CCPC Minutes 10/15/2007 AUIR
October 15,2007
TRANSCRIPT OF THE SPECIAL AUIR MEETING
OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
AND THE PRODUCTIVITY COMMITTEE
Naples, Florida, October 15, 2007
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Planning Commission and the
Productivity Committee in and for the County of Collier, having
conducted business herein, met on this date at 8:30 a.m. in SPECIAL
SESSION at the Horseshoe Drive Government Complex, Naples,
Florida, with the following members present:
CCPC CHAIRMAN: Mark Strain
Lindy Adelstein
Donna Reed-Caron
Tor Kolflat
Bob Murray
Brad Schiffer
Russell Tuff
PRODUCTIVITY COMMITTEE:
Janet Vasey
Robert Dictor
Sydney Blum
Joseph Swaja
Steve Harrison
Georgia Hiller
ALSO PRESENT:
Marjorie Student-Stirling, Assistant County Attorney
Joseph Schmitt, CDES Administrator
Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Director
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AUIR 2007
SPECIAL MEETING AGENDA
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION AND PRODUCTIVITY COMMITTEE WILL MEET AT 8:30 A.M.,
October 15,2007, AT COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT & ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES DIVISION, CONFERENCE
ROOMS 609/610, 2800 N. HORSESHOE DRIVE, 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/PC AGENDA PACKETS MUST SUBMIT SAID MATERIAL A
MINIMUM OF 10 DAYS PRIOR TO THE RESPECTIVE SPECIAL MEETING. IN
ANY CASE, WRITTEN MATERIALS INTENDED TO BE CONSIDERED BY THE
CCPC/PC SHALL BE SUBMITTED TO THE APPROPRIATE COUNTY STAFF A
MINIMUM OF SEVEN DAYS PRIOR TO THE SPECIAL MEETING. ALL
MATERIAL USED IN PRESENTATIONS BEFORE THE CCPC/PC 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/PC 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. REVIEW OF THE ANNUAL UPDATE AND INVENTORY REPORT ON PUBLIC FACILITIES,
CATEGORY A AND CATEGORY B.
A. AUIR OVERVIEW - MIKE BOSI
B. IMP ACT FEES RELATED TO THE AUlR - AMY PATTERSON
C. COUNTY ROADS - NORM FEDER AND NICK CASALANGUIDA
D. DRAINAGE CANALS AND STRUCTURES - GENE CALVERT
E. POTABLE WATER SYSTEM - JIM DELONEY /PHIL GRAMA TGES
F. SEWER TREATMENT & COLLECTOR SYSTEMS-
JIM DELONEY/ PHIL GRAMATGES
G. SOLID WASTE - JIM DELONEY/ PHIL GRAMATGES
H. PARKS AND FACILITIES - MARLA RAMSEY/AMANDA TOWNSEND
1. COUNTY JAIL - CHIEF GREG SMITH
J. LAW ENFORCEMENT - CHIEF GREG SMITH
K. LIBRARY - MARILYN MATTHES/MARLA RAMSEY
L. EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES - JEFF PAGE
M. GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS - LEN PRICE AND HANK JONES
N. ISLE OF CAPRI FIRE DISTRICT - CHIEF RODRIGUEZ
O. OCHOPEE FIRE DISTRICT - CHIEF McLAUGHLIN
3. ADJOURN
October2007 AUIRlCCPC/PC AgendalMB/mk
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good morning. It's 8:30, and we'd like
to get this meeting brought to order so we can start moving forward.
We have a very short day ahead of us, and no sense wasting any time.
Welcome everyone to the -- what is it, the 15th of October
meeting of the annual update and inventory report. We will use a lot
of acronyms today. That report is always referred to as the AUIR. It's
the beginning document of the budget process for Collier County.
First thing we'll do today is please ask everyone to rise for the pledge
of allegiance.
(Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. And we'll start with some
ground rules while everyone is coming in to finish getting their seats.
This meeting is being taped, and it's also being recorded by the
court reporter. And because of that, it's nice to talk at a little bit
slower tone. And I know, Nick and Randy, you guys are noted for
your speed. You need to slow down a little bit today.
Every hour and a half we will try to have a IS-minute break for
the court reporter, and at lunchtime we'll take about an hour off from
here. I ask you all to also be recognized before you speak. One of the
hardest things to do is for a recorder to talk over -- if people talk over
one another, to get all of it down properly.
So with that, the first thing will be roll call. And normally we'd
call out the names, but because we have two committees here, this is
a joint workshop of the productivity committee and the Collier
County Planning Commission, I'm going to ask that we start on the
opposite end table with Mr. Kolflat. And if you could state your
name and the committee that you're here representing today, and we'll
work around the tables that way.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Tor Kolflat, Collier County
Planning Commission.
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Russell Tuff, Collier County
Planning Commission.
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October 15,2007
MR. SW AJA: Joe Swaja, Productivity Committee.
MR. DICTOR: Robert Dictor, Productivity Committee.
MR. BLUM: Syd Blum, Productivity Committee.
MS. VASEY: Janet Vasey, Productivity Committee.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mark Strain, Collier County Planning
Commission.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Lindy Adelstein, County
Planning Commission.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Donna Caron, Collier Planning
Commission.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Brad Schiffer, Planning
Commission.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Bob Murray, Planning
Commission.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, and the last order of notation --
yes, Mr. Schmitt, you're with --
MR. SCHMITT: Joe Schmitt, for the record. Please, members,
talk directly into these mics. They have to pick up the sound. You're
being recorded in there, and they're very directional sensitive. You
need to talk right into them or directly right at it. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That last order of business that I was
going to mention was what Mr. Schmitt just mentioned.
And Mr. Adelstein, I think you're notorious for this, you've got to
come real close to these mics.
Okay. With that, I guess Mr. Bosi, we're going to turn it over to
you for your beginning presentation, and then we'll roll into each
department. Thank you.
MR. BOSI: Thank you, Chairman Strain. Good morning,
productivity committee members, planning commission members, for
the first of the advertised special workshops to hear the 2007 AUIR.
It's the annual update and inventory report.
And the basis of why this meeting is transpiring today is
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October 15,2007
contained within our Land Development Code, and that's Section
6.02, which basically states to provide that public facilities and
services meet or exceed the standards established in the CIE required
by Section 163.3177 Florida statutes, and are available when needed
for development.
Basically the AUIR is the basis or the blueprint for the upcoming
annual update to the capital improvements element of the Growth
Management Plan. And the capital improvements element of the
Growth Management Plan is what contains the five-year work plan for
all of the divisions and departments within the county's purview for
their capital improvement programs.
The AUIR, it's really -- like I said, it's the basis or the blueprint
for concurrency, and it forms the basis for the CIE.
Now, between what happens in the decisions that are made on
the AUIR and when the CIE is officially adopted, there can be minor
deviations from what was heard within the AUIR, but for the most
part the general specifics or the general components ofthe AUIR is
what you're going to see within the CIE.
As mentioned, the AUIR identifies capital needs for both new
facilities to serve projected population growth, as well as for
replacement for public facilities that will no longer be adequate within
the five-year AUIR time period.
The AUIR is a one-year annual snapshot in time for the projected
needs and the required improvements from all the infrastructure and
service-providing departments and divisions, based upon projected
population increase against the BCC's adopted level of service
standards.
It should be noted that this is a snapshot that changes on a daily,
weekly and monthly basis as the change in the demand portion of the
equation evolves.
The AUIR will provide the basis for the update of the CIE. And
the 2007 AUIR will incorporate the new population methodology
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October 15,2007
reviewed by the planning commission back in January of this year and
approved by the Board of County Commissioners during the GMP
EAR-based amendment process.
The negotiations with the DCA related to our CIE, which was
contained within our GMP EAR-based amendments, is soon to reach a
conclusion.
This AUIR is the first AUIR that will include the new population
methodology that has been approved by DCA and approved by the
Board of County Commissioners through common dialogue. And it
will serve as a planning tool for the FY '07 budget and beyond.
As mentioned, during the EAR-based amendments to the GMP,
the Department of Community Affairs, or DCA, objected to our
population methodology that we were utilizing. Through a series of
negotiations with DCA and public vetting through the planning
commission and the Board of County Commissioners, the county
arrived upon the decision to utilize the BEBR medium population rate
to arrive upon permanent population. We were in the past using
BEBR high.
Additionally, to factor into seasonal demands that Collier County
experiences on an annual basis, the county decided to use the 20
percent peak season increase on top of this permanent population. To
get to peak season, it's a permanent population multiplied by 1.2 to
account for that 20 percent increase.
Our new policy within the GMP related to population is Policy
4.8. Basically it says, population estimates and projections shall be
based upon the most recent population bulletin from the University
of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, except
where decennial census information are available.
The county shall utilize for planning purposes the BEBR's
mid-range population projections as adjusted to account for seasonal
population 20 percent increase. These projections may be adjusted
annually to reflect new BEBR projections and more recent
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October 15,2007
information regarding seasonal population rates.
And I guess that shouldn't be made -- that is on an annual basis
our population projections are adjusted through the Bureau of
Economic and Business Research. And locally the allocation of that
new growth is adjusted on an annual basis through the comprehensive
planning department.
Just to give you an idea of the difference between the medium,
the low and the high BEBR rates for population, we put the
projections for the 2010 through 2030 number compared to the
medium to the high to 2010, you're basically a 22,000 persons
difference. As the years go out into out-year, you'll see a notice -- a
more noticeable difference within the spreads between the
comparisons. Ultimately on the 2030 projection it's almost a 203,000
person difference.
Within AUIR we have two categories: Category A, which is
roads, solid waste and drainage canals and structures, parks and
recreation, potable water, sewer collection and treatment. And we
also have Category B.
Category A, the category A are the basis for concurrency within
this county.
We also have Category B. Category B facilities are: Jails, law
enforcement, libraries, emergency medical services, government
buildings and the two dependent fire districts, which are Ochopee
and Isles of Capri.
The Category B facilities, the maintenance of concurrency is
solely a local discretion decision. The state DCA does not have a
purview or a review of the Category B facilities, that's why it's strictly
a local decision upon the capital improvement programs in the
maintenance of concurrency at that level.
The planning commission and productivity committee are being
asked to provide separate recommendations to the BCC pertaining
both to the Category A facilities and the Category B facilities.
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October 15,2007
And I guess after my discussion we can have a short discussion
on the approach that each of the committees would like to have in
terms of their recommendations. Last year we had it where the
planning commission, because there was a full convening of the body,
would make a recommendation upon each individual subset of the
AUIR. Whereas the productivity committee, because they were
hearing the AUIR in subcommittees, would make -- would provide a
lead towards where they believe that the productivity committee was
going to make a recommendation, but an official recommendation
wasn't going to come out from the entire body until they would meet
upon a regular scheduled meeting. And this time I believe it's the 31st
of October that the productivity committee intends to meet and to
initiate formal recommendation for each component of the AUIR.
And we can have that discussion as well.
Within the AUIR, future capital projects are determined by a
simple equation. It's new population times the adopted level of
service standard, and that equals your capital expansion. And this, for
the AUIR purpose, is the only justification needed for that capital
improvement, at least for the amount.
Now, the specific location, those are always up for debate. But
the way that the AUIR works, it's very formalitic (sic) in the sense that
this equation is what drives the capital improvements.
An example is 2006 libraries. Within our population increases in
last year's AUIR, we showed that 21,161 people were going to be
moving or added to this county. We've got an adopted level of service
standard in libraries that's .33 square feet.
Now, you take your 21,161 new arrivals that we're projecting
within the county, you multiply that times your level of service
standard, which is .33 square feet, and it results in 6,938 additional
square feet required of the system.
Based upon how capital improvements are programmed within
this county and throughout the State of Florida, that is the only
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October 15,2007
equation, that is the only justification the library's department
provides for their improvements.
And actually, it's not a justification, that's a requirement. They're
not -- they're obligated to build to the standard that the Board of
County Commissioners has adopted for that system.
Last year the original question was to see if some other measure
other than population was more effective for the AUIR. We went
through a partial level of service workshop in May that didn't
ultimately resolve the question, but I think it resolved what -- in staffs
mind what each of the productivity committee members and the
planning commission members were looking for. And I think within
this AUIR we've come a little bit closer to providing that type of
information.
That original question was talking about the population, and
that's the driver in the equation, not the standard. That's the second
part of the equation that I had mentioned.
And based upon a June 26th, 2007 BCC hearing, the BCC is
seeking from the two advisory boards an evaluation of the standards
contained in the AUIR. And to provide -- specifically of what the
BCC was looking for staff to provide within this upcoming AUIR, I
provided two slides here that have -- it's a direct transcript from that
June 26th meeting.
There was a little confusion between that May 21st meeting as to
whether the directive of the planning commission and the
productivity committee was met or whether the directive of the Board
of County Commissioners was met.
To alleviate any confusion with this 2007 AUIR, I wanted to
provide the text -- to provide to advisory boards exactly what the
Board of County Commissioners are looking for. And the first part of
the quote comes from Commissioner Henning. He says, "So in parks
and recreation, for example, these are how many people who use the
pool, you know, this month or the year or whatever, how many
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October 15,2007
people played ball or whatever; is that right?"
And then I had responded. I said, "That is right. I know there's
probably going to be some limitations in terms of -- I know for
community parks because it's going to be hard to try to capture that
data, but we're going to try. Any -- all and anything that they feel
could be utilized to make a rational determination in terms of usage
on the system, we're going to ask the departments to provide to the
planning commission and the productivity committee so they can
make those recommendations and take the steps that are required."
Commissioner Henning's response to that was, "And you're going
to do this, provide this information to the planning commission and
the productivity committee in the upcoming AUIR?" I responded in
the affirmative.
And Commissioner Henning said, "You know, to me I think
that's where they were kind of looking at in a roundabout way. There
are a lot of questions about the validity of population, but with the
data I think they can get to where they want to go at the end of the day
to make those recommendations."
So the Board of County Commissioners are looking for you to
look at our levels of service standards, look at what -- those standards
against the population rate that the board has agreed to with the DCA
to utilize as our growth rate going forward. They're asking you to
look at the level of service standards and say, are these appropriate,
are these what this community wants?
Because if the level of service standard is too high and you have
too much library space out there, as a staff person, I don't think staff --
an individual on staff has the ability to make the determination if that's
appropriate for this community. You as members of the community,
as business leaders, as community leaders have a better feel, as well as
the Board of County Commissioners have a better feel for what the
public is demanding. And what they're asking you to do during this
AUIR is to evaluate the level of service standards.
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October 15,2007
You see how much of one commodity is out there. We've
provided you with some usage data that will maybe help you evaluate
to say whether or not that the levels of service standards that we have
within our Growth Management Plan and that we obligate these
individual departments to build to, whether they're appropriate or not.
Once again, like I said, it's -- the library equation is very
convenient because it's very straightforward and it's useful. Is .33
square feet of library buildings per capita an appropriate standard
based upon the present usage of the library system?
And the second question is, you know, is 3.2 jail beds per 1,000
an appropriate standard based upon usage?
It should be pointed out that the level of service standards
identified in the AUIR are not always the level of service standards
that are identified in impact fees. The level of service standard within
an impact fee is what we were able to achieve when that impact fee
was commissioned, so sometimes they match what we have adopted
as our level of service standard, sometimes they do not.
EMS and government buildings provides an example where the
impact fee is lower than our level of service standard that we have
adopted in the GMP. During those individual sections you'll see that it
places -- it places a burden upon those individual divisions and
departments in terms of trying to make their capital improvement
programming in their financing whole.
For example, on EMS, currently we have an adopted level of
service standard of one unit per 15,000 utilizing an old weighted or
current peak population methodology.
Our impact fees have a level of service standard that is one
station per 34,465. So what that means is with every CO that -- every
CO that's issued, that we're only collecting less than half of what it
would take to build one of the required EMS stations. So as we go
further and further into the future, the deficit for EMS and the deficit
for the capital improvement programming for EMS continues to grow.
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October 15,2007
And this is one of the negative offsets towards the promotion of
collocation, that the state and at the local level we have realized that
collocation is something that would save taxpayers money.
But one of the things that's a negative consequence of that
arrangement is unless those collocations are individually collocated in
joint ownership, that we are finding that the leasing of stations,
because those leased stations cannot be included within our inventory,
has created the issue with impact fees towards where the impact fee
level of service does not match up with what we are saying is within
our standards.
That's an issue that is -- will be debated and needs to be
discussed, I believe, in greater length as we get to the individual
sections, particularly for EMS.
What happens when you have an impact fee level of service
standard that does not match your adopted level of service standard?
It means that supplemental funding is required to provide for those
capital improvements. And traditionally that supplemental funding is
general ad valorem dollars.
If recommending lowering the level of service below what's
adopted within our impact fees, then an adjustment to that impact fee
study will be required.
And Amy Patterson is -- our impact fee manager is here today.
After my remarks, she's going to provide a brief remark in relation to
the impact fees and the recent action that the Board of County
Commissioners has taken this past summer related to the indexing of
those impact fees.
This is just -- every year when we provide a revenue sheet that
matches -- that basically depicts the revenue shortfalls, this is a
comparison between the 2006 and the 2007 AUIR. It's about a $5
million difference or increase within this year. Primarily those are
contained within emergency medical services, as well as county jails.
And one thing I will say about county jails, we have only been
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collecting impact fees since 2005 on county jails, so we haven't had
the advantage of a number of years of collecting impact fees to help
with that situation. Prior to 2005 the county jails were grouped in part
with the government building's AUIR component.
Staffs asking the productivity committee and the planning
commission for specific recommendations on the 2007 AUIR. We're
asking that you give the BCC direction by separate motion and vote
on Category A facilities relative to the staff recommendations for
projects and revenue sources within the Category A facilities set forth
for inclusion within the '08 annual update to the CIE.
Also to give the BCC direction by separate motion on vote for
the Category B facilities relative to staffs recommendations with
projected revenues and projects.
Provide the BCC with a recommendation upon the
appropriateness of the existing levels of service standards associated
with the individual components of the AUIR, and to provide
alternative level of service standards where each of the individual
bodies would determine as appropriate.
Recommend to the BCC upon the appropriateness of the
operational data provided within the AUIR workbooks, as well as the
need for additional data sets, if appropriate.
This being the first year that we've provided more of a fully
rounded AUIR, staff is looking to see for a recommendation from
each of the bodies as to whether you would like to see the same type
of information provided within the next year's AUIR. And ifthere's a
particular data set that you saw that was absent during this one, to
make that recommendation as well. And the last recommendation is
something that is a little bit offbase from what we have done in the
past, and this is related to -- this is related to a recent addition to our
GMP that was included within the EAR-based amendments, and it's
related to hurricane shelters. And staff is putting forward a
recommendation that hurricane shelters are not included within the
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five-year CIE.
The new policy was 12.1.14. It was added to the conservation
and coastal management element of the GMP. Just asked to evaluate
whether hurricane shelters should be included within the CIE.
From conversation with Dan Summers from emergency
management, he has indicated that the hurricane shutters (sic) right
now are covered within Collier County by the comprehensive
emergency management plan. It's prepared by Collier County
Emergency Management division, and it's approved every five years
by the Board of County Commissioners and the State of Florida.
The current inventory of shelters identified in the comprehensive
emergency management plan is primarily composed of public
schools, whose usage is dictated by interlocal agreements between the
school board, the county and Red Cross.
And as part of the State of Florida hurricane shelter deficit
program, emergency management is continually reviewing population
projections to ensure that the number of shelters align with the
demands of population.
Basically what staff is saying is that the state looks at it every
five years. The board approves it every five years. It is annually
updated by emergency management as the progress we're doing for
hurricane shelters. And that allowing another purview of the county
to be subject to DCA's review, we didn't necessarily see the benefit of
that action. And so we're asking each of the individual advisory
boards to make a recommendation to leave that -- leave the planning
for hurricane shelters as it currently exists.
With that, that's the end of my presentation. I would open myself
up for any questions that the advisory boards may have for the
upcoming proceedings.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mike, as we get into the questions,
I wanted to let the public know that we don't have a formal sheet
sign-in process needed for this. If any members of the public here
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October 15, 2007
wish to speak on an issue that comes up, after we finish our questions
and answers, then I'll be asking the public for any comments.
Simply raise your hand and then you'll be recognized to come up to
the speakers and identify yourself and share your comments with us as
well.
So with that, are there any general comments of Mike from his
presentation?
Brad?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And Mike, we've talked about
this in the past, and the answer's always been the definition of
Category A and B. But there are a lot of things in the GMP that we
wanted to have updated each year. Example, the affordable housing
units.
And the scary thing was when we did the EAR-based, we
realized that those time frames were like the watershed plan and stuff
that we totally missed. Is there anything being done to take any of
those things in the GMP that are time-oriented to be brought up to
date, essentially a Category C kind of a thing?
MR. BOSI: Right now as we are winding up the conclusion of
the EAR-based process with DCA, David Weeks from the
Comprehensive Planning Management team is basically compiling a
list of time sensitive items that are within the GMP to bring to the
attention of all the advisory boards and the Board of County
Commissioners to make sure that those time obligations are met.
It hasn't been included within this year's 2007 AUIR. I think we
felt we had enough on our plate. But Mr. Weeks is definitely -- is
making concerted efforts to make sure that the water management
plans, as well as the -- as well as all the other time commitments
within the GMP are being adhered to.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Randy, I'll say -- I know why
it's not in here. I'm just saying is that what we kind of wanted was just
-- and again, we invented a Category C, just something just to remind
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October 15,2007
us of the time sensitive things every year in this process.
MR. COHEN: For the record, Randy Cohen.
What we can do is the time sensitive items, we can come back,
identify those and give you an update, and have Mr. Weeks do that for
you in the future.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: My point only is this is the
perfect time to at least check up on them.
MR. COHEN: For example, the watershed management plans
are due in 2010. The RFPs have been let for them. The board of
County Commissioners has budgeted $4 million for them. So those
are actually moving forward.
MR. SCHMITT: I'll update that even further. The RFP, we've
already awarded the project management contract. There's an
oversight contract and we're well underway with beginning to initiate
the process for the water management plans.
That is going to be a public process. There will be public
meetings associated with that as we prepare the scope of work. And
we will be meeting with the stakeholders.
But I understand what you're asking for, Brad, you're looking for
some kind of a score card. If these committees believe that those kind
of things ought to be added as Category B or create some other
category, we'll certainly take that to the board.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I don't mean to have an update
on it now. I'm just saying is that the EAR-based amendments pointed
out that we weren't paying attention to time sensitive things. Because,
you know, that thing was quite a bit late, so --
MR. SCHMITT: I think we're paying attention to it. It was a
matter of budgeting --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But we should see that every
year, and maybe we should point that out.
But anyway, I like the idea of a Category C with all the time
sensitive things with just a little score card. But that's enough said.
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. And as we get into each
document throughout this AUIR, we'll probably take it page at a time
so that anybody that has questions from the panel, they can ask their
questions as we go through each page.
Mike, did you have another following of a presentation from
somebody else, or are we going to go right into the Category A --
MR. BOSI: Well, Amy Patterson is here and available, if you
would like just a brief synopsis of where we're at related to impact
fees and the indexing and the action taken by the Board of County
Commissioners in the summer, if that's the discretion ofthe two
advisory boards.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It would be helpful.
MR. BOSI: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, I'm sorry, one other
thing.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Brad.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And Mike, could you get us a
copy of -- you showed the BEBR high-low for that period. Could you
get us a copy of that one slide?
MR. BOSI: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Can I have --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: -- have this one question. On
the impact fee revenue -- oh, I'm sorry, excuse me. On the impact fee
revenue tables, I have two tables. One I think intends to supersede the
other?
Thank you, that's all I need.
MS. PATTERSON: Good morning. Amy Patterson, Impact Fee
Manager, for the record.
Just a brief update on where we are with the indexing. This
summer the Board of County Commissioners adopted the annual
indexing for each ofthe 12 impact fees. Now originally it was
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October 15,2007
proposed to go into effect on October 1 st, actually a couple of weeks
ago, but when the board made that decision, they decided to push that
offuntil after the AUIR. And so those new fees go into effect on
January 1st, 2008.
The primary effect that's going to have is we're probably not
going to recognize any or very little of that revenue during this fiscal
year. Simply because of the way that the permitting process works,
anybody that has applied for their building permit before January 1st
has the benefit -- has the benefit of the application of the old rates
versus the new. And therefore, you see a lag in the recognizing of that
revenue.
Other than that, I'm here to answer your questions as it applies to
the indexing for the individual facilities or any other questions you
may have related to the impact fees. I've done this for the last couple
of years, so there hasn't been too much change other than that
indexing.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I imagine as we go through each
category there will be questions regarding the use of impact fees and
how they're generated. So hopefully we'll know that you're here and
you can respond. Thank you.
I'm sorry, Ms. Vasey?
MS. VASEY: Yes, I have a question or two.
Amy, have you -- did you prepare the impact fee numbers for each
one of these facilities?
MS. PATTERSON: The budget office actually is the one that
prepared the -- as you go through the individual facilities, those sheets
that discuss the five-year revenue was prepared by the budget office.
MS. VASEY: It seemed like there was some -- quite a few
inconsistencies like in how the revenues changed from last year's
AUIR compared to this year's AUIR. Some of --I'll leave roads out
because that's such a different thing. But some of them dropped like
10 percent. Jails dropped 10 percent, law enforcement appeared to
Page 17
October 15,2007
drop 35 percent. Libraries dropped 20 percent, EMS 20, and
government buildings about 24, which seemed to be fairly consistent.
But I was wondering on the jails and the law enforcement
whether there was a particular reason why those would be sort of out
ofthe norm?
MS. PATTERSON: It has to -- probably most likely has to do
with whatever trends we've seen with the particular fees. And
unfortunately it's hard with the fees that are the residential and
commercial mixes versus some that are straight residential.
As we go through the -- I can get you an answer if you'd like and
we can address them as we go through the individual fees as how
exactly Susan prepared her numbers, that -- what she took into
consideration, where she may have backed the numbers down or if
she's accounted for slow-downs in particular types of permits. That
way we can address those changes, if that would be helpful.
MS. VASEY: That would, because it just seemed pretty much
like some of it didn't seem realistic to me, and, you know, there's
probably very good reasons. But I thought I'd ask on that one.
MS. PATTERSON: Rather than speak for her, if it's okay, then
I'll get with her, and that way I can provide an explanation for each of
those individuals.
MS. VASEY: Okay, that would be good.
And I guess the rest of my questions can be addressed when we
talk about those individually. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions?
Yes, Bob?
MR. MULHERE: Good morning. Bob Mulhere, for the record,
here on behalf of myself this morning as a citizen.
Just one quick comment and one question. The comment is
relative to Mr. Bosi's statement that this committee and other
committees are best suited to make recommendations relative to levels
of service or levels of service changes, which I agree with, but
Page 18
October 15,2007
obviously the professional staff I think in my opinion is in a position
to make recommendations related to changed level of services, as
they may come up from time to time here in the discussions.
The other question I had was I heard the statement that impact
fees don't generate sufficient revenue, in the example of EMS and
maybe in some other examples or all other examples, to cover
projected capital costs. But I'm not sure I heard an explanation of why
that is.
And I don't know if -- I'm sure a lot of people understand that,
but maybe it's worth sort of explaining why it is that impact fee
revenues are not sufficient to cover 100 percent of the capital costs
of, say, an EMS facility or facilities.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Bob. And maybe we could
get an answer for that before we go on. Thank you.
MS. PATTERSON: Hi, Amy Patterson again for the record.
There's several reasons related to the impact fees why they may not
cover the full cost of capital facilities. And the primary reason is that
they always take a retrospective look at costs.
So any time that you have years where costs have escalated faster
than it's accounted for in the impact fee study, then you have to play
catchup. There's really no other way to explain it than that. You
would constantly be doing studies to try to capture those costs. And
even then, by the time the study was complete your costs may be out
of date. So that would be the first reason.
The second reason, in the case of EMS, if you want to talk about
that specifically, is that we can only count those things that we own.
And EMS happens to have multiple levels of service. One is a
response time-related level of service.
But we also have -- we could calculate a level of service based
on what we use, which would really be the functional1evel of service,
counting the leased stations, because we do use them, but we can't
count those for the impact fees.
Page 19
October 15, 2007
So you have a level of service for impact fees that's much lower
than what they're actually using. And that -- so you can't take your
impact fee dollars and pay for that either, they can only pay to replace
or to recreate what we currently own. And that takes into account the
leased stations.
If we go into this further on the individual impact fees, of course
we have Mr. Steve Tindale just walked in, he's our impact fee
consultant. He's prepared a number of these studies and is well versed
in the levels of service and what the impact fees pay for.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Amy, before you leave, also, aren't
impact fees limited into what they can be used for? I mean, they can't
be used to repair or bring forward existing deficiencies, if I'm not
mistaken, they can only be created and used and be spent on the
obligations of new development.
So our impact fees may always have an imbalance as to how high
they can go, because they only can be so useful, they can't play
catchup with things we're deficient on from other existing
developments.
MS. PATTERSON: That's correct. They're limited to new
capital construction only.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And even though all of this in the AUIR
is new capital construction, isn't some of it allocated as a result of
existing deficiencies?
MS. PATTERSON: There may be portions that are existing
deficiencies, which would have to be identified as such and correct,
then, I should say as new capital growth necessitated improvements.
That would be the impact fee portion. And any that's done -- as
growth necessitated capital improvements versus those that are
maintenance or to deal with an existing deficiency.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So the AUIR cannot be literally
interpreted to be a need solely from impact fees then.
MS. PATTERSON: No.
Page 20
October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Anything else of Amy?
Anyone?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mike, what's the next chain of
events?
MR. BOSI: Commissioner Strain, transportation is next on the
agenda.
I will say in addition to EMS, with the issue of leased stations
complicating the impact fees, government buildings has a similar
problem where we have leased spaces and leased spacing cannot be
attributed to the impact fees, and creates a similar situation.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. I'm sorry?
Sure, we'll just pause here for a minute. Why don't we take a break
here just for a couple of minutes officially while we finish moving
around.
(Recess.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We'll go ahead and resume.
Norm?
MR. FEDER: For the record, Norman Feder, Transportation
Administrator. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm going to be fairly brief,
give you an overview. I'm going to ask Nick Casalanguida, who's
Director of Transportation Planning, to walk you through the
transportation portion of the AUIR. And if you have any really tough
questions for either he or I at the end, we brought Sharon Newman,
who's our business manager, to assist us on that.
What I want to tell you is that, interesting enough, the note was
made that the AUIR is a snapshot in time of where we stand. And I
thought it was interesting, as a backdrop you had the overpass shown
there. The good news is I believe those barricades are gone, other
than some of the punch list items and the landscaping, so that's even
better news.
Transportation, I'll give you the quick overview right now. We
Page 21
October 15,2007
appreciated the input that we got in both areas, and we'll be hitting
stormwater shortly, from these two groups last year. And I think
you're going to see that we've addressed a lot of those issues and a lot
of that good recommendation.
In transportation the state of affairs is we're better than we were
last year. And that's a good thing for us. A number of things have
intervened to put us in that position.
First of all, if you remember last year we had about 180 million,
just under that, that we identified as potential grants or developer
agreements and others to fund, basically, a shortfall, which we readily
presented to you as being basically a shortfall in that process at that
time. That was the result of looking at the two projects we had
recently let, both of which had far exceeded our expectations on very,
very rapid increases in cost.
The good news is a definite leveling off in actual reduction,
depending on the individual components, of some of those cost items.
That's one of the things that's put us in better shape.
We told you then with that 180 million we're going to go to the
board and identify that as a shortfall, ask them how they wanted us to
respond. And we have responded, and you see it here, based on that
direction. They did provide 50 million in the way of a short-term
commercial paper loan option for us.
And I say option. It's shown in the first year, but we do not
intend to use it until and to the amount that is needed as we go through
with our projects.
As you see in the work program, you've got an increase in impact
fees. The good news for transportation is we're up almost 15 percent
in impact fee collections over what we had estimated.
Most of transportation's situation, unlike others right now on
impact fees, is because of that 50 percent that the industry worked
with us on, 50 percent up front and the other 50 percent to come
within three years. And we're seeing some of that come forward.
Page 22
October 15,2007
You've got 36 million that's been left on the table, so to speak. It's
available in there, but on the table at the end of our five-year work
program. And that's because we didn't do heavy programming in the
fifth year to see how our revenue stream and how these issues of
reduced costs and items play forward.
Even with that, though, you'll see that our areas of deficiency are
greatly reduced as new sections of roadway have in fact opened,
whether they be the overpass, whether they be the first section of
Immokalee between -- first two sections between 1-75 and Airport,
first section of Vanderbilt Beach Road --I'd love to have the other
sections done between Airport and Livingston. They'd be
Goodlette-Frank Road, which is now open, the right-hand turn pass,
all of which have opened since we last spoke. And others that are
moving forward to the point where next January, February, they
should be open, they being all the projects on Immokalee Road and
some other significant improvements.
So what we're seeing is in fact -- another outstanding issue is the
traffic is down a bit. So between traffic down a little bit, our costs
down a little bit, the provision of dollars that is there and will be used
when it's needed and to the degree it's needed, it will carry forward
from year to year, that's why we show it in the first year, we're able
to bring more projects forward earlier. It's available to us. If not, it
will be there and will roll into our program.
So we're in a lot better shape. I'm very pleased with that. And
I'm going to ask Nick to go through the particulars. And then Nick
and I, and for that matter Sharon are available for any questions you
have or any further input.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron had a question of you, Norm.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, Norm, I'm glad you brought
up that $182 million, because it was kind of glaring when you made a
comparison between last year and this year.
But you're telling me that essentially that $182 million is now
Page 23
October 15,2007
made up by a leveling of costs and the $50 million that the BCC --
MR. FEDER: And some other items. And I can go through in
detail.
But first of all, we went to the board. They agreed that rather
than trying to go from two lanes to four lanes on County Barn from
Davis to Rattlesnake, we save about 45 million, if you look at the two
programs, with a net increase of about 3 million plus on Santa Barbara
and go from four to six lanes on Santa Barbara. That will handle the
capacity needs in that corridor for quite some time.
We're still committed to the production readiness and got the
permits and the right-of-way for County Barn. But rather than moving
on that construction, we've got about a $45 million savings by going
from four to six on Santa Barbara, providing that capacity and
actually drawing even more traffic because of the of course Santa
Barbara connection to Logan now all the way up to Immokalee
Road.
So that's another example. You'll find here that previously, if
you look at it, we had 88 million set aside as contingency for
construction. Whereas a lot of that construction is progressed through,
we know where we stand, it's encumbered, basically committed. That
contingency was able to be brought down. That represented about 62
million in contingency reduction.
You still have a contingency up here, plus I left 36 on the table.
But you still have a reduction in overall contingency.
There's a number of other items that led to that. You had 12
million shown in there for the 1-75 loop, something I'm sure will come
up in discussion. Now we're looking with the state at an expanded
diamond. They've shown us where we can get a better level of service
overall in that section. But those dollars, rather than coming to us, the
state infrastructure bank loan which you saw in the prior one, and then
being shipped back out, those dollars aren't shown in here. So that
shows a reduction in costs.
Page 24
October 15,2007
There's a few others. But if you want, we can go through an
exact accounting. But I think that gets you closer to your question.
COMMISSIONER CARON: I just had one more question, and
that's under gas taxes. I've heard a lot of conversation recently about
how gas taxes are going down. Yet from last year to this year we're
showing an increase in what we anticipate for gas taxes. I just
wondered --
MR. FEDER: I'd have to look at that. Overall the statement is
correct, it's level and it had been for a while, and it's going down a bit
right now. And I thought that was reflected in the numbers.
COMMISSIONER CARON: We had 112 million last year in--
112.5 and we're up to 116.6 this year.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Although, Norm, last year into this year
we had an increase, as we showed in August, of tourism. So maybe
there is a -- not as much of a decrease as originally thought in gas
taxes.
MR. FEDER: Yeah. Its buying power definitely, unfortunately,
is going down. And it has been pretty well level, as we've discussed
before. So if they're showing a little bit of an increase, that's
obviously because of growth factor. But it's not showing the same
increases you're seeing in other areas because it has actually leveled
and actually decreased a little bit overall in consumption.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Vasey -- did you finish?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Vasey?
MS. VASEY: You phrased two issues that maybe it would be
good to take care of now. You said costs are going down, yet your
lane mile cost was 6.3 million last year and now it's 8.2.
Is the 8.2 overstating it now or how has it gone down?
MR. FEDER: As was noted by Amy, and I can defer to Mr.
Tinda1e, but as noted, you use historical to try and generate your
impact fee.
October 15,2007
In the case of transportation, we seek that to be 100 percent
impact fee, and it has been all along, in last seven years, I'll say. But
you also have credits back. It's at 100 percent set. But it's based on
the prior three years.
So when I had $180 million shortfall, part of that answer to that
question of how it's changed is I'm assuming that where there's 93
million of additional impact fees over the five years, based on just
the recent indexing that reflects that about one-third increase that you
just mentioned. And that is relating to the fact that our costs were
going up. We've taken some of that into account. Some of that
peaking's in there, some of it's sti1110w -- year in some of the peaking
year. And it works its way over time.
But you're always behind in your analysis process to the actual.
It's just like people with their property tax right now are seeing an
amount that's been assessed as an assessed value. That's on what was
last year. And if the market's going down they still have that level.
Next year, even if the market goes up, they'll be hit with the next
assessment will probably be down. And you're always in that cycle of
basically being an item in arrears, if you will, in your studies.
So yes, we've gone up to what is the right level of our costs. That
has reduced some of our shortfall that we thought we were going to
experience when we came to you last cycle, because we did not have
that indexing up. And it wasn't reflecting the increased costs.
What I've also said though is the costs have now leveled, and in
some areas coming down, so we're not facing that concern that we had
last cycle. So some of it's our estimates have come down a little bit,
some of it's our impact fees have come up to be closer to the actual
cost.
MS . VASEY: And the other thing is the 180 million, 1'd like to
just follow on that a little bit.
You don't have any developer contribution monies in here, and
some of the other facilities do. Is this -- why haven't you included
Page 26
October 15,2007
anything?
MR. FEDER: We haven't included anything that's not already
committed. We're sti11 pursuing others, and we'll expand our program
once they come in. You'll find that both in transportation and
stormwater. If it is not something that's already a committed item,
we're not showing it here, particularly after the -- in the first three
years.
Out in four and five, you've got some grant items that we
anticipate. We've taken a very conservative approach on that.
MS. VASEY: So then money will come in that's not in the
program right now but you just don't know what it is right now?
MR. FEDER: Yes, depending upon what agreements we make.
Now, of course developer contribution agreements also come with
requirements. So it's a two-edged item, and we balance those out
before we decide to move forward -- or actually, the board does.
MS. VASEY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions of Norm before
Nick begins to discuss things?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Good morning. For the record, Nick
Casa1anguida. Good morning, commissioners and committee
members.
I think Norman did most of the work for me. He said he was
going to make it brief, but he touched on a lot of the details as he went
forward on the projects.
On your first page, Page 6, there was one number that was left
out, and it was because our accounting department needed to finalize
the carry-forward. The zero with the two asterisks is approximately
231,384,000. And that's encumbered in earmarked money.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Nick, wi11 you give me that figure
again? Two-thirty-one--
Page 27
October 15,2007
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. 231,384.
And then Norman recognized Sharon. I also want to recognize
Mr. Tipton who does the traffic counts. There's a lot of work that goes
into this AUIR. So I wanted you to know a lot of people contributed
to this product that you see.
And that summary is basically part of the five-year CIE that you
see, but it's just broken down into revenues to give you just a basic
outline. The only missing number was the carry-forward.
MS. VASEY: Then that will change your totals, right?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Correct.
Okay, pie chart is on the next page as Attachment A. It just gives
you a breakdown visually of what you've seen and we've discussed
already.
Attachment B, which is very interesting, we have over 125 count
stations, and some of them permanent. One of the things that we
noticed, and we do quarterly counts and we also have full-time counts
as we go out there, is some of the road segments went down and some
went up. And they went down in different quarters. And so we
started trying to figure out what the anomalies were.
And then it was apparent to us what was going on. As new
facilities opened up, the parkway, the interchanges, the overpass,
Livingston, Good1ette-Frank, you started to see traffic from quarter to
quarter diverting to different roads. And also in certain quarters you'd
see them avoiding certain roads, when the parkway and Airport was
under construction.
So although we do four quarterly counts, we noticed that some
anomalies were one quarter they'd be way down, and we'd say why.
Well, that quarter there was heavy construction, there was a lot of
maintenance of traffic, so people avoided those corridors.
In all, we saw a two percent increase in overall traffic throughout
the county. And compared to the prior year about five percent. You
can see where there's a drop. Your rural areas seem to maintain a
Page 28
October 15,2007
steady growth of about two to five percent. So, you know, east of 951
is part of doing that study, that is steadily still growing at a nominal
rate.
You switch to the next attachment, Attachment C. Mr. Feder has
already pointed out some of the changes we have done. The big one
in terms of production was the County Barn shift that he talked about.
You're still going to get the north-south capacity, but you're
saving about $45 million in the actual five-year plan with that.
He also pointed out, and these are some of my bullet points but
he's taken away the thunder, the county manager stressed why are you
showing 50 mi11ion in the first year. I think Mr. Feder wants us to be
aggressive. He wants us to be ready to be able to borrow that money
if some projects come on line. But that revenue or that expenditure,
the $50 million, will only come on line as needed.
Our accounting manager has shown payback in the first year of
11,250,000. That may not take place, depending on when that's
borrowed, but we showed it in the five-year period as that goes
forward.
As noted, Commissioner Caron noted that $180 million to pull
out of a program and then balance it was very difficult. The increase
in impact fees with the change in the actual program was significant.
But we do sti11 expect to bring in certain programs outside of
what you see as the five-year plan. You'll see them come in front of
the planning commission. We hope to supplement this program as we
go forward and bring these costs down.
Oil Well Road, the middle segment that is in there, and it's
approximately --let me see if! can get the project number without my
glasses here -- 44, 60044. Oil Well, Everglades to DeSoto. It's shown
nonfunded, but we have money in advance construction. And Mr.
Feder pointed out there is money balanced or remaining in the plan,
the $36 mi11ion as well.
One of the reasons we didn't put that in there is because of the
Page 29
October 15,2007
Big Cypress submittal and the Randall relocation we're looking at.
The money is in there to do that, but we're hoping that part of that is
offset by development in that area. So it's not out of the plan, it's just
shown as advanced construction.
One other comment 1'd like to make in the revenue side on
impact fees, by the time this went to print, we sti11 had labeled
Benderson and Ave Maria specifically. Those will come out. As one
of the commissioners pointed out, there's no need to show a specific
entity. There were high volume dollars committed, but they are in our
overall impact fee program, because where would you draw the line.
So we're going to be pulling that out. You won't see that in the final
submittal to the Board of County Commissioners.
The next page, pretty much another outline of where the funding
is going. And if you have any questions on that we can answer that.
But I think Mr. Feder did a good job talking to you about that.
As far as the counts are concerned as well, too, because the next
following pages you get into the actual road segments themselves. On
the left-hand side of that where we identify the roads, you're going to
find that we break a lot of these out as the year comes out. As new
roads have opened up, Livingston Road, we still show certain roads
carrying through Livingston. So the links themselves wi11 get smaller.
It will make our count stations and count work become harder,
we'll have more links to count, but it's going to be a more detailed
report as time moves forward.
My only concern in that report is probably going to be
Immoka1ee and 1-75. Although we are close to figuring out what's
going on with State DOT, and it looks like an eight-lane section
underneath 1-75 from signal to signal on each side, we sti11 haven't
totally figured that out. So your capacity for that link hasn't been
determined as yet. And 1'm hesitant to include all that.
And I know last year it was the recommendation if you don't
have the loop committed, don't put it in here, the capacity. So we're
Page 30
October 15,2007
struggling with that right now. We should have that resolved by the
time we go to the Board of County Commissioners.
I think when we get into -- and I skipped a page because I wanted
to get into the graphic itself. That's encumbered by a table as well,
too. And that is going to be Attachment F. And it corresponds to the
table that's to the left of that in the prior page.
If you look at the attachment, to Mr. Feder's support and
congratulations, he's done a real good job of opening up this road
system. And as you see, a lot of our deficiencies are starting to
disappear as these roads come on line.
You're looking at one red, which is Golden Gate Boulevard, and
we are under design right now to be construction ready. So that's one
that's going to come off.
The tables or the links that are in orange are deficiencies based
on vested trips. Although they're real because of our concurrency
system, on the ground you may not see that problem. But they're all --
they all have projects that correspond to those.
In your TCMA to the center, your constraints, Golden Gate
Parkway, we're looking at intersection improvements and working on
maybe an ITMS, intelligent traffic management system, getting a
coordinated signal system that Mr. Tipton in operations can put there
through there as well, too, to increase capacity.
To the south you look at U.S. 41 and a portion of 951. And the
planning commission this Thursday has a project going forward, and I
have packets for distribution afterwards, there's a DCA proposed for
the developers to actually fund that whole project. So they would take
on the full responsibility of pulling off that deficiency. And more
details will come as that's brought forward to both the planning
commission and the Board of County Commissioners.
Are there any specific questions as you look at the map or the
deficiency report?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Adelstein and Ms. Caron. It looks
Page 3 1
October 15, 2007
like we've got quite a few questions for you, Nick.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Nick, this happened about
three years ago, County Barn was going to be done back then.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: It was supposed to be done
after that. Is it ever going to get done?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: It will get done as part of the LASIP
project. It has to get done. It's just, when we're into this five-year
budget it was one of the projects that we could pull out and balance
the capacity north-south with Santa Barbara.
So the answer is yes. And if it's not in the five-year plan, I can't
say when, because it's not committed, but it will get done. I just can't
say it's in the five-year plan.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Of course it's been about five
years that they were going to get this thing started, and an awfu110t of
people are in a lot of problems because it isn't getting done.
MR. FEDER: Lindy -- for the record, Norman Feder,
Transportation Administrator -- your point's very well taken. As I
said, 1've been here seven years. What I noticed when I came is that
County Barn was at the top of the list, fell down, top of the list, fell
down. So you're probably being very gracious in saying five years. I
think you're closer to 15 plus.
We moved on County Barn, we've got the design. We worked
through the issue of how we coordinate with the LASIP project. We
have all the right-of-way. As Nick pointed out, LASIP will probably
bring portions of the County Barn improvement faster. But as far as
pure capacity in the corridor, there's far more provided for very less
dollar volume by doing the six-1aning of the Santa Barbara extension
from Davis down to Rattlesnake. And with the dollar issues, we
addressed that.
We have not abandoned County Barn. Its need wi11 still come up
in the future, even with the six-1aning of Santa Barbara.
Page 32
October 15,2007
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Ms. Caron, you had a question?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, Nick, there seemed to be
some roads on here that are suddenly cropping up as deficient that
weren't even on the radar and should have been. Last year, for
example, Old U.S. 41 was not on the radar screen at all last year and
now suddenly it's going to be deficient in '09.
What is it that we're doing to drive it into deficiency?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: I think there's an increase in a lot of
commercial projects that have come on line, as they're vested trips. In
other words, you've seen, I think, several Benderson projects in that
area, a large furniture complex that's going on. But that link is mostly
controlled by that intersection. So what we're looking at right now is,
as you go northbound on U.S. 41 to Old 41, adding a dedicated right
turn lane. Coming southbound on Old 41 onto 41, adding an
additional westbound left turn lane to southbound.
So we're going to look at that. But that has experienced quite a
bit of vested growth in the past year with those Benderson properties
coming on line.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Now, because it is going to be
deficient and you already know that based on vested trips, should
other development come before the planning commission and the
BCC, wi11 you make note of the fact that that road is deficient?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: I think we would. And we'd also
make note of the fact that it's in a TCMA. They could use that TCMA
boundary. They would have to do additional mitigation required by
the TCMA. But our goal is to try and pull that deficiency back out by
doing certain improvements that we can determine what they are.
I'd also note that although it's not on this map, I would love to see
somehow, if the development cycle changed a little bit, Livingston
east-west come back on line a little bit. And so that might make a
difference, because we've had certain interest in that project back and
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October 15,2007
forth for the past year or two, which would help out the area.
COMMISSIONER CARON: 1'm assuming that the same thing is
true of, for example, Oil Well suddenly cropped up out of nowhere
from --
MR. CASALANGUIDA: With Oil Well Road, especially at that
first section, you've got Orange Blossom Ranch, Valencia Lakes, all
those projects as they come forward with plats. A lot ofthat is going
to be a vested deficiency.
We know that when they built out at the absorption rate we're
going to have a problem there. But notice, we're programmed next
year to start that project. So that deficiency will come off once that
four-lane improvement's completed.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, you were asking for questions just
on this particular page at this time?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: If you -- yeah, your liberty, any--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're finished up? Because if you
are, I'd like to go back to the beginning of the transportation sections
and start taking questions from the first page on through, if that
works for everybody.
And that first page is Page 6, and it's the AUIR summary form.
Are there any questions from either table?
Ms. Vasey?
MS. VASEY: Yes. When you add the $231 mi11ion of
carry-forward, is that -- that's not going to change any of your work
program at all?
I understand that a lot of it's encumbered, but is it all encumbered
or is any of it going to be used for new programs?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's encumbered and earmarked. A lot
of that can be for right-of-way as well, too, for existing projects. So it
wouldn't change the program. It's just when Sharon Newman does her
update every year we are a little later in the cycle, she just takes all the
projects and their payouts and brings it as a carry-forward item. So it
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October 15,2007
would not change the five-year plan, per se.
MR. FEDER: Commissioner, one thing to add to that is on Page
9, if you take a look at it, the work program, you'll see the first
grouping and then another grouping of projects, you don't see any
dollars attached to those. Those are all projects that are underway and
the dollars carried forward.
The issue that we have in transportation, as I know you're well
aware, is we payoff over time. So if you encumber the dollars for
construction it pays out over a two-and-a-ha1f, three-year period. If
you encumber it for right-of-way, it could sometimes be four or five
years that it totally gets paid out.
So those dollars are either committed and/or projected to be
utilized for the right-of-way needs in that area. And so that's what that
231 million is dealing with. That's the rest ofthe pay-off of these
projects, and that's the roll-forward we didn't have at the time you will
see there. But that's where they're associated, those projects.
MS. VASEY: Didn't you used to show those in the years that the
construction work was going to be done? It seems sort of like a
departure.
MR. FEDER: Well, basically we didn't have the roll-forward.
We came earlier this year on the AUIR. So we didn't have the issue of
the roll-forward.
But that's the number that Nick's giving you. And that's where
they will be associated to these projects. Those are the carry-forward
projects, the dollars are associated. So as Nick pointed out to you, it's
not for new projects, it's for projects we've already committed to or
that we know that we're purchasing right-of-way for to complement
the construction and the pay-out curves take longer.
MS. VASEY: We can't see also ifthere's going to be any kind of
landscaping associated with some of the ones you're completing now.
Has all the money been dropped out of that or with the tax reform
problems, or is there still some money in for--
Page 35
October 15,2007
MR. FEDER: I appreciate you raising that, because it's one that
we didn't touch on.
Our landscaping capital, the installation of landscaping, it
previously either had been the non-urbanized Fund 111, general fund,
or transportation gas tax.
What we've done is we've pulled the gas tax out because of the
demands on gas tax. As was pointed out earlier impact fees can pay
for new capacity but gas tax is my only source for maintenance and
for past issues and for transit and other items that we're supporting. So
we pulled that out.
Landscaping is sti11 committed on projects, but it may be a little
slower, rather than the minute I end a project I go straight into
landscaping. Some of the future projects it may be a year later or so,
because we're concentrating on using the unincorporated general
revenue funding at the level we had rather than also supplementing
that with gas tax.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, any other questions on Page 6?
