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Agenda 09/08/2020 Item #2C (6/30/2020 Meeting Minutes09/08/2020 COLLIER COUNTY Board of County Commissioners Item Number: 2.C Item Summary: June 30, 2020 BCC Special COVID-19 Meeting Minutes Meeting Date: 09/08/2020 Prepared by: Title: Executive Secretary to County Manager – County Manager's Office Name: MaryJo Brock 07/15/2020 1:28 PM Submitted by: Title: County Manager – County Manager's Office Name: Leo E. Ochs 07/15/2020 1:28 PM Approved By: Review: County Manager's Office MaryJo Brock County Manager Review Completed 07/29/2020 10:28 AM Board of County Commissioners MaryJo Brock Meeting Pending 09/08/2020 9:00 AM 2.C Packet Pg. 19 June 30, 2020 Page 1 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, June 30, 2020 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Chairman: Burt L. Saunders Andy Solis William L. McDaniel, Jr. Donna Fiala Penny Taylor ALSO PRESENT: Leo Ochs, County Manager Nick Casalanguida, Deputy County Manager Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney Crystal K. Kinzel, Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller Troy Miller, Communications & Customer Relations June 30, 2020 Page 2 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I want to welcome everybody to this meeting this morning. Obviously, it's very serious topics. Unfortunately, one of our commissioners will not be able to be with us past about 10:30. Commissioner McDaniel has a medical appointment, and it's unavoidable, so -- COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: It's just a -- it's an implant surgery, but it's been scheduled forever, so -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So, Mr. Ochs, why don't you lead us off and – MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Happy to do it. Item #2A RECOMMENDATION TO CONSIDER POLICY AND OPERATIONAL ISSUES RELATING TO COVID-19; RESOLUTION 2020-110: MOTION FOR THE PUBLIC TO WEAR MASKS (FOLLOWING CDC GUIDELINES) WHERE SOCIAL DISTANCING IS NOT POSSIBLE WITHIN COUNTY PUBLIC FACILITIES – ADOPTED Commissioners, we're here this morning to discuss some policy and operational issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We'll begin this morning, as we typically do, with a brief report from your Collier County Department of Public Health. John Drew will make this morning's presentation. John. JOHN DREW: Good morning. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Good morning. I want to thank everybody for wearing masks. It's not a requirement, generally speaking, in terms of any governmental requirements, but we really appreciate everybody stepping up to the plate and wearing masks June 30, 2020 Page 3 when social distancing is not possible. So, thank you for that. JOHN DREW: Yes. I echo that thought. Thank you. So good morning. For the record, my name is John Drew. I'm with the Florida Department of Health in Collier County, and I'm here on behalf of Stephanie Vick. And this morning we just prepared the gating criteria charts for you, and after that, a couple of other pieces of information that we hope will be helpful to you in making your decisions today. So, jumping right into the symptoms on the gating criteria, you can see there are upward trends in both of those, the ILI and the COVID-like illness emergency department visits. Moving on to the cases, you can also see upward trends in both of those. The number of cases, the average for the past two-week period is 109 cases per day. Whereas, last week when we were here, that average was 79 cases per day. And the same is a similar situation with the percentage of positive cases in the last -- for this two-week period, the average percentage is 15.8, and the last two -week period or the last week it was at 12.7. Moving on to the hospital capacity, the ventilator use has been relatively steady over the last two weeks. And if we look at the -- again, I'll draw your attention to the bottom part of the bar chart on the right with the COVID patients in hospital, that was remaining pretty steady until about three or four days ago, and then we saw a noticeable increase in the number of COVID patients being admitted to the hospital. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And if you would for the public, just can you give -- just kind of give us the last couple of numbers so the public listening to this will have an understanding. JOHN DREW: Certainly. Yes. On -- so from June 14th to June 24th, there was an average of about 80 patients in the hospital. And then on June 25th, it jumped up to 93. June 26th to 96. June June 30, 2020 Page 4 27th, 103. And on June 28th, it was 125. So I don't know how many patients -- what the census is for yesterday and today. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, I might just say that we do have representatives here this morning from both Naples Community Hospital and Physicians Regional Medical Center. They're prepared to address the board as well, if you'd like. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes. I would certainly like to hear from them in terms of capacity and issues going forward in terms of capacity. JOHN DREW: And I'll be happy to turn it over to them whenever you're ready. So but just moving through this as we do each time we're up here, the gating criteria, obviously, based on what I just presented, for the symptoms we're a no, for the cases, we're a no, and from what we can tell so far, the hospital capacity, we're still a yes. There's still capacity at the hospitals. The next slide, I'm just going to skip over, we -- I realized that the next slide is actually in the hospital charts that you -all get every single day, so I don't want to spend any time on that one. Oh, it was taken out already. Good. So this last slide -- we just did a quick calculation to see if we could, you know, determine if what we're seeing in the hospital increases in the number of cases was something that was worth paying attention to, and so we did a calculation on the rate of increase in the number of cases. So, from June 1st to June 13th, the number of cases increased at a rate of 56 percent. And from June 14th to 28th, the number of new cases increased at a rate of 68 percent. And it's similar results when we did that for the hospital admissions. The number of admissions in the first part of June was 18 percent rate of increase, and the number of admissions increased at a rate of 37 percent in the second part. June 30, 2020 Page 5 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Unless there is some specific questions, why don't we hear from the hospital representatives and get an update on where we are with capacity. MR. OCHS: All right. Thank you. Scott Lowe is here representing Physicians Regional Medical Center. Scott, welcome, and thank you for being here. SCOTT LOWE: Good morning. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Good morning. SCOTT LOWE: Good morning. Yeah. John's numbers are echoing pretty much what we're seeing. And just in talking with NCH this morning, again, the numbers continue to climb even as of today. So, this morning, our census is for COVID patients is at 42, which is the highest number we've been at. We were hovering, you know, early June in the 25 to 30 range over the last -- really over the last week. It just dramatically increased. Our vent utilization in the ICU is really not an issue. You know, I think initially when COVID came out, it was number of vents, it was the challenges associated with that. I believe, if I remember correctly, this morning we've got one, maybe two COVID-positive patients on vents. So really that has not been the challenge. It's just general overall occupancy. We are in our summer months so, you know, with seasonality, our staffing, it becomes a lot more challenge associated with that, but really that's our -- PPE has not been a significant issue. We do have what we need. Every once in a while, we'll get low on something, but we're able to make it work. Mask -- you know, mask availability has not been an issue. Really, it's -- I mean, it's a steady -- it's been a steady increase in particular this last week or so. I'll answer questions. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: There are some communities in Florida where they're beginning to run out of ICU beds an d vents and just general capacity. As you see going forward with the trends and June 30, 2020 Page 6 all, are you anticipating any problems like that, or are we in good shape here, as far as your facility is concerned? SCOTT LOWE: At this point -- I know John will speak for himself, but at this point, no, we're not seeing any acuity, which is something I mentioned last time I was up here. We're not seeing that -- I mean, there are sick patients. There's no doubt about it. But the vent utilization is significantly decreased. Our ICUs are relatively busy, but it's general patient population, not COVID population. So, it's -- it's consistent, so, no, I don't consider that to be a significant issue looking ahead. Now, that being said, if we continue to see an exponential growth in positive patients and, you know, we go from 42 to 80 in the next two to three weeks, it's definitely going to be a challenge. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Any questions from the commission? Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, just a couple of quick ones, and that is, number one, did you find that there are patients coming from one area more than the other? And, number two, did you find that the patients that are coming in are either elderly or -- well, some significant thing that we can kind of follow and track? SCOTT LOWE: Sure. Yeah, and, actually, I think it echos what the Department of Health website shows. The Immokalee patient population has been very heavy, and then if you look at the area surrounding Golden Gate City, those two areas. And if you look at the Department of Health maps, those are the two red areas right now. Interestingly enough, we are seeing a lot more younger patients. I mean, I think even this week we had a 12-year-old, and we're seeing a lot of 30-, 40-year-olds, 20-year-olds. As far as -- certainly, that's a change. We didn't see that initially. It was mainly the elderly June 30, 2020 Page 7 patient population. But with that, you know, I looked at number of patients coming in that test positive and then versus ones that are admitted. The ones that are admitted is somewhat spread. I don't see, you know, a significant portion of Immokalee patients admitted at this point or Golden Gate City or wherever else. You know, again, I don't know if it's the younger patient population that's presenting from those areas, but it is -- I mean, we're certainly seeing certain hot pockets of areas, you know, that are cropping up, ongoing. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. McDaniel. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Yes, and thank you. It's my fault that the folks from Immokalee are coming. We do a partnering -- I'm not taking the blame, but I'm also -- we're on -- excuse me. We do those partners calls every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00, and I have promised every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00, no one will be deported for testing positive. No one will be denied care irrespective of their capacity to pay. So that -- because, again, and I've said this regularly, there cannot be, has never been an initiative to stop the virus. We can only hope to manage the spread and not overwhelm our hospital assets, number one. Number two, and provide for the care for our residents with regard to those assets. So, it's -- you can ask everybody that's on that call. I think John's on there part of the time as well. It's -- that's something that I have regularly promised as we're going through to be able to provide for the care for our community. Now, I do have a specific question. With regard to your testing, when someone comes to -- to the hospital, how long is your turn-around time for your testing facilities? SCOTT LOWE: So, depending on the situation, if we suspect that they may be COVID positive but are relatively healthy, maybe just some basic symptoms, we'll actually send them home for quarantine and send them to some of the commercial labs, whether June 30, 2020 Page 8 that's Lab -- LabCorp or Quest. So that could be two or three days. If they're staying in-house in any capacity, we've got two different methods of testing, and it's typically 45 minutes to an hour. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: And what type of facility is that? The 45 minutes to an hour? Because that really helps you manage -- these are loaded questions, by the way. I talk to Suzie regularly. SCOTT LOWE: Okay. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: It really helps you manage your PPE consumption. SCOTT LOWE: A hundred percent. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: How -- how can the general population get to that level of certainty with regard to testing? SCOTT LOWE: That's what John and I were just talking about. We want to make sure we can maintain that level of certainty, because it's a challenge. So, for example, you know, the PCR tests, the sepia testing that we're both utilizing, neither of us got our allocation last week. So, you know, the number of tests available to us is sometimes suspect. Now, we didn't run out. I don't think -- COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Speak to me. SCOTT LOWE: Fair enough. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: You're using these acronyms, and Commissioner Solis and I live in an AFZ or AZA acronym-free zone, so – SCOTT LOWE: I honestly don't know what PCR stands for. Maybe John can help me with that. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Whatever it is. It doesn't matter. SCOTT LOWE: It's a nasal swab. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: It's a swab? June 30, 2020 Page 9 SCOTT LOWE: Yes. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Gotcha. SCOTT LOWE: Correct. So, yeah, but that's the test we've been primarily focused on. It's about a 45-minute test and give or take the handling and those sort of things. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: You have the apparatus on site to actually do -- SCOTT LOWE: We do. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: -- the results right there on site? SCOTT LOWE: We do. Both campuses. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Okay. SCOTT LOWE: And then we've got an antigen testing that we just started using as well. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: That's the little pinprick that -- SCOTT LOWE: Correct. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: -- does the C and the antigen and the antibody test? SCOTT LOWE: No. That's antibody. Antibody is different than antigen. I think antigen is still actually a nasal swab, but it's just a different specificity. It captures a different time frame of the viral shred. So, it's a little different but very similar in nature. So, again, we're trying to use what we have available to us, and if we've got testing, we want to try and use it. We haven't -- we do have antibody testing available to us, but we haven't used it very significantly just because, honestly, it doesn't add a whole lot of value, certainly in the hospital setting. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: I recently did a test, it was a small pinprick with a drop of blood into a little plastic tube. Almost June 30, 2020 Page 10 looked like -- it wasn't a pregnancy test, just so you know. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's good. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You don't bleed when you get a pregnancy test. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Okay. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I won't go into what liquids you use. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's please stick to the topic here. SCOTT LOWE: I think that's the antibody testing. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Antigen testing is what I was told, but, again -- SCOTT LOWE: I could be wrong as well. Again, John is more clinical than I am, so he might be able to answer that better. But the antibody testing is testing the presence of the viral shred. Maybe so if I had it two months ago and had the antibody testing, it may be able to tell me that I had it. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Right. SCOTT LOWE: Now, that being said, we don't know what that means yet, and I think that's still to be determined. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. If anybody has any specific questions about the tests, then let's do it in private so we can move on, because we do have a lot of speakers. Let's hear from NCH. MR. OCHS: Thanks, Scott. SCOTT LOWE: Thanks. MR. OCHS: We have John Kling here from Naples Community Hospital this morning. Good morning, John. JOHN KLING: Good morning. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Good morning. June 30, 2020 Page 11 JOHN KLING: Thank you, Scott. So, our numbers are kind of very similar on a percentage basis. So really, I talked to Mr. McDaniel a few -- about last weekend. And on May 4th -- well, from the start of the pandemic, we were doing about 30 to 35 or so positive COVID patients -- is that a little better -- positive COVID patients a day. And then in the first phase of the reopening on May 4th, we saw a bump up to the mid-50s at both of our campuses. And then about 10 days ago, we started seeing a pretty significant increase, and this morning we're at 93 COVID positive patients. So, we saw about a doubling of our COVID patients over a 10-day period. However, I wanted to stress that the hospital overall census has not increased more than the average rate is for this time of year. What we're seeing with like Scott at Physicians Regional, we're doing active testing on all admissions, all procedures, and we're catching those people coming in for scheduled things that are positive. And if they're not emergent, we're rescheduling or postponing that until they become negative. If they are positive but there is an emergency required, we have negative pressure ORs to take care of them safely. And so, what we really have starting -- and this morning is our highest we've had since this all started at 93. There's a couple of things that I wanted to point out that, you know, we had the in-house rapid COVID testing platform. We have two of them. It is 45 minutes to an hour, like Scott mentioned. We have that at both of our hospital campuses and both of our free- standing ERs as well. And really one thing that we're really proud of and I'm really happy to see the social distancing you-all are doing and the masks and the wiping down, that's a great job. And back on March 17th, we instituted a policy with strict mask wearing and eye protection on all patient contacts, and we really only had one healthcare worker that was a positive exposure to June 30, 2020 Page 12 COVID-19, so -- and we changed our policy based on her exposure at the time. She's back to work, and she's doing well, and we've had no healthcare worker exposure since. And really -- and, you know, Scott talked a little bit about antibodies. We took a little bit different tact on it. There's not good or bad tact, but we just took a different route. And we made it a condition of employment for antibody testing for all of our 5,000 associates. And really what we wanted to do is to help understand -- because Scott's right, we don't have a knowledge of immunity or things like that. We're learning the virus. So -- but what we saw with our 5,000 employees who are done now is a less than 1 percent positivity rate for antibodies. And really what that just tells you is that you've had a history to exposure to the virus. And we took it a step further is we required a nasopharyngeal swab. That's what Scott was referring to with the PCR. It's just a swab that goes really deep in your nose, and that's how you actively detect the virus. Antibody is a viral history. And the antigen test is a swab that is more of a point of care. That's more rapid. They're starting to gain momentum after the FDA approved that recently. So, what does antibody body testing tell us for our less than 1 percent? Is that social distancing, good hand washing, sanitizing your hands if you're not -- if a sink is not available, and eye protection protects frontline healthcare workers. Our studies related to really how does COVID affect frontline healthcare workers. And now we've expanded that antibody testing offer to our first responders in the community. I've had multiple meetings with Collier County public schools. We have a meeting scheduled on Wednesday with Dr. Patton to talk about antibody testing and just kind of going back to school with our physician leaders. And this morning I had a conversation with our COVID-19 physician leaders on our task force, and really, I kind of -- I talked to them kind of June 30, 2020 Page 13 wondering what you-all were going to ask. And I think the message is going to be, if we all as a community practice good social distancing whenever possible, you know, if you wear your mask whenever possible, if you do all of those things -- you know, COVID-19 is going to be with us until a vaccine is created or medical treatment is identified -- it does work as evidenced by the antibody outcomes that we did for our study. You know, last week we did antibody testing for all of our diplomats, who are philanthropic supporters of NCH Healthcare System. This week we're doing all of our volunteers, and that is the more susceptible population. And really what we're seeing at the hospital is we -- from the start of this, we had 11 percent admission rate for COVID positive patients. Now with all of the increased testing, we're actually down to 8 percent but with our highest census ever. So that denominator does change the percentages, obviously. And what we're seeing now is the median age is 33 that we're seeing for our COVID positive patients. So, our more susceptible population, the elderly population are still doing social distancing for the most part. The younger population is what we're seeing at NCH is kind of, you know, out there -- a little bit more out, and we're starting to see those positive. So, of the 93 patients that we have that are COVID positive, 12 are in critic al care, but of those 12, only 5 are on ventilators. So, we're seeing a huge shift from the beginning of this pandemic from ICU needs and ventilator needs to more of a med-surg kind of a quick turnaround stay, so -- and then I think those are kind of the key points. I wanted to leave some time to -- I could talk forever about this, but -- COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: We could listen forever. JOHN KLING: I want to get your questions if there's any questions or additional information you need. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. June 30, 2020 Page 14 COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Yes. Two things. First off, do you still have the -- what I call the emergency beds in the event that there was a -- a -- a need for that, the field hospital? That's what I envision in my mind. JOHN KLING: Yes. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Do you still have those available? JOHN KLING: Yes, sir. So, we have a total bed capacity of 715 licensed beds. This morning we're at 465, so we still have about 40 percent capacity. We can flex it up to a thousand beds, if needed, within 24 hours. It's -- it would be a little bit of an undertaking, but we're ready for it. It's part of our surge pandemic policy. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Okay. And, number two, the cost of the current rapid testing that you're doing on per administration. What -- effectively, do you know what that per cost is? JOHN KLING: So, typically, for the test, Medicare and most commercial insurances pay a hundred percent. There's really almost no out of pocket for the people who are getting that. For us, it's approximately -- it's give or take. It depends on the supplier but 30 to $40 total with -- that's all in with labor and supplies and all of that stuff. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: And do you have the capacities to open that up to a wider population between you and Physicians Regional? I was looking over there, I mean, because it's -- that's one of the -- one of the large issues that we're having that I'm currently experiencing when folks go get tested, because the health department is shipping their tests off to Virginia to some lab, and with FedEx and timeliness and everything, it's a trick, so -- and we just got a load of CARES money coming from the federal government with regard to assisting our population. So, if you can June 30, 2020 Page 15 expand that capacity, I'd like for us to explore utilization of one of those machines. JOHN KLING: So, I'm assuming you're talking about the nasal swab or -- COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: The one that tells you within 45 minutes to an hour. JOHN KLING: As Scott mentioned, the supply chain is less than consistent. And right now, we could not do that for -- we're actually considering going back to questionnaires and -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: So, it's a supply issue more than it is your capacity. JOHN KLING: Right. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: And who do we get those from? JOHN KLING: So, there's -- one of our companies is a manufacturer in France. The other manufacturer is up in the New Jersey area. And what they're telling us is that their suppliers to develop the test kits are behind because of COVID or whatever that is, and their staff, or short staffed. So, I think Scott can attest since day one, we have been kind of up and down and kind of riding a bad stock market. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: So, your testing is coming and going just because of the availability? JOHN KLING: I can tell you that if we had enough capacity, we would be more than happy to do something as a community leader in healthcare. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And this is not a criticism, but it's more public information. We know that NCH has stopped their -- their drive-thru testing in the downtown area. Could you June 30, 2020 Page 16 explain why that happened and what you anticipate in the future? JOHN KLING: So, we planned the stoppage of that June 1st, actually. And really the beginning of this pandemic, the genesis of the drive-thru was there was so much uncertainty with swabbing and how does swabbing affect the infectious rate of the healthcare workers. There was very challenging PPE -- acquiring of PPE, personal protective equipment -- sorry for the acronym there. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: That's okay. JOHN KLING: And then it was also to -- and on May 4th, when we opened up, we knew that we had to have a process in place that we could -- it's very important that our community did not ignore their healthcare, and COVID made them very concerned about that. And people were ignoring chest pain, ignoring signs and symptoms of stroke, or elevated blood sugar, anything really that was important for their health. And that would be -- allow us to do preadmission or pre-procedure COVID testing to ensure that they were okay to come into the hospital and get the healthcare that they needed. As we got more understanding with the -- our antibody testing results, we had probably 35 of our employees over the course of March through June 30th did antibody swabs for our community. None of them were COVID positive. None of them have antibodies. So, we demonstrated that good PPE use was effective in protecting healthcare workers. The supply chain got a little bit better with the nasal swab kits. That's different than the in-house test kits. It's called -- it's a viral medium that just is a tube that you send to the commercial labs, like Scott does as well. So, what we did is we made -- we moved that testing process and put it into our urgent care facilities, we put it into our preadmission testing processes for our inpatient visits. Our Creekside Ambulatory Endoscopy Center does it in their own facility. Our Labor and Delivery does it in their triage. Our Bonita June 30, 2020 Page 17 freestanding OR and ER does it in their facilities. The Northeast freestanding facility does it in there. So now that we have more knowledge than we had four months ago or five months ago, it was -- we're moving that into the everyday process, because good, bad, or indifferent, COVID is with us. Flu season is coming, and the antigen test that Scott was talking about is what we do with flu swabs for years. So, going forward, that will be -- and with that CARES money that Mr. McDaniel talked about, we have a lot of our pediatricians in the community, and we're trying to help them get supplies. So that might be something that our pediatricians -- and many community physicians I've talked to need help with that. It's challenging to get those supplies unless you're on a bulk buy. So, I hear that every day as we're moving those testings into physician practices and to the hospitals, et cetera. I hope that answered your question. It was kind of a long answer. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: And one final request from all of our healthcare providers, all three of you are all right there in a row with me, let us know what we can do to help along the way from an asset standpoint, people, PPEs, testing, all of these sort of things. Those are things that I think are going to hugely benefit our community as we're going forward. So, thank you for letting us know. JOHN KLING: Anything you-all could do to help us acquire test kits from the in-house rapid test would be much, much appreciated. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: That bell has already been rung. Thank you, sir. JOHN KLING: Thank you. June 30, 2020 Page 18 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. Mr. Ochs, do we have anything else in terms of your presentation? MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Not on the -- not on the health department statistics. We wanted to talk to the board about the 4th of July weekend operating hours for your beaches. Excuse me. I'd like to -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah. We're going to need to get into some of those specifics, just in terms of the general presentation. MR. OCHS: No. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. We do have -- I'm sorry. Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I do have just a quick question. I don't know if it is Mr. Drew or -- if somebody could just give the public a brief summary of how one can go get tested. I mean, that's -- you know, just a simple, what does somebody have to do? Because most of the e-mails I'm getting related to the testing are questions, you know, how can I get tested. So is there just -- can somebody just give us a brief summary of what one needs to do just to get a test? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Is that Mr. Drew? MR. OCHS: Ms. Marr. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Ms. Marr. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm sorry. Okay. Please state your name for the record, please. KATHLEEN MARR: Good morning. Kathleen Marr, Department of Health. So, we continue to do symptomatic testing based on our Department of Health statewide criteria Monday through Friday in both our Naples campus and Immokalee. For asymptomatic testing, you don't need a doctor's prescription, you don't need to have symptoms. We are offering six days a week in June 30, 2020 Page 19 Immokalee currently. We're looking to expand in the Golden Gate area and also in East Naples. There's no fee involved. We're not requesting any ID. Also, the Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida locally tests based on criteria as well, and they've done two recent drive-thru testings over some Saturdays. They did 400 people last Saturday as well. There are some private physicians that are offering testing locally. I don't have that list in front of me, but we certainly could provide that. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And is all of this on the website somewhere that somebody can find? KATHLEEN MARR: Yes. We're in the process of updating that. Most of the facilities will have that information on their website. For instance, NCH at one time had their drive-thru testing there. And I'm not sure if the hospitals both have their offsites, their urgent care sites posted as well. But we have our public information officer working on that, because that has been a request. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. So that will be up on the Department of Health website? KATHLEEN MARR: Yes. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Which is? KATHLEEN MARR: At flhealth.gov or you can just type in Department of Health Collier, DOH Collier, and it will come up. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: And I just would like -- and I want to just brief repeat that's so important for the general public to be able, because we're seeing an increase in the cases. The exposures are coming along, and people need to know where they can go have a ready easy place to go get that information, so thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. You've named all of the June 30, 2020 Page 20 places, but, you know, I don't think people know where they are. Is there a way to find out where those places are? KATHLEEN MARR: Well, we'll include the address as well, and our PIO did do a special release this week, because we've extended some hours on Tuesday and Thursdays as well. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm sorry. Say that one more time. KATHLEEN MARR: The address -- we posted the address of the sites, the actual health department site in Immokalee, so that has been posted. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, but -- so I'm here. I'm not in Immokalee. How do I find out where to go to test? KATHLEEN MARR: Okay. So, what I was just mentioning, we're going to try to update that on our website. So, we'll post as much as we can information that we're aware of. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So, where is it -- what is your website? KATHLEEN MARR: Flhealth.gov. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Fl -- KATHLEEN MARR: -- health.gov. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Ochs, this is a question and perhaps a comment. I assume that we on our web page would refer people for testing if they want information, that they go to the Department of Health web page. If we don't have that on our web page, I think it would be important to direct people to that information. MR. OCHS: Certainly. We are. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: My compliments to you and what you're doing with your testing. I have an acquaintance -- a young acquaintance who actually drove to Immokalee on Sunday. June 30, 2020 Page 21 There was no ability to get out of the shade. The person indicated how caring, how attentive your staff was with the people who social distanced in the line. It took about an hour from the time they got out of the car to get in there. Water was refilled regularly. The nurse came out, made sure everyone was fine. It was efficient. It was caring. It was professional. So, for those who are worried about going into Immokalee, I can assure you that the experience will be well worth the drive. It was well done. KATHLEEN MARR: Well, thank you. I'll share that with the very hard-working staff that -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well done. KATHLEEN MARR: -- are currently working six days a week doing that. So, thank you very much, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. All right. We have a number of people that are registered to speak both in the room as well as online. We have, I think, basically two issues that we're talking about. One is the beaches, and the other is whether or not we're going to do anything in ter ms of mask wearing. And do you want to hear the public comment before we get into any discussion on those items, or do you want to discuss those items first? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me ask a question. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: With the public, do we separate that, then, into the public that want to speak to beaches, and we concentrate on one subject and then move to another? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Well, I think that for efficiency, we would just advise the public they have three minutes and to tell us their thoughts on those topics. All right. So is there -- Commissioner McDaniel. June 30, 2020 Page 22 COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: I did -- as a point of interest, I -- the meeting was advertised to talk, in my mind, about our beaches, not about masks. And if we're going to have a discussion about masks today, we can certainly do that. But I have an issue with taking a vote on something with such short notice and not have -- you expressed in our last meeting a concern. I think Commissioner Solis wanted to bring an item forward, and you expressed a concern about people lining up to come and talk with us. So, I have a little bit of an issue if we're going to try to do something today without -- I don't have any issue on the 14th, which is an advertised public meeting. But today, I think we should take care of the beaches, and if we're going to have a discussion about masks, mandates or not, then we do that on a publicly advertised meeting, not a special called meeting. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We do have the ability to have a discussion on any issues dealing with our policy dealing with COVID-19. So, it's -- from a legal standpoint, we're okay. It's a question of whether the board wants to discuss those two items. If we want to limit it to one item, that's fine. If we want to open it up for discussion, that's fine as well. But I'm trying to get the consensus of the board. Commissioner Solis, do you -- what's your thought? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was under the impression we were going to be speaking about both of those issues, and, I mean, it's an emergency meeting. We're here. We should at least discuss both of them. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. I didn't realize we were going into masks. I thought we were just going to be talking about beaches. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So, you do not want to discuss June 30, 2020 Page 23 masks at this meeting? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Not right now. But if everybody else does, that's fine. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, I was under the impression it was the beaches when I talked to the county manager on Saturday morning. It wasn't until I read the agenda yesterday that I realized that it had been a wide -- a much broader topic. So, I -- in terms of legality, we certainly have addressed it legally. I think we need to address it, because, frankly, I have enough e-mails pro and con that I think the public is expecting us to address it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. And I would agree with discussing both items. So, let's go ahead and proceed. Now, the question is do we hear the public comment or -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I think it's important that we hear from our county attorney, if the Chair agrees. He did some extensive research on different ordinances that are written throughout the state that have been quoted numerous times in the e-mails that I'm getting. And I think for maybe a Reader's Digest version of what he found, I think it's very important for the public to hear this. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Mr. Klatzkow. MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. The state is really all over the place on this. It varies from various local governments simply recommending the use of masks to local governments mandating the use of masks. And then is there anything else in between? There's no real general consensus of an approach that I saw throughout the state. Many of these have exceptions to this. There are certain enforcement issues with respect to this. You have an ADA issue where if you have a breathing issue, you don't need to wear a mask, but you really can't inquire as to a person as to what their real issue is. So, there's a general June 30, 2020 Page 24 enforcement issue on masks. But there has been a number of jurisdictions that have enacted emergency mask ordinances or orders. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have two counties where lawsuits have been filed to prohibit the implementation of a mandatory mask wearing order, Leon County and Orange County. Have you seen those lawsuits, and do you have comment on t he validity or -- MR. KLATZKOW: There are numerous issues that are going to get raised, including the procedure that's been utilized. The general rule is that you need to advertise an ordinance for 10 days, then you need majority support for that. An emergency ordinance, you can generally do, but it requires four votes. Many of these jurisdictions are simply not following that procedure saying that this is an unusual circumstance or an emergency. So, there's going to be numerous lawsuits on numerous issues on this one. The governor has not authorized the use of a mask, so you've got that as an issue. Whether or not a local jurisdiction has the power to do this is going to be another issue. This is all new. We haven't had a pandemic like this in recent history. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Should we go to the public comment? What's the pleasure of the board? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: May I -- may I -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Sure. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: -- ask one more thing? I would like to hear from our sheriff's office regarding their opinion about masks. It's my understanding from the county attorney that the enforcement must be throughout the sheriff's department. It cannot be a code violation. I wondered if that would be the pleasure of the chairman. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Sure. Sure. Let's hear from the sheriff's office, if they're prepared to give us some information on June 30, 2020 Page 25 that. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Let the record reflect he didn't follow the arrows. JIM BLOOM: Sorry about that. Good morning, Commissioner. Good to see you, too. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, board members. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Good morning. JIM BLOOM: Specific to the requirement of use of masks -- MR. OCHS: Colonel Bloom, I'm sorry, for the court reporter, state your name, please. JIM BLOOM: Jim Bloom, Colonel with the Collier County Sheriff's Office. MR. OCHS: Thank you. JIM BLOOM: In reference to the use of masks and the enforcement, Mr. Chairman and distinguished board members, we don't believe that the community wants or truly expects the sheriff's office to be the enforcers of guidelines and guidance specific to COVID-19. We believe that our members and our resources are better utilized for other issues than that. In addition to that, we -- I have spoken with legal counsel about that, and we have some of the same concerns that your legal counsel has already brought to your attention in reference to the medical issues and those with under lying conditions that I've been advised, it is not in their best benefit to wear a mask, along with the overall constitutionality of it and the enforcement of it. So, if it is passed, we'll have to go back with our legal counsel and up and to the Florida Sheriff's Office Association legal counsel of the state, and make sure we even have the authority to do that. We -- I'll go ahead and say this, we've asked a lot of our members in the last four months, as you all know, between the onset of COVID, brush fires, protests, and our daily operations, quite frankly -- and we June 30, 2020 Page 26 live in one of the safest places in the country. And we have a formula that is very effective here. And to our ask our members to do one more thing in this impact along with -- you have to remember, if you're asking them to enforce it, that's going to put them in a lot more contact with individuals on a daily basis, and no different than everybody else in this room, we have to be smart about our contacts and how we're dealing with the community on a daily basis to where we as members -- because we only have so many law enforcement members countywide to be able to carry out the overall mission. So, I don't know if that answers your question or gives better clearance on it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It certainly answers any questions I had. Let me just ask the board, obviously, we're going to have a lot of speakers that are interested in requiring masks. We're going to have a lot of people that are interested in not requiring masks. Before we get into the public comment, let's just see if there's any potential interest in having a mask requirement, because if there isn't, we can express that, and if that's the case, then we don't need to have any further conversation about it. Or we can just open it up and hear the debate and then make a decision. So, Commissioner Solis, what would be your preference? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think there's a lot of -- there's a whole scale of options, I think. I mean, I think I would like to have that discussion. The numbers are alarming, and while the hospitals are fine now, I mean, if they continue to increase and speed up, you know, it's -- again, in my view, this is about doing the prudent thing. And, hopefully -- hopefully, we're wrong. And so, I would like to have a discussion. You know, there's things from -- I mean, we could require in our county public buildings that all people wear masks, and if they don't, they have to leave. I mean, you know, June 30, 2020 Page 27 there are things that we can do as the county to do o ur part to protect the public and our employees, so, I'd like to have that discussion. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Ms. Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I agree, as far as we can demand for our own government offices, as some of the stores do, you know, you can't come in unless have you a mask on. But I think that having the sheriff's office stand around and follow people around in case they have a mask or don't have a mask. And what are they going to do? Arrest them? Take them to jail or what? I just think that that would be the way to go, so, we can discuss it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. It seems like -- and I agree that having the discussion is important. But, Commissioner Taylor, do you agree with -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I think we need to discuss it for the public. It's clearly an issue of enforcement, and when you have the state of New York and when you have the governor of the state of New York talking -- urging people to put on masks because people are putting on masks and they're putting them on their chins or they're putting them on their foreheads and they have their masks on, and that is exactly what's happening in New York, you realize that at some point, it's personal responsibility. And I do not -- and I said it at the last meeting, and I will repeat it again, I do not want to burden our sheriff's department with this enforcement issue. That has to go according to our county attorney to the sheriff's department. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: That's a perfect segue into my thoughts, and I have said it regularly, I am not in favor of a mandate by government at all. I think it's not imprudent for us as a government to ask people to temperature test, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, County Manager, we're pretty much already doing that. MR. OCHS: You're doing temperature checks at the June 30, 2020 Page 28 courthouse. You'll be doing them for July 14th meeting. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: By the way, I got off the bad list. I was over at the permitting department on Progress, and they -- they -- they're holding people. They're limiting the amount. They're doing temperature checks. They're asking you to wear a mask and so on and so forth. So, I would rather, Mr. Chair, just one second, if we had a choice, I would rather spend more time, more money, and more energy on the educational aspects of the positive benefits and responsibilities of the community to wear a mask than I would some unenforceable government regulation. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Why don't we do this, then, and I agree that a mandate for everyone to wear a mask would create a real difficult problem for our law enforcement, would be unenforceable. So, why don't we limit the discussion, and we can advise our speakers, and I assume that they're listening to us, that there's not an appetite on the board to have a countywide mandate on wearing masks. I think that's pretty -- I think that's pretty clear. And let's perhaps limit the conversation from the public as to understanding we're not going to do that. Would that be acceptable? Because we don't have the votes to require a mandatory mask requirement. COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Solis, if you want to just -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Not even in our -- I mean, obviously -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm not talking about what we do in our own facilities, just in general not a mandate for the entire public to wear a mask wherever they're out in public. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: You know -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's go ahead and hear it. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think we should have a conversation about it. I think we need to hear from the residents, June 30, 2020 Page 29 you know. And I'll say it again, yes, enforceability -- yeah. Is it enforceable? You know, it's going to be very, very difficult if not impossible to enforce this. And if contracting the virus and ending up in the hospital and maybe dying from it isn't motivation enough, I don't know what's going to motivate people to wear masks in public. I'm just going to keep saying that until maybe it sinks in for somebody. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You just -- you just answered, I think, the Chair's question. So, why are we spending time discussing something that's unenforceable? Now, in terms of what we do in the county, that's a discussion. But in terms of the general public, if there's a consensus here that what we've heard it's unenforceable, then why are we -- why are we not talking about the beaches? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And I think from the e -mails that I've received and the conversations I've had, I mean, I think that there are -- there may be a segment of our residents that if there was an ordinance that required it, enforceable or not by the sheriff or by code enforcement, maybe it would encourage them to wear a mask. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I think -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And I think that that's -- anything we can do to encourage that to stop the spread of the virus is something that we ought to consider. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: If we -- it's my understanding that the ordinances -- because I read it pretty closely what our county attorney sent. Two -- only two counties of all the counties in the areas that have -- no. Let's just talk about counties that have these ordinances are mandated. The rest have -- I mean, a truck you could drive through it. There's exception to this and exception to this and exception to this and exception to this. So, to me, that's political posturing, and I do not want us to get into political posturing. But June 30, 2020 Page 30 we could pass a resolution that would encourage folks to do it if that would be satisfying but not to mandate it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: And, again, I -- I'm certainly not interested in not hearing from the public at all, but I can see that there isn't a consensus up here for us to be mandating the wearing of facemasks as a community by a local government. And so, though I respect Commissioner Solis's opinions and certainly his constituents who share with him, I'm sure, on a regular basis how they think, I'm not going to come off my position of enhancing education, promoting the benefits of wearing a mask and the obligations of such. If, in fact, you are symptomatic, that's an obligation, in my particular opinion, and it's an individual responsibility. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. And although the numbers might be small, there are people who can't wear masks because they're claustrophobic, and that is another problem. And to be demanding, and those people, what are they going to do? I just feel that if somebody feels very, very strongly about it and they're afraid of catching something, whether it be somebody who is -- who is -- who is somehow not able to have any resistance to this, then it's a good thing to stay closer to home and don't submit yourself to any of the things that could happen, you know. I know I would. I'm just as happy staying at home when -- when -- I can stay real busy over there. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Let's -- Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Just for matter of context, you know, I've said from the beginning that what I've heard from our business leaders is that the worst thing we can do is to have another shutdown. So, the way I look at this is, you know, are we doing June 30, 2020 Page 31 enough to avoid that, which is what I've heard is also of the greatest concern to the business community. Are we doing enough to avoid the numbers continuing to go up, to avoid something that would be financially even more catastrophic than it's been? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I think the general consensus is that we're not looking to have a mandatory mask wearing requirement enforceable by the sheriff's department countywide. I think it's important to listen to the public comment. I think there will be some both ways. I do not particularly want to vote on a mask requirement when we're missing a commissioner. Commissioner McDaniel will not be able to be here for a vote on that issue, but I don't think there's consensus to do that, even if you're not here. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Unless you want me to cancel my surgery -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: No. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: -- and wait another six months. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: No. No. You're not going to need to do that. I don't think there's a vote to do that anyway. So, let's go ahead and open it up to public comment. Let's go through that and let's see what folks have to say, recognizing that there's not any real consensus here to move forward with that type of an order. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Chairman, you have 25 registered speakers right now. Your first speaker is April Donahue, and I would remind the speakers you have three minutes. APRIL DONAHUE: Good morning, everyone. I'm April Donahue, executive director of Collier County Medical Society, and I believe that Dr. Rebekah Bernard, who is also registered to speak is still available, so, if she is, I would like to give my time to her June 30, 2020 Page 32 instead. Not to have additional time but to not speak and instead for her to speak. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your next speaker is Dan Brunell. Following Mr. Brunell will be Judith Price. DR. REBEKAH BERNARD: Commissioners, it's Dr. Rebekah Bern -- RICHARD PRICE: This is Richard Price. Judith is ill, thankfully not with COVID, so she asked me to share her remarks with you. Can you hear me? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, sir. RICHARD PRICE: Oh, okay. So, there's some information that's in the public record that I wish that the public health people had spoken, and I'm not even sure these are accurate. But according to the local and state websites, that all active cases, that is, people who have gotten tested positive all the way up through ICUs, that there are 120,000 in the state of Florida and 4,000 in Collier County. The second thing is some new information from the public health community that suggested people who get the COVID-19 and survive are starting to show up with some serious cardiovascular aftereffects that they live with. And the third thing is more rumor than I understand that because the East Coast is -- shut the beaches, Naples is being flooded with reservations for people to come for the 4th of July weekend. So, I don't -- LaPlaya and Marco Marriott was specifically mentioned. I don't know to the accuracy of these numbers, but your comments would be helpful. Now since day one, the experts have unanimously agreed on four things: Testing, contact tracing, masks, and social distancing. And I understand and it is tragic, that the issue of masks and social June 30, 2020 Page 33 distancing is -- has become a political issue. Now, I would ask you, and I understand the pressures that you are under from a political perspective, to think about the public health as the number one priority and find a way to address the serious concerns about not making this some sort of a criminal thing but as making a strong stand by the officials -- public officials in Collier County against -- or for masks and social distancing, strongly encouraging, without fines, without throwing people into jail, but for making a strong positive statement that perhaps the police could simply remind people -- remind people without being coercive, there must be a way to save -- to address the health of the local community. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, Mr. Price. RICHARD PRICE: Thank you for the opportunity to speak. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Chairman, your next speaker is Dr. Bernard. DR. REBEKAH BERNARD: Thank you so much. Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Dr. Rebekah Bernard of the Collier County Medical Society. I'm speaking on behalf of the board of directors of the medical society. We ask you today to consider enacting mask and facial covering requirements for indoor public spaces and to enact strategic beach restrictions similar to your actions for the Memorial Day weekend to help protect our community and prevent further spread of COVID-19. There's no doubt the cases of COVID-19 are on the rise in Collier County, and our positivity rate remains high. The increasing numbers of younger people infected are a concern to us, when they can easily unknowingly transmit the virus to those who are vulnerable. Stronger measures are needed until we can see consistent reduction in that positivity rate for an extended amount of time. We stand with our colleagues at the Florida Medical June 30, 2020 Page 34 Association, who also recommend that local officials adopt regulations regarding the use of masks and face coverings. Early recommendations by the CDC advised against the use of masks by the public due to a shortage of masks for healthcare workers. However, there is now evidence that the use of nonmedical grade face coverings by the public can reduce the risk of people who have COVID-19 but don't know it yet from transmitting the virus to others. The science is clear, infected individuals, even if not showing symptoms, can release infectious aerosol particles while breathing and speaking. While nonmedical grade face coverings are not a hundred percent effective in reducing the spread of viral particles, they can significantly reduce the load of virus that we transmit to others. It seems that with this particular coronavirus, the more viral load a person is exposed to the more serious their illness. Wearing a cloth mask decreases the chance of droplet exposure and limits the distance that escaping virus can travel. Wearing masks can feel uncomfortable, but they do not cause serious health hazards in the vast majority of people. Additionally, our beaches are a significant tourist draw. And with the upcoming holiday weekend, it is likely we would see a much-increased crowd level that would make it very difficult to enforce proper physical distancing. We encourage you to consider the beach closures on the east -- as they've done on the East Coast of Florida, while allowing time for those in our community to take advantage of this natural resource. CCMS stands ready to serve residents and visitors in Southwest Florida. We are here to answer your questions and provide support as we continue the best ways to fight this pandemic. We urge the public to maintain physical distancing, limit interactions outside your homes, and to wear a face covering when in enclosed spaces or within six feet of other people. It is not a great sacrifice to protect June 30, 2020 Page 35 your health and the health of everyone around you, especially when we are dealing with a deadly, highly contagious virus that is new to us. Thank you, Commissioners, and all our neighbors, for your support of healthcare workers and first responders. We are confident that we can do better together as a united community to protect us all. Thank you for your time and consideration. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: The next speaker is Karen Finn. KAREN FINN: Thank you. Good morning. I'd like to take this opportunity to address the commission. As a full-time resident of Naples, I would like to urge the board to move to close our beaches here in Collier County over the 4th of July weekend. As most of our festivities have been canceled or limited in scope and have been demonstrated over the last few weekends our beaches have been pretty much inundated with residents and visitors. Due to the increase in COVID cases here in Collier County in the last several days, not closing our beaches when the beaches in Miami and Fort Lauderdale are being closed over this upcoming holiday weekend would not be prudent management to our full-time residents, which could have a disastrous impact on our hospital systems, hospital personnel, and our beach patrol officers. Even though we've heard from the hospital people that we are in a good position right now, opening our beaches and having a huge spike in COVID could really put a detriment to our community and our residents. Although most of us would all like to participate in 4th of July festivities and basically have our lives back, not making this decision would be totally irresponsible governing. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your next speaker is Karyn Conrath. KARYN CONRATH: Hello. Thank you for your time. Can June 30, 2020 Page 36 you hear me? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes. KARYN CONRATH: Okay. Thank you. I ask you to mandate regulations for mask wearing specifically inside any public place. According to the latest reports, 126,000 people have died of COVID. That's 25 percent of the world population. And I know that this is a Republican commission and a highly Republican constituency in Naples, Collier County. But a small piece of cloth which could prevent COVID germs from transferring to another person, is that really a partisan issue? Some say it's about economics versus science, but I would like to ask an existential question, and that is, when will we say enough is enough? As we have heard through the medical professionals, 20 to 40 percent of COVID carriers are asymptomatic. The result being any one of these carriers come into contact with a high risk of contracting the coronavirus. Commissioners, scientific evidence and current models show that the window for us to take action in an attempt to get the virus under control is rapidly closing. To that end, the mayors of Saint Pete and Tampa, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, as well as the city of Orlando have all mandated masks. And as of yesterday, the Republican mayor of Jacksonville has mandated masks. He is known to be a bipartisan decision maker as well as an open person. Most have defined it by precisely stating masks must be worn inside. And I ask that you do the same. Mayor Demings said, any person living, visiting, or doing business in Orange County must wear a mask. This is an ethical question. Are we putting people in danger to permitting them to do whatever they'd like? I personally have been mask shamed as well as many of my other friends. We have endured various types of sarcasm and even angry replies from store owners. I ask you to do the right thing. However, simply June 30, 2020 Page 37 asking people to wear a mask, is that the right thing? I ask you to -- local officials to shepherd your constituents by your words and your actions, wear masks in public yourself. Thank you, Commissioner Solis, for your leadership in this particular arena, and we all appreciate the fact that you're all listening to us and considering closing the beach and looking at ways to wear masks. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, Ms. Conrath. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your next speaker is Albert Aiello. ALBERT AIELLO: Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak on the subject. I'm an asthmatic, and when I put on my mask for any prolonged period of time, it causes me major problems. And I appreciate the -- Officer Bloom -- his perspective on it, because I'm not sure whether the -- whether the cure would be worse than the problem here if I had to wear it for a prolonged period of time. I do adhere to it under certain circumstances, if I'm in a food store that requires it or so on and so forth. I think there's another problem here that -- and I'm not going off tangentially, but in my observation, the enforcement of -- the lack of enforcement of a -- of some governors' orders has led to the 35 and under constituency spiking the pandemic crisis. And I have personally observed and went to bars that -- where people -- in fact, Friday night the latest, and I took pictures, where people are standing shoulder to shoulder, drinking at the bars, so on and so forth. And I called -- I called the police, and I was told that they really didn't enforce it, and he would talk to his lieutenant. This was after the latest governor's order shutting down bars. So, it's no wonder we have a spike with the under 35, if the -- if they can congregate at bars, they were congregating in droves at 10:00 or 11:00 at night, hang out together, and there's only about six or seven places in all of Collier, Naples, County where this occurs. June 30, 2020 Page 38 And I think there's a real disconnect between the governor's orders and the enforcement of them that has led to this pandemic spike. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, Mr. Aiello. ALBERT AIELLO: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Very good. Your next speaker is Barbara Bisig. BARBARA BISIG: Hello. Can you hear me? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, ma'am. BARBARA BISIG: Okay. Thank you for letting me speak. We are living in an unprecedented public health crisis here, and the cases are going up as you know every week by double digits. And we have an opportunity to do the right thing for every citizen. Wearing a face mask is not fun, but how many times in your life do you get a win-win situation to protect yourself and to protect someone else? We can lower our numbers by listening to the medical experts. A medical situation demands the advice of medical experts. Please just have -- please do the right thing. You really need to do the right thing for every citizen. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your next speaker is Dr. Joseph Doyle. DR. JOSEPH DOYLE: Good morning, Commissioners. This is Dr. Joseph Doyle, board certified in public health and preventative medicine. As you know, I've been in contact with you before the pandemic actually hit Florida. I was in contact with you in January and February, and I've been watching this. As you know, we at great expense in this country, locked everything down from mid-March all through April, so that we could flatten the curve to give the hospitals a chance to have their capacity and to produce more PPE and ventilators. We have done that. Both the June 30, 2020 Page 39 hospitals have commented today that they do have the capacity. Dr. Antonucci from Lee County was on the television last night saying that he's at mid-70 percent capacity. So, we have the hospital capacity. We never said that the cases would go down. We flattened the curve to move the cases into June, July, and August, and that's what you're seeing. In fact, at some point, we're going to want to see a 20, 30 eventually a 50 or 60 percent positivity rate so that we can develop herd immunity. Because we may never have a vaccine, at least we're not going to have one for another year. We want to develop that herd immunity in the younger people. Those people over the age of 60, those people with underlying conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, you have the list, need to practice staying closer at home. The herd immunity will be developed in the younger population. Because as we know, they tend to develop a mild form of the disease and don't usually end up in the hospital or on ventilators. And that's what we need to do. But we need to do it in a controlled manner. So, we can't let the media get us all hyped up and worried about this right now. That being said, having been in the supermarket and the post office in the last two days, I will say that a lot of our fellow Neapolitans are not considerate of their neighbors. People don't necessarily stay six feet away; they don't wear their masks in public. Now, you know, as we just said, you can't necessarily require it. Maybe you can require it in a government facility. There are some merchants, however, who do want to require it. No shoes, no shirt, no mask, no service. They unfortunately have some belligerent patrons who don't want to follow that rule. That's where they may need to have law enforcement, because they have to call the sheriff and throw that patron out. That's kind of like an opposite situation of what we're talking here. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Dr. Doyle, we'll need you to wrap June 30, 2020 Page 40 up. DR. JOSEPH DOYLE: Right. So, that's masks. As far as beaches go, unfortunately, we're looking at the same situation we had Memorial Day and the virus coming over from the other coast and infecting our residents. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, Dr. Doyle. DR. JOSEPH DOYLE: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Chairman, your next speaker is Kevin Palacios. KEVIN PALACIOS: Hello. Can you hear me? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, sir. KEVIN PALACIOS: I'm sorry. My name is Kevin Palacios. I'm the owner of Beatty (phonetic) Tours. We are a tour company. Since you opened the restriction for the beaches, many customers made a reservation for a -- for a house, for a residential vacation rentals. And I do -- and we agree that if you close on the 4th of July or something like that, but we don't agree if you close the entire week for that people. And many people have reservation because they want to go on vacation. They reserved the whole house, so, they want to do that. That's my point. And that is -- and many people from now is calling the company because they want -- they actually called today and yesterday and of this beach. So, in my opinion, you must close maybe the 4th of July, but not the entire week. At the same time, I spoke to someone else and told me that maybe you do it just for residents. That's not fair. Because those people reserved a house and they're not residents, but they are there. So, I need you to consider that, too. And that's our point. Thank you so much. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, sir. June 30, 2020 Page 41 MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your next speaker is Roger Hernstadt. Move on to James McManemon. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Next speaker? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Go on to Sharri Singer. SHARRI SINGER: Hello. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Hello, Sharri. SHARRI SINGER: My name -- hello. My name is Sharri Singer, and I'm calling from Northern Kentucky, close to Cincinnati, Ohio. The reason I'm calling is because my family was to leave for a vacation this morning to come to Naples. And I'm very curious about what's going to happen with the beaches and the restaurants and such like that. I can't imagine driving down 14 hours to come down and have everything be closed. So, I'm listening for that reason before we take off. Thank you for letting me join, and that's it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We should have an answer for you in a couple of hours. SHARRI SINGER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, no. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your next speaker is William Norgard. WILLIAM NORGARD: Yes. Good morning. My situation or what I wanted to talk about is some of the things going on for the 4th of July weekend. Currently, Florida's RT rates, which is the number of people who get sick, get other people sick that already had COVID is currently at 1.4, which is the second highest in the country. Bringing more people together for events, the 4th of July and beyond, especially for those that are coming out of the county, is incredibly dangerous, and I'm hoping that the commission will consider some of the upcoming actions. June 30, 2020 Page 42 Most specifically, we have a welcome to the community paradise coast facility, which is the new sports complex. I know there's a major celebration planned on the 4th of July. I'd like the commission to consider that along with closing the beaches. And further into the future, I think more concerning is that you seem to be moving ahead with the FBU Top Gun Showcase, which is supposed to occur from July 10th to the 12th. This could bring hundreds if not thousands of high school kids to our community. They're mostly going to be from the Southeastern United States, I would assume. But notably many of those kids will be coming from Broward and Dade County, where the infection rate of COVID-19 is significantly higher, and this poses a catastrophic risk to our community, if not outright negligence. I'd just like the commission to consider those actions as it also considers closing the beaches and wearing masks and what's right for our community going forward. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your next speaker is Cyndy Murrieta. Luisa Laurelli. Move on to KC Schulberg. Commissioner, I'm going to give Oscar a second to turn them on just in case we're moving too quick. We'll move on to Nancee Martin. Okay. And I will call some of the speakers that are in the audience until we can make sure we get some of these folks here. In the audience, we have Chadwin Taylor. Mr. Taylor, you have three minutes. CHADWIN TAYLOR: First, Board of Commissioners, thank you for your service during this unprecedented time, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. June 30, 2020 Page 43 As we approach Independence Day, I can't help but reflect on the Declaration of Independence, specifically our unalienable rights; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The fear surrounding the unknowns of COVID-19 perpetuated by the mainstream media poses a threat to our rights. The freedom of choice is crucial in a free society. We must be ever vigilant when we find it in jeopardy. The idea of closing beaches or mandating masks infringes on our liberty to choose how to live our life. We live in a day and age when groceries, clothes, technology, and medicine can be either delivered to our door or picked up in a drive-thru. People can virtually congregate for business or for leisure as well. Citizens who don't feel safe being in public have the freedom to stay at home and feel safe. Citizens who aren't afraid of getting COVID-19 should have the right to live their life without government intervention. How long does government hold the power to restrict our liberties? Is it a vaccine? Is it forcing everyone to wear masks? Is it enforcing more strict social distancing measures? What if COVID-19 continues to infect more people regardless of those measures? What point -- at what point does our government give we the people the right to choose our own fate? Instead of mandating measures that violate our liberties and further harm our economy, government should be focused on solutions that mitigate public risk and maintain liberty and also educational opportunities as well. I understand the concern that surrounding counties have closed their beaches. One solution would be to keep our beaches open only to Collier County residents for the 4th of July weekend. We can enforce this by way of public parking structures and shutting down all metered parking. A press release could be issued to the surrounding counties to inform nonresidents of the closure. Although it's not a perfect solution, it is one that mitigates the June 30, 2020 Page 44 further spread of COVID-19 and gives Collier County residents the right to choose how they pursue their health, their happiness, and their happiness (sic) over this Independence Day weekend. Thank you for your time today. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioner, I'm going to try to go back to the ones online. Your next speaker is Cyndy Murrieta. Luisa Laurelli. Okay. We'll take one from the audience and see if we can get that turned back on. In the audience we have Joe Gonzales. JOE GONZALES: Good morning and thank you very much for your time. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. So, what is the goal here for everyone and you as governing officials? Is the goal for you to guarantee people's health? Because there is no way to guarantee somebody's health. The goal of government is to protect and provide for the general welfare. That means providing the hospital beds, providing the equipment, making recommendations, having good information to educate people, and saying to the public, Hey, we might recomme nd this, but we're not going to force it or mandate it and violate our personal freedoms. The information that is out there and available is not trusted by the public -- by a lot of the public. We have had Dr. Fauci come out and publicly say right away that masks are not necessary, and he was doing that and he purposely lied and said that so that he could preserve masks for healthcare workers, which means he was willing to sacrifice the lives of the public if indeed masks are necessary. Now, so -- and then the data points keep moving. Everything gets tested differently. If you look at the data points, nothing can be trusted. So, some very important questions, compared to what? June 30, 2020 Page 45 What are we trying to guarantee here? And what are we trying to do? Are you trying to compare it to traffic deaths? Medical malpractice, which will certainly go up? Obesity? Influenza? Diabetes? What are you trying to accomplish through these mandates and orders that are going to be in effect for the next 20 to 40 years? I've been involved with projects that talk about biowarfare and bioterrorism that is going to be impacting our lives for the next 20 to 50 years. And here we are with all of these resources. This is an economic and psychological warfare. This is not a healthcare concern or emergency. This is not, you know, a hurricane 5 Cat coming down in 24 hours. We're going to have some troubles. So, you know, if you look at what is the cost of all of this, approximately $10 trillion is going to be spent by our federal government. If there's approximately 120,000 COVID deaths now, that's approximately $80 million per person that we spent for COVID deaths. So, I would urge you just to consider our personal freedoms and the costs and remember that for your personal guidance as elected officials, there is a group of people out there that is going to make sure that we elect people who do not violate our personal freedoms. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Okay. We'll try Luisa Laurelli again. We're giving them a chance to unmute themselves. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's go to the next speaker that we have in the audience. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Okay. In the audience we have Jerry Rutherford. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Mr. Chairman. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: If I might while Jerry is June 30, 2020 Page 46 coming forward, I was able to reschedule my surgery. So, I'm sure not all of you are going to be happy, but I'll be able to stay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you for that really good news. No. That's great, because it's obviously important. Thank you for doing that. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Jerry. JERRY RUTHERFORD: Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I'm 83 years old and in good health and still working. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) JERRY RUTHERFORD: And unless I'm forced to -- I can't hear that. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Hang on one second. We need to mute that. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Oscar, if you can -- Oscar, if you can mute the person on the phone. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. We'll try it again, Jerry. MR. CASALANGUIDA: All right, sir. We're sorry. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Start over again there. JERRY RUTHERFORD: Okay. Unless I'm forced to, I don't wear a mask, because I know the disadvantages as well as the advantages. I've done my research, and, logically, the more you test, the more you're going to get higher results. That's just good common sense. There are differences of opinion even among the so-called experts, the doctors, the CDC, the scientists, and so forth. So, if I'm sick, I stay home. Now I have a postnasal drip, so I'm always clearing my throat. It has nothing to do with anything else. I've had it my lifetime, my whole family has it. So, if I'm coughing or something like that, don't worry about it. When you wear a mask, the disadvantages are -- and June 30, 2020 Page 47 I know there are advantages -- but it decreases oxygen, and I've read where there have been car crashes, people are still wearing the mask in the car, which is crazy. It increases the CO2 which gives respiratory acidosis, which is a problem, and there are other additional problems with that. It increases the blood pressure. It suppresses the immune system. So, those with heart problems have increased susceptibility for life-threatening conclusions -- conditions. The CDC has been wrong numerous times through the past decades. I've been around a long time, and all communicable diseases were at one time quarantined, that is, until AIDS. That's the first communicable disease we have that has civil rights. The CDC decided not to quarantine it. That was a bad decision, and they still don't have a vaccine. We haven't stopped AIDS. And where is the quarantine? It's still going on, and more -- thousands every year. Where are the so-called distancing at the riots and the gay parades and the protests and things like that? There is no distancing there. I think common sense is where we should be on this. If I think I've got -- like I said, if I've got something, I'm going to stay home. I don't want to infect somebody else. But we've always had flus. I've gone through -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Jerry, we need you to wrap up. Your time is up. JERRY RUTHERFORD: Okay. All right. One moment. The thing is, I've always had these childhood diseases. If you don't get around people that have these things, you're never going to catch anything. You'll just be dead. That's it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. JERRY RUTHERFORD: Sorry. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Chairman, you have roughly four more. And I would remind the folks watching from home to unmute June 30, 2020 Page 48 your mic. Your next speaker is John Jenkins. JOHN JENKINS: Yes. Can you hear me? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes. JOHN JENKINS: Okay. My name is John Jenkins. I'm running for Collier County commissioner for District 1. If you don't like wearing a mask, you're going to hate wearing a ventilator, number one. Yes, the cases in Florida are going up. They're going up at a rapid rate like we have not seen before. The death rates are going down. That's because the people that are susceptible and the people that know what is going on are trying to stay isolated and staying home. So, we have responsible people that are staying home, and that is the reason why we're seeing our death rates going down. But we have irresponsible people that are going out, and that's why we see our cases going up. Unfortunately, those cases going up are going to affect the people that are staying home. When the cases that are going up are interacting with the cases -- the deaths going down, we're going to eventually see those deaths going up. We must be doing more testing. That's the problem. If we don't know who has it, then we can't do the contact tracing. We can't do the isolation necessary. We're flying blind, folks. We have to do more testing. And that's -- and it's not testing to get our numbers up. It's testing to know what we're dealing with. In war -- there's two number one rules in war. Number one, know your enemy. And number two, have the equipment to fight your enemy. We don't have either. We don't know our enemy, because we're not out doing the testing, and, number two, we don't have the equipment to fight the enemy. Mr. Solis, you are the one sole voice of reason on this council right now, and I want to commend you for your thoughtfulness and June 30, 2020 Page 49 giving the voice of the people. I was really worried at the beginning of this thing that we were going to shut this down to the voice of the people, and I want to commend you for standing up for the people. The way that you -- it's not the job of the police to enforce. This is -- the police are to enforce the laws and police action. This is not police action. If you have a Collier County license to operate a business, your employees should be required to wear a mask. If your employees do not wear a mask, that's County Code Enforcement, and your business gets shut down until you comply with the County Code Enforcement. That's County Code. Okay. If we need to hire more code enforcement officers, we need to hire more code enforcement officers. That's the County Code, and that is what the County Commissioners is responsible for is to hire county code enforcement -- to hire county employees to enforce the County Code. And that's what the County Code should be is if you have a county license, you are responsible for your employees to protect the people of the county that frequent your establishment. Doctors Without Borders is in Immokalee, folks. Doctors Without Borders goes to places in the world where they have a problem that cannot be solved by local government agencies. We have Doctors Without Borders in Immokalee. We have a serious, serious problem in Collier County. As far as beach restrictions go, they should be placed in effect like they were for Memorial Day by noon today, and that's not an unreasonable -- (Simultaneous crosstalk.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Jenkins, I appreciate your comments. Your time is up. JOHN JENKINS: Thank you very much. That's just being responsible to the community, being responsible to humanity, and responsible to the citizens of Collier County. Thank you. June 30, 2020 Page 50 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, Mr. Jenkins. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your next speaker is Jessica Morales. Move on to Paul Myrin. PAUL MYRIN: Hello. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, is this Paul? PAUL MYRIN: Hello. This is Paul Myrin. Can you hear me? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, sir. PAUL MYRIN: I believe the speaker before me was able to unmute themselves, so, if that speaker is still there and would like their time back, I would like to go in the order that we are assigned. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Let's see if Jessica is available. If not, we'll -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Jessica, are you available? JESSICA MORALES: Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's hard to hear you. You're probably not speaking close to your mic. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Let's move on to Paul. Paul, we're not able to hear Jessica. If we can get that fixed, we'll work on it, but, Paul, you're up. PAUL MYRIN: So, one question I've been thinking about a lot and hopefully you-all can have an answer for me. How is wearing a facemask different from wearing a seat belt? It's a restrictive piece of cloth. I don't know about you, but there are times that my seat belt has prevented me from even turning around and looking at what's in the back seat. It's for my safety. It's for the safety of people in my car. If I get in a car crash and I'm not wearing my seat belt and I go flying around, other people will get hurt because I did not wear my seat belt. You know, we didn't come in kicking and screaming for seat June 30, 2020 Page 51 belt laws. It wasn't until, excuse me, until 1986 that Florida implemented its first seat belt law. No one was excited about that. In fact, it took Reagan's massive, massive federal incentives in order to get Florida to pass these laws. We still offer enforcements through penalties. And as of 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, only 90 percent of Florida residents still wear their seat belts. But I don't think anyone in the room today is willing to say that not wearing a seat belt is my personal choice. We would all say, Not wearing a seat belt is your personal irresponsibility. You have a duty to protect the essential workers, the people that are forced -- I shouldn't say forced, but the people that are required to be at Publix, required to be at Walmart, required to be at Target. By not implementing a facemask ordinance for going into places of business, you are putting those people's lives -- you are putting our essential workers' lives at risk because you are failing to do this. Thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: We will try Jessica once again. She says she's corrected the issue. Jessica Morales. JESSICA MORALES: Hi. Can you hear me now? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, we can. JESSICA MORALES: Good morning. My name is Jessica Morales. I am 23 years old. My interest in speaking is in the interest of voicing my concerns of those my age, my community in Bayshore, and those like me, young, Democratic women of color. So, first of all, I would just like to note that I'm a Naples' native, part of the Naples High School class of 2015 and a recent graduate of the Middlebury College, class of 2020. So, I just saw an article this morning that according to the Orlando Sentinel, Governor Ron DeSantis recently slashed one June 30, 2020 Page 52 billion dollars from the state budget amid the coronavirus outbreak. Firstly, what are the Commissioners' viewpoints on the governor's actions? What are you going to do to save programs for affordable housing, education, social services -- and social amid this pandemic? I personally have, for example, yet to see a single dollar of unemployment benefits. And this is after I lost my job on June 11th, 2020, and then soon right after, after the death of my uncle on June 12th, 2020, and he died because of COVID, and this was complicated by his diabetes. So, I would just like to make that part of the record. I would like to counter some of the viewpoints that were stated earlier from the public. First of all, not everyone who can -- who would like to stay home can afford to do so. I myself have been, you know -- I've been, you know, hesitant to go out and seek employment and actually work, even though I would very much like to because of coronavirus and the fact that my own mother, she has diabetes, and I'm very concerned for her safety and well-being. Yesterday morning, I went to the Florida -- the health department at the local Collier County -- I live within walking distance of the courthouse. And I went there yesterday morning asking for a free COVID test. And they told me I had to go to Immokalee, a hotspot. So, to me, that seems just very irresponsible that we do not have free testing at a local -- like it's within walking distance of me. I should be able to go and seek a free COVID test at the county government campus that's right there. And, again, this is a public health concern. We cannot let money be the priorities of this county over human lives. As we have seen, this is a rapidly evolving virus. The science seems inconsistent because the CDC and scientists are hard at work to save people's lives. And, again, we cannot let misogyny, homophobia, fear, racism, and bigotry lead us. I have not heard a single mention of June 30, 2020 Page 53 what you are all going to do for those families who have been personally impacted by COVID deaths, what you're going to do about unemployment. I just have a lot of concerns. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Jessica, I need you to wrap up. Your time is up. JESSICA MORALES: Okay. Yes. I'm almost done. I would just again like to reiterate that the county needs to step up. I appreciate the work and efforts that the Collier County Board of Commissioners has done thus far. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, Jessica. JESSICA MORALES: But as a young person -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, Jessica. JESSICA MORALES: Okay. Thank you very much. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Chairman, you have two more and two more pending, and they continue to register and unregister through the meeting. So, you probably need to decide if you want to continue to take a rolling speaker or you want to do a hard stop. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We're going to close the public hearing when we hear from those other speakers that you have. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Very good. We'll stop there then. The next speaker is Justin Morete. Okay. The next speaker after Justin would be Andrew Brown. ANDREW BROWN: Can you hear me? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes. Is this Andrew? ANDREW BROWN: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: You have three minutes, Andrew. ANDREW BROWN: Okay. Thank you. Good morning. I just wanted to -- for the older gentleman that spoke earlier about the masks, you know, the Tenth Amendment, people should read up on it. We have the ability to manage the public health in times of a June 30, 2020 Page 54 pandemic. It's been in effect for 200-plus years. I think people need to read up on the constitution when they're crying about masks. Also, hospital workers, they work 10-, 12-hour shifts wearing masks all day. How do they manage the lack of oxygen, I'm not sure. But I think the county needs to do the right thing. Thanks. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. Go pet your dog. ANDREW BROWN: I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Do we have any other speakers? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Two more, sir, that we'll try. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We'll try, and then we'll take a break. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Very good. Your next speaker is Norman Trebilcock. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Norman, are you there? He's probably stuck in traffic. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Is that our Norm? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Okay. Your next speaker is -- NORMAN TREBILCOCK: I'm here. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Norman, you there? NORMAN TREBILCOCK: Yes, I'm here. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Okay. You have three minutes, Norman. NORMAN TREBILCOCK: Okay. Real quick. Thank you. My name is Norman Trebilcock, and I am a professional engineer and land planner. I've been practicing in Collier County for more than 30 years. I grew up in Miami-Dade County. I'm not a medical professional, but I understand numbers and trends, compounding and exponential growth in particular are of great interest. I also understand regulations and know that thoughtful -- thoughtful ones enhance our health and safety. Coming to work this morning, I had to adhere to numerous stop June 30, 2020 Page 55 signs, signals, other informational signs, and markings that could have been interpreted as inhibiting my freedom. I realize that such rules, in fact, inhibit freedom statewide. As a 50-year resident of Florida, I also know that preparing for a hurricane when the eye is overhead is too late as such is the case when considering a mask order. In looking at the Miami-Dade order, the operative paragraph is as follows: Persons working in or visiting grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies, construction sites, public transit vehicles, vehicles for hire, and locations where social distancing measures are not possible shall wear facial coverings as defined by the CDC. In total, there are eight numbered paragraphs in the Miami -Dade order for a total of two pages. It is my opinion and belief that such an order is worthy of consideration for our community. I have uploaded the Miami-Dade adopted order and was my attempt to add a similar order for Collier County to consider. I'm thankful to you for hearing this input and appreciate all of you, your staff, and others that work in support of our community and what you do for us. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Chairman, one final speaker, Roger Hernstadt. FEMALE SPEAKER: Okay. Perfect. So, just so you know, the immigration people are -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Excuse me. For the record, would you state your name? MR. CASALANGUIDA: That would conclude that, sir, for now. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. So, we don't have any additional registered speakers, no one in the audience is going to speak on this topic? June 30, 2020 Page 56 Why don't we close the public hearing, if that's permissible from the board, and then we will have our debate. Is that acceptable? All right. We'll take an eight-minute recess. We'll come back at 10:50. I like even numbers. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Look how tired she is. She needs 10 minutes. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: She's not used to us. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. How about 10:52? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's better. (A brief recess was had from 10:41 a.m. to 10:52 a.m.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have three commissioners in the room, so, we'll go ahead and get started. We're back in session. We've completed the public comment section, and we really only have two decisions to discuss, as far as I can tell. There may be some additional ones that come up. The first -- perhaps we can just break these into two separate items. Let's deal with the beaches first. And the reason that this meeting was requested concerning the beaches is that we're basically at the same point we were in about a week before Memorial Day. And for Memorial Day we decided to close our beaches from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays and restrict beach parking -- our beach parking facilities to only people that had beach parking stickers. That was the Saturday and Sunday. We also closed the beaches on Memorial Day from 11:00 to 5:00, but that was a Monday, and we only did that because it was a holiday. So, now we're back where the positivity rates are significantly higher around the state and including in Collier. The beaches on the East Coast are now closed, as they were then, which prompted us to close our beaches. And so, the question becomes, do we want to do as we did back in May in light of the closure of all the beac hes on the June 30, 2020 Page 57 East Coast. I think Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties, I think, closed their beach. I know Dade and Broward have, and those are the two counties that are really relevant. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And Palm Beach. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Palm Beach closed as well. MR. OCHS: Palm Beach and Monroe, sir, are closed. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So, let's -- that's kind of my view is we go back to where we were at that time. But let's hear from the board and see where you want to go. Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think you said it perfectly well. I think we're in the same place, so, I would make a motion to adopt the same schedule that we adopted for the Memorial Day weekend and with the same restrictions, county beach parking facilities for residents only with beach parking stickers and the same schedule, which was, I think, closing at 11:00 and then reopening at 3:00. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let me ask you -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm going to second that, because -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let me ask you a quick question. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) COMMISSIONER SOLIS: 5:00. 5:00. I'm sorry. W hatever it was. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Just for clarification, when we closed the beaches on Memorial Day, that was a Monday. The 4th of July holiday is -- the official holiday is Friday. So, would we treat that -- in your motion, we are treating that the same as we did Memorial Day, the beaches would be closed 11:00 to 5:00 on that Friday as well? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That is the holiday. June 30, 2020 Page 58 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, no. It's a great thing. I'm going to second that. A lot of people that -- from the other coast complained bitterly, but, of course, that's -- you know, we're going to announce it early to them now, so they'll know, and maybe they won't -- they will realize that ours aren't conducive for them to even come across the state. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Before we vote on this, I'd like to bring something else to the board's consideration. The state of Florida in their wisdom, our representatives have just made fireworks legal. This is the first holiday that people can buy fireworks and use them. So, we have a situation, again, it's a law enforcement situation that they're going to have to deal with backyard fireworks. And, frankly, I know about backyard fireworks, because I live in Lake Park, and we have a family that has done it for years, and they do it safely, but I don't think everybody necessarily can do it safely. So, they have an extra burden to deal with. It's not a burden, just an extra task. So, I'd like to see if there would be any agreement among my colleagues, the days of closing on the East Coast, I'm to understand, is July 3rd to July 7th -- through July 7th, that we allow beachgoers to use the beach from sunrise until maybe 12:00 and close the beaches. No nighttime. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: What is the rule at this point? I know that all of the -- I think the beaches are typically open from sunrise to sunset. MR. OCHS: To dusk, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So, theoretically at least, the beaches are not really open at night anyway. MR. OCHS: Correct. June 30, 2020 Page 59 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Is that correct? Now, obviously, if somebody wants to go on the beach at 11:00 at night, no one is going to stop them, but I'm not sure how that would play into the suggestion from Commissioner Taylor, but let's hear from the rest of the board. Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Yes. I would propose we don't close our beaches at all. I would propose we do like we did before when we opened them and appropriate additional assets to manage the population that's coming. I think we did it very successfully before. I think we can do it again. I think we can actually even do it in concert with the City of Naples, and offer -- and when I say assets, it's people. I'm pointing at Colonel Bloom over there. He's still here. And I would rather we appropriate the necessary amount of people to provide for the management of our assets or of our community's beaches and not close at all. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and a second. Commissioner Taylor has, I think -- I think what would probably be an addendum or a change to that -- or that resolution. Is there any desire on the part of the maker of the motion or the second to amend the motion? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'd like to just ask a question, so I understand the logic. So, I mean, closing the beaches at night or in the late afternoon is -- that's related to the fireworks issue? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. Yes. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I mean, fireworks wouldn't be allowed at the beach, would it? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, of course not. But now that everyone can have fireworks, of course, t hey're going to have to enforce fireworks on the beach. And you don't let fireworks off on the beach usually in the middle of the day, but you certainly do June 30, 2020 Page 60 around dusk, because I've done enough July the 4th in the City of Naples to know usually around 5:00, 6:00 is when it starts, the lanterns, the booming of the smaller ones with a lot of people. So, my suggestion would be to -- only this July 4th, and it's only for four days, so that we just support our law enforcement -- and not that they've asked for it. I'm not suggesting that. But I think -- I think there's another dimension to these four days that we never had before given the action of our representatives in Tallahassee. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Maybe a question for the county attorney, does -- and I've only read this. I haven't seen the statute yet. But does -- would the new statute allow fireworks at the beach, or can we prevent that? MR. KLATZKOW: You can prevent that. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: We can? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah. Just like Marco Island has a prohibition on fireworks, period. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's right. That's what I -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: So, what is the new legislation? I read the headlines. I don't know the details of it. MR. KLATZKOW: It allows the shooting of fireworks for the 4th of July, January 1st, and the following day. So, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and July 4th you're allowed to fire fireworks, although people have been doing it forever anyway. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: It just makes it legal now? MR. KLATZKOW: It just makes it legal, rather than going after the birds. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. So, we have a motion seconded. Let's dispose -- I'm sorry. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just wanted to ask you, being that Marco Island is already prohibiting any fireworks at all, period, around anyplace in Marco, couldn't the city do that, too, as far as June 30, 2020 Page 61 their beaches go? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I know the city has done that in terms of the prohibition is against fireworks on the beaches, but I guess, you know, temptation is out there is where I was going with it. I mean, this is the first 4th of July that we haven't had fireworks, and my concern is the temptation to take those fireworks, however you want to take them, maybe in your coolers, causes an illegal action to occur on the beaches. That will cause law enforcement to be drawn to monitor that. And this is only -- this is the only concern that I have. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So, my second question is we've already said that the beaches will be closed at certain hours, and then they close at 9:00 or 8:00 or something like that. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Sundown. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Sundown. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So, if the beaches are already closed, then they wouldn't be setting off fireworks, would they? Because it will already be dark, and so, they're supposed to be off the beaches by then? MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, just again, not to belabor this but for clarity sake, when we say the beaches are closed at dusk, for county staff purposes, that means that we secure the beach parking facilities at dusk. We don't physically put barriers over the access points to the beaches at any time during the evening. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. We have a motion and a second. Let's go ahead and dispose of the motion, and then we'll see if there's any additional motions dealing with fireworks. All in -- MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, again, not to belabor this, but we have another weekend, Friday, Saturday, the 11th and 12th of July before you meet again on the 14th. I don't know if the board wants to give me any direction or guidance. June 30, 2020 Page 62 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I was going to bring that up once we deal with this issue. So, we have a motion, a second. Let's call for the question. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. That passes 3 to 2. Commission Taylor, you had a subsequent motion? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. Well, no, the issue will be now that we're allowing people to go to the beach, people are now bringing Habachis to cook on the beaches. So, are we restricting what they can carry on the beach? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: At this point, no. But we're in a position to entertain motions to whatever effect we want to entertain motions on. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Are there -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: I just wanted to address the fireworks thing. It's already prohibited on the beaches. It says it on the signs when you go down there as well. I just wanted to make that point. Legal or not, it's prohibited on the beach. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. In reference to the motion that just passed, I think everyone is clear on it, we need to give the manager some direction in terms of subsequent weekends. Because right now the beaches will be closed on Saturdays and Sundays from 11:00 to 5:00 under that motion. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: That was only for this June 30, 2020 Page 63 coming weekend. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: The motion was for -- wasn't just for this coming weekend, but it applied to this weekend because of the Friday holiday, is that correct, Mr. Solis? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That was my understanding of the motion. That as long as Dade County beaches were close d, we were going to react in that way. But Dade County beaches, Broward County beaches may be opening up on, I think you said, July 7th? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: 7th, 8th. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: July 8th. Why don't we give the manager the authority to rescind that order once the Dade County beaches are open. Is that -- does that make sense? The rationale being, there is no point in us keeping our beaches closed when the Dade County and Broward County beaches are open. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Unless our numbers get worse or there's some reason to reconsider it. I mean, I -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I like your idea. You know, as long as they open their beaches at the other end, there's no reason for us to keep ours closed. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let me -- Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: And just as an aside, again, if I'm not mistaken, Lee County is not closing their beaches. The individual cities and municipalities in Lee County have the right to, some are, some are not, but Lee County is -- the county is not closing its beaches, if I'm not mistaken. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That's correct. They have not taken any action at this point. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: You know, I'm on the short June 30, 2020 Page 64 side of the approved adoption of the resolution on the beaches, but I would certainly support reopening as quickly as possible. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm going to make a motion then that we authorize the manager once the beaches in Dade County are open to rescind our order of closing our beaches on the weekends. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll second that for discussion. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. For discussion, I was just going to say that I would support that if it was Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Perfect. That's what I was going to say, also. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. My concern are the Dade beaches -- I'll suggest amending my motion to the Dade and Broward beaches but not Palm Beach. That's a good three-hour drive from here. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. Fair enough. I would support that. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So, I'll amend my motion to reflect that once the Dade and Broward beaches are opened our order to close our beaches will cease, and the manager will take appropriate action to notify the public of that. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Second. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Agree. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Anyone want to speak on that? Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: I'm going to support your June 30, 2020 Page 65 motion, not because I like the idea of closing our beaches at all, but I want to remind all of us that we are penalizing our own people by these restrictions. The employees of Collier County who have to work during the week only have the opportunity to go to the beaches on the weekend. The people that live in Collier County that work for a living only have an opportunity to go to the beaches on the weekend. And these restrictions are prohibitive for the access of our residents that actually work. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, I was -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Just a quick response to that. I understand the concern of penalizing our citizens, but I think what we really are doing is giving our citizens the first opportunity to have the parking facilities available only to them. Otherwise, I think we would have parking facilities that would be overcrowded, and our citizens wouldn't be able to get to the beach. That's part of my rationale in making the motion and supporting it. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: I understand. Well, and there's -- the hours of limit -- the hours of operation are the limitation. The restriction on the parking facilities for Collier County residents only is a whole other subject matter, but they're both were -- I think, if I understood the motion, both were implemented, both the parking restriction sticker and the hours of operation? MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. So, we have a motion and a second. If there's no further discussion, all in favor signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Aye. June 30, 2020 Page 66 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? That passes unanimously. So, Mr. Ochs, if you'll keep an eye on that and notify us. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Make sure that we know what the status is. Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. Mr. Ochs, would you please give me -- give this commission an update on how many beach sticking -- sticker -- parking -- sticker parking -- well, you know what I'm trying to say -- have been given to our citizens since we started this? MR. OCHS: I'm going to ask Mr. Williams to come up and give you the latest information. I think you'll be surprised at how many we have issued just in the last -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: It's good news. It's great news. BARRY WILLIAMS: Commissioners, good morning, Barry Williams, Parks and Recreation director. Just your question about how many stickers have we reissued since this business with COVID began, we reopened the beach sticker locations where people can readily get them, we've issued over 6,000 stickers at this point, so it's a considerable number. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Say it again. How many? BARRY WILLIAMS: 6,000. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's great. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor, did you want to make any additional motions? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So, we've covered -- what about what people can take to the beach? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Right now, there are no restrictions. We didn't impose any restrictions last time. The City June 30, 2020 Page 67 of Naples did, but we did not. And I'm personally of a view that we should not impose any restrictions. If it becomes a problem, then I think we can deal with it, but that's just my personal view. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: The large coolers -- there's evidence that the large coolers that were taken to the beach before we put on restrictions, not after, contain alcohol in them. That's probably not a good recipe to have going forward, but it's the will of the commission. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: There's nothing that prohibits people taking alcohol to the beach. They're not supposed to take glass containers to the beach. Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was just going to ask since Mr. Williams is here, what regulations do we have as it is for what people can take to the beach? I don't know if I just asked a horribly worded question. Did that make sense? BARRY WILLIAMS: I believe so. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. BARRY WILLIAMS: Commissioner Solis, you asked what are restrictions currently on the beach? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Um-hum. BARRY WILLIAMS: So, you've talked about some of them, and Commissioner McDaniel described no fireworks, no open fires. You can't take grills on the beach. No alcohol, no glass conta iners. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Wait a minute. You just said no alcohol, no glass. Now, are you saying no alcohol even in a plastic container? BARRY WILLIAMS: Well, the ordinance actually specifies no alcohol, but we do know people may imbibe on the beach, and if they're discreet, we know that that's a condition that occurs, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. So, we're not enforcing June 30, 2020 Page 68 a no drinking ban on the beaches? BARRY WILLIAMS: That's correct. I don't know if that's helpful to you or if that's all the questions you had. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No, it is. Thank you. BARRY WILLIAMS: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Talk about having a riot. Okay. Any other -- any other additional motions in reference to the beaches? Then the next issue then is dealing with masks. I'll open that up for discussion. Any comments from the board? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Comments you mean about this meeting? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: About wearing a mask. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Just so that I'm clear, in terms of the county's policy, I mean, what is our official policy in terms of employees wearing masks, masks in our buildings, public buildings that we control, and other public facilities that we control? MR. OCHS: Commissioner, the guidance that I've given staff is that any member of the staff that is dealing with -- directly with customers should wear masks and certainly should encourage the patrons or the guests to wear masks as well. It's not a hard and fast rule at this point. But the -- as Commissioner McDaniel said, we've got fairly stringent protocols in place, particularly for employees that are dealing and having face-to-face interactions with customers. But back office personnel, if they can maintain the physical distancing guidelines, we have not required masks to be worn in those situations indoor at this time. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And we don't require the public to wear masks in any of our facilities either? June 30, 2020 Page 69 MR. OCHS: Some of them we do, yes. Utility billing, our permitting offices, we ask the customers to wear masks when they're interacting with the staff in those situations. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. I would just suggest that if we're -- if we are requiring that in some places, we should just require that. That's it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. During our discussion about masks, a couple of people -- somebody had called in mostly have said that they couldn't get any tests here. You have to go to Immokalee in order to get them. And I was questioning somebody from the health department and saying, why don't they give tests here? There are so many people here, also, that need it. Not that you take away from Immokalee, but we should have some here, and we also have farmworkers. Let's face it, 6L Farms is right down the street here. And, plus, we've got a lot of workers that are -- you know, are -- what do I want to say -- menial workers that -- but really need testing but probably wouldn't go. And I think the rule should hold true, too, it doesn't make a difference whether they're a citizen or not. Right now, we're just talking about healthcare and not spreading the thing. I was suggesting that maybe they open this public health unit right here to test for cases. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'd like to -- can I respond to that? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. Sure. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Can I respond to that? Because that's one of my questions with the CDC with our Christine Hollingsworth and Stephanie Vick. They are working on establishing two sites in the greater Naples area. One of them will be in Golden Gate City. One of them will be another place yet -- not yet identified. But because it's not just opening a door, it has to do June 30, 2020 Page 70 with working with all of the agencies; fire, police, the sheriff's department, fire, EMS. It's a community effort. It takes a little bit more organization than just being able to do it and also working with the state. But they are diligently working on establishing two sites within the greater Naples area. COMMISSIONER FIALA: They said most all of their supplies are just in Immokalee, and so they haven't really spread them around, so I don't know about the rest of that, but I think it's a very good idea. Because one of the questions that was asked was -- well, our own Andy Solis asked, how do people go get tests? And there's no place here to do them. No wonder people are confused. You can only do it in Immokalee. Not that you want to take that away. I'm suggesting that they add places. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I don't see any other lights lit, but I'm going to make a suggestion for discussion purposes, Commissioner Taylor had mentioned this early on, and we've had several speakers that have mentioned this, that the county should take a very strong position in terms of encouraging the wearing of m asks whenever social distancing and whenever -- certainly whenever indoors and interacting with employees and other people indoors. And so -- and I agree that we should strongly encourage that. My concern about any kind of a mandate -- first of all, we don't have the votes on the board to do a mandate to begin with, but even if we did, I have a concern with adopting ordinances that are unenforceable, because that sends a bit of a strange message as well, that we adopted ordinances, and we know we can't enforce them. All we're doing in that scenario is making a strong recommendation. I think we can just call it a strong recommendation, as well as requiring as much mask wearing as possible in all of our county facilities where mask wearing is needed to be done. So, we wouldn't require it in our county parks outdoors, but we would require it June 30, 2020 Page 71 perhaps in our county facilities indoors or interacting -- when people are interacting with our staff and each other. So, I'd like to see us craft a strongly worded resolution urging the public to wear masks whenever social distancing is not possible indoors, and that we also encourage or request that our staff take some more measures to require the wearing of masks in our public facilities indoors when people are interacting with our employees and with others in public spaces. So, I'm going to make that as a motion for resolution for discussion purposes. Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Yes. I -- you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to second your motion for discussion pending the review of the strongly worded resolution, as you've suggested. I am an advocate of education across the board. I think that we can take a leadership position and incentivize people the value of wearing a mask when, as I said earlier, when it's your -- in fact your obligation to do so, being symptomatic of anything necessarily. So, for today's discussion with regard to this, I think it's good for us to take a leadership position. I want to compliment you. Since the beginning of this process, you have regularly complimented folks on the benefits of wearing a mask. You remember early on, you said, It's cool to wear a mask. And I'm sitting down here going -- and those are positive -- those are positive avenues of education. It's -- I want us -- if you can, and you don't necessarily have to include it specifically in your motion, but I want us to have as large of an emphasis on properly wearing a mask. It's almost an incentivization, and I'm pointing at my friend back there who pulled his mask down and then started rubbing his nose, it's almost an incentivization to mess with your face, which is the largest path of communication for the virus is touching surfaces and then touching June 30, 2020 Page 72 your face. So, if we put as large of an emphasis on proper procedures for wearing a mask and how you do that, I'm really -- I think that's a fine way for us to go. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'll amend the motion to reflect that type of attachment language to a resolution dealing with the proper way to wear a mask. And that's all provided by the CDC. So, there's nothing that needs to be -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: It's not new. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And the CDC also has language concerning the wearing of a mask I think we can draw from. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All right. We'll call for the question. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? All right. That passed unanimously. Anything else in reference to COVID-19 for this morning? Okay. I don't see anybody's light lit up. Mr. Manager, do you have anything in addition before we adjourn? MR. OCHS: No, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. If there's no further question or comments, we are adjourned. ***** June 30, 2020 Page 73 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 11:22 a.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL _______________________________________ BURT SAUNDERS, CHAIRMAN ATTEST: ___________________________ CRYSTAL K. KINZEL, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on ________________, as presented __________ or as corrected __________. TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF FORT MYERS COURT REPORTING BY ANGELA L. KLEIN, RPR, FPR, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC.