PARAB Minutes 05/24/2000 1
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5 PARKS AND RECREATION ADVISORY BOARD
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7 MINUTES
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10 May 24 , 2000
11 Vineyards Community Park
12 4:00 p.m.
Via,...
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16 PRESENT : John Grice , Chairman
Lisa Barnett
17 Charles McMahon
Edward Olesky
18 Mary Ellen Rand
Samuel Welborn
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22 ORIGINAL
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1 (Pledge of allegiance . )
2 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Please remain standing .
3 ( Invocation . )
4 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Everybody read the minutes
5 from last month? Nobody ' s read it . Okay .
6 Does anybody have a problem with the minutes?
7 MR . OLESKY : No .
8 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I ' m sorry, Ski . Was that - -
9 MR . OLESKY : No , sir, I do not .
10 MR . McMAHON : I second that .
11 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Those in favor of approving
12 the April minutes , affirm by saying aye .
13 Those opposed, say the same .
14 (Unanimous vote of ayes . )
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Passes .
16 Okay . I think I ' m going to - - we have two or
17 more presentations , and I think I ' m going to do
18 them one at a time , please .
19 Jimmy Alaniz , front and center, sir . You have
20 been awarded an excellence award for your attitude .
21 This is presented to Jimmy Alaniz - - is that the
22 correct pronunciation?
23 MR . ALANIZ : Alaniz .
24 CHAIRMAN GRICE : - - for consistently showing
25 his enthusiasm in working with an unwavering
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1 positive attitude . And you ' ve clearly made a big
2 difference . Thank you very much, sir . We
3 appreciate your efforts and we would like for you
4 to stay right there and take two minutes and tell
5 us what it is that you do .
6 MR. ALANIZ : I ' m a park ranger for Collier
7 County and I work in Immokalee . And I take care of
8 all of the parks in Immokalee . That ' s making sure
9 that they stay clean and people don ' t try to - - you
10 know, stop people from drinking there . And I ' m
11 kind of nervous .
12 CHAIRMAN GRICE : We couldn ' t tell . I guess
13 you know this bearded guy over here?
14 MR . ALANIZ : Yes , sir .
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Know him quite well?
16 MR. ALANIZ : Yes , sir . He gave us a boat ride
17 a couple of weeks ago .
18 MR . McMAHON : Cool .
19 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Thank you very much, Jimmy .
20 (Applause . )
21 CHAIRMAN GRICE : And Denis Dipert .
22 MR . DIPERT : Dipert .
23 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Sorry . Even after somebody
24 told me the correct pronunciation.
25 We have the same attitude award for you . This
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1 is presented to Denis Dipert for consistently
2 showing his enthusiasm working with an unwavering
3 positive attitude . You ' ve clearly made a big
4 difference and we appreciate your efforts . And
5 would you please tell us a little bit about what
6 you do?
7 MR . DIPERT : I work at the pool and I take
8 care of the pools , cut grass , paint , make any
9 repairs that I can make and try and keep the place
10 looking good .
11 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Somebody said that you can
12 repair anything . Is that true?
13 MR . DIPERT: Not anything, no .
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I ' ve got something in my
15 house - - no .
16 MR . McMAHON : I was going to talk to him about
17 the grass cutting thing .
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Thank you .
19 MR . McMAHON : Thank you .
20 (Applause . )
21 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay .
22 MS . RAMSEY : Do you want to go right - - do you
23 want to go right down the row?
24 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I had interjected introducing
25 - -
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1 MS . RAMSEY : Go ahead .
2 CHAIRMAN GRICE : At this time I would like for
3 Marla to introduce her new boss .
4 MS . RAMSEY : That ' s right . I ' ll - - I don ' t
5 know how many of you know Leo, but Leo has been
6 working now with the parks and recreation
7 department and the public services for about not
8 quite a month . Close to a month . So this is going
9 to be his first PRAB meeting to come out and see
10 what you guys are doing and how well we do it . And
11 I don ' t know if you guys want to introduce
12 yourselves to him and tell him a little bit about
13 what you do?
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Here or elsewhere?
15 MS . RAMSEY : Well , you know, basically your
16 business , so to speak, so he can get a little bit
17 of an idea of the complexity of our board and where
18 our backgrounds are .
19 So, Steve , you want to start , maybe , and come
20 down the row?
21 MR . OLESKY : Ed Olesky . I own Lake Trafford
22 Marina and we have met .
23 MS . RAMSEY : Okay .
24 MR . McMAHON : That wasn ' t fair, man .
25 CHAIRMAN GRICE : There was - - somebody forget
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1 to tell you we ' re keeping it short and sweet?
2 MR . McMAHON : I am Chuck McMahon and I ' m
3 involved in the Park and Recreation Advisory Board
4 because I have children in the county . And I ' m
5 also involved in Swamp Buggy, Incorporated, and I ' m
6 a director there . And I kind of enjoy having fun
7 with Parks and Recreation .
8 MS . BARNETT : Forgive me . I ' m not going to
9 stand up . I ' m Lisa Barnett . I ' m an attorney with
10 Cheffy, Passidomo, Wilson & Johnson . I do
11 primarily real estate . And I grew up in Naples . I
12 have lived here since I was three, so I ' ve used our
13 parks a lot . And this was a good opportunity for
14 me to help give something back .
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay .
16 MS . RAND : Sorry I ' m late .
17 CHAIRMAN GRICE : That ' s okay. You ' ll get
18 twenty lashes later .
19 My name is John Grice . I ' m a real estate
20 agent here in town and I have been on the board
21 here , I believe, two years now, mostly because I
22 don' t have any kids here , but it ' s - - I thought it
23 would be a thrilling opportunity to see the things
24 that should be done in the area, that could be
25 done .
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1 MS . RAND : What - -
2 CHAIRMAN GRICE : We ' re introducing ourselves
3 to Leo .
4 MS . RAND : How are you? I ' m Mary Ellen and
5 I ' ve been - - I think it ' s been just this year . I
6 can ' t remember what month . I guess since the
7 beginning of the year, I joined the board . And I ' m
8 a landscape architect . I have been living in
9 Naples about four years and was involved in the
10 design and construction of a couple of the parks .
11 MR . WELBORN : I ' m Sam Welborn . I ' m a retired
12 educator . I have been in Naples about twenty
13 years . I ' m the newest member of the group . I ' m
14 still trying to figure out what they do sometimes ,
15 but I ' m learning . And I ' m very involved in the
16 Golden Gate community .
17 MR . OCHS : Since you-all told me about
18 yourself , I ' ll tell you a little bit about myself .
19 As Marla mentioned, I came over to the Public
20 Services Division on May 1st , officially after
21 serving as the support services administrator here
22 at the county since 1986 .
23 I came down from Joliette , Illinois in 1986 to
24 join the county as personnel director and then
25 became what we call our support services
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1 administrator, which is kind of the back office
2 group that does the purchasing and the personnel
3 and the benefits management , real estate
4 acquisition, information technology, that kind of
5 stuff . And when Tom was named the county manager,
6 he came over to the office and wondered if I had
7 had enough of that back office stuff after that
8 many years and if I might have an interest in
9 working over in public services . And I jumped at
10 the opportunity .
11 I ' ve got three kids that have kind of come up
12 through the system and used a lot of the Parks and
13 Recreation facilities over the years . I ' ve got a
14 daughter that ' s seventeen years old at Barron
15 Collier and two boys , fourteen and twelve, that are
16 over at Pine Ridge . And when they are not at Pine
17 Ridge, they are usually using the Veterans Park
18 roller hockey rink or some of the other facilities
19 that Parks and Rec . provides . So I ' m not only a
20 member of the county staff but I ' m a customer,
21 along with my family .
22 So I ' m very excited to be part of the team and
23 I certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here
24 today to learn a little bit more about what you-all
25 do . And I can ' t thank you enough on behalf of the
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1 Commission and Tom and Marla and her staff for all
2 the volunteer hours that you put in . It ' s very
3 much appreciated . Thank you .
4 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Thank you .
5 MS . RAND : You ' re coordinator of public
6 services?
7 MR . OCHS : I ' m public services administrator,
8 Tom' s former position . So , like Sam said, I ' m new .
9 I ' m trying to figure out where things are, who does
10 what . So we ' ll learn together here , Sam.
11 MR. WELBORN : Very good .
12 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Specific updates . We
13 have nothing in here . Is that - - are we going to
14 get something now?
15 MS . RAMSEY : No, we ' re not . Not unless you
16 have something you want to give me that you want to
17 request that I give an update on .
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Does anybody have any
19 specific items that they would like update on at
20 this time?
21 MS . RAND : Just one , and I know this isn ' t
22 something that you ' re going to be covering, but on
23 the Bluebill part on the bypass , it said you were
24 going to maybe just check with transportation to
25 see if there was any arrangement for getting
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1 people , you know, any improvements in the lane
2 across the bridge or how that was going to be
3 developed to get people from the bridge to the
4 south side of the road .
5 MS . RAMSEY: We actually met on Thursday or
6 Friday of last week and we got an update on that .
7 Joe , do you want to go ahead and explain a
8 little bit about what that is , what they ' re doing?
9 MR . DELATE : We met with the developer of that
10 parcel . We met with the Dunes developer of the
11 signature community and their representatives and
12 they are required by the PUD, planned unit
13 development , zoning document , to widen the access
14 across the bridge for a sidewalk as well as bikes
15 lanes all the way over to Gulf Shore Drive . So at
16 this time they are proposing a two-lane road with
17 bike lanes on each side and sidewalks on each side .
18 That ' s their preliminary plan . That ' s not the
19 final plan . They may adjust that , but that ' s
20 currently what they are proposing .
21 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Any other specific
22 updates?
23 Okay . Now we ' re on to old business . Do we
24 have any old business? We have a lot of no inserts
25 today . No old business .
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1 Okay, reports and updates . The monthly
2 reports . This is our old revenue user card,
3 correct?
4 MS . RAMSEY : Correct .
5 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Did you make some changes? I
6 thought we had already seen March ' s report .
7 MS . RAMSEY : BJ?
8 MS . JOHNSON : I wasn' t in there last month
9 because I was making some changes .
10 CHAIRMAN GRICE : So we are going to see them
11 about sixty days in arrears or forty-five days , or
12 something like that?
13 MS . JOHNSON: It ' s difficult to get it done
14 because the concessionaire reports don ' t come in
15 until the 15th or the 16th, and the packets have to
16 be out ahead of time . So it ' s sometimes - -
17 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay .
18 MS . JOHNSON : - - the timing doesn ' t coincide
19 correctly .
20 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Any questions on the chart ,
21 spreadsheet?
22 Okay . There being no questions , we can move
23 along to the BCC recap . Were there any questions
24 on this?
25 Marla, I would like for you to explain .
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1 I had an opportunity this week to talk to
2 Marla quite extensively, and we were going over
3 some of these items today or the other day and she
4 explained to me some things that I didn ' t
5 understand, I didn ' t know, that it made it a little
6 easier to read these .
7 I would like for you to go over these same
8 things with the rest of us so that maybe we can all
9 be singing from the same hymnal then .
10 MS . RAMSEY : I think what you are referring to
11 is what the number system means underneath the item
12 number . If it has a 16 in front of it , that means
13 it ' s ongoing and the board will not discuss it .
14 That ' s why you will not see an approval behind
15 those , because those are kind of blessed at the
16 beginning of the meeting . They are pulled off and
17 discussed . They are routine kind of activities
18 with no controversy, so to speak, and they are
19 blessed at the beginning of the meeting .
20 The other number set that you will see there
21 will be an 8 number, and that is a item that was
22 put on the regular agenda to be discussed by the
23 Board of County Commissioners . And those are the
24 ones that you will find approvals . As you can see ,
25 the two that are listed here over 50 on both of
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1 those, the one being the recreation open space
2 element with the Growth Management Plan, which is a
3 report that we give to them as to how well we ' re
4 doing on that and what areas we would like to see
5 changed, and the second one was for the approval
6 for the performers for the Summerfest Rock and Ride
7 night , which is a teen concert that we hope to do
8 in conjunction with our Summerfest over June 15th,
9 16th and 17th, I think is that . And an update on
10 that particular item is that we are unable to
11 secure a performer that can come for that weekend .
12 So we are going to take the grant money, $10 , 000
13 grant money, that was allocated to us and move it
14 to September 17th, which will be the day after our
15 Country Jamboree . So we ' ll have Country Jamboree
16 for two days and a Summerfest or a teen concert on
17 the Sunday following it .
18 One of our goals on this particular concert is
19 to make sure that it ' s a nice act , so to speak, a
20 clean act . The message that they are sending to
21 the public is going to be hopefully void of drugs ,
22 alcohol , sex, et cetera . So it ' s a little harder
23 to find those groups out there that will come down
24 for a one shot outdoor concert . So this will give
25 us a little bit more time to secure an act that we
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1 think is good for the community .
2 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Thank you very much .
3 Does anybody else have any questions about the
4 BCC recap?
5 MS . RAND : I was wondering about the Growth
6 Management Plan . When was there any kind of
7 amendment to the recreation open space element in
8 terms of any amendments or changes that were made
9 in that and how - - you know, is that something you
10 do annually?
11 MS . RAMSEY : We do updates on the recreation
12 open space element as far as facilities and
13 facility spaces that we have , and we look at
14 adjusting dollar amounts attached to them, because ,
15 as we go through what we billed twenty or fifteen
16 years ago, there ' s a different price tag attached
17 to those now . And part of that Growth Management
18 not only deals with acreage per population but also
19 with capital dollars , $179 per capita in Collier
20 County . So we update those annually to make sure .
21 I don' t know that we have had a policy change or
22 objective change in there in quite some time . Not
23 in the three years that I have been here .
24 MS . RAND : It is possible that , coming out of
25 the community character planning process , there may
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1 be , you know, major changes or amendments that
2 might grow out of that Growth Management Plan?
3 MS . RAMSEY : That ' s a possibility, yes .
4 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I had a request to go back to
5 the specific updates .
6 MS . BARNETT : I just wanted to know if we have
7 had any reports on the dog park . I ' ve heard from
8 people that have just said it ' s great and I wanted
9 to know if that was the consensus that you ' ve heard
10 as well .
11 MS . RAMSEY : This afternoon I read through
12 about twenty-five evaluations that we ' ve collected
13 so far out there , and every one of them has been
14 positive , complementary . A couple of requests that
15 we have had come off of those have been, can we
16 have a water fountain for people and can we have a
17 few more benches , because, if there were more
18 benches to sit down on, people would stay longer
19 with their pets . Those are the two items that are
20 easy for us to address . And I know that Joe has
21 got it on his list to do that as soon as we
22 possibly can . I know he was talking with the
23 plumber today . So hopefully we can address that .
24 Very, very positive , very good press . We have
25 received a lot of good press off that park as well .
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1 For the two acres , two and a half acres that we
2 have there , we ' ve gotten a lot of play off of it .
3 They are averaging about - - I believe last night
4 was fifty dogs in the park and that was between
5 6 : 30 and 7 : 30 at night . That ' s the prime time . So
6 if you are looking to just come out and see the
7 park in action, come between 6 : 30 and 7 : 30 just
8 about any evening . I was out there a week ago
9 Wednesday, I believe it was , and there was probably
10 forty- five dogs and as many humans in there as
11 well . And everyone was very appreciative of the
12 opportunity to be able to bring their dog to the
13 park . And, of course, the first question is , where
14 else are we going to do it and can we have them in
15 all parks? So - - and I know that we ' re going to
16 address of little bit of that later this afternoon .
17 MS . BARNETT : So there hasn ' t been any
18 negative , that we ' ve heard?
19 MS . RAMSEY : The only negative we have is that
20 we go through doggy bags like that .
21 MS . BARNETT : That ' s good, that people are
22 using them.
23 MR . SMITH : We went through 6 , 000 in the first
24 two weeks .
25 CHAIRMAN GRICE : How many?
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1 MR . SMITH : 6 , 000 .
2 MS . RAND : We ' ve been there about three times
3 and it ' s not only a neat thing for the dogs , I
4 notice that the benches help because a lot of
5 people go with their dogs and you get to meet
6 people . The thing that ' s amazing is all the dogs
7 get along .
8 MS . BARNETT : Except for mine .
9 CHAIRMAN GRICE : We ' ve got to do things one at
10 the time here folks . She ' s got to record
11 everything that everyone says , so we need to do it
12 one at a time .
13 MR . McMAHON : I ' m next .
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : And you ' re next .
15 MR . McMAHON : I ' ve heard a lot of people come
16 to me and tell me that they are having a lot of fun
17 out there . The dogs are doing great . And several
18 people have inquired about a pool for the dogs ,
19 especially with the summer coming up , and they
20 asked me to bring that up and see what everybody
21 thought . I don ' t know what that is . That may be
22 something that you might want to look into .
23 MS . RAMSEY : Do you mean like a pool or like a
24 shower? I ' ve heard people ask for a shower, which
25 is real easy for us to put in .
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1 MR . McMAHON : I never heard the shower . I
2 heard, like, the pool .
3 MS . BARNETT : Like a pond?
4 MR . McMAHON : Like something that they can get
5 in and cool off in the afternoons and in the
6 summer . Like I said, I told them I would bring it
7 up .
8 MS . RAMSEY : Our plan at that park is we ' ve
9 got some plastic containers that we ' re putting out
10 and asking for suggestions . I have talked to dog
11 owners out there and some of them are very pro to
12 having a water source to wet the dog down and
13 others are very anti that because they don ' t want
14 to take their dog home wet . That ' s one thing we
15 may need to kind of iron out here as to, do we want
16 to do that? I don ' t know . We might get some
17 negative off of that by doing it , or we ' ll get
18 positive , too . So I ' m not sure what we want to do .
19 MR . McMAHON: We can always fence another area
20 off and they can let the dogs go in the wet area by
21 choice .