Nick, I need to know where two items are placed. You acquired some
land from parks, 60 acres on the Randall curve. Do you pay for that or
how is that moved from department to department?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: That hasn't happened yet.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That has not happened yet?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir. That is in discussion right
now how that's going to take place, that property.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So the parks department sti11 retains that
60 acres?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's correct, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What about the 20 acres for the VBX
extension?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Twenty acres for -- you mean the
actual right-of-way itself?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're taking 20 acres from parks for
Page 36
October 15,2007
the VBX extension. Have you taken that yet?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When you do take either one of those
items or things like that, how does that happen interdepartment?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: It can be an interdepartment
transferral. So you'd have a budget item going from one department to
another, if that was the case.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So you don't really exchange dollars.
They show a decrease in their assets, you show an increase in yours.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, actually I think we do exchange
dollars.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. How do you set the dollar value?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: I think it's appraisal. I think they're
treated just like any other entity on the outside.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That will -- thank you.
We have questions. When parks comes up, I'm sure, then it will help
that discussion.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Just to touch one more item on the
lane mile cost and to reinforce that. It is a lagging indicator. So on
the development community, I negotiate developer contribution
agreements. They'll say your costs are going down, and I say you
can't have it both ways, you can't say -- years ago when costs were
going up and you keep using the back number, and now that costs are
going down you want to jump right to it. You have to wait till it
actually reflects in the bids that go out.
So as Mr. Feder pointed out, we are starting to see some
stabilization in actual road construction, but I would caution that the
utility side of that is still staying pretty high.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray, you had a question?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, with regard to the land
transfer there, that was the question I had as well. When the property
is acquired by the county, say for the parks department, that presumes
Page 37
October 15, 2007
it's in fee or however it's taken. The value of that is booked and--
appraised and booked. When they transfer it to you, is that transfer
going to be at present value or is that a booked value --
MR. CASALANGUIDA: As Mr. Feder just corrected me, it's
actually the value that they paid for it. So I don't think we pay the
upcharge on that.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, there would be a time
change, and it could have been lesser or it could have been greater.
I'm curious to know, because we use $230,000 in parks for certain
information, and I don't know that that would be reflective of a
correct number, you know, moving back and forth. When you
transfer land.
MR. FEDER: What we're looking at when we transfer is
typically we pay what is paid for plus any carrying costs. If it's
bought with any bonding or any interest being paid, then we make the
other entity whole. We have gotten items from, let's say, the school
board where it becomes an appraisal item, as Nick pointed out.
Typically within the county it's what's paid plus any carrying
costs. And that's what we're looking at Randall, the issue on VBR
extension. I don't know that that's been worked out but I assume it
would be the same there. Sometimes it's appraisal if we're dealing
with a different entity like, let's say, the school board.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Let me be absolutely clear so I
understand it now. Ifthe parks department bought it at a dollar and
it's worth two dollars, do they transfer it to you as a dollar value plus
incremented costs or do they transfer it to you as the current appraised
value of two dollars?
MR. FEDER: In the case of Randal curve, as an example, what
is being discussed has not been finalized. What is being discussed is
that the Parks and Rec is looking for the property that is over off of
Oil Well behind the schools near the new utility. That land was
purchased at a pretty favorable price, but it was also paid for by
Page 38
October 15,2007
utilities with interest due.
If we purchase that property of like kind, transportation may go
to Randall, parks wi11 get where they need to be, utilities would have
then resolved the rest of the property that they acquired as part of the
new facility. That's what's being looked at right now.
So in effect what I'm saying to you is that Parks got that from the
old trust provisions.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: GNC.
MR. FEDER: Yes, GNC.
We may end up paying for making utilities whole and then in
fact we end up with the Randall curve property for a future
maintenance facility, Parks ends up where they need to be, everybody
in the end is whole.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you have an idea, on the Randall
curve, are you going to be acquiring that 60 acres within the next
five-year period?
MR. FEDER: We're not sure. Right now there's sti11 issues, and
as Nick was pointing out, school board that we're talking to, there has
still been considerable discussion back and forth, I believe it's back on
again, of possibly sharing that site relative to their bus barn interests.
So I'm not trying not to give you a straight answer, I'm just
telling you that issue's been in and out --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But you don't know if it's within the
next five-year period that's reflected in this AUIR?
MR. FEDER: I'm not sure that I can tell you. It may come up,
but right now it's not structured, so I don't think any of us can show it
as a specific action yet.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And the 20 acres for VBX would
be in the same idea time-wise?
MR. FEDER: Yes. Because now we're just buying, as you
know, the whole take, so we're doing our design and working through
that. And then we would go west of Wilson, which of course that
Page 39
October 15,2007
section is in that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any other questions of --
we're on Page 6 at this time.
Let's move on to -- well, Page 7 is just a pie chart. Hopefully a
pie chart's not too controversial.
Let's try Page 8.
Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And Nick, this is on the traffic
counts system. You're referencing a lot of factors and stuff like that.
Would there be a way that you could kind of send a little outline as to
what these two bullets mean? We don't need to tie up everything here,
but --
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- just for my own
understanding. In other words, there's a lot of counts, there's a lot of
factors, there's a lot of days removed and things like that.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. I'd be happy to do that.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And then the next thing, which
is hopefully this is humor, but in your observation it sounds like we
could meet our level of services just by lowering the speeds.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: No. It sounds like that, but that's not
true. I think, you know, some of the roads we noticed with the
maintenance of traffic, if you've got your counter on that road you're
not counting the cars, because they're just -- you can't pump six lanes
of traffic in two lanes, so you're going to show a lower volume.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But it also does show, because
of the fact that motorists can take alternate routes, that when we get
these large gated communities we have to be careful of not
eliminating alternate routes.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir, we do.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Thank you.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: I can touch on that.
Page 40
October 15,2007
COMMISSIONER CARON: How much did he pay you for
that?
(Laughter. )
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're on Page 8. Any other questions
on that page?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Going to Page 9, Attachment C.
Ms. Vasey?
MS. VASEY: Yes, I know we're constrained all over the place.
The first three years are constrained because of the concurrency. The
fourth and fifth year are constrained because of, I guess DCA, we've
got to make sure that we've got the money there.
All of that money, even though it's a big increase in the fourth
and fifth year, it looks like the revenues are pretty solid; is that
correct?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: I believe the revenues to be solid. I
think you've seen -- we had a concern with the residential going down.
Commercial has made up for it. Obviously we're taking a
history .
DCA would love us to go on a 10-year plan. And I'd be lying to
you if I told you that in 10 years we could tell you where the money's
coming from. In a five-year we feel more comfortable. It's almost
like that hurricane picture you get on the -- when they're doing a
hurricane projection map, the closer you are to that the better you feel
with it.
We've seen actually impact fees are up a little bit this year above
what we projected. And I think a lot of that is the second half
payment on some big projects that came in. But from what I see on
the development review side you're seeing some pretty steady
commercial applications. And you're starting to see even some
projects to come in that you didn't think would come in the rural area.
So we feel pretty comfortable that that revenue stream is pretty
Page 41
October 15,2007
dependable.
MS. VASEY: And as far as you know, there's no big things we
need to do in the next five years that are left out of the program
because of financing?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: County Barn Road.
No, I think we're in pretty good shape. I think what you're going
to see with the Big Cypress submittal and some other projects in the
five-year -- because you can't reflect that -- you're going to see some
improvements coming on line that aren't on the schedule but maybe
brought on by some larger developers coming in.
You're going to see road projects like the SR-29 bypass that's
under PD&E right now. There are some projects out there, Tradeport
DR! that's looking at funding and acquiring right-of-way for that.
But as noted last year, you can't pull these things into a five-year
plan until they become solid. So you're going to see some exciting
things happen, I just can't show them right now because they're not
real yet.
MS. VASEY: And I don't want to beat the 231 million
carry-forward to death, but are you going to change this chart then to
reflect all of that?
Okay, good.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: If that's your direction, we could do
that.
MS. VASEY: I mean, just for the BCC review.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure.
MS. VASEY: Okay, great.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: We'd almost add a fiscal year '07 and
just call it the encumbered year. And you could see that. I think that's
what we talked about doing.
MS. VASEY: Okay. Because it does seem like you have to
relate now to the like $870 million program in total.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. We can add that fiscal year '07
Page 42
October 15,2007
encumbered projects and call it encumbered projects.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on Page 9?
Mr. Tuff?
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Yes, I have to go to a Golden Gate
Civic Association board meeting tonight, and the last I saw Santa
Barbara was on the five-year plan and it was taken off. And what
would you suggest I say to them tonight?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Where were they when the fight was
going the other way?
We're looking at the right-of-way acquisition, and I know my
boss is actively looking at trying to bring that back in. But the balance
of the plan, that construction is not in there right now. But if we can
get community support and the funding, we'd love to bring that project
back on line.
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Because now the sidewalks would
just end right where -- even if they didn't finish the roadway at this
point, but they dead end to nowhere.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, they'd have to taper back into
the -- the right-of-way line is what they're supposed to do, or be signed
to say sidewalk ends.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on Page 9?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, let's move on to Page 10. It's
Attachment D, road financing plan update. Any questions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The next part of the document is
Attachment E, and it covers from Page 11 to Page 14.
Nick, I had a question involving the CIE. The CIE that has not
yet been adopted but is about to reflects that all six-lane roads wi11
have an adopted level of service of E and all others adopted level of
service D.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's correct.
Page 43
October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's nothing wrong with this chart,
but I think you may want to correct the CIE for next year, because
your line item I.D.90 is Good1ette Road to Davis Boulevard, it shows
8D and it's an E. So that's inconsistent with the CIE.
And 109.0, Emerald Beach Road, it's a constrained section of
Emerald Beach Road from 41 to Gulf Shore Drive, and it's a two-lane
section. It shows an E as well.
So just to be consistent for the next year's CIE, we probably
ought to get that language in the CIE amended to reflect what's on this
chart, if that seems reasonable to compo planning staff.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: We can do that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on the chart?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On Page 15 is basically a summary of
the chart and it also corresponds to 16, which is the map we started
talking about earlier.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, Mr. Murray?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Nick, just curiosity, how long
can a design on a given road last, for instance, County Barn Road?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Before it goes stale?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: You can -- what usually happens is
every two years the permitting agencies will have you update the
permit. Approximately every two years the permitting agency will
ask you to update the permit. And as long as you maintain that
update, the design will not go stale.
What can happen is in between the adopted design and the time
you actually go to build that project, you may have a project come on
line that's private, or even our own facility on that roadway. So we
may have to do a couple of sheet swap-outs to notice the new
driveway that's there. But it's usually minor, and as long as we stay on
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October 15,2007
top of it, it's not a lot of cost to do that.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And the term construction
readiness I assume relates to that 50 mi11ion that's available? Or how
does that work, the construction readiness term?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. The term construction
readiness, part of the board asked us to do is say until you actually can
take these projects and bring them in and fund them and you're ready
to go, bring them on to an out-year. So we say they're construction
ready in a certain year. But until that financing is committed to be
able to that, as we show in our five-year plan, we leave it out. But
we'll say it's ready next year. And if we go to bid it and the money's
there it wi11 be put in that year.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Does that mean the design is
already achieved?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: That would mean the design would be
already achieved ifit says construction ready.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That was important for me to
understand, thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, any other questions on 15 and
16?
Nick, on 15 we have some deficiencies coming up in '08, Golden
Gate Parkway, as an example, and that's in the TCMA.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When you have a deficiency in a
segment of the TCMA, how does that impact the other remaining mile
-- that's about a four square mile TCMA or maybe even bigger, six.
How does that deficiency in one part affect all the other parts, since
they're all supposedly lumped together to benefit one another?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, what you're doing is taking an
overall view. So you're taking all the lane miles inside the TCMA. So
depending on what kind of facility it was, whether it's a two-lane or a
four-lane or a six-lane, it would have a higher weighting inside the
Page 45
October 15,2007
TCMA. So if you have a deficiency, as long as you maintain over 85
percent of those lane miles at an adopted level of service, that TCMA
is intact.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So the fact that you've got
Golden Gate Parkway going sour isn't going to have an impact on the
other remaining roads within that TCMA, at least immediately?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Immediately. You may have people
start to draw off that and use those other roads.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The other question I had on your
chart, and you briefly touched on the DCA more or less that's
proposed for 951 and 41.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The project you spoke about that's
coming up Thursday for review has a time table in which they want
approval of significant numbers of permits. And those permits would
all be well prior of any completed construction of the intersection.
And as we've learned from the Target fiasco on Immoka1ee Road
and 1-75, banking on something being done and actually getting done
and allowing development to move forward under the premise that
it's in the books, on the timetable and all that, doesn't work.
What do you think of this 951/41, the reliability versus what--
now, you were the one standing in front of us a few years back on the
Target -- well, actually, it was Don Scott -- assuring us that
everything was okay, that the Target could CO and that within
months everything would be resolved. And of course now we're
years and years off.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: One clarification of the Target,
whenever it's brought up I always try and put this on the record. They
were actually approved for more than what they built. They could
have not come to us and they could have built more on that site. And
they worked with us on right-of-way to do things.
So while I would like to have done that project ourselves, Federal
Page 46
October 15,2007
Highway stepped in and said we want that project in DOT. Ifit was
managed by the county and done by the county we would have had it
as part of our Immoka1ee project. When we submitted that for initial
review State and Federal Highway said no, we're going to do that as
part of our project. And that's when that slipped out.
As to address your concern on the 41 consortium, we had a
public meeting and we were clear with the residents. We said to them,
to get this done it's going to get worse before it gets better. But you
have no financing in the future that we could see in the five-year plan
attack this problem.
We did an analysis of what it would be like in year one, which is
2008, what it would be in 2010, when we thought the project would be
under construction, and what it would be like in 2013. And although
we had certain failing movements, the overall level of service of the
intersection maintained at E in 2010. And in 2013 when those
projects in the DCA come on line, it's consistent with the PD&E
study, you'll have an intersection that works at an acceptable level of
servIce.
So to kind of answer your question, it will get worse before it
gets better. The estimate is about $54 mi11ion. And what we've asked
the consortium to do is bond that entire amount so that if there's a
problem the county could assume that project.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The time frames for that project, are
they -- and I should have checked this before asking the question, but
maybe you could help me. How are they reflected in your documents
here, both the money that would be coming in to have to be spent and
the time frames over which it would be spent?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: They're not in the fiscal portion of the
document you have because they're not a committed project, that
hasn't been adopted by the BCC. So I couldn't use that as -- one of the
recommendations of the productivity committee was unless it's solid,
don't show it in your five-year plan.
Page 47
October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Then when permitting comes
into play, it's my understanding that you have to be in the five-year
plan in order to be permitted. They're not in this plan. If they were to
come in prior to being adopted through the AUIR process, thus -- and
then into the CIE, could they somehow get permitted?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, I believe what it says, and
maybe one of the comprehensive planners could correct me, you can
bring a project into the five-year plan by board action through a
developer contribution agreement.
So in other words, if it was adopted by the board, you could
amend the five-year plan to show that improvement as committed as
part of the agreement.
So if the board agreed to accept the proposal from the DCA or
from the consortium, you would have to amend this plan to show that
that money is now committed by bonding, and so you would
physically have a contract and an attachable document to fund the
project.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So then out of sequence it could be
amended.
And Randy, would that be something that would have to come
back through this process again for review? Or how is that handled?
MR. COHEN: Well, it would come back through the process
through the CIE. But it's one of those items when it's not in the
five-year plan the advice from comprehensive planning would be to
proceed with due caution.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Understand. Thank you. That
wi11 provide some valuable input for Thursday.
Anything on Page 17 and 18? Last two pages of this there's a
TCMA report.
Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Nick, is there a way you -- do
you have a calculation for tota11ane miles in the county?
Page 48
October 15,2007
MR. CASALANGUIDA: I can get that for you.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Could you do that for 2006, and
then add in what your potential is going to be. In other words, what
your projects are going to add to that?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure, we could do that. It will take a
little bit of work but if you give me some time I could get that to you.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes. I'm looking for a sprawl
barometer, and that might be it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions? I guess we're
looking at the entire package.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: With that, let's just take a good time to
break before we go to any public comment. And then we'll take
recommendations.
It's 10:00. Let's come back at 10:15. Thank you.
(A break was taken.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We left off by going through the pages
of the transportation element. I'd ask ifthere's any final questions
from the two panels before we ask the members of the public to speak.
Any questions of the panel at this time?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, ifis there any members
of the public that wish to speak, simply raise your hand.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Moving right along. With that, I guess
Nick, there's -- I guess Randy, there's no more on this issue other than
looking for a recommendation, if one is to be --
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I would move, sir --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, I would move that this
body, joint body --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I want -- before you go into that, the
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October 15,2007
way I believe we have to do it, the planning commission has to take a
vote on it to move it forward. The productivity committee wouldn't be
part of that vote necessarily. They'll form their own opinion
afterwards.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I recollected that as I was
proceeding. I would make a recommendation that the planning
commission recommend approval to the Board of County
Commissioners on the portion of Category A facilities, county roads.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I'll second the motion.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion has been made and seconded. I
would suggest that we want the table summary form corrected to
reflect the carry-forward, as stated by transportation, before it goes to
the Board of County Commissioners. There were some other changes
that they obviously volunteered to make.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, sir, I agree with that. In
fact, I did a little calculation that was $861,672,531.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the carry-forward that Nick
figured was 238 million --
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, but I'm just referencing the
total as the result.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You'll accept we'll correct the table with
that report.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, if! --
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any discussion with the planning
commission members?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those in favor, signify by saying
aye.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye.
Page 50
October 15,2007
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye.
Anybody opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries from the planning
commISSIon.
Janet, I'll leave it up to the group to --
MS. VASEY: I can make a motion if you all would like to
entertain one as a sub-committee recommendation to the full
committee. Recommend approval of the road program, revenue for
five-year period appears reasonable and program was financially
feasible with minimal uncertainty.
MR. DICTOR: I second.
MS. VASEY: All those in favor?
MR. BLUM: Aye.
MR. SW AJA: Aye.
MR. DICTOR: Aye.
MS. VASEY: Aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
MS. VASEY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Everybody is in agreement.
Now we can move forward, and I guess Gene, it's your turn. Drainage.
MR. COHEN: Mr. Chairman, before Mr. Calvert starts, I'd like
to compliment Norm and his staff for the wonderful job that they did
with respect to transportation. A lot of this has kind of coincided with
the CIE changes, it's been a very difficult time, they spent numerous,
numerous hours on that. I appreciate their hard work.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: As usual, they came through with a
good document. So I appreciate it. Okay, Mr. Feder, I guess it's yours
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October 15,2007
instead of Gene, I'm sorry.
MR. FEDER: Very quickly. It is Gene's. What I want to do is
first of all recognize the two groups here today that helped quite a bit
in helping us refine where we're going with the AUIR and
stormwater. Stormwater was a Category B quite a few years, became
a Category A facility.
And the process that was being reviewed under Category B just
got blocked forward. We ended up with .195 mi11s. We have a
dedicated funding source, and yet the process really hadn't given the
information you needed and I think we needed to do well on this
program.
What you're going to find when Gene goes over the details with
you is when we spoke last time, I know you and we were concerned
that a mile versus a mile isn't necessarily the same thing. I had a mile
of reconstruction, the costs were the same as new construction. How
could that be?
Well, if I have a ditch that's five feet wide and two deep, it's
basically a new construction project. But it does relate to the real
issues in stormwater. We're treating stormwater as a resource, a
resource to be maintained. And it's a resource both for water quality
and for conveyance for flood control. And we need to balance those
uses.
And what I think you'll see is we're trying to get a process that
allows us to show you where we are and how far we are away from
those issues or the balancing business.
And anyone project may be a little different. The base of one
project may be water quality, another one may be the issuance of
conveyance of flood control. Many have dual purposes.
So I hope you see that as useful for you in discussing how much I
can actually retain in the system, how much treatment there is
acquired, and how much I can convey through the system to try to
address an event for flood control.
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October 15, 2007
With that, I'm going to let Gene go through the particulars. It is
changed, it's not all the way there. It's a lot better than it was when we
continued to work on it.
MR. CALVERT: Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity
to present the AUIR for the drainage construction. For the record, my
name is Eugene Calvert of the Stormwater Management Department,
Transportation Division.
Before I discuss the AUIR, I would like to present the
management of the stormwater systems in the unincorporated areas of
the county. This way we can get maybe a better idea of the
stormwater system in Collier County.
The drainage systems in the county can be classified into three
classifications: The primary drainage system, the secondary drainage
system and the tertiary drainage system.
Big Cypress manages the primary system and it includes natural
rivers and major drainage canals. These major canals are managed by
Big Cypress through an agreement with Collier County.
The secondary drainage system is maintained and managed
primarily by Collier County. There are a few segments of the
secondary system that is maintained by individual communities
through developer agreements.
Generally the tertiary system is maintained by the local
neighborhoods, either individually or through a homeowners
association. When a developer signs off on the development, the
homeowners association is typically responsible for maintaining that
system.
The roadside swales and appertinent treatment ponds that are
associated with part of the county roads are part of the county tertiary
system and they are maintained by the county. So we do have tertiary
systems that are privately, we have tertiary systems that are
maintained by the county through the road maintenance, and tertiary
systems maintained through the homeowners association.
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October 15,2007
It is important that each level of this drainage system is adequately
maintained and approved to prevent flooding. Without a well
operated secondary system, the neighborhood drainage has no place to
drain and you will get localized flooding.
And it is important to understand that the county is only
responsible for the secondary system and the tertiary system within
the county right-of-ways. If the county does not own the drainage
easement or a system has not been accepted by the county for
maintenance, then it is not a county maintained system.
In Collier County, as I mentioned, we have the primary canal
systems, and those are maintained by Big Cypress Basin. Those are
the major canals that we have running throughout the county. There
are 169 miles of these primary canals, with 46 control structures.
The secondary system maintained by Collier County includes
187 miles of secondary canals and 42 water control structures. Most
of the county's maintained system, if you'll notice in the red up there
on the wall, is in the urban areas of the county.
Developing projects in the system flood protection is not the only
job of the stormwater management department. Our mission also
includes enhancing groundwater recharge, preservation of wetlands
and, equally important, protection and improvement of stormwater
runoff quality.
Maintenance of the county system is completed by road and
bridge maintenance. The South Florida Management District and the
county's community development and environmental services is in
charge of development review and compliance. The stormwater
management department is responsible for the stormwater capital
improvement program and the NPDES program.
Through comprehensive studies and project management, the
stormwater management department identifies and implements capital
improvement projects to improve the stormwater quality in order to
correct drainage deficiencies in the county, in the county owned and
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October 15,2007
operated system.
Let's talk a little bit about level of service. The stormwater
management goals for the Growth Management Plan have been
established for the level of service based on performance criteria
linking flood control, water quality and water recharge. All three
components must be considered when determining the level of service.
The level of service, again, includes the performance levels of flood
control, water quality and recharge.
The success of water quality and groundwater recharge criteria is
defined as either exceeding, meeting or failing to meet accepted
performance levels.
The flood control performance levels is based on a defined
rainfall event. In the urban areas of the county the design event is a
25-year, three-day storm. For the rural Golden Gate Estates, the
design event is a 10-year, three-day storm. For the land stewardship
areas, it is a 25-year, three-day storm.
During those rainfall events, the approximate rainfall amount is
indicated on the slide. The amount does vary, depending on where
you're at and the exact location within that drainage basin. But this is
generally a ballpark figure of what we might be looking for.
So the City of Naples during a 25-year storm, you'd be receiving
11.5 inches over a three-day period.
Note that in the Estates, the design storm as defined by the
growth management is a 10-year event. That means in any given year
there's a 10 percent probability that an eight-and-a-ha1f inch rainfall
event will occur over a three-day period.
As I said, the urban is a 25-year, which is a four percent
possibility that an 11.5 inch rainfall event will occur. Keep these
numbers in mind as we go to the next slide.
The flood control performance criteria is defined at four levels:
Either excellent, where all the flood flows are contained within the
drainage system and the curbs. Adequate, where you do have some
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October 15,2007
street flooding. Substandard, when both street and yard flooding
occurs but no structures are flooded. And fourth, at the bottom,
unacceptable, where you have rainfall event causes flooding in the
street, causes flooding of the yard and causes flooding of the
structure.
So if in the Estates we receive a 10-year storm delivering
eight-and-a-ha1f inches of rain and the streets and yards are flooded,
but the homes are not flooded, then the performance control -- flood
control performance is substandard. That's that third column down
there. So we have streets are flooded, yards are flooded, but the
homes aren't. We would consider that substandard service level.
Consequently, if the areas that we only had street flooding but no
yard flooding, it would be considered adequate.
Remember, the level of service has three components: Flood
protection, water quality and aqua recharge. So we'll use this example
in the Estates where we have flooding, we have substandard service
level, we don't have any structural flooding.
We go on to the next evaluation then. This chart here comes out
of the Growth Management Plan, looks at how you integrate those
water recharge and water quality components in with your flood
control. So the Estates examples that we had, we talked about
substandard. If we have our recharge of our aquifer as meeting the
criteria, and if we have the water quality criteria meeting the criteria
on a substandard flood contro11eve1, we have a value of four.
Now, we could end up with values anywhere from eight where
you have your flood control is excellent, you don't have any flooding,
you have -- water quality is exceeded, your recharge potential
exceeded, down to a level of one where you have unacceptable flood
control and your water quality fails to be met and your recharge
potential fails to be met, is one.
In our example here, we've talked about our streets are flooded
but our homes are not. But we did meet the recharge aquifer and we
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October 15, 2007
did meet the water quality criteria. So we end up with a value of four.
We take these values and then plug them into a composite
performance value.
So in our case there where we had flooding of the streets, we had
a composite value of four, we have a level of service C. As I said,
where we have a level of service -- performance level of flooding
where we don't have any flooding, everything is met, we have a value
of eight, we have a level of service A. We have a level of service A
through D for our flood management program.
So in our example with the 10-year storm in the Estates resulting
in flooded streets but not homes, the water quality and aquifer
recharge criteria is met, resulting in level of service C.
Generally speaking, when you're talking about level of service,
and this could vary from project to project, but if you have a level of
service A, you really have no flooding with substantial water quality
and recharge, versus level of service B of street flooding with
significant water quality recharge. Level of service C, you have street
and yard flooding with identifiable water quality and recharge. And
level of service D, or poor, is you have street, yard and structure
flooding with very limited water quality and recharge.
The capital improvements to the county stormwater system
includes flood control enhancements while preserving water quality
and groundwater recharge. It is the goal of the stormwater
management program to provide the improvements to the county,
maintain drainage system to provide a level of service of C. So our
goal is to reach this level C throughout the county.
Please keep in mind that the county's secondary system is only
one component, and the county does not typically control the primary
or tertiary system.
As we look at prioritizing our projects, projects are placed in the
stormwater program through a variety of ways. The most
predominant method is through basin studies that are completed to
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October 15,2007
identify deficiencies in potential projects. And these basin studies are
similar to what we may be looking at for the watershed management
plans that are being implemented through the CDES program.
In some situations federal, state and local regulations and
ordinances may require certain projects to be considered. The Federal
Clean Water Act and the TMDLs that you'll be hearing about more
and more, that wi11 bring some of our priorities into play.
Public input and complaints certainly playa key role in
identifying system deficiencies. Because of our limited funds,
partnerships through MSTUs, CRAs or developers makes significantly
-- playa significant role in determining the priority of a project.
And of course it is critical to preserve our existing system. As
our stormwater management system ages, replacement of these
facilities are an important factor for our capital program.
With this -- with that, I would like to call your attention to our
2007 AUIR facility form on Page 20. I'd like to go through some of
those charts and figures that you'll see on Page 20.
Collier County secondary drainage system, as I mentioned
previously, includes 187 miles of canals and 42 structures. Our
five-year program will be adding two new miles of canals and
substantially more structures in the order of 35 new structures.
As Mr. Feder had mentioned, some of the idea of a canal adding
construction of an expansion of a canal versus new one really didn't
give us a measure of how well we're doing or where we're going to
meet this level of service.
Remember, level of service is flood control and attenuation. It's
not just about building a number of canals and a number of structures,
but rather, are we going to attenuate that flooding.
On Attachment A, which is on Page 22, the top of the page you'll
see our four CIE projects. We have four CIE projects in the AUIR.
The rest of our programs can be broken down into a number of other
elements, but we really have four CIE projects.
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October 15,2007
Those projects are the Freedom Park, which is the Gordon River
water quality park; the Le1y Area Stormwater Improvement Project,
otherwise known as LASIP; the Gateway Triangle stormwater
improvements; and the Belle Meade stormwater improvements.
As I mentioned, you know, if you look at just canals that we're
going to be adding, as I said, we're going to only add two miles of
canals. But better yet, what is a better form for measurement, if you
look at Le1y, for example, which is the second project, CIE element
1011, we've identified that the water quality treatment criteria is we
need to provide 372 acre-feet of water to meet our water quality
component for LASIP. Currently we have six acres. So we've got a
long ways to go.
In the five-year program, we wi11 be constructing those 372 acres
of water treatment. It includes not only the two reservoirs, or spreader
dikes, but also these structures that we're talking about, those 35
structures. A good number of those go into LASIP and that will help
provide that water quality.
Going further along the line, when you talk about flood
attenuation, it says the level of service needed for Le1y is 1,546 cubic
feet per second. That's our shortfall. Currently in our five-year
program we're fighting 1,105 cfs -- I'm sorry, currently we've got
1,105. Our five-year program will be providing 1,325. That leaves us
a shortfall of220 cfs. But we have a six-year program for LASIP. If
you could look at this thing at six more -- two more years out, we wi11
catch that 220 additional falls.
You look at Freedom Park, which is the first one on that list, and
in there we have really just a water quality project. It does nothing to
provide for flood attenuation. But for Freedom Park, our level of
service need to provide quality is 24.6 acre-feet of water treatment.
Currently we have zero. So the five-year CIE program will be
providing that 24.6.
Incidentally, that project has been bid. We are proceeding on
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October 15,2007
with that. So this project is also moving readily forward.
The third project on the list is the Gateway Triangle
improvements. It showed that we have a level of service need for
water quality of 11.25 acre-feet. Currently we have .295. Our
five-year CIE program shows we are going to only build 1.76, leaving
a shortfall of9.99.
Now, the Gateway Triangle will-- you're well familiar, we're
very limited as far as ability to improve the system.
So what I'm showing you here is that while we're making an
improvement to the system, there are certainly certain shortfalls in that
system to meet our overall goal.
Going further on over to the flood attenuation, the level of
service needed is 45 cfs. Currently we have zero. Our five-year
program will provide 45 cfs.
So on the Gateway Triangle, we are going to help the flood
attenuation and we are going to help the water quality but not meet the
full goal of our water quality. But we wi11 be moving that level of
service from a D to a C, a low C, because we do have those three new
components.
The last one on our CIE program is the Belle Meade stormwater
improvements. This program has not been implemented. If you look
at the following table, you'll see that that Belle Meade program will
actually begin fiscal year' 1 0-' 11.
So the actual improvements have not yet been determined. We
just recently in the last year got the final report from the Big Cypress
Basin. We're looking at that and plugging that into our program.
As you look further down on Page 20, you look at the dollars in
the budget that we've looked at for the five-year program. As I
mentioned, our capital improvement program includes the CIE
element as well as non-CIE elements. Certainly our CIE element is
the biggest factor that we're looking at for our five-year program.
Our five-year program has a budget of -- improvement budget of
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October 15,2007
90.279 million. Out of that 90 million, 65.55 mi11ion is our CIE
element, or those previously four mentioned projects that I previously
discussed.
Our non-CIE improvement projects total around 24.75 mi11ion.
The 2007 AUIR drainage canal and structures presented for your
consideration provides a financial feasible five-year program through
2012. As I mentioned, the largest capital category is the CIE program.
The other programs include the secondary systems, which you may be
able -- you can look at that on the Page 23, which is Attachment B,
outlines our entire program.
So we have the capital improvement program totaling 65.5
mi11ion over the next five years. We have our secondary system,
which is some of our capital projects, includes things like Bayshore
Tomlinson, Immoka1ee improvement, urban improvements. That
provides about a $15.5 million program over the next five years.
Our tertiary systems provides about 3.55 million.
Our maintenance certainly is a major function for replacement of
some of our systems that are starting to fail. It has a program of 4.35
million.
And then our stormwater program, which just includes the
NPDES program and our master plan to the tune of 1.3 million.
As we look at our revenues for the entire program, I'll refer you
to Page 24, Attachment C. That lays out some of the anticipated
revenues over the next five years. As was previously discussed, when
we itemize what revenues are listed on here is what revenues we can
be assured of receiving.
In fiscal year '08, those listed are many of the grants that we
receive for several of our projects. Also includes the ad valorem
funds.
As we move out, a lot of the anticipated grants are dropped off
because we don't have them in hand. We can only report those which
we have in hand. We've got several grant applications out for fiscal
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October 15,2007
year '09, but we don't have those in hand so we could not list them.
As we go on out to years four and five, we then identified about a
third of the way down some significant revenues from the federal
STAG. This is grants through the federal program.
Over the last two years, our LASIP project has been number two
priority for the County Commissioners for moving forward our federal
legislative program. We've not been successful at that program. We
have not received any money on that program. It may be something
that we'll be looking in the future to push that forward. But we still
are counting on that money. It's monies that certainly our projects
here in Southwest Florida are very much in tune with the requirements
from the federal government.
Unfortunately, as I said, the state legislature also has not been
looking favorably in Southwest Florida as well. The Naples initiative
that provides funding from both the county as well as the city for
projects received no funding from the state last year. So there's
another project that we'll be moving forward and pushing on.
So we will be looking at promoting more from the federal and
state legislators. But we did not reflect them on the AUIRs for the
first three years, because it's not money in hand. But we did put a
program together we think is cost feasible for the next five years.
One of the things you'll note is on there too, particularly if you've
been involved with the AUIR in the past, is the concern of MSTUs
and MSBUs. If you recall in 2004, the Board of County
Commissioners approved a funding policy for the stormwater to
provide a cost sharing for those benefitting, which included grants as
well as MSTUs.
Unfortunately, as we looked at that funding policy program, it
identified that 50 percent ofthe funding for tertiary projects should
have to come from grants. Tertiary projects were not typically eligible
for grant projects, the grant projects, being South Florida or federal
legislation, looks at regional projects. And so they're looking at more
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October 15,2007
primary or secondary facilities. So that's something that we will
probably not see as far as funding through the funding policy.
As I mentioned, we've been very aggressive trying to obtain
grants, but we have not obtained grants from the federal government.
We have been moderately successful in our grant efforts with
South Florida. This coming year we're going to receive 2.95 mi11ion
in grants. And the Big Cypress Basin has identified approximately $9
million in funds in their five-year program that wi11 be coming
towards us through fiscal year '12.
Funding from the MSTUs have proven to be very problematic.
Experience has shown that it's not feasible to anticipate local
neighborhoods will volunteer in partnership with the county to form
their MSTUs.
In addition, the 2007 State Legislature restricted the county's
ability to generate future revenues from MSTUs by requiring that an
adjustment to the countywide ad valorem be offset with revenues, any
revenues received from new MSTUs. So if we have a new MSTU,
then we have to adjust downward our ad valorem that we received
from everybody else. So it puts a kink in the system.
While MSBUs wi11 be pursued, they are more limited than
MSTUs, for specific benefits to each parcel must be documented and
assessed quarterly. Unlike MSTUs, homeowners are reluctant to tax
themselves through a voluntary MSBU for improvements to a
county-maintained system. Because that's what we're looking at is
we're looking at county-maintained systems. And they're reluctant to
tax themselves for those things.
A significant shortfall in the 2004 funding policy is the lack of
funding mechanism for the maintenance of existing facilities, for our
2004 funding policies did not address our existing facilities. And we
do need to maintain those and replace those as they deteriorate. And
as previously stated, the adopted stormwater utility ordinance provides
that maintenance of the stormwater system is part of our program.
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October 15,2007
So we'll be going to the board, in fact, we'll be looking to the
productivity committee, we'll be looking to the planning commission
to provide input into a new funding -- consolidated funding
ordinance. The next few months -- in fact we're working with the
county attorney's office right now trying to draft a new consolidated
stormwater ordinance that wi11 address the funding policy. So we will
be looking to both these committees for your input in the near future.
In conclusion, the FY CIE for the AUIR presented is around 10.8
million, with the five-year program at 65.54 million. We recommend
that you approve the CIE as presented, the AUIR as presented, and I'll
be glad to answer any questions.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Adelstein's been patiently waiting
for questions.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I have one. I talked to you
about a year and a half ago on a street called Ohio where there was a
flood, and not only the roads were flooded but the buildings
themselves also flooded. And we discussed that situation and it was
supposed to get something done and absolutely nothing really was
done, because seven months later they were back into exactly the
same thing, more water went through the buildings.
And in your services, are there supposed to be something you can
do for those people who really don't have any other choice now but to
keep rebuilding their homes?
MR. CALVERT: That brings up a good point. We've got
problems in this community, and in some cases, if we follow strictly
with our funding policy, we cannot provide any services to them,
because we are looking at some type of partnership. Because of our
funding policy requiring on tertiary systems, requiring either a 50
percent grant or some other funding, we can only fund 50 percent of
the program. On our secondary system we're looking at a one-third
cost share with grants, as well as MSTUs.
So your point is well taken, and we have this throughout the
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October 15,2007
county .
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: But the problem I have was
that we discussed it ourselves, the people who lived there never were
given any idea of what they could do in order to get it done. And I
would assume your department should have at least gone to them and
said, well, if you wanted some help, you're going to have to do this,
this and this.
Fortunately they never got anything. And I couldn't understand
why we're dealing with a water problem and you say it can't be done.
Well, they didn't get any idea of what they were supposed to do to get
it done.
MR. CALVERT: I'm sorry if you thought it couldn't be done.
We do need to -- and there may be situations like that that we have
overlooked. And I have appointed a new person on our staff to be
more progressive on our public information campaign.
We are going to be looking particularly at the productivity
committee as well as the planning commission as to how we address
our five-year program.
I appreciate your comments and I would like to get back with
you again shortly after this meeting, let's get this thing going. If I
dropped the ball, I apologize, and I did.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We'll entertain any general questions,
then after that we'll go into the page by page question process.
Mr. Murray, did you have a question you wanted to ask?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, just in general, I guess.
The question comes down to grants. I remember reading in the
narrative or in the executive summary someplace where caution
should be applied when trying to project dollars out against grants.
And yet I see that the grant numbers are there.
So I just want a confirmation from you that the grant dollars that
are here listed are in fact secured, even five years out.
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October 15,2007
MR. CALVERT: The FY '08 are secured. Those are under
current agreements for FY '08.
The ones from FY '09 through FY '12 are grants that have been
identified, with the exception of the federal grant, the rest of them
have been identified by the Big Cypress Basin on their five-year
program. So we don't have the cash in hand. We've got indication
that Big Cypress Basin is willing to step up to the plate and help us
out.
We still have to go through the process of applying for and
competing against it with the other communities on some of it. Some
of it they've said, well, if it's the LASIP project, we're going to give
you nine million next year, because it's already been approved.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I guess the word indication
versus confirmation, because I do recall a very strong admonition that
one cannot project out unless they have in fact secured the grants. So
I leave it at that. And I will have other questions.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you have other questions in general
nature?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No, I'll go by page.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Syd?
MR. BLUM: Couple of things disturbed me. It appears that the
accepted level of service, the criteria is going to be at C? And as you
pointed out, a C is couple of inches short of a D, which is not
acceptable.
I'm a little bit chagrined that that's your criteria that you're aiming
for as one point. And then you can address them at your leisure.
The Gateway Triangle -- I'm a relative newcomer, I've only been
here 18 years, 1'm fairly familiar with Gateway as having some
property there. That's gone from worse to God awful to holy cow, it's
terrible. I've seen a number of projects done there, had to do with
retention ponds and digging up the street and trying to divert the
water and pumping stations that didn't work, and all those things, that
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October 15,2007
I'm sure you're familiar with ad nauseam.
I find it totally unacceptable that in the years I'm familiar with,
just -- again, this just being one little area, that nothing's happened.
Fortunately last year and this year we haven't had the extreme storm
events, so you guys kind of, sort of got a little bit of a pass with
public outcry in some areas. But you've had this so to speak lull last
year and this year so far. I would think the opportunity would present
itself to make some strides.
MR. CALVERT: I appreciate that. To answer the second
question first, the Gateway Triangle project was bid. In fact, we're
having a preconstruction community meeting here with the CRA this
week. So I'm pleased to report it's moving forward.
The CRA also stepped to the plate and provided additional
money to acquire additiona11ands so right now we've got a
one-and-a-ha1f-acre pond, and since they've stepped forward, our
Phase 2 will expand that pond to a three-acre pond.
So we are moving forward, I'm pleased to report on it. It has
been a long time coming. It's certainly not going to solve all the
problems but it's certainly going forward.
MR. BLUM: Before you get to the next part, 1'm assuming then
that engineering has been done, that you have confidence in this plan
that you're letting to bid that it will in fact make a difference?
Because I've seen two or three come and go that just wouldn't happen.
So you've got one now that all the powers that be think wi11
work?
MR. CALVERT: Absolutely. And that -- you bring an
interesting point there. That particular system has a zero -- if you
have any type of rainfall at all, normal rainfall, you're going to get
flooded and localized flooding. Our Gateway project as it currently
stands will bring that to a level of service -- not a level of service but
hit a five-year storm. So we're still not up to the standard of the 25,
but we're up to five. When we get this new parking there, new land
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October 15,2007
that we acquired, it will bring it up to about the level of a ten-year
storm.
So it's still not going to meet urban standards, but it's certainly
going to be better than it has been.
MR. BLUM: The other thing that comes to mind is the Burning
Tree area, which we all know has been controversial for a lotta, 10tta
years, that I happened to be a little bit involved with -- and again,
since you've finished all your road work and, hopefully,
improvements, we haven't had a storm to test it.
Have you done any kind of models to project how that's going to
work in the future for those two areas down there?
MR. CALVERT: Which street was this?
MR. BLUM: Burning Tree Drive, on the other side of Solano
with the --
MR. CALVERT: The actual improvements were done on
Burning Tree by the city. We believe that they've done an outstanding
job. We do have a -- sti11 a kink in that system right there at the corner
of Burning Tree and Solano and they're right now evaluating that,
what we can do on that to try to get that water the rest of the way on
out to the --
MR. BLUM: I hope you're utilizing your pass with the weather
to good advantage.
MR. CALVERT: Y eah. You know, and that's really been, the
weather -- talk about the lack of rainfall -- has been to our advantage,
but it's also been to our disadvantage. People tend to forget that it
does flood. And people tend to forget that we do need to expand these
canals that we've got on our program.
But things like Solano, those wi11 fit in our tertiary program, it
does not reflect part of our CIE, but is part of our tertiary program. So
we don't have the funding level like we do with some of the major
projects moving forward.
MR. BLUM: I'm surprised as you working with Mr. Feder that a
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October 15,2007
C is a criteria for level of service. I really would like to hear that
addressed.
MR. CALVERT: The level of service C, as I mentioned earlier,
is actually defined by the Growth Management Plan. It's a balance
between what we can afford and what we can do to protect private
property .
As I said, one of the things we're trying to do is protect private
property to keep structures from being flooded. That's the first thing.
Then we look at yards and those type of things and safety issues on
the streets. But the first thing is to keep structures from being flooded.
What can we afford to do.
We certainly would love to have a level of service A with
outstanding flood attenuation and all of this water quality treatment
but we can't afford it. We've got 1.5 mill set aside, which provides
about seven to 11 mi11ion in revenue each year. And we try to
supplement that with grants.
But it's a point well taken. Our LASIP projects, for instance, as I
said it's a six-year project. It's also a $65 million project. So -- some
of the issues we need to address.
MR. BLUM: 1'd personally like to see the criteria for a B. And
in some areas you might achieve it so that you don't have a
systemwide C rating, as it were. Which again, once you hit that little
extra bit, or that extra six hours of rainfall, which may be an inch an
hour, as we've seen happen many times, that C goes to a D and
deteriorates in a incredibly fast, shorter period of time. So if you
really could achieve a B or look to get a B, you could survive a C.
You might not get to a D then.
I guess it's a -- in my mind it's an attitude. 1'm not hearing more
of an optimistic viewpoint that 1'd like to hear.
MR. CALVERT: It's part of the issue, too. And we've talked
quite a bit about the level of service of C or D, particularly as it relates
to the Estates. Last year with the tropical storm Ernesto we had a lot
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October 15,2007
of flooding, a lot of sheet flooding.
The canals, it was bott1enecked by the canals. Canals are
maintained by Big Cypress Basin. Yes, they provided a ten-year
storm, in fact, they provided close to a 25-year storm -- our growth
management program says you need to really shoot for a ten-year
storm in the Estates -- but they were providing close to a 25-year
storm. But there was flooding.
How much do we want to go beyond what we've got? That's part
of the decision people do have to make. I think at this point with our
five-year program, we're trying to address the level of service C with
the available funds.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron had a question, then Ms.
Vasey.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes, Gene, and I don't know if you
know the answer, but maybe Norm does. There's new, on your
Gateway projects, there's new legislation for CRAs. Are any of your
projects going to be affected by the vote that now has to take place?
For example, you said the CRA had bought some land that they
were going to incorporate into your projects.
MR. CALVERT: The county actually bought the land, but they
helped fund part of the land --
COMMISSIONER CARON: But their funding --
MR. CALVERT: I do not know your answer as far the
legislation. I know CRA has been a very close partner with us,
particularly as it relates to the Gateway. How this current legislation,
1'm not familiar with that, I can't answer that.
I might talk to Mr. Jackson to find out.
COMMISSIONER CARON: You definitely need to discuss
that, because that may affect your funding if it has to go to a vote of
the public and it will affect, A, when things get done and B, if they
get done at all. Potentially could.
Again, it's just a question. I don't know, this is all brand new.
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October 15,2007
MR. CALVERT: Good question.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Looked like Randy was going to
make a comment.
MR. COHEN: I would strongly recommend in that meeting that
you also include the county attorney's office, because there's a
Supreme Court opinion on that. And then there was a clarification of
that case as well, too, as to whether or not prior funding was
retroactively affected, as well, too, or if it's just future funding. And
then, you know, to what extent as well. So it should involve all three
entities.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. And then my next question
is, when I look on Page 20 at the canal miles, it's 187 and 189, which
is exactly what which was the last time we did the AUIR. What
happened to the new canals we just found out we own?
You're going to have to add them in here?
MR. CALVERT: New canals we just found out we own?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Port-au-Prince.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, first of all, we hadn't gotten to that
page yet but --
MR. FEDER: Commissioner--
COMMISSIONER CARON: We are.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We are now.
MR. FEDER: For the record, Norman Feder, Transportation
Administrator.
The canals you're referencing in Port-Au-Prince don't represent
many miles of canals, but obviously that's an issue that just recently
came up.
Right now we are spraying those canals to get rid of Hydri11a and
then going back to the board. They became county canals, I guess, as
part of a modification to a survey, and we will respond accordingly
and at the request of the board.
But that's not included in those miles, that's correct.
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October 15, 2007
COMMISSIONER CARON: So it won't affect the number of
miles here on -- for canals?
MR. FEDER: No, realistically not.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Vasey.
MS. VASEY: Initially I had a follow-on question to Bob's
question on the fourth and fifth year. We have a really strong
requirement that we can't -- projects slated for year four and five
should not be included unless identified funding source will exist with
absolute certainty.
And in your revenue projections you've got about $7 million of
federal money which you said you've not gotten up to this point in
year four and five. And I just wondered, that doesn't seem very
certain.
MR. FEDER: Janet, what we've done on this is we've tried, and
actually pulled out quite a few grants that we're pursuing that we don't
have a good feel that we have the option for.
1'll address the first and 1'll ask Gene to address the issue on the
federal grant.
The bulk of what we do show in here that is outside of the first
fiscal year where those are only the committed grants we know we
have right now in hand is Big Cypress Basin, where they have a
five-year work program balanced to their revenue stream, much like
the state program. If! had one down here in Collier County, in
transportation, that I might be able to apply the first three years of
their program, that's sort of what we're doing here. So there's a basis
for what we feel fairly comfortable that a lot of other grants we're
pursuing that we don't show. And 1'll ask Gene to refer to the federal
one. But again, those are in Big Cypress Basin's approved five-year
program.
MR. CALVERT: We were advised when we did an ER -- when
we went through the growth management review of our ER program,
that we could not -- should not show any grants in that three years
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October 15,2007
unless it was affirmed.
The state also indicated that if we show four and five, that's okay,
if those are viable sources. Not to say they're in hand, and certainly
they're not in hand, we won't have them until we actually apply and
get them approved. But I was advised that we could put those
anticipated grants into our program in year four and five.
MR. COHEN: Let me go ahead and address that in a certain
perspective.
The Big Cypress Basin has a five-year plan. There's a degree of
reliability upon that plan. Gene and Norm feel fairly comfortable with
that. If those particular funds were not to actually come to a reality
and actually exist, because obviously they are approved on a yearly
budget just like any other governmental entity, then there would have
to be some alternative funding mechanism that would make up for a
deficiency, if for some reason those funds did not get achieved.
In this particular instance they feel very comfortable and very strong
with respect to because the five-year plan exists that those funds will
be realized, and that's why they've put them in there.
But your point is very well taken. It's a matter of policy whether
or not to include them or not.
MS. VASEY: Well, I wasn't too concerned about the Cypress
Basin ones, because, like you say, I can agree that if it's in their
five-year plan, while that's not absolute certainty it's pretty good.
But what had concerned me was your discussion on the federal
funds where you've tried in the past and hadn't received any, and yet
in years four and five you have $7 mi11ion out there. It just seemed a
little chancey. And I wondered if that should continue in the program
or not.
MR. CALVERT: I believe it should stay in the program because
it is important. It's something we need to make this program work.
We wi11 be pursuing other funding as we go along, whether it's
MSTUs, MSBUs or other grants. In fact, as I mentioned, we have two
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October 15,2007
grants totaling $2 million that's being considered right now that's not
included in our program.
If it's under the advice to not include those federal funds out in
year four and five, we can certainly do that. We will need to realize
then that to make this program viable we wi11 have to back up some
of those and extend some of those projects in out-years, which, if we
don't get the federal funds, particularly those federal funds are
earmarked towards the LASIP project. Ifwe don't get those federal
funds, instead of being a six-year program, it's now an eight or a
ten-year program.
MS. VASEY: Well, unless you have an alternate funding source
for the $7 mi11ion, I would recommend that you go ahead and extend it
out into the sixth or seventh year and not try to put it in the program,
because that's the whole idea. You'd have to come up with another
revenue source, and I don't know where you would do that.
MR. CALVERT: Point well taken. And certainly we'll take that
-- you know, if that's the recommendation. I have no problem with
that, doing that. We were just advised by the state auditors when they
came in that we can put those monies in there in the four and five
years but not in anything newer, and so that's what we did.
But if you recommend we take them out, we'll certainly do that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We hadn't started on the document, but
are there any other general questions?
If not, I have one, Gene. In your diagram you showed a way to
evaluate the level of service by the amount of flooding in the street.
The homes on each side of the street shown in your diagram, are they
based on what FEMA time frame, today's FEMA rules or, let's say,
1970 FEMA rules?
MR. CALVERT: No, I would say the impact to those homes,
any structures is flooding, no matter what the elevation is, based on a
ten-year storm or a 25-year storm, depending on what we want to
have for level of service in the community.
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October 15,2007
So in the urban areas it's a 25-year storm. We do not want
structures flooded at that 25-year storm--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But Gene, I think you--
MR. CALVERT: -- regardless of what the elevation is.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- missed the point of my question. The
way you showed the diagram, you had a road that was at a level below
the levels of the homes on each side of it. That is not the case in large
portions of Collier County.
