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Bayshore Gateway Minutes 10/28/2023 W  October 28, 2023   1    COLLIER COUNTY COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY (CRA) BAYSHORE/GATEWAY TRIANGLE LOCAL REDEVELOPMENT ADVISORY BOARD OCTOBER 28, 2023 -- WORKSHOP LET IT BE REMEMBERED, the Collier County CRA Bayshore Gateway Triangle Local Redevelopment Advisory Board in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 10:00 AM in a SPECIAL meeting at 4870 Bayshore Drive, Naples Botanical Garden, K123 Kapnick Center, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: MEMBER ATTENDEES: Karen Beatty, Chairwoman Greg Oravec, Director Maurice Gutierrez Al Schantzen Kathi Kilburn Sam Saad, Jr. Kristen Hood Michael Sherman James Talano Steve Rigsbee (excused absence) OTHER ATTENDEES: Shirley Garcia Tami Scott, Project Manager Dan Kowal, Commissioner District 4 Dan Rodriguaz, Deputy County Manager Sandra Arafet, MSTU 1. Meeting Called to Order 2. Invocation & Pledge of Allegiance 3. Roll Call Introductions were made by everyone present.   October 28, 2023   2     Follow-Up: Party at Ascent at Metropolitan Naples, 1950 Mayfair Street. Compliments of Sam Saad for the group to visit the 15th floor.  Greg Oravec: The most valuable thing is time. If you take the time to dream, that’s important. But more important than dreaming is doing it, carrying it out and bringing it to life. Make something good even better. 4. Adoption of the Agenda Approved. 5. Public to be Heard (Non-agenda Items)  Greg Oravec: Ground rules: Copies of the ground rules were provided to the members. Review it; make any changes; agree to it.  Karen Beatty: Follow proper protocol when it’s time to speak – when you want to speak about something, address the Chair instead of speaking out. Sometimes people speak out at the same time and it gets crazy. Get my attention and let me know that you want to speak. No private conversations while we have a public speaker or another board member is speaking.  All members signed the ground rules agreement. 6. Retreat Program: Goals for the day: Facts governing regulations, relevant history and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats to SWOT analysis so that we can confirm where we are going – either confirm our existing vision or you’ve tweaked it. We’ll know where we’re trying to go and advise the CRA Board, the Community, others accordingly. Important point: This is a first step – you have to start somewhere. This should be part of an annual process that’s actually regimented – on a cycle that repeats itself and a pursuit of continuous improvement. It should be a huge community-facing element.  Board members filled out the pre-event survey provided to them.  Dan Rodriguaz: You’re here for strategic planning because your goal is to lay down a road map you all agree on with community input. Greg can help form and get the vision of the Commissioners and his support to champion so you can get that in front of the board and it gets stamped and approved and you could put it up on the wall and say this is what our streets are going to look like; this is what the landscaping is going to look like; the architectural value in the different areas; our standards for utilities; storm water; a park that is so much more if that's the gateway to Naples Bay.  Greg Oravec: You need basically two pages – a map and a plan. You get a pretty graphic that shows the visual representation of what it's going to be, and then the character sketch of the project you're actually talking about that day. That's what we need, and that's what we'll create if you identify for us our top ten projects.  Complaint – Lunar Street: Lighting was installed overhead of our pretty lamps – looks unfinished, willy-nilly and the visual looks horrible and out of place.   October 28, 2023   3     Greg Oravec: Focus on what we’re going to do rather than worrying about what may happen and we'll put it on the agenda as a follow-up for next year's strategic planning retreat. Let's have the discipline as a team to wait until then and just focus on what we're doing from this moment forward. Can I can I get a buy-in from the group? (Yes.) It’s an official follow-up. Break Sharing favorite takeaways from the pre-event survey: What was your favorite question and what would you want to share with your team?  Kristen Hood: What are some of the most important challenges facing the BGT? I would say public safety, maintaining a sense of place and completing projects. A sense of place: It starts with where Collier County started and the reason we're not Miami and the East Coast. There were original families who came here that bought parcels in this land that isn't developed because they refused to develop it, and there's no major roadways aside from one to Marco because they didn't develop it. There are a lot of areas that we have green space because they were never intended for development. So it's not by happenstance that we are who we are today based on a vacuum. We have new developments that are coming in that don't have an education of where we came from. I think it's important to maintain the integrity of how this community started and the most important values of Collier County from inception to now. I think that's a big component to why we have the quality of life that we have and why we have the environment and the shared sense of pride. We have a lot of unique challenges that are coming now, especially with urbanization. So I think that the approach has always been to do things sustainably and to do them in the most sustainable ways possible. And I think that those are some of the most important things that we have as far as the community of finding those challenges and how do we solve them for the benefit of all of the community.  