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CCPC Minutes 07/19/2007 S July 19,2007 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION PLANNING MORATORIUM Naples, Florida, July 19,2007 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County Planning Commission, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 5:05 p.m., in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Mark P. Strain Tor Kolf1at Brad Schiffer Paul Midney Donna Reed Caron Lindy Adelstein Bob Murray Robert Vigliotti Russell Tuff ALSO PRESENT: Joseph Schmitt, CDES Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Director Jeff Klatzkow, Assistant County Attorney Page 1 AGENDA P.M Meeting COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION'\WmrJ'IWU;'lt4'~f'lMI., THURSDAY, JULY 19,2007, IN THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS MEETING ROOM, ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, COUNTY GOVERNMENT CENTER, 3301 TAMIAMI TRAIL EAST, NAPLES, FLORIDA: NOTE: INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO 5 MINUTES ON ANY ITEM. INDIVIDUALS SELECTED TO SPEAK ON BEHALF OF AN ORGANIZATION OR GROUP ARE ENCOURAGED AND MAY BE ALLOTTED 10 MINUTES TO SPEAK ON AN ITEM IF SO RECOGNIZED BY THE CHAIRMAN. PERSONS WISHING TO HAVE WRITTEN OR GRAPHIC MATERIALS INCLUDED IN THE CCPC AGENDA PACKETS MUST SUBMIT SAID MATERIAL A MINIMUM OF 10 DAYS PRIOR TO THE RESPECTIVE PUBLIC HEARING. IN ANY CASE, WRITTEN MATERIALS INTENDED TO BE CONSIDERED BY THE CCPC SHALL BE SUBMITTED TO THE APPROPRIATE COUNTY STAFF A MINIMUM OF SEVEN DAYS PRIOR TO THE PUBLIC HEARING. ALL MATERIAL USED IN PRESENTATIONS BEFORE THE CCPC WILL BECOME A PERMANENT PART OF THE RECORD AND WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR PRESENTATION TO THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS IF APPLICABLE. ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THE CCPC WILL NEED A RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS PERTAINING THERETO, AND THEREFORE MAY NEED TO ENSURE THAT A VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES THE TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED. 1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 2. ROLL CALL BY CLERK 3. ADDENDA TO THE AGENDA 4. PLANNING COMMISSION ABSENCES 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES - None Available 6. BCC REPORT- RECAPS - None Available 7. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 8. ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARINGS A. AN ORDINANCE OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA, PROVIDING FOR (1) THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A TEMPORARY PLANNING MORATORIUM; (2) THE DURATION OF THE TEMPORARY PLANNING MORATORIUM; (3) EXEMPTIONS TO THE TEMPORARY PLANNING MORATORIUM; (4) A VARIANCEIEXCEPTION PROCEDURE TO THE TEMPORARY PLANNING MORATORIUM; (5) CONFLICT AND SEVERABILITY; (6) INCLUSION IN THE CODE OF LAWS AND ORDINANCES; AND (7) AN EFFECTIVE DATE. (Coordinator: Jeff Klatzkow) 9. OLD BUSINESS 10. NEW BUSINESS II. PUBLIC COMMENT ITEM 12. DISCUSSION OF ADDENDA 13. ADJOURN 7/19107 P.M. cepe Agenda/RRlsp 1 July 19,2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the July 19th meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission. This is a special meeting, one item only, the moratorium discussion. Before we start the meeting, I'd like you all to please rise for the pledge of allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) Item #2 ROLL CALL BY CLERK CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. And will the secretary do roll call, please. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Kolf1at? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Ms. Caron is here. Mr. Strain? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Adelstein? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Present. COMMISSIONER CARON: And Mr. Tuff? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Here. Page 2 July 19, 2007 Item #3 ADDENDA TO THE AGENDA CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Addenda to the agenda. Unless Jeff says he wants to pull this item, we're still going to go forward, I assume. MR. KLATZKOW: In pull it, I'll be crucified. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Planning Commission absences; we addressed that this morning. There's no minutes, no BCC report. The chairman's report, I thought -- for those of you who do not frequent these meetings too often, I'll try to layout the procedure. And Jeff, if you see it differently, make sure you interject. The presentation will be made by Jeff Klatzkow. He's the county attorney who wrote -- was directed to write the ordinance. After that, I don't know if staffs going to have any comments or if staffs going to be here to respond to questions as a result of this board's discussion, but after the county attorney gets done with his presentation, there certainly will be questions regarding that from this panel. When those questions are exhausted, if there are no other staff comments, I'm assuming then, without objection, we'll go into the request for discussion from the public. If you've come in and you intend to speak, there's a little slip that you need to fill out. It's out in the hallway. You can give them to one of the gentlemen over here, my left, your right, that will be sure you're called to speak. I've got to ask that when you do speak, we're going to have to limit your time a bit. There are already -- how many, Joe? MR. SCHMITT: At least -- at least 23 or 24 right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So I've got to ask you to limit your time to about three minutes. It will be more effective if you're not redundant, and there's a lot of impact when you simply agree with the Page 3 July 19, 2007 prior speaker and you come up to tell us that. So we are not here to ignore anyone. Everyone in this room, if you all want to speak, and there looks to be about 60 or 70 people here, you just register, you'll be allowed to speak. I've just got to ask that you have respect for the time frames that we're under here. We have not set a deadline for tonight's meeting. Every hour and a halfwe will provide a break for the court reporter and for Kady, who's doing the televising of this meeting across the hall. That will be about a I5-minute break. We will continue on until the members on this panel decide that they're too tired to continue on anymore. So hopefully we'll finish this tonight and everybody will get done here this evening. And Jeff, with that, we'll move into the advertised, public hearing for the Collier County planning moratorium ordinance. Item #8A AN ORDINANCE OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA, FOR (1) THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A TEMPORARY PLANNING MORATORIUM; (2) THE DURATION OF THE TEMPORARY PLANNING MORATORIUM; (3) EXEMPTIONS TO THE TEMPORARY PLANNING MORATORIUM; (4) A V ARIANCEIEXEMPTION PROCEDURE TO THE TEMPORARY PLANNING MORATORIUM; (5) CONFLICT AND SEVERABILITY; (6) INCLUSION IN THE CODE OF LAWS AND ORDINANCES; AND (7) AN EFFECTIVE DATE. (Coordinator: Jeff Klatzkow) MR. KLATZKOW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to try to give a background on why we're here. Normally I wouldn't be-- normally I wouldn't be as verbose as I'm going to be but I think it's an Page 4 July 19,2007 important issue. I think there's been a lot said about this issue that gives me the opinion that there's some misunderstandings in the community. And again, so that people understand, nothing's happening tonight. The Planning Commission is here to hear the testimony, to hear you, and then to make recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners on what they think ought to happen, okay. Board of County Commissioners will hear this matter Tuesday, at which time nothing will happen. If there is to be a vote on this planning moratorium, and it may not come to that, it will be Tuesday, September 11 th, okay. So this is just one step in many steps. Nothing's happening tonight, okay. There is no moratorium. Nothing's changing. Not yet. We're here because we have a problem, all right, and we're looking for solutions to the problem. Under state law we're require to prepare what is called a comprehensive plan, all right. And this is what it looks like, all right. And this plan's basically the blueprint on how this county sees itself growing in the future. And all development that happens in this county has to be in compliance with this particular document. We don't do it because we want to do it. We do it because the state tells us we have do it, all right. Every seven years we put together what we call an EAR-based amendment. Basically we're updating this plan. This is what that document looks like. Again, we don't do it because we want to do it. We do it because we have to do it. A lot of time and money goes into preparing these documents. One of the things the state requires us to do is to put together a five-year plan, okay . We call it the CIE element, capital improvements. And what that's saying is, over the next five years we think so many people are moving into the county. You know, we think so many people are going to be living here and so many people Page 5 July 19, 2007 are going to be living there. Now, we have to provide these people with infrastructure. They have to have roads, they have to have sewer, they have to have water, they have to have stormwater protection, and they have to have parks. I don't know why parks, but they threw that in sometime in the legislature some time ago. So we have to provide that for the people, okay. Not only do we have to figure out how many people are coming here and what we have to provide them with, we have to demonstrate to the state that we can pay for this and we have to demonstrate to the state how we're going to pay for this. The state took a look at this document, liked most of it, but said, with respect to your five-year plan we're not entirely sure you've demonstrated to us how you're going to pay for what you need, okay. In other words, we don't think you're financially feasible. Now, last year this wouldn't have been as much of a problem because last year the board said, okay, how much money do we need, could have calculated that, the board could have raised the millage, taken the money in and built what we needed to go. But shortly after we found out that we weren't financially feasible, the legislature came to town and they said, you know what, we're rolling back your taxes, and not only are we going to roll back the taxes, we're going to cap what you can tax from here on out. So the Board of Collier County Commissioners no longer has the ability to simply raise taxes ifthere's a shortfall. So ifthere's a shortfall now, the board has to figure out, quite frankly, what other programs are we going to cut to get here, all right. Can't raise taxes. Can't raise impact fees to do this, okay, because impact fees don't pay for backlog, all right. You've got to basically figure out how are we going to fund what we need to fund, because the people are coming. Now I know we've got a slowdown now. Hopefully it's temporary. But people are moving to Collier County. We're the fastest growing Page 6 July 19, 2007 area in the country. We've got to pay for what they need. We've got to pay for the roads, we've got to make sure when they open up their faucets, the water comes out, and everything else. And so we're at a point right now where we say, how are we going to pay for it? And we've got two options, at least two options. One option is declare a temporary planning moratorium, all right. It's not a four letter word, all right. It's simply a tool we have to say, hold on. We're going to stop the process for a while until we figure out how we're going to pay for everything, all right. It's temporary. It doesn't last forever, all right. And as I'll talk about later, it doesn't cover everything. It's geared at new rezonings, it's geared at new development. Whatever's being processed now is going to continue to be processed. If you've got your plat, if you've got your Site Development Plan, you still get to go. We'll get into more on that later. If we don't declare a moratorium and it turns out that we really can't pay for what we need and we don't do anything about it, if we just hide our heads in the sand, then eventually what's going to happen is that people are going to go for their building permit and they're going to say, we can't give you one. Why is that? Because we don't have water for you or we don't have enough road capacity for you or we don't have sewer for you, and you get stopped. And if we don't do anything, by the time we get to that point, there's going to be this much in the pipeline, because we can change the process, new zonings, new development, all right. So we can take care of this problem early and fix our problem and have a little bit of pain or we can do nothing. Down the road we're going to have a lot of pam. It's not unlike what happened on our road system where we spent years not putting anything into our road system and we had to like catch up on it. And I can't get to work without hitting eight construction sites. Page 7 July 19, 2007 I live off of Immokalee and Collier Boulevard. There's nowhere for me to go. It's just one construction site after the other, and that's where we're catching up. We could do that before because we had the ability to raise ad valorems to pay for a lot of that. That's gone now, all right. And so that's what we're really here to talk about, okay. We have ourselves, what we're being told, is a five-year plan is not financially feasible. Now, one of two things is happening. We either have a communication error with the state on this, in which case Mr. Cohen will resolve that. And by the September 11 th board meeting, we won't have an issue, all right. We'll have a compliance agreement for the Board of Collier County Commissioners and we can go home, or Mr. Cohen's going to tell the board, I don't know how to tell you this, but the state's been through our books and we have a problem. At that point in time, if it gets there, the board's going to need to make a decision how they want to fix that problem. One of the things they can do is declare a temporary moratorium, just put a stop on what's getting into the pipeline until we can figure out how we're going to pay for what's supposed to get into the pipeline. Now, there's a second element to this moratorium ordinance, and that has to do with EMS, Emergency Medical Services. We have areas of the county that are growing relatively fast right now that we're not entirely sure how we're going to service as far as EMS goes. We have an annual update report that indicates that, based on what we think we need, we have a $35 million shortfall over the next five years in building the necessary infrastructure. Now, that issue is a hot issue because we're not entirely sure if we're really counting the population right; we're not really sure if we're really measuring the level of service correctly. We may be able to get into arrangements with fire districts that will take care of this Page 8 July 19, 2007 issue for us. But right now we have that shortfall potentially. And we have a hard time paying for it because we can't raise taxes, and that's another issue that the board may want to address. That would not be a countywide moratorium, however. That would be for those areas that would have an insufficient level of service, all right. It's sort oflike a pass/fail because if we can't get an ambulance to you in time, we shouldn't be opening up retirement communities. It's just really that simple. And that's pretty much it, I think, as far as the introduction goes, why we're here. I welcome questions from the Planning Commission. I'll be happy to answer any question for anybody here. And there we are. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, then we will certainly have questions on this panel. Do we -- anybody want to start? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, then Jeff, I have a -- oh, go ahead, Paul. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: That's okay. Why can't we issue bonds or somehow borrow the money to be paid back later when the financial situation is clarified? MR. KLA TZKOW: Because you've got to pay the bonds with ad valorem taxes and we can't raise taxes. So yes, you can -- you can do that, but then you've got to figure out in the future how you're going to pay for the bonds. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: But I mean, couldn't we do that as a way of postponing this until things are clarified? MR. KLA TZKOW: That's up to the board. That's a possibility. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How we going to do this this evening? Are we going to go through this document or are we -- Page 9 July 19,2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I wanted to see if we had any immediate questions of Jeff, and then we've got a multi-page document we can walk through paragraph by paragraph like we usually do. There are maybe some general questions to the statements he's opened up and made. I have three. And Jeff, one of the things you opened up in the beginning of your statement, you said that the state is requiring us to address these issues for concurrency. The state requires us to address category A. Do they also require us to address category B? MR. KLATZKOW: Not at all. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Category B is included into the CIE because we decided to do that; is that a fair statement? MR. KLATZKOW: That's a fair statement. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. You also said that the ORC report that was passed down -- I didn't think you referred to it as an ORC report, but the objections report from DCA -- indicated that they don't -- they didn't believe we were financially feasible. I read that report and I have it with me. I didn't think they said it in that manner. I think they questioned the manner in which we presented documentation to them, and they needed more communication to find out if we were financially feasible or not. MR. KLATZKOW: Yes. I think what I said was, we haven't demonstrated to them that we're financially feasible or they're not sure, given what -- the data that we've given, that we're financially feasible. It's an open issue. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But they have not said, we're not financially feasible. They have not come out and made that statement? MR. KLA TZKOW: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And the other thing concerning EMS. That is an issue, and I know there's a projected shortfall. That's based on a need for additional units. But at the same time in the AUIR Page 10 July 19, 2007 hearings that this board and the Productivity Committee held, we strongly recommended that EMS join with the fire departments in regards to response times and analysis of equipment. The departments have 19 more units that are not counted in the EMS structure. Do you know of any calls that have been refused to be responded to by the fire departments? MR. KLATZKOW: No, and that's not the reason for my putting it into the moratorium. My reason was simply, we're $35 million in the hole based on the AUIR. It doesn't mean that there aren't other alternatives we can look at and it doesn't mean there are no other ways we can look at servicing the population. It simply was based on math. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In the AUIR when we produced our recommendations to the county board -- and we did that in conjunction with the Planning Commission -- I mean with the Productivity Committee -- I may have it with me -- and they -- the joint recommendation was, we strongly recommend that before adding any more units in FY -'08 or later, EMS determine the contributions to the level of service in Collier County made by 19 units providing emergency medical service to the community from the fire districts and city fire departments. If even a part of the response provided by these units were counted, it would save millions of dollars. And to my knowledge, that hasn't been -- that study hasn't been done yet. MR. KLATZKOW: That's true. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Does anybody else have any questions based on Jeffs opening presentation? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Not at this point. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that, Jeff, I think is it appropriate we go right into your document? MR. KLATZKOW: You're the chairman. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, then let's just get into the meat of it then. Page 11 July 19,2007 And Brad, I -- as you suggested, we'll try to continue as we have in the past. We'll take the document a page at a time. A lot of the document is clauses that may not bring up any questions, but we'll just go by the page anyway. Now, I have it printed out in standard letter form. Attorneys like legal form, and Jeff sent it out in legal form, but I will have to refer to my pages as the letter form I have, and I'll try to guide you through how far those go on. Also there were four versions of this document. The most recent version and the one I think we all received in a final email was July 6th of'07, so that should be the one we'll be working from. I don't know how to tell you if you have an older version because there's no signifYing notation now that I'm telling you that, but that's the item that we should be working with. I have seven regular sized pages. The first one starts with the opening of the ordinance number and goes to the one, two, three, four, five -- seventh whereas, all referring to basically Florida Statutes for reference. Does anybody have any questions about that? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The second page starts with a whereas referencing section 163.3177(2) of Florida Statutes, and it goes through another eight whereases. Anybody have any comments on those? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I do, Mark. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: On the fourth whereas, Jeff, it's worded, whereas, if the Constitutional amendment passes. What are we supposed to do with that? Are we supposed to have two plans, one if we do and one -- MR. KLA TZKOW: No. I'm just noting the fact that at this point in time, we're probably -- because of the rollback, we're probably Page 12 July 19,2007 about a quarter billion dollars less in revenues than we were anticipating a year ago, all right. And what I'm saying, not only -- not only do we have about a quarter billion dollars less than we thought we were going to have, but at this point in time, the legislature has put a referendum to the people that will even make this larger. Now, what that number is, I don't know. But I thought it was important to just point out that it's -- we have the $250 million shortfall now, and it may be more later, much more. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. But prudently, what should we do, assume we're going to have that shortfall? MR. KLA TZKOW: No. You don't have to assume that at all. If you want, you could recommend to the board that we wait until we see what the results of the referendum is. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. And when will that be? What's the date of the referendum? MR. KLA TZKOW: It's the January primaries. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. KLA TZKOW: Maybe, because right now there's a challenge to it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, I'm done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Page 2 starts where, Mark, on yours? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Starts on the whereas that says, whereas, section 163.3177(2) of Florida Statutes. Just any of those first two pages you have, Bob. Just if you have any questions, just bring them up. We'll find our -- we'll find our way through it. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do have you any? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: No, not at this point. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Jeff, in the whereas clause that references ordinance 07-07, where it says, has been determined not to Page 13 July 19,2007 be financially feasible pursuant to the statement of intent, again, I go back to the question I think we previously discussed. They just can't determine if it's financially feasible by the manner in which they received the data because right -- my understanding through some recent spreadsheets I received from comprehensive planning, that there is a shift in the five-year plan that may make that problem go away. They discuss the feasibility of what their solutions are to the criticism in regards to the financially feasible aspects of it with DCA, Mr. Bernard Piawah up there. I understand that he's coming down here in a couple weeks with the intent of resolving the issue. Do you know if all that is real or true? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, he's coming down. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Randy, your department has already progressed some way in getting this resolved? MR. COHEN: We've had conversations with Mr. Piawah. He's due to come down on August the 7th. The reason for him to come down is to review all the documents. And when I say all the documents, all the documents associated with the CIA -- CIE, as well as the data and analysis, including revenue information that was provided to them to document that we have adequate revenue to support what's in the CIE. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Has he told you that, based on preliminary indications, the methodology looks good; he just needs to come down and verifY it? MR. COHEN: The initial conversations that we had were Mr. Piawah -- we've had probably four iterations of different things that we've sent to him. The last iteration predated two things that have transpired. One, the action taken by the legislature reducing the taxes by 9 percent and, two, the action taken by the Board of County Commissioners with respect to impact fees and the indexing of impact fees. So that financial data was going to have to be reevaluated by staff and also Mr. Piawah as well, too. And the budget revisions as Page 14 July 19,2007 well. So we've had a lot of changes since that last iteration that went to DCA. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The spreadsheets that you sent me less than a week ago, are they no longer valid then? MR. COHEN: They were based on data that predated all three of those changes, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. In regards to ordinance 07-07, DCA rejected it. It was the CIE ordinance. They also rejected 07-18. I know that they've separated the two out so we can address them separately, and 07-07 is the focus of this moratorium ordinance. It's my understanding that since they rejected it, then it's not law or is it law? MR. KLATZKOW: It is not law. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then BCC has not adopted it? MR. KLA TZKOW: This will not become law until the state accepts it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. What is the law of the land right now then if that one is not accepted? MR. KLATZKOW: We're still on our old element. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The old element then is the one that was written prior to 07 -07? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The old element was the one that contained references like what I'm going to read, and it's policy 111 category B. It says, category B, public facilities are facilities for the county's library, jail and emergency medical services. The standards for levels of service for a category B public facility shall apply to the county's annual budget but not apply to development orders issued by the county. And within that document, our former CIE, the one that is apparently now currently in place, there are at least five references of a similar nature to only category A, facilities accepting development orders. Page 15 July 19,2007 MR. KLA TZKOW: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. How is it then that we are bringing in category B facilities in regards to development orders? MR. KLATZKOW: Only one, EMS. And that's not based on the growth management data. That's based on public health and safety concerns. If at the end of the day the Board of Collier County Commissioners determines that we have an unsatisfactory level of service for portions of the county, I think the board would be within its jurisdiction to declare a temporary moratorium on those sections only until that public safety and health issue can get rectified. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So if we're not bound by the GMP's language that restricts us to hold up development orders only for category A facilities, and now we're using a category B facility under the public safety element to say we have to hold up development, how are we -- how are we arguing that it's a public safety threat? How do we know that it is? As I stated earlier, I don't know -- and I'm sure there's some fire department personnel here tonight because I see a few uniforms. I don't know of a call that's never been -- not responded to by a fire department, so is there a bona fide safety threat out there that we can document? MR. KLATZKOW: I don't know. All I know is that based on the AUIR we're $35 million short on what we thought we needed out there. And if we can't produce that and we were correct that we needed the $35 million, there could be an issue. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But that 35 million doesn't count the-- it still doesn't count the fire department units? MR. KLATZKOW: That is absolutely correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The level of service you had mentioned for EMS, that's arbitrarily set; we can set that any way we determine? MR. KLA TZKOW: Yes, but that's not the issue here. It isn't Page 16 July 19,2007 level of service. It's whether or not what you have is sufficient. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Based on the level of service we've chosen? MR. KLATZKOW: No. It's based on what you -- what the board would consider -- what's the minimum -- what's the minimum amount of service we need to provide people, all right. That's up to the board to determine, but the board -- we're not talking about A or B or CorD or E. It's really pass/fail. You know, do we have enough to service the people out there or do we not? Now, if you give an A level or B level, it doesn't really matter. The question is really pass/fail. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Has the county -- I mean, how would they determine then if the level of service that they're looking for to protect the citizens is there if they're not using the level of service standard to judge it by? MR. KLATZKOW: Well, I think the county's -- I think the Board of County Commissioners is going to have to make the determination, I suppose. Are we at an F stage at that point in time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I'm puzzled on how they would quantifY that F stage. MR. KLA TZKOW: I've puzzled about the whole EMS discussion for the last year, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. KLA TZKOW: It's been very difficult trying to get your arms around it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Jeff, I appreciate your frankness, thank you. Then I'm not alone. Let's go to page 3, which on the legal size may be a little different. It takes us to the balance of the whereases and gets into the now therefores. So are there any questions from the balance of the whereases, which would start on -- be prior -- right up to page 3? Page 17 July 19, 2007 Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I don't have a question. I just want to piggyback off what you said about lowering schedule of services. Is there a possibility we could lower schedule of services for some nonessential services and reallocate the money? MR. KLA TZKOW : Yes. You can do that for your category A's as well, if you want -- if the county wanted to do that. One way to -- one way to get out of this issue is simply to lower level of service. Now, what you're talking about is quality oflife for Collier County, and I don't know that at this point the board wants to go there. But, yes. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Which specific ones are there, level -- MR. KLA TZKOW: You could lower level of service for roads, libraries, I mean -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Parks? MR. KLA TZKOW: Parks. I mean, you know, you could -- you could jam them in there. I mean, jails. I mean, you know -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Not jails. MR. KLATZKOW: You could just -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: But we could do it; there is some flexibility -- MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, absolutely. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: -- lower level of services and transfer money around? MR. KLATZKOW: That is one way to approach the problem. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any questions on the balance of the whereases other than Mr. Vigliotti? Jeff -- go ahead, Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And, you know, we had a meeting with the Productivity Committee, the last meeting, which kind of fell apart, and we're trying to figure out what level of services are. I mean, that itself is a topic that's in flux as to how to determine Page 18 July 19, 2007 what these denominators are. MR. KLATZKOW: I agree. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So I mean, wouldn't that -- shouldn't that be the focus before we, you know, feel like we have a problem? We should really study to make sure we're using the right level of service, the right denominators? I mean -- MR. KLATZKOW: I agree. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's kind of hard -- it's hard to argue with somebody who agrees, isn't it? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It does spoil it, doesn't it? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Then how do we do that and resolve this issue? MR. KLATZKOW: I think we need to address it. I mean, to me there's a disconnect there. I've got -- I've got a report that says we need $35 million more in facilities and I've got people saying that's nonsense. And somewhere between that's nonsense and we need $35 million and the truth, and I don't know where that is. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: But that's one suggestion in why we're here. MR. KLATZKOW: That's right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney, then Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, there's always -- when you're talking about spending of health dollars, there's always a lot of debate because some people say your money should be in preventative health. And EMS, this is something that's already happened. And I know there was a debate a while back about helicopters. How valuable are helicopters? You know, you're saving a few minutes for a few people but it's costing millions and millions of dollars as opposed to spreading things out. We have a lot of poor people in this county who are not able to afford basic medicines like for hypertension and diabetes and so forth, Page 19 July 19,2007 and are dying because they're not able to do simple avoidable things. And then when you spend a lot of money, millions of dollars sort of on the high end of the high tech, high capital item things like EMS helicopters and so forth, you know, you could easily debate the fact that, you know, the health dollars are misallocated. So it's a very complicated question. It could really probably only be answered by people who have a public health background and who -- you know, who have studied it, and get some sort of a cost benefit analysis. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Which I believe EMS is working on in a current study for the next AUIR. Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Has any attempt at a calculation been made to determine whether the ALS additive, if it were applied, would equal -- would be equal to the $35 million projected shortfall? MR. KLA TZKOW: I'm told yes and I'm told the answer to that is no, that we'd still be down, I think, 15 million or so. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So it's not the answer if we -- MR. KLATZKOW: It's not -- it's a good part of the answer. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: It's a piece of it. You know, the question of level of service is interesting. You -- we need to do the AUIR. That's what we need to do. We need to look at that now to be able to determine whether any piece we can contribute to makes sense. And I -- you know, this problem is interesting. I call it a cat trying to catch its tail because it's so circular in some ways and created mostly by the state. And I don't want to make a pontification here. I'm not trying to do that, and I understand and respect what you've attempted to do, but -- and I know you're ordered to do this, but I think we're being asked to do something before we can actually go and really find out what the truth is by studying the AUIR. So having said that, I know that we have to work on this tonight, and we will do so, but I would seriously doubt that most people in this room who care very much about the community would realize the full Page 20 July 19, 2007 implications of what this is. And I doubt -- in some degree, I don't think I really fully understand the implications. MR. KLA TZKOW: And a recommendation to the board that this portion of the ordinance is premature would be fine. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. Thank you for that guidance. I know you were -- you were given the task of doing it. I'm sure you didn't do it with great enthusiasm in the sense of -- it's a very thankless task in bringing it before the people here, or at least that's my perception of it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I definitely agree with that. This is premature. There's so many ways that we could resolve this. It seems like we have a problem where we're just going to go right to a major, major resolve to it. I think there's so much in between that can be done, and we need to find the time to do it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: But then speaking on the other side of it, the reason we have these high standards for EMS is because these -- this is what it's -- what's been agreed to in the past, maybe not in the very latest CIE, but even the one before that. We've got high standards, and to scale them back now is going to be kind of difficult, I think. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The other -- go ahead, Mr. Vigliotti. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Not referring to EMS, but we can go with parks, we can go with library. There are other places where we could lower the standards and not EMS. MR. SCHMITT: Parks are category A, so that is -- that is a category A mandated by the state. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, in could ask-- MR. SCHMITT: We could reduce the level of service, but I just wanted to clarifY -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Exactly. Page 21 July 19, 2007 MR. SCHMITT: I want to clarifY that that is a category A. MR. KLATZKOW: We can do two water slides instead of four for water parks. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Just build another one across the street. Let them compete. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. SCHMITT: Bob, could you talk into your microphone. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No --let me understand right away, you have just indicated that yes, I know they're in A category. Are we suggesting by that that they're off the table in terms of our ability to make an argument about or a suggestion about or recommendation about? MR. SCHMITT: Again, those are issues and those are questions that will be dealt with at the AUIR, as part of this AUIR, and you're talking level of service. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. MR. SCHMITT: As Jeff mentioned -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: It's the category -- MR. SCHMITT: -- we're here for the moratorium, and I know you want to grab -- you understand the other piece, but again, he just said that maybe this -- he just offered that one option is to kind of go through the AUIR first, so that's -- he just mentioned it. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: In reality, that's where I was going and it's the cat and the tail. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We'll just take a break. Mr. Klatzkow's conferring with Randy on something. I'm sure it's -- MR. SCHMITT: And just as -- again, we also adjusted the population projections as well based on the guidance this year. And you know that whole issue we went through with the population projection, so -- Page 22 July 19,2007 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I do. MR. SCHMITT: -- we are now a medium BEBR, and we just got the new BEBR population projections, so that may impact in this year's. I expect it will impact. MR. KLA TZKOW: And again, for clarity, there are two distinct issues here. Financial feasibility issue is just the category A issues. It has nothing to do with the EMS. The EMS is just the second reason why the board might want to consider a moratorium. So there are two separate issues for the moratorium. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Ah. Thank you for that clarification. In my mind I thought you had joined them and that they represented the totality of this issue for the 35 million short. MR. KLATZKOW: I explained myself poorly then. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Maybe I wasn't paying adequate attention. So we can take them separately, okay. MR. KLATZKOW: They are separate, yes. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Jeff, one of your whereas statements, the second to last one, says, because of the aforementioned actions of the state legislature, the county no longer has the flexibility of simply increasing ad valorem revenue to quickly meet any such shortfall. Isn't that really a matter of determining priorities in this county now? MR. KLATZKOW: Now it is. I mean, before we had a quarter billion dollars more. I mean, it's -- and the ability to raise more taxes if -- before if the public wanted to demand a certain level of service, okay, the board could raise taxes to meet that demand when we taxed ourselves. We taxed ourselves to get the zoo. We taxed ourselves for the Collier preservation program we have, Conservation Collier. We put landscaping in our medians. We have a certain standard of living in Collier County that the people in Collier County want, all right. And previously the board could adjust its mill rate to meet that. Page 23 July 19, 2007 We don't have that flexibility anymore. The legislature has reduced what we can tax and then capped it. And so from here on out, if we've got to pay for something, it's not going to be simply raising taxes. We can't do that anymore. It's going to mean, as you said, budgeting it, which means something else gets cut. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. But reprioritization is another alternative to raising ad valorem taxes. MR. KLATZKOW: We don't have the ability -- yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's my question. Thank you. Okay. We'll move on to the sections -- portions of this document. And the first one -- first four actually were the findings of fact. And section two is the establishment, section three is duration, and section four is the exemptions. Are there questions from this panel on those sections? Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Section four, would section four -- well, section three is actually the big one because it calls for the moratorium to last for a year; is that right, Jeff? MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah, and that's the maximum, I think, you can do as a matter of law is a year. And we can certainly do less if that's the pleasure of the board. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So that's the one that says no more new buildings with the exceptions in four, correct? MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. In four one, what you're saying is that any project that has paid their impact fees already? What if someone has paid their fees, not yet built the building? MR. KLATZKOW: What I'm saying in one -- I don't know if it's on the monitor yet -- is, if what you're doing does not result in the imposition of an impact fee, it means that you're not impacting the capital needs of the county. We only charge you in impact fees if Page 24 July 19, 2007 your development is going to consume capital resources. So if what you're doing is not going to consume additional capital resources, you're not part of this ordinance. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But what if you've paid that fee and didn't build a building, or paid then stopped -- you know, the building failed, yet the fee is there, the impact fee credits are still there. MR. KLATZKOW: Depending upon where you are in the process, you may be stopped. Usually you-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: When you say stopped, I mean, you'd stop a construction project? MR. KLA TZKOW: Usually you pay your impact fee in full when you get a building permit. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. MR. KLA TZKOW: At that point in time you get to proceed. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Correct. MR. KLA TZKOW: There are situations where at least transportation impact fees are paid in advance, and in that particular situation, you might be stopped depending on where you are. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But if somebody's paid an impact fee and have a building permit, they would not be stopped? MR. KLATZKOW: That's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What if they weren't going to build the building that they got the permit for? Obviously, you know, there's been some projects that have been stopped, being redesigned, maybe coming back in, yet the impact fees have been paid already. Are they -- MR. KLA TZKOW: You can -- you can redesign to your heart's pleasure as long as you don't increase the impact fees. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So they're paid, whatever you bought already, you can build. MR. KLA TZKOW: That's right. Page 25 July 19,2007 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Whether it's a redesign or not? MR. KLATZKOW: That's right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Can that be made more clearer in one? MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah, certainly. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. The other question is, let's say you're building a shell building, a shopping center, an office building, that would ultimately be built out with multiple tenants. Would the multiple tenants have trouble getting a permit? MR. KLA TZKOW: No. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And why not? MR. KLATZKOW: I believe I exempted that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Where? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I don't see it. MR. KLA TZKO W : Well, if I haven't -- if I haven't specifically exempted it, I will; how's that? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Because in a shell building, where are the impact fees paid for those tenants? Aren't they paid when the tenant gets the permit? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes. So-- MR. KLATZKOW: But we've already planned for it at that point though. I mean, once you've put in for that building, we know how many square feet of commercial's going in or whatever. I believe we've planned for that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So a building that is a shell building that's under construction or that has a permit prior to this ordinance -- MR. SCHMITT: Under one. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All of -- MR. KLATZKOW: I think it falls under one, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I don't -- well, let me see. MR. KLATZKOW: IB. Page 26 July 19, 2007 MR. SCHMITT: The language there is very clear, so long as no units are added which would support an additional business within the structure. That would indicate, at least on -- again, I'm applying it from a building perspective. If you built a shell and you wanted to come in and do tenant buildout, it would increases the demand; you'd pay additional impact fees. And we would have to put that in there if that's going to be exempt. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So whatever you've got the shell for, you can build that. It will never be a problem, okay. The earlier versions didn't have that, I hope. The -- on number two, you list a bunch of single- family residential things. You can -- and then additions and all that's allowed. And then at the end you say, and all affordable housing developments. Couldn't you give all affordable housing developments a separate number just rather than buried at the end of single- family? MR. KLA TZKOW: Yeah, but then I'd have an odd number of paragraphs here, and I'm kind of superstitious, so I just threw it in for 10. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, make it like a 2A and 2B or something like that. MR. KLATZKOW: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And number three, the sub permit means that anybody who has a permit, all of their subcontractors would have no problem whatsoever getting a permit? MR. KLA TZKOW: That's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. I'm done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: On -- going back to that issue of the affordable housing, just to be absolutely clear, that -- the affordable housing that is now contained in our code, that goes up 150 percent? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes. Page 27 July 19,2007 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. So that's clear on that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that it, Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That was it for me at the moment. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Jeff, when you say all affordable housing developments, what constitutes in your mind an affordable housing development? MR. KLATZKOW: Habitat for Humanity would strike me as constituting that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. Because they're 100 percent affordable. What do you do if you've got a project that's 10 percent affordable? Does that qualifY them for an exemption? MR. KLATZKOW: The 10 percent part would clearly. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So they could go forward with their affordable housing, which is the losing end of the battle for them? MR. KLA TZKOW: But look at the need. I mean-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But they can't raise the price to get the profits out of it during -- MR. KLATZKOW: Commissioner, I'm happy to -- this is paper. This is not stone. And I know there's 10 of them, but it's not the Ten Commandments on our tablet. I am happy to change this to whatever the board wants. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I'm anxious to hear what the rest of the community's got to say about it before we recommend changes, at least from my part of it, because I want to make sure if we're going to do something, it's consistent with what-- MR. SCHMITT: I think that would need to be clarified, because you've -- if you've got 600 units and only 40 are affordable, do you get to build all 600? I think we need to clarifY that for application. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In your number five, planning development or project that is deemed to be vested according to the common law established by the Florida courts. In Collier County, Page 28 July 19,2007 unbeknownst to most developments, there's a clause in the Land Development Code for vested rights determinations, VRD, and it's a process that goes through the county administratively. Are VRDs excluded? Are they exempted? MR. SCHMITT: Paragraph five. MR. KLATZKOW: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then you'd probably want to add that. Anybody that's received a vested rights determination. MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, they'd be exempted. Everything that's vested is going to be exempted. MR. SCHMITT: Jeff, if I'm not mistaken, that was the intent of paragraph five. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it says, common law pursuant to the Florida -- established by the Florida Courts. I don't know if our VRD is referenced that way or not, and that's why I was asking the question. MR. KLA TZKOW: We can clarifY that, sir. MR. SCHMITT: ClarifY that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'm going to back up a bit. This is going to be for -- supposedly for one year. What would be the process to extend it? MR. KLATZKOW: I would not recommend this being extended. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: No. I'm saying, is there a process? MR. KLATZKOW: The board could get -- the board could-- yes. I mean, the board, on public hearing similar to this, could suggest that we extend this for an additional year. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay. But it would have to go through this whole process. MR. KLATZKOW: It would have to go through this process Page 29 July 19,2007 agam, yes. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay. Thank you. MR. KLATZKOW: That would be my recommendation anyway. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yeah, please. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: This panel reviews planning issues, Land Development Code issues and GMP issues, all of which are planning issues. When I heard this moratorium was suggested and I heard it was going to be a planning moratorium, I was thinking they must be thinking rezones, that basically they're going to try to stop rezones for a period of time. Then when the documentation came out, it goes far beyond rezones. It seems more like a building moratorium, not a planning moratorium. Is -- how would there be a difference between a building moratorium in regards to this document and a planning moratorium? MR. KLATZKOW: Building moratorium, pretty much everything shuts down. Planning moratorium, you just shut down part of the process until you can figure out from a planning perspective what you need to fix the problem. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: From a planning perspective though, wouldn't that mean you're looking at rezone issues, not plats and SDPs and things like that because -- MR. KLATZKOW: We could go that direction. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, okay. Any other questions for section four? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, let me go back. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I hate to be weird here. I'm still having trouble with IB, which is the shell only, the way it's worded and -- because I read it, and sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't. What you're saying is that renovation or remodeling, including Page 30 July 19, 2007 completion of shell only structures. So I get the impression that it's only the shell; is that what that refers to? MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So long as no units are added which would support an additional business within the structure. I mean, for example, in an office building, you really don't know how many businesses are going to be in there. So could -- I mean, your intent is -- MR. KLA TZKOW: I could take that out. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- you're never going to impede anybody from building out their shell-only projects, so -- MR. KLA TZKOW: That's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- we can work with the words to -- MR. KLATZKOW: I'll take out that last clause. SCHIFFER: Okay. And I would get rid of -- okay. But be careful because it could read that you're only allowed to build the shell, which is the first part of the sentence. MR. KLATZKOW: No. It says completion of shell-only structures, but okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And -- I mean, just say something so that it's within the shell and not referencing businesses. Reference something else. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Section five, which is your variance procedure. In reading that, Jeff, I was just thinking about our variance procedure, and it would take you longer to get through that than it would to wait for the moratorium to be over with. MR. KLATZKOW: Wheels of justice grind slowly, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, I guess so. Any questions, section five? Section six? And that leaves us with the last two short ones, seven and eight. Page 31 July 19,2007 Any questions on the balance of the document from this panel before we go to the next level? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I can -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Jeff, where in here does it tell us what we're supposed to do to fix all this? MR. KLA TZKOW: It's his job. No. No, really, it's his job. His job is ultimately to get us to the point where the state declares that we're financially feasible and accepts our CIE, and then from that standpoint, we're done. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Then this would live? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, automatically. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Is that outlined in here or-- MR. KLA TZKOW: All of it, yes. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. I'll trust you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And then -- so it's up to Randy with staff to do that. I mean, isn't it sort of the AUIR process that we should be doing that in? And you know, the sad thing for the Planning Commission is, we've met -- we've really tried to look at this AUIR with different, you know, denominators and population and stuff. I mean, it's sad that we didn't get that done because maybe we wouldn't be here today. Enough said. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Anything else as far as the document goes? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Jeff, procedurally-wise, is -- any reason we shouldn't go right into the public testimony at this point? MR. KLATZKOW: I'm looking forward to hearing from the public. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Those of you who have registered to speak, we'll be calling two names at a time. If one of you Page 32 July 19, 2007 could get onto one of the empty mikes and the other prepare to go to the second one, we can keep people moving as go through this so we don't have to wait for you to find your way in and out of the audience. That would be helpful to get through this process. And so with that, Mr. Schmitt, are you going to be calling them? MR. SCHMITT: First speaker, Richard Davenport, followed by David Brogdon. I have Richard Davenport twice, so -- MR. DAVENPORT: Do I get six minutes? MR. SCHMITT: No. I just have two different forms, so I'm just going to make sure I don't call you again. MR. DAVENPORT: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, glad to be here today. For the record, Richard Davenport with Waterways Homes here in Naples. We would like to request that the Planning Commission do one of two things, either recommend to the Collier County Commission that our recently approved 968-unit Summit Lakes project that you gentleman recommended for approval be exempted from the proposed planning moratorium or, alternatively, be approved and defined as one of the so-called affordable housing developments. Our reasons for requesting this are as follows: Number one, Summit Lakes, as you know, is going to be building over $5 million in off-site roads, in exchange for which we're going to get traffic impact credits. We're doing this at the request of the county transportation department to save the county both time and money. Secondly, we have worked closely in the very recent past with the Golden Gate Fire Department to provide improved EMS services at our Summit Lakes -- Summit Place project, which is about a mile away from Summit Lakes, and we provided them with water, sewage, stormwater storage, and extensive buffering around their new facilities there. Third, the off-site roads that we're going to be building provide the sole access to Habitat for Humanity's new 66-unit project on Page 33 July 19, 2007 W oodcrest Road. In addition to providing the road, we're providing, at no cost to Habitat, stormwater, water, and sewer services for that project. We're also providing the storm water retention for the road. The road can't be built without the stormwater lake system within our project. And we're also providing stormwater retention for Habitat. Within our project, we're going to be providing 100 affordable homes and 200 homes at gap pricing, for a total of 300 homes. If you stop our project now from receiving the SDP and PPL approvals and all the other myriad approvals that we have to get from you folks, the districts, the Corps, Fish and Wildlife, that sort of thing, you're going to needlessly delay 366 affordable and gap homes that are sorely needed by families in this county. In addition, Waterways Homes is going to be damaged financially; perhaps severely so because of carrying a project, a major, major project, 968 units, for another year with absolutely no activity. We may be forced to lay off additional employees. As you may know, Collier County is going through one of the worst real estate times I've ever been in, and I've been in real estate since the mid '70's. I've heard that building permits are down about 80 percent over last year. So you've got a de facto moratorium, thanks to the rampant speculation of a few years ago, where you may not need to have this type of processed planning moratorium. And the people we layoff, many of them live here in Collier County. Many of them are my friends. They all have families. They're principal bread winners for their families, and I think that's eminently unfair. To me the term a planning moratorium sounded kind of innocuous, and frankly, it sat on the corner of my desk for the first couple of versions until Mr. Klatzkow got to version number three and I started getting worried. A planning moratorium is not innocuous. It's more than balancing the books of the county to make the state Page 34 July 19, 2007 happy. It's playing around with people's lives and people's livelihoods. The burden, the damage caused by such a planning moratorium doesn't affect all the citizens of Collier County equally. It primarily affects one narrow group, and that group are the homebuilders. And until the last year or so we've been one of the strong financial underpinnings of the county contributing many, many impact fee dollars and permit fees and all the other things that go with it, to the economy. But right at this point in time, when we're hurting so badly, the industry doesn't need more financial duress, more uncertainty that makes our bankers worry about whether you're going to be able to go ahead with the project or not. We don't need higher taxes on land that we can't do anything with. We need you to stand up and to help encourage sound growth, not to shut it down; therefore, we please request that you recommend to the commission that Summit Lakes be exempted from the proposed moratorium. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Any questions? I have one. MR. DAVENPORT: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're asking for Summit Lakes to be exempted as a recommendation from us. You don't seem to be objecting to the moratorium though. You mean if you got out, basically it's okay to have a moratorium? MR. DAVENPORT: In may be very candid, I think the moratorium's a horrible idea. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's what I'm -- we're trying to find out thoughts on that. I would rather know what you think about the moratorium rather than just your project. MR. DAVENPORT: I'm not as polished and as subtle as Counselor Jeff Klatzkow. I believe it's a horrible idea. I think it's a Page 35 July 19, 2007 knee-jerk reaction. I think it's premature. And I think somebody in the commission's lashing out at Tallahassee over a situation that's awful. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay. I appreciate you answering my question. And are there any other -- MR. DAVENPORT: Sorry to be so blunt. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Huh? MR. DAVENPORT: I'm sorry to be so blunt. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I'd prefer everybody was blunt. That gets the matter on the table quicker and we can get it resolved quicker. So any other questions of this gentleman? MR. SCHMITT: Next speaker, David Brogdon-- MR. DAVENPORT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: -- followed by Michele Harrison. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, I know that some of these issues are very pleasing to some of you or displeasing in some way. I got to ask that you refrain from responding to them from the audience. It slows the process down, and it certainly can't be recorded by the court recorder. So go ahead, sir. MR. BROGDON: Mr. Chairman, Board of Commissioners, Mr. Klatzkow, for the record, David Brogdon, Waterways Homes. You've also heard Mr. Davenport. I concur with Richard. In his defense, he was speaking for someone not present here today, that's why he focussed on one community today. My comments are designed to address the entire moratorium. First a little history. Waterways Homes, we've been landowners here since 1984. We've built hundreds of homes. We're one of the largest Golden Gate Estates builders. We have numerous gated communities under construction at the current time. Waterways of Page 36 July 19,2007 Naples is a community; Bristol Pines, Summit Place under construction. We have three pending projects in various stages of preplanning and development. As you know, that process could take some time, and we're in those -- we're in that time period now. We employ hundreds -- or excuse me. We distribute income through hundreds of families, both in-house and from our providers. We -- you know, we think developers have a bad reputation. You may have seen a bumper sticker that says, prevent forest fires; be a developer. Well, you know, that's a bad thing, okay, but you know, we're here to provide shelter. Shelter is a necessary commodity, if you will. And, you know, we recognize and we want to support the Collier County family and labor base. We -- with no disrespect intended to Mr. Klatzkow, the ordinance, the moratorium, is very well written, there is some -- there is some -- there are some gray areas, what we think are some holes. Mr. Schiffer was kind enough to point them out earlier. Mr. Strain, you as well. We think that the affordable housing -- again, our approach to a development is to contain affordable housing within a community. Whatever percentage that might be, whether it's as small as 10 or as large as, you know, 20 or 30, but you can't fund that without funding the rest. It's just an impossibility. So we would -- we would recommend that you -- if you do proceed with the moratorium, that you would take that more into account and, perhaps, that if the -- if the community contains affordable housing, let's permit the community, which will permit the affordable housing. There is also what I consider to be a gray area in the single-family area. You said anything that was platted and approved prior to the effective date of the moratorium. Does that mean that you have to have the building permit, the building application made for the single- family home that is going to go on a platted lot in Golden Gate Page 37 July 19, 2007 Estates? Do you have to have that permit application made prior to the effective date of the moratorium? Little gray area there in my opinion. I submit to the opinion of the board on that. With all due respect, we think the ordinance is based on a false premise, as pointed out by Mr. Strain earlier, in that the DCA did not appear to determine that the CIE was actually insufficient. We -- it also appears that basically the EMS was a category B as mentioned. We won't be redundant, but also we believe that the -- for the last 10 or 13 years, you've had a surplus on your parks. If you have a surplus, you have excessive facilities. You have a very high level of service, and as stated, we believe -- we personally support reprioritization, distributing less service over broader range, broader area. We would recommend that you deny this moratorium. If you fail to deny, then we recommend that you would exempt any SDP/PPL applications that have been submitted prior to the ordinance approval date and also exempt any projects or any agreements or entitlements that have been granted by any government entities. Those are the end of my comments. Do you have any questions? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The only thing I would like to do is get your -- get a response from Mr. Klatzkow to your question about the single-family homes being platted and approved. MR. BROGDON: Thank you. MR. KLA TZKOW: My intent was that all single-family homes get to be built. The entire state would get to build. MR. BROGDON: Can you write that in? MR. KLA TZKOW: I will make it crystal clear. MR. BROGDON: Very good. Thank you. Any further questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. BROGDON: Appreciate your time and consideration. Page 38 July 19, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No problem. Next speaker? MR. SCHMITT: Michele Harrison, followed by Walter Crawford. MS. HARRISON: Good evening. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You might want to get a little closer to the mike, Michele. MS. HARRISON: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There you go. MS. HARRISON: I am representing the Collier Building Industry Association. I am their current president, Michele Harrison. And I ask that you consider the following information when making your decision to support or renounce the need for a moratorium. The catalyst for the moratorium was the ORC report sent to Collier County which rejected the plan as not being in compliance because it was not a financially feasible CIE. Since the county has submitted incomplete information, DCA has really not had the ability to evaluate whether Collier County truly does not have a financially feasible CIE. It was clearly noted in DCA's response that it was easily resolvable. The county staff needs to complete the work that DCA has requested, and then an evaluation of the CIE can be made. A moratorium before this data is collected and completed would be premature and negligent, especially considering the economic conditions of Collier County at this current time. Furthermore, during the recent budget cycle, county staff would have addressed the funding needs, and it is very likely that the county could now have a financially feasible CIE. Other justification for a moratorium is the level of service for EMS, and I'd like to address that. EMS is what we call a category B, which we've discussed and I think now everybody understands. Category A facilities are those infrastructure items like roads and Collier -- category B's are those infrastructures like libraries. Page 39 July 19, 2007 The Collier County Growth Management Plan clearly states in at least five different locations that Collier County cannot withhold planning permits for category B facilities and their deficiencies. We contend that relating a planning moratorium in Collier County based on a category B facility is not authorized in our Growth Management Plan and, therefore, would not be allowed. On behalf of the 1,400 member companies and the thousands of people employed by them, I am asking you to please vote against this unwarranted initiative. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any questions? MS. HARRISON: Any questions? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you very much. MS. HARRISON: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: Walter Crawford. Followed by Jeff Maddox. MR. CRAWFORD: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, for the record, my name is Water Crawford. I'm an 18-year resident of Collier County. I have a family of six here. I started my career here and I hope to end my career here. I was here in 1991 when the economy took a dive. It was pretty bad then, but it's substantially worse now. While I was sitting in the audience, I was trading emails with one of my clients, and he doesn't know your position on the topic, but he said, tell the folks down there to wake up and smell the recession. There are hard economic times out there right now. The population increase numbers that Mr. Schmitt referenced earlier, I think we need to revisit those numbers because in my world, people are moving north. They're moving to Tennessee, they're moving to the Carolinas, they're moving to the mountains. The beach isn't that great anymore when the impact fees are so high already. And the logic escapes me as to why we would cut off an already high impact fee that supports the infrastructure growth now. The logic isn't there for me. Page 40 July 19,2007 The Economic Development Council will probably speak later. They're funded by the county, and they are obviously very opposed to the moratorium, and I think that is probably the pleasure of the board. And I will thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you very much. MR. SCHMITT: Jeff Maddox, followed by Al Zichella. MR. MADDOX: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for allowing me to speak on the issue of the moratorium. My name is Jeff Maddox. I'm an owner of Maddox Construction Company, commercial contractor in Bonita Springs. I understand tonight you must vote for the merits of the ordinance, but I feel compelled to address the economic impacts this ordinance would have on Collier County. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sir, you might need to bring that speaker (sic) a little closed, because we've got to take down everything you're saying. Thank you. MR. MADDOX: Even a minimal moratorium for a short period of time could have significant economical ramifications. The most conservative effects from a moratorium would result in nearly 6,000 lost jobs and a loss of nearly $246 million for the local economy. With the stresses that our community is currently experiencing with the downturn of the housing market, can we afford imposing a program that will force more people to lose their jobs? And lastly, the most important for the CBIA is the effect this proposal has on the ability for our community to portray a pro business climate. The people of Florida and their representatives in Tallahassee demanded tax reform, but let's look at the specifics and alternatives to funding before we take the entire community through an anorious (sic) and potentially devastating scenario. The CBIA represents an important industry that is the cornerstone of the local, state and national economy. Construction, tourism, and agriculture are our biggest industries. At a time when Page 41 July 19, 2007 these are the only industries we have of any significance, stifling any one of them and expecting the economy to react positively is unrealistic. Our community is at a time right now where we need to be encouraging business growth, not shutting it down. Again, I thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Next speaker. MR. SCHMITT: Al Zichella followed by Kevin Fitzgerald. MR. ZICHELLA: For the record, Al Zichella. I'm a 21-year resident of Collier. I'm past president of Collier Building Industry Association. I'm speaking to you today as a private citizen. I honestly almost don't know where to start. You know, we're hearing talk here about a planning moratorium, and I will tell you that some people don't always understand what a moratorium means, but it is synonymous with another word that we all understand, and that is failure. A moratorium is declaring surrender. We have -- we have a situation right now where our industry is absolutely in retreat. We're suffering, and obviously revenue is way down, permits are way down. Levels of service are a legitimate place to go to look at belt tightening in tough times. We have got to do the things that responsible businesses would do. There's going to be a tremendous burden shifting here to all taxpayers for infrastructure. If we go into a moratorium, you will collect no impact fee dollars to build infrastructure and this stuffwill become backlog. I will tell you that Secretary Pelham at DCA has been very clear that impact fees dollars will not go to pay for backlog. So before you do this, or before the county commissioners should take it or before we recommend it to them, please forgive me, we should be careful Page 42 July 19,2007 what we're doing here. Are we prepared to take the -- shift the burden of paying for infrastructure to the average taxpayer? We've got to have a plan to get out of this. This is a legal component to declaring a moratorium is, how do you get out of one? Florida law mandates that you have a plan to escape one. I've yet to hear any -- any recognizable plan that would help us get out of this. You know, we're in a county here where we've had some pretty rampant, I would say, speculation growth in the housing market. We've had some pretty rampant spending, too. Spending in this county has gone up 292 percent since 1999. No one can tell me with a straight face that we can't look at the levels of service and how we spend money in this county and change things around. Punishing the building industry, and all of them, many thousands of folks that work in it, is, to me, highly inappropriate. Ad valorem taxes, an alternative, is not foregone, as Mr. Klatzkow said -- or I'm sure I mispronounced your name, but -- it just has to be reordered. We'd would be lowering levels of services on many things. And I'll tell you, we're not going to have a choice about that. You're exactly right, Commissioner. We'll be looking at that very closely. The EMS issue is a canard, in my opinion. Population growth has always been overstated. The BEBR high numbers have been what we've been using for many years. DCA just objected to it on the fact that it's not realistic and it's unsustainable. And you know what? They're right. So we dropped it to the medium, but that still isn't a comprehensive population study. And how we place impact fees and how we decide on what infrastructure will be built is primarily driven by the population numbers. If they have no integrity, we're dealing with smoke in a box, okay. And trying to figure out whether or not we should be in a moratorium should not be a Chinese puzzle. This industry is Page 43 July 19, 2007 suffering. Revenues are way down from impact fees. Why are we going to a moratorium to cut them off entirely? This is not a clear thought. And by the way, anybody that's a student of economics can tell you that if you want to stimulate activity in a certain sector and raise revenue like your impact fees, you find a way to stimulate it, and that is a reduction in regulation and fees, and I guarantee you'll raise more money. Briefly, the EMS and fire districts, if we're going to look at that excuse, they overlap in many, many issues. And I would say that we have a lot more capacity if we were to study that closer than were being -- than we're looking -- than were being used. Any assumption that without the results of a study is inappropriate. I heard that there's a study on the table. We should really do that. I mean, should -- some contemplative thought is in order here, I would -- I do believe. And stu -- and any judgment to do so without a study probably has no integrity. It would appear that -- yet another false justification for a moratorium. And blaming a moratorium, by the way, on property tax reform, is just another poking a stick in the eye of the legislature and the governor. You know, the taxpayers of Florida rose up. They heard the message. This didn't come in a vacuum. And to say right now that we have to enter into a planning moratorium because there's a property tax reform coming on is really another canard. County Manager Mudd has told me personally, he can make up this money. Not a problem for him. He can reorder this. I really think some truth in advertising is in order here. Lots of people's lives are on the line, their livelihoods, and really the very economic vitality of our community, and we ought to be very thoughtful about our next steps. Concurrency failures that would result from a moratorium Page 44 July 19, 2007 because of a lack of any infrastructure going to be built will only make a de facto moratorium stretch on for years because there will be projects getting refused because of no concurrency. You don't stop the train to think about it. Good management and good leadership resolves these problems. You look at where you're spending the money, how you're spending the money, and reprioritize, and you reauthorize. Anything less than that is (sic) what we deserve as citizens. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Next speaker? MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Mr. Klatzkow, city (sic) staff, My name's Kevin Fitzgerald. I'm a Collier County resident and I own a small business that operates in Collier County; however, this evening, I'm here as the president of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, Southwest Florida Chapter. Since 1967, NAIOP and its more than 15,000 members from all over the country have been a friend to local, regional, and state governments. Our members consist of attorneys, accountants, planners, developers, builders, and Realtors. Our members want to actively become a part of the solution in the counties and cities that we're in rather than a part of the problem. We're also here this evening to put our support fully behind the Collier County EDC and the CBIA. We feel that this is a premature action for a moratorium. Dr. Steven Fuller, a nationally noted economist, studied the state ofIowa. In 2005, there was $10 billion worth of development affecting 233,000 jobs. Just think about Collier County being one of the largest counties in our state and the thousands of jobs that will be lost and families that will be forced to move from our community if Page 45 July 19,2007 this ordinance passes. We're not only losing the worker, we're losing the family. I think we have to take it to the smallest common denominator. We talked about quality of life and level of services. Well, what about the level of service for the worker? That person that goes to work every day to support his family in Collier County. These people will have to leave and go find work. Mr. Klatzkow talked about water. Well, I'll tell you, you can't shut off the development faucet and expect the water to come back on just when you're ready because the people will be gone. Reprioritization is a great idea. I think it's a wonderful alternative. I would ask you this evening to deny the moratorium and support further study and a clarification of whether the CIE is financially feasible or not. I have a feeling that if more investigative work is done, you might find that there isn't a need for a moratorium. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: Ellie Krier, followed by David Hart. MS. KRIER: Good evening, Commissioners. I'm Ellie Krier. I represent the Naples Area Board of Realtors. And I want to put on record our opposition tonight, and we certainly have an opposition to whether this is the right thing for the community in these economic times, but that's not your issue tonight. So I'd like to distill it to the general theme that I've heard presented primarily by staff, which is, we don't know. We don't know if we have a communications issue with DCA. We don't know if we're measuring population correctly for the EMS level of service standards. We don't know how to qualifY or quantifY a public safety threat. In deference to Mr. Klatzkow, we might know what the 19 ALS units could add. We don't know the impact of the new BEBR numbers, and we do not know the fiscal impact. And to quote the Page 46 July 19,2007 executive summary which will transmit this to the commission is unknown and speculative at best. Ladies and gentlemen, this gives new meaning to hypothesizing in advance of your data. And I would urge you that this is not needed at this time for this purported purpose. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. And Mr. Schmitt, this will -- after this speaker, we're going to take a break for the court reporter, and then we'll come back. MR. SCHMITT: David Hart, and then when we come in, it will be Bill McNeil-- McDaniel, I'm sorry. MR. HART: Good evening. My name's David Hart. I'm the vice-president of government relations for WCI Communities. I'm also a member ofCBIA, and I'm on the board of the Collier EDC. I agree with the comments that have been made by my colleagues in the building industry, so I'll confine my remarks with my hat on as a board member of the EDC. Our mission at the EDC is to attract new high-wage jobs and companies to this community. A moratorium, even a discussion of a moratorium, makes that almost impossible. It's challenging to go after these companies to begin with. They're highly sought after. They have the choice of going to infinitely many communities around the country, indeed the world. Having a nice beach and the sun isn't always enough. A discussion of a moratorium, our public policy, our politics in this community, it matters to them. They can't come in and build a new building if there's a moratorium. If they come here and grow, how can they expand if there's a moratorium? You're really tying the hands of the EDC, their board members and their staff from completing their mission if you support this moratorium. So I urge you not to. I want to add that there's recently been a study done by the economics research institute at the Florida Gulf Coast University. Page 47 July 19,2007 And the results of that study, which we're happy to share, suggest that even the most conservative numbers, even the most conservative effects of this moratorium would result in nearly 6,000 lost jobs and a $246 million impact on the economy. I urge you to think carefully. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you very much. And with that, we will take a 15-minute break and be back here at 6:35. MR. SCHMITT: Sorry, 6:35. (A brief recess was had.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Please, everyone, come back and take your seats and quiet down. We need to resume the meeting. MR. SCHMITT: Next speaker, Bill McDaniel, followed by Fred Thomas. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bill, welcome. MR. McDANIEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioners, good evening. For the record, my name is Bill McDaniel. I serve as the president of the Corkscrew Island Neighborhood Association. I currently am honored to be serving as chairperson for the East of 951 Horizon Study Group as well. And we are, at this particular stage of the game, studying future planning for Collier County and the growth and development that is forthcoming for our community. I'm not here this evening to speak to you on behalf of either of those organizations. I'm here as a concerned citizen to suggest to you that you vote in denial of the suggested ordinance for the moratorium. On many levels, another wrong does not make a right. There is penalization of the private sector due to decisions that have been made by the public sector with respect to our comprehensive Growth Management Plan and how our spending is, in fact, done. The realities of what's transpiring here are very much in question. The bottom line is, there's a haircut coming for our government. The tax rollback is the beginning of that haircut. Page 48 July 19, 2007 Our suggestion is, and the mantra from our government officials and staff, has been to cut services, scare tactics of the general public into reductions of levels of service that shouldn't necessarily -- don't have to be effectuated in order to accomplish maintenance and conformity within the comprehensive Growth Management Plan. We made the plan. The state changed the rules. And there was testimony this evening given to you by your staff that shows that there's a lot more information out there which you need to have in order to make an informed prudent decision to go forward. Don't cut services. Increase productivity. Cut down on waste. Don't penalize any portion of the private sector for a public sector's error. And, again, I urge you to vote against the suggested moratorium ordinance this evening. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Bill. MR. SCHMITT: Fred Thomas, followed by Bob Mulhere. MR. THOMAS: Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Fred Thomas. I'm the retired executive director of the Collier County Housing Authority. I retired in 2002. I've been very active in the community of Immokalee, but for years and years, I've been trying to get this -- our county commissioners to understand, we had the lowest millage rate in the state. Stop lowering the millage rate. You can't live on impact fees, okay. I'm curious to know whether you all even factored in the appreciation that we will realize in our taxable income in this equation as to whether we have enough money to handle our infrastructure. Then we have the other set of problems you all have got to be concerned about that negatively impact the economic base of this county. I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry. One, when most of your workforce don't live here in the county, they don't pay gas tax in the county. They don't pay taxes in the Page 49 July 19, 2007 county. They don't pay food taxes. They don't pay any kind of taxes in the county. They pay it someplace else. Not only that, without being any better than anyone else, they can get promotions and move to other communities where they don't have to travel. If you've got an industrial tax base that's based on tourism, construction and ag., and you know what has happened to ago since the '89 freeze and parts ofNAFT A -- that's been going down every year, understand -- you cannot maintain a solid -- most communities beg to have industry and make it easy for industry. What do I mean by making it easy for industry? I told you I was director of your housing authority. The governor gave me some money to build a dormitory for undocumented workers so they can get out of these nasty, burnt-up, built-up trailers. He gave me enough money that, based on all of my estimates, I could have put 400 beds m. But, boy, I made a stupid mistake. I built it hurricane proof to the new hurricane standards, post-Andrew hurricane standards, and I went to the fire department and the National Guard and I said, what do you need? Now -- and this building is so strong that it survived Wilma with no damage even though all of the roof in the packing house next door ended up in the courtyard. It only got scratches on the building. Not a roof shingle or window was broke. But when the fire department and National Guard said, well, in order to get the dues (sic) and the quarters around to the back where we can feed the folks, you've got to put a paved road in. Paved road? Underground utilities. Landscaping where nobody can see it. So I ended up with 192 beds. That's what keeps industry out of here and keeps your tax base down. And you know for every dollar of industry or tax you get, you only got a 75 cent drain in services, where residential want $1.25. We need to stop this foolishness. We need to look at the appreciation because appreciation's going Page 50 July 19, 2007 to keep going up for at least four years even though there's a slowdown. But every year the county commission and the county manager play the game. Hey, what's it going to look like this year, man? Well, we can lower the millage rate because we don't need that much money . We should have left the millage rate alone. We had the lowest millage rate in the state. It's not our fault the appreciation's so high that we have the highest per capita tax rate in the state. And the ones -- the only ones that are negatively impacted by that are the winter residents who don't have the benefit of homestead, but they want the services, but they're educating their kids someplace else. They want this, but they're doing everything someplace else. We need to become a self-contained doggone community, and the only way we can do that is to make it easy for the development, attract industry. Immokalee is trying to become -- and I'm the chairman of Immokalee Master Plan and Visioning Committee -- trying to become your industrial hub so that we can help this overall problem, but we can't do it until we begin to look at the standards that you all want us to build by that may be good for the coast but don't let us compete with any Central Florida town to get industry to our community, that doesn't need libraries, doesn't need parks and recreation, you see? You put a moratorium in, you're going to kill this place. And I'll be forced to do something I tried not to do. We will have to include Ave Maria in Marion County (sic). Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Fred. That could be a very bad day. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Next speaker, please. MR. SCHMITT: Bob Mulhere, followed by Lou Stirns. MR. MULHERE: Thank you. For the record -- I don't know how it is that I always seem to follow Fred, but that's no easy task. Joe, I thought I asked you to slip that down a little lower. Page 51 July 19,2007 Good evening. I'm here tonight in a couple of different capacities. One as a partner in a, what I would call small business, somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 employees, that is directly affected by the current economic downturn. Our clients are affected and, therefore, we're affected. And as someone spoke earlier, and I would concur, that we have not experienced a downturn to the likes of what we are experiencing now before in Collier County. But I'm really here tonight to speak in my capacity as a board member of the EDC. And, of course, Fred -- you know, I have the notes here to talk about the three-legged stool of our economy, which Fred already talked about. That's agricultural, tourism, and development. And we've seen what happens if one of those legs gets kicked out, never mind two of them. And there are people, many, many people working very, very hard to try to diversifY this economy, and it's a very difficult task. There are a lot of things that stand in the way. It's a very difficult regulatory process, it's a very expensive regulatory process, it's not for the faint of heart, it's not for those that aren't well-heeled, and it's also the most expensive place to build and to buy land, and it has the highest impact fees in the state. There's a lot of problems associated with trying to attract the kinds of businesses that will effectively diversifY our economy. Having said that, this moratorium will do nothing to improve those efforts. Conversely, it will significantly negatively impact those efforts to diversifY this economy, and it will take a long time before we recuperate from the effects of this proposed moratorium should it be adopted. Having said that, I would concur with what has already been said. We don't have enough information, and I understand that staff is doing only as they were directed and this is not really in any way, shape or form a criticism of staff. There's no reason to criticize them. Page 52 July 19, 2007 They've done what they were told. There are some -- I think the -- I want to compliment the Planning Commission because I think your questions were excellent. I think some of the items that you pinpointed do need a little bit of reworking. The affordable housing issue, you know, we should incentivize that. We have incentivized that. Let's not take away the incentives, so let's give some number of market rate so that somebody will still go forward. That is -- by the way, that is if this is inclined to be approved. I am not recommending that. And also, I think there is some lack of clarity with respect to the shell building and the SDP process. You know, in our building we have 5,000 square feet that's presently vacant. It's an office building. If we come in for a tenant improvement permit, are we stopped from going forward under this? I read it both ways. I think it needs to be made clear. Having said that, I think the Board of County Commissioners obviously has the ability to put this to rest as of Thursday, and I think your recommendation to that effect would go a long way towards ensuring that that happens, and I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any questions? MR. MULHERE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Bob. Next speaker, please. MR. SCHMITT: Lou Stirns, followed by Bruce Anderson. MR. STIRNS: Yeah, my name's Lou Stirns. I've lived here in Collier County for 30 years. I have been part of the fire department over those 30 years, about 13 of them. I have a piece of property out off of Immokalee Road in this area that -- east of Immokalee -- of 951, and this is the second time that we've had a moratorium on our property. Seven years ago they had a moratorium because Jeb Bush Page 53 July 19,2007 decided that he didn't like what was going on here, so I had to wait two years before I could even plan on doing anything to my -- with my property. And by that time, the county had made things so stringent that I lost out then. And now they have taken most all the property rights away out there for me to do any development or sell my property to get any densities on it whatsoever. So if you live west of 951, you're fat and happy . You're east, the county just keeps on sucking it and taking everything away from us. I wanted to speak on affordable housing. The only thing that's going to cure the affordable housing problem that we have in Collier County is density. You're going to have to raise the density on some of these lands, these lands that are in areas where schools are being built or businesses are being built. That's the only thing that's going to change. A builder can't build a cheap house when -- the way that the densities are. Mine's one for five acres. And on the EMS in the county. I've been around since 1979 with the fire department and I've been here to listen to the county try to make all the district fire departments come underneath their umbrella. They do it about every three years. They come up with this big idea that the county should take care of everything. Well, you know, I think it's time that everybody starts thinking about maybe the county needs to get out of the ambulance business and let professional firefighters do their job, and that would save a lot of money to offset it from the different districts. The county doesn't need to be in the ambulance business. That's something to think about. And I don't know, to be honest with you, why they are so adamant that the county is going to run the ambulance service. The only reason I can think of is the state gives grants or some kind of a give-away money deal involved into it where they just don't want to let go of the -- you know, the money. So that's all I got to say. And I vote turn this -- to turn this Page 54 July 19,2007 moratorium thing down and just get us back in line, get our spending back in line. $56 million parks? We could have done with a $1 O-million park with a baseball diamond and something else. We don't need that. We don't need bridges with fancy stone and stuff on them. Only cars are going over these things. And the beautiful lights, 3 or 4 million dollars. It just -- we don't need that stuff. People -- everybody in this town isn't an upper-class person. They can get by a little less beautiful. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. You're reading the right paper, by the way. MR. SCHMITT: Bruce Anderson, followed by -- Bruce Anderson followed by Kris Van Lengen. MR. ANDERSON: Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. My name is Bruce Anderson. I speak on behalf of many oppressed private property owners. My list is on file in the clerk's office. I'd like to address the ordinance first, and then I'd like to discuss the rationales that have been put forth why a moratorium is desirable to some people. First of all in my view the ordinance mixes the financial feasibility test with the concurrency test. They are two separate and distinct tests. A deficiency in the level of service for a particular type of category public facility can serve as a lawful basis to deny an application for a specific development order on the basis of lack of concurrency; however, it is quite another matter to adopt a blanket moratorium on the basis of an alleged level of service deficiency because the level of service for any given type of infrastructure can vary from one area of the county to another. Indeed, the level of service on any given roadway can vary from Page 55 July 19,2007 one segment to another. That's why we have individual determinations on development orders. This proposed moratorium takes a blanket approach level of service issues affecting development orders, but the county's level of service mechanism, the concurrency test, requires that individual determinations on development order applications be based on each particular development's impact on a particular type of infrastructure. A blanket moratorium as proposed is inconsistent with that test. One of the purported rationales for the moratorium is the fact that the Department of Community Affairs found the capital improvements element not in compliance. Both the county staff and the Department of Community Affairs staff have separately stated that the capital improvement element noncompliance issues are, quote, easily resolvable, unquote. We should let the compliance agreement negotiations continue and reach a conclusion one way or another before a moratorium is proposed based on a dispute that both sides say is easily resolvable. Additionally, the county has a full year and a half, until December I, 2008, to adopt a financially feasible capital improvement element. The second rationale that was put forward was because the legislature has order a rollback of property taxes. All local governments are impacted by this, not just Collier County. Indeed, that's why the legislature moved the financial feasibility compliance date back by a year to December 1, 2008. The staff report also makes reference to the constitutional amendment on property taxes that will be on the ballot in January. It is pure conjecture whether 60 percent of the voters will approve an amendment that abolishes a sure thing like Save Our Homes. We can come up with what-if scenarios all night long, but instead, let's cross that bridge if and when we come to it. My reading of the recent legislation is that the county can, in Page 56 July 19,2007 fact, increase the millage rate. It may require unanimous vote, but there is an escape hatch. There was also reference made to water and sewer and about the need to have water come out of the faucet; however, water and sewer have always been funded by user fees, not property taxes. The last rationale that was put forward for this proposed moratorium is about the alleged deficiency in the level of service for emergency medical services. Now, it's my understanding, and it seemed to be confirmed here today, that level of service calculations by the county do not take into account the emergency medical services provided by the various independent fire control districts in the county. The failure to include EMS provided by the fire districts violates the county's own Growth Management Plan, specifically the intergovernmental coordination element. Objective one of the intergovernmental coordination element requires the county to, quote, to establish and maintain intergovernmental communication and level of service coordination mechanisms with, quote, any other entity that provides a service but may not have land use authority, end of quote. That includes the independent fire districts. The county cannot ignore its own Growth Management Plan requirement and then cite its own violation as the basis for a moratorium. Collier County has the highest impact fees in the state and Collier County has the strictest concurrency laws in the state. Let our very strict concurrency enforcement law work as it was approved to be. It is designed to stop development when there is a level of service deficiency. Let the existing county concurrency law work instead of smothering the local economy with a blanket moratorium. I also would like the opportunity to address the list of exemptions. I can do that now or I would prefer not to take up your Page 57 July 19, 2007 time on it unless and until you vote to endorse a moratorium, then I'd like to come back to address specific exemptions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think we can work that way. MR. ANDERSON: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. SCHMITT: Kris Van Lengen, followed by Bob Krasowski. Sorry . MR. V AN LENGEN: Good evening, Commissioners. Kris Van Lengen, Bonita Bay Group. I have the pleasure of playing the violin a little bit in between all these drum solos. I'd like to just talk a little bit about unintended consequences, because I think that, to the extent that a lot of the community feels that some of this was not fully thought through, I think there may be many unintended consequences. I would like to address just one unintended consequence, and that is the effect of a moratorium on the TDR program and the rural fringe. Ironically or tragically, that's a program that grew out of another moratorium many years ago. It was a plan, the TDR program, that was carefully crafted by many people on the dais, a lot of stakeholders here today. It's a plan that, whose principal purpose is to preserve sending lands by compensating sending land owners to an economically viable process and selling TDR credits for used -- for . . . use m a recelvmg area. Now, this may seem a little obscure to what we're talking about tonight, but if you follow me, I think you'll see the connection. The plans at this moment for achieving what was designed to be the final two TDRs, the restoration and maintenance and conveyance TDRs, those TDRs that would allow sending landowners to get their full value for what -- as compensation for the reduced use of their sending lands, have been on the table for about two years now. That flower is just about to blossom, and I say it's almost there. It's not there yet. We have a couple of state agencies whose plans are Page 58 July 19, 2007 in the county to be approved. They're not approved yet. Many sending landowners are still sitting on the fence waiting to see the viability of this program to make sure that they can take part in the program and get economic value for their lost development rights. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the early entry bonus. Coincidentally, that bonus expires one year from the second Board of County Commissioners' hearing, that is September of 2008. I think they have a legitimate concern. I think the program itself could be in jeopardy. A moratorium will have a negative effect on sending landowner motivation to enter the program at any level, including stripping the base TDR. I think the inability, even through a temporary moratorium means less demand through the development industry of TDCs that, in turn, reduces the price or the currency. And basically, I guess my conclusion is that a devalued TDR currency discourages preservation of sending lands in an unintended way. And I think that that problem could be exacerbated significantly by a moratorium, and I think that's something that should be considered. It needs to be studied. And I don't think that a moratorium is the way to go for many reasons, but this is one that I thought I should bring to your attention. I have heard someone say there's an easy fix, extend the early entry bonus. That was one of those things that Dr. Nicholas said. We've tinkered with the program once in 2005. We're never going to touch it again. That was something that the Board of County Commissioners signed off on. And so I think that you have a problem with the rural fringe program under any kind of moratorium scenario. Those are my comments. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. MR. SCHMITT: Bob Krasowski, followed by Patrick White. MR. KRASOWSKI: Good evening, Commissioners. Bob Krasowski. I'm a 27-year resident of Collier County, and I've always Page 59 July 19,2007 taken an interest in the development of the community. I really wonder -- I don't understand. I have more questions than I do answers here, as so many people do. I wonder why people have been brought out here to participate in this hearing tonight. I certainly support early information on issues, but it seems, given the fact that the DCA is going to be speaking with one of the county's attorneys on December 7th, we should have had this meeting December 8th and no earlier, and that the -- we still have to revisit the AUIR where you folks participate in a broad process of looking at all the different components of the county operation and analyze the different facilities that are going to be built or planned, that that would have been done before this meeting as well. The BEBR report. The population projection has been downsized. As Mr. Zichella said, we used to plan on the high end and now it's gone to the middle. Just the other day I saw that they're going to readjust that as well. So all these projections for what our needs are into the future are going to be spread out over a great period of time. So I don't know. You know, I've had a sense that some of the comments of some of the political operators have been very hostile to Tallahassee. Maybe we're all being exploited for somebody's hostility, as someone else mentioned earlier. What happened to growth pays for growth? We have all these impact fees. I know there was a period when we fell behind in covering our -- some of the roads and other things. But we've been collecting -- the impact fees are -- if growth slows down, won't the need for the infrastructure slow down as well? And like -- I have a -- I'm certainly sensitive to the needs of the building community. I think they're -- definitely we should be sensitive to them, but I think we have to rework our whole plan. If people aren't moving here for the same reasons they moved over the last few decades, maybe we have to analyze that, and that's too complicated for me to get into right now. Page 60 July 19,2007 But I really have a -- I'm very sensitive over building affordable housing units for people that make twice the amount of money my family does that then undermines my ability to sell my house on an open market, so that's a big, hot issue with me, too. But I'd like to see us take the workers that live here in Collier County, the developers, and the -- and the construction industry, people that live here -- let the big guys leave, the speculators, let them go, they're leaving, good. But when we're left here alone, I think we should start looking at remodeling communities, renovating communities. Somebody like me, I want to improve my property, I might bump my taxes up and then I have to pay this higher tax. We have to make some adjustment to that. That's just not right. The people the live here should benefit from the improvements, not -- that just has to be reworked. I was watching -- I'll end with this. And I thank you for your consideration. I was watching a county commission meeting a couple of days ago. It had something to do with the budget. And they were discussing charging every resident in Collier County $50 for a beach tag, okay. And then Janet Vasey got up from the Productivity Committee and pointed out that we were going to spend $2 and a half million inviting some industries into Collier County that were going to create the need for more housing and then -- but more support staff that we would have to provide affordable housing for, so the -- if we didn't do that, then we wouldn't need that affordable housing, and then we -- maybe we would -- we could save that money and use it to defer the need to charge people 50 bucks for that. So EDC subsidies -- there's things in the budget we can look at. And in consultants -- over the years, one of my main complaints has been, we spend a fortune, millions and millions of dollars on consultants. We've had consultants that watch the work of consultants on top of consultants, and we should -- we should look at that, too, before we start squeezing other areas and the people, the grass-roots, Page 61 July 19, 2007 regular people that live here, we should just concentrate on making people happy that live here now, work on our image. People should be -- enjoy Collier County instead of being stressed out by all of this crazy stuff. But thank you for your attention to my comments. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. MR. SCHMITT: Patrick White, followed by Bill Poteet. MR. WHITE: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. Patrick White, Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur, here tonight representing VK Development, in particular the project known as Traviso Bay. I want to start out by talking about why you enact a moratorium in the first place. This has been an issue that's been of great concern to me as a land use lawyer literally from the last year of my law school days. There are roughly two rationales that the courts look at that will support this kind of legislation. And you'll note that this is legislation. It's not a quasijudicial determination. We're not being sworn and giving, you know, testimony. So I remind everyone that we're here to talk about those broad-based public policy making issues as opposed to policy application issues. And the public policy issues we're talking about today are whether you should prohibit or stop certain kinds of development activity. And when you look at a moratorium, you're looking at something that says, well, do I base my rationale on concurrency issues or consistency issues? The concurrency issues are those public health, safety, welfare ones that say, you have no choice because you're failing. Your levels of service are not being met. And as some folks have identified, one of the ways you can adjust that, change the level of service. I submit to you that we have a concurrency management system not only for transportation infrastructure, but for all of the other infrastructures that the AUIR looks at that are adequate. Page 62 July 19, 2007 There may be some concerns about how they're going to be funded in the future but that does not in and of itself demonstrate the immediate public health, safety, welfare needs that would justifY what was essentially a concurrency-related moratorium. The other general class of moratoriums that the courts will support are those that are considered to be consistency-based moratorium. The notion being that there somehow needs to be, as is what is stated here, a rationale to do some planning. Some time to think more about and write rules that are different than the ones you have now so that all the rules, when they work together, will be internally consistent. The county's rules internally with themselves will be consistent, they'll be consistent with the planning council regionally, with the state at its level. Those are the things that, to some minor degree, you've seen in the statement of intent for the notice to find ordinance 7-07 not in compliance. Stepping slightly across that minor gap that says, gee whiz, can we fix those things in a timely manner? I agree with Mr. Anderson and other speakers, we're kind of putting de cart before de horse. The logic just isn't there. So just trying to understand, what are the justifiable, rational bases that would support this kind of legislation, I fail to find any. Now, turning from the idea of what are the various types of moratoriums the courts may look at, we've set up a class of exemptions, and the browst (phonetic) of those starts out by looking at the traditional test that the Florida courts identifY. You'll remember that some time back when I had the pleasure of actually, you know, working with you all, that we established something called vested rights determination regulations. And, in fact, they embedded within them that very test that the Florida courts look at and that is set forth in this moratorium ordinance. I submit to you that not only does my client under that three-part Page 63 July 19,2007 test pass in the sense that his project is vested, but that almost everything that anyone who has done that has paid for their impact fees, would be so vested. So I find myself confounded by how it is that we can come forward with a regulation that's going to propose to stop Site Development Plans, it's going to stop plats, it's going to stop, arguably, even some building permits. That may make some sense if you had a concurrency-related basis for your moratorium, meaning there was an extreme public health, safety, welfare basis. But that's not what this is entitled. It is a planning moratorium, which is actually on the other end of the development cycle time line, that being out where the Growth Management Plan issues are talked about and rezoning issues are talked about. So we have a regulation that's proposed to operate, in essence, on the wrong end of the problem. And so I fail, again, to see how the courts would support this regulation if it were ever adopted. And I am not arguing in favor of it, believe me, by merely trying to suggest what some of its flaws are. Those are the things that I see that are substantively, in part, the problems. Procedurally, this is a land development regulation. The reason why you're having a 5:05 p.m. hearing and the board is required to have two hearings, one of them at 5:05, is because it's essentially a super rezoning. You're creating a class of prohibited uses, a very big one, a very broad one. It acts as legislation, but it's still, nonetheless, land development regulation, and the idea that you would put it in the code of the laws as opposed to the Land Development Code, in and of itself, is a procedural flaw of major magnitude. Now, turning from those things to some of the specific exemptions. And my point here as to VK Development is that I believe that based upon the fact that they have certificates of adequate Page 64 July 19, 2007 public facilities and a development contribution agreement essentially that would insulate them against this moratorium, that they are vested against the operation of this proposed law and, in fact, can tell you more about that in a minutes from the perspective of one of the county commISSiOners. But suffice it to say that -- turning to the rest of the exemptions, and I think quite honestly that the first of them that talks about the idea that whatever the Florida courts would think would qualifY, that is the snake eating its tail. But we could go through what the rest of those things are that are ones that would also qualifY as meaningful types of exemptions here. We talked about vested rights determinations. What about people who have official interpretations that the county itself has issued that effectively would vest them? Those aren't part of the exemptions. What about people who, like my client, that have had an administrative determination that effectively says they're vested against anyone damaging their rezoning? That's not in there. But the thing that concerns me the most is the thing that the county seems to spend a lot of time getting into agreements about. DCAs, developer contribution agreements. There's no mention in here of how people who have gone ahead and committed themselves to work in these public/private partnerships are in any way going to be protected. That seems to me to be fundamentally unfair, inequitable, and unjust. Those are the things that the courts will look at in determining vesting. I submit to you there are others. The classic one that consistently comes before this commission and the board, PUD sunsetting. There isn't word one in here about what happens to toll the period of time that PUDs would otherwise, who aren't able to come forward, would be insulated against this regulation. That, again, seems to be a flaw in its design in terms of how it's intended to operate. I'm going to wrap up on two points; one is, the financial Page 65 July 19,2007 feasibility issues here are ones that, if you look at the numbers, we're talking 35 million, maybe 55 million. This county has a billion-dollar budget. My math -- and don't trust lawyers. They don't do numbers very well, but I double checked them -- that's only 3 and a half percent of the total budget, or 5 and a half. I submit to you that if a business were to operate in a fashion that it couldn't adjust for a change in 3 and a half percent of its income operating revenue from year to year, it would not survive. It just fundamentally could not plan its way to an effective future. I don't think we need an ordinance that allows us some time to think about that. I think we can do it anyways. I have faith in the staff and I have faith in the county manager in that regard. Lastly, as to the -- I guess the likelihood of success ofthis regulation ever seeing -- being filed in the Department of State as an adopted ordinance. My client, Mr. Sanjay Kontemporor (phonetic), spoke today to one of the county commissioners, and Ms. Fiala gave her permission to indicate that she is not going to be in support of this piece of legislation and, in fact, that she believes that Traviso Bay is a project that would be vested or should be considered vested, not just against its SDPs or its rezoning -- or its zoning, but every aspect, right down to the idea that they paid $9 million in impact fees, and my goodness, if they haven't substantially relied on their potential detriment, I don't know who has. But I suspect there's a lot of other folks in this room that have done so. I thank you for your attention this evening. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to try to address them. Otherwise, I can only conclude by saying, please, do not find this consistent with your comprehensive plan, do not make a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners to adopt this piece of legislation either as it is when it came to you or as it may be adjusted. It is premature, and I Page 66 July 19, 2007 think that it is destined to fail in the courts if it were to be adopted. Any questions? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Patrick. MR. WHITE: Thank you again for your time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: Bill Poteet, followed by Kenneth Esquilin. MR. POTEET: Mr. Chairman, members of the board, I want to thank you for the opportunity to address you this evening. I represent the Golden Gate Area Civic Association. We're a homeowners association that represents the 22,000 residents that are in the Golden Gate City area, many of which will be affected if this ordinance was to be put in place. And our board discussed this in great detail, and we came back to one question, and the one question is, why? And every time we went back to why, we looked at the reasons, and the reasons were based on assumptions, maybes, and what-ifs. They were not based on concrete facts of things that are going to happen. And until you can show us the concrete facts, we think this is highly, highly wrong for Collier County to adopt an ordinance that -- where Collier County has the resources and capability of resolving 90 percent of the problems that were put into the report. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. MR. SCHMITT: Kenneth Esquilin, E-S -- looks like E-S-Q-U-I-L-I-N. Steven Soto, followed by Steve Hart. Steven Soto next. Steve Hart? I saw Steve here. Steve? Followed by Lou Vlasho. MR. HART: Vlasho. MR. SCHMITT: Vlasho. MR. HART: Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. Thank you very much. We'll just be very brief. Page 67 July 19, 2007 I am vice president for public policy, the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce. And Mr. Vlasho and I will put on the record for you that -- the Chamber's opposition to this. And I want to compliment this panel in its judicious approach to this and of the questions and the work, particularly on the part of the chairman. And I think you've heard all the arguments. It's a flawed document to begin with. It is not necessary. There is no justification for it. And I am confident you will pass on to the Board of County Commissioners the unnecessary nature of the document and that they will, indeed, do the right thing on Tuesday. And you might also, as way of mentioning to them, that they can, indeed, kill this on Tuesday if they have the political courage to do that, and we're grateful to hear, even secondhand, of Commissioner Fiala's feelings about this. Thank you very much for your time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Steve. Next speaker? MR. SCHMITT: Lou Vlasho, followed by Tom Taylor. MR. VLASHO: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Lou Vlasho, an I8-year resident of Pelican Bay, and my wife thinks nine-year resident of 5th Avenue South in Naples where we run some businesses. I also happen to be, amongst other things, vice-chairman of the Greater Naples Area Chamber of Commerce, president and chairman of the Greater Naples Better Government Committee, and president of the Republican Men's Club. The reason I mention those is, this issue is a big wide issue. The program and the discussion this evening started with, we are here because we have a problem. We're all here for that. I'm here because we have a problem. Your comments and discussions -- and I'll call them experts that have spoken before you -- can cover the details much better than me. But this ordinance, in laymen's term, the financial data, not finalized; the new law, not finalized; the justification, loose at best. A quarter of Page 68 July 19, 2007 a billion dollars are talked about. That's a big number, but that's suspect also. But this is not a building -- builders' industry or CBIA or NABOR problem only. This is a problem of this community. The economy of this community is idling at best right now. We don't need to do anything to stop it from idling. But I want to talk about the hundreds -- no, the thousands and thousands of small businesses in this county that are suffering now. Yes, I've been around long enough that we have peaks and valleys, but when you're in a valley, that's not when you turn off the gas. You-- that's when you put gas on it. Stop to reassess what needs to happen and you will kill some of those small businesses. They will not survive. Yes, we have a problem. It's a big problem, but it's just not government's problem. And the business community is ready to roll up its sleeves and talk about real solutions. This ordinance is not the solution. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you sir. Next speaker? MR. SCHMITT: Tom Taylor followed by Ed Griffith. MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, my name is Tom Taylor. I'm here speaking on behalf of myself and also our engineering company, Hole Montes, Incorporated. I've been here since 1984. I've seen an awful lot of change in Collier County, what I think, for the most part, being good because of the good work that many people in the development industry and the building industry, firms like ourselves, that have been involved in this community for 25 years, at least in my case, almost, and we built our engineering firms. I see some of my fellow engineering representatives in the audience tonight, and a couple of them have spoken. I can assure you that our firms are high wage-paying jobs. We're Page 69 July 19, 2007 not just -- this -- the impact of this potential moratorium does not just impact the building industry. It is very difficult for our firms to recruit the professionals that you need here to make this community what it needs to be. We've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if you want to count the wages, millions of dollars paying people to provide the services that county government needs here, as well as the private sector. The trickle-down effect of a moratorium is much broader than just the contractors and the builders and the subcontractors that are here in the audience tonight. I think Mr. Vlasho pointed out that it affects all aspects of the economy here. I'm happy to see that we had the attorneys here to speak to the technical aspects of the ordinance. I was actually surprised that there are still many, many questions that are unanswerable related to the ordinance and related to what DCA came back at the county with the submittal of their CIE plan. And I think we really should get those answers before we take such a drastic action. I'm going to ask you, because I feel the county commission really looks at you and listens to your voices very -- they weigh that very, very heavily. You're a powerful group. They understand. They've appointed you to those positions to listen to what you have -- what you say when you listen to other members of the community speak. You've heard a lot of those people speak tonight. First I would ask that you not approve the ordinance at all. If you feel compelled to approve some ordinance, please modifY that ordinance appropriately based on the testimony you've heard today. If you have to -- if you feel compelled to approve some ordinance, I would ask that you give a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners that they not approve the ordinance when they take this issue -- when this issue comes before them next Tuesday. There are a lot of other people that will be disenfranchised by a Page 70 July 19,2007 moratorium action. Please do what you think is the right thing based on what you've heard tonight. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Next speaker? MR. SCHMITT: Ed Griffith, followed by Dr. Fisher. MR. GRIFFITH: Thank you, Chairman Strain, and members of the commission. My name is Ed Griffith. I'm with WCI Communities, and I appreciate this time to be able to speak to you all before a large audience who is certainly giving the impression that this is a very serious thing that we are grappling with, and there's a lot to be resolved, but also this is just not something that we can look at and right away consider as an option to do. I can't see the wisdom that the county sees in declaring a moratorium. The moratorium's directed at the building industry, which is a significant driver in our three-legged economic stool, which I've heard before and Bob Mulhere had mentioned. Our local economy is at a low as it is right now, you know, that we can't recover by adding any more heavy sinkers to our feet while our heads are still above the water. The significance of a moratorium decision, it needs to be based on what I believe is extensive evaluation and exhaustive analysis of all the possibilities of alternatives before we determine that a moratorium is absolutely necessary. The county -- can the county assure the public and the businesses that a thorough financial analysis has been done to claim that there is a real financial deficiency which cannot pay for the growth and that there's no other alternative that exists other than a countywide moratorium? Something that Bruce Anderson had mentioned, but I think the same thing, I mean, doesn't the county already have the authority given that's described in the moratorium ordinance already in the requirements of the Growth Management Plan? It sounds so much Page 71 July 19, 2007 like what the Growth Management Plan says that the county can do in situations like this. We're already in a public hearing to hear about whether to decide or not on a moratorium in less than two months after the county, Board of County Commissioners, was introduced to it. That seems quite hasty to get to this point. I've seen many other ordinances of less significance take a lot longer than this. You know, this is very important. We need to spend the time necessary to be absolutely sure, you know, that we are all making the right decision. I think a moratorium is a last resort. It is not a first choice. My opinion is that, you know, we're premature here at what we're doing to be discussing such an ordinance at this time, and the consequences of the result of such an ordinance is synergistic and it could create other far greater problems that, for all we know, we could end up in a situation that we can't resolve those, and so we have in that case a domino effect. So what I would urge the Planning Commission to seriously consider is to not recommend approval of this moratorium ordinance that's approved -- proposed. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Next speaker, please. MR. SCHMITT: Dr. Fisher, followed by Pierre Bruno. DR. FISHER: My name is Dr. George B. Fisher. I'm an ophthalmologist eye surgeon here in Collier County. I'm on staff at NCH, North Collier. We do have a public health problem in Collier County, and it's not limited to EMS. It's limited and -- to access to health care. Doctors' offices are overcrowded. Emergency rooms are overcrowded. Access to healthcare is limited due to space, due to recruitment of doctors. Page 72 July 19,2007 Medicare pays the same amount of money whether you're in Collier County or whether you're in Georgia. So your cost of doing business here, your cost of healthcare is high because of the cost of land, the cost of impact fees and how that trickles down to healthcare. When doctors are recruited for Collier County, malpractice insurance is three times higher here than it is in Georgia. What are we doing to create a space for physicians for healthcare in Collier County? Ifwe don't do something, we are going to cripple healthcare in 10 years. This year alone Medicare has a cut of 10 percent. How many of your doctors have gone to concierge medicine and left you in the cold to find another doctor? It's because they cannot afford to pay their leases. Leases have gone up 30 percent in just a few years because impact fees have gone so high. I'm in the process of looking to build an office. My patients are now waiting probably 20 minutes longer than they did two years ago. We need a new office, and of course we're pursuing that avenue. And our impact fees for a 5,000-square-foot building are going to be over $200,000. Now, that may come out of my pocket initially, but it's going to -- it's going to affect all of you because I'm not going to sign that contract with the low payer insurance that your company might have. One of the difficulties we have, even if we can get people there with EMS, they're going to sit in the ERs. You can make three runs with the ambulances before that patient gets seen. That's not the issue. The issue is, is that doctors who are landowners are looking to build properties, and if we stifle that with a moratorium, it may not -- you may not look at that as affecting people now, but it does because it delays access to healthcare, to clinics and hospital expansions that would be opening within a period of time, and now that period of time is delayed however long that we have this moratorium. You'll see in a lot of your offices that you're not seeing the doctor Page 73 July 19, 2007 anymore. You're. seeing a nurse practitioner, you're seeing a P A. Doctors have to generate more patient visits to pay the costs associated with practicing in Collier County. This is a wonderful place to live, but I can make more money if I go to Georgia. I want to live here. I want to be in Collier County. I want my kids to grow up here. But something this Planning Commission and the Board of Commissioners and this county needs to take into consideration is that the fees and the costs that we're giving to everybody -- and we have a Planning Commission that's trying to bring new business here and there's incentives. Well, there's going to need to be incentives for healthcare because doctors are leaving here. They're not staying here. The number one cost to any business in Collier County is the cost of their facility, and second to that is employees, and we're already having a problem getting qualified people because they can't afford to live here. That needs to be a consideration of this board. And when we look at this moratorium, this is not affecting a small number of people. This is affecting all of you and this is affecting your healthcare because this is going to trickle down, as these costs go up and as these delays may occur for a large number of physicians, several of whom I know are looking to build new businesses, are landowners in North Collier County near Immokalee Road, out near 951, delays in their buildings, even though they may be private doctors, it's going to delay your healthcare. The delay in my building project, I have 10,000 patients. We see those -- we see approximately 7,500 of those patients on an annual basis. So those people who can't get in to see me, where do they go? They go to the ER. They call EMS. When patients can't get into their doctors, they call EMS. EMS is not being used properly, and I think part of that needs to be addressed in the study, and I think that that is flawed. And if you talk to the hospitals and talk to the physicians, you'll see that a very Page 74 July 19,2007 good majority of those EMS visits are not appropriate. They're people calling because if you take EMS to the hospital, you're going to get seen because you've come by ambulance. That is not why we need to address EMS problems with a public health issue. We need to allow the expansion of physician offices, hospitals, urgent care centers, because these people can get affordable access without tying up the EMS system. I'd finally like to say that most doctors will never come to these meetings. They're still in the ER, they're still in surgery. Most of us don't have the ability to attend these, but I would like to speak on behalf of myself and my colleagues that this is a bigger problem and this is far reaching, and the board and the planners need to think carefully about the future of healthcare and how this is going to affect not only the building industry, but this will affect everybody, and it may even affect your company's insurance that could be turned down because they don't have access, the doctor's office can't get the patients in, or maybe that payer can now no longer allow them to afford to see those patients because their cost for their building, their impacts fees, are too high. Creating a moratorium is going to cause a delay in addressing service issues in healthcare, and I would advise you, please, to reconsider. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: Pierre Bruno, followed by your last speaker, Assistant Chief Rob Potteiger. MR. BRUNO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the commission. I rise today in opposition of this moratorium. I didn't come here to speak tonight, but as I was hearing more about the building moratorium, I made some observations while counsel, Mr. Klatzkow, was addressing the commission. And it seemed to me that counsel was willing to change almost any line that you started talking about. And with all due respect, sir, Page 75 July 19,2007 you know, I don't know all the inner runnings here, but it just occurred to me that he was willing to make any concession; I'll change that line, we can change that line, we could fix that line, just to keep this -- I'm sorry, I called it building moratorium before. It's a planning moratorium -- just to keep this thing alive, and that concerned me. And as an observer, I wanted to share that with you and say that, perhaps, it should concern you. What's so important about keeping it so alive, and ask him why? Why is he willing to make any change that you would want? And if he is willing to make any change that you would want, then I would suggest that you tell him to erase the ink from the paper. Throw the paper away. When all is said and done, I think he'll do that because that's the way he seemed to be. You know, folks, government -- government should not be holding businesses responsible and hostage for their own shortsightedness. Government has to stand up to the plate here. So I ask you to really tell the Board of Commissioners that this -- this moratorium idea is a really bad thing. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: And your last speaker. Chief? CHIEF POTTEIGER: Good evening. Rob Potteiger, East Naples Fire Department. The doctor made some good points, some of the figures we got tonight from EMS are staggering, but the level of service in this county is unique. The people drive the level of service. I was here in the early '70s when there was one ambulance for the whole county. People didn't want to wait a half hour, 45 minutes for an ambulance. They wanted ALS. They saw Johnny Gage in Emergency One, and they wanted that in this community. They got it. The fire departments got into the EMS, number one, because the ambulance took a half an hour, 45 minutes to get there. Now, through partnerships, we augment with the EMS with our ALS engines. Almost every department in this county has ALS engines, and the sole purpose of this is to get to the people. It's at no extra cost to the Page 76 July 19,2007 taxpayers. It's coming out of the fire department budgets. Our budget, we lost a million and a half dollars. You know, East Naples is kind of used to doing more with less, but we'll make it. I mean, everybody will make it. Our people are good. Our commissioners are great. But if you really want to know the level of services, look in NFP A. NFP A has guidelines, they have response times. It all depends what the county wants. If they want a response time of 15 minutes, no problem. It's like the doctor said, you know, we're using the ambulance for a taxicab. We have for 25 years. Everybody knows it. But what are we going to do? We're not going to say no. So we grin and bear it. I'd sure like to challenge the numbers this gentleman had on the millions of dollars that they're losing, but they're one of the highest collection rates for the country in Collier County. But EMS right now is in most of the fire departments. East Naples has five stations. Collier County EMS is in every one of them. Three station we built with EMS. Why? Taxpayers' money. I mean, it makes sense. Why not share facilities? We do that regularly. The building moratorium, I don't know who dreamed it up, but please, just go with -- go with your hearts. Don't worry . We're not asking for essential service, but we appreciate it. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir, Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I would like to make a motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's make sure we're finished with everything first, sir, and then we'll -- MR. SCHMITT: That concludes all the public speakers, registered public speakers. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Klatzkow, did you have any -- did you want any closing comments? Page 77 July 19,2007 MR. KLA TZKOW: No, no. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, I'd -- one comment, just to note before anybody leaves, this is a time certain item on Tuesday at II a.m. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Board of County Commissioners, this room, Tuesday, II a.m., time certain. So if you have to take time off from work and you come here, you can be sure II o'clock it will start. I don't know what the motion's going to be, but I want to take a moment while you're still sitting here to ask you to do one thing. You've all spoken about the issue tonight and you've heard a lot about it. It's all derived from the budget process, but the budget process doesn't start when you hear about it. The budget process starts in the fall of every year with a document called the AUIR, the Annual Update and Inventory Report. The meetings go on sometimes two or three days. We sit here and we beat that budget up and those proposals up as best we can. But you know what, there isn't anybody in the audience, nobody. And if you want to control impact fees and you want to control the budget and you want to control moratoriums, you need to participate in the AUIR. Your groups need to collectively put some money together and hire a professional to come here and tell us where the flaws might be or how we could do better. We've tried. We're amateur compared to what the experts could do. So if anything comes out of this whole operation, if the public would just come out and attend those meetings, you all would be so much happier at the outcome, because we'll listen to you. And I know if the BCC sees you here, they'll listen to you, too. So with that, Mr. Murray, you want to make a motion? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. I would move that the Page 78 July 19,2007 proposed moratorium, the subject of this evening's meeting, not be adopted and a recommendation that it not be adopted be forwarded to the Board of County Commissioners. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there a second to the motion? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion's made by Commissioner Murray, seconded by Commissioner Vigliotti. Mr. Klatzkow, in some cases when we make motions, you're requesting that we provide detailed reasons for our motions. I think we've all heard everything going on here tonight. I haven't heard anybody here strenuously objecting to it. Do you need more data than what you've received? MR. KLATZKOW: No, I don't think we need any additional data, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any comment from the Planning Commissioners? Mr. Midney, then Ms. Caron. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Thanks, Mark. I'm also against a moratorium, but we have to remember that the government can't spend more than we raise by taxes, that's the first thing. Just like a family can't spend more money than it makes. So if we have a 3 and a half to 5 and a half percent shortfall, which we've been told -- you know, we don't know. I'm not the economist. That's not my expertise -- and if we do have to have 35 to 55 million dollars a year, we have to find some way of doing it. I don't think it's right for us to just sort of push it off to the next generation or to the future. And there have been a lot of people who have been questioning the numbers. And hopefully when the numbers are reanalyzed, that shortfall will go away. But what if it -- what if there is really a big deficit that high? How are we going to cut 3 and a half to 5 percent of our budget quickly? I know in a business, the owner, whatever, can say, we're going Page 79 July 19, 2007 to cut this, you know, we're going to do it in such and such a way. But in a democratic system -- which you mentioned the AUIR process where over years and months, you know, we've come up with a certain degree of what we think that the county needs -- to just say that, you know, over a period of a couple months, we're going to suddenly just slash that by 3 or 5 percent, I think, would be difficult. And, you know, everything has its own constituency. If you're somebody whose relative is deathly ill, you're going to be upset if the ambulance takes 30 minutes to get there. In a community like Immokalee, parks are very important because people don't have a lot of material things. And libraries are very important. When we incarcerate people at the rate that we do in Collier County, we don't want them to be packed in there like sardines. And the same thing goes for roads, water, and sewer. I've heard people say, you know, well, the government can just be more efficient. And one speaker said that Mr. Mudd said that it would be easy to cut $50 million. That may be true, but we would have to be able to see it and it would have to be done fairly and it would have to be done with a lot of deliberation and a lot of careful planning. It just can't be cut, you know, at the -- like with an X. I'm not in favor of a temporary planning moratorium. I think every possible alternative should be exhausted first. That should be the last resort. But what if we can't when -- with all the careful analysis -- and there is a time limitation here with the DCA where they say that we have to have a feasible plan within a certain period of time. What if we can't logistically make those cuts or that -- implement those efficiencies in that time period? An advantage of the temporary moratorium is that it's not the same as waiting for concurrency to kick in because, as Mr. Klatzkow said, if you wait for the concurrency to kick in, that's a building moratorium. That stops you right at the point where you're building Page 80 July 19, 2007 rather than in the planning stage. It's more premature and it's less traumatic. So I'm going to vote against the motion only for the fact that I feel that if we can't balance the budget any other way, we ought to leave a temporary planning moratorium option in there as a last resort. And what the motion said was to reject it out of hand. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That is correct. May I respond in part at least? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Very briefly. I just -- to ask you to consider this, which is the reasoning I applied, to some degree. All of the factors, they're all very valid that you've related to, but it occurs to me as well, for instance, we have inevitably retirees, we have some debts, and we have some people who are dissatisfied and who, financially, cannot stay here any longer. Now those people are teachers, for instance. And teachers are -- they're going to try to induce teachers to come here, and when teachers see an environment where everything is on hold and everything is subject to all of these implications that you've referenced, they're going to decide against coming here, and that's just one group, teachers. What's before us this evening is an opportunity to either take a heavy hand and put it down or to give the commissioners an opportunity to take alternative means or find a medium ground. I don't know that we'd have enough information or enough time in this meeting this evening to go through all of the ramifications that you see there as hedge points. I respect them, but the reason I came down hard with a no is because I truly believe government has alternatives that it can exercise, including, if it must, raising taxes in other areas or shifting monies about. Businesses do it all the time, and I thank you for that opportunity to respond. Page 81 July 19,2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney, you certainly can respond, but I've got to -- you've got to remember there are other people in this commission that may want to make some comments. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Oh, yeah, I'm going to be very brief. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Try to be as short as you can. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I want to respond to this. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'm going to be very brief. I agree with everything that you said. My only point is, what if -- I'm not an economist, but what if they can't find any other way to balance the books? That's my only point. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Next person was -- oh, you want to respond to Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes, I want to respond to Mr. Midney. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: This is also for the motion maker. Mr. Midney, you're agreeing that we do not need it at this time? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Use your-- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'm sorry. Mr. Midney, you're agreeing we do not need it at this time and you'd like the opportunity to, maybe first of the year, readdress it if we can't resolve it through the AUIR and some other measures. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Right. If -- well, I don't know whether we have the shortfall or not. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay. But what I'm saying is -- and this is for the motion maker also -- that we right now reject it and also add the caveat that if it can't be resolved through the AUIR, this December 8th meeting I'm hearing about, if by the first of the year this isn't resolved, then we can bring this or some facsimile thereof back too. Would that resolve your problem? Page 82 July 19, 2007 COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yes. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Will the motion maker -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti, before you go that far, the BCC can do what they want to do when the issue comes back up in the fall anyway. We don't need to provide them with what-ifs. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney's whole argument is based on an if. If we like ifs, then this is -- this should be -- the motion should have been to approve. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So I'm not sure you really want to entertain that kind of an addition to the motion. I think that would be detrimental. Do we make it clean or are we going to mess it up and go into a longer discussion on it, but -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay, fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron, you had wanted to comment next? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah. I'll be supporting the motion, however, I do think that we did toss out some ideas tonight that I think are worthy to pass along to the Board of County Commissioners and should be done. For one thing, we did talk about waiting. Perhaps we just have a communication issue and we should wait until after August 7th -- it's August 7th, not December 7th -- August 7th when the DCA comes to town and sits down with staff. I think reminding the board that that's going to happen is a wise thing to do. We also talked about waiting for the AUIR. I think that's a really critical thing to say to them. And we also discussed -- and I was keeping -- you know, whether they are valid or not, we discussed a lot of ideas, and I think that we should pass those ideas along. Mr. Midney started out the conversation by suggesting bonds, and I think I know the answer to that, but that was the very first Page 83 July 19,2007 suggestion. Mr. Strain then suggested that EMS take the direction that the CCP and the Productivity Committee had given right from the start. Well, we've heard tonight that that would save at least $15 million. It's not all they need, but it's a hell of a start. So I think passing that information along would be a good thing so they don't have to read through all the minutes. Someone else suggested that we don't show the projected loss until after the referendum has happened. That's an alternative that would happen in late January, so perhaps that's something they'd like to consider. We also talked about -- Mr. Vigliotti talked about lowering levels of service in one area and raising them in others to compensate and balance whatever shortfalls we may have. We do need to factor in-- and this will come with the AUIR -- the new BEBR figures. They've just come out. I personally haven't even seen them, so -- COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Nobody has. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Strain said, perhaps we could just do something like stopping all rezones and everything else would be fine just the way it is, but potentially maybe that's something they would like to think about. And then the big one, obviously, is to reprioritize everything and take a look at the whole thing from the top to the bottom. And I think that we should pass on all of those suggestions. And I'm sure that the board will have many more that they will come up with as well. I'd just like to say, for Mr. Klatzkow, that the board direction was to do this, not to put a moratorium into effect tomorrow or even a month from now. But because we will be going through this AUIR, all they wanted to do was make sure they didn't get caught behind the eightball if, as Mr. Midney suggested, what if -- what if we can't find the ways? So I think this is good planning on the part of the commission to July 19,2007 have something in the works so that when it -- if it came time that we would have to flush it out, we'd have a basis and we wouldn't have to be scrambling and starting from scratch. So those are my thoughts. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Would you like my response? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, no. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: As the motion maker? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Can you wait? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's get -- Mr. Adelstein's got something to say, Mr. Schiffer needs to speak. Let's get through everybody here first, and Mr. Tuff, and then we'll get back to you for round three. Go ahead, Mr. Adelstein. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I personally am going to be at the meeting Tuesday for the county commissioners. I certainly hope a few more of us can be there because at least we're going to hear what they're going to say and how they're going to say it, and we might get some ideas, and they can get some ideas from us of the fact that we are looking down their throats. I really don't think it would be a good idea if one of us comes, but I certainly hope a few more of you could have the time to show up at that meeting. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer, them Mr. Tuff. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And this is to Randy. Randy, have you prepared the response to the ORC in the format that they wanted? Because that's essentially what triggered all this. Has that been prepared yet? MR. COHEN: Commissioner Schiffer, during the process, we've had various iterations that have gone back and forth which, with each iteration, they've asked for additional information, whether it be financial, whether it be timing, whether it be project related. To be quite frank with you, the last request was for information that was of a financial nature that's never been asked of any other Page 85 July 19,2007 government in the State of Florida that I'm aware of, and also to prepare for them the CIE tables in a manner that I've never seen as well, too. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And let me just speed it up a little bit. And that's what the report actually -- that's what the report actually said, they want five years, not four; that's what they're referring to, right? MR. COHEN: Well, and that's -- that's the minor issue. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Let me keep going. And they also want you to spread out the funding sources, the first here have to be exact. Has that answer been prepared yet? Is that -- what is -- MR. COHEN: The question in DCA's mind is one of -- and it's not one that was actually raised internally here or by DCA. It was raised by outside sources -- is whether or not our plan was financially feasible. And as a result of that, we've gone through all these iterations in trying to show them that that is the case. The last iteration is one, to be very frank with you, in the manner in which it was prepared -- we prepared it for them, but to be very honest with you, we don't agree with the means by which it was prepared, but we gave it to them to see. And the reason we don't agree with it is because the mechanism that they asked us to provide for them is one that may not be attainable in terms of the way it functions. So there are some problems in the discussion. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Everybody in this room knows what it's like to submit something to a government agency and have them ask you to do something you've never done before. So the answer really though, have you done what they've asked us to do in the remedial report? It looks -- I mean, it isn't probably simple to get the data, but has that been prepared yet? It's been two months since they gave it to us. Your presentation of that to the commission is what triggered this whole thing. Page 86 July 19,2007 MR. COHEN: What's going to transpire on August 7th is, we'll have a meeting with Mr. Piawah at DCA, not only to go over what data, but also to discuss points of contention that still exist. The issues four or five months ago may have been easily resolvable, but at this point in time there are some issues that do exist. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. I'm getting tired. So somewhere between yes and no, is it in the middle? No, seriously. MR. COHEN: You're a good man. MR. SCHMITT: The answer --I'll answer it. No, we -- because it depended much on what happened with the budget hearings and how monies were moved by both the board and the manager, and that just happened recently. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. SCHMITT: We will now meet with them and explain based on the guidance we have from the board. So the answer to your question, no, we do -- that will -- we will provide -- and that's what the meeting for is (sic) in August. We have not given them the information to satisfy this shortcoming that will be discussed in August. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And the short answer still-- just no is the answer, right? COMMISSIONER CARON: Always the best. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's as short as it can get. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But the sad thing is, that's when we know -- that's when we find out whether we can afford our lifestyle or not. That is the report. That is what is missing. That is why we're here and that is why, you know, everybody's freaked out that we're going to have a moratorium. Enough said. Ready to vote for me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh. Well, we've still got two people that haven't spoken, then Mr. Murray wants to speak in reference to his motion. Page 87 July 19,2007 Mr. Tuff? COMMISSIONER TUFF: I just have a question for our attorney here. But I -- you know, I'm passionately opposed to this, but I also have a -- my employer, I believe, if this passes, would be shut down and would have to leave to a different county. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Fire everyone. COMMISSIONER TUFF: So I don't know if it's a conflict of interest where I can't vote or not. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Everybody does. MR. KLA TZKOW: I think it's fair to say this is affecting pretty much everyone in this room. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that it, Mr. Tuff? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Yep. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I've got one statement I'm going to make, and then we'll go back to Mr. Murray. Paul, you gave the best argument I've heard tonight for reason to vote for this motion, and that is, everything's and if, and it absolutely is. I deal in facts. We deal on this Planning Commission in facts. Every particular issue that comes before us, we factually tear into it, we provide the best we can to move it forward. The ordinance that you reviewed tonight was five to seven pages, depending on whether it was legal size or letter. This is the backup to study and know that ordinance. I went through it. There's four inches or three inches of documentation here, and I can tell you that there is no basis from what I can see for this ordinance based on the documentation that I have and I've thoroughly reviewed. So with that, I'm going to support the motion. Mr. Murray, did you have anything you wanted to add? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm not sure. I wanted to just respond to Commissioner Caron. I do agree, she is correct. While the record is there for her -- for them to review in toto, in this context that she's speaking, I think it's a good idea to have those items grouped Page 88 July 19,2007 together for their purview, and I certainly would incorporate that into the motion. That's a fine piece for them to see. But the motion, as I put forward, I think, should -- in my opinion, should remain, with the exception of her addition or recommendation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, wait a minute now. You said first you want to incorporate it in her -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: My -- with the -- her recommendation addition. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, then before we do that, because all of us will be voting on this, I want to specifically explicitly know what it is we're adding to this motion because it's real simple the way you've said it and the record's real clear, and Mr. Klatzkow has never misled the commission on behalf of what this commission -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Then I'm good. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- sends forward. So if you want to amend the motion to make it more complicated, you're more than welcome to. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No, sir. I was trying to accommodate what I thought was, in logic, a good sensible suggestion, but I also agree, as I said at the first instance, the record speaks for itself. And ifit takes them time to go through it, if that's what they have to do, well fine. Rather than complicate this matter, I'd like to have -- call for a vote. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Rather than -- and then Ms. Caron highlighted it, Mr. Klatzkow certainly is aware of it, and I'm willing to leave it like that so then we should called for the vote. All those favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: (Absent.) COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye. Page 89 July 19, 2007 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed to the motion? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: (Raises hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Motion for defeat of the moratorium, the recommendation of not moving forward with it has passed, 8-1 -- or actually 7-1. We're missing one member of our commISSIOn. Thank you all for attending tonight. Thank you for your participation. (Applause.) MR. SCHMITT: Concludes the meeting. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No. We're about to do it. We have no old business, no new business. Public comment's been heard. We adjourn the meeting. Thank you. ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 8:00 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION MARK STRAIN, CHAIRPERSON TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC., BY TERRI L. LEWIS, NOTARY PUBLIC. Page 90