Loading...
Agenda 01/29/2008 Item # 6C ,.'- Agenda Item No. 6C January 29, 2008 Page 1 of 9 COlLIER COUNIY MANAGER'S OFFICE 3301 East Tamiami Trail' Naples, Florida 34112 . (239) 774-8383 . FAX (239) 774-4010 January 16,2008 Mr. Don Beach 1991 Hunter Boulevard Naples FL 34116 Re: Public Petition Request to discuss reserving library meeting room Dear Mr. Beach: Please be advised that you are scheduled to appear before the Collier County Board of Commissioners at the meeting of January 29, 2008, regarding the above referenced subject. Your petition to the Board of County Commissioners will be limited to ten minutes. Please be advised that the Board will take no action on your petition at this meeting. However, your petition may be placed on a future agenda for consideration at the Board's discretion. Therefore, your petition to the Board should be to advise them of your concem and the need for action by the Board at a future meeting. The meeting will begin at 9:00 a.m. in the Board's Chambers on the Third Floor of the W. Harmon Tumer Building (Building "F') of the government complex. Please arrange to be present at thiS meeting and to respond to inquiries by Board members. If you require any further information or assistance, please do not hesitate to contact this office. . ~--?/ ames V. Mudd County Manager JVMlmjb cc: David Weigel, County Attorney Marla Ramsey, Public Services Administrator -, Reouest to Soeak under Public Petition Agenda Item No. 6C January 29, 2008 Page 2 of 9 RECEIVED OFFICE OF THE COUNTY MANAGER Name: Don Beach Address: 1991 Hunter Blvd Naples, FI. Phone: 455-1542 " '3 .-. > ACTION Date of the Board Meetino vou wish to soeak: Jan 29, 2008 Please exolain in detail the reason vou are reauestino to soeak (attach additional Dace if necessary): For the past 15 + Years PCBUG, a 501 (c)(3) organization focused on computer and internet education, has been meeting between 6 pm and 8 pm in the Rees Meeting Room at the Naples Regional Library on the 3rd Thunday on each month. In the past we could go to the library supervisor sometime in the fall of each year and schedule our monthly meetings for the coming year. This year we were told that the library is now implementing a quarterly on-line room request submission system and we would have to wait until December 2007 to request the room for 2008 but when we did so we found that the library itself had scheduled several programs for this specific time slot in several different months during which PCBUG traditionally meets. When Bob Hill, PCBUG President called the Naples Library he was told that "we should take comfort in the fact that the third Thursday was taken by the Library themselves, as they of course have preference, not some other group". When asked why the library had set programs on these dates we were told that the staff member who scheduled the library programs had looked at the schedule and found no other programs at those times. This explanation makes sense only from the most bureaucratic perspective since the library itself, through its own policies, prevented us from even making our regular request. As of the point this petition is being submitted and according to our last correspondence from the Library Director, apparently the library system itself cannot say for certain whether the library has programs slated on the 3'd Thunday evenings of any additional months this year. From a citizens' perspective, it would appear that as currently implemented the library's room request system is not working to provide an accurate view of upcoming events. The current library room request system strongly favors programs conceived and implemented on a short term basis and discriminates against programs planned on a longer term basis, which often involves scheduling of speakers months in advance. Please explain in detail the action vou are askino the Commission to take (attach additional paoe if necessary): To set a procedure for established groups to reserve a library meeting room for up to 12 months In advance of the event meeting date. C:\U....lDOnlDocumenl1lICC Public Petftlon Request Form.doc . Agenda Item No. 6C January 29, 2008 Page 3 of 9 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, December 11-12,2007 MR. WEIGEL: That's all. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- Mr. Weigel. Great. Let's go to the commissioners now. Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. I think we received a correspondence from a Don Beach about PC Bug, a 501 C3 organization that was formed approximately 15 years ago. They were using the library system, the central library at Central Avenue. And he also referenced Ted Brousseau as a founding member of this organization. So, I had an opportunity to talk to Ted Brousseau yesterday, and he informed me they have used the library on -- on a certain day since the library was expanded a number of years ago. Now, the staff at the library has decided to run some programs using the day that they normally meet on. The PC Bug tried to reuse the room by -- by on line registrant system, and they did that on the 3rd of December only to fmd out that it was taken. I mean, we in the past had an issue with the Girl Scouts, another 501C3. I would hate to lose the PC Bug, a -- an organization not for profit -- well, actually educates the public on internet, . Agenda Item No. 6e January 29, 2008 Page 4 of 9 internet systems, internet safety or -- or whatever. And I -- I -- I think we need to give direction to the -- to the county manager on that. But, in all fairness, I also think that we need to hear from our library director who is here, too. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think they've already arranged an ultimate facility or given them the opportunity to -- to move it in a different place, right? MS. MATTHES: Marilyn Matthes, Library Director. I just came from the Library Advisory Board meeting and Don Beach and the incoming president, I've got gotten his name, I'm sorry, is -- were at our meeting and we discussed the issues extensively. What I've done is tell them that the library will accommodate our two library programs in February and March by other means and, so, we'll make our time available to the PC Bug for those two months, and an additional outside group had arranged -- had beat the PC Bug Users Group and had scheduled a -- their program for January, third Thursday, and I told them that I would try to work with that group to find other accommodations within our building. The library advisory board, which you appoint, discussed the issue extensively and agreed that they should continue to -- they had no conclusion except to offer -- echo the -- the compromise I made for the January through March meetings, which are their primary concern right now. The library policy, which is -- on meeting rooms, which is established by the Library Advisory Board and approved by the County Attorney's office for legal sufficiency is what we've been operating under. Agenda Item No. 6C January 29, 2008 Page 5 of 9 And the policy has changed a little bit in that we are starting to -- to charge for -- for meeting room usage, and we're trying to refine it so it looks a little bit better. But the intent of the policy really has not changed in the 15 years that the PC Bug group has using the meeting room or any organization. The policy has been that book -- that groups can book on a quarterly basis, so starting in December 1 st, they can book for the period of January through March. And, unfortunately, that has not always been adhered to by staff and with the options of changing -- charging for the rooms and doing the on-line registration, we're trying to -- to make sure that all of our practices are in line with the approved policy. The County Attorney's office and other library legal consultants over the years have suggested that a public meeting room in a library is a limited public forum, and as such, we have to provide equal access to everybody irregardless of the message that people are using in that meeting room and the electronic registration is one way of providing that. Another issue is -- is that the intent of the board or the library advisory board or the community to provide a permanent meeting room for a particular organization, no matter what it is. With reference to the scouting programs, we do not guarantee any of the scouting programs a room on a particular date. What we did at board direction was say that when they sign up for a meeting room and compete with everybody else for that time for a meeting room, we will not charge them. Agenda Item No. 6C January 29, 2008 Page 6 019 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning, you still have the floor. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. Well, I -- I think you're -- you're making guidelines. Y ou're not making policy. Because my understanding only policy makers can make policy. But, you know, I don't know if it works and I don't want to judge it, but it seems to me that we have residents competing for our facilities, and I just can't decide that's right. Just a final question. Did you resolve the issues with the PC Bug on a long-term basis? MS. MATTHES: Not on a long-term basis. We've resolved it for the immediate time period of January through March with the caveat that January I need to negotiate with an outside group who signed up for the room prior to PC Bug. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, it's not my decision for me to tell the county manager how to manage the facility, but I just have a concern on -- on the process. MS. MATTHES: And people -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: And thank you for -- for -- I'm sony. MS. MATTHES: I know. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That was very kind of you to -- to address this in a short issue. Thank you very much. MS. MATTHES: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. One of the things that I've noticed in some of the ~ Agenda Item No. 6C January 29.2008 Page 7 of 9 organizations that I belong to is if we have a regular meeting place, a regular meeting time and a regular meeting date, after awhile -- and it takes people awhile to remember where they're going, but then -- then they come regularly. If you move their meeting place or their meeting time, their attendance drops immediately because people don't remember or they don't have those days reserved. And I don't know if the library board has taken this into consideration. For instance, PC Bug always meeting on whatever day it is, and for 15 years everybody knows the place, the time and everything, to move them around all of a sudden or any of the groups might be difficult especially -- I -- I understand when new people want to come in, but maybe first consideration should always be given to the groups who've always supported us or who have always been there first. Even if they don't pay anything, they bring people into our libraries. There's a good feeling because they're using our libraries, and I don't know if -- if -- if they have a policy or if you're putting together some suggestions for us, that probably should be considered. Long-standing groups have first right of refusal. MS. MATTHES: That certainly was part of the discussion. And whether that's acceptable under legal guidelines, I don't know. What we've always tried to operate under is equal access for everybody. And there's really no easy out for -- okay, they've been meeting there forever. My concern is if -- if at some point PC Bug is given a permanent meeting place or permanent time schedule, I -- I can see a number of other community groups wanting that . Agenda Item No. 6e January 29, 2008 Page 8 019 same type of privilege, and it then becoming difficult to have library space for library activity. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: The other avenue we also have available for the people in this county, we have parks and we have community centers at parks, and I think: maybe we can utilize more of them, too. COMMISSIONER FIALA: We don't have -- in East Naples we only have one kind of community center. We don't have any at our other parks. COMMISSIONER HALAS: No. I'm talking about North Naples area. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh. COMMISSIONER HALAS: They've got a number of up there at that park of facilities, they've got a number of rooms in there that can be -- could be probably addressed on a lot of these items for community groups to use that park. MS. MATTI-IES: The Parks Department also uses the quarterly booking process, too, to make their facilities available to the widest number of groups. COMMISSIONER HALAS: But that -- what it does-- MS. MATTHES: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HALAS: -- is it just opens up additional options -- MS. MATTHES: Exactly. COMMISSIONER HALAS: -- instead of being at one location. There's other options that it would be open to a lot of these community groups. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning, back to you. Do you have something else? Agenda Item No. 6C January 29, 2008 Page 9 of 9 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. Just one more thing. Merry Christmas. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Oh, wow! You said it with a lot of meaning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And very exciting two days, and we'll -- we'll start over again next year. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Very good. Merry Christmas, and I probably won't -- we -- we probably won't see any of the people in our audience today until next year, so Happy New Year. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's very nice. And I'd like to extend my holiday wishes to everyone, too. Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'd like to extend everyone, staff included, a very, very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah, however it fits, and we'll see you next year. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle. Not bad. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I have something of substance to talk about. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You mean Christmas is not important? COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. It's your greetings that are not important, but nevertheless, you'll recall in a prior meeting I -- I was trying to get the board to refuse to accept an unfunded mandate from the state legislature to fund a Regional Conflict Council to fund the office space at a cost to our taxpayers of $32, 190.