Jim Talano: Creating a well defined center to the town, a place where people congregate, to walk around, where everybody comes together. We've got this tremendous opportunity in Bayshore to really create that city center, create an even more walkable town that we can we can all get around. The other piece of it too is I see a tremendous opportunity with Southland Park; that's a jewel I think we could really tap into, and historically access to it has been so far down the East Trail that very few people close to town have really taken advantage of it. And I think we've got a tremendous opportunity to pull that type of green space into the Bayshore community and make it something really special.  Tami Scott: Friendly, unique and fun – Bayshore. What I think makes it unique is the demographics – economic, cultural. It’s also not gated, not all the same, so it’s unique.  Al Schantzen: I'm taking a slight detour on my first one here. It’s what I don't want. And that's the default crawl on Bayshore or its surrounding area that within the CRA to be known throughout the state, much less Collier County that it’s the place to go party, the alcohol, go from one bar to another. I'd like to be able to have the family go out comfortably at night; ice cream parlors, things like that.   October 28, 2023   4    Not have alcohol/bars at every other corner; the open and amplified music disturbing the residents; destroying the structure of the neighborhoods. We don’t want exterior security to keep the crowds at bay like during Spring Break; you don’t want a South Beach or a Key West. The other issue I see that is facing the CRA is the long range plan, but also the short range short range lifespan. We have these meetings, have consultants come in and we incur charges for these plans and drawings and take surveys and stuff like that to narrow it down. We do what we know we can comfortably afford, whether it be structure rejuvenation here or whatever, but to narrow our focus into tangible things we can give back to the community in a short period of time.  Follow-Up: Staff to meet regarding storm water – Becca, Pine, Weeks.  Michael Sherman: I find myself focused on the problem that Al brought up earlier. I think there are two visions. Nobody wants Bayshore to be South Beach. But we don't want the CRA to stop everything from happening because it might affect change which is hard, or it's changing in the wrong direction. The dilemma for me is trying to figure out how we thread that. Do we say that's enough or do it in a subtle way to try to work your way through that. I just think it's a really difficult thing for us to do. If you're trying to build a team and I buy into that completely and I love the content and it's new, frankly, I don't think we've ever thought of ourselves particularly as a team. I'm struggling with how we might get there.  Kathi Kilburn: I think kind of playing with part of what Al said about more variety of activities for not just our older population or the eating and the drinking. I don't mind going out to dinner and enjoying the restaurants, but I don't go out to drink. I love Rebecca's, but where do the children get to go? What do they participate in? And as a realtor, I am seeing younger families with toddlers coming in here. The 17 acre boardwalk is awesome. I think that's going to be a great asset, but we should include things for our youth and our children to enjoy. What is there right now? Not a whole lot, if anything. I'm a big advocate of safety – speeding up and down Bayshore, weaving in and out, and they are local to our area. So safety is a huge thing; more cultural inclusion, and that could be anywhere from some of our public displays and our public art. Because we are a unique area, because we do have Haitian history.  Variety of activities more than just food and drink. Safety. Embracing a bit more of cultural things, because we are quaint, a unique community. For example, our Christmas banners saying Merry Christmas in a variety of languages. These little things that can start to incorporate us all together. They're small, they can be attained. Something as simple as a bike rack that was so fun and creative. Musical instruments that are non-intrusive, very simple and engaging for the children. Interactive things for all ages, in all cultures.  Sam Saad: I only have infrastructure and the reason I say infrastructure is because it's underneath everything and it's the foundation. And if you build it, they will come. When you talk about all these various activities, those are the interests of the people and the people who have those interests should develop them. But what you have to create is a fertile garden for those things to grow and if you have broken up sidewalks, no storm drainage, no lighting, messed up places, we have   October 28, 2023   5    less than seven years. We can get the streets in shape. We can get the storm sewers down. If we can get these people above ground and start putting in nice streets those property values are going to skyrocket. They're going to do all the things that you say. You don't like it. But they're also going to do the things you do like. Everybody has their own favorite things, and it's just the way it develops here. And you live in a place that’s going to grow, it's going to get more expensive and all those things you're talking about are going to happen. So you figure out how do we manage that occurrence? As opposed to trying to prohibit it. Because you're not going to stop it. All you're going to do is create enormous cost for yourself to fight it, aggravation, cost for people who want to come in and raise the prices for everybody even further. But if you get the infrastructure right, you can go from there and what are you going to get done in the next seven years? Think about it. In seven years you couldn't possibly get all the sidewalks, the streets and lights and everything in here. Maybe. But then it would be like a moon shot project. I love all the conversations about dancing in the streets and having a good time in South Beach. It's not our position. We have to make the place right. And if the place is right, the population will take care of the rest.  Shirley Garcia: Some of my favorite things about the triangle in the Bayshore area are that it's walkable, bikeable, and we have three beautiful parks that we could do more improvements in marketing and promotions to get more folks to attend them and know how to get there. The three parks are East Naples Community Park, Sudgen Park, and Bayview Park. How can we connect them?  Greg Oravec: We’ll revisit the Brookside Park.  Maurice Gutierrez: I chose to live here because of the cohesiveness of the people. We had a mailer sent out about eight years ago when we were discussing the 17 acres, and there was an 85% response rate from a county survey. We were informed historically that's never occurred. The response was overwhelmingly green space, yes. Going back to the favorite things about the community is the close knit community and the quality of life. So I looked at that cohesiveness. In my world that doesn't mean tear down and rebuild. It means keep more of what we had that brought us here instead of changing it to fit someone else's vision because they don't live here, they just visit. We’re here to serve the public. The community is the sense of being that drove us to be here and stay here.  Karen Beatty: The 17 acres. Look at other communities and those developers to get ideas. Possibly bring the right developers to the 17 acre land after the boardwalk is built. I’m not opposed to some housing – it is zoned for 40 units right now. I’d like to see it be something that is accessible to the people whose tax increment it’s suppose to go to. We bought that property for the purpose of it being a catalyst project. The leftover three acres should be something special. It should be the crown jewel of Bayshore. We paid too much and some Commissioners just want the money back. And that applies to Del’s Corner as well. I’m all for mixed-use. I don’t think it has to be just strictly a cultural area or green space. I think accepting it as a mixed-use project would be more saleable to the Commissioners realistically. But I'm concerned about who's going to come forward when we do an RFP and then also possibly trying to bypass us and go straight to the Commissioners, which has been done once already. And unsolicited   October 28, 2023   6    offers going straight to the Commissioners and them powering over us and wanting us to sell the property to people who want to build housing. So as a group, we need to be really strong and getting them to hear us and appreciate that the people have spoken and paint the picture to them about what this could be. The legacy to not just us, but to them and to the community for these two parcels of land that we bought. My other thing is I would like to see some simple projects done that would be visual things that the people can see, such as the utility boxes being painted. How hard could it be to get that done? I'd like to see more creativity in the flags that we have on the posts that represents the eclectic nature of the area. We have a history of a working waterfront. We have a history of Colusa Indians, we have music, incredibly creative art, dining, water sports, and boating, flags and each one is different. It doesn't have to be so uniform. It could be more creative and it doesn't have to be one theme. Beautiful landscaping, more shading, a dog park, traffic calming, safety. We're not the deciding ones. The Commissioners are, and we have a challenge to convince them, and we're up against whichever developer comes in and wants to develop these properties. So what I would love to do myself if I had the time to go to some different communities we have – Saint Petersburg Central Avenue. I think all of us needs to think about researching, finding other developments that have been done throughout the state of Florida or other areas and try to attract some of these people, let them know what we have here before it's too late.  Greg Oravec: Congratulations! We’re about 40% through the day and we got through our opening ceremonies. The Most Important Thing. Today you're not starting from scratch. You have a master plan and it articulates a vision, it gives a whole list of priorities. So today is about checking in with that vision, making sure that this team still believes in that vision or modifies it as necessary. Prioritize its goals. Make sure that there aren't some big fundamentals that need to be changed, and then specifically identify your most important priorities. So that's what today is about. It's not about figuring out exactly what Bayshore is going to look like or knowing what color the streets should be. It's more of saying Bayshore is a priority. Redevelopment of these parcels is a priority. Stormwater is a priority, or is it? It's this thing coming together to define basically the top ten priorities. So that's what we got to get to. I certainly am going to encourage your journey of self improvement. And learning about other communities, everyone should do that. But if you notice on this survey, which I'm going to collect from you in a minute, there is a comparable communities question on there. I'm really big into performance measures, benchmarking and basically operating as close to the private sector as we can. I believe in competition. I think it's a great thing. So we're going to use your input on the comparable communities to come up with the peer group because like I said before, there's absolute performance and there's relative performance. So as your director, I want us to be our very best that we can be, but I also want to kick everyone else's **** to the extent that we can measure that and compare ourselves. So that's one of the points. Lunch Break   October 28, 2023   7     Greg Oravec: Redevelopment Information  Collier County Community Redevelopment Agency. What is it?  A community redevelopment agency under Florida statutes means it's a legal entity separate to strengthen, independent from the governing body of the county, which is the BCC.  It's a dependent special district as defined and governed by a Florida chapter for the Statute 189. And for any accountants out there, it's a blended component unit of Collier County of the financial reporting. So it's all those things simultaneously and it's also a division of the county’s manager’s office that in addition to overseeing community redevelopment and is the Bayshore beautification MSTU, the Immokalee MSTU and the Haldeman Creek MSTU.  Why do we exist? Because there was a finding of blight and finding the designated areas and that there's a need to redevelopment and that's defined under Florida statutes in the interest of public health, safety, morals, or welfare of the residents of Collier County. And the BGT, the actual life that was found was predominantly defective or inadequate street layout, faulty lot layout, inflation to size, accuracy, unsanitary or unsafe conditions, deterioration of side or other improvements, and shortage of affordable housing.  So that's why you exist. And I want to point out that includes shortage of affordable housing. So one reason why you exist is to address the need for affordable housing.  Immokalee – I won’t go into this right now – different findings but similar.  The Bayshore Beautification MSTU has a long list of why it exists – to provide curving watering facilities, plantings and maintenance of right of ways and roadways within the MSTU, traffic calming improvements, street pedestrian lights, sidewalks, driveways, identifying the Bayshore community to include directional way-finding, street furniture, associated amenities, pedestrian and bicycle mobility improvements, nature walks, scenic pathways, enhanced bicycle lanes, enhanced crosswalks, beautification maintenance of all other public areas within the MSTU as determined by the MSTU master plan and the advisory committee.  Haldeman Creek – provide maintenance, dredging within the MSTU and maintenance of navigational panel orders.  The map identifies not only the CRA boundaries, but also the beautification MSTU and Albany Creek. Immokalee is much bigger. So we're about 1800 acres in the BGT and Immokalee is about 20,000+ acres. So it's on a different scale. But remember your staff, our team, we serve all of these areas of operation.  Big numbers: You're bringing in right now for Bayshore Gateway Triangle CRA about $3.84 million a year. So that's what you're working with. But you’re here to talk about community redevelopment. And more specifically, the Community Redevelopment Agency at the BGT, the underlying order of law – Chapter 163. So going back to we are a community redevelopment agency as defining governed by Chapter 163 and part three is community redevelopment.  The Community Development Act in 1969, empowered cities and counties that found the presence of slum and or blight and the need for redevelopment that they could create a Community Redevelopment Agency. The really important thing is   October 28, 2023   8    they created a funding mechanism to help pay for it because that's so often a barrier to getting things done.  All those underlying terms you see on the screen actually mean something. If you want to know what these mean specifically, let me know and I’ll be happy to go through it in greater detail.  In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, that was kind of the heyday of CRA's. That's when South Miami CRA, Collier County CRA and Port Lucy CRA were created. That's important.  So an important note about the agency again is it's a public body, corporate and politic, it's a legal entity separate and independent from the governing body of the county or municipality. The governing body, at the time of adoption of finding necessity, may designate itself as the agency board, but it's still legally a separate item and it's not important for this meeting, but it's going to be important for a future meeting because as your director, I want to get the CRA board separated from the BCC.  Community redevelopment activities are specifically defined by Florida statutes. It gives us the ability to do a lot. Let me tell you what we can't do? We can't do general government stuff that the county general fund should be doing; we can't build administrative facilities for fire or PD unless they're part of community oriented policing; and we can't do anything that is already within the CIP, the capital improvement program, of the county government.  But everything else as far as infrastructure and things that would grow the tax base are in play. And if you want, we can do a deeper dive on that at a later date. Important note about the plan is that your plan is filling the blank important, it is the bible, the road map. It has to be in the plan for us to do it; if it's in the plan, we're not obligated to do it. But if it's not in the plan, we can't do it.  Our district is worth $1.2 billion, so the increment is a billion dollars.  