So I mean, raising the level of service to accommodate homes
that were built inefficiently in the days past because they could get
away with putting them below the road levels is not something that
may be prevented based on -- maybe on a level of service you can
establish by the way you showed your diagram.
I'm just trying to understand. Is your diagram based, it's level of
service based on understanding that the homes would be at a FEMA
level that's required today, or is it at the, say, 1970's level where
homes in Golden Gate Estates and maybe Ohio street and maybe the
Gateway Triangle were built below the floodplain, thus they're going
to be prone to flooding until they get rebuilt?
Now can you answer -- how is your level of service standard
directed at homes that were built like that?
MR. CALVERT: The illustration was strictly for illustration
purposes only, you, know, talking about that level through there.
Certainly there are areas in the county that -- that illustration shows
curb and gutter -- and so most areas in the county don't have curb and
gutter. But it is for illustrations.
But what we look at is acceptable flood control, acceptable,
unacceptable, exceeds those areas. So if they are -- if we have a flood
during that event and it floods homes, then it's unacceptable. If it
doesn't flood homes, then it may be substandard. If you flood the
yards but doesn't flood the homes, that may be substandard.
We have areas in the county. When we look at the 100-year
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October 15,2007
FEMA map, a lot of that is based on the flood for surge or whatever
we have, might have for the areas. We're looking at also areas
throughout the county, and Florida is flat and most of ours is surge,
but, you know, any type in areas that we have flooding, whether it's a
ten-year storm or a 100-year storm, I really can't answer your
question, because really what we're doing is trying to base that level
of service on general protection of homes or structures, regardless of
what the FEMA map might show.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. -- and we're sti11 on, I guess,
general questions then.
Mr. Schiffer, then Mr. Murray.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Actually, I was saving it for
Page 20 but --
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I have it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's just, Mr. Schiffer, do you want to
ask your question now or do you want to hold it?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes. The question really is, and
it's kind of following up on yours, how does that system of analyzing
the county show up in this report? I don't see --
MR. CALVERT: You mean the level of service?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. What would be nice --
wouldn't it be nice to see a map of the county showing what areas and
what subareas are at different levels of service. But we have a method
of doing it. Yet when we really look at what we have, we do it based
on an inventory of, essentially, canals.
MR. CALVERT: And that is the purpose for our management
plans, our master plans. As I mentioned earlier, we are looking
forward to the watershed management plans that will be coming
forward by year 2010. That will identify some of these areas in the
various different basins that are deficient. We've gone ahead with the
urban Immoka1ee area and identified -- that project's been done -- and
identified those areas that were shortcomings, that were deficiencies.
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October 15,2007
The Belle Meade, which has recently been completed through
Big Cypress, that has identified specific areas. And we have not
identified most of the county. There are only about three or four areas
that have been identified through these master plans. That's the reason
I say we're really looking forward to this watershed management plan.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So essentially this report really
doesn't give us any basis of figuring out whether we're at that level of
service C or not. There's nothing in here that give us that --
MR. CALVERT: This particular report identifies our CIE
projects that have been approved by the Board of County
Commissioners, and those CIE projects have gone through the process
and evaluated what needs to be done. And that's the reason the LASIP
is a major project. That has been identified as shortfall.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But this report, you know, gives
us an inventory of canals and their control devices and a list of
projects that you have in the works right now, but nothing that we
could really say what the level of standard for the whole county is --
or portions of the county.
MR. FEDER: Again for the record, Norman Feder,
Transportation Administrator.
Mr. Schiffer, you're perfectly correct on that. That's what we're
trying to evolve to. As we told you the last time, we weren't even
acknowledging the fact of the dual role and how we're approaching it.
We're in the process of doing watershed master plans. Our
stormwater is a big part of that but they're not the sole part, there's
land use issues and other items that wi11 be addressed.
But what we're trying to do here is a couple of things. First of
all, 1'll tell you, Mr. Blum, we don't accept level of C as a good
standard.
MR. BLUM: I can't imagine you would.
MR. FEDER: Level of service B is somewhat representative --
and understand how 1'm saying that. You're doing two things. You're
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October 15,2007
trying to provide for control of flooding and at the same time you're
trying to recharge the aquifer and establish water quality.
So to the individual who has water within their ditch, and I said
within the ditch, on occasion, that is important, it's needed, it's going
to recharge. And if I just convey it out without any structures, that's
why you see a number of structures being established where we have
the opportunity to do that, then I'm not going to get a good overall
level of service. I don't necessarily have to have it in their yards
sitting for a long time to get there.
And so we're going to be trying to look at B rather than C. It's a
bit of nomenclature, because our compo plan, I believe, talks about C.
So, just so you understand what our targeted desire is.
To the other question, Mr. Strain's question, the Chairman's
question was very, very significant. And that is we've got a lot of
backlog. We need to treat it some in our level of service, because
those homes that were built according to standard, 1'll say, at that time,
are no longer the standard.
Interestingly enough, we create some of our own problem there,
because as we are now requiring others to be elevated or put on fill to
meet the FEMA standards, they no longer become surface area that's
taking on some of that initial water flow. That water flow is around
them now and it's flooding other areas that, the older sections of town.
So, again, it's not an easy item to come to a pure level of service.
We're trying to work towards that. We need the data that's coming out
of the watershed master planning, and we're working very closely with
them. We're trying to give you something that's relating -- and where
we've done enough study I think you'll see on the CIE projects like
LASIP we can quantify to a degree what we're trying to do both in
water quality and in conveyance.
And that's where we need to be countywide. We're not there yet.
I think some of the watershed planning wi11 get us closer to those
items.
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October 15,2007
So you're right, I don't have, like in transportation where I can
give you each link of the system and tell you exactly my level of
services. Weare trying to evolve to that and we're trying to also
acknowledge that they're competing items. If I drained it off
immediately that says, gee, that's a great level of service. But then
other times ofthe year, everybody's going to say why are we the
desert. So those are the things we're trying to work with.
But again, I'm going to ask your indulgence. I think your points
are right on target. I think we've made great strides since the last. We
sti11 have more to go.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Mr. Murray, you had a
question?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, it related to all of what we
just said and some of it was covered. But I wonder, based on what
you had indicated, Mr. Chairman, about the time changes and the
FEMA changes, I wonder if there could be established two levels or
two criteria, I'm not sure how to even phrase this, that would relate to
it.
For this reason, based on your view, it would appear that your
focus would be to direct as much money as possible toward just
fulfilling a need because it's obvious. And that's fine, that's laudable.
But it doesn't necessarily deal equally or equitably with the rest of the
county, and I can't say that as absolute, but that certainly suggests that.
So I wonder if, certainly not level of service, because while I
agree, Mr. Blum certainly has it right, you're can't be going for C.
There must be some other way of expressing it so that we wouldn't
direct all of the money to areas where the expectation is that there wi11
be redevelopment and they will comport then with the current FEMA.
Do you have anything to say with regard to that?
MR. CALVERT: I think you bring up a very valid point that
really the county should look at on our Growth Management Plan.
Whether that level of service C is where we want to be headed to and
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October 15,2007
how to address those issues. Certainly our department has been trying
to take the -- the management plans have been developed and those
projects and deficiencies have been identified and turn those into
improvement projects.
So I would look to the planning commission and to the CDES to
provide guidance on that, that area. If we want to head some
direction, different direction on the Growth Management Plan, we'll --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schmitt, you want to comment?
MR. SCHMITT: Yeah, for the record, Joe Schmitt. Just so I can
put things in perspective, and you understand in the Estates, we did
not even have vertical control, that is, frankly, survey control at
second and third order vertical control in the Estates until probably
2001, I believe 2002 when we finally got vertical control out there.
We had what we called a local datum out there, which was
nothing more than 18 inches above the crown of the road. And that's
the way houses were built. So if the road went like this, the houses
were built like this, 18 inches above the crown of the road. There was
no vertical control.
It wasn't until we finally got control put out there, we partnered
with the state, spent $50,000. Now, we require flood certificates.
There's thousands of homes out there that don't even have flood
certificates. Those are frankly sti11 conforming homes. They may
have to eventually come in and apply for a flood certificate, but I can't
correct the past.
And Mr. Strain is absolutely correct. I think from a standpoint
of our water management program, we have to deal with the reality
that exists now, and that is designing to current flood insurance rate
maps, the standards as defined and as we use in our building permit
process. Certainly we're going to have to deal with many of these
issues that somewhat compounded themselves in the Estates, but it is
going to take an enormous amount of money, and that's one of the
things Mike has looked at on this east of951.
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October 15,2007
I don't know if that answered your question, but I just want to
make sure folks understand, we have just -- I mean, 2002, 2003 time
frame when we finally enforced vertical control in the Estates. Before
that, if a home was built, it may have been built in a slough or what
may eventually be a flooding situation that certainly can't be corrected
now unless there's an enormous amount of money to go into that area
to correct the deficiencies, and even raise homes, the elevation of
homes. But that's not going to happen. I mean, from that standpoint.
I just want to make sure you all understand where this county has been
and kind of where we're going.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Joe. Randy did you have
something?
MR. COHEN: Yes, for the record, Randy Cohen,
Comprehensive Planning Director.
The comprehensive plan does reflect a level of service C. Going
to a level of service B is a very laudable goal. But again, you know,
until the watershed management plans are done, until we have some
direction, as Joe indicated, the mi11ions and millions of dollars that it
would cost to go from a level of service C to a level of service B,
especially at this time when we're dealing with budgetary items and
constraints is a very difficult thing.
And until the watershed management plans are done, we're really
not going to know what that amount is. And it's obviously going to be
very, very huge.
So if you're thinking about recommending a change from a C to a
B in the comprehensive plan, just note that that would come with great
expense to the county as a matter of policy if that change was to be
made.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, let's move into the
document so we can get through the few pages that are part of it.
The first page is Page 20. It's the AUIR facilities summary form. 1'm
sure there's plenty of questions on that form. Who wants to start?
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October 15,2007
Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: To start off, Randy, where in
this report does it show that we meet level C for the county?
Your statement earlier is county does meet level C, but I see nothing
in here but canal miles.
MR. CALVERT: That is the comprehensive plan. I don't think
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's the goal, that's not the
report.
MR. COHEN: Your point is well taken, Mr. Schiffer. The goal
in the comprehensive plan is a level of service C. It deals with major
structures, as you can tell by the improvements that are listed in there,
four of them being major structures.
I don't think we, without the watershed management plans, that
we really demonstrate what level of service we're at, in particular as it
was discussed earlier with specific parts of the county without getting
into detail of actually going on, inventorying and finding out what we
have on the ground.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, I agree. Gene, one thing
is since this is essentially a plumbing problem, how come we're not
discussing the inventory in terms of volume? In other words --
MR. CALVERT: That was some ofthe discussions we had last
year, and that's the direction we're hoping to move towards. In fact
that Attachment A starts to talk more about volume --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It starts to. But for example --
MR. CALVERT: We're trying to be consistent with what we had
somewhat similar to last year presentation as far as structure numbers.
I agree with you, the volume makes more sense.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But can't you do that?
Obviously the structures aren't based on volume, although the pump
stations are volume. Everything is really volume. So what is the -- I
mean, when we get a canal mile, what kind of comfort should that
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October 15,2007
give us?
MR. CALVERT: Part of the issue is, you know, as recall seeing
that map that I had showing the primary system in red and the blue as
being the secondary system. We have a lot of secondary small canals.
So I really would need to outline what the capacity is for each
individual particular canal.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Which is volume and time of
year that volume wi11 fluctuate.
MR. CAL VERT: Well, the capacity we can determine. That can
be determined, the capacity can be determined.
Now, if we look at maybe the capacity in a watershed or
sub-basin, if you will, and that's in fact what we did with LASIP,
we've got two sub-basins there, and we were able to identify what the
capacity is of what we wanted to try to obtain and where we were
heading.
But maybe as we look at the capacities and volumes, maybe we
should be bringing this forward with the sub-basins. And again, that's
where the watershed master plans wi11 help assist in that information.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. And then last thing,
based on the Port-Au-Prince, I guess it was, or something, do we have
private canals that are not shown on this?
MR. CALVERT: We do not list any of the private canals. These
listed in here, with the exception of Port-Au-Prince where the canals
that were on our inventory, just the secondary canals there, not the
tertiary canals or any private canals.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But the answer is yes, there are
private canals.
MR. CALVERT: There are private canals, but they're not listed
in this total number. Because we do have, as I mentioned earlier there
are certain secondary systems, they're actually maintained by
homeowners associations. And those aren't listed. What we've listed
here is just what is maintained by the county.
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October 15,2007
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Janet, did you want to go next?
MS. VASEY: Thank you. Gene, last year there was $14 million
in carry-forward that showed up and there's nothing this year. Where
did it go?
MR. CAL VERT: We spent a lot of money this past year. Even
between the water quality park, Freedom Memorial Park was a $10
million item. We spent several million dollars on the LASIP project.
We've got a lot of projects that we really got cranked out this last year.
MS. VASEY: That was part ofthe objection last year is that you
were building up a lot of money and not completing the projects. 1'm
real glad to hear that you're making headway.
MR. CALVERT: This year we've actually -- have about $3
million that is going to be not earmarked, carried forward, and out of
that $3 million, 1.9 million of it is the LASIP, which is going to be
going to pay for some of our improvements on LASIP. So we spent a
lot of money last year. That was the good news.
MR. FEDER: That is the good news. But just a clarification.
You're going to see some others, you're going to get a carry-forward
for the year that will be put in just like in transportation.
MS. VASEY: But it's small.
MR. FEDER: But what you will see is about nine million on
Freedom Park, even though that is ben encumbered, it didn't get into
the fiscal year accounting. So the rest Gene gave you but you'll see
that. So you'll show about 11 mi11ion and we'll show the projects
specifically to that on the carry-forward.
MR. CALVERT: Unfortunately with our purchase order
program and our awards program, we've bid out six projects in Fiscal
Year '07 that didn't make it to the obligation end of the funding. So
they were approved by the board, we just didn't get it obligated. So
that wi11 show it as committed but carried forward.
MS. VASEY: Also, when I look at our ad valorem money here
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October 15,2007
under the CIE and the non-CIE, together that's about $65 million that
you're planning over the five-year period.
Last year you were planning 54 million. And I guess I was kind
of surprised to see such a large increase. That's an additional $11
million. Did you get the numbers from budget or where --
MR. CALVERT: We used the monies for -- I believe that's
where our financial person received the monies from budget, what we
anticipate receiving for ad valorem. This is a .15 mill.
This year we did receive I believe around $11 million in ad
valorem for Fiscal Year '08.
MS. VASEY: Could we just maybe double check with them,
because with the constrained funding in '08, you know, with the tax
reform which will also impact '09, that's two years that are going to
be less than it was last year. And then after that 1'm not sure how
they're calculating it. But it just -- it really does seem like it's too --
it's a rather large number. And maybe if we could just check that.
MR. CALVERT: We'll do that. We'll do that.
MS. VASEY: Okay. And also, we've talked a lot about the
designations of A through D on your level of service standard that's in
the compo plan. Are we planning to change -- I mean, we're here to
talk about level of standards, are we going to go in that direction in
the future or how -- I really enjoyed what you showed up there on
how all these different aspects with the flood control and the water
quality and recharge works.
Could we have copies of that, and is that the way you're going to
go in the future?
MR. CALVERT: Yeah, to answer the question on the -- kind of
relates back to one of the other previous questions, as far as volumes
and what are we really trying to show and demonstrate with this
AUIR. Certainly we'll continue showing that our inventory, the
number of canals, number of structures, but I think what you'll see in
the future as we expand, not only in the CIE but other projects of
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October 15,2007
what we're trying to obtain with the water quality and the flood
attenuation as well.
So I think you're going to see more and more of that as years go
on through here. You'll continue seeing the numbers, how many
canals, how many structures we're going. But that didn't make a
whole lot of sense, even though we only added two miles of canal, we
added 1,300 cfs of carrying capacity. So that makes more sense.
MS. VASEY: And just, you know, trying to do the 25-year,
three-day storm, and the ten-year, three-day, that's hard to quality.
Whereas almost all of the other level of service standards are pretty
good quantifications.
And I thought the A through D, even though we don't like the C
too well, was a more representative way of looking at level of service,
if that's what you're proposing to do.
MR. CALVERT: I guess what 1'm looking to your guidance,
we'll -- certainly it makes more sense. Particularly as you talking
about level of service.
MR. FEDER: Janet, I think what we need to get on this, because
1'd like to not do this each successive AUIR until I have my
watershed management plans, what we definitely can do and we're
trying to continue is try to refine this. The projects we've identified
we can start talking more in the issue of what we're doing both for
conveyance and for water quality.
As we get to the watershed plans they will give us a lot more
detail. I can, as was pointed out by Mr. Schiffer, start looking at what
my capacity is within my system.
But what I can answer, which is the other end of the level of service, is
what my true demand and needs are to figure out how well 1'm
meeting those.
And so that's why we're going to continue to work with the
watershed master planning. We'll continue to try to refine this. We
can get you information on our current capacities, both for water
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October 15, 2007
quality and conveyance on the system that we have today, show you
what we're expanding and how we're adding to that. But to be able to
show you how that places us on a level of service, we really need the
watershed master planning and the information it will give us for the
other part of the equation.
MS. VASEY: Okay, so we're just going to leave it for now and
then try to provide that when you have it available.
MR. FEDER: We're going to continue to try to refine it. I think
we've heard some things today that will help us continue that.
MR. CALVERT: One of the issues to keep in mind, too, as we
go through this process is that the county is responsible for the
secondary systems and some of the roadside tertiary system. And so
when you look at level of service, you're looking at how that might
impact the neighborhood, we may not have control of what happens
in the tertiary system if it's a private tertiary system, or we may not
have control of the final outflow going into the primary system.
If the primary system will only handle a ten-year storm but the
secondary system, one we have, can handle a 25-year storm, that
really doesn't do any good, because, you know, it backs up and all it
can handle is the ten-year storm. But we'll certainly -- I think it's a
very valid point.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're still on Page 20. Anybody -- Mr.
Ko1flat?
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Following up on Mrs. Vasey's
request for one of the exhibits, can we get copies of those exhibits that
you showed?
MR. CALVERT: Absolutely. Absolutely. I can do that. 1'm
assuming you have an e-mail, or I can give them to Mike and he can
get them out to you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Gene, in regards to the level of service,
that idea of weighing -- of the FEMA elevations, your chart and your
formula was pretty handy. I liked the way you moved over from
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October 15,2007
acceptable and unacceptable and meeting it, whether or not meeting it.
But couldn't you as another factor in weighing in on a level of
service, enter in some multiplier in regards to the homes in the area,
whether or not they meet the FEMA elevations or not?
And I know all that data is available from LIDAR, you could pull
it down rather easily. In fact, I'm going to talk to you in a minute
about the floodplain management committee. They've got some very
detailed topographical data.
And if you had a factor in there to show that the level of service
is met but for problems with home elevations built before the FEMA
codes where roads are at FEMA, that might certainly have a major
weight on how we might want to calculate level of service truly to
reflect what is the rea11eve1 of service versus what has been created by
the way the homes were built from rules 20 or 30 or 40 years ago.
So I would hope we could consider that for the future.
But now on this floodplain management, is that the same process,
and Mike DeRuntz is the county's rep, I believe, to the committee,
because 1've gotten a lot of discussion going on with Mike over this
issue. And it's an 871-page document that is truly enjoyable reading.
It makes the AUIR look very active.
But in that regard, that big document has a lot of data in it, a ton
of data in it that all relates to yours. Now you've been referring to
watershed management. Am I assuming that's the floodplain
management?
No, that's another study that's going to happen.
MR. CALVERT: Two separate documents. Two separate --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In the floodplain management back-up
pages, Page 672 or something, they had a drainage basin information
chart. The chart provided for the primary canal miles, the secondary
canal miles, the primary water level control structures and the
secondaries and the pump stations and all that.
Their numbers don't correlate to your document in the AUIR,
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October 15,2007
which is surprising because it would help your document. You have
structures out there that you're not counting that would put you way
ahead of the curve. And I'm wondering, has anybody from your
department understood this or seen this or been involved in this or
not?
MR. CAL VERT: Yes. In fact it was our department that put
together those charts. So it surprised me too if they don't correlate.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I pulled the chart and I have in front of
me. And it doesn't correlate, and --
MR. CALVERT: What we did on those charts, too, is tried to
show not only our structures but Big Cypress's, too. But I'll double
check that. Because they should be the same. They should correlate.
Certainly the person that does our inventory is the one that gave
me those charts.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because you've got more primary
structures right off the bat. And you've certainly got differences in
canal miles. And I previously heard you state that your secondary
canal miles were 187.
MR. CALVERT: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, they have only 130. They have
185 primary, you have 187 primary. But then we get into the various
structures and they're all different. So I think that needs to be
correlated and find out if you actually have more structures than
maybe you're reporting.
MR. CALVERT: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Also, under your projected revenue
sources, I find that they don't correlate dollar for dollar to Attachments
Band C. If you go to your Attachments Band C and you look at your
ad valorem, for example, and your grants and reimbursab1es and then
your transfers and carryovers and reserves, I tabulated those numbers
and I couldn't get them to come up with some of the numbers on your
summary form. 1'm not sure if they're supposed to but I thought they
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October 15,2007
might want to because the totals do.
MR. CALVERT: Certainly they should have.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think you need to take a look at
that, Gene. And I don't mean to have you sit here and remultip1y. For
example, the grants and reimbursements on the back page is $250,000
difference than the front page. You'll find little amounts like that
throughout. The carry-over and reserves tota1916,000, and you have
a negative one million on the front.
Maybe 1'm reading them wrong, but if you could check those, I
think that would help us get there.
MR. CALVERT: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Also, under your capital improvement
elements, do you include -- is normally a capital improvement element
supposed to include debt service?
MR. CALVERT: We have one debt service in there for the
water quality park.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know you do. But 1'm just wondering
how -- capital improvement I keep thinking as something more
physical.
So how does debt service factor into that, or is that normal?
MR. CALVERT: Because that was a specific project for a
design of a facility, the water quality park, we felt that it was
something similar to if you were buying right-of-way, it was part of
the cost of the project. And so debt service is part of the cost of the
project. And that's the reason we included it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You know, you didn't think that way
when you gave the floodplain management group their information
because you didn't have it in their submittal, but now you have it in
ours.
MR. CALVERT: Yes. That was brought up here just a few
weeks ago that maybe we ought to have that in there. So that's the
reason it was added.
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, and the 1.5 mills that was
committed to in ad valorem taxes from the BCC, that was a firm
commitment, they're doing that still? I mean, regardless of the
changes, is that something that is mandatory for every year?
MR. CALVERT: It's not mandatory. It is up to the discretion of
the Board of County Commissioners. It was passed through a
resolution which allows the board the flexibility to decrease or
increase it, if they so see fit. So it's not something that was voted on
by the citizens and whatnot, it's at the discretion of the Board of
County Commissioners.
But it was a commitment by them to looking at the long term .
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Is there any other -- if we're
done with Page 20, we'll move on to -- Mr. Murray?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, we're going to move on to
-- because it was relevant to what you were saying. Maybe 1'll just
point it out. On Page 23, just you might take a note.
Under maintenance, 515.011, Australian pine removal, you have
a line item dollar figure in there of 250K. When you come down to
the revenue side, there's no revenue indicated. So you may have
encumbered in the totality here -- when you didn't -- there's no
balance is what I'm trying to tell you, unless there's something 1'm not
seeing. Is that in error or is that --
MR. CALVERT: We should have balanced the revenue versus
expenditures for each given year.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm sorry, what?
MR. CALVERT: The revenues and the expenditures should
have balanced, and I believe they do for each given year.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I see the totals balance, but
what 1'm trying to point out to you is under maintenance, under
515.011, Australian pine removal, we did have $250,000 as an
intended expenditure, whereas under revenue, I don't see any revenue
to match it.
Page 91
October 15,2007
MR. CALVERT: No. That would be then, if we don't have any
revenue in for match, it would be then be ad valorem.
And similar to a lot of the other projects we have, even all the
tertiary systems through there, we don't have revenue per se except for
ad valorem to fund these projects. The only revenues that are
project-specific are listed on Attachment C that list the, I believe it's
the five different projects that we do have funding for.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, I hear it. I just thought it
was odd that it put down a commitment for an item under maintenance
and not have a revenue point for it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 21 is just a follow-up of the
footnotes of Page 20. So is there any questions on Page 21?
Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry, Jan.
MS. VASEY: That's okay. Of course this one has to do with the
MSTUs that I was real interested in last year. And I do understand
that the tax reform has affected the ability to set up MSTUs.
But my question is, can you -- if the area votes to set up an
MSTU, you know, not just the commissioners say but the area votes,
do you still have to have that reduction in the general fund -- rate?
MR. CALVERT: I believe you do, the way the state legislation
is written. I believe you do. Even if it's a voluntary MSTU, you
would have to have that reduction of ad valorem.
MS. VASEY: So how are you going to deal with all the things
that are -- the issues where part of the project would relate to specific
homeowners that will improve their property values but they aren't
going to be paying for it? Are you going to do those projects or --last
year you said you wouldn't. What is your plan now?
MR. CALVERT: We've got -- as you look at the various
different categories, whether it's the tertiary system or maintenance
systems. I would like to have structured -- our new policy that we'll
be bringing to the board as far as the consolidated policy, the ability
for the board to set priorities based on needs, and those needs might
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October 15,2007
be the ability of a community even to step forward with their own
funds. That might set the priorities.
In other words, if you have two projects that are equal as far as
level of service and need and everything, if this community says hey,
we're going to step in and pay our fair share and this community
doesn't, I would hope the board has that ability to make that decision
on which one to fund.
And so to answer your question as far as the ability and the
benefit for the communities, I sti11 think it's a very important factor to
consider when you're setting priorities and allocating resources.
MS. VASEY: I agree. A lot of other communities paid through
their homeowners associations to provide those kinds of things, and to
the countywide .15 ad valorem pay for that doesn't seem exactly
equitable. So I would agree with that.