22 MS . BARNETT : Is anyone using the small dog
23 area?
24 MS . RAMSEY : It varies . When I was out there
25 a week ago there was nobody at first , but then, by
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1 the time I got ready to leave, there were like five
2 or six dogs in it , so I don ' t know . It ' s not as
3 heavily used as the other . But it is an
4 opportunity for them to separate their dogs off .
5 Even bigger dogs I ' ve seen over there in order to
6 rest for a few minutes so that the owner can take
7 their eyes off of them, so to speak .
8 MS . RAND : I have an idea . Could we have a
9 dog wash? It would be like a little thing that the
10 dogs run through and get squirted from all sides ,
11 like a car wash .
12 MS . BARNETT : The only problem is getting your
13 dog to go through it . I know mine wouldn ' t go
14 voluntarily.
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Those would be good
16 items for new business .
17 MS . RAMSEY: Next time .
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Next month?
19 MS . RAMSEY : You want to do that next month?
20 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Yes .
21 MR . OLESKY : We ' ll do it in July .
22 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . All right . The
23 special events calendar . I see one of those in
24 here . This is the summer teen event . This is
25 going to be happening June 15th?
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1 MS . RAMSEY : This is the item that I was
2 talking about a few minutes ago . That ' s kind of
3 our next big event . It ' s a carnival attached with
4 some music , dancing, and food and beverages . We
5 have held it at Golden Gate, at the Golden Gate
6 Community Center . So if you ' re free that weekend,
7 come and join us .
8 MS . RAND : Are any of these events that ones
9 that you moved to, September or is that something
10 extra?
11 MS . RAMSEY : Some of these are with our teen
12 committee that Steve Peppers works with, one of our
13 recreation supervisors . And we work in conjunction
14 with the city, and they do some events , we do some
15 events . So this is an extension of what we offer
16 to the kids during the summer when there ' s no
17 school in progress , kind of a diversion, so to
18 speak .
19 MS . RAND : But the concert is not - -
20 MS . RAMSEY : Not one of these , no . It ' s not
21 listed here . That ' s going to be September 17th .
22 CHAIRMAN GRICE : So these are all still good?
23 MS . RAMSEY : These are all still good .
24 CHAIRMAN GRICE : And then we have parks
25 update , and there ' s no insert on that one . Is this
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1 going to be just a verbal report?
2 MS . RAMSEY : Yes .
3 MR. DELATE : I was on vacation for two weeks
4 while this was prepared . By the time I got back, I
5 didn ' t have time to complete an agenda packet or
6 anything else . I want to give you a parks update .
7 I ' ll keep it very brief .
8 We have an update on Collier Park . We ' ve been
9 meeting with the adjacent property owner and we ' re
10 working on our final design-out project . That
11 continues on .
12 Clam Pass boardwalk construction staging has
13 started . Boardwalk re-decking will begin
14 approximately June 1st . We ' re working with The
15 Registry on the logistics of that project , and they
16 are in the process of doing some redesign in the
17 concession area for their permitting for the DEP .
18 Eagle Lakes Park, we have the ninety percent
19 plans for the lighting for the second soccer field
20 site as well as we are going to add some additional
21 lighting at the playground out there .
22 Golden Gate Community Park walkway, we ' re
23 calling it the Golden Gate Greenway . That ' s the
24 pathway that ' s going to connect our community park
25 to 951 . We are proceeding with the purchase from
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1 two property owners for easements , as well as
2 buying a five-acre tract within there for a small
3 passive park . Phase II pathway within the park, as
4 I told you before, that ' s out to bid . The bids
5 have come in and we ' ll have a finished project by
6 the end of the fiscal year, which will be by
7 October 1st .
8 Immokalee soccer field lighting, we have
9 ninety percent plans on that . We are proceeding
10 with that project .
11 Max Hasse Park, we ' ve seen the preliminary
12 plans for that . Maybe next month we may bring
13 those in and show them to you, there ' s not really
14 enough time this meeting, and we ' ll show those
15 plans in detail . But we have an architectural plan
16 as well a site plan ready for that . And it ' s
17 proceeding along well .
18 North Naples Regional Park, the Board of
19 County Commissioners yesterday approved the design
20 contract for that park, a little over a million
21 dollars . And that ' s with Belnor, Herbert
22 (phonetic) as the lead . They are a landscape
23 architectural company out of Orlando who has done
24 many parks throughout the state . They are a very
25 high class team. And we ' re going start the design
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1 process from here on .
2 Pelican Bay Park, we ' re working with the
3 croquet and lawn bowling group . We ' re putting out
4 right now a request for proposals for doing the
5 design for that re-configuration of that facility.
6 Tract 179 Park, that ' s a neighborhood park in
7 Golden Gate . We have hired Michael McGee, a
8 landscape architect , to design that park . And
9 we ' re looking at some submissions with rocks and
10 things out there . And that project is moving
11 forward .
12 Sugden Park Phase II design is almost done .
13 And Tiger Tail , we ' ve received the City of Marco
14 variance approval for that coastal construction
15 line variance . And right now it ' s in the process
16 of being submitted to the DEP for their approval .
17 So that project is moving along well .
18 Exotic removal is going very well . We ' ve
19 finished Pelican Bay beach access , Vanderbilt Beach
20 parking area . Cocohatchee Park, they have finished
21 since we last had this meeting, and we are going to
22 do Bayview Park at the end of June .
23 This Friday bids are due on 951 Coast Guard
24 area . That ' s the area to the east as you approach
25 the bridge to Marco Island . We have a little piece
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1 of land there . We are going to work on that ,
2 exotics .
3 We are going to next attack Palm Springs Park,
4 East Naples Community Park, and Sugden Park is
5 ongoing. It ' s being done right now . It ' s
6 continuing . We should receive some good news .
7 South Marco Beach access renovation, we
8 received a DEP approval permit for doing that
9 upgrade of the beach access there . The good thing
10 is , it ' s not costing us as much money as the
11 adjacent developer is paying for that , and we ' re
12 going to upgrade that with a paver path and a small
13 plaza all the way to the beach . And construction
14 should begin very shortly, as soon as Marco City
15 gets approval , which should be imminent .
16 Veterans Park, covering the lower hockey rink,
17 we have a structural engineer and an electrical
18 engineer on board working on the plans on the
19 project and the design process and soon will be
20 bidding that .
21 And let ' s see . Vickers parking lot , we ' re
22 going to be working with cooperation with the
23 school board on that parking lot over here , along
24 Vanderbilt Beach Road . We ' re just about to write a
25 work order with local design firm to do that
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
25
1 parking lot . We ' ll coordinate that with the
2 transportation department as they are getting
3 prepared to widen Vanderbilt Beach Road right out
4 here to four lanes , eventually to six lanes . So
5 we ' re working with them and the school board on
6 that .
7 951 boat ramp, we finished re-paving that
8 site . We finished adding a guardrail and the curb
9 stops . And it ' s pretty much a complete renovation .
10 We are going to add possibly a couple of trees out
11 there and some new signage . Other than that , it ' s
12 done .
13 And we ' ve been working on some other projects
14 that we ' re going to talk about when we get to the
15 beach and water report , which will be the public
16 hearing at the end . And we ' ll give you updates on
17 all the beach and water park activities .
18 That ' s all I have . If you have any other
19 questions - - next month, you ' ll have a written
20 report .
21 MS . RAMSEY : I have one thing I want to add to
22 that . I want to talk briefly about Clam Pass and
23 the closing of Clam Pass . As you are all aware of ,
24 when we are doing that boardwalk, we ' re closing
25 that parking lot there to the public . And I have
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
26
1 been working with The Registry and with the WCI ,
2 who owns the Seagate parking area, that segment
3 down in there, about alternates for public access
4 in that area . We have two things that we ' re
5 working with right now . With WCI , I ' m trying to
6 get them to give us some overflow parking area,
7 some gravel area there that we can put maybe ten or
8 fifteen extra cars in so they can utilize that
9 access point . That ' s our number one priority . If
10 we can ' t get that , then I ' ve worked out with The
11 Registry on the weekends to use their parking lot
12 between their tennis court on Seagate, coming in
13 towards The registry on the right-hand side, a
14 twenty-nine space parking lot , their driver, our
15 fifteen passenger van, to shuttle down to the
16 Seagate access point . And so those are new things
17 that we ' re working on currently . I ' m not - - we ' ll
18 probably be already into the process before you
19 will hear which one is final because we only have a
20 week to really get it together .
21 I don ' t know if you have any comments about
22 either one of those two . I would welcome those .
23 Again, the shuttle would only be on the weekends
24 because we don ' t believe there would be a lot of
25 demand during the weekdays .
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
27
1 That ' s a little update for you . And we ' ll
2 have signage and we ' ll put up something in the
3 paper as to whichever one happens , hopefully by the
4 1st .
5 MS . RAND : Will you have a van in the
6 department that you ' re going to use for the
7 shuttle?
8 MS . RAMSEY : Yes . We have a current fifteen
9 passenger van in our fleet that we would just
10 dedicate over there on the weekends .
11 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Any other questions on that
12 subject?
13 Joe , I do have a couple questions . There - - I
14 believe it was in the newspaper this morning that
15 they are not going to four-lane 111th Avenue now .
16 Does that make any changes in the plans to Conner
17 Park?
18 MR . DELATE : It does make some in that we
19 won ' t be provided with curbing . So we are going to
20 have to provide our own barricading to keep people
21 from curbing the park once it ' s completed . That
22 will be the only real change . We may have to put
23 in a temporary irrigation system for grass between
24 where the edge of the pavement is now as opposed to
25 where it would eventually be at four lanes . That
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
28
1 would be the only change .
2 MS . RAMSEY : The one thing that wasn ' t clear
3 on that is that they were discussing the four- lane
4 itself and not the intersection in yesterday ' s
5 paper . So we ' re not exactly sure what the
6 intersection is still going to look like . It could
7 be a stoplight or it could be a roundabout . And
8 they are still studying that . So there ' s still
9 going to be some improvements to that area . We
10 just don ' t know exactly what they are going to be
11 yet .
12 CHAIRMAN GRICE : So does it look like we ' re
13 going to have to be adding some more expense
14 possibly there?
15 MR . DELATE : Possibly to provide the curbing
16 but probably end up using something alternate, like
17 plant material or rock or wood or concrete
18 boulders .
19 CHAIRMAN GRICE : And the other question I had
20 was , since we ' re getting ready to re-configure the
21 Pelican Bay Park, have we had any contact with
22 those folks that were doing the fundraising to
23 actually pay for installing the croquet and lawn
24 bowling area or we ' re installing and they are
25 taking care of it?
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
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1 MS . RAMSEY: No . Actually, the way we ' ve
2 worked that out is that we ' re getting a price on
3 the design and they will provide us with the
4 funding .
5 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Has anybody had any
6 conversation with them as to how well they are
7 doing with their fundraising?
8 MS . RAMSEY : Yes . Actually, just before last
9 meeting I had a meeting with them, and they are
10 ready to go with the design . They have got that
11 much funding available right now that they can
12 write the check to us so that we can go ahead with
13 the design aspect of it . And I know Joe is in
14 conversations with the group about what that design
15 should look like . And they will actually be
16 involved with helping to design that all along the
17 way .
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay .
19 MS . RAND : I have one question . When you were
20 going through your exotic removal list , you
21 mentioned a small piece of property that you had
22 just recently purchased that I didn ' t catch where
23 it was and what you are going to use it for .
24 MR . DELATE : Are you talking Marco Bridge or
25 the Coast Guard site , or did you say the Greenway,
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
30
1 the piece of property that we are buying there?
2 MS . RAND : No . It was in your list of exotic
3 removal .
4 MR . DELATE : Coast Guard site would be the
5 only one . I mentioned the East Naples , Sugden
6 Park, Pelican Bay Beach, Vickers/Vanderbilt ,
7 Cocohatchee, Bayview Park, 951 Coast Guard area,
8 Palm Springs Park . So it would have to have been
9 951 Coast Guard area . We ' ve owned that for a
10 while . We ' re just going to remove the exotics
11 there, now that the building is demolished .
12 MS . RAND : Do you have any idea what you ' re
13 going to use the site for?
14 MS . RAMSEY: That particular site is currently
15 being used by jet skiers . They pull into that
16 location, and then the jet skiers use that as their
17 launch site . What we ' re trying to do is just clean
18 the site up . And then we have had conversations
19 with the Department of Transportation, the Florida
20 Department of Transportation, about the trolly
21 bridge . And hopefully, when they go to do their
22 design on that , they will remember that we ' re still
23 talking to them and help us do something under the
24 bridge , a walkway to connect the two areas , to make
25 that into a little park area down there . That ' s
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
31
1 what our ultimate goal is at that location .
2 Whether it will have jet ski only or boat launch
3 facilities or fishing pier only or what , we ' re not
4 exactly sure , but we do want to be involved in the
5 process .
6 MS . RAMSEY : And I have a request that - - I
7 know we ' ve already got our meeting scheduled, kind
8 of laid out , but I ' m not familiar with the parks
9 down in that area . I was wondering if at one of
10 our meetings - - I know it is a long ways for
11 everybody, but like we did in Immokalee, when you
12 took us around and kind of gave us an update of
13 everything, that got me at least knowing what you
14 were talking about there . If we ever could do that
15 in Marco , that would help . There ' s a lot of things
16 going on down there .
17 MS . RAMSEY : We can have a traveling day, if
18 you would like . No problem.
19 MS . RAND : Okay .
20 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Plan that for July .
21 Okay . Thank you, Joe .
22 Anybody have any other questions for him?
23 Okay . All right . Adopt a park report . And I
24 don' t believe we have one this month because - -
25 MR . OLESKY : Don' t bet on that .
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
32
1 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Oh, we have one . We ' re going
2 to have one for two in a row .
3 MR . OLESKY : All right . Community Park in
4 Immokalee, the parking light and some of the
5 walking lights are out . I would like to see them
6 fixed . The playground lights are out again . I
7 have kids playing in there . This is the second
8 month in a row that they were out , I don ' t know for
9 a burnout or just something wrong with the
10 electrical in it , but they should be fixed . Then
11 the basketball court , we have got a net out in the
12 center court .
13 All the parks look good as far as trash goes
14 this month . I was very surprised . But they are
15 looking real good and it ' s starting to improve .
16 Sports complex, we had lighting out in the parking
17 lot there also . There was three double lights and
18 they were out .
19 South Park, we have had three security lights
20 out since we ' ve opened that park . They are right
21 by the trailer, right by our trailer . I would like
22 to see them get fixed . And we have two lights out ,
23 one on the playground and one that shines off part
24 of the playground and the basketball court . And
25 they were out last month, too .
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
33
1 And Dreamland Park, we had a security light
2 out there, too . And, other than that , I didn ' t go
3 to over to Airport Park. I was too scared .
4 CHAIRMAN GRICE : You were scared?
5 MR . OLESKY : Yes , I was . It ' s usually kind of
6 dark over there, so - -
7 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Thank you, Ski .
8 MR . OLESKY : You ' re welcome .
9 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . The meeting schedule .
10 Our next meeting is at the Cocohatchee River Park
11 on Vanderbilt Drive, and I will not be at that
12 meeting . I will be away on my vacation. Our vice
13 president will be in charge, hopefully with a back
14 that ' s better .
15 Okay . And the membership address list .
16 Anybody have any problem with that? It looks like
17 it ' s in great shape . It probably will stay that
18 way .
19 Okay . New business . Caxambas Dog Park, and
20 we have a speaker . I suppose she ' s here .
21 MS . LEE : I ' m here . Should I go any
22 particular place to speak?
23 MS . RAMSEY : Go right up to the podium.
24 MS . LEE : For the record, my name is Sandy Lee
25 and I live on Marco Island and have lived on Marco
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
34
1 Island for twelve years .
2 Firstly, I wanted to - - I guess particularly
3 Murdo Smith - - to thank you so much for the dog
4 park . That ' s what I ' m up here about . We ' ve waited
5 a long time and we are the owners of two small
6 Pomeranians , and we have been up a number of times
7 from Marco . As you might imagine , it ' s a bit of a
8 distance for us but we are so thrilled to have the
9 facility that we make the effort to come up .
10 In the twelve years that we ' ve been on Marco,
11 one of my favorite places - - and I don ' t know if
12 all the people here have been there - - is the
13 public dock area . And for years we have seen the
14 front area of the public dock area as a possible
15 dog rover run . It is an ideal setup . I brought
16 pictures , which I would be happy to pass out , if
17 you would like . As you enter to the public dock
18 area, there are fenced areas on the right and on
19 the left that are just there and beautiful . They
20 are grassed in . There are trees beautifully
21 maintained . They don ' t do anything . There aren ' t
22 any picnic benches , there isn ' t anything, just an
23 area that ' s there . And we ' ve often felt that even
24 one side of that area could be split into two as
25 you ' ve done up in Veterans Park and made into
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
35
1 another rover run .
2 I don ' t know the intricacies of county versus
3 city . I haven ' t approached the city . We don ' t
4 really have a lot of facilities yet to work with .
5 And, looking at this particular facility, it just
6 seems like a perfect fit . But I thought - - I
7 E-mailed Mr . 011iff and Ms . Ramsey just to thank
8 them for having the facilities and mentioned that
9 this was a thought in the back of my mind, and I
10 was kind of curious where I should go from there .
11 And it was suggested that I come up and just speak
12 with you very briefly . And I don' t know where to
13 go from here . I don ' t know what a private citizen
14 should do from here, but I just thought at least we
15 can put the thought in your mind and let you know
16 there ' s a perfect place to further extend this and
17 that there is obviously a demand on Marco for it .
18 I would be happy to answer any questions , if
19 you have any .
