFGRAM: I would have to research that. I can't answer that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I would really like to get that information, and I'd like to know it for each district because a law is only as good as the enforcement. And I've never seen anybody stopped. SERGEANT WOLFGRAM: I will pass that on up the chain, and we'll probably have to get something set up in our CAD system so we can delineate what tickets are for what type of violation so that we can provide that information for you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, Sergeant. And if you are interested in the citizens on patrol, on that program, I'm sure Sergeant Page 35 April 2, 2002 will hang around and show you the vehicle outside, and I'm sure that comes with handcuffs and a gun; right? SERGEANT WOLFGRAM: Always. CHAIRMAN HENNING: We're going to take about ten minutes. (A short break was held.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Would everybody take their seats, please. Okay, I just got a couple more items before we are going to go to public comment. The next item is the Golden Gate Fire Department. I asked Chief Peterson to come up here and tell us some of the exciting things that are happening and one of the great programs they have. Chief. CHIEF PETERSON: Good evening, Commissioners, and thank you for the invitation tonight, and welcome to Golden Gate. We are always glad to have you out here. As we are into the season. I guess to share with you, we have a brush fire right now. So as soon as we are done with you, we'll be leaving down there again. We thought we had some earlier activity. We're just getting into the fire season out there, April historically being one of our driest months that you'll start seeing a lot of activity in the Estates area unfortunately. But that's the nature of Golden Gate Estates and living in the wooded area. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We call it God's country. CHIEF PETERSON: When you get into South blocks, it's more enhanced down there, especially this time of night, a lot of interesting animals. And just to share with you, one of the things we read -- the sheriff has a local newspaper that they put out -- we were talking about road kill earlier. They had a 200-pound python that got ran Page 36 April 2, 2002 over in the road that needed to be picked up, and I guess it's a fairly common activity out there because people have these pets at home, they get too big for them, and they take them out in the estates and release them. It was out on 29. But it still happens, and there are definitely some road hazards. The program that I'd like to share with you, we do, the fire district does do several programs of installing smoke detectors for the elderly folks, fire extinguisher demonstrations, training, whether it's for the business or just yourself that need some assistance with fire extinguishers. But the big program that we'd like to share with you is the CERT Program they call it, Community Emergency Response Team. And one of the things that has really brought this program to light after the September 11 th activities of last year, and the president had identified to everybody in their communities to become more community involved and do what they can in their communities. And with a lot of programs -- you'll see this around just about every part of the county. You'll find some CERT Team training activity. And it's on the order of a neighborhood response group, but we carry to a little higher level. There's currently programs going on in North Naples, East Naples, Golden Gate. Marco Island has just come on line teaching the CERT Program. And no matter where you take the class, the class is all the same; it's a structured forum for you. We just had a call the other day from the folks in the Corkscrew Island, so we'll be getting with Corkscrew Fire to extend the program and get their folks involved. It involves everybody in the community coming together. We've got emergency management that participates with us. We've got a lot of the fire personnel, but we've got a class starting in April in about two weeks, I believe it is, that if you're interested I've got some brochures I will leave here for you. Page 37 April 2, 2002 But you can call the fire station at 455-2121, and we can give you the exact starting dates and times. And there is a little application you can fill out with your name and address and contact. What we do is share with you. The coming of the hurricane season would be a good time to come on board also because the first class that's put on is emergency management who comes in and participates with you. It's a total of seven sessions. We have some team members with us, some of the original team for Golden Gate. We've got three teams on board now. And this next one will be the fourth one coming up. They are in different parts of the area. We have the Estates class as the first group. We have some folks at Island Walk. We do need to get some folks in the immediate Golden Gate area. We need to get a team, whether it's South Radio Road, Davis Boulevard, Rattlesnake Hammock, any of your communities, and we're glad to do these. And we do come to your community to teach it. If you have a clubhouse, we use the clubhouse. And we are finishing a fire expansion out in the Estates, so we'll have a little bit of class room out there for you. We teach you some disaster medical operations, very basic. We're not training you as a medical profession, but you're trained as a -- similar to an observer, but you can go in, you're giving basic fire extinguisher training. We do have a L.P. fire training device that you have to work with and actually use the extinguisher. We teach everybody CPR. There is a third Saturday -- I forgot the date -- there is a CPR class that's coming up that everybody can attend and train on that, but we also do include CPR in your CERT Team training. Fire suppression. If you've got a single-family home, primarily in your neighborhood, we go through the dos and the don'ts, what we do want you to do and what we don't want you to do. The basic Page 38 April 2, 2002 concept of the CERT Teams are going out in your community, your neighborhood preferably each street that you've got a group, you're divided up into smaller groups, and you do a survey. So in the event we have a hurricane come through, a tornado come through, the major brush fires that are occurring, by the time we get to those areas, you've already done some initial surveying for us. You've identified homes that have damage, don't have damage. You've identified that there's people trapped or not trapped, there's severe injuries or minor injuries. You'll be taught all that information ahead of time, what to look for. One of the -- as you get -- I'm not sure how to quite politically correctly to say this, but as you get older it's interesting how some of the basic first-aid elements get lost in the community that years ago when I broke