And also, at whatever point that you want to go from a C to a B
level of service, you have to have some method of people paying,
because that's not -- their houses aren't flooding then, it's just, you
know, the yards flooding and some of the roads flooding, and that,
yes, should be taken care of. But it's not as critical as a house
flooding. And it seems like if you're going to increase the level of
service just to take care of that, there's got to be a mechanism for
those communities, those areas themselves to pay for some of it,
otherwise, you've got a lot of requirements out there for funding and
it shouldn't be used for that, I don't think.
MR. CALVERT: Absolutely.
MS. VASEY: Okay. Do you happen to know how much money
was reduced from your program due to the tax reform cuts?
MR. CALVERT: We had -- if you recall from last year's AUIR,
we had indicated in there I believe around $25 mi11ion of anticipated
revenues through MSTUs. And so that would be the number you
could use as far as the -- we removed all the money that we might
anticipate from MSTUs out of our revenue stream. I believe it was
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October 15,2007
around a $25 mi11ion figure that we had in there last year.
MS. VASEY: And when do you think that this new ordinance
will be coming around to the committees?
MR. CALVERT: As I mentioned, we're working with the county
attorney's office trying to draft something that's acceptable to the
county attorney's office, as well as us. And I would anticipate -- we
were instructed by the board to bring it to the board in October. That's
probably not going to happen. So I would say you would be looking
at the productivity committee and the planning committee probably in
November.
MS. VASEY: Would you try to get us a read-ahead, rather than
just coming with a -- sometimes organizations come right with their
copies to the meeting. And if we could have a read-ahead ahead of
time that would be very helpful.
MR. CALVERT: Sure. Because it is going to be a fairly
comprehensive thing, you really need to -- it's going to take some
thought. Because we're going to take the 1990 ordinance, the utility
ordinance. This is at the advice of the -- originally we were going to
have just two ordinances, but the county attorney's office says we
really need for take the 1990 ordinance that established, or '91
ordinance, and consolidate that with the funding and everything else.
So it's going to be fairly comprehensive.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Still finishing up the footnotes on Page
21. Donna, did you have a comment?
COMMISSIONER CARON: I just wanted to follow up for a
minute on that $25 mi11ion figure. If1'm remembering correctly, the
MSTU figure from a year ago was actually a total pie in the sky figure
to begin with. It was -- we had never gotten one dime from an MSTU.
So I don't know how that becomes a realistic figure to either add
or subtract.
MR. CALVERT: That's a good point. Because we hadn't -- it
was not obligated, you know, it was just like our grants. And we
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October 15,2007
discussed that. We hadn't obligated that MSTU funds, and hadn't
made a commitment. The what we had last year was what we thought
we might be able to obtain. And we're trying to be a little bit more
realistic of really what can we obtain, not what maybe we can obtain.
COMMISSIONER CARON: I just don't think that was really
answering the question for Ms. Vasey in that that's not what you lost
as a result of the tax --
MR. CALVERT: No, it's not. To put a different spin on it,
something -- you know, as we look at MSTUs we have to consider
this legislation that we may not -- the board may not want to consider
MSTUs as favorably as they did in the past.
MS. VASEY: I was actually looking too for an ad valorem
decrease as a result of the tax reform, too. Thank you, I forgot to
follow-up on that.
MR. CALVERT: What happened with our budget this year is
that we looked at -- as noted in through there, it's 11 million. We were
cut $5 million, but we were backfilled on that $5 million with
non-reoccurring funds, if you will. So this was something that the
board looked at as they came through the budget process.
Does that mean that the $11 million is going to be there next
year? I don't know. As I said, the funding resolution gives the board
the ability to make changes, if they will. So.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Let's move on to Page 22. Any
questions on Page 22?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Gene, the Freedom Park, Gordon River
water quality park, is that part of the property that was acquired with
the purchase of the zoo?
MR. CALVERT: No. This was, the Fleischmann property was
all on the north side of Golden Gate. The zoo property will include
another project that we are working on, which is the greenway park.
But it's not part of the Freedom Park.
Page 95
October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any questions on 22?
Ms. Vasey.
MS . VASEY: Yes, I just have one on the general fund line under
the revenue, the bottom. You're fairly consistent with seven to eight,
to eight, to nine. In year 11 you drop down to general fund revenue of
$5 dollars, and then in year 12 you jump up to about 12 million.
What's happening there?
MR. CALVERT: We had a -- if I recall right -- I didn't bring the
Big Cypress five-year plan -- but if! recall right, they had indicated a
substantial increase of funds available to the county for some of our
projects in that fifth year. I don't recall the exact number. I can verify
that and get back with you what the differences is.
MS. VASEY: This is general fund money though.
MR. CALVERT: Right.
MS. VASEY: The .15, isn't it?
MR. CALVERT: Okay. And that may -- that's it. Because
maybe it's fiscal year 11 that they had a big jump in their revenues.
Because even four and five we had some additional grants and
revenues. Our general fund, I'm going to have to look at. Because
that was part of -- you know, what we have is a five-year program,
and those four projects are part of our CIE. We have some of the
other projects, the -- I believe it's the maintenance was a substantial
increase in that last part in there or something.
MS. VASEY: If you could check on that. Thank you.
MR. CALVERT: 1'll double check on that and get back with you
on that. I don't know how to answer that question right offhand.
MR. FEDER: Janet, I think what you're going to see is that
looking at large grants coming in and that Fiscal Year 11, 12. So
they're assuming based on their program that you're going to have a
roll-forward. So that's why you went down on your general fund
being used, you go up in the following year.
But I do want to check on that. We should show here a column
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October 15, 2007
that shows you what we assumed to be the total general revenue and
how it's going to be used by year.
MS. VASEY: That would help, thanks.
MR. CALVERT: I do notice that in our CIE element for year
four and five, that's when we start to kick in some of the higher end
costs of the Le1y, and also that's when we kick in the Belle Meade. So
we do look at increased funding for the CIE. And as a result, then we
look at trying to look at the whole CIE program, balancing that with
grants and using reducing the funds available for some of the other
projects, so -- but 1'lllook into that, Janet.
MS. VASEY: And that, the balancing with grants, that $9
million, that's got about four mi11ion of that federal in there that we
probably are not going to want.
MR. CALVERT: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any questions on Page 23 and
24?
Ms. Vasey?
MS. VASEY: On the 23, you have the Australian pine removal
program. Last year that was about $500,000 a year all the way
through fiscal year '10. And now it's dropped down to 250,000 just in
year '08. Is that program completing or is it a problem of funding?
MR. CALVERT: It is not completed, but in the past Big Cypress
Basin has given us a 50 percent match. And so they've been giving us
250,000, then we match it with our 250, so we've had a $500,000
program.
They said they would not fund it for fiscal year '08 or beyond.
So it's one of the reasons -- we went ahead and -- we have some things
that we think we can finish up around the Golden Gate City, because
that's where a lot of our work has been concentrating on. And we feel
that that 250 wi11 help finish up that project in the Golden Gate City.
There's certainly a lot of other areas in the county that need to be
addressed, but we didn't have that in our program.
Page 97
October 15,2007
MS. VASEY: And priority-wise, there's fairly low priority, you
just don't need to do that if you don't have the money?
MR. CALVERT: That's exactly correct. Again, our priorities
are dealing with flood control and water quality. And certainly the
Australian pines is a flood control issue if they get blown down in a
hurricane or fall down on a canal can block things up, but it's not as
set in our priorities.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Last page is Page 25. Any questions?
Mr. Schiffer.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Gene, the two Big Cypress lines
coming down, are they coming down through Lee County, are they
canals also in Lee County? Do they start on this map or are they --
MR. CALVERT: Typically they do start in our county. Now
there's a few on the upper end that might run into Hendry County,
particularly those on the far right --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. Okay. But the two main
trunk lines essentially going through the center of the county, they do
not go into Lee County?
MR. CALVERT: That's correct. I believe the two main trunk
lines, I don't remember what they're called, the middle canal is
Facahatchee, typically start at the Immoka1ee Road area and work to
the south.
Are you talking about the two main blue lines that run --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The two main running down the
center, yeah.
MR. CALVERT: Yeah. And then outflow into the Faka Union.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So we have no drainage
structures that come through Collier County from another county?
MR. CALVERT: No, we don't, not as far as our system is
concerned, except for the sheet flow that's coming across.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any others?
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October 15,2007
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll ask any questions of the
public, if there's anybody who would like to speak, please raise your
hand?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that, I think we've wrapped
up our discussion on the drainage. I think that we can, from the
planning commission perspective, if there would like to be a motion to
be entertained, please suggest.
You guys are all full of --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: 1'll make a motion, they may
not like it, is that there's no way we can determine the actua11eve1 of
service that the county has. But the improvements they're making wi11
make it better, whatever it is.
Nobody has to second that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But I think we need to make a motion
relative to the AUIR document.
I understand what you're saying, Brad, but do you want to tailor
that so that we make a recommendation to either approve or
disapprove the AUIR. And if we want to approve it, we have some
stipulations that we may want to add?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think you should make that
motion.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well-- Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, a couple of things. We don't
have a carry-forward number yet. And I don't know, are we going to
discuss whether Ms. Vasey's suggestion of taking out years four and
five for the federal funding was something we could do? I would
certainly have --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I had that as a stipulation that we should
stipulate.
COMMISSIONER CARON: -- so did 1.
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And as far as the carry-forward, I
thought he said he spent the money and that the negative one mi11ion
shown is -- all that is part of the process. Didn't he say the money, the
14 million was spent?
MS. VASEY: Well, he said that it was 11 mi11ion that should
show up on that first page --
COMMISSIONER CARON: It's going to show up on this first
page, absolutely.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You didn't put your carry-forward in
then, huh. You're bad, just like Nick.
MR. CALVERT: The one mi11ion that's shown on the AUIR is
what is required by law that we hold in reserves.
Sharon, could you direct me on this as far as our funding? Let's
find that out.
MR. FEDER: Let me hit it, Gene--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think the question is, do you have a
carry-forward that needs to go in the front of the sheet, yes or no?
MR. FEDER: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How much is it?
MR. FEDER: We're going to get the exact figure for you, but I
believe it's about 11 million.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So you're going to add the
carry-forward to the front sheet ofthe AUIR.
MR. FEDER: Yes, we will, just as in transportation. And
understand where we are in the AUIR so the carry-forward is being
calculated at the end of the fiscal year.
But in answer to your question, it's approximately 11 million, and yes,
it wi11 be added in.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So the improvements needed on
this document is they need to add the carry-forward. They need to
remove the approximately seven mi11ion in federal funding and extend
out the programs until that money is realized. They need to -- I would
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October 15,2007
suggest that we -- they look at the level of service standard and
consider a way to weigh in on the FEMA elevations in the areas that
are being affected by the level of service standard. And that they need
to correlate the values on the summary form to Exhibit Band C.
That's the notes that I took about four items that could be
improved or this presentation of the AUIR in the drainage element.
If that's -- planning commission members have anything else that
they would like to consider in that?
Just out of curiosity, does productivity have any suggestions for us?
MS. VASEY: The two that I had are the $6.8 mi11ion federal
grant money removal.
And then also, I think we'd like to address that the new cost-share
funding policy is needed to replace the current policy that's
unworkable due to the tax reform legislation. And it is coming down
-- it is planned in the next few months, but I would just like to address
that.
Do you all have anything else you want --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: From the planning commission's
perspective, since we need to take a vote on this, we have three
options: Recommend approval subject to the stipulations,
recommend denial, or continue it and have them come back with
more numbers, which I don't know if we really need that because we
kind of know what has to be done.
Is there a recommendation from the planning commission?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Brad.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: 1'm sti11 going to -- 1'm going to
vote against it, because we've gone year to year to year where we
really have no idea what the level of service is.
You can bring up the Estates as a problem, so maybe we should
be spending our money on pumping stations to protect those people
than the products that they point out here. So this tool doesn't give us
Page 10 1
October 15,2007
exactly what the AUIR is supposed to give us. And until it does, how
can we honorably review this.
We could we could be jeopardizing parts of our county by the
way we're spending money.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think part ofthe process is if we
disagree that there's something wrong here -- if we disagree with this,
then we need to make a record of that and then by next year they
would come back with improvements. I don't think we can expect that
this year. This year something's got to happen, and if nothing
happens, we're worse off than if something happens, so --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: They even testified that the
comments we had this year were the same we had last year. So I
think, obviously --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'll make a recommendation we forward
this to county commission with a recommendation of approval based
on stipulations I just outlined a few minutes ago.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion seconded by Commissioner
Adelstein.
Any further discussion on the planning commission?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those in favor, signify by saying
aye.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye.
Anybody opposed.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I am.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries, what do we have, five to
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October 15, 2007
two.
Okay, with that, we'll take a one-hour break for lunch. When we
come back we'll resume with the potable water element.
(A break was taken.)
(Mr. Harrison and Mr. Boaz are now present.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if everybody wi11 take their seat,
we can start the next round of the AUIR meeting. We finished at
breakneck speed this morning with roads and drainage, and we can
now move into potable water.
MR. GRAMA TGES: With breakneck speed, Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sir, if you can provide that I would be
very pleased.
MR. GRAMATGES: Good afternoon, Commissioners. 1'm Phil
Gramatges from Public Utilities Engineering. And I'm here to present
and to answer your questions about the public utilities 2007 AUIR.
A couple of remarks before we get started. And I'm sure you've
seen that this AUIR is very different from the one from last year,
mainly of course because of the population changes. Naturally we
know that given the economic situation, the population has decreased,
or actually the estimates of population have decreased from last year.
But on top of that, there's been a couple of changes that have
made this a little bit more pronounced.
One of the changes, of course, is that previously we used to use
the Bureau of Economic and Business Research high BEBR numbers
for the first five years and then we used medium BEBR for the next
15. Now it's medium BEBR all the way.
And perhaps more significant, while before we estimated peak
population at 133 percent of the base population, this year we're
estimating it at 120 percent of base population.
We certainly have a concern that these changes, since they all
happened at the same time, may indeed underestimate our peak
demand. And we certainly wi11 continue to look at those numbers and
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October 15,2007
make sure that we don't get into a situation where we underbuild based
on the demand that we see this year and in years in the future.
And having said that, sir, ma'am, we -- 1'm ready to answer your
questions.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that certainly is brief. You
haven't been talking to Gene, who preceded you, have you?
MR. GRAMATGES: 1've been watching him very closely, yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we appreciate that. Normally
what we do, Phil, is we start with the first page of your report and we
go through the questions generated by those pages.
And there was a hand-out Ms. Vasey had requested. I don't
know if everyone got it. It basically was a capital expenditures and
funding sources. And there was a summary sheet outlining the
summary like we have in the rest of the AUIR, a little bit like it, a
little different format, but it gives you the kind of information.
I don't know if everyone had it, but if they had, we might want to
start with that as a source of questions.
Has anybody got any questions or concerns on that item? Ms.
Vasey?
MS. VASEY: Yes, I do. Hi, Phil. You explained that you have
reduced the amount of money that's in the program now. What does
this do to your program in reality?
Are we going to have problems with providing water when
people actually show up, or -- and processing sewage or what?
MR. GRAMA TGES: All that we have done is we have moved
projects from the five-year horizon beyond that. We have not
eliminated any projects, at least not any projects of any significance.
But we have taken some projects and we have moved them beyond
that five-year scope.
The most significant, of course, is the northeast facility. And that
has been moved -- has been delayed two years, from 2012 to 2014. So
it takes it beyond that range.
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October 15,2007
MS. VASEY: So you don't think that that creates any problems
that you pushed all of these things that you were planning to do earlier
back? And now people wi11 come as they're going to come, but the
BEBR is saying that they're not coming as quickly. Do you think that
that's going to happen or -- I mean, how are you going to deal with
that?
MR. GRAMATGES: Certainly not. We have taken a very
conservative approach to those changes. And in fact, if I may talk
about the northeast plant, we are continuing ahead with that facility
with design and permitting, as if. But of course we are going to delay
the bidding and the contracting for the construction until such time
that we know it's necessary.
So we don't have a concern, because we look at these every year.
And if we see an issue here with population, we certainly wi11 attempt
to correct this next year.
But no, as I said, we have taken a very conservative approach and
we do not expect that these changes are going to create problems for
us.
MS. VASEY: Ifwe had used the medium BEBR and 20 percent
for FY '06 and '07, would we have exceeded that population or been
coming under that estimate? Or do you know?
MR. GRAMATGES: Well, we had--
MS. VASEY: Maybe that's for Randy.
MR. GRAMATGES: Ifwe had used the medium BEBR last
year, it certainly would have caused some changes in the timing of
some of these projects. I can only speculate as to what those changes
would have been.
But medium BEBR last year was a lot higher than medium
BEBR this year. So, yeah, definitely, I believe that one of the biggest
drivers, of course, is the change in population. Had we used 120
percent, would that have caused us to delay some projects in the CIE?
We probably would have projected a longer period of time for
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October 15,2007
the deployment of that CIE list that we had last year. Yes.
MS. VASEY: Randy?
MR. COHEN: Randy Cohen for the record.
To answer your question, there's two factors involved, and we need to
look at them every year. One obviously is the BEBR projected
population for that particular year, and then they'll actually give us an
actual number based on COs and electrical hookups.
The other thing that we need to look at is the seasonal population.
But not only that, the effect of that seasonal population, which has a
greater demand on our restaurants, our very high consumptive uses of
water as well, too.
So we're required by policy to look at it on an annual basis. And
we'll work with Phil and public utilities in doing just that to make sure
that they don't fall behind, or if they need to move it up a year, then
we'll do that. So we're going to follow it very closely.
MS. VASEY: It just seemed like when you cut $150 million out
of a five-year program, there should be some impact. There should
be, you know -- either we should have concern or the program was
really too aggressive last year then, if you don't really see anything
changing.
MR. COHEN: The population numbers are way down in terms
of the -- from the high BEBR to the medium BEBR numbers. The
seasonal population, I know we saw some record tourism in August,
but at the same time when you look at the units that have come on
line, we have so many vacant units in Collier County that BEBR this
year I think for the first time in many years did extreme high reliance
on electric hookup data to validate population because their numbers
were way off otherwise.
So it's a concern throughout the state, and especially some of the
coastal states where there's a high inventory. So when that inventory
gets filled on up, and obviously they wi11, and then we get back into a
steady rate once that absorption happens, then we'll get a better idea
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October 15,2007
where the population is.
MS. VASEY: So it's not just the calculation methodology that's
changing here, it's also the numbers have come way down because of
the current situation.
MR. COHEN: Yes, ma'am.
MS. VASEY: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other questions on the
expenditures and funding source summary table.
MR. HARRISON: I do. Steve Harrison.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Steve. Thank you.
MR. HARRISON: I just wonder what support there is for the
120 percent as opposed to 125 or 115 for the seasonal people.
MR. COHEN: What the support data is? I can answer that.
What we did is last year we presented both -- I think we did to the
CCPC and also to the BCC. I don't think the productivity committee
was privy to it. But we provided the overall seasonal population rate
for the county based on what that was. Countywide, it was 23.7
percent.
We then took out the cities of Marco Island and cities (sic) of
Naples because they weren't primarily served by the water-sewer
district. Those had very seasonal -- high seasonal rates. Marco Island,
it was 50 percent, City of Naples, it was a little over 30.
Then what we did is we looked at the T AZ and analysis for the
water district and also for the sewer district. One was at about 23
percent, a little bit more than that, the other one around 18 percent.
And then to be on the safe side, we wanted to factor in,
obviously, the increase in the commercial uses that transpired during
the high season, and that's where the number generated from.
So you started with census data. We started by backing out the
high-end data from City of Naples and also Marco Island on a
seasonal basis countywide, then we looked at that data specially for
the water and sewer district, because they're not the same. Then we
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October 15,2007
took into consideration their high peak months as well, too, just to
make sure that we don't underbuild but at the same time don't
overbuild.
It's not an exact science, but we're trying to come as close as we
can.
MR. GRAMATGES: No, it is not. And if we look at the
numbers that we have generated for the last couple of seasons, we
have seen that the demand for water is approximately between 19 and
21 percent higher during the peak season than the off season.
That's the reason I said before that we do have a concern indeed
about the fact that we have made those changes together on the same
year. And we keep looking at those numbers. Because essential what
we have done is we have lost our margin of error. But we're sti11
within that percentage.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron, did you have a question?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, a comment. One, I think
you have every right to be concerned. Having lived through North
Naples issues and problems, I would not want that to happen to
anybody else. And I think we definitely do need to be concerned,
especially because seasonal residents and vacationers are far less
concerned with their water usage and consumption than those of us
who have to live here and deal with these issues year round.
I had a question on the sheet that Ms. Vasey requested. Under
water impact fees there are extreme fluctuations from 2007 when there
is absolutely nothing, to 2009 when it's $19 mi11ion -- 1'm assuming --
yeah, these are all in mi11ions. And then we're all the way back down
to four million, six, and then back up to 15.4.
So I just wondered why this up and down like this.
MR. GRAMATGES: I think 1'm going to ask Mr. Wides to
answer that question.
MR. WIDES: Good afternoon. Tom Wides, Operations Director
for Public Utilities.
Page 108
October 15,2007
To respond to your question, maybe a good way to think about
this is this program is set up based on the construction activities. And
as the money flows out for construction, we have to have a source for
it. So if you think of it as a source and use of funds statement, you're
going to have pretty dramatic swings when you have high production
levels -- or, excuse me, high construction levels.
Other years where you don't have those high numbers in
construction, the other activities will fall with it, the revenues. So it's
definitely a source in use type statement.
COMMISSIONER CARON: But these are impact fees --
MR. WIDES: Yes.
COMMISSIONER CARON: -- don't you collect those on a
more consistent basis?
MR. WIDES: And that's my point. I'm not tracking this on how
I collect it, I'm tracking it on how I use it.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay.
MR. WIDES: Okay? So there's always going to be a change.
Somebody builds today, I've probably already built their capacity.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay, good. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Boaz.
MR. BOAZ: I had a question regarding the wastewater
expenditures that you had here. You've pushed the projects out
beyond the 2011 time frame, but you've got about 145 mi11ion of
expenditures. Can you just address what items that money is being
spent on and also what impact that will have if we later find we need
to move those projects back up?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before you go too far, what page are
you reading from?
MR. BOAZ: That was on the expenditures that the -- the
additional paper that they've given to us, that Janet had requested.
MS. VASEY: Yeah, but that was wastewater.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, okay. We're on potable water, right
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October 15,2007
now.
MR. BOAZ: You're on the first page?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, we're still on potable water.
Wastewater is the next element we'll probably get into, Brad. I have a
question.
MR. BOAZ: We're going through all those--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're going to hit them all completely
first and go through all four or five pages of each section. You weren't
here for this morning, but -- then we'll hit the next section after that.
I'm not sure who was responsible for it, but during the
moratorium, or the attempted moratorium, as you all may have
recalled, staff had to respond to DCA in regards to the CIE element,
and they did that with a series of financial data that I had gotten a
copy of.
And the reason I'm bringing it up is because the financial data
they supplied on behalf of your department was considerably different
for the same time period that you've supplied on this sheet to Ms.
Vasey. For example, the revenue source from '07 to '011 was
438,722,000, as was the expenditure source. The revenues from
impact fees alone were $136 million versus the 42 we're being shown
today. And the water capital account, as example, was 28 million, and
it's -- it was 30.6 mi11ion in that document, it's 28. That one's close.
1'm just wondering why DCA would have gotten a different, such
a wide difference in reporting versus this document for the same time
period.
MR. WIDES: Do you want to take that or do you want me to
respond?
Okay, I wi11 respond. The DCA document represents the master
plan and rate study information that was done for last year's AUIR.
Last year, okay, before we took all the populations out and before we
moved the funding out as a result.
Now, do you want to pick up? Okay, he doesn't.
Page 11 0
October 15,2007
Bottom line --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't blame him.
MR. WIDES: Bottom line, although we did not want to report to
the DCA on information that was a year old, that was what we were
required to do. And as a result, and since that time frame, in addition
to the capital planning moving out, the impact fees have dropped by
over 40 percent from last year's levels.
MR. COHEN: Now I'll take over.
MR. WIDES: Thank you.
MR. COHEN: Okay. The difference is, is that what DCA will
see reflected in their next updated CIE wi11 reflect the numbers now
that are shown from that. So there's going to be a major adjustment
from the CIE they have now that they're going through the final
review to the CIE that they're going to see submitted in 2008.
As we all know, these are snapshots in time and they came
changing relative to different years. And we've had this overlap
between years, between the CIE and the AUIR. So when they
submitted the information based on the master plan, that's why we
have the difference.
Once we catch up, and this should be the year where we do catch
on up, when we get on track with our capital improvements element in
sync with our AUIR, then you're not going to see these discrepancies
anymore.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know Janet had started out questioning
the drop from last year, but the drop from the document that was
supplied to DCA is a quarter million dollars. A quarter of a bi11ion,
I'm sorry, $250 mi11ion--
MR. WIDES: 254 million.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah.
MR. WIDES: Of which approximately 223 million is for the
northeast plants being delayed. That's your biggest single activity in
those numbers. And that wi11 continue forward.
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October 15, 2007
As we start our master planning effort late this year, we'll be
moving those northeast plants out consistent with what we've done
with the AUIR here, and DCA next year, that's the timing, they wi11
see a 254 or more dollar drop.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We'll move on to the first page
of this particular element is Page 27. Are there any questions?
Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes, the number two where
you're predicting there could be a failure. Do we have reserve tanks
and stuff like that so that that would never cause a water shortage?
What is the worst case?
Let's say the place gets very popular over the winter. You're
predicting the 28.6 percent rise. This is based on a 20. What's the
failure? What could happen on that?
MR. GRAMATGES: The worst possible case would mean that
we would have to put some restrictions on water usage.
And we had a similar situation in 2002. We don't expect that
we'll ever go back to that. But we have enough reserve capacity to be
able to supply what we expect to see coming in this season coming up
right now. We don't expect that this is going to be an issue for this
season coming up. We are concerned that it will be an issue longer
term.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Long term planning, okay. All
right, thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on Page 277
Ms. Vasey?