20 One other thought , too, when you were talking
21 about the two things . Number one , the doggy
22 shower . It sounds like a great concept ,
23 particularly with the idea that it will get very
24 hot during the summer . The only question that I
25 have is that in that area there it ' s mostly sand
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
36
1 and dirt , and these dogs , if they get into water,
2 are going to be absolutely filthy . So it ' s just a
3 thought , because if the dogs are filthy, the owners
4 are going to be filthy too .
5 And, in reference to the small dog area, we
6 have been up there a number of times and there have
7 been different numbers of dogs up there . But one
8 time we had over fifteen little dogs all up there
9 together, and I think the idea of another area to
10 sit would be very nice , because the point was very
11 well made and very true that , not only as the park
12 ranger said, do the dogs enjoy it , the owners enjoy
13 it as much, if not more than the dogs . It ' s just a
14 marvelous thing .
15 So that ' s about it , unless I can answer any
16 questions .
17 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Thank you, Sandy .
18 MS . LEE : Thank you . You ' re free to keep the
19 pictures . I have more . And my husband came with
20 me , I don ' t know if - -
21 MS . RAMSEY : Would you like to speak?
22 MR . LEE : Can I add to those comments?
23 MS . RAMSEY : Sure . Go ahead .
24 MR . LEE : As my wife was saying - -
25 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Identify yourself , please .
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
37
1 MR . LEE : My name is Robert Lee .
2 Sometimes too much is not good and I think
3 most dog owners would just appreciate the
4 opportunity to have a place where their dogs were
5 welcomed . And we don ' t want an air conditioned,
6 domed type of park with HBO, running water, or
7 anything else like that .
8 I ' m sorry that the doggy bags have become such
9 a problem here . I think that ' s amazing . I didn ' t
10 know the dogs were so prolific . Maybe somebody
11 ought to take them to the bathroom before they get
12 to the park . But I know it works in other areas .
13 I , for example , bring my own large-sized Publix
14 little plastic container there , so that takes care
15 of some of the things , so I ' m not a heavy user on
16 your doggy bags . But I ' ve noticed one thing that
17 the people who have used the park have really been
18 dog friendly . And I notice there ' s a lot of people
19 in this area here that are not dog friendly, which
20 is probably why we have so many rules against it .
21 But the people up there really do appreciate it a
22 hundred percent . And we thank you very much for
23 the opportunity at least at this point to have
24 something, someplace to go .
25 I noticed that it was rather cool up there one
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
38
1 time when we were up and the temperature was hot .
2 So you got a little shade thing . And if you look
3 at those pictures , you also have trees there
4 already in place . You got a fence that ' s already
5 built , so you don ' t need to spend a lot of money in
6 that area . And all you got is the land, if you
7 wanted to divide it up . In one way I think it
8 could be operated relatively inexpensively . At the
9 same time it would give Collier County more of a
10 presence on Marco, which is fine , too . And Collier
11 is a pretty big county, as you know, so we got
12 something for this end, now we need something for
13 the south end.
14 And I appreciate the opportunity to express
15 these opinions . Any other questions?
16 MS . RAND : Did you look at other parks? Did
17 you look at all the other parks on Marco to kind of
18 come to the - -
19 MR . LEE : There is not very many parks on
20 Marco to look at , to be honest with you . Mackcoe
21 (phonetic) is the ultimate . But Mackcoe has
22 certain problems and - - or certain situations . For
23 example, you got that big lake with a trail around
24 it , which is nice to carry your - - to walk a dog
25 around . But you also got ducks and things like
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
39
1 that . That could be a problem to the ducks , and
2 then people would complain because they are
3 disrupting the birds and so forth .
4 The second thing about Mackcoe is that you got
5 areas where the kids use to play on, and sometimes
6 the small dog, like a Pomeranian like my wife
7 mentioned, and other smaller dogs could be an
8 attractive nuisance . We don ' t really want to be an
9 attractive nuisance, children who want to come over
10 and pet your dog and so forth and so on. All we
11 want is a place to have for our own enjoyment and
12 for the enjoyment of the dogs who are also a part
13 of our life .
14 Being retired, I don ' t have any children here .
15 Mine are all grown up and gone away, so my kids are
16 my puppies .
17 MR . McMAHON: I ' ve got a couple boys out there
18 on the playground .
19 MR . LEE : The only one thing I was thinking of
20 is , if you wanted to spend money, rather than dog
21 showers , you could build a small agility course .
22 That would be a lot of fun for the dogs because I
23 probably created a criminal act , that is to say, I
24 took my dogs to the school down there at Tommy
25 Bartlett when nobody was around, and they learned
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
40
1 how to climb up a little children' s slide .
2 Actually, if you saw a little Pomeranian going up
3 and down the slide m, it ' s an interesting
4 experience . Unfortunately, they take the slide
5 apart now, so you - - they can' t go up and down that
6 thing anymore . But they do love - - little dogs ,
7 big dogs , they love to run, they love to have
8 little places where they can, you know, sort of do
9 their thing .
10 And to show you how important they are to us ,
11 you have jets up in Fort Myers scaring the birds
12 away . Now, all our dogs aren ' t jets , but we
13 certainly should reward them, I think .
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Thank you very much .
15 MR . LEE : Anybody here hate dogs? And I don' t
16 know . I hope that this - - I hope you don ' t feel
17 that we ' re asking for something and then you ' re
18 opening the door here to somebody who says , well , I
19 want a park for my cat or give me a hamster park,
20 or something like that . I really hope that we
21 could get something here and keep it under control ,
22 in other words , not let it get too far out of
23 control . I ' ve seen a lot of people here who don ' t
24 know obviously how to use their - - how to keep
25 dogs , maintain dogs , and make dogs part of the
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
41
1 community . It ' s unfortunate . I usually try to
2 tell them when I see this , you know, you should be
3 walking around with a little bag in our pockets
4 like I do when I take the dogs for a walk and so
5 forth .
6 And you ' ve seen a lot of things in some of the
7 areas up in Golden Gate where they have used dogs ,
8 like the junkyard dogs . I don ' t think - - that ' s
9 not representative of the dog owners of this
10 community at least . I think that down here there
11 are generally a lot who feels that everything can
12 be compatible . Dogs can be compatible with people
13 and people can be compatible with dogs .
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Thank you very much, Mr . Lee .
15 I ' m going to address this issue as I believe I
16 recall that what we had done when we had decided on
17 doing the rover run is that we were in fact going
18 to examine the results of rover run for a year
19 before we did anything else . And that ' s what - - as
20 I recall , that ' s what the board had agreed to . So
21 what we ' re going to do is - - I think possibly this
22 is a very good area for one . I can ' t see the
23 fences and stuff that she ' s referring to in the
24 photographs , but I ' m assuming - - that ' s okay . I
25 don ' t need to see them at this time . We will - - I
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
42
1 think we will probably keep this in mind for a
2 later date because we are going to give it that
3 year . It ' s only been in existence just a little
4 over a month now, hasn ' t it?
5 MS . RAMSEY : Not quite a month .
6 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Not quite a month . So we
7 will keep an eye on what ' s going on there , see how
8 things go with that dog park . And if we can
9 possibly expand them, we probably will , and
10 probably more than just one area . So we ' re
11 going - - I 'm going to table this until when that
12 time comes that we would be looking at a more
13 serious aspect of doing something here .
14 MR . OLESKY : I do have one comment , John.
15 About that particular park, I was down there today .
16 I run by before I come up here , and it ' s fairly
17 narrow on the right-hand side as you go in . The
18 other side , there is a fence on three sides , but I
19 think you would have a problem with parking because
20 that ' s a boating area, and I know it overflows now
21 with boats . And I believe it would be a problem
22 with the park .
23 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay .
24 MR . OLESKY : So in fact if it could be
25 addressed somehow, then possibly - -
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
43
1 MS . BARNETT : There was a new park in that
2 direction that was possibly being considered down
3 the road .
4 MR . OLESKY : It was 951 .
5 MS . RAMSEY : We ' ve got about sixty acres right
6 next to Manatee Elementary School , if you are
7 familiar where that location is . It ' s back behind
8 the outlet mall , right off of 951 . We have sixty
9 acres over there . We originally were talking about
10 trying to put the dog park in that location .
11 There ' s a lot more expense involved in that
12 particular location, only because we would have to
13 build a road across the canal to get into it . But
14 it too is treed and fairly good sized, and we
15 probably could get , you know, anywhere , probably a
16 five-acre parcel in that location as well , which
17 would kind of split the difference for Marco
18 Island .
19 But Caxambas doesn ' t work out to be the ideal
20 place . We are still looking at one down toward
21 that area, which would be very close to Marco
22 Island residents .
23 MS . LEE : Could I make one comment?
24 MS . RAMSEY : Sure .
25 MS . LEE : The other thing is , we have a lot of
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
44
1 elderly people with dogs who don ' t like to drive
2 too far . My thought was that was another positive
3 thing for Caxambas . They don' t mind driving on
4 Marco, but the minute they hit 951 , they feel like
5 they are on the Indianapolis 500 . They are
6 terrified of leaving the Island . So it ' s just
7 another thought for that location .
8 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Everglades City - - do
9 we need to do a motion?
10 MS . RAMSEY : You tabled it . Do you want to do
11 a motion to table it?
12 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay .
13 MS . RAMSEY: Somebody want to make a motion to
14 table it?
15 MR . McMAHON : You know what? I would like to
16 make a motion to this . I would like to make a
17 motion that we table this about the doggy park for
18 a six-month period and then re-look at it . Because
19 of the success that we ' re having on the first park,
20 we may want to look at that in six months rather
21 than waiting a year, because of the public outcry
22 for it since that . So maybe we can table this and
23 re-look at it within six months .
24 And I agree with your needing parks down on
25 the south end of town on Marco and in between and
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
45
1 all of that . So it really needs to be looked at in
2 six months . I would suggest that we table it for a
3 six-month period .
4 MS . BARNETT : Second that .
5 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Any discussion on it?
6 MS . RAND : I think it might be a good idea,
7 because I think if there ' s anything that may come
8 up with the rover run once season opens up again,
9 it ' s going to get really overcrowded, and having it
10 kind of move a little more quickly on something
11 else might - - but I do think we need enough time so
12 that whatever problems we haven' t foreseen have a
13 chance to happen, if they are going to happen, and
14 we can come to some kind of a way of solving them.
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Any other comments?
16 Any other discussion?
17 Those in favor of tabling this issue for six
18 months - - does that mean we can have it put on our
19 schedule so that it will appear automatically
20 before us?
21 MS . RAMSEY : Correct .
22 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . In six months , which
23 would be , what , November?
24 MS . RAMSEY : Yes . November, December .
25 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Those in favor, say
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
46
1 aye .
2 Those opposed, same sign?
3 (No response . )
4 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I think I heard too many ayes
5 for there to be any .
6 Okay . Now we ' ll go to Everglades City . And
7 we have a presentation from Fran Tifft . There she
8 is . Please identify yourself .
9 MS . TIFFT : I ' m Fran Tifft representing the
10 Everglades Community Fireworks Fund . We would like
11 to put in a request to help us with fireworks for
12 next year . Not this year, but for next year . We
13 would like to ask for $18 , 000 for our fireworks .
14 We are a unique community . Of course most of you
15 know that Everglades is a unique community, but we
16 do our fireworks on a different day so that we get
17 more value for our money . Our fireworks this year
18 are on July 2nd . I would hope all of you would
19 come out and see what a marvelous day it is . It ' s
20 an entire day of fun with a parade and boat races ,
21 river races , games for kids , and so on, and then
22 the finale of the fireworks in the evening .
23 It is getting increasingly difficult for us to
24 raise our funds from the community because of
25 economics out in the Everglades area, so we would
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1 like to request or ask you to put in a request in
2 this year ' s budget for fireworks for our community .
3 Any questions?
4 MR . OLESKY : What does it cost for your
5 fireworks display now?
6 MS . TIFFT : We do $8 , 000 this year and it
7 gives us twelve minutes of fireworks . And we would
8 hope to increase the time of the fireworks so that
9 it would come, you know, to more than twelve
10 minutes .
11 MS . RAND : Would you be continuing to raise
12 the 8 , 000 that you have been raising?
13 MS . TIFFT : Yes . We can raise some funds but
14 it gets increasingly difficult .
15 MR . OLESKY : Do you go through the county to
16 see about getting the fireworks?
17 MS . TIFFT : No . They referred us to you .
18 MR . OLESKY : I mean, as far as working with
19 like Marla, if she has to order fireworks , do you
20 order from the same place?
21 MS . TIFFT : No . We get ours from Garden State
22 Fireworks , have for years .
23 MS . RAND : I ' m a little curious as to why it
24 comes to the Parks and Recreation Department for
25 the funding request .
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1 MS . RAMSEY : Everglades City requests for
2 recreational activities have always come through
3 the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and then
4 right through recreation activity .
5 MS . TIFFT : And this is not just Everglades
6 City . Most of it is unincorporated Collier County .
7 MR . OLESKY : There are five different
8 communities down there .
9 MS . RAND : Where do you have them?
10 MS . TIFFT : As you go into town, there is an
11 area on the left that used to be the old railroad
12 track . That ' s a cleared area, and they have them
13 there .
14 MR . McMAHON : Why do you vary from the 4th to
15 the 2nd? I mean, I ' m a real patriotic person and I
16 don ' t understand that concept .
17 MS . TIFFT : You get more fireworks for your
18 money if you do it on an off day .
19 MR . McMAHON: They do what now?
20 MS . TIFFT : You get more fireworks for your
21 money if you do it on a day other than the 4th .
22 MR . OLESKY: They give you more fireworks than
23 what you would get on the 4th . And they got a
24 celebration down there and everything .
25 MR . McMAHON : So is it actually considered the
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1 Fourth of July fireworks but it ' s done on another
2 day?
3 MS . TIFFT : Yes .
4 MS . BARNETT : How far in advance would you
5 have to know when you need the funds? I mean,
6 you ' re talking about for next year, so you ' re over
7 a year out .
8 MS . TIFFT : Right .
9 MS . BARNETT : I mean - -
10 MS . RAMSEY : I can answer that one for you .
11 This is the budget time for next fiscal year .
12 That ' s why she would need to ask now .
13 MS . BARNETT : Okay .
14 MR . McMAHON : Ski said that you have a
15 festival or something that ' s going on with this
16 that weekend .
17 MS . TIFFT : We have the whole day with the
18 parade and boat races , kids games , entertainment .
19 It ' s an all-day affair, a community affair .
20 MR . McMAHON : Does it have a title?
21 THE WITNESS : Just Everglades Fourth of July .
22 MR . McMAHON : Festival?
23 MS . RAND : The only thing I was wondering is ,
24 you ' re currently raising 8 , 000 and you want to have
25 it twice as much . It seems like , why are you
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
50
1 asking for 18 , 000 if you know that it costs 8 , 000
2 to do twelve minutes? It seems like - - what ' s the
3 other 10 , 000?
4 MS . TIFFT : That would give us more time .
5 Twelve minutes is very fast fireworks .
6 MS . RAND : Right . I ' m just thinking, if it ' s ,
7 you know, twelve minutes costs you 8 , 000 , it seems
8 like thirty minutes would be 16 or 18 , 000 total .
9 If you are still going to be raising 8 , 000 , why are
10 you asking for 18 , 000 instead of 10?
11 THE WITNESS : Well , we - - well , you know, we
12 accept whatever we get and we work with it . As I
13 say, it ' s increasingly difficult , given the
14 economics in that area, with the fishing and so on,
15 to raise funds because the funds come from the
16 business people mostly .
17 MS . RAMSEY : Maybe I can help put this in
18 perspective for you . Each year Parks and
19 Recreation allocates $25 , 000 for the fireworks
20 celebration that we do at Sugden . We get about
21 twenty minutes worth of fireworks for that $25 , 000
22 on July 4th . Does that help?
23 MS . RAND : Are there any other places that the
24 county funds for the fireworks show?
25 MS . RAMSEY : No . Just Sugden . That ' s a new
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1 one . This will be our third year, I believe .
2 MS . RAND : The city does the one here?
3 MS . RAMSEY : The city does one and Marco
4 Island does one, and both of those are funded by
5 the cities .
6 CHAIRMAN GRICE : How many people actually
7 attended your Fourth of July fireworks celebration
8 last year?
9 MS . BROWN : My name is Judy Brown . I work for
10 the city . I ' m also on the committee with her .
11 Along with the last company that cosponsored this
12 event , they posted the insurance for the daytime
13 event . The fireworks company furnished the
14 insurance for the nighttime event . We were told
15 five years ago that we could get a deal by having
16 the event on another day than the Fourth of July .
17 All the men that work on the Fourth of July events
18 throughout the country with this particular company
19 are busy that day, so they would have to hire a new
20 crew to come in and put the display on for us ,
21 which was twelve minutes . They said, we can give
22 you a discount if you have it on another day .
23 Well , we knew that the county had - - sometimes
24 there ' s three events going on in the county on the
25 Fourth of July, I believe , and our town is so
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
52
1 small , we would be like out of the range with
2 everybody else in the county . There ' s no way we
3 could put on the display that the county puts on
4 for the money that they spend . So we agreed to
5 have it that year for - - I think we spent $7 , 500 .
6 They have been good enough to keep it the same
7 price for the twelve minutes for $7 , 500 . And then
8 at the last minute , we boosted it up to another
9 500 . We are lucky enough to get the money to pay
10 for it . And they give us a few more minutes and a
11 spectacular event .
12 We get approximately 600 people that comes
13 from the surrounding areas . Once they see our
14 display - - it ' s usually after what goes on in the
15 county . It seems like it usually follows on the
16 Sunday after the Fourth of July, but this year it
17 will be the Sunday before the Fourth of July . Once
18 you see our display, because you ' re so close to it ,
19 you can go anywhere else in the county and you ' ll
20 come back and say ours is the best , even though
21 it ' s the smallest and it ' s only twelve minutes
22 long, because you are right there at it . They give
23 us a wonderful display . It ' s just all over before
24 we realized it . And this year we ' re putting music
25 into it , and we ' ll have music as it goes on . When
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1 we say you ' re right on top of it , you get the ash
2 on your cars . I mean, we ' re right underneath it .