bones as a kid, mom and dad would get some paint sticks, wrap you up, drive you to the doctor, and away you go. Now, today, it's interesting that people are backing off of that. One of the things that the CERT teaches you, some of those basic concepts of getting back into the people helping themselves, and when you have a large incident that occurs and where it occurs in the county or anyplace in the country, you'll see people need to get involved and help each other. That's what CERT is all about, getting to know the neighbors. If something happens get out there and just do the basics. We also share with you some of the disaster psychology and team organizations. You've seen a lot of the disasters that occurred Worldwide. One of the elements that goes along with it -- and our local response team's gone to New York -- is the debriefing teams share with you some of the impacts that people had or potentially you'll have and share how not to get caught up emotionally in some of these situations. So we spend some time on that. And at the end it Page 39 April 2, 2002 all culminates with an actual disaster simulated exercise. The last few there's -- (Beeper sounding.) CHIEF PETERSON: That's -- what can I say? The disaster drills I'm very impressed with. There's great students we've got at Gulf Coast High School. They're in the drama classes, and when you see the kids involved, they love to come out and do these things for you. Any time that there's a CERT program, they will travel on Saturdays to get to us. They've got all the makeup. What they don't have, we get them, and when you come out to them, you can't hardly tell the difference, from the real to the artificial. They go out of their ways to get the training to do makeup so it's a great performance. And, again, we encourage anybody that's interested to share with your neighbors any of your community action groups. We've got a regular computer presentation for you anytime. If you've got a neighborhood group or civic group that you'd like us to come out to, feel free to give us a call. We're glad to do that. And with that I'll take any questions that you might have. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any questions, comments from the board? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any questions from the audience? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Chief Peterson, thank you so much. You're doing a great job out there. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Golden Gate Fire District is governed by board members. There are three fire commissioners, Page 40 April 2, 2002 and we have three golden seats coming up this election. So that's your fire department, and get involved. The next item we have on the agenda is traffic-calming devices on 18th Place Southwest, a troubled road I should mention. I know transportation has been working on that issue for quite awhile, so Ed. MR. KANT: Yes. Thank you, Commissioner. Edward Kant, transportation services -- I'm sorry, transportation operations director. The road in question, if I may, is from here down to Sunset. We have a pathway that's going to go along the sidewalk going on the north side of that roadway, and we are going to do some entry treatment at 40th Terrace which is right over here (indicating). And, again, just at the beginning of Sunset Road. That was an area that it experienced some real problems about a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, it's not the type of problem that is easily correctable by merely installing speed limit devices or a speed sign. Because the two incidents that caused injury, in one case a critical injury to a young girl, it was found later to be alcohol-related. So those are the types of things, unfortunately, that we have no way of engineering our way out of. What we think -- and I might point out that this was not something -- this project was not something that was initially funded because our traffic-calming program at this point is not fully funded. As a matter of fact, it's not funded at all based on the decisions -- the policies decisions the board has made in order to direct our resources towards capital projects, some of which Mr. Feder outlined earlier this evening. But what we did, frankly, throughout a little creative money manufacturing, if you will, was we took part of the funding that we had available for some major project work in our operations department and were able to include this in the 2002 Pathways Program. Page 41 April 2, 2002 There are ten segments all together; two or three in Immokalee, two or three in Golden Gate City, a couple in North Naples, and one or two others in East Naples. And we were able to include this. And we were also able to include the entry treatments. We want to see how this operates once it's in place, and then if it's either desirable or necessary, we have some internal intersections along this straight stretch that we may also do some internal treatments to. But that will have to wait for another funding year. The current package is under design. The design will be done by, I believe, the middle of April, probably in the next two or three weeks. It will go out to bid. The bid should be in by the end of May. Construction should start by the end of July and be complete prior to the end of this fiscal year, which is June 30th -- excuse me, September 30th. And that's not just this one. That is the entire Pathways Program for 2002. Total estimated cost is about $468,000. CHAIRMAN HENN1NG: Great. Questions from the board? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Anybody from the audience? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, Mr. Kant. MR. KANT: Thank you. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Before we go to public speakers, a couple of my colleagues are working on some issues that are exciting. Commissioner Carter's been working on a program that's going to happen next month. So, Commissioner Carter, could you share that with us? Page 42 April 2, 2002 COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you very much. Although a number of the people in the audience that are on a well system -- if you're not, if you're on the county sewer and water system, and even if you're not, if you would like to save some of your well water, I would suggest you come to the water symposium May 4th through International College. May 4th is a fun day. It's a Saturday from 11 to 3. It's entertainment. It's games all related around the education and conservation of water. Every drop counts. We're looking for a 10 percent reduction this year in all of Collier County. And it's a coalition of businesses, government, environmentalists, educators all working through this program under one umbrella and that says, "We want to save water because water is important to us; it's our most valuable asset." You say, "Well, what's in it for me?" If you're on our water system, you can save money by reducing your consumption. If