You created a CRA and then you adopted a community redevelopment plan and the whole point of that plan was to come up with things that would eradicate the sum of light and approve the property line. And so as money trickled in, then you started doing projects that did what they were supposed to do, which increased the property values. This gave you more increment so that you could do more good stuff to improve the quality of life and the value, and it creates this positive feedback loop. If you do the job, you work hard, smarter together, you make a difference, you get rewarded for it, and you get to do more. And that to me, is the beauty of what we do together as a team here. Dan Rodriguaz leaves. Looks forward to your progress and seeing drafts so that he can grease the rails, not only with Commissioner Kowal, who is part of this, but the other Commissioners.  The adopted fiscal year ’24 budget, we have about $3.6 million in annual tax revenue. Now in round numbers, let's say that a million of that is going to keep the lights on, pay the employees, the operating stuff that we have to do, leaving you with about $2.5 million a year for projects. This is where we have a separate workshop in the future, just on the budget, on revenue, doing a deep dive on it.   October 28, 2023   9     We're just not going to be able to get there. What we've done previously that I will not be proposing moving forward is that we’ve squirreled money away a little bit on a lot of projects rather than using our powder for the big things. As a result of this and coming together, let's do some small things that make us feel good, keep them going. But tell me what your big three are. Tell us what your big five are so we can put the resources to bring those things to life. Because at this current pace, you're just going to do 20 things poorly rather than do five things all the way to completion.  Question: If you don’t use up your budget, does that flow into reserves?  Great question! Another thing in the Florida statutes is that this is a use it or lose it thing. So you know how you want to save money, not for CRA's. The whole thing is you're supposed to have a sense of urgency and you're supposed to be making it happen. So at the end of every fiscal year, which for us runs October 1st to September 30th, you have to have spent all the money and if you haven't spent all the money you have the following options. You can pay down debt which you don't have; you can give it back which you never want to do, especially if you're a city; or you have to designate it specifically for projects that have already been approved; and so that's what we do here. Now unfortunately, I don't know if you're familiar with the idea of putting things in the different boxes, but we've created so many different projects that it's an accounting nightmare and it makes it hard to get stuff done because we created 20 boxes, 20 different pots of money, 20 envelopes, let's put $1,000 there, put $100,000 there. But you have to spend it, otherwise you have to designate it to a project or you have to give it back.  It does need to be an approved project. How much do we have sitting in reserves across all the projects? I would say in round numbers about $14M for projects in play. Reserves are separate.  PowerPoint slide of the master tax increment revenue model.  PowerPoint slide of the CRA having different budget funds. The CRA is an amount equal to taxes. It is not technically tax dollars. The court rules that they are not tax dollars because of the way it was cleverly constructed.  Question: What have you done in allocation in past years and you choose not to do that moving forward with the project?  You are allowed to re-budget at the end of the year. It’s actually a specifically important statute.  PowerPoint slide presenting budget funds.  Question: How and when did the beautification in the MSTU come to fruition for this area and why did it not come through to the Triangle area and can it at some point be put on the table for the Triangle area?  The MSTU used to fall under the county, so there were complaints to the county. When Windstar was being developed, Windstar offered the county 50% value of four-laning Bayshore. And the county said okay. After that was done we actually had a concrete bridge, not a wooden bridge. The MSTU was formed to beautify Bayshore because the county was simply cutting the weeds – no irrigation, no sidewalks. It was terrible. So then it was under county transportation, the Alternative Transportation. The MSTU was created in 1997.   October 28, 2023   10     A resolution was presented to the Board of County Commissioners to take it over. Since we're the CRA and we manage it more than transportation does, we took over the MSTU advisory board and their budget; and Haldeman Creek as well. They were both within the CRA boundaries.  The Triangle was never part of the MSTU and Lake Avalon was supposed to be part of the MSTU, but they complained to the Commissioners so loudly we said okay, fine. That boundary was drawn.  Think about our process and what we're going to do. This deep dive on the budget and then connecting resources to your priorities, that'll be our annual budget workshop. So this is our strategic planning workshop where we talk big picture, vision, goals, making sure we're aligned. Any changes especially as we get new members, you have to check in and assume that you're on the same page. Then on an annual basis, doing deep dive on budgets and projects as part of our annual budget workshop, that's the goal.  We're going to get through your goals and you're going to do the prioritization exercise on your own. Then at our next meeting after we get through our normal, we'll go into planning mode and have fun. There's going to be a ton of follow-ups, but whatever we get done today we’ll go over that at the end and we will define our next steps together as a team and make sure we're all on the same page and set expectations. We're just getting started.  