MS. VASEY: Yeah, just one at this point, because everyone else
pretty much shows us financial information. And last year I asked for
some and this year I asked for some. Could you always just give us
financial information?
And the reason 1'm asking for it is the commission asks us to
attest to financial feasibility, and we can't address that if we don't see
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October 15,2007
any of your finances. So could you just make a recurring part your
report?
MR. WIDES: Ms. Vasey -- again, Tom Wides for the record.
Yes, we can. However, we have to decide as a group what is it you
really want to see. I mean, I can flood you with information, okay.
1've tried to give you here the most critical pieces of information,
sources and uses.
I can also very readily supply you with information as to how our
debt to equity ratios are falling in compliance to plan. Those are the
critical, let's call them the benchmarks for the utility.
I can provide how our cash position is working month to month, year
to year. Year to year more appropriately.
But if you -- so basically it's level of detail. And what I can do is
share with the committees some of our benchmarking data that we use
internally. If that is satisfactory for you, then we can move on. If you
require more, we can do that. But 1'd rather not just flood you with all
the budget information, et cetera.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Why don't you just provide to us the
summary that the others do?
MR. WIDES: Let me say most delicately that I find it highly
inadequate for the way the public utilities water and sewer district is
funded, okay. We have multiple funding sources, we have multiple
external debt sources and we have multiple funds, okay? To say that
to provide it in that format, we tried to do that a number of years ago,
it was highly inadequate to portray the position ofthe utility.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, your summary that you provided
to DCA for the moratorium information was pretty close to what I
think the rest have already supplied. So, you're already almost there
just by what you've done --
MR. WIDES: If you want the DCA level of information, I can
supply it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think that's better than nothing.
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October 15,2007
And if we need more on that, I'm sure we can expound on it once we
see what you started with. But to respond with books of data isn't, I
don't think, what we're looking for.
MR. WIDES: Agreed. But rather than me trying to decide what
you want to see, 1'd like to give you some things that I think would be
useful to help judge the health of the utility rather than try to sit there
and figure out what it is the three groups, my group, your groups
want.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think if you were to work with compo
planning on what they're typically used to supplying us with and start
as a basis for that next year that would be a long way in the right
direction.
MR. WIDES: That would work.
MS. VASEY: And I would say what you provided last year was
a little bit better. Not only did you give us the five years, six years of
data, but you also explained where the -- which plants the new money
was coming in at. And I can show you what that was from last year.
MR. WIDES: And that is readily available. I can hand it to you
before you walk out of the room today.
MS. VASEY: And perhaps also you're right, you are a different
breed of animal, with, you know, being a utility and everything. And
we probably should look a little bit at your debt ratio and things like
that, too. You know, not flooded with information but take a look at
some of the key indicators. We didn't do that last year, but that
probably would be a good idea.
MR. WIDES: And again, I have that information with me today,
okay, to provide you. What I can tell you is our general debt
requirements are to maintain 125 percent debt to equity ratio.
Throughout the planning cycle, we remain at least at the level of 143,
okay.
So just to give you a little piece. But again, we can provide a
little more, as long as I understand specifically what you're looking
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October 15,2007
for.
MS. VASEY: I think it's just that if we're going to be telling the
commissioners that we think everything is okay financially, you
know, we need to be able to back that up, that we've looked at the
information and evaluated, asked any questions. And then we can
really say that with some confidence that it, you know, it looks good.
MR. WIDES: I understand.
MS. VASEY: Not that I expect it's ever going to look bad, but I
think we should look.
MR. WIDES: That's why we're watching, monthly, daily.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 27, any more?
I have one. Phil, water restrictions, we're in a Phase 2 water
restriction, we have been for quite some time, which cut back
substantially on irrigation. Golf courses, I know some are done by
effluent, some are done by on-site lakes. The summer's been
probably the driest that 1've -- 1've been here for over 30 years now
and I don't recall one being one being quite this dry.
1'm assuming it's going to finish out the year that way, and we're
going into our dry season, which would mean we could have further
restrictions. If we went to a Phase 3 that is much more severe in its
cutbacks.
Those cutbacks affect you all because there's still a percentage of
potable water used for irrigation. Is that fair?
MR. GRAMATGES: That is correct, yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So when we're looking at this
upcoming year, even if we had a potential influx of tourists, we're sti11
going to have possibly a cutback in potable water use due to the Phase
2 or 3 restrictions. And did you see such a reaction in last year's Phase
2 reductions?
MR. GRAMATGES: I'm sorry, sir, could you--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If we're going to have further phasing
reductions in uses of irrigation or other type of water restrictions, how
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October 15,2007
does that impact your -- the water use? How much potable less do
you use, have you guys gauged that yet or taken a look at it?
MR. GRAMATGES: It is difficult to gauge, of course, but we
expect -- we estimate that we have had a reduction of anywhere
between ten and 15 percent.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, that's what I needed to know.
Thank you.
MR. GRAMATGES: And that's not an accurate figure, by the
way.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I'm glad you gave it to me then.
Okay, well, let's move on to Page 28.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I have one.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Murray.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Actually, this relates both to 28
and 29, but they're essentially the same things.
I note that under the retained or deficit reliable system capacity, it
varies and drops every now and then from a high. And then on Page
28 when we have the table there, we show as an illustration in Fiscal
Year 2011, we have a new plant with two million gallons, but we get
down to a utilization of one million gallons. About half of it is lost.
Can you just -- I don't need to get a lot of detail, but can you tell me
why we -- is that plant lay up or is that rest or --
MR. GRAMA TGES: No, that's the way in which we calculate
reliability at the plant level. We use what is called a ten-state
standard. And a ten-state standard determines that the reliable
capacity of any facility is the capacity that that facility wi11 have with
one major unit out of service.
So in this case, this high pressure RO wi11 produce two mgds, and
there's two units in there. If you take one unit out of the equation you
end up with only one.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, that explains that, because
it didn't qualify that they're units. And that would be applicable then
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October 15,2007
to the retained, under column 12 in the Page 28, that would be also
applicable there where it drops off from a -- let's see what year, year
'10-2012, from 620 to 640. Are those -- those are the same
circumstances?
MR. GRAMA TGES: Yeah, that would be -- of course, there's
also capacity coming on line on that year. It is a complicated number.
But let me try to explain it at a higher level, if! may. If you're
looking at a facility, at a plant, the ten-state standard applies. Because
a plant has units that you can measure. So in this case we had two
mgd, this unit would be the high pressure RO, one ofthem out of
service. It's easy. It's one unit, and that's what reliable capacity.
If you're looking at an entire system using this kind of criteria, it's
not appropriate. Because you have several plants that wi11 back each
other up. In that case, then, when we look at the macro level, we
estimate that 90 percent is reliable and only ten percent is not.
So that's the reason why these numbers sometimes are a little bit
confusing, because we use two different criteria to determine
reliability .
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Gotcha. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we're on Page 28. Are there any
other questions?
Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: I'm sorry, 29.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Twenty-eight. I have one, Phil,
and that's your retained reliable capacity target values.
How are those -- who sets those? Who determines it's two
minimum to 16 maximum?
MR. GRAMA TGES: The two minimum is typically -- and of
course we average these numbers. The two minimum is the estimated
average for a number of years that we see the increase in demand from
year to year.
In other words, if we fall below the two in one particular year, we
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October 15, 2007
run the risk of not having enough capacity to take care of the
additional demand for that year.
The high number is eight years of the same capacity. Why?
Because to put a new plant in service takes eight years from the time
that the decision is made to build a plant to the time that we can
estimate that the plant will be in service. And that, of course, includes
buying the land, the permits, the construction bidding, the design and
all those things that come with building a plant.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The retained -- the target values were
cut in half in the year 2020. What was the philosophy behind that?
MR. GRAMA TGES: The increase on a year-per-year basis has
gone down because the population increases according to BEBR has
flattened out after that period of time.
And as I said before, we tried to average that demand through a
number of years, and we determined that 1.4 for that period of time
was adequate because of the year-to-year increase or projected
Increase.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other -- ifno other
questions on 28, we'll move to 29.
Ms. Caron, you said you had a question on 29?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I just want to talk about
Orangetree, which I had great concerns about last year. And there was
a meeting apparently on July the 5th to talk about the capacity at
Orangetree. And I just wondered what the results of that -- I'm
concerned about us taking over this, essentially -- what was a failing
facility.
Is it sti11 failing today, are they able to meets the needs?
MR. GRAMA TGES: As far as we know, they're able to meet the
needs of their rate payers. We have very little view into that utility.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you have anymore?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, 1'mjust a little concerned
about the county taking on a facility with built-in deficits. I mean, if
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October 15,2007
you walk in there on day one and you realize the place is just a mess,
is there -- do we get any compensation for this? I mean, is there
anything in the contract that says --
MR. GRAMATGES: 1'm not prepared to answer that question,
but there's others that can, so I'll defer.
MR. WIDES: Again, for the record, Tom Wides, Operations
Director, Public Utilities.
There's certain things that we cannot speak to right now because
we are in a suit with Orangetree. So I think you have to draw your
conclusions for the moment. 1'm sorry. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other questions on Page 29?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Move to Page 30.
Mr. Murray?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah. The question I have has
to do with the payback on the investment in ASRs. Why are we not
going to invest a greater number of ASRs. If we believe that one
would work and two would work, why wouldn't we commit to more in
as much as we're going to certainly need to start saving water in the
ground for seasons?
MR. GRAMATGES: Well, ASRs are kind ofa risky, tricky kind
of thing. They are economically quite feasible. We have an ASR that
we've been utilizing and we are beginning to learn how to use them
properly.
It takes about two years to charge an ASR, and you get, for every
gallon of water that you put in the ground, you recover about 80
percent, .8 gallons coming back out.
Furthermore, going back over Page 28, we're trying to keep a
very delicate balance between production capacity and the ASR
capacity. And we find that if we were to continue adding ASRs at the
speed that we were last year, we would exceed this retained reliable
capacity target values that we have here.
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October 15,2007
So it's kind of a balancing act. And ASRs are very financially
very competitive as compared to overground storage, but they have
their own problems from the point of view of contamination, and the
fact that the water that you pull out of them has to be polished, as we
call it, has to be treated before we use it.
It's not -- it's a great resource, it's one that we are exploring and
it's one that we intend to expand, but we have to do that cautiously.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any questions on the others on Page
30? Page 31? It's the table.
Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And this is not really on the
data, but in the future, could you line up the gallons per day with the
population? You would be able to eliminate, you know -- the green
and the red would merge together?
But do you know what I mean? In other words --
MR. GRAMATGES: Yes, I know what you mean.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- to scale them the same and
then --
MR. GRAMATGES: We always struggle to try to make this as
easy to understand as possible. We tried this year by trying to group
them together, because they were very different last year, as you may
remember.
We will certainly try better next time.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And you know what I mean, is
just take the mi11ion gallons per day, scale it to the right-hand side,
then you would ki11 one line, two lines would become the same.
MR. GRAMATGES: Okay.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other on 31?
If not, 32?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, just -- if! may.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Under the new plant
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October 15,2007
construction, I think I know the answer to this, but under the northeast
regional water treatment plant and you have a whole series of
statements in here, that is because you're pushing out, is that the
reason for that, pushing out in time?
MR. GRAMATGES: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's what I thought.
And the deletion of the new ASR wells, Carica Road pumping station
site was because of what?
Because I have a question. My question was the issue of
credibility and the technology that keeps on coming up on this matter.
I know you've already answered that. I'm going to save you the
trouble. You've already answered that.
MR. GRAMA TGES: Thank you, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 33?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I do, Mark.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Schiffer.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And it's just because it shows
up here. Is there ever any thought about incorporating or taking over
the Naples portion to us? In the fire task force, there was a lot of
testimony on inferior pressure in that zone and there's really nothing
Collier can do about that.
MR. GRAMATGES: All I can say is that it's up to the BCC
whether or not they would want us to attempt to do that. I really
couldn't answer your question directly.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, that wraps up the pages that are
in the potable water? Any there any other questions on potable water?
Ms. Vasey?
MS. VASEY: Just want to be sure that I understand exactly what
your feeling is about this AUIR. And basically you're okay with these
numbers and okay with this construction plan because you're
continuing with your permitting for the northeast plant. And even
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October 15,2007
though it's now scheduled a couple of years later, three years later, you
can move forward quickly if you need to? Is that what's giving you a
level of comfort?
MR. GRAMA TGES: That is precisely the reason why I feel
comfortable with that, yes, ma'am. We have an eight-year period of
time from the time that we decide to build a plant till the time that it's
completed. We started already, as far as the northeast plant is
concerned. And we were starting with the idea to finish in 2012.
We feel that it's not prudent for us to slow down that process
right now, especially when the stage of the process where we're in
doesn't require a great amount of money for us to keep it moving.
And in fact, it would probably cost us money if we stopping and tried
to start again.
So we are continuing with the design. We have the land already.
We are doing some minor work there to be able to use test wells
and do whatever we need to do to make sure that we're ready to go.
And we will hold back on that design before we go out and ask for
bids.
And that's where we intend to take as much as time as necessary
to delay. We feel -- I feel that we have at least two years that we can
continue the way we are until we have to make a decision as to
whether or not we go on with the construction. And we estimate that
from bidding to finishing the construction is a three-year period. So to
2009 we have enough time to be able to meet the 2012 deadline.
MR. COHEN: Ms. Vasey, I want to add that the direction from
the Board of County Commissioners was to provide public utilities
with respect to both water and with respect to sewer that two-year
window, which is that just-in-case factor, and in case population was
to increase or some other factor was to transpire, because they didn't
want another North Naples debacle.
MS. VASEY: Okay. I wanted to be sure I understood. Because
you seem fairly comfortable with what seems to be a draconian drop.
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October 15,2007
And I guess I understand why, since you can spring back and continue
along a faster pace if you need to.
So, okay, that makes me feel a little more comfortable.
MR. GRAMATGES: We have prepared a contingency plan, an
internal contingency plan to try to address precisely that issue. And
we are confident that had we -- if we had to move faster, we still could
meet the 2012 deadline.
MS. VASEY: Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Harrison.
MR. HARRISON: I just wanted to ask what the status is of the
large diameter piping that was going to connect that plant to the
Good1ette-Frank main that now ends at 951?
MR. GRAMATGES: We are proceeding with the construction
of a lot of the underground utilities for that facility. In fact, along
Immoka1ee Road we're doing that. And we're doing it mostly because
there's a lot of road construction in that area, and we want to take
advantage of that.
We would save a considerable amount of money, not to mention
a considerable amount of disturbance to the neighbors by proceeding
in this manner.
MR. HARRISON: So it's going now?
MR. GRAMATGES: I don't know specifically -- the
construction of the large diameter pipe along Immoka1ee is proceeding
right now, yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on potable water?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The planning commission needs
to move this forward. I know the productivity committee is going to
have your own recommendations later on. So in that regard, planning
commission members, is there any desire -- Mr. Tuff?
COMMISSIONER TUFF: I move we move it forward as it is.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Recommendation for approval?
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October 15,2007
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second?
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I'll second.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Commissioner Adelstein.
Is there discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. All
those in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye.
Anybody opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries seven to zero. Thank
you.
Now we'll move on to wastewater. Do you have a lengthy
presentation on this one, Phil?
MR. GRAMA TGES: No, sir, I'm ready to answer your
questions.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I like your style.
The first document that we have on this one, let's start the same way
we did before with the supplemental sheet that was sent around at the
request of Ms. Vasey.
And Mr. Boaz, I think you had a question right from the get-go.
MR. BOAZ: Yes. Sorry about that.
The question was on -- you've moved the facilities back beyond
the 2011 time frame, but we've got 145 million in capital expenditures.
I was just curious as to what the nature of those expenditures were.
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October 15,2007
And then also as to Janet's question on the water, what impact
does that have on your ability if you do need to speed those up?
MR. GRAMATGES: Well, we have an expansion of the north
plant, which is part of these numbers here. I'm not exactly sure how
much that is -- I'm turning to -- $77 million.
And the northeast plant of course is also -- the northeast plant is a
potable water and a sewer treatment plant in the same footprint. And
that is one that has moved beyond the five-year plan. And by the way,
is part of the same plan that we were discussing previously with
potable water.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does that answer your question?
MR. BOAZ: I believe so. The 77 million is for the northeast
plant --
MR. GRAMA TGES: No, no, 77 million for an expansion on the
north plant.
MR. BOAZ: North plant.
MR. GRAMA TGES: That is a facility that is along
Goodlette-Frank Road, close to Immokalee.
MS. VASEY: But there's no --
MR. BOAZ: Is that shown in here? Because I don't see anything
until 2015?
MR. GRAMATGES: Well, that is a discrepancy that I can't
explain.
Now, the AUIR numbers as you see them here, I'm not the
creator of the financial numbers, but I can tell you that as far as the
capacities is concerned, these capacities shown on Page 35 are
definitely our plan.
MR. BOAZ: So then the capital expenditures numbers that we
received may be off?
MR. WIDES: No, you have -- Tom Wides again for the record.
You have a couple of things going on. You have various other small
level expansions going on throughout that period. And again, these
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October 15,2007
are all impact fees projects, wastewater projects. But what's not
happening is the major construction for the northeast.
However, you do have two things going on. We've got an
expansion in 20 12. You've got 1.1 million coming on at, I believe
that's the northeast. And that's just simply the possibility of taking
over some of that facility, okay, I don't want to go too far there. That's
gomg on.
And then you start to get some of the capital spending going on
in those periods. Although we moved the projects, okay, we still have
some northeast expenditures so that we can bring it on line in that
2014, which is actually approximately October 1st of2013.
So what I'm saying is you're putting those capital expenditures
out during those periods trying to get prepped here. But that's
essentially the spending limits.
MR. BOAZ: I was just trying to understand what those major
expenditures were. There's 145 million, so I would think there's
probably some major--
MR. WIDES: We can come back and give you the details on
those, if you'd like, that's not a problem.
MR. BOAZ: I would appreciate that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on that first sheet?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Next page is Page 35. And it gets in--
it starts our wastewater table.
Are there any questions on Page 35?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 36?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 377
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, I have a question.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Murray.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: On that chart, I made a note to
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October 15,2007
myself, can we allow this. And what I was referring to is how close
the peak population is to the total available constructed capacity.
Seems to exceed it by some small amount. I know you must have a
reserve of some sort, but I'm looking at the year 2014 roughly.
See where those two intersect, the green and the red triangle?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And let me help here. That's
the disadvantages of not blending the scale --
MR. GRAMATGES: That's right.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- you should be comparing the
reds together. The green -- because they didn't make the scale on the
right match the scale on the left, they have two lines. The green line is
independent of the red study. So you really should blend those
together. You would get rid of one of those lines and it would be --
avoid confusion like that.
MR. GRAMA TGES: I will assure you that next year we'll do a
better job with this one.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: But that's not --
MR. GRAMA TGES: But what Commissioner Schiffer is saying
is that the green line goes with the left scale and the other lines go
with the right scale. So if we change the scale, we will make this look
very beautiful. But it's just a matter of what scale you choose.
COMMISSIONER CARON: We want beautiful.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So I feel relieved now we're not
going to be in trouble.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But it proves the confusion you
can cause.
MR. GRAMATGES: I understand.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: He put me up to doing that. No,
I'm confused all on my own.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll move on to Page 38.
We're going awfully fast here. This is nerve wracking. I don't know if
we can handle it.
Page 127
October 15,2007
Ms. Vasey, did you have 38 -- a question on Page 38?
MS. VASEY: Yes I do. On this one, if you look at the column
eight, the retained constructed capacity, and you look at your target
values, you are falling below your targets, in the -- I guess starting
about 13.
MR. GRAMATGES: Yeah. And we need to realize of course
this is the northeast water reclamation facility, it's a new plant. And
we're trying to average those numbers. Consequently, it's -- yeah, we
look like we're falling slightly below our number, but that's not really
-- it's not really much of an issue, because what we're doing is we're
transferring capacity from the north plant to the northeast plant.
The north plant and the northeast plant are somehow -- they're
connected through Immokalee Road. And we intend to take some of
the population load that is now in the north plant to the northeast plant.
So it depends on the timing in which we take flows from one end
to the other.
So it's not an issue with the capacity in the facility but the speed
with which we intend to make that transfer.
MS. VASEY: Okay. And is this going to be a whole -- this is a
whole new plant that we're starting.
MR. GRAMATGES: Northeast plant, yes, ma'am.
MS. VASEY: Right. So maybe this is where a lot ofthe money
is going over the AUIR period to start this sucker up.
MR. GRAMA TGES: Well, this northeast plant, of course, as
you see it come in on 2012, this 1.10 is really capacity from
Orangetree that we intend to take over at that time and operate for
some period of time, certainly until 2015 where the northeast plant is
now planned to come on service.
MS. VASEY: Then I have a real strong question, along with
Brad, where is all the money going? Because no new capacity is
showing up at any of the plants.
MR. WIDES: Tom Wides for the record. While you gave me
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October 15,2007
the opportunity to do a little searching here. For example, as I look at
our capital plan, bringing on the north facility expansion, the one that
you see in 2015, okay, we're spending over between the years nine,
ten, and eleven, on that project alone, we're going to spend over $77
million. So it's half of the l45 you're looking for.
Now, I can't get you home on the other half yet because my
fingers and feet didn't walk fast enough. But seriously, that's where
the bulk of the spending is to bring those -- that one north plant
expansion on line.
MS. VASEY: Okay, that's the 6.5 million gallons a day that
we're talking about in 2015?
MR. WIDES: Yes.
MS. VASEY: In the north county.
MR. WIDES: Yes. In the existing north plant.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 38, any other questions?
I had one, Phil, something you just said. If 1.10 in the northeast plant
represents Orangetree and the 2.90 represents the news plant that
would actually come into play, I thought the goal, I had heard that
Orangetree was going to be decommissioned. Is that true or are you
going to operate --
MR. GRAMATGES: Not immediately on 2012. And I can't tell
you that we intend to decommission that facility. We don't even know
what it looks like. So we need to look at that facility and we need to
determine whether or not it's sensible for us to decommission it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because if you do decommission it and
it comes off of that 2.90, you're going to be in deficit--
MR. GRAMATGES: Well, actually, 2.90 has that 1.10 already
taken off. Actually, the capacity for that facility would be four. So
we have 1.10 from Orangetree coming on 2012. And for the purpose
of this AUIR, we are assuming that it will be decommissioned on
2015.
So obviously if you had 1.10 before from a plant that you
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October 15,2007
decommission and you put four mgd on line, that 1.10 has to come off
of the four mgd. And that's the reason why this is 2.9.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But the new plant capacity, your
new plant is going actually then have a capacity of 4.0.
MR. GRAMATGES: The new plant is going to have a capacity
of4.0.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then you're going to pay for the new
plant with a capacity of 4.0. The cost in design of that plant will be
for a 4.0 plant, not for the cost and design of a 1.10 partially
decommissioned, half operating Orangetree plant.
MR. GRAMATGES: That is correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, now I'm wondering how
you're justifying your cost. Are you basing your cost on the 2.90 or
on the 4.0?
MR. GRAMATGES: No, we're basing the cost on the 4.0,
because we're building a 4.0 mgd plant.
And I need to add as well that even though this capacity shows in
2015, obviously with a three-year construction period, you'll begin to
see money coming out on 2012. Earlier, in fact, when you consider
the fact that we need to pay for preconstruction and for design and for
permitting and for ground work and a number of other things.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, is there any
questions on page 39?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 40?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How about 41?
(No response.)
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Forty-two?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Forty-three?
Brad?
Page 130
October 15,2007
MR. BOAZ: I do have one question on 43. This is one where
the total constructed capacity comes close to the required capacity and
the level of service standard is lower than some of the other areas at
100 gallons per day.
If the housing units change and their people build bigger houses
or something, is that an issue later on or is this something that can be
linked with other systems?
What would be the plan if that usage goes up?
MR. GRAMATGES: Well, if the usage should go up, we
obviously, at the time of the AUIR, the next master plan, we will have
to adjust accordingly. You're looking at a facility that is not coming
up to full capacity until 2016 as far as the required capacity is
concerned. There's a lot of time for us to change our plans.
And besides, we know from experience that the level of service
does not change very fast.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Page 44?
MR. GRAMA TGES: Yeah, the southeast plant can draw some
of that as well, yes. There is a limited amount of connectivity
between the two of them.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 44?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Forty-five?
(No response.)
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Forty-six?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Forty-seven?
(No response.)
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Last page is 48.
Mr. Schiffer.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And it's kind of like the
question before, but you have no plans to expand into any other areas
on this thing? This is a long time we're looking into the future. No
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October 15,2007
consideration at all for --
MR. GRAMATGES: Certainly, no. None in this document for
sure. And I'm not aware of any plans to do any of the things that you
mentioned.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So the commission would have
to send you down that trail?
MR. GRAMATGES: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, are there any other questions on
the wastewater section as a whole from anybody?
(No response.)
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Any members of the public
wishing to speak on this element?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, if there's no further suggestion, I
think we've reached the end of the line for wastewater.
Anybody have a recommendation from the planning commission?
Mr. Tuff?
COMMISSIONER TUFF: I recommend we move this forward
with approval.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Kolflat, did you second it?
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Second it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion's been made for approval and
seconded. Is there any discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, all those in favor, signify
by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye.
Page 132
October 15,2007
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye.
Anybody opposed?
(No response.)
COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Motion carries seven to zero.
Thank you.
Ms. Vasey?
MS. VASEY: Yes, when do you think we might be able to get
some of the answers to the questions?
MR. WIDES: The financial information, including the debt to
equity ratios, the capital projects that we've deleted from the plan,
literally I can go back and send an e-mail, however best to transfer
that to you. I'll send it to Mike Bosi.
Beyond that, that's where I need to get good definition as to what
you need. And I would almost suggest if you and I could meet, I
could show you some of the information we have and then you could
decide as a committee what you wish to see. I don't know how best to
do that without, again, I don't want to flood you.
MS. VASEY: I think I would like to have the information we
talked about and maybe understand for sure where all the expenditures
are going in the AUIR period. And at that point we'll be ready to
make a recommendation. But I think we'd like to have that before
going further.
And we're back tomorrow and maybe even another day. So
whenever you want to provide that would be fine.
MR. WIDES: I can provide the first two literally today and we
may have the other one in a similar format that I can get to you.
MS. VASEY: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I guess we can move on to solid
waste. It's the next element. Phil, it's --
MR. GRAMATGES: No lengthy introduction, sir, no. I think it
is pretty clear on Page 50. And the biggest issue with solid waste is
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October 15,2007
that given the population changes, the life of the landfill has indeed
been extended.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I have a question.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll start with the questions. I
think we've got a schedule of capital improvements that came through
for solid waste. It's not a numbered page. Anybody have any
questions of that to begin with?
Mr. Murray?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I did have a question on Page
50.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're not there yet. Anybody have any
question on the capital improvements expansion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Phil, I have a question that goes back,
the solid waste had submitted another document at the DCA during
moratorium. The numbers were considerably different than the ones
here, and I'm just wondering if there was the same reason, I'm
assummg as --
MR. GRAMA TGES: Yes, sir, indeed. The numbers that were
submitted to DCA were based on the last approved AUIR. We
couldn't really use numbers from this one because it would be
presumptive for us to assume that the board would approve it. So
therefore, those numbers are based on the last approved AUIR.
Since the change has been so dramatic as far as peak population
is concerned, I believe that's the main reason why you have seen those
dramatic changes in those numbers.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you.
Go ahead.
MR. BOAZ: I have a question related to that. It's really not
related to this, but was that explained to our own commission that
those numbers were not accurate in looking at the moratorium?
We said -- we committed to DCA based on last years numbers.
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October 15,2007
What was communicated to our commission?
MR. GRAMATGES: Yes, sir.
MR. BOAZ: The same numbers?
MR. GRAMA TGES: I am quite certain that it was.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I guess that would have been -- Randy,
your department really handled that information involving what goes
to the commission and doesn't. And that's a good question to find out
an answer to. What did they receive in regards to the data that -- like
this?
MR. COHEN: We didn't have the new numbers at that time so
they would have received the old numbers at that time, sir.
MR. GRAMATGES: And it was explained to them that the
numbers that they were looking at were the old numbers.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's a considerable difference
overall, from the overall operations, so -- with that -- Ms. Vasey?
MS. VASEY: Did have one on the capital improvements
financial page. You've got a lot of money, $14 million all in one year
on the '13, '14 time frame. And you're putting out doing a whole
bunch of new cells and things like that all in one year.
And I was wondering how come you were doing it all in one year
and not spreading it out?
MR. GRAMATGES: I can't answer that.
MR. WIDES: Tom Wides for the record.
First off, our solid waste department has gone to contract with Waste
Management, or they're moving towards contract with Waste
Management. This project frankly could be done in one year, from
the information we're getting. And we've asked them to in fact stretch
that contract out to a two-year contract.
Now, to stretch it much longer, you start to get into mobilization
and demobilization costs that are only going to continue to compound
the cost of that work. So we've targeted two years rather than, frankly,
one year to get this done and also preserve our cash flow position.
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October 15,2007
MS. VASEY: Because it seems like for most of the years you
just add, you know, add a certain -- you do some cells. Let me see the
page on that. You're adding 426 tons in '08,630 -- 621 tons in '10,
588 tons in 12, and then 7.4 million in 13.
And so does that mean then that adding these other
incrementally every couple of years is not cost effective or --
MR. WIDES: They've tried to stretch this out so that in fact
you're bringing in the cells. And we're getting them as is in a bigger
hunk than you might well say. But to take cells one and two and do
them together, they're geographically located together, you're digging
out all that substructure, you're processing all that. To go into one and
two and do them, for example, separately, et cetera, would not be cost
effective.
To bring on these other cell units are geographically separated so
you can start the project and complete it when you so choose, or as
you need them. Whereas one and two are just right together so do it
all at once.
MS. VASEY: One other question on that. The revenue for all of
this is coming through our annual property tax bill where we pay a
certain amount a year. Is that where we're getting the costs of all of
this, for residential then plus commercial?
MR. WIDES: The answer to your question is yes. The
residential has three components to that cost. It's the collection cost,
it's the tipping fee and then administrative costs.
So one of the components of the three that's on your tax bill is in
fact for the tipping fees that are funding this landfill.
And then, yes, as you stated, the commercial side pays directly
for the tipping fees as they take material into the landfill.
MS. VASEY: And we don't have any concern, that cost will just
be adjusted as necessary to pay for all of whatever the cost is in 2012,
say?
MR. WIDES: What we -- I'm sorry, don't mean to interrupt.
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October 15,2007
MS. VASEY: No, that's okay. Or do we know right now what
that cost is going to be in 2012?
MR. WIDES: We have a good picture. What we've done is
recently completed an analysis to that looks over those five, six years
to use the population information we have, the costs of the contract
that we have with Waste Management and also the projected tonnages
into the landfill. So we've been able to align our costs with our
revenues that we're anticipating at the landfill.
MS. VASEY: So you have no problems with money, you see
that it's going to work out all right?
MR. WIDES: It is going to work out. We're also trying to keep
it a cash funded account only. There's no debt assumed at this point in
time. Under the very worst scenario, sure, we can always revert to a
debt structure, but we don't want to go there with this plan if we can
avoid it.
MS. VASEY: Very good. Thanks.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We're on the summary table.
We'll go to Page 50.
Mr. Murray, I think you had a first question on Page 50. Then
Mr. Schiffer.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's all right. I'm good.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Mr. Schiffer.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Kind of just a congratulations,
the ability to back down the level of service for each citizen is really a
great reward for the recycling program.
MR. GRAMATGES: Thank you, yes, indeed. The recycling
program is certainly the biggest factor that has reduced that number.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Now does this mean you can
back off the singing trash can or --
MR. GRAMA TGES: The singing trash can?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's a haunting tune. You hit
that thing first thing in the morning, you're dead for the day, but -- just
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October 15,2007
a joke, move on.
MR. GRAMATGES: We'll look into that, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on Page 50?
MR. SCHMITT: We're going to play that during the break.
MS. VASEY: I have one.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Ms. Vasey.
MS. VASEY: Just a quick one. You were going to have a solid
waste workshop in December of 2006. Did you have that and what
happened?
MR. GRAMATGES: Yes, we did have the solid waste
workshop. And as far as I understand, correct me ifI'm wrong, Mr.
Wides, the commissioners directed us to try to find an alternative
source of landfill within Collier County for a landfill.
I think that based on the fact that the landfill life has been
extended in this AUIR, the urgency is less so right now. But we are
continuing to look for places where we could put a landfill, an
additional landfill within Collier County. In fact, we're doing that
actively.
MS. VASEY: I remember when we did that a few years ago, it
didn't work.
MR. GRAMATGES: Well, hopefully what we can do is we'll
continue to extend the life of our landfill through recycling and
through a lot of other -- a lot of strategies in order to be able to extend
it beyond our natural lives.
MR. WIDES: Again, Tom Wides for the record.
I think the other thing I want to bring to mind here is just putting
Phil's comments into context, I believe the board asked the solid
waste department to look at 32 different alternatives, which may be
some big, some might be small, but different ways.
So I don't want to leave you with the impression that another
landfill is the next action. We're assessing that along with other
alternatives.
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October 15,2007
Going up, okay, that's another alternative. Ifwe can continue to
find ways to not put material in that landfill, that's about as good as
any. Because you can see if you went back two, three or four years
looking at the AUIRs, our numbers have just continued to stretch out
because we found other alternatives.
So I think to characterize it in a bigger context, we have a
number of different things to look at to try to save the life of the
landfill, or find alternatives to the existing landfill.
Commissioner, does that respond to your question?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think Janet was the one that asked for
it.
MR. WIDES: I'm sorry. I was sitting down in the back, I wasn't
sure.
MS. VASEY: When you provide financial information on this
one, would you give us a little bit more information on how much
money is collected each year and breaking out the three categories of
the finances so that we can tell which amount goes to the cell
construction, the tipping fee part?
MR. WIDES: Yes.
MS. VASEY: Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll move on to Page 51. Any
questions on Page 51 ?
Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Is there any consideration of a
hurricane coming in during any of these periods and the volume of
material that would bring in with it?
MR. GRAMATGES: There is no explicit consideration, no. No,
indeed. However, we do have plans for handling the great amount of
debris that will be produced by a hurricane. In fact, we had practice
during Wilma and we certainly will be able to take care of that.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Other than at the site or --
MR. GRAMA TGES: Yeah, other than at the site, yes.
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on --
MR. WIDES: Let me just add to that, if I could. One of the
things that we've already planned for and we plan for every year, are
multiple temporary disposal sites.
So we won't take if last -- with Wilma we took in almost a
million yards of yard waste, et cetera. None of that went to the
landfill, okay. Most of that was broken down at temporary sites and
removed from the county 100 percent.
So our first plan is use those temporary sites, take the material to
those sites, grind it or whatever we need to do as necessary and then
remove it from the county.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Wilma did have a lot of organic
damage. But what happens if we get a serious storm that has a lot of
serious structural damage, a lot of white goods destroyed, stuff like
that?
MR. WIDES: Again, those temporary sites are set up to handle
multiple types of items, whether they be white goods, whether they be
furniture, whether they be, you know, literally things we can grind
up. But our intent would be to remove that material from the -- and
not put it into the landfill to the extent we can.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, on Page 51? Phil, the recycling
effort on Page 51 by reducing the disposal rate, that's the recycling
effort through residential recycling. Have you factored in any
commercial recycling that would further reduce that rate?
MR. GRAMATGES: We have commercial recycling right now.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. How has that changed? Has that
added a significant impact? Because we didn't have it not to long ago,
it's something fairly new.
MR. GRAMA TGES: It has not made a significant impact so far,
no.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on Page 51?
(No response.)
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 52?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Looking at the bottom where we
jumped from one 1,546,950 tons up to eight million, that's a great
jump and that's wonderful. These cells, are they extraordinarily large
or are we still within boundaries? That's a huge increment.
MR. GRAMATGES: No, we're still within boundaries, and in
fact that's part of the discussion we had earlier about the funding. And
that amount of money that is shown there is to finance that cell
construction. It is still within the landfill. And it is just a number of
cells done at once rather than just two cells at a time.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Fifty-two, any other questions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Fifty-three?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Fifty-four?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 55?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And the last page is Page 56. Are there
any questions in the entire solid waste section remaining?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any questions from anyone in
the audience on the solid waste element?
Kady, did you have a question? I saw your hand go up just as I
said that.
Okay, hearing none, any discussion amongst us? It's pretty plain
and simple.
Mr. Tuff?
COMMISSIONER TUFF: I move -- I recommend we move this
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October 15,2007
forward with approval.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Recommendation for approval. Is there
a second?
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Commissioner Adelstein.
Is there discussion?
I did hear that the location -- they're looking at an incineration
site where the Naples News was going to go, up in North Naples.
How's that fit with you, Donna?
COMMISSIONER CARON: You know, it sounds like it's right
on point.
MR. SCHMITT: And a toxic waste disposal area also.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, yeah.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: We got the height for it.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Exactly, no issue there.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with that great discussion, I'll call
for a vote.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye.
COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye.
Anybody opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries seven to zero.
Phil, thank you, you were the briefest part of today's meeting so
far, so I appreciate it.
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October 15,2007
MR. GRAMA TGES: Thank you, Commissioner, it's an honor.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you.
Now, the next element might take a while. It's about time for a
break. We could probably take a break now before we go into it. So
why don't we take a break until 2:30 and then we'll resume on parks
and recreation.
(A break was taken.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before we move right into it, I don't
know what the feelings are of the rest of you, but I had thought we'd
try to end today around 5:00,5:30 at the latest. Does that work for
everybody or --
MR. SW AJA: 5:00 is great.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Five o'clock. Okay, that's what we'll
aim for, as long as no one has an objection.
I don't know how we'll get through the rest of this book by 5:00,
but -- okay, with that, parks and rec, it's all yours.
MS. TOWNSEND: Good afternoon, members of the committee
and commission, I'm Amanda Townsend, the Operations Analyst with
Public Services Division. The 2007 AUIR for parks and recreation,
underwent some changes from what you saw last year. And I'd like to
outline those before we go into the document.
The one major change that resulted from the level of service
workshop is that you will not see a level of service standard for parks
facilities value. This has been changed to a level of service guideline
for facilities type. This is now being used as an internal benchmark to
make sure that we are meeting community need. However, it will not
-- park development and park facilities will not be part of the CIE that
is transmitted to DCA.
This change is based on board direction coming out of the level
of service workshop recommendations. It will not become permanent
and official until the CIE is transmitted to and accepted by DCA.
We have had conversations with DCA staff, and they recognize
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October 15, 2007
the ways in which facilities value level of service standard was
cumbersome to us and problematic, and so provisionally they have
supported this change that we've proposed.
Other minor changes that you'll see, we have changed very, very
slightly the level of service standards for community and regional park
acreage. In the case of community park acreage, that change is from
1.2882 acres per 1,000 in population to 1.3.
In the case of regional park acreage, that change is from 2.9412
acres per 1,000 to three acres per 1,000. These numbers obviously
improve the level of service very slightly. But the change is really just
to make the numbers a little more easy to work with.
Another change that you'll see that came out of last year's AUIR
and the level of service workshop is that we have included in the
regional park land inventory land that -- regional park land within the
municipalities.
We have also included facilities that meet the guidelines that are
within the municipalities when we account for facilities type.
Land within the municipalities that is of a community park land, park
type, is not inventoried, and that is because when we look at
community park land, we use an unincorporated population. So since
we're not using those municipalities' populations, we're not looking at
their -- at what they're providing.
A final change that you'll see from last year's to this year's AUIR
is a cost increase in the value of land. Last year you saw $200,000 per
acre, and we have increased to $230,000 per acre. That reflects a 15
percent increase that we saw with our impact fee indexing.
In general, there are five sections in what's in the packet that's
presented to you. Community park land acreage shows a five-year
program that attempts to give a just-in-time delivery as best we can,
acknowledging that community park land comes in 30 to 60-acre
chunks, excepting of course when we partner with the schools. And
those happen in a little bit smaller chunks, but we've generally tried to
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October 15,2007
keep that community park land acquisition right in line with
population as best we can.
As far as regional park land goes, that South Florida Water
Management District commitment of 625 acres is obviously satisfying
need for a considerable amount of time into the future.
And the other acquisition projects that you see reflected in the
regional park land program for the five years are mostly part of our
program to expand beach and boat access.
The third section that you'll see in the packet is the facility type
guidelines. This is a new area for us. We've always sort of kept an
internal checks and balances of community need and facility type.
This is new. We've combined facilities into large groups of
facility types. The projects coming on line within the five-year
window, I've -- that I've put into those spreadsheets, are simply a
reflection of what the conceptual plans of those facilities are at this
time. I think there's room still for adjustment to those conceptual
plans based on how those numbers look against the guidelines, and we
can talk about that further when we get to a page by page analysis.
And finally, the two last sections that you'll see in the parks and
recreation AUIR for 2007 are the operational data and a level of
service comparison. And again, there's not much to address there
unless you have questions when we get to a page by page.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, now, you're taking lessons from
Phil.
Okay, I think we'll start -- there were some supplemental sheets
sent to all of us. And they're titled Parks and Recreation Expenditures
and Funding Sources by Dollars and Thousands. I think Janet or
someone had asked for them and they did come forward. Let's start
with those.
Now, I don't know if -- I don't know how to describe them to
you, but they look like this. They're a sheet with some tables on it.
There should be two of them.
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October 15,2007
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mike, are you handing those
out?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Why don't we start with our questions
from those sheets.
Janet? I always know you have questions.
MS. VASEY: Well, if it has financial data on it, yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's good.
MS. VASEY: Okay, let's see. I'd like to just make a couple of
comments on your statement that relates to this, on not providing
financial data on facilities. And I understand the decision's been made
not to do that to DCA part of your CIE submission.
But I think for the AUIR, and that's what this is, it's the financial
data, is very important, because it allows us to see what you're doing
with the properties that you're getting under the community and
regional categories.
You can look and see that, yes, you're getting property here and
in two years down the road you're putting facilities on it to make it
useful for the public. So I would like to see this continued -- well,
actually started to provide that kind of information regularly, at least
to us. And then just rip it out before you go forward with it. Because
it's really valuable.
And all your money is there. You've got your artificial kinds of
financial statements for the park acreage for community and regional,
and it's really kind of an artificial look at what that is. And this is your
only real money.
So I'd like to see at -- maybe at the end of it we can talk about
whether everyone thinks we should do that or not. But I think this is
very important to have.
As far as some questions on the charts, let's see, the GRGP. I
guess that -- is that the Gordon River Greenway Park?
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct.
MS. VASEY: Is that -- we sort of touched on that earlier, is that
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October 15,2007
part of the Fleischmann zoo land?
MS. TOWNSEND: Yes, that's correct. It is distinct from
Gordon River water quality park, which has been renamed Freedom
Park. And that's 50 acres north of Golden Gate Parkway.
This part, the Greenway Park is, I think we have it inventoried at
79, although it may be closer to 80-83 acres that wrap around,
actually, the Naples zoo. So those acres were part of the Naples zoo
acquisition.
MS. VASEY: And you're going to spend a million in '08 and
then seven million in 2010. Are you planning to put facilities up
there, or what are you planning?
MS. TOWNSEND: Yes, that shows park development facilities
on that park will include some stormwater facilities to continue the
work that's being done at Freedom Park, as well as three trailhead
areas with parking and restrooms, pavilions, pathways throughout the
entire 80-acre system, as well as a large parking area that will be
shared parking with the Naples zoo that will be accessed off
Goodlette-Frank, and a canoe and kayak launch access off of
Goodlette-Frank north of the zoo.
MS. VASEY: The big Corkscrew Island on the second page,
regional park, you're planning to -- could you tell about that a little bit.
MS. TOWNSEND: That was formally referred to as Orangetree
Regional Park. Same park. It's now taken on an official name. So
that is -- 90 acres of that is a lake that has a commitment that's come to
us from the Paul (phonetic) PUD. And 62 of those acres will come to
us via transportation from the public utilities division.
So together, put those two, which are adjacent -- put those two
together, and there will be a ISO-acre regional park there off of Oil
Well or just northeast of Oil Well.
MS. VASEY: But the 90 is the new part adding to the whatever
was there before. And then that Paul --
MS. TOWNSEND: The 90 --
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October 15,2007
MS. VASEY: That's in the same area.
MS. TOWNSEND: Yes, that's correct. The 90 reflects that Paul
PUD, the 90-acre lake. And then the 62 will come to us via
transportation in exchange for the 47 at Randall from -- but it's
currently under public utilities.
MS. VASEY: Okay. And since public utilities is a separate
entity, we talked a little bit about the fact that there would probably be
some money transferred.
Is that coming from you or is that from transportation?
MS. TOWNSEND: Transportation will acquire those 62 acres
from utilities. And exactly what the terms of that transaction is, I don't
know. But then it will with be pretty much a straight land swap
between transportation and parks and recreation, the 62 in the
Orangetree area for the 47 at Randall.
MS. VASEY: Great -- and you're showing here that impact fees
are about 32 million that you're talking about over the five-year
period, 32,440,000?
MS. TOWNSEND: Expenditures on the projects you see there,
yeah.
MS. VASEY: Okay. So that is expenditures, it doesn't really
relate necessarily to collections?
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct. That bottom table that you
see does address collections, although those are ballpark figures. The
real numbers weren't available for transportation when I put this
together for you last week.
Turns out that what budget has forwarded to me I was extremely
conservative here, so we're actually in much better shape.
MS. VASEY: I did go back and look at last year's, and you
showed in your facilities funding availability about $60 million from
impact fees, but that must have been carry-over from prior years then?
MS. TOWNSEND: That probably included carry-over, which
right now I have separate. And I think here on these tables, I've
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October 15,2007
showed you $9 million in reserves and then going from six to $8
million per year over the five-year period.
And just to set the record straight, the numbers that I got from the
budget office this morning show $14 million in reserves. And the
projections from '08 to '012 start over $8 and end at almost 10.
MS. VASEY: So then your balance won't be negative.
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct.
MS. VASEY: Okay, good.
MS. TOWNSEND: That's what we hope.
MS. VASEY: Are you going to then fix -- provide new sheets
for the Board of County Commissioners?
MS. TOWNSEND: I'll be happy to.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Steve.
MR. HARRISON: There's a number of projects here that look
like they're in connection with schools?
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct.
MR. HARRISON: Could you tell us a little bit about those.
MS. TOWNSEND: We have three school partnership projects
coming on line very soon, Elementaries J, K and L, all of which we--
there are actually four elementary schools that the schools are
currently working on.
One of them we've decided isn't a good fit for us for partnership.
But the other three are. And we're looking to bring on what fits,
obviously. But generally speaking, either multi purpose, large playing
fields, or playing fields and little league fields in each of those
locations.
MR. HARRISON: So can we assume there's an agreement with
the school district that this is acceptable to them?
MS. TOWNSEND: We have verbal commitment from the
schools at this point, and we are aggressively pursuing those interlocal
agreements. Our target is to have those completed by --
MR. HARRISON: Just keep it in mind when we ask them about
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October 15,2007
libraries on the corner of the grounds next time.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on the charts?
Go ahead, Georgia.
MS. HILLER: In coming up with your analysis, have you
factored what community facilities are available, for example, in gated
communities in coming up with these numbers?
MS. TOWNSEND: Yes, we did that last year as part of the
AUIR process, and will be intermittently updating that inventory.
What we found basically was by facility type there are certain
facilities that there's a significant amount of provided privately. And
when we established those levels of service guidelines by facility type,
which are new this year, we took that into consideration.
So for example you won't see a guideline for playgrounds per
thousand, because what we found was there's a significant number of
those available privately, and we really feel the community need is
being met.
Of course we'll continue to develop new playgrounds as we put
in new parks. However, it's something that we didn't find critical.
On the other hand -- swimming pools would be another example of
something that's available in a significant number privately, and tennis
courts as well.
On the other hand, when we look at athletic facilities, softball,
soccer fields, for example, there's almost a -- there's a completely
negligible amount available privately. So we know as we go forward
developing parks, those are some of the facility types that we really
need to focus on to meet community need.
MS. HILLER: May I ask another question?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure, go right ahead.
MS. HILLER: Again, looking at your financial analysis and then
tying it into the land inventory that you've given to us on Page 68 and
69, one thing I observed is that Golden Gate Estates has very few
parks relative to other areas in the community.
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October 15,2007
I personally feel that there is a real need in that area of the county
for active parks, parks that, you know, service families that have
children that play softball, soccer and things of that nature.
How much of your expenditure and funding analysis will service
that clear need?
MS. TOWNSEND: It would take me a moment to break it down
in expenditure. However, I can tell you just basically the projects that
are targeted for that area, Big Corkscrew Island regional park being
among the more important. That will be 150 acres. At least 60 of it
will be developed with active recreation uses. I think it's slated for
three to four soccer fields. There will be a dog park there. I know that
on the plan there are tennis courts and other hard courts, basketball, et
cetera. There are will be a community center there. So I think that's
going to absorb some of that need in that area.
We also have 120 acres there at the Vanderbilt extension. We
know we're going to lose some of that to the roadway. We also have
pushed that project out beyond the five-year window in part because
of the delay with the roadway. But that will be, again, an active park,
it will be collocated, although, now on the opposite side of a large
road, with some schools. And I think that will also help to start to
meet the need in the Golden Gate Estates area.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're still on the tables. Any other
questions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, let's move into the
documents themselves. The first is the summary form on Page 58.
Go ahead, Mr. Murray.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Just a question for clarification.
When we speak -- added values due to partnerships totaling 18 acres at
four schools. What partnerships, how do they manifest, are they
easements, fees, interlocal agreements?
MS. TOWNSEND: Interlocal agreements.
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October 15,2007
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And so when we speak of the
value, since the property remains the property of the school system,
how do we value that? Do they not value that as well?
MS. TOWNSEND: When we have a management agreement to
invest capital funds to develop that acreage plus maintain it, then we
bring that into our inventory. And that's only the portion ofthe school
that contains the athletic facilities, obviously it's not the entire school
site.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Basic real estate law, the
improvements to property remain with the ownership, but we retain
the ownership of the improvement?
MS. TOWNSEND: That is a question I cannot answer. I'd have
to review one of our typical interlocal agreements to find that out. But
I can do so and get back with you.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm just trying to figure out who
values what, you know, where that lies. And I don't know ifI -- both
taking responsibility for that and taking a benefit to that. That would
be my question on that page.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, any other questions on Page 58,
the summary page?
From what I'm reading of that page, you're not using any
revenues from ad valorem taxes?
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So your source of revenues, besides the
value added revenues, which I don't believe are real, they're just more
or less paper, you're basically relying upon impact fees.
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The impact fees are generated because
of the level of service. And if you had a change in level of service,
that would require less impact fees?
MS. TOWNSEND: Ifwe had a lowering oflevel of service then
I believe that that would necessitate a new impact fee study.
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, I'm assuming it would be a study.
But if your level of service didn't require you to have the extent of the
inventory that you show on this paper, you would need less money
then. And the only way you would see a reelection of income to your
department then, based on this sheet, is through a reduction in impact
fees. Is that a fair statement?
MS. TOWNSEND: You're going to have to tell me one more
time, I'm sorry.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm trying to figure out where your
income is coming from. And it sounds like mostly the hard income is
from impact fees.
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So the impact fee income that you get is
based on a level of service established.
MS. TOWNSEND: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So if you reduce the level of service,
you wouldn't have as need for a great of amount of impact fees.
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good, then later on I have a question of
Amy that she can help me with in regards to that answer.
As far as the Freedom Park, it's called a Freedom Park. What
really is it? Because I don't find it on some of the summary sheets of
your documents. And I'm wondering is it a park or is it just the name,
park?
MS. TOWNSEND: That is the 50 acres located at the northeast
corner of Goodlette-Frank and Golden Gate Parkway