you're in our system, we encourage you to be one of 100 families that signs up so that we can monitor your water for a year. At the end of the year, what's in it for you? If you're the No. 1 winner, a year of free water. How would you like to win an efficiency washer or trips or other grand prizes? So the incentive is there for everybody to participate and to work through these critical issues on conserving water because they're not making any more. We won't run out of water, but it gets more expensive. And some real simple things are, you know, when you're brushing your teeth, don't let that water run. Turn it off. Or, when you get a glass of water, don't drink two swallows of it and throw the rest down the drain. Put a rain sensor out there on your house so that -- nothing burns me up more than to drive around an area, it's pouring out rain, and somebody's got their sprinklers going. Page 43 April 2, 2002 And there's 50 tips, by the way, that's on Channel 11. So tune in, watch May 4th to 10th. So come join us Friday night. For those of you that know Paul Todd, he will be in concert with us at the celebration of the banquet. And all of this takes place at International College, and the banquet will be at the Vineyards. So go to "wwwwatersymposium. org,,, for those of you who are computer literate. And if you have trouble, like me, getting up on the net at times, give us a call at 774-8390, and we'll send you information and encourage you to participate. It's a community-wide effort. All of Collier County, plus other counties in Southwest Florida are joining together to make this our first water symposium, which is just the beginning. We want to grow it every year, and some day people internationally will be coming here to participate with us on being successful on this effort. So thank you, Commissioner Henning. This is one of the great things that I see that's coming together for Collier County. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, Commissioner Carter. And I'm really excited about it. I did watch -- in the Golden Gate area for anybody who has Time Warner, our government channel is Channel 16. And then if you have Comcast, it's Channel 11. It's really exciting. I'm looking forward to being there next month. Of course, I'm not on the county system, so I'm not sure if I can be part of that 100 citizens or not. COMMISSIONER CARTER: If you're not on the county system, we have no way of measuring your water system to know, but if you're on the system -- or we're working with the City of Naples and City of Marco now to also be able to measure families in those areas too. And our Clarence, our Big Cypress basin, our co- chairman on this project is getting that lined up. So come join us. I Page 44 April 2, 2002 think you will find it's not only educational, but it's going to save you money. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. The other thing is, each and every one of the commissioners individually has been looking at what you want here in Collier County dealing with the laws that we need to deal with, and that is the Growth Management Plan and the Land Development Code. Each and every one of us has stated we want to change certain parts of it. And, also, last year we went through a huge concurrency item with solid waste to make sure that we have enough space at the Naples Landfill. Funding and transportation. Making sure that we have enough water here in Southwest Florida, wastewater, and all those concurrency issues that we dealt with this year. Fred Coyle came up with a great idea. It's a new charge that we're going to be going into next year. So, Commissioner Coyle, I'll hand it over to you COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, certainly one of the hottest topics in the community as a whole is growth and the associated traffic that it creates. And we understand that's a serious problem, and the Board of County Commissioners is taking aggressive action. Don't let anybody tell you that we're not making progress. If you just look at the facts as Commissioner Henning has stated, I can remember a short time ago when the landfill was the most important issue, and that issue has been largely resolved. I can remember when political corruption occupied the headlines for a long, long time. And my colleagues here passed an amended ethics ordinance that provides for much tougher controls. There was a time when sewage spills were the topic for conversation. And what the commissioners have done is to expand facilities and interconnect Page 45 April 2, 2002 them. For the first time in history, the sewage facilities are interconnected in Collier County so there's backup and redundance. So there has been a lot of progress on a lot of the issues that we have been confronted with in the past. And there is a lot of progress with respect to dealing with growth. The county commissioners I joined just last November had already undertaken the most aggressive road construction program in the history of Collier County. And, yes, there hasn't been much of an impact yet because that road construction is still going on. But when that road construction is finished, I think you're going to see a dramatic improvement in the distribution of traffic. This is a problem that takes longer to solve because there's such a huge backlog. You probably have heard people say that there's something like 80,000 housing units that have already been approved but none built. We can't take them back all that easily. We are trying. But we have to begin to change the laws which permitted those things to happen without concurrency. The laws are the basis for our decisions. If a developer comes in and says, "I followed every rule that you laid out for me, I followed the Lanc~ Development Code and what I have done is consistent with the Growth Management Plan," we don't have much of a choice. But what we have a choice of doing is changing the law. We can change the Land Development Code and the Growth Management Plan. And just in the past month the Board of County Commissioners has unanimously and enthusiastically endorsed a complete overhaul of our Land Development Code and Growth Management Plan. And we have a lot of good ideas about how we're going to make sure that we get to concurrency, which is the main, that nothing gets approved for development unless we have the infrastructure available to accommodate. Page 46 April 2, 2002 That is a very difficult thing to achieve and is going to take some time for us to achieve it. But I want to assure you that progress is being made, and it will become more evident toward the end of this year and into next year as we complete some of the road construction projects and some of our Land Development Code changes begin to take effect. These problems accumulated over a period of 10 or 15 years. They cannot be resolved in one year or two years. We can begin resolving them, as we are right now, but we cannot turn the faucet off tomorrow morning. It just doesn't work that way. So I want to assure you that the county commissioners are united in this effort, and we are going to solve this problem just as these commissioners have solved the problems before. Thank you, Commissioner Henning. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, Commissioner Coyle. One of the other things legislation or the governor's commission on growth management -- one of the things that that study came out is concurrency with schools in all the counties in the State of Florida. And what I mean by that is you've got to have the classrooms there for the students so we don't have overcrowding in the schools, or otherwise you cannot go forward and approve any more development. So that's one of the things that we're going to have to work together with the school board and take a look at that, get prepared for that. And we should do it anyways because that is our future, and we need to make sure that they have the proper facilities for their education. With that, I will go to public speakers. Jim Mudd, would you call their names, please. MR. MUDD: We have five that haven't spoken already. Page 47 April 2, 2002 The first speaker is Kaydee Tuff. And I don't know if Kaydee said her peace or she wants to say some more. MS. TUFF: I'll make it short. Kaydee Tuff. I just want to thank the board so much for coming out and all of the staff members, how wonderful that was. You can look out in your audience and -- I wish all our chairs were full, but one thing I hope you take away from this meeting is that we are not a community of whiners. When we see problems in our community, we haven't just gone and expected someone else to solve them. We have formed groups. You've heard of many of those groups tonight. The COP, the lemonade stand, which you might not even know exactly what that is. I will not get into that. We have a number of programs. They're all citizen driven, and we appreciate the effort that government has given us to construct these programs and to the county government to make those programs much better than they would have been on our own. We need you. So I want you know that when we come before you with our issues we aren't coming as whiners. We're coming because we really need your support and help to enforce the efforts that we're trying to do for ourselves out here. And, once again, thank you so much. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Cheryl Newman is our next speaker followed by Donald Harmon. MR. HARMON: My name is Donald Harmon. MR. MUDD: Donald, let Cheryl go first. Is that okay? MS. NEWMAN: That's okay. MR. HARMON: It's okay? CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's all right. Page 48 April 2, 2002 MR. HARMON: My name is Donald Harmon. I live at 2193 45th Terrace Southwest right here in Golden Gate. I'm here because a man at 2217 45th Terrace is running a used car repair shop in his house, and I went to the county code about it, and they said there's nothing they can do. Last week one night the man had 15 cars in his front yard at one time, and I asked the county code. They said, "Nothing we can do about it. We can't prove he's working on his cars." Can you tell me why that many cars is in a man's yard and he's not doing something? So that's the reason I come here to see what could be done, if anything, about this man doing repair shop in his yard. It's not zoned for that. CHAIRMAN HENNING: You can probably rezone it. I think that's the normal thing that happens. I'm just being facetious. Mr. Mudd? MR. MUDD: We'll get somebody to take a look at it. It's right across the street, Mr. Harmon? MR. HARMON: Two houses down from me. And I live at 2193. It's 2217 45th Terrace Southwest. I don't know the man's name. He's not an American; he's from Mexico. Doesn't make any difference. He's still doing the job that he's not supposed to do in that area because he knows it. Because now, after he knows this meeting was coming on, he don't have a car there right now. Next week he will. He's going to be full of cars. It happens all the time. CHAIRMAN HENNING: If you could give my office a call, and let's generate some kind of a communication. 774-8393 and-- MR. HARMON: I've got your card. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Then we can stay on top of it. MR. HARMON: You're Henning? Page 49 April 2, 2002 I'll get your number before you leave. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes, it's Tom Henning. MR. HARMON: Is it on here? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes, sir. 774-8393. MR. HARMON: Oh, yeah. Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Cheryl. MS. NEWMAN: Good evening. I'm here on behalf of Glen Wilke who is out of town. I'm the vice president of the Golden Gate Civic Association, and I would like to thank you very much for coming, just as Kaydee had said, to our community, and to let you know exactly how proud we are to be able to work with the county government in some projects that we've had over the past years. I'd like to just pinpoint some of those, if I may. Golden Gate Parkway median. The community of Golden Gate decided many years ago, I want to say probably 15 years ago, to tax themselves to improve their median. And after that was finished, the money kept accumulating, and we had no way other than to maintain that. So it was brought before the commission, not yourselves, but a previous commission, and it was agreed by the county to assume the maintenance on that parkway, allowing us to continue taxing ourselves to move to other roadways within our community. And if you haven't had the opportunity, I would please ask you to take the time if you get to to take a look at Tropicana Boulevard. It's not completed yet, but it's our first interior roadway. It's lit. And it's going to be a beautiful roadway when we get completed with it. The partnership that we did have with the county also was through 951, we did one portion of it, and the county chose to do one section of that. And it's my understanding that we still have a partnership program for Santa Barbara Boulevard when that is completed with the widening. Page 50 April 2, 2002 We pull our money back that we had put aside for that when we understood that the Santa Barbara was going to go forward on widening. And it was good to hear that it's on the project boards, and we'll start saving our money for that. One of the other items that I'd like to just touch on and that was - - someone had already mentioned it this evening -- of course is the satellite office for the government center and the new substation. These are both items that this community has been working towards for several years. And we want to thank you very much for budgeting those items and making that happen. The community center we've already touched on. Keith did a very fine job explaining that, and I think we need to at some point in time if you get a chance to thank Keith. He's an outstanding supervisor, and he does make this community center run, and he does a fine job of it. I believe that we're full most evenings, and we're looking forward to the new expansion that will allow us to move the games room out there and free up that area in the internal part for more meeting rooms. Now, I know that Tom had mentioned -- excuse me, Commissioner Henning had mentioned the carrot and the stick. And I would just like to mention the lollipop and the lemon. It has something to do with the lemonade stand actually. We have worked very closely with Collier County government on a lot of the issues that I just mentioned to you. There are a couple items that we thought we were working with the government on that I think the Golden Gate community got a little bit of a -- how do I want to say this to be very diplomatic? It was kind of a black eye on a couple of items that happened that are really negative images to our community that I'd like to bring to your attention, and I'm sure all of you are Page 51 April 2, 2002 aware of some of these items, but I'd like to refresh your memory a little bit. Dixie Towing, which was a tow shop that was approved over in an area that is zoned C-4. And we feel that reading the code that it's an item that should be in the C-5 zoning. And that is an item that bounds residential area. True, it is a multi-family area, but it is in a residential area. And we feel that that was a nonconforming use in the community. Another item that, I think, got to you a bit late -- because I know it got to us a bit late -- was La Quinta Homes who was approved to build a duplex on a single-family lot right in Golden Gate. By the time it got to you, it appeared that the county had made a mistake and the only alternative was to tear it down, which would have been a major cost to the builder. So again this was approved. Unfortunately, I don't believe anyone let the commission know that it wasn't finished on the inside. And it could have been modified, and it could have been modified to a single-family home, and I think everyone would have been okay with that. The last item that I would like to speak about is the new building complex along Golden Gate Parkway. And I'm sure you've all heard about Sprint. This issue is not going to go away. I believe that they're going to be there for a while, but I would just like you to think about something. I'd like to read to you out of your LDC code. "Golden Gate Parkway Professional Office Commercial Overlay District special conditions for the properties abutting Golden Gate Parkway east of Santa Barbara Boulevard as referenced into Golden Gate Parkway Professional Office Commercial District of the Golden Gate Parkway Master Plan:" The purpose and intent is what I'd really like you to hear. "The provision of this district are intended to provide Golden Page 52 April 2, 2002 Gate City with a viable professional office commercial district. The professional office commercial district has two purposes. First, to serve as a modified entryway into the Golden Gate City area. Secondly, to provide a community focal point and sense of place. The uses permitted within this district are generally low intensity. Office development which minimize vehicular traffic, provides suitable landscaping, controls ingress and egress, and ensure compatibility with abutting residential districts." I think if you were to look back, I don't believe that -- this issue should have never been approved for Golden Gate Parkway. And, again, it's done, and we're not helping with it but there's -- I guess there's not much you can do about it, but in the future maybe we should look at some of the things a little bit closer. I think I'd like to bring to your attention now, there are three unknown lots of property that were sold by Avitar when they decided to move out of the Golden Gate area. These three lots are in a residential area zoned RSF-3. There is a -- there's movement to have these rezoned to RSF-K. This is a -- this would be doubling the density in that general area of residential -- residential zone RSF-3. One of the locations is within three blocks of Golden Gate Elementary School, which is already overcrowded. And by doubling the density, that only puts more impact on the school system. We would ask you to please review the issue very closely before you pass something that, again, would negatively impact this community. And the last item that I have is the overcrowding of the residences in our neighborhood. I would just like to know if at some point in time -- I know that the county has issued ordinances and have gotten approval and passed -- I would like to know if there is a definition of a single-family home. Some of the locations that we have here -- and I know that there was a big to-do about having Page 53 April 2, 2002 affordable housing. Golden Gate has a large majority of affordable housing projects. Some of the dwellings in our community now house anywhere between 10 and 15 people that are not of one single family. Can we enforce some of the things we mentioned this evening, parking on the lawns? All of these are taxing the sewer system, the waste system, and the impact in our community. I would just ask that if there's any way that the county can review this issue and get back to a single-family residence, we'd appreciate it. Thank you again, and I thank you for coming. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, Cheryl. Are there any questions or comments from the board? Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. What were you saying was approved? I'm sorry, you had said that -- or I didn't hear the question. What we passed or what -- MS. NEWMAN: Sprint is allowed to have a space in a professional complex, and they have a parking lot that houses 24 vans with ladders on top, yet it is fenced. It is a fenced parking lot. But, again, it is a parking lot in a professional plaza. There's not really, I don't think, in this community. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. That was the first question. I didn't catch that part. The second one I wanted to know, when you passed the MSTU 15 years ago, did you do that by vote? Did you do that by unanimous decision? Did you do that by consensus? How did you get that vote passed? Were there a lot of other items against it? MS. NEWMAN: No, no. There was a referendum, I believe. I didn't live here at that time. There was a referendum. It was voted Page 54 April 2, 2002 on by the community. This community center was also built by an MSTU. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta, do you have any comments? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, I just wanted to answer one of them. It's true, we knew nothing about the modifications to that one house before we made our decisions. The staff was the one that brought it to our attention. The decision was made on the Parkway as far as the one commercial property there, that was based upon my own personal decision based upon the residents that lived on both streets and both sides and their support for the project, and that's the reason for it. The fact is I thought is was unrealistic to think about going back to residential. It was obviously going to stay there forever the way it was, and we were trying to meet the needs of the majority of residents who were speaking to us at the time of the petition. A VOICE: Excuse me. You're confusing the fitness center. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I thought you did. A VOICE: No. I purposely left the fitness center out because he will be coming to speak to the civic association next week. With the approval by your board, he contacted us and wants to work with us, even though that is really outside our jurisdiction. We were really only involved in the community. He's willing to work with us, and he's going to come and speak to us next week. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I was very impressed with the young man. I think he could reach something that is going to be acceptable for all. Now, as far as some of the other issues, you do have justification for your concerns. On the other ones, we're weighing all the issues Page 55 April 2, 2002 that come before us. We can only make decisions based upon the facts that are in front of us at the time. Regrettably, we don't always have everything we need at that point in time. If we had any inkling that there was something, we'd ask for a continuance. We've done that before many times, referring once again to the single-family home that was supposed to be a duplex. A VOICE: Or vice versa. CHAIRMAN HENNING: For everybody's knowledge, Dixie Towing, the use of that commercial district in C-4, that was an interpretation for that use to be allowed to be there. The issue with the Sprint on Golden Gate Parkway, again, that's staff interpretation. Now, that staff member doesn't work at the community development anymore because I think of certain ways that he interpreted things. Not this issue -- but not this issue, but what that one person was doing there. And that's the problem that I have is how to interpret the rules and regulations that we go by. And I hope that we can really clean up, like Cheryl said, what is the purpose and intent of single-family homes? I think every one of those zoning codes zoning districts that we need to clean up and make the purpose and intent real small and everything that follows underneath of it flows so it should be clear when somebody makes an interpretation, it is under the purpose and intent. And that's one of the things we're going to be working on very hard. And I know staff had some recommendations, and it's going to be through the Land Development Code. Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I just want to mention you're speaking about something that's very dear to all of our hearts. Page 56 April 2, 2002 The first meeting we showed up at we questioned many of the different codes, and we've worked on trying to change them for a long time. Commissioner Coyle adequately described what we've been up against and where we're going with it. I believe when we get into it we start to tear them apart one by one that -- the phraseology on some of those -- being a non-attorney, I'm kind of proud of that, to be honest with you. It should be -- rather than than, it should be laid out in such a way that it's definite rather than leaving a lot of leeway in there, and that's something that we're going to have to address. And believe me, it's never been done before on that magnitude where you take the whole code and start picking it apart and re-developing it to make it balance from one end to the other. We're going to need it, especially when the hearing officer does come aboard. So there won't be this toss-up of what is right and what is wrong. It's going to be a major undertaking. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And in the commercial district one thing that really bothers me is we have this present language in there that says, "Any use that looks or feels like the uses allowed in the district deemed by the planning director can be considered." We also have had in commercial districts those type of language is really what -- is what we're having problems with in the commercial zoning, so we need to take a look, a good hard look at that language and see how it can be corrected. Mr. Mudd, next speaker. MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Jim Kramer followed by Jim Schneider. MR. KRAMER: My name is Jim Kramer, and I'm from North Naples. Commissioner Henning, thank you very much for hosting this meeting. This is the third town hall meeting that I've been to. Page 57 April 2, 2002 The first one was with Donna down at Edison Community College, and I chose that evening to be silent and listen. At the meeting with the Commissioner Carter in District 2 at St. John's church, I asked just one question. This evening at this meeting I've decided to speak. Now, a gentleman in the back from a government channel, if you'd like to turn it off, you may do that now because as we know government channel protects incumbents and does not allow candidates to speak. This evening I'd like to try and speak in your language with the proclamation. Whereas the roads are clogged and some even say that they're gridlocked, whereas there's not enough water to drink or to flush where either the county is overbuilt and is too many permitted dwelling units; or whereas the county is underdeveloped, they don't have enough infrastructure, and whereas -- let's not forget about indigent health care or ethical considerations -- and whereas the deputy county manager thinks that the public ought to follow the three B's at these meetings, be brief, be brilliant and be gone; and whereas Commissioner and former Chairman Carter has said many times, "Let's not go there." Now, therefore, let me proclaim that tonight I become a candidate for commissioner in Collier County District 2. I will run an independent campaign believing as I do that I may best represent our citizens by not being beholding in any political view or special interest. This paradise belongs to all of us, and unless I can listen effectively to you-all, I cannot do this job. It doesn't take a Ph.D., and it's not rocket science. The voice of the residents and the work force need to be heard, and I intend to do so. I look forward to working with you, and as we say over at the Naples Airport where I work, "We're the best little airport in the country and, if not, we will be." Page 58 April 2, 2002 Exceeding expectations is your motto, so we share a common goal. As Todd Beaver said, "Let's roll." Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Next speaker. MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Jim Schneider followed by Peter Lilienthal. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Tom Schneider. MR. MUDD: Jim Schneider. (No response.) MR. MUDD: Peter? MR. LILIENTHAL: Well, that's a tough act to follow. I'm putting on a different hat. Now, you saw me earlier. I'm figuratively putting on my PTA. I'm coming here to speak to you as co-president of the Golden Terrace Elementary PTA and on behalf of the 175 or so students of Golden Terrace who live in the northeast corridor of Golden Gate City. These are pre-kindergarten to fifth-grade students, so we're talking little, little kids. And once these children cross Golden Gate Parkway coming home from school or until they get to Golden Gate Parkway going to school, they have the benefit of no sidewalks. This is a very critical situation, and it's an accident waiting to happen. We all know about the fatality that happened in that quadrant of the city, and that quadrant has less cars and less students because it's further away from the school, the area I'm speaking of. Golden Terrace Elementary is located here (indicating). This is Golden Gate Parkway (indicating). The fatality was up here (indicating). There's a shortcut that runs from here to here (indicating). The area I'm talking about runs a much bigger and faster shortcut. There's 175 students that live in this corridor. No sidewalks at their point of entry into this quadrant for the city exists. There's a -- Page 59 April 2, 2002 every -- I'm trying to give you the I.D. here. Words are failing me. 'There's an extreme high density of cars and students with no sidewalks between Golden Gate Parkway and West Park on 43rd Lane. For the price of two blocks of paving, we can get a lot of safety here. There's a major shortcut that exist. Cars come off Golden Gate Parkway, and they run up 43rd Lane and around to Collier Boulevard, and there's two lights. The other way to do it is go across 25th Lane and up 41st Terrace and over to Collier Boulevard. As you can see from what I've shown you on the map, you've got longer stretches of road which equals higher velocity and larger density of students and where we already have fatalities. It's a roll of dice. We wait for a fatality and have the community band together in outrage to get something done about these streets, or we can be proactive. So I'm here to encourage those folks who can to please try and get sidewalks on that 23rd Place and 43rd Lane and also 41st Street. There's an awful lot of small kids that go up and down there every day, and it's truly a danger situation. Thank you very much for your time and for listening to me, and I appreciate your consideration. I'm going to try to make it to Ed Kant's meeting Friday, but I don't know if I can. So any of you that are going to be there, please keep this in mind. I'll be glad to show you on a map precisely the areas I'm talking about. Thank you all for listening. Good night. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Mr. Feder, isn't there within the school system budget money for these sidewalks or some sort of grant? I know this need's been met in many places. MR. FEDER: We have local dollars and some state dollars that we use for sidewalks and go through a pathway advisory committee to program those and have a community safety traffic team, including schooling members on that. Having said that, our needs, be it very Page 60 April 2, 2002 definite here, all throughout the county exceed where we can reach with those limited funds. The school board itself-- and I'll refer to a degree to their staff who isn't here to go in detail -- but nonetheless their process and impact fees are particularly used on site on the school property itself, both for their building and physical plan on site. That was something I was mentioning earlier. As we look at their update of the school impact fee process, one thing we should be looking at is whether or not that impact fee process ought to include funding for off-site improvements necessitated by the placement of the school or possibly even for busing within that two-mile area through that impact fee. So that may be a way to address the issue, and we're working some with staff and the school board, and we'll continue to do that. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So this particular section hasn't been studied before? MR. FEDER: I can't tell you that has been studied. I know between the community safety traffic team and the pathways advisory committee -- there's members from this community on that group -- that I'd be surprised if it hasn't been raised. They have set priorities for limited funding. Obviously, we'll bring this back up to their attention and make sure they're aware of it. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Could you advise me what's been done or what could be done? MR. FEDER: We'd be happy to, but again, like I said, it is based on limited funding, and we'll explore this other option as well. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any other comments from the board? Linda Abbot wants to address that? MS. ABBOT: I want to say thanks for bringing that up. And the school board has brought that issue up. For instance, Golden Page 61 April 2, 2002 Gate Parkway that concern places, even though the children have to walk, if they're within a two-mile radius, if it's dangerous then we can bus them if there's not a better alternative. And I'm speaking out of order. I just wanted to commend you. I was going to come up here anyway and say I do commend you for having your town hall meetings and being open and receptive. And the communication is very refreshing. I wanted to say thank you. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: The pathways projects, I know that they get input from each one of the commissioners in the district, try to get votes from the people in the district of where the sidewalks are needed. Another funding source is the CDBG monies for communities, such as Golden Gate and Immokalee and Naples Manor and Bayshore. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And the Triangle. I think they're getting some CDBG funds for Triangle because they're all within the school area and they have no sidewalks in there. And I believe they just got that, and it's going to help with the flooding in that area too. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So that's just one of the funding sources. I want the commissioners to be fighting for some of that money for District 3 in knowing the needs, what we need to be doing. So I think we all need to work together, identify the shortfalls in each district, and work together to divvy up that money to make things happen. Any questions or comments from the board? MR. MUDD: One more speaker. Russell Tuft. MR. TUFT: I'm Russell Tuft. I'll keep it brief. I guess I want to say, Jim Mudd, I truly cherish our representative. I genuinely truly Page 62 April 2, 2002 cherish our representative electorate form of government, and I cherish this moment right here where I can have an opportunity to speak with you guys and influence government. The two things that really alarmed me tonight that I heard, we have three big problems in Golden Gate, and all of them were a decision that staff was making an interpretation for. And I see us heading towards a direction of having a hearing officer. That's troublesome to me. And the other is -- I forgot -- oh, along the same lines is they're trying to make it so, like, we had where you guys aren't able to influence staff. You've been able to make a call and say, "Well, I'm really questioning the staff." Right now it's possible that you can't make that call. I think that's a horrendous terrible way where we can't count on you guys to influence government, what happens with my money and my tax dollars. I would encourage you to fight that, and I can make sure that you have that decision and authority. I like the way we're trying to do government; just keep it that way. It will mean a lot to me. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: And Russell is talking about the county manager's ordinance and how it was written and the interpretation is how we communicate with staff. Now, it's an ugly interpretation. Ramiro, if you want to help us guide us to that, my understanding is that we can ask staff questions, but we cannot give them any direction; is that correct? MR. MANALICH: Yes, the ordinance is designed to make the manager and his office accountable to you and, in turn, the manager supervises and directs the staff. And there's some basic policy reason why that was enacted a long time ago, but that is not to say that the manager and his staff is still not accountable to you in that manner. Page 63 April 2, 2002 And you do, in fact, direct -- or I better use the word "refer" -- community questions through the manager's office for action and response. But it's obviously under the supervision of the manager. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And the county manager is responsible to the Board of Commissioners. So we can give him direction. And I can tell you that, I for one, truly want to represent the citizens in District 3, so if we have a health safety, and welfare issue, I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure that issue is addressed ASAP, even though -- even if it means breaking the letter of the law. I think, you know, taking that seriously is what we're here for is to be public servants of the community. Mr. Mudd. MR. MUDD: Mr. Floyd Chapin said that he had another comment, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes, Mr. Chapin. MR. CHAPIN: For the record, Floyd Chapin, president of Sapphire Lakes. We represent 520 residents. I'd like to just thank the commissioners. I'm not here to run for political office. I'm not here to condemn you. I'm here to give you some latitudes of doing a great job for all of us. I think you've done a fantastic job. I think your staff has done a good job. I talked to Mr. Feder earlier this evening about some problems we had with transportation on a non-commission meeting, and I can say with all due respect to the transportation department through Dawn Wolfe, those people have been super to us, thanks for your help. And they have been working with us, and they will continue to work with us. We have an excellent repoire with your staff, and we hope it continues. You people get a lot of abuse and take a lot of heat, and we are here tonight to say, "We appreciate everything." Page 64 April 2, 2002 A couple things on the landfill. Two years ago I worked with John and someone else in the county and Waste Management about the odor problems we were having. In fact, we went so far as I had a monitor in my residence so I could monitor the odor. And I can say this year, as I mentioned to Commissioner Tom earlier, we've had two instances this year where we had an odor problem. So whatever you're doing is working. We appreciate it in Golden Gate and in our community. I hope you keep up the good work. The third thing is the litter on Radio Road west of the Shores, west of Sapphire Lakes. It's not always Waste Management's problem. A lot of it is dumped there by people as they're going in to work. They slow down at the intersection, toss their garbage out the windows. It's a fact. So let's not come down too hard on Waste Management. They deserve some of the fault but not all of it. I have talked to people from the Shorewood's area, and we're going to try to get up a little task force to see if we can police it ourselves, as opposed to getting another governmental agency involved. I think that will be very beneficial to all of us. I had one more comment -- I guess I don't. I just want to thank you for everything you've done for us. Keep up the good work. And come and see us again. We love you out here. Thank you very much. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: I don't know any other way to be in this town hall meeting and, of course, Commissioner Coyle is going to add to that; right? COMMISSIONER COYLE: I am. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Go right ahead. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I would like to say something to the floor. I believe you expressed some concerns earlier about Page 65 April 2, 2002 Golden Gate getting the appropriate amount of attention. And I think you were the one that brought this up. And I want to assure you that you have an excellent representative in Commissioner Henning. And he's not likely to let us forget that we're working in the best interest of the entire county, and we'll make our decisions based upon that. And the other thing I'd like to say is, I really appreciate your comments. It is most helpful when members of the public can provide us constructive recommendations as to what you would like to see us do, and, in fact, volunteer to help rather than criticize. And I commend you for that. And thank you very much for your leadership in that respect. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Anybody else? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Just one thing, Commissioner Henning. This is the fourth year that I've had the privilege of coming to Golden Gate, District 3, being in this room, and it is the first time where the landfill has been a non-issue. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER CARTER: So I am really pleased, and like Commissioner Coyle has said, you're represented by a very fine commissioner, and it is our pleasure to be here to get the input from you. We thank you for being ladies and gentlemen, and believe me, not all our meetings are this pleasant, so thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And we're dismissed. Thank you. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chairman at 9:45 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Page 66 April 2, 2002 BOARD OF ZONING APPEAL/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL These minutes approved by the Board on ~ o~.3 at, dO,, as presented / or as correciec~ ' TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY CATHERINE A. FROMMER, NOTARY PUBLIC. Page 67