Question: We had decided at one point to brand the area and it was tabled. We should have some identity but couldn’t agree on a name. Somebody else is going to make that final decision, meaning the BCC, I assume. What is it that they have to go through to do that? They act like it’s a big deal to name something and I can’t understand why.  That's a separate discussion. Someone from the board needs to ask that it be placed on the agenda because you did table it, so it needs to come back. Straight up it is not a small thing. You guys spent a year on it, it was very divisive. To do it right takes a lot of time and effort. This is a major initiative. And if that's what this board wants to do make sure when we get the prioritization time, you spend your dots and advocate for it when we come back and talk about priorities, because that is in the list of priorities. And it's one of the things you can prioritize. But Mike, I will not touch it and I'm not going to spend my time on issues when there's not a majority vote.  This is definitely a fair game for being one of your top ten priorities. Honestly, it would be one of my top ten. Sam, your infrastructure idea is probably number one on my list. I'm also in with the park being part of it. I'm also with the green space being part of it. I'm also for having a name. I think you were fighting over the wrong thing. This is Bayshore. That's your main street. Your main street district should be called Bayshore Arts District and then you should draw on the map all the neighborhoods. This is Bayview Park. You do nice Gateway signage and your street signs and you just break it down into its components. That would be one of my top ten projects.  Comment: This is a case where you need to describe what infrastructure is from curb to curb, sidewalk to sidewalk, building to building, etc.   October 28, 2023   11     I've been across the country talking about this kind of stuff and after studying it for a few decades, this is what I call a hierarchy of public services out. To me, here's what I can offer you. You start with essential and you work your way up. So it's kind of like a foundation up starting from top to bottom up. Safety, law and order, emergency response is #1, roads and transportation, water. So safety, you don’t get shot when you go to your mailbox; roads and transportation, you have to be able to get there; but if you're there, you better have water in the toilets; sewer; you want to see a city stop working, don't pick up the garbage and see what happens; obviously electricity. So after you have those things, I mean storm water does what it does but is better when you put it where you want it to go and get it off your property so it's up there. Then there's some things that form of Statutes make us do that we have to do. And then in today's world, broadband is really an essential infrastructure. Try functioning without broadband and let me know how you do. So that's the hierarchy. Then you go to parks and rec. Because show me a good place that doesn't have parks built into its fabric.  You made your first level. You leveled up. Now you're moving to level two.  Good government should provide those essential public services – what I call safe, clean and green.  Improving housing  Commerce and economic development  Education  Healthcare  Next level – not just good, but the best place  Landscaping  Architectural design of public and private realms  Good government should provide those essential public services – what I call safe, clean and green.  Creating special places everyone wants to go to – the fun stuff, arts and culture and events  Advanced preservation, conservation. Advanced economic development.  Question: Why couldn’t the CRA have a higher standard for code or its own code enforcement officer?  We can do it. You need to prioritize it. I’m working on code enforcement on two fronts – here and Immokalee. Shirley has code experience and I would like for her to be writing point on code division.  My normal standard would be that we would inspect the entire redevelopment area on a quarterly basis. Meaning our team would drive every single street. You can look at every property at least once. Whatever is the most efficient route for inspecting your whole district on a set amount of time and that’s called your level of service. And I want the CRA to provide additional resources to get us from where we are now to where we should go. I want to do a similar thing for community oriented policing, which is also authorized by state law and our community development plan, in between that community oriented policing.   October 28, 2023   12    What is it? That's what I do would describe as officer friendly on a bike or a walking beat, knows everyone in the downtown by name, the people that should not be camping, the drug dealers actively working.  Comment: Code enforcement investigators just took over animal control.  Shirley Garcia: The County is now working to get a contract to update the website and we’re working together on this. I’ll have an update and bring it on the agenda as soon as I find out more.  Greg Oravec: Collier County has a 311 system for non-emergency complaints. We all should be fluent with 311, understand it and pushing that out. I'm not proposing to be redundant. We would just provide resources for an enhanced level of service, dedicated manpower. Code enforcement is done by Florida Statute, it's not something that's there's local procedures, but is state law. Everyone follows the same basic state law on code enforcement. So we don't want to reinvent the wheel. Let's fund the gap so that we have dedicated manpower and then also let's take ownership as a CRA because no one cares or should care more about this area than us. I want to have someone like Shirley be the champion in our office and do what I call bird dogging and that is to provide oversight and make sure that our eye sores are being addressed over time.  