3 And it ' s just gorgeous . And everybody - - you know
4 how you hear people say ooh, ah, yeah, yeah? Well ,
5 we still do that in Everglades City because it ' s so
6 great . We would just like to show the people in
7 our end of town that we can put on a really
8 beautiful display for less money, more - - what ' s
9 the word? Ump for the money .
10 MR . OLESKY : More bang for your buck?
11 MS . BROWN : Right . And we ' re coming to the
12 county to ask for help only because we have a lot
13 of people that come to our display who do live
14 outside of Everglades City . We only have probably
15 fifty kids that live inside Everglades City . And
16 right now, we probably only have 350 people that
17 live in Everglades City . But it ' s the surrounding
18 areas that we ' re pulling in . And the event goes on
19 all day long, and everybody just - - we make it seem
20 like the Fourth of July .
21 On the Fourth of July, a lot of those people
22 take their boats or they come to Naples and they
23 see those displays , so they are getting two
24 displays . That ' s not the way we want it to happen,
25 but we cannot afford to have a $25 , 000 display on a
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1 Tuesday night . We have to do the best we can . And
2 that ' s why we ' re asking you for some help .
3 This year we got $3 , 700 from four different
4 organizations . The festival , seafood festival ,
5 gave us $2 , 000 . That ' s the most we have ever
6 gotten from them. The city gave us 1 , 500 . The
7 Lions Club gave us 500 . And we collected 400 from
8 private individuals , checks that were given to us .
9 We ' ve got the down payment on the 7 , 500 . Most
10 likely we ' ll come up with 500 more dollars and go
11 to 8 , 000 . That ' s what we used to do, because we
12 like that big ending .
13 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay .
14 MS . BROWN : It ' s getting so hard now to get
15 people to donate $20 , $30 . It ' s such a small
16 community .
17 MS . RAND : I have one more question .
18 Everglades City is not incorporated?
19 MS . RAMSEY : Yes , it is .
20 MS . TIFFT : Everglades City is , but not the
21 surrounding areas .
22 MS . RAND : Because I was going to say, you
23 know, in terms of recreational opportunities and
24 that that we ' re providing in that area, the
25 jurisdiction - -
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1 MS . RAMSEY : I think part of what will come
2 down is you need to decide what your policy is
3 going to be, especially with the recreational
4 activities such as this .
5 MS . RAND : Have you gone to the city?
6 MS . BROWN: The City of Everglades?
7 MS . RAND : Yeah .
8 MS . BROWN : They give us 1 , 500 . Remember,
9 their budget , their year budget is a million
10 dollars and that ' s it . We are just so appreciative
11 that they gave us that much.
12 MR . WELBORN : This is for the year 2001 . What
13 are you going to do this year?
14 MS . BROWN : We ' re out there beating on
15 people ' s doors .
16 MR . WELBORN : You are going to have a
17 fireworks display?
18 MS . BROWN : We will have one . It ' s getting
19 hard to get it . We would like to have it bigger
20 and better, that ' s all . We was hoping you could
21 help us . I wanted to say, we - - Parks and Rec has
22 helped the City of Everglades in so many ways in
23 the past , not with something like this , but coming
24 down there and helping with tennis courts . They
25 are down there right now putting in - - I think it ' s
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
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1 Parks and Rec that is doing it .
2 MS . RAMSEY : You mean the work on the - -
3 MS . BROWN : In the children ' s area, the
4 cushion under the swings . This is the second time
5 they have done this . And the little town
6 appreciates it . They go around saying how great it
7 looks . You guys really have helped the City of
8 Everglades . But it ' s also helping the surrounding
9 areas , because the kids come to our park in the
10 City of Everglades . It looks better all the time .
11 If you don ' t give us any money, thank you
12 anyway for what you have done in the past . Thank
13 you .
14 MS . RAND : The only thing I ' m thinking is , if
15 the whole fund for fireworks for the whole county
16 is 25 , 000 and it ' s not - - I mean, the City of
17 Everglades is not - - is a separate organizational
18 area, that I could go ahead and make a motion - - or
19 what I ' m thinking is just - - I think if we ' ve made
20 contributions to recreational activities there
21 before , that I would be in favor of making a
22 contribution, but perhaps not as much, just in
23 terms of comparing the amount of the cost of the
24 county ' s program.
25 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Well - -
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1 MS . BARNETT : I agree , Mary Ellen . I was
2 thinking more along the lines of maybe something
3 like $5 , 000 .
4 MR . OLESKY : Why don' t we - - I ' m in favor of
5 giving something . I think maybe , being they raised
6 $8 , 000 , maybe we could match it and then that will
7 double their fireworks .
8 MS . RAMSEY: So is your motion going to be to
9 match what they have raised, up to 8?
10 MR . OLESKY: To match the $8 , 000 they have
11 raised, up to $8 , 000 .
12 MS . RAND : The only thing I ' m thinking is that
13 we do want to kind of put a little responsibility
14 on the city to do some of the matching, maybe, if
15 the county is going to .
16 MR . OLESKY : You ' ve got to realize now, you ' re
17 talking about Everglades City and not Naples .
18 MS . RAND : Yes , I know . I mean, not an even
19 match, but put a little bit of the responsibility
20 on the city to come up with a portion of it .
21 MS . BARNETT : They will , Mary Ellen, because,
22 if we say that we will match what they raise up to
23 $8 , 000 , then if the city puts in their 1 , 500 , we
24 match it . I mean, if they only end up with
25 7 , 000 , my understanding is that ' s all we would
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
58
1 match, is 7 , 000 . So there will be some pressure , I
2 think, on the City .
3 MS . RAND : In the overall fund raising.
4 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Anybody want to put that in
5 the form of a motion?
6 MR . OLESKY : I ' ll make a motion, what I said .
7 MS . BARNETT : I ' ll second .
8 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Any more discussion on it?
9 What does that motion exactly read, Ski?
10 MR . OLESKY : That we give Everglades City up
11 to $8 , 000 in matching money for their fireworks
12 display .
13 MR . WELBORN: You said match their money?
14 MR . OLESKY : If they only raise 5 , 000 , that ' s
15 all we give them, 5 , 000 . If they raise the full
16 8 , 000 , we give them 8 , 000 .
17 MS . RAND : And this is for this coming year,
18 it doesn ' t commence - -
19 MS . BARNETT : 2001 .
20 MS . RAND : It ' s not an ongoing commitment .
21 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Those in favor of that
22 proposal , say aye .
23 MS . BARNETT : Aye .
24 MR . McMAHON : Aye .
25 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Aye .
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1 MR . OLESKY : Aye .
2 MS . RAND : Aye .
3 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Those opposed?
4 MR . WELBORN : No .
5 CHAIRMAN GRICE : One opposed . Okay .
6 MS . RAMSEY : Again, remember that just for the
7 Everglades City people , remember this is a
8 recommendation from the Parks and Recreation Board
9 and it has to go through the Board of County
10 Commissioners in order to have approval of that .
11 MS . TIFFT : Thank you .
12 MS . BROWN : Thank you .
13 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Are you going to do
14 your beach program report?
15 MS . RAMSEY : Yes , but I need five minutes to
16 set that up .
17 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I was going to take a
18 five-minute break, and I didn ' t know whether to do
19 it before or after . Okay . We are adjourned for
20 five minutes .
21 (A brief recess . )
22 CHAIRMAN GRICE : The meeting will reconvene
23 now that Marla has got the technical problems
24 solved .
25 MS . RAMSEY : I ' m going to try not to use the
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60
1 mike . I don ' t think I ' m going to need it in this
2 size of a room. If I need to, let me know and I ' ll
3 pick one up .
4 What we ' re going talk a little bit about is
5 the five-year plan that Parks and Recreation staff
6 has put together to deal with the access and boat
7 ramp issues that we have here in Collier County .
8 First of all , just to give you a little bit of
9 a setting as to where we are with this - - and
10 excuse my back over here - - our Growth Management
11 Plan for recreation and open space talks about one
12 goal that we have . That goal is to provide
13 sufficient parks and recreation facilities and open
14 space areas to meet the needs of the residents and
15 visitors of Collier County .
16 And we have six objectives that we deal with .
17 And tonight I ' m only going to deal with one of
18 those, which is Objection 1 . 3 , which is to continue
19 to ensure that the public developed facilities and
20 open spaces and beaches and public water bodies are
21 accessible to the general public . And so that ' s
22 what this entire talk really is going to be about
23 tonight .
24 To give you a little format of how I want to
25 do this , I ' m going to do the presentation and then
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1 I ' m going to open questions up for the Parks and
2 Recreation Advisory Board . Once they are through,
3 then they will open up the questions to the public .
4 And you should have registered as you came in if
5 you wanted to speak . We ' ll going to allow five
6 minutes at the podium to do so and to give us your
7 comments on the presentation .
8 Okay . Starting off with the beach parking
9 boat ramp expansions . Okay . We have proposed boat
10 ramp and expansions . We have proposed canoe
11 launches . We are talking about parking garages ,
12 beach parking expansions , propose a boardwalk,
13 ferry services and then some future services is
14 what we want to talk about as far as our agenda
15 tonight goes .
16 Our first one is going to talk about the boat
17 ramp . There is a - - at the corner of 951 and Isle
18 of Capri - - and I ' m going to show you a map in just
19 a second . At the location of 951 and Isle of
20 Capri , Rookery Bay, DEP, Department of
21 Environmental Protection, has a parcel of land
22 there that was used by the Florida Department of
23 Transportation as a staging area . So it ' s an
24 impacted area currently . We think that we can put
25 twenty-five to thirty parking spaces at that
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
62
1 location, provide a crosswalk at the corner to
2 cross over 951 and allow you to walk down to the
3 existing boat ramp . We ' re looking at a projection
4 of somewhere in 2001 and 2002 for this particular
5 project . And this is the corner of Isle of Capri
6 here and 951 . And this brown area right up in here
7 is the area that I ' m referring to . It ' s about 350
8 linear feet by about 75 linear feet , and currently
9 boats are using that as an overflow parking area .
10 Because the grass is dead at that location, Rookery
11 Bay feels it might be a very nice opportunity for
12 us to allow them to park on that particular side .
13 On the other side of that road, the Rookery
14 Bay is putting in a parking lot and a boat
15 ramp/fishing pier, going into that back bay area
16 there . So that ' s one of our projects that we ' re
17 talking about .
18 This is a schematic of that , showing again, up
19 at the top - - we have to hold it . See?
20 MR . DELATE : Hold it and point .
21 MS . RAMSEY : This again being the parking area
22 coming and doing a crosswalk in this area right
23 here , and then walking down to the boat launch area
24 here .
25 The second one we have for boat ramps that I
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1 want to talk a little bit about is the 951 boat
2 ramp expansion . Currently we have nineteen spaces
3 at that location . We could expand north and
4 possibly south of that existing boat ramp area and
5 add forty- five parking spaces there . We have
6 talked to the Florida Department of Transportation
7 and they are willing to give us an easement . Now
8 we need to talk to the Department of Environmental
9 Protection to find out if we can get a permit to
10 fill that location . If we can do all of that ,
11 we ' re talking about a time line of approximately
12 2002 , 2003 fiscal year .
13 And this is our boat ramp currently . Nineteen
14 spaces here that we ' ve just re-surfaced and
15 re-done . And we are talking about expanding this
16 way and from this corner here, all the way up to
17 the light . We feel this corner right here would
18 give us a lot better access into that boat ramp
19 area because we have had the light to provide an
20 in-segment here and an out at that location .
21 And, again, this gives you another one of that
22 last one I was just talking about , coming and going
23 down that direction .
24 If you are familiar with this location at all ,
25 you know that this is an extremely popular boat
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1 ramp area and people are parking all over the road,
2 anywhere that they possibly can . And this is a
3 schematic of that location that I was just talking
4 about . Parking here and possibly down here as
5 well , keeping the same boat ramp . We have two
6 ramps in there currently . We don ' t believe we
7 would have a backup on that . And we probably could
8 accommodate all that parking with just those two
9 ramps .
10 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Marla, is there any
11 consideration to put a left turn lane coming from
12 the north on to 951?
13 MS . RAMSEY: We have a lane right here .
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : No . Up at where the light is
15 at Isle of Capri Boulevard .
16 MS . RAMSEY : To come in here?
17 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Yes .
18 MS . RAMSEY: Oh, yes . Most definitely . That
19 is what we want to do . We would like to have an in
20 there . I don ' t know if I can get an out of there
21 because that depends on how wide this is . There
22 might be a one way going through . But , yes ,
23 definitely be able to come in at that light . Make
24 it safer to enter .
25 Another project that we ' re working on as far
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1 as boats go is that we ' re looking at the parcel of
2 land in Goodlin. It ' s 4 . 5 acres . We think we can
3 get somewhere around fifty parking spaces at that
4 location, two boat ramps . It has deep water access
5 right from that location, and I ' ll show you that in
6 just a minute . There are marinas on either side of
7 that . So we can accommodate the fueling and the
8 bait needs at that location without having to add
9 anything to our own . We envision this particular
10 location to be very similar to our Bayview boat
11 ramp area, if you are familiar that . It ' s got a
12 little playground area, restrooms , picnic shelters .
13 And it would be a nice addition to the community in
14 Goodlin, who do not have a park currently . So we
15 could accommodate their park needs as well as maybe
16 expanding our property for boat launch facilities .
17 At this particular area right here is the area
18 that we ' re talking about . It was slated for a
19 condominium. If you have been reading the paper at
20 all , it was kind of controversial at that area .
21 And access would be coming in . Right here is
22 Strands , if that helps you with your orientation,
23 and driving down through here into this particular
24 area . And again, you can see there ' s a marina on
25 this side and then there ' s a marina over here on
GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA
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1 this side .
2 This is a schematic of what we think it would
3 look like . Again, these are - - we ' ve got about
4 seventy - - we could get seventy- five parking spaces
5 in here . If we want to save more green space, we
6 could do fifty parking spaces here for the park
7 itself , which would provide shelters , restroom
8 facilities , fishing area, a pathway along the area
9 here to view out over the bay itself . Again, we
10 think it would be a nice addition to that
11 particular community . And we are going to be in
12 Goodlin, if you happen to be here from Goodlin . We
13 are going to be in the Goodlin community on June
14 7th to address the community about it in person .
15 MS . RAND : Can I ask you question about the
16 plan?
17 MS . RAMSEY : Yes .
18 MS . RAND : Any of areas along the water, do
19 they have any kind of a dock or any kind of access
20 adjacent to the water, pedestrian access to the
21 fishing area ; is that like a little - - do you have
22 the ability to dock right at the water there?
23 MS . RAMSEY: Yeah . We would like to have all
24 traffic here . We would separate the boat traffic
25 from the park .
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1 MS . RAND : And like a little fishing area
2 here?
3 MS . RAMSEY : That ' s kind of what we are
4 talking about .
5 MS . RAND : Right on the edge?
6 MS . RAMSEY : This has got a little bit of a
7 mangrove right in here . We also think that this
8 would be a prime location to talk to Florida
9 Community Trust for a grant that would help us with
10 the purchase of the land to counter balance the
11 cost that we ' re looking at for that location . I ' ve
12 also talked to some of the marina people in town,
13 and there ' s a possibly of maybe some donations from
14 that as well . We ' ll pursue that as well .
15 Can I get you afterwards?
16 The next one that we have, the - - if you are
17 familiar with going down 92 toward Goodlin, there
18 is a little pull off where the old bridge used to
19 be there , and currently the transportation
20 department takes care of that . It looks like it
21 would be a very nice place to do canoe/kayak
22 launching into that little bay area there - - and
23 I ' ll show you a picture in just a second - - as well
24 as providing picnic tables and parking for that
25 community . Right now we have a number of people
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1 that pull off in there and have their lunches . We
2 figure , if we improve the area, we maybe could get
3 a little better compliance at that location too .
4 And, again, the estimated project time line on
5 this would be like 2003 , 2004 . And this is the
6 location I ' m talking about . This is 92 , it comes
7 down here . And then Goodlin is down in this area
8 right here . This is where the old bridge was . You
9 can see part of it is still there . Transportation
10 wants to clean up this area here , take out most of
11 this area here , and then provide this as a sand
12 launch area for canoes and kayaks and put a
13 retaining wall in here and then have picnics . And
14 all the way back into here can go to parking . So
15 we ' ve got a nice little strip of area here . And
16 then there is a little walkway underneath the
17 bridge that can access this side over here , kind of
18 like one of those little roadside park facilities .
19 Now we are going to talk a little bit about
20 beach parking, and these are the various items I
21 want to talk about tonight . First of all , we are
22 looking at Vanderbilt parking garage , 275 spaces ,
23 in the year 2001 , 2002 . Barefoot Boardwalk Ferry
24 Service, we ' re looking at 2004 right there . And I
25 have an asterisk that says that on Tuesday,
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1 yesterday, the Board of County Commissioners
2 reviewed that project as a petition from the public
3 to try and move that up on our five-year plan. We
4 also have Connor Park, which is eighty spaces that
5 we ' re currently building . And then Seagate parking
6 expansion, which is at the Seagate Boulevard area .
7 We have twelve spaces there that WCI Company is
8 going to be expanding that parking lot for us . And
9 I ' ll get to that in a minute .
10 So I ' ll start with the biggest one first , and
11 that ' s the Vanderbilt parking garage . And before
12 we get into the meat of this particular one , let me
13 talk about looking at these projects as all
14 interrelated projects . Each access is not just one
15 or the other . It ' s kind of an intricate chain of
16 things that we wanted to do over a period of years
17 to try and enhance access to the beaches
18 themselves .
19 The access itself , just to give you some
20 background, the county beach access that we have
21 there currently is about 51 , 000 square feet .
22 National Parks and Recreation guidelines for square
23 footage on a beach area is fifty square feet per
24 user . Using that ratio, we come up with 1 , 020
25 users right at the end of our cul-de-sac area at
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1 Vanderbilt . The Vanderbilt Beach provides access
2 to 3 . 7 miles . And, yes , we don' t expect people to
3 use all 3 . 7 miles , but if you ' re a runner or a
4 jogger or something like that , that access is very
5 nice . It takes you all the way down to Clam Pass
6 and takes you all the way up to the state park .
7 That 3 . 7 miles does not include Wiggins State Park
8 in that mileage calculation .
9 Currently we did an actual body count at
10 Vanderbilt parking lot , which has 125 parking
11 spaces currently, and 25 along the road and with
12 handicapped, which is 152 parking spaces at that
13 location . The current lot is accommodating 255
14 people when the lot is full , up to 300 . And where
15 I get that is that the count that we did at
16 Vanderbilt over Easter weekend was 2 . 03 people per
17 car . And that ' s one thing I want to discuss a
18 little bit about in the minute , too . 2 . 03 people
19 per car . We use a standard in Parks and Recreation
20 at 2 . 4 per car . So it was actually lower at that
21 location per car than we normally use . That ' s why
22 you get a range of 2 . 5 , 255 versus 300 people when
23 the lot is full . A lot - - a typical beach lot will
24 turn over three times during the day . Which means
25 we ' re somewhere around 900 to 1 , 000 people at that
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1 location . The proposed parking garage would add
2 275 spaces at that location .
3 One of the things that we find is that people
4 know that, if they wait , that we turn over that lot
5 quite often . And if they wait and drive around and
6 around and around, sooner or later they are going
7 to be able to pull into the parking lot . So we
8 think, by adding parking spaces to try and pull the
9 people off the roads and get them into a parking
10 spot , it will actually reduce the amount of traffic
11 at the cul-de- sac area . The proposed time line on
12 this is 2001 , 2002 . And I ' m going to talk a little
13 bit about this a little bit later, about providing
14 parking for future shuttles into the Vanderbilt
15 Beach access points , because we think it ' s going to
16 be an anchor that will flow into Vanderbilt to use
17 the access points to move people down the beach .
18 I had a point I wanted to make here . It will
19 come to me .
20 This is the way that we propose that it would
21 look as far as any site plan . As you see there, we
22 have existing buffers here of mangroves around the
23 area itself . This parking garage would be very
24 similar to the Ritz Carlton garage that ' s sitting
25 there currently . It ' s basically called a
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1 three- story but that ' s three stories including the
2 ground floor, so it ' s two floors up off of that .
3 Joe , do you know what the height is that gets
4 to be ; do you have any idea?
5 MR . DELATE : Twenty feet .
6 MS . RAMSEY : Twenty feet off the ground, more
7 or less?
8 MR . DELATE : Well , people come on the ceiling .
9 MS . RAMSEY : We ' ll get to that .
10 MR . DELATE : Twenty feet plus a paraffin wall ,
11 so it ' s probably twenty-three or twenty-four feet .
12 MS . RAMSEY : This little thing right here is a
13 concourse that goes from the parking garage over
14 into the beach area, which is located right in
15 here . You will still have that access around the
16 outside , if you wish to do so . As you can see , we
17 still have a little bit of space left here by
18 putting in the 400 parking spaces .
19 This is a picture of the Ritz Carlton parking
20 garage . And we sent this picture down to the firm
21 that we ' ve been talking with giving us this
22 estimate and they are - - the 3 . 8 million that they
23 quoted us came off this exact design, just to give
24 you an idea of the looks of that .
25 The funding source that we ' re looking at for
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1 that is actually coming from TDC, the Tourist
2 Development Council tax.
3 We ' re going move into Barefoot Beach Boardwalk
4 Ferry Service . Again, yesterday I was before the
5 Board talking to them about the boardwalk into the
6 Back Bay, up to a thousand linear feet into the
7 Back Bay . Right off , our existing restroom
8 facilities provides ferry service by a concession
9 agreement from one , two, or three people . It
10 depends on what we work out with them. Also , to
11 provide interpretive programs into the Back Bay and
12 along the mangrove area as educational . The
13 proposed time line , I have two in here , I have
14 2004 , which is what we have on our, list but it
15 could be moved up to 2001 , depending on the budget
16 process as we go through it . The funding source is
17 the impact fees . And we had the public come
18 forward and commit approximately $100 , 000 toward
19 this particular project .
20 This is our - - this is Barefoot Beach . This
21 is our existing restroom facility right here . What
22 we are talking about is taking the boardwalk out
23 here and along this mangrove area right in here so
24 that the boats could access at this point . And
25 I ' ve got another look at it here . Again,
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1 concession area here , going out into the Back Bay .
2 This is about 300 linear feet , and then however far
3 we have to go along this mangrove area to get to
4 the right depth for the boat access .
5 And this is a schematic for you . Just shows
6 you, currently at Cocohatchee we have a
7 concessionaire who can make that trip up through
8 here . It would be about thirty minutes , I believe ,
9 by boat . We ' ve looked at that as being a tourist
10 kind of thing, mostly geared toward interpretive on
11 the way up and back, so we can educate people while
12 they are riding on the boat itself as well as
13 residential , resident people as well using this
14 facility .
15 Before I move on to that , we are also trying
16 to secure some additional land across the road from
17 that Cocohatchee River Park to assist in the
18 parking lot situation to make sure that we have
19 enough parking for the cars . So again, things have
20 to go hand in hand in order for projects to be able
21 to be released, and parking would be examined on
22 the other side of that .
23 Barefoot Beach parking lot expansion . If you
24 are familiar with Barefoot Beach, we have the
25 parking lot , a green space and parking lots . We
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1 could add seventy-five additional parking spaces
2 and join those two lots . May need to make some
3 improvements to the restroom facilities to
4 accommodate additional people at that location .
5 Proposed time line is 2003 .
6 And here is a little schematic of this as our
7 Parking Lot Number 1 . Parking Lot Number 2 , we
8 were just looking at it to try and connect those
9 parking spaces , a boardwalk .
10 Right now we are constructing Connor Park,
11 which is a five-acre linear park off of Louisville
12 Avenue . It ' s got eighty parking spaces planned at
13 that location with walking access to Wiggins State
14 Park . The developer adjacent to us in their PUD is
15 responsible for making improvements on the bridge
16 area . I saw the plans last week, Thursday, Friday,
17 and it calls for improvements to have sidewalks on
18 both sides of the bridge , bike paths on both sides
19 of the bridge, and two lanes of traffic in the
20 middle . The completion date we are looking at is
21 about 12 of 2000 , this year . And, again, that
22 funding source is TDC .
23 Seagate parking lot , which I mentioned before,
24 WCI has asked us to take over our existing parking
25 lot so they can expand a building they have there .
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1 In exchange they are going to build us a new
2 parking lot . And when they are done with their
3 enhancements at the end, they are going to take
4 their staging area and turn it into twelve
5 additional parking spaces for us at that location .
6 They think they will be done with the additional
7 lot spaces in 2002 . We ' ll have no downtime at all
8 at this location . They will build a new parking
9 lot before they take the old one away . And I ' ll
10 show you - - do I have an access point? I guess I
11 don ' t have access for that .
12 That particular location, if you are not
13 familiar with it , if you are going towards Clam
14 Pass , which is to The Registry, off to the left ,
15 you take the road off to the left , and it kind of
16 looks like it ends in a condominium association
17 down there . And we actually have a public access
18 to the beach there with twenty-five parking spaces
19 currently . That ' s kind of a hidden secret that a
20 lot of people don ' t know about .
21 Future plans , we ' re looking at a parking
22 garage probably at Clam Pass . Time line , outside
23 of my five-year, that ' s why I don ' t have a lot of
24 information about it , but it ' s probably 2005 or
25 2007 .
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1 Now, future services is the one I want to kind
2 of dwell on for a couple minutes . Again, we have
3 three access points on Gulf Shore Boulevard North
4 that are public access currently that are really
5 only accessible by bikers or walkers where they can
6 walk through it and get to the beach area . We ' re
7 looking at using the parking areas that we have at
8 both ends , the parking garage with the 400 spaces
9 and the 80 spaces over at Bluebill , going down and
10 dropping off at of those various locations , after
11 we ' ve made improvements to these locations . Of
12 course , we would have to enhance them, maybe add a
13 little tasteful bench area with little covered bus
14 stops , so to speak, look to it . And once we have
15 provided enough - - we feel comfortable with the
16 quality of service that we ' re providing with the
17 shuttle - - because honestly we ' re not going into
18 the transportation business , and that ' s kind of
19 where we ' d be going on this shuttle . And once we
20 felt comfortable with the quality that we ' re doing
21 there , then we can look at off-site locations and
22 add shuttle service, not only to Vanderbilt , but
23 maybe into Barefoot , once we feel comfortable with
24 how that whole thing works . So, again, it ' s a full
25 plan, looking at it , and it ' s a long - - kind of a
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1 long way out . You know, I don ' t have a time frame
2 specifically on this here . We could possibly
3 accelerate it as soon as the parking garage is
4 available to us at that location . And we have made
5 improvements to those accesses at Gulf Shore
6 Boulevard North.
7 That kind of ends my presentation . And I
8 guess I ' m going to turn it over now to PRAB . If
9 you would like to come back up to your seats and
10 ask me specific questions , I can go back through
11 and answer some things in detail , now that you ' ve
12 got the whole favor of what the report is all
13 about? If I could have you come up, and then I ' m
14 going to let John take over at that point .
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : We have nothing in our agenda
16 about this , so I can close that .
17 MR . WALTERS : No . I was making adjustments .
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Anybody have any additional
19 questions on any of those?
20 MR . OLESKY : Not at this time , I don' t . I
21 think everything looked pretty spicy to me . I
22 think it looks good . It looks like a good go .
23 CHAIRMAN GRICE : The only comment I have is
24 that , if I ' m mistaken, the road you ' re talking
25 about is Gulf Shore Drive?
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1 MS . RAMSEY : Gulf Shore Boulevard North .
2 CHAIRMAN GRICE : No . Gulf Shore Drive .
3 MS . RAMSEY : I ' m sorry . Yes . Did I have the
4 wrong street name? I apologize, Gulf Shore .
5 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I know a lot of people don ' t
6 realize that there ' s two different streets because
7 they are basically in the same place . I didn ' t
8 have any other questions , other than, what I ' ve
9 already asked on any of the - - any of your
10 presentation .
11 I did have - - was concerned about one thing,
12 but it must not have been a big one because I can ' t
13 remember .
14 Anybody else?
15 MS . RAND : The concessionaire that ' s going to
16 do the ferry, have you got a contract that can
17 limit how much they can charge for that? Will that
18 be a part of the - -
19 MS . RAMSEY: What we will do with that is
20 actually we would put that out for bid and we would
21 allow them to come in, like we do with any
22 concession agreement , and give us their best price ,
23 and we would work with them. And then, once we
24 found something that we like , if there were two or
25 three people , we would try to make them consistent
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1 with one another and try to open it out .
2 MS . RAND : What I meant was the fare .
3 MS . RAMSEY : Right . The gentleman that I have
4 been talking to currently, who is with the
5 Cocohatchee Nature Center, which is right across
6 from the Pewter Mug, he has been talking about
7 possibly a 6 . 50 price to take them up, do the
8 interpretive along the way, and bring them back.
9 It ' s a round-trip price . What he has been talking
10 about currently is 6 . 50 to do that .
11 MS . RAND : So you might have two different
12 people using the same facility to do two different
13 things?
14 MS . RAMSEY : Yeah . One of the things on top
15 of that is that right now Topper and Culmen
16 (phonetic) and some of the other locations are
17 already faring their people to the tip at the pass
18 at Barefoot and they are already dropping them on
19 the beach area there and going through the preserve
20 area up the beach . Now there are no facilities at
21 that location . So we already know there is ferry
22 service happening . And maybe what we can do is
23 kind of push the ferry service towards one location
24 or maybe we have to make enhancements to the tip .
25 I don' t know . But our goal is to try to
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1 concentrate people in certain locations rather than
2 all the way through the end of the preserve area
3 itself . Again, the preserve area is owned by the
4 state and managed by Collier County . The whole
5 south side of that , we have about , I think, 156
6 acres that we own there which is where all of the
7 activity is being held, and the preserve area
8 itself is very natural , with gopher tortoises , et
9 cetera, nature trails in that location . We ' re
10 trying to enhance and preserve the integrity of
11 that location as part of our management plan .
12 MR . OLESKY : Are you going to try to use
13 electric engines on these ferries rather than gas?
14 MS . RAMSEY : I have not gotten into that much
15 detail , but I ' m not sure . I don ' t know enough
16 about coding to say yes or no . I ' m sure it ' s
17 something we can look into .
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I remember the question, my
19 concern, now . It was the fact that you even stated
20 a little later in another different presentation
21 about getting into ferry service . What is the
22 purpose of the dock and the ferry service that
23 you ' re talking about in the first place? What - -
24 MS . RAMSEY : Into Barefoot?
25 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Yes .
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1 MS . RAMSEY : Well , part of the concern that
2 we ' ve been hearing is that it ' s a long ways to
3 drive, Barefoot , because you ' ve got to go all the
4 way up to Bonita, come down Lely/Barefoot Boulevard
5 down into the park . It ' s a long trek up . And they
6 were thinking that they could do something that
7 would shorten that trek right from the north side
8 of Collier County right into the park, that we
9 might be able to enhance the usage of that
10 location, especially in the county-owned portion of
11 it , which is more recreation in nature . And that
12 way we can pull some people that maybe would
13 normally go to Vanderbilt up to Barefoot .
14 MS . RAND : The parking right now would have to
15 be at Cocohatchee, unless you can arrange
16 additional parking?
17 MS . RAMSEY : Right . And currently we ' re
18 working with two different plans right now,
19 possibly getting additional parking located real
20 close to the Cocohatchee River Park right now .
21 Whether we get into either one of those, I don ' t
22 know . That ' s just something that we ' re working on
23 currently .
24 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Anybody else have any
25 questions?
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Iou want to open it up?
E : We ' ll open it up now to
gistered to speak for five
have nine registered speakers .
Le and you can come up to the
raker we have is Lou Newman and
?wman .
I think we both got our answers .
3o then the next speaker then
L . And after Pat is Carol Timbus .
You may have to pull that
a right into it .
Zan you hear me?
I can .
The questions that I have to ask
according to your presentation it
I believe , and 75 spaces . I read
paper where it said something
Okay . Clarification on that .
ial parking spaces . We have 125
24 parking spaces at that location currently .
25 MS . LUCCI : Okay . My question also is , if you
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1 have 275 , or easily around over 400 , figuring - -
2 I ' m just figuring, with two people coming, that ' s
3 over - - going to be close to 900 people that would
4 be utilizing the beach . And, I mean, quite
5 frankly, I have been to the beach during the height
6 of the season and there ' s very little space on the
7 beach to accommodate even the amount of parking
8 spaces that you already have .
9 MS . RAMSEY : One way I can address that real
10 quick for you is that , according to the statistics
11 that NRPA puts out , National Recreation and Parks
12 Association, the fifty square foot per user, using
13 the 51 , 000 square foot we have just at the access ,
14 from the access point down to the Ritz Carlton,
15 using that area right there, according to the
16 statistics , will accommodate 1 , 020 people . And I
17 understand that 933 , I think, is what - - parking
18 spaces will be anywhere from 800 to 960 people ,
19 when it ' s 400 . All right? If you use those
20 numbers , the statistics show that yes , you can
21 accommodate them just in the access . Now,
22 there ' s - - that doesn' t take into account anything
23 going to the north . And what we ' ve seen from the
24 statistics that I have been able to gather is that
25 people will walk about a quarter of a mile , which
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1 is 1 , 300 linear feet . And currently what I ' m
2 talking about - - we ' re talking about 600 linear
3 feet in that space that I was talking about before ,
4 from the access to the Ritz Carlton . If you take
5 the center of the access and go 1 , 300 linear feet
6 in either direction, it disperses that way, there
7 is a lot more space on the beach .
8 Now, you and I both know that they are going
9 to go to the next available spot , and that - - but
10 that they would probably continue to go to the next
11 available spot out to about 1 , 300 linear feet , out
12 to the access itself . So that ' s the - - those are
13 raw data statistics , not taking into account
14 anything that has to do with the quality of
15 experience once they are there . That ' s raw data
16 coming at you . And then the other side of that ,
17 again, is , of course , if you go shuttling at some
18 point down the line . And, using that , you would
19 take some of those up to the access points and drop
20 them off . So we have a better experience at the
21 access itself .
22 MS . LUCCI : I would agree with that .
23 The other thing was , the park that you ' re
24 building at Conner, you ' ve got eighty cars?
25 MS . RAMSEY : Correct .
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1 MS . LUCCI : And you had mentioned about it ' s
2 going to be a while before a shuttle would be
3 provided?
4 MS . RAMSEY : Yes .
5 MS . LUCCI : Because I ' ve walked that , up over
6 the bridge , not carrying a thing, and that is a
7 long walk.
8 MS . RAMSEY : I agree that at some point in
9 time we are going to have to shuttle with that . We
10 do have it in the initial plans . For eighty
11 parking spaces and to provide shuttle service, it
12 was not feasible at the moment to do shuttling .
13 Now, if we worked something from both ends - - and
14 I ' m going to two directions - - then it becomes more
15 cost efficient . And, remember, every time I do a
16 shuttle, that goes as an ad valorem tax to the
17 public itself . So there is an annual cost
18 associated with that particular activity . So when
19 we do it , we want - - and we also want to make sure
20 that , when we do it , that we do it with quality and
21 that we have a place they can drop or, if there is
22 a lightening storm that comes on the beach, I can
23 get them back off the beach in a timely manner . So
24 we want to make sure that the quality experience is
25 there because otherwise they won ' t park at those
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1 locations , they will continue to try and drive
2 around until they can find a space closer .
3 MS . LUCCI : My third and last question, that
4 would be - - it just went right out of my mind . I ' m
5 sorry . I can ' t remember what it was .
6 I know what it was . It was - - I was going to
7 ask, will there be any particular parking areas for
8 county residents because - - believe me , when the
9 tourist season begins , I ' ve had the experience of
10 not being able to find a parking spot .
11 MS . RAMSEY : You know, that ' s one of the
12 things that we have concerns about because we live
13 in a society that is very non-public transportation
14 or carpool . And what we ' re finding is that our
15 numbers in our parks per car are going down . And
16 what that means is that families are driving two
17 cars to the same location . And so I think that ' s
18 something we need to address .
19 Now, maybe we address that , you know,
20 through - - I know I ' m not answering your question
21 100 percent . Just wait a second . Maybe we could
22 address that , something like only allowing one
23 beach parking sticker per residence and that way
24 that one car will come down and carry most of the
25 family with it . And if they decide that they want
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1 to come in two, that the second one would have to
2 pay the parking fee to do that . Maybe that will
3 help us loosen up some of the parking problems that
4 we ' re having currently as well .
5 Now, can we designate resident parking only?
6 I don ' t understand why we couldn ' t .
7 MS . LUCCI : It certainly would be a help,
8 especially during the height of the season . Thank
9 you .
10 MR . SMITH : The next speaker is Carol Timbus
11 and then Eric Synne on deck .
12 MS . TIMBUS : I just wanted to ask a few
13 questions . We weren ' t sure about which parking
14 lot . Are you talking about going and being joined
15 to the next one? Is that the one next to the
16 learning center in the Pavilion now, with the next
17 lot? Which is - - I think you changed the numbers
18 on those .
19 MS . RAMSEY : My numbers were 1 and 2 , but - -
20 MS . TIMBUS : 1 and 2 , okay . That ' s
21 interesting . That ' s a good place for it . That ' s
22 what we say, if it has to be .
23 We are concerned about a few other things in
24 the preserve . I don ' t know if you ' re thinking
25 about addressing any of these or not , but one of
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1 the things is the trail , which we - - you did have
2 people come in and remove the exotics , cut them
3 down, I should say . But they left all the debris
4 in the - - along the trail, and some on the trail
5 and places . It ' s like waiting for a fire . If
6 anybody ever throws a cigarette down or anything
7 back there , the whole end of the island will be
8 burned down, I can assure you . We hope that you
9 may address that and figure out some way to get
10 somebody in there to take that out .
11 The other thing is one of the other things is
12 the gamma derma which is affecting the palm trees ,
13 and that has been started, but it needs to be
14 finished . We still have quite a few trees that
15 have the gamma derma, and this is going to be
16 spread and possibly eventually infect the whole end
17 of the island with palms .
18 The third thing are the gopher tortoises . And
19 we are definitely trying to protect those . We
20 think we have about 150 to 180 at that end of the
21 island now . And so any building or whatever
22 hatches , we ' re trying to disturb as few of those as
23 possible , which is going to help where you ' re
24 putting the parking lot there . That will
25 facilitate that , because there are fewer there than
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1 there are down at the other end .
2 I can ' t think of anything else right now
3 except that , are you going to - - you said you would
4 increase the restroom facilities , and are you
5 bringing in concessions , did you say, or - -
6 MS . RAMSEY : We will have to look at that . As
7 soon as the usage gets high enough at that
8 particular location to warrant concessions , we
9 definitely will bring them back .
10 MS . TIMBUS : That is one thing . We had other
11 people come in and complain to us . They think
12 there is a concession because there was one out
13 there before and they are very unhappy when they
14 find out that they have to go all the way out to
15 find some food for their family . That would be one
16 thing we would like to have addressed, too . And I
17 think that ' s it , unless somebody has a question .
18 Thank you .
19 MR . SMITH : The next speaker is Eric Synne .
20 MS . SYNNE : Erica .
21 MR . SMITH : The next speaker is - - I think
22 it ' s Hank Fay .
23 MS . SYNNE : I have a couple of questions about
24 the parking garage , and - - on Vanderbilt Beach .
25 And when you say that you have this statistic , 50
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1 square feet per person usage , that ' s seven feet by
2 seven feet , which is not very much space . If you
3 think about seven feet by seven feet around you,
4 that ' s how much space that statistic is allowing
5 you . Is that a law that we have to supply this
6 much access? I mean, who set that standard?
7 MS . RAMSEY : That ' s a National Recreation and
8 Park Association, open green space . It ' s from the
9 open space and greenway guidelines nationally .
10 MS . SYNNE : Okay . But, for example , could we
11 decide that we wanted to preserve a lower density
12 on our beaches?
13 MS . RAMSEY : Yes . I believe that we possibly
14 can do that . Again, remember that the parking
15 garage - - I ' m building for the future when we are
16 talking about the parking garage , and we want to
17 move shuttles down into the other access areas ,
18 which is - - a lot of the public has been telling me
19 that they want to do . Then I have to have a
20 parking place for them. And if I put them in a
21 parking garage and shuttle them from there , I think
22 the quality of the access will be enhanced by doing
23 that .
24 MS . SYNNE : Okay . My point is , can we,
25 Collier County Parks and Recreation, make a
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1 decision for at least some beach areas to have a
2 higher quality or more space per person that they
3 are going to be providing facilities and
4 transportation for?
5 MS . RAMSEY : Yes . We actually do that in the
6 preserve areas . We have a higher standard in the
7 preserve area than we have in the recreation area
8 at Barefoot . So we have two standards at that
9 particular location .
10 MS . SYNNE : Which location?
11 MS . RAMSEY: Barefoot Beach .
12 MS . SYNNE : I ' m talking about Vanderbilt
13 Beach .
14 MS . RAMSEY : No . You asked if we do that in
15 Parks and Rec, and I ' m saying we ' re already doing
16 that .
17 MS . SYNNE : Can you do it at Vanderbilt Beach?
18 MS . RAMSEY : I don ' t know why not .
19 MS . SYNNE : Will you take that into
20 consideration, please, when you ' re making your
21 plans?
22 MS . RAMSEY : I can do that .
23 MS . SYNNE : Thank you . You had said that
24 there were 2 . 03 people per car . And that was a
25 recent survey . Is that - -
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1 MS . RAMSEY : Easter weekend .
2 MS . SYNNE : Okay . Did you try anything during
3 the season?
4 MS . RAMSEY : Well - -
5 MS . SYNNE : Easter is busy, but it ' s not high
6 season .
7 MS . RAMSEY : We actually did that on Easter
8 weekend on purpose , to make sure we had the most
9 current holiday weekend that we could get to .
10 MS . SYNNE : When you say that you think that
11 the traffic will be decreased in the area of
12 Vanderbilt Beach Road, do you have any traffic
13 studies to show that? I mean - -
14 MS . RAMSEY : Not currently . As far as talking
15 about transportation, we would - - we don ' t have any
16 data or statistically at the moment that tells us
17 that .
18 MS . SYNNE : And one concern of the people that
19 I ' ve talked to is that having the garage there will
20 actually increase the number of cars on Vanderbilt
21 Beach Road, causing more traffic congestion, and
22 that is a constrained two- lane road .
23 MS . RAMSEY : We ' re not sure if it ' s going to
24 increase the traffic there or if it ' s going to
25 allow traffic to get in off the road sooner,
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1 because we don ' t know how many people are actually
2 driving around that entire congested area waiting
3 to get into a parking lot itself . Maybe what we
4 need to do is do a little survey on a full lot
5 weekend and do a little - - talk to the people that
6 are coming in and out , how long did you wait to get
7 a parking space, how many times did you drive
8 around, where did you drive around? That kind of
9 information might help us a little bit with
10 it .
11 MS . SYNNE : I think that getting that traffic
12 study done before you spend the three million
13 dollars or whatever it is to build something and
14 then just to have massive traffic jams along
15 Vanderbilt Beach wouldn' t be so good .
16 I guess I would also put my two bits in for
17 something for local residents parking . They are
18 the ones that are going to bear the extra traffic
19 and the extra so forth, and it would be nice if
20 local residents could get a parking place without
21 having to be there at the crack of dawn .
22 Finally, have you consulted with Dovin Cole
23 (phonetic) at all about any of these?
24 MS . RAMSEY : Yes . We have had conversations ,
25 in-depth conversations , and I know that their study
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1 will be coming out in February .
2 MS . SYNNE : Have you talked to them about the
3 Vanderbilt Beach parking garage?
4 MS . RAMSEY : Yes , I have .
5 MS . SYNNE : What did they say?
6 MS . RAMSEY : They are going to put it into
7 their study and look at it .
8 MS . SYNNE : Thank you .
9 MR . SMITH : The next speaker is Hank Fay, with
10 Bobbe Hickman on deck .
11 MR . FAY : Thanks . Yes , I guess I would like
12 to make a pitch for not using the Jones Beach
13 standard of available space on our beaches here . I
14 don ' t know if any of you have had the pleasure of
15 being on Jones Beach, and basically you look for a
16 place that ' s big enough to put your beach towel and
17 step over people . Same way in on Cape Cod . They
18 probably all follow the standard, but the standard
19 isn ' t - - doesn ' t really work, not in a way that any
20 of us would enjoy.
21 But at the same time, I ' ve very pleased to
22 hear that you ' re going to do something about the
23 beach access points of Gulf Shore, whatever it is .
24 The - - I didn' t even know that they were there .
25 And I ' ve rollerbladed there, jogged there , ridden
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1 my bike there . I didn ' t even know that there are
2 three . Where are they?
3 MS . RAMSEY : They are opposite of the roadway,
4 and I think I have a plan up here that I can show
5 it to you when we ' re done that actually shows the
6 access areas . They are 10 -foot wide and they are
7 opposite of the roads that are going in toward the
8 bay area .
9 MR . FAY : They must be carefully hidden . Do
10 they belong to you?
11 MS . RAMSEY : They are Collier County
12 easements , yes .
13 MR . FAY : You could get a lot of bang for your
14 buck by just marking them and putting some shells
15 down where people could walk to the beach .
16 MS . RAMSEY : That ' s part of the thing that we
17 talked about , is trying to enhance those accesses
18 so even the walkers and bikers can use them.
19 MR . FAY : Making them even usable . I mean,
20 they are invisible now, and probably because the
21 people who live on either side want them to be
22 invisible .
23 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER : You got that right .
24 MR . FAY : Secondly, I don ' t think you can plan
25 a parking garage by yourself without the
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1 transportation department , without the community
2 development folks . And it sounds like that ' s sort
3 of what ' s happened, though .
4 MS . RAMSEY : I would think that - - how this
5 really comes about is , I ' m trying to secure funds
6 to do a parking garage , and what the parking garage
7 really looks like is , when I come out to all of the
8 communities and say, here ' s what so-and- so said,
9 here ' s what the parking garage looks like , okay,
10 let ' s talk about the number of parking spaces , and
11 that all comes once I ' ve got some funds . If I have
12 no funds supporting me - - that ' s part of the
13 concern that we have , is I want to make sure we get
14 the funding for them, because if I get I don ' t get
15 the development funds , I can ' t do it for awhile .
16 MR . FAY : That , I understand . I also
17 understand that , once the funds are there, there
18 will be a tremendous pressure to spend them on it .
19 And then the question of whether there should be
20 one there will be mute , will be totally gone by
21 then . On - - was it Monday night? I heard Tom
22 011iff speak just to the association . And he said,
23 we ' re going to put in shuttles because we don ' t
24 want to have more traffic down near the beach . And
25 that is a policy constrained two-lane road across
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1 from Beachwalk . And putting more cars down there
2 is going to make it a lot worse, I think . And I
3 think that the input of the traffic department ,
4 community development and the Dover Cole ought to
5 be there before a decision is made to make - - to do
6 the garage , because it may be that you ' ll get 3 . 1
7 million in funding, but the conclusion is , no,
8 there shouldn ' t be a garage, what there should be
9 are two big parking lots over near the trail with a
10 shuttle . And that may be a lot better solution for
11 a lot more people . And if you do have those three
12 access points actually working, you are going to
13 open up most of the beach .
14 I guess the other thing I would suggest for
15 everyone to look at is , are those three enough or
16 should the county take another ten feet and make
17 some more access points to open - - to truly open up
18 that entire beach? And I think that that would be
19 a great improvement . And then your parking lots
20 are going to be totally useless , a parking garage
21 is going to be relatively useless as being too
22 small . So then you ' re really going to need the
23 parking lot . So I agree with you, it has to be
24 part of a total package . But I don ' t think the
25 parking garage should be the first step . I think
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1 it should be the result of an entire study with
2 these other departments all working together .
3 Thanks .
4 MR . SMITH : The next speaker is Bobbe Hickman
5 and Dick Lydon on deck .
6 MS . HICKMAN : I just wondered, is there a
7 difference between the space allowed per person at
8 the preserve or a county park?
9 MS . RAMSEY : Yes , there is . Our management
10 plan at Barefoot , I believe - - I don ' t have that
11 statistic in front of me , but it ' s much less dense
12 at the preserve area than it is even at the
13 northern side of that . We kind of take the whole
14 area and use a low density on it . But we
15 concentrate most of them on the north side .
16 MS . HICKMAN : And also there is a lower
17 parking lot in the preserve that has never been
18 filled . Is there really a need for this new
19 parking lot to take more of the natural look of the
20 park away?
21 MS . RAMSEY : And, again, I think that it ' s
22 down the road, but it is an option for us and it is
23 in the management plan that we can do that as
24 needed .
25 MS . HICKMAN : It just seems a shame to keep
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1 opening up along the road there . You are taking
2 away all what - - because it basically is a
3 preserve . And even the beach is supposedly called
4 a preserve . And we just wondered if it has to be
5 done . It just seems so natural there . And that ' s
6 one of our purposes , was to keep it natural . And
7 how many parking places are there now with three
8 parking lots?
9 MS . RAMSEY : 256 , I believe .
10 MS . HICKMAN : That ' s along the road too?
11 MS . RAMSEY : I don' t believe - - I ' m not sure .
12 I don ' t know if that ' s along the road . No . That ' s
13 overflow parking, I believe .
14 MS . HICKMAN : So it seems like it ' s not
15 necessary to open up another parking lot when it ' s
16 never full as it is . The reason it ' s full right by
17 the restrooms naturally is because the restrooms
18 are there . But people don ' t want to walk . It
19 seems a shame . We keep taking away the natural
20 part of that and losing the purpose of the whole
21 thing . Thank you .
22 MR . SMITH : Next speaker is Dick Lydon and
23 Vera Fitzgerald is on deck .
24 MR . LYDON : Thank you for permitting us to say
25 a few words . It will take me a lot longer than
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1 five minutes , but let me see if I can hit a few
2 highlights .
3 First of all , let me share my understanding as
4 it relates to beach access . There was another
5 interesting letter to the editor the other day . We
6 were being accused of protecting the beach from all
7 the outsiders . I wanted to point out that I took
8 about two years of head - - beating me over the head
9 to get those eighty parking spots on the north side
10 of the area . We were responsible for getting the
11 facilities , the bathroom facilities down by the
12 parking lot on the south end . We were responsible
13 for getting the upgrading of the turnaround down
14 there . We ' re not trying to keep people off of our
15 beach . I want that carefully understood .
16 Now, let ' s kind of take a look at these
17 things . First of all , the parking garage . I love
18 you, Marla, and you always get the money before you
19 talk to anybody . That ' s the secret , see . Because ,
20 if you talk to somebody, they might have a
21 different idea . Besides , there ' s only about eight
22 million dollars coming into that TDC fund every
23 year, and you are looking at a guy who spent a lot
24 of his time and effort in keeping that eight
25 million coming in, because we almost lost one-third
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1 of it not too long ago .
2 That parking garage at 3 . 8 million compares to
3 the Ritz , as you said. The Ritz spent about a
4 million and a half . There must be some reason why
5 they can build it so much cheaper than we can .
6 The number of people that you ' re projecting,
7 1 , 021 , I believe , as coming out of that garage ,
8 what about those folks that walk? We have a whole
9 area called Beachwalk. We have Naples Park. We
10 have a lot of people that walk to the beach . And
11 where do they go? You got 1 , 021 of them that are
12 south of the entrance, and then you got another
13 2 , 000 that are up almost to La Playa before they
14 can find a place to put their blanket .
15 Secondly, I think it ' s a great idea to put in
16 that boardwalk across - - I think you may have a
17 little trouble getting $6 . 50 . But , again, it ' s a
18 tourist attraction and it might very well go well .
19 It certainly gets them to a beach that has room to
20 put the people .
21 The other question I would have is on the
22 Barefoot Beach . One of the problems we have up
23 there, you know, is there ain' t nobody from Collier
24 County can get on there because all of the Lee
25 County people are there, because the one up there
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1 on the north side of Bonita Beach Road is so - -
2 they got more blankets than they got people up
3 there, or people than they got blankets , so they
4 all come down into our park . Our problem is trying
5 to expand that one . And if we are a going to build
6 a 3 . 8 million parking garage , let ' s look at
7 Barefoot . The problem has been that you can ' t get
8 people to go to Barefoot . They all want to come to
9 Vanderbilt . If there ' s no place to park at
10 Vanderbilt , odds are they might go to Barefoot .
11 Let ' s think about some of that .
12 The other thing that I was looking at here on
13 the shuttle . If you want to get - - you start
14 running shuttle buses up and down Gulf Shore
15 Drive - - I don ' t know whether any of you were at
16 the meeting yesterday, but there was a whole bunch
17 of folks over there yelling and screaming at the
18 Commission meeting yesterday because the -La Playa
19 is going to go private and they are trying to sell
20 a thousand memberships . And, good God, look at all
21 the traffic that ' s going to create .
22 And, Marla, before you start using those three
23 parking - - those beach accesses up there , you
24 better talk to the folks that live across the
25 street , because those three that you ' re talking
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1 about are deeded access in writing . We ' ve been
2 into this . They belong to the people up in those
3 places . They are not public access , according to
4 the existing deeds . There are two that are south
5 of the La Playa that are in fact public . And,
6 again, as he said, nobody can find them. All this
7 sounds great .
8 What we haven ' t gotten into is any numbers
9 except that 3 . 8 , which scared me to death when I
10 first saw it .
11 But numbers become important . That TDC money
12 is a cash count . And the problems that we have
13 had, and you ' ve heard me make this statement ,
14 perhaps when I was talking about the penny, the
15 damn cow has built another udder . And everybody
16 wants to get to the udders . We ' ve got beach
17 renourishment . We ' ve got passes . We ' ve got all of
18 these things . And the minute they open that up to
19 Parks and Rec , hey, there ' s Marla, was in there .
20 God love you . If I had been in your spot , I would
21 have done the same thing .
22 All we would ask at Vanderbilt is to sit down,
23 talk to us , let us take a look, we might honestly
24 have an honest and reasonable idea . Thank you .
25 MR . SMITH : Vera Fitzgerald is the last
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1 speaker I have registered .
2 MS . FITZGERALD : You made the statement , or
3 one of you made the statement that building this
4 garage was going to reduce the turnaround . I beg
5 to differ with you . It ' s going to increase them,
6 because what ' s going to happen is that everyone is
7 going to drive up to the beach . They have a
8 parking spot over there, they are going to drive up
9 to the turnaround and they are going to drop their
10 family off with all of the stuff that they always
11 have . They are not going to carry their coolers
12 and their umbrellas and their chairs and
13 everything . They are going to drive around the
14 turnaround . They are going to drop the people off .
15 Then they are going to come back and pick them all
16 up . Dad goes off to the parking garage , and then
17 he walks over and joins them. That ' s how it works
18 now and that ' s how it ' s going to work in the
19 future . It ' s going to increase the parking .
20 I think the parking garage at the Ritz Carlton
21 is just plain God awful . Parking garages are in
22 general God awful . If you want to know what God
23 awful is , go down Goodlette Road, have a look at
24 that parking garage on the east side , just before
25 you get to Airport Road on that new development .
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1 That ' s a parking garage . It ' s just - - the idea is
2 horrible .
3 And it ' s interesting that Seagate gets twelve
4 more parking spots , but they fancy throwing 275 at
5 us in Vanderbilt Beach Road. I would hate to see
6 them cut down the green space at Barefoot to add
7 more , but one of the reasons - - as we all know,
8 what the problem is at Barefoot Beach was that
9 there ' s been such an effort to keep people out that
10 that ' s why they haven' t gone . Maybe if it was
11 better signed, people would know it was there . Get
12 a great big sign up or something .
13 And we ' re going to build this garage for three
14 months a year usage? I live here usually
15 year-round, and I never had a problem going to the
16 beach . Mind you, I don ' t go to the beach during
17 the height of the day either, but it seems that
18 it ' s crowded during the season and it just seems
19 crazy . But if you are saying you are going to have
20 400 spots in this parking garage and it ' s going to
21 roll over about three times a day because people go
22 for so many hours , so that ' s 1 , 200 vehicles . And
23 they are going to go down and then they are going
24 to go back . That ' s 2 , 400 vehicle trips per day
25 minimum thrown onto Vanderbilt Beach Road, which is
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1 already congested totally . And I just cannot
2 imagine throwing this number of vehicle trips on
3 that road .
4 And I ' m wondering why the shuttles can ' t be
5 paid for by the tourist tax and not ad valorem.
6 After all , you are not doing that for us , you ' re
7 doing it for the tourists . What I want to know is ,
8 why we can ' t look more closely at remote parking
9 areas and using the shuttle service, have a shuttle
10 service like the Naples Trolley, which means it ' s a
11 beach trolley . And there ' s - - for instance, Sam' s .
12 Sam' s is usually half empty . It ' s more than half
13 empty, and it ' s so empty all of the time that they
14 have these great big car sales and they don' t have
15 an impact on the shoppers at Sam' s . So perhaps you
16 could lease some of theirs .
17 I ' ve - - I also want to know what the parking
18 situation is during the off season . As I said,
19 I ' ve never had a problem. What - - how many people
20 have a problem? Perhaps on a Saturday afternoon or
21 a Sunday afternoon, you might . I don ' t know . But
22 during the week in the off season, I have never
23 seen a problem down there . But again, perhaps I 'm
24 wrong .
25 As for the invisible accesses , the property
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1 owners at Naples Park did a study . Actually, it
2 cost us $250 , and we had a - - I ' m trying to think
3 of the name right now . It ' s gone out of my head,
4 but a title company. We had a title search down
5 there and there were six accesses . Of course, the
6 previous county commission gave away a marvelous
7 access right to the south side of La Playa . They
8 simply vacated it for La Playa . But we used to go
9 down to the commission all the time and talk about
10 getting signs up . And the County Commission did
11 have the parks department put signs up showing
12 these six accesses . And every time they put them
13 up, the people who lived in the condos would go and
14 rip them down. And this went on and on . And we
15 were talking to Burt Saunders one time . He said,
16 why don' t you get some more signs up there? He
17 said, why don ' t you do something . You bought a
18 piece . What do you want me to do, sit there and
19 protect them?
20 What else did I want to say? I hate to see
21 cutting down more green space to put some more - -
22 as you know, I ' m a bird lover and the birds need
23 some trees too , you know . That area, the migrants
24 come through, it would be nice just to have a bird
25 to be able to sit in a tree . And I ' ve been sitting
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1 here watching a logger head sitting in that palm
2 tree . But , as for the parking garage, no .
3 MR . SMITH : That ' s all the speakers we have .
4 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . Thank you for your
5 input .
6 MS . SYNNE : May I ask a question?
7 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I need your name .
8 MS . SYNNE : Erica Synne . When they calculate
9 how much area a beach has , is that at high tide or
10 low tide?
11 MS . RAMSEY : That was high tide .
12 MS . SYNNE : You mean high tide?
13 MS . RAMSEY : Yes .
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Yes , sir .
15 MR . LYDON : One other quick comment . We had an
16 incident last week of code enforcement trying to
17 write a summons for a broken chair that was in
18 front of a hotel , and they tried to - - tried to
19 give the guy a ticket for having that broken chair
20 in there and feeding the turtles . We ' re faced at
21 Vanderbilt with a very serious problem at the north
22 end . Vanderbilt Inn has been kind enough to let
23 the tourists come through there , walking . But
24 still and all , if that situation goes on and, I
25 think it ' s going to be handled at the county level ,
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1 if it hasn ' t - - if Vanderbilt Inn cuts off public
2 access through their property to the beach, we
3 would have a serious problem at the north end of
4 Vanderbilt Beach . Please get that message along to
5 Michelle Arnold.
6 MS . RAMSEY : That was Dick Lydon .
7 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Where do we go from here ,
8 Marla?
9 MS . RAMSEY : Up to you . It ' s your meeting.
10 CHAIRMAN GRICE : It ' s my meeting .
11 MS . RAMSEY : I completed my report . It ' s up
12 to you now .
13 CHAIRMAN GRICE : You completed your report , so
14 I assume we ' re supposed to take some action on
15 this .
16 MS . RAMSEY : You can accept the report as
17 given .
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Accept the report as given .
19 MR . FAY : Or you could accept it as I amended
20 it .
21 MS . RAMSEY : You can make comments about it .
22 MR . McMAHON : I would like to make comments .
23 My name is Chuck McMahon and I live in Golden Gate .
24 I have a family and we ' re very much users of the
25 parks , the beaches , and county facilities . I sat
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1 here and listened to a lot of different things . I
2 took a couple notes . And some of the things are - -
3 you know, I grew up originally as a child in
4 Pennsylvania, and I used to visit the New Jersey
5 beaches . Shoulder to shoulder is what the beaches
6 were , and it was a hassle . It really was . So I
7 understand where you ' re talking about when you ' re
8 talking about the seven- foot by seven square foot
9 area . It ' s tight .
10 At the same token, I visited Vanderbilt Beach,
11 and I ' ve walked the total length of that beach in
12 maximum season . And there ' s hardly nobody ever
13 there . As big as that beach is , there is more than
14 enough room for everything and anybody in our
15 county . I have been there and I ' ve walked it and I
16 enjoy it .
17 I ' ve also experienced the fact that - - oh,
18 yes , I ' m not a tourist , I ' m a taxpayer in Collier
19 County and I need access to my beaches . Okay . I
20 do use beaches , as I said before . I use all of our
21 beaches . I use the City of Naples beaches , I use
22 the City of Marco beaches . I use every beach and
23 any beach that I can at any given time that ' s
24 available to me and any family and my friends and
25 tourists that are visiting me . I would like to
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1 show my beaches off , because we have some of the
2 most beautiful beaches around . Vanderbilt Beach,
3 in actuality, coming up there on the extension,
4 I ' ve left Vanderbilt Beach because there was no
5 parking either in the lower parking area or up
6 around the circle . I ' ve come around that circle ,
7 went around and down and come back up that circle
8 and actually went all the way down to Vanderbilt
9 and Wiggins Pass , came back, and I couldn ' t find a
10 parking spot . So we left and went to Barefoot , I
11 think, a couple of times .
12 So there ' s a lot of different stuff there
13 that , you know, I myself have experienced . One
14 thing that everybody really needs to understand and
15 pay attention to in Collier County, we are growing,
16 a major growing county . There is so much growth on
17 the north end of Naples in the area off of Airport
18 Road, going back, for heaven ' s sakes , I don ' t know
19 what ' s going to happen when Livingston opens up
20 because it ' s going to explode with more growth .
21 And we need to think about access for the growth .
22 And this is something that I really see that Parks
23 and Recreation is looking at . It ' s going to be
24 very important to have access for all members of
25 our county . And I just think that we need to all
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1 look at that . And not - - you know, I know it ' s got
2 to be an inconvenience to some people that live in
3 that area, and we ' re all inconvenienced at
4 different times . And we have - - Marla has talked
5 to us before about another park in Golden Gate
6 where they are having to park on the back side , and
7 it ' s going from 951 down along the canals and all
8 that . And people are upset about that . There ' s
9 going to be people upset about everything we do, no
10 matter where we do it . And we ' ve just got to be
11 able to get through with these things and try to
12 make accesses for everybody .
13 If you have to bring a vehicle and a family
14 from your home to the beach, I mean, it ' s our
15 obligation to find parking spots for us , because ,
16 if we don ' t, where do we go? And do I want to get
17 a ticket? No, I don ' t want to get a ticket for
18 parking where I don ' t belong . I need parking . And
19 I really see a need for parking garages and parking
20 spaces throughout our county, and not just here ,
21 all over for our beaches . We are losing - - we are
22 losing access to our beaches every day, and we
23 don ' t need to do that . There are beaches
24 regardless of some of the businesses and the condo
25 associations and all that along the beach fronts .
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1 They are still - - they are county beaches and we
2 need to be able to use them.
3 So I hope everybody can understand that kind
4 of a need that we have . Thank you .
5 MS . RAND : I have some comments . I have some
6 comments , and I did talk to Marla yesterday to kind
7 of give her my opinion . And I did do some outreach
8 in the community to try, as a member of the
9 advisory board, to know . I feel like - - I feel
10 like my role is to represent the community, to some
11 extent , you know, to try to understand . I ' ve heard
12 people on both sides of the deck issue , park and
13 deck at Vanderbilt Beach . And some people said,
14 you know, we need more parking because I can ' t find
15 a place to park . My thinking on it is that we need
16 to look at - - more comprehensively look at access
17 and to use - - to look at the entire beach front in
18 the county, long range , in terms of developing more
19 opportunities for access and to create a system to
20 do that . I know that it ' s a complicated thing to
21 get that together . But , say, right now - - because
22 I do think that trying to meet the overall county
23 needs too much in concentrated spots instead of
24 utilizing the whole beach front , I think some of
25 the things - - what I ' d like to see is , instead of
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1 putting the money into building the deck now, to go
2 ahead and start a small scale shuttle service that
3 at least serves Conner Park to get people over to
4 Conner Park. You could expand that by picking up
5 some spaces at Sam' s , because I know that they
6 lease spaces now . And there may be - - and I don ' t
7 have solutions , but I think there may be
8 opportunities for leasing additional parking
9 farther inland to get - - because you cannot have a
10 shuttle unless you have the parking . They work
11 together . But you already have a need for the
12 shuttle to get people from Conner Park over to the
13 beach, because it is a long walk . But if you did
14 that and at the same time you arranged some
15 off- site parking, shared parking, at least you
16 tried that system out instead of putting all the
17 bucks into the one point . It seems to me it would
18 be a lot less money to do that , to get maybe two
19 shuttle stands , like the ones that are going to be
20 working for the - - I don ' t remember, but you said
21 you are going to van people somewhere .
22 MS . RAMSEY : Seagate .
23 MS . RAND : That can be part of the system.
24 The same van that is taking people at Seagate might
25 be able to go around and pick them up at another
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1 park .
2 MS . RAMSEY : How much time do you want to
3 wait?
4 MS . RAND : Pardon?
5 MS . RAMSEY : How long do you want to wait for
6 a shuttle bus?
7 MS . RAND : I think fifteen minutes , because if
8 you are not finding a parking space, then you don' t
9 go to the beach and you ' re sitting probably longer
10 than that , going up to Lely . Sam' s .
11 Anyway, I think if you right now hold off on
12 the deck and try a system that utilizes the other
13 access points - - I know you said there was no
14 restroom facilities at the access points . That ' s
15 the problem. But there ' s no restroom at Seagate
16 now . And I know people can get in their car and
17 drive to the bathroom. But probably to get a
18 shuttle that would stop at least at the two secured
19 places that you have , and at least start that
20 system . Because it seems to me that putting it off
21 and doing something that the community doesn ' t - -
22 has a lot of resistance to and not just because of
23 the impact locally, because of the whole beach
24 experience that it ' s providing to the people county
25 wide that are going to be - - going to the beaches
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1 at those points . It ' s not - - somebody in Golden
2 Gate going to the beach is going to have a better
3 experience if they can go to the beach and park and
4 if they have to go to get on a shuttle and go to a
5 beach where they don ' t have to step over people and
6 find a place to put their towel .
7 So I guess my feeling is just that I thought
8 we could try doing one deck to expand . But at this
9 point , if you look at the overall parking provided
10 at all the different access points , there ' s so many
11 underutilized access points that I just think, if
12 we got off-site parking through an arrangement to
13 get a shuttle and just maximize the other access
14 points , initially, I think we ' re going to have a
15 lot more net result in terms of getting people to
16 the beach . And, then again, we can expand that .
17 We can secure better access points , get a better
18 shuttle service, even get drop-off points that may
19 have restroom facilities , to build on the whole
20 system. Start with a system and then build it .
21 That ' s my thinking on it .
22 And the lady that said that the parking lots ,
23 that Barefoot Beach is not full . If it ' s true that
24 it doesn ' t fill up , is there a need to expand that
25 parking lot? Because it is the biggest asset
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1 there, is the green space and the preserve .
2 MR. OLESKY : I would like to make a little
3 comment on that . First of all , you probably have
4 to have at least four shuttles if you want them for
5 fifteen minutes apart . That ' s an added expense .
6 Then you would also have to pay Sam' s for their
7 parking lot . That ' s an added expense . If you
8 build a parking garage , you got it up front and,
9 after that , it ' s just a little maintenance on it .
10 You don ' t have this ongoing expense . That ' s all I
11 would like to say about that .
12 MS . RAND : True .
13 MS . RAMSEY : John, can I suggest to have the
14 staff look into contacting Sam' s and find out what
15 it ' s going to cost us to do shuttles , find out how
16 many drivers it takes , benefits , et cetera, et
17 cetera, look at the quality of the experience,
18 bring it back to you at your next meeting and have
19 you look at it?
20 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Yes . That ' s an excellent
21 idea . Also, I would like to see a traffic study
22 done at Vanderbilt Drive . I realize this is not
23 the time of year to do that , but even at this time
24 of year, there ' s still traffic going to the
25 beaches .
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1 MS . RAMSEY : I ' ll check .
2 CHAIRMAN GRICE : It probably can be
3 interpolated with the data that you already have to
4 determine what the impacts would be during season
5 or around season . I don ' t know that we have any
6 less traffic in January than we do in March . I
7 know that on the roads there ' s less traffic , but
8 that ' s - - that ' s immaterial . We still have to
9 compensate for somewhat of our highest use .
10 I would also like for you to investigate, and
11 I guess I ' m making this in the form of a motion
12 while I ' m doing it , so as I don ' t have to repeat
13 it - -
14 MS . RAMSEY : Are you going to start over now?
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Yeah . I ' ll start over .
16 I would like for you to investigate with Sam' s
17 to see what that kind of activity would cost , as
18 well as perhaps - - and this , I don ' t know if it
19 will work with some of the - - perhaps some of the
20 shopping centers in the area that don' t fill up, as
21 well as Sam' s . Well , schools would be okay for the
22 weekends , but I don' t think schools would be
23 apropos for the weeks . I would like for you to
24 investigate the shuttles to see what they would
25 cost , what they would cost to run, what they cost
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1 to have drivers for them, how many we have to have
2 to maintain drop-off points , as suggested, as far
3 north as Lely/Barefoot Beach and as far south as
4 Clam Pass . I believe that ' s what the - - all of the
5 range in between was mentioned .
6 MS . RAND : And the shuttle - - can I interrupt
7 your motion?
8 CHAIRMAN GRICE : No , please . I ' m going to let
9 you comment on it afterwards , if you don ' t mind .
10 I would like for you to do a traffic study at
11 Vanderbilt Drive and Gulf Shore Drive . I would
12 like for you to research the Gulf Shore Drive
13 access ownerships .
14 MS . RAMSEY : Can I ask a question?
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I have heard different
16 stories now, but I would still like to know - -
17 MS . RAMSEY : Are you going to put this all by
18 the next board meeting?
19 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Am I going to do what?
20 MS . RAMSEY : Is the time frame going to be by
21 the next board meeting?
22 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Well , yes . I think you
23 should be able to do it , because I ' m not going to
24 be here .
25 If it has to wait until August , then it has to
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1 wait until August , but I think these are important .
2 I mean, the people have brought us some issues and
3 I don' t think that we need to stick our head in the
4 sand and not look at them as alternatives . I
5 also - - I ' m not sure what - - this is beside the
6 point . Let ' s just look at it - - how late do we
7 have to obtain those funds?
8 MS . RAMSEY : If I can remember now, the funds
9 that I have originally asked for and have asked for
10 over a two-year period, I asked for half of it in
11 this fiscal year and half of it in the next fiscal
12 year . So we really won ' t be building this until
13 after the next fiscal year . The reason I did that
14 is because it was a little less painful to the fund
15 itself and allows there to be a reserve available
16 to do some other things with it . But , you know,
17 hey, if we have to do it over three years , that ' s
18 possible too . But I think that they could probably
19 absorb it in a two-year period .
20 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I would still like for you to
21 go forward to get the funds , if you can . I don' t
22 know how much of a project you ' ve got to have to
23 draw it up and dried in concrete to establish that ,
24 but I would still like for you to get the funds ,
25 because we ' re definitely going to need them. No
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1 matter which way we go, those funds are going to be
2 required . And that ' s the end of my motion .
3 Is there a second?
4 No second .
5 MS . RAND : I would like to add a question . If
6 you secure the funds , don' t they have to be used
7 for the purpose that you secured them?
8 MS . RAMSEY : If I secure the funds for the
9 parking garage , they are set aside in a project , if
10 we decide the project is different than what we
11 originally stated because we ' ve done some research
12 and design and traffic and whatever and talking to
13 the homeowner ' s associations , we can go back to TDC
14 and amend the project with their blessing . The
15 point is you get some of it sitting in the fund, at
16 least you have something to work with . And if we
17 have to do traffic counts and other things , I ' m
18 going to need some funding to do that , if it isn ' t
19 already available .
20 MS . RAND : But it has to be for a specific
21 capital project? You can ' t say for beach access
22 facilities and then use it for developing other
23 types of facilities?
24 MS . RAMSEY : I can ask that . I haven ' t
25 specifically asked that . I ' ve always asked for a
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1 specific project .
2 Leo, do you have an opinion; Leo?
3 MR . OCHS : No . That ' s something we have to
4 ask the attorneys . They would have read that
5 ordinance and they can tell us exactly how far we
6 can go with the use of TDC funds . We ' ve asked that
7 question already .
8 CHAIRMAN GRICE : We just don' t have an answer
9 yet?
10 MR . OCHS : No answer back, right .
11 MS . RAND : The other thing, on the shuttle,
12 there is a possibility of having a private
13 concessionaire do that , so it wouldn ' t be just a
14 county expense .
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : It doesn ' t matter who does
16 it , it ' s still an expense . Somebody ' s got to pay
17 for it .
18 MS . RAND : If you have a concessionaire ,
19 aren ' t they basically just coming in and providing
20 service and collecting, you know, as a private
21 service?
22 MS . RAMSEY : I think that ' s something I ' ll
23 have to bring back to you at a future meeting . If
24 you say, here ' s what it is going to cost for the
25 county to do it - - I mean, I don ' t know that I
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1 could get data by the next time and say, this is
2 what it would cost a concessionaire to do it and
3 how much would they charge to do that . I mean,
4 they wouldn' t do it for free . Would they charge
5 five dollars , and would you take a shuttle for $5
6 to the beach? I think you have got to look at the
7 whole process . Because, as a resident , you can go
8 and park for free, and so you can take the shuttle
9 for five dollars . I think those are things we need
10 to discuss and find out , because a concessionaire
11 is not going to do it for free , so he ' s going to
12 want to make a profit . If the county does it , you
13 probably are going to want to break even on it ,
14 unless they are going to fund it . I don ' t know if
15 the board is going to fund, you know, supplementing
16 that aspect . I don ' t know .
17 MS . RAND : Isn' t it about five dollars to get
18 into Wiggins Pass for a carload of people?
19 MS . RAMSEY : I think it ' s like four . It ' s
20 like three or four . I think there ' s a level
21 according to how much - - it ' s a dollar to walk in,
22 so - -
23 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I made a motion and nobody
24 apparently liked it , since nobody seconded it .
25 Would somebody tell me what they would like to do
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1 then?
2 MS . RAND : I would like to - - I don ' t remember
3 everything in your motion.
4 MR . McMAHON : Are we open for discussion on
5 your motion?
6 CHAIRMAN GRICE : No, because it ' s not
7 seconded .
8 MR . McMAHON: I ' ll second it so we can have
9 discussion .
10 MS . RAND : You have to make another motion .
11 CHAIRMAN GRICE : No . Now, the discussion .
12 It ' s been seconded .
13 MS . RAND : Okay .
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Now we can have discussion on
15 it . Now, what would you like to say about it?
16 MS . RAND : The thing that I would like to add
17 would be to look into - - rather than just secure
18 the funds , to look into if funds can be used for
19 another purpose too, you know, for a more general
20 purpose for beach access .
21 CHAIRMAN GRICE : It ' s been amended to
22 include - - they would like to amend it to include
23 researching whether TDC funds can be altered in
24 their use without having to go through the whole
25 process again.
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1 MS . RAND : And, if so, then the request or the
2 grant , however you put it together, that it be done
3 in such a way that you can use it for other
4 alternatives .
5 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Yes . You had questions , I
6 know . Did you have questions?
7 MR . OLESKY : I got one question . Can you give
8 me an approximate figure of how much all of this is
9 going to cost?
10 MS . RAMSEY : Can I off the top of my head?
11 MR . OLESKY : Right .
12 MS . RAMSEY : No, I can ' t possibly .
13 MR . OLESKY : Are we talking about half a
14 million dollars to do all of these studies?
15 MS . RAMSEY : No . I don ' t think it ' s going to
16 cost me a half a million to do that . It ' s going to
17 take some time to do that . I ' m going to have to
18 figure out - - because what I ' m hearing you asking
19 me to do is to provide a shuttle to Clam Pass , to
20 Vanderbilt , to the accesses , to Barefoot . So I ' m
21 hearing shuttling to maybe four different
22 locations . There ' s no way I can possibly do that
23 on one shuttle . I would have to do that at all
24 different locations .
25 MS . RAND : I don' t think you need to get to
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1 Lely, because that ' s underutilized as it is .
2 There ' s probably parking available there .
3 MR . McMAHON : Not really.
4 CHAIRMAN GRICE : There ' s a motion and a
5 second .
6 MR . McMAHON : Not really .
7 CHAIRMAN GRICE : She ' s going to have Leo out
8 here .
9 MR . McMAHON : Lely is jammed . Man, there ' s
10 people parking on the side of the road in Lely .
11 MS . RAND : The one up at Bonita Beach, not at
12 the end, though.
13 MR . McMAHON : All over .
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Not at the end .
15 MR . McMAHON : I haven ' t been able to find any .
16 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Do you have any other
17 questions or concerns or would you like to make
18 comments?
19 MR . McMAHON : No . Go ahead .
20 CHAIRMAN GRICE : You apparently didn ' t like
21 the way it was originally done .
22 MR . McMAHON : It has to be done . And I
23 noticed that the study part of it needs to be done,
24 as far as the traffic and all that . And there are
25 certain things that need to be studied . So I still
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1 feel that we need parking, and that ' s a prime
2 location for parking . So I really want to look
3 into that a little bit more than what we are
4 talking about .
5 MR . OLESKY: I don ' t mind looking into
6 something. I think some of the stuff you stated is
7 too much .
8 CHAIRMAN GRICE : For instance?
9 MR . OLESKY : I don' t know . You want to do a
10 parking or a road study with cars . I can
11 understand something like that . It ' s going to cost
12 you a fortune for these shuttles . I can tell you
13 right now.
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : What ' s your other concern,
15 Ski? Are you concerned about the researching - -
16 MR . OLESKY : I think wasting time and their
17 time , the time they' ve already put into it , by
18 going over and doing all this other stuff again. I
19 think it is a waste of time, personally .
20 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . So you would just like
21 to see them go ahead and go for the money and go
22 build the garage?
23 MR . OLESKY : Right .
24 CHAIRMAN GRICE : That ' s not the motion .
25 MR . OLESKY : I understand that .
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1 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Any other discussion?
2 MR. WELBORN : I don ' t think shuttles are going
3 to be the answer . Too complicated . Too much
4 involved .
5 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I agree .
6 MR . WELBORN : Maybe from a small standpoint .
7 From the overall project , I think shuttles is going
8 to be a waste of time . It ' s going to cost too much
9 and going to be too much delay in the shuttles .
10 MR . McMAHON : I don ' t have five dollars to pay
11 for a shuttle from Sam' s to the beach, let alone
12 would I wait another thirty to forty minutes to get
13 to the beach? I have a car and I have a permit to
14 park on the beach, and I should have access to my
15 beaches . And this is all - - shuttles are crazy.
16 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I agree with you .
17 MR . McMAHON : If you ' re talking about a
18 shuttle maybe from Clam Pass that ' s a quick trolley
19 type shuttle , that ' s one thing . But going to Sam' s
20 and asking the grocery store areas - - I mean,
21 that ' s crazy stuff . They are not there for parking
22 for us , they are there for parking for business ,
23 number one . I think that shuttle stuff is not
24 proper . I don ' t think that ' s what we should ask
25 our residents to have to do .
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1 MS . RAND : That happened in Lee County .
2 MR . McMAHON: Lee County is - - maybe in the
3 future we ' ll have to go that way .
4 MS . RAND : They have a lot of beach access .
5 MR . McMAHON : Where?
6 MS . RAND : All up and down Hickory Boulevard .
7 MR. McMAHON: The thing is , we ' re not Lee
8 County, we ' re Collier County .
9 MR . OLESKY : Compare their parks to ours and
10 you see why we are Collier County .
11 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Did someone want to amend my
12 motion?
13 MS . RAMSEY : Why don' t you take a vote on it
14 then?
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Those in favor of that motion
16 say aye .
17 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Aye .
18 MS . RAND : Aye .
19 MS . BARNETT : Aye .
20 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Those opposed?
21 MR . OLESKY : Aye .
22 MR . WELBORN : Aye .
23 MR . McMAHON : Aye .
24 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay . So it doesn ' t pass .
25 MS . RAMSEY : Anybody else have a motion?
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1 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Now I need to have another
2 motion .
3 MR . McMAHON: I would like to make a motion
4 that we go forward with securing the funds for
5 parking facilities at our beach accesses , not
6 necessarily a parking garage but parking
7 facilities , as you said you were going to look and
8 see if we can do . I think we really need to look
9 at how we ' re going to park . I also believe that
10 you do need to look at the traffic at Vanderbilt ,
11 if that ' s one of the areas that we ' re actually
12 looking for a parking garage . But if we ' re going
13 to go for funds that we ' ve got to put in for, let ' s
14 go for the funds first and then find the proper
15 location . If the traffic is not right , then we
16 have to move , but at least now we have the funds .
17 And I think it ' s that simple . So that ' s my motion .
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Is there a second?
19 MS . RAND : Your motion is to go ahead and
20 secure the funds but to do some traffic study
21 investigation?
22 MR . McMAHON: Traffic study on location and
23 parking locations .
24 MS . RAND : Looking at alternative locations ;
25 is that what you ' re talking about?
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1 MR . McMAHON: If need be .
2 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Is there a second to that
3 motion?
4 MR . OLESKY : I ' ll second .
5 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Any other discussion on it?
6 MS . RAND : The only thing I would want to add
7 to that would be to see if it ' s a possibility of
8 going for the funds in such a way that you ' re not
9 tied down to using it for that specific - -
10 CHAIRMAN GRICE : He already said that .
11 MS . RAND : Is that part of your motion?
12 MR . McMAHON: Yes .
13 MS . RAMSEY : Not to exclude it .
14 MR . McMAHON : Not to exclude it , by no means .
15 MS . RAND : To get the funds secured in such a
16 way that you can look at alternatives , you can do
17 the study.
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Okay .
19 MS . RAND : I second that .
20 CHAIRMAN GRICE : It ' s already been seconded .
21 We ' re discussing .
22 Sam, you got anything to say about that?
23 MR . WELBORN : No .
24 CHAIRMAN GRICE : You are for it , too .
25 How about you, Ski?
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1 MR . OLESKY : No, that ' s fine .
2 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Any more discussion?
3 Call for a vote .
4 Those in favor of Charlie ' s motion say aye .
5 Those opposed?
6 (No response . )
7 CHAIRMAN GRICE : It ' s unanimous . Okay .
8 MS . RAMSEY : Can I ask one more thing?
9 Do you like the report?
10 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I think your report is great .
11 MS . RAMSEY: Do you want to make it a motion
12 to accept it or - - usually that ' s what we do, to
13 accept the report as written .
14 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I would like to make a motion
15 that we accept your report and use that as actually
16 guidelines for exactly what we are looking for, for
17 funds for parking, because it ' s great guidelines
18 for beach and boat access , so it ' s all
19 comprehensive .
20 MR . OLESKY: I second .
21 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Motion seconded by Ski .
22 MS . RAND : Can we discuss the motion?
23 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Sure .
24 MS . RAND : What does accepting the report
25 mean? Does it mean that we ' re endorsing all the
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1 elements in it?
2 MS . JOHNSON : Endorsing the elements , that the
3 report basically meets what you have been thinking
4 about and what you are interested in having us
5 pursue .
6 MR . WELBORN : It ' s the guidelines for the next
7 two or three years .
8 MS . RAMSEY: Our five-year plan .
9 MS . RAND : I already - - my - - I guess I
10 already stated my feelings . I think all of the
11 other elements are in - - I really like all the
12 other components . It ' s just that I think that one
13 element is the thing I have an objection to . I
14 guess that means I can ' t vote on your motion then .
15 CHAIRMAN GRICE : It ' s up to you .
16 MS . RAND : Does voting on accepting the report
17 mean I ' m accepting everything in it?
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : You can sustain and you can
19 say no either way .
20 MS . RAND : Right . I ' m just clarifying what my
21 vote would be .
22 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Any other comments?
23 Questions? Discussion?
24 Those in favor of accepting the report - - and
25 there was a caveat .
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1 MS . RAMSEY : No , there wasn ' t .
2 CHAIRMAN GRICE : There wasn ' t a caveat, just
3 accepting the report .
4 Those in favor say aye .
5 MR . OLESKY : Aye .
6 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Aye .
7 MR . McMAHON: Aye .
8 MR . WELBORN: Aye .
9 MS . BARNETT : Aye .
10 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Those opposed?
11 MS . RAND : Aye .
12 CHAIRMAN GRICE : One opposed, four ayes to
13 approve .
14 Anything else you need?
15 MS . RAMSEY : I ' m satisfied . I know my
16 direction.
17 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I still want to find out who
18 actually owns those . I know that that ' s not part
19 of the motion. I would still like to find out who
20 owns those pieces of property .
21 MS . RAMSEY : That ' s on my agenda . I don' t
22 need a motion for you to go ahead and do that .
23 CHAIRMAN GRICE : I think it should be settled
24 once and for all so that we are not battling with
25 homeowners or associations or anything else .
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1 MS . RAMSEY: It will be addressed when I talk
2 about making improvements to the accesses , in order
3 to do that , the shuttle or whatever we want to do,
4 and, even if it ' s just making more access , we need
5 to make improvements to those accesses , and so we
6 are already researching it . And I know Joe has a
7 plat map over there and he can show it to you when
8 we ' re done . Basically it says that it ' s designated
9 to the public, or something to that effect , and
10 there ' s a gray area in there because the people in
11 the neighborhood are saying it ' s just for our
12 neighborhood and - -
13 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Well , that ' s a possibility .
14 It could be deeded access to that community .
15 MS . RAMSEY : To the whole county . So, you
16 know, and if those three are not available , we can
17 only find one other access point , south of La Playa .
18 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Maybe the other one is still
19 hidden .
20 MS . RAMSEY : I could see it if a condominium
21 was built over it .
22 CHAIRMAN GRICE : That ought to be fun . Okay,
23 then we ' ll just condemn the condominium. Look at
24 how big our access is going to be now?
25 MS . RAMSEY : Are you adjourning?
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1 CHAIRMAN GRICE : Any other business before the
2 board this afternoon?
3 Adjourned .
4 (Meeting adjourned at 7 : 05 p .m)
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1 COURT REPORTER ' S CERTIFICATE
2
3 STATE OF FLORIDA
4 COUNTY OF COLLIER
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8 I , ELIZABETH M . BROOKS , Registered
9 Professional Reporter, certify that I was
10 authorized to and did stenographically report the
11 foregoing proceedings and that the transcript is a
12 true and complete record of my stenographic notes .
13
14 DATED this 6th day of March, 1998 .
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19
EL • ZABE ' M . BROOKS
20 Notary Public
21 State of Florida
22 My Commission No . CC 658403
23 Expires : June 24 , 2001
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GREGORY COURT REPORTING NAPLES/FT . MYERS/BONITA