Kathi Kilburn: Can we reach out to those who live in our area that are perhaps retired police officers? I have two on my street and they've been huge advocates and both of these guys are highly qualified. I'm not saying that they need to be salaried or compensated. However, there could be compensation for things that they need to do a better job to assist us and what our needs are. Is that something that we could even consider?  Greg Oravec: Yes, and it's very important to have comps that means something to you. We actively try to increase the number of neighborhood watches. That was a goal. We have this many programs, how could we expand it looking at a map of all the neighborhood watches in our community. Here's where the gaps are. Let's see if we can recruit in this area. And then there's such a thing as police explorers. It's like Boy Scouts for law enforcement. And so we wanted the next generation to be going into law enforcement. We don't want there to be a divide between police and the people, so we also invested in the police explorers so that we would have kids that love their police officers. There was a relationship there.  I'm glad that you guys are now thinking so diversely. We're going to come up with consensus 10. And this is where it gets fun, because there's always going to be something on the other side. It's good for us to look at it though, because it might be that our 10 priorities were capital intensive, but we don't have the money to get to all of them. So we feather in some of these other things that don't cost money.  Everyone has a copy of the 2019 plan. Excerpts of the plan were reduced to 99 pages. Discussion of the big amendments and adopted resolutions ensued.  Question: Based on the plan that we’ve already created, why do we constantly need their (the Commissioners) permission for things that were already approved on?  Greg Oravec: I’m not here to fight a political battle. I’m going to put it to the test and then I'll report back the results. But I'm not going to frame it like that. I will go to the county manager, the BCC, the CRA board and say I'm new here. You   October 28, 2023   13    have a plan that says that this is important. These are all the facts. Can we do it straight up or not? If not, tell me why. Then I'll let you know the answer. But I think when I present it the right way I'm hopeful that we're going to get it approved.  The CRA and MSTU have always been a team, we just didn’t know it. We should get together and have a United Nations session once (or twice) a year.  The vision of your current plan is to promote quality of life and economic vitality with the mixed income urban, multimodal community that welcomes visitors, cultivates the areas’ artistic and cultural identity, uplifts unique local destinations, and finds balance with the natural environment. So the good news is a lot of things that you stressed today are in there. The bad news is that this isn't a traditional vision statement. Your vision is where you want to be in the future. So that whole idea of promote quality of life and economic vitality, that’s normally part of a mission statement.  Discussion ensued regarding key words from the vision of the current plan. Discussion of affordable housing, workforce housing, public housing, urban, etc.  You have six goals in your plan; 40 objectives; 64 strategies; 5 recommendations. So as you drill down into your plan, you got six big picture goals. Ask yourself do those goals connect to the vision. Experts will tell you one of the fewest number of goals necessary to bring your vision below. That should be your goal for your goals and then you break that down into objective strategies and those lead to your priority projects. So that's your plan in a nutshell. Break  Tammy Scott: PowerPoint slide showing accomplishments prior to 2019 and afterwards.  Shirley Garcia: Regarding special events, when I was in the FRA, the legal opinion class that we took, we are not allowed to do any special events for marketing. In the legislation CRA’s are not allowed to do any special events.  Greg Oravec: As a follow-up, please give me a copy of that presentation.  Let's try to do our summary and what comes next. So based on where we're at with the agenda and where we made it to, I would just float it as an idea that at our next regularly scheduled board meeting after we get through our business, we go into a strategic planning follow-up, at which point we would resume our agenda with Shirley's presentation and that my real hope would be that you guys take this opportunity to do the deep dive on the redevelopment notes that were included in the packet, the prioritization, go through the SWATS, and then the prioritization exercise worksheet that's in your packet. It’s like real homework. This will actually serve us well because this requires you to digest it and then reflect on it to get the most out of it. But do that worksheet at the end, the potential priorities. All of the planned priorities are there. So go through, look at the map and see where they’re at so that you can pick out your ten. Then we’ll break into groups and go through the process of prioritization, but only after   October 28, 2023   14    Shirley does her presentation, after we go through a goals exercise, and the SWOT analysis. Workshop ended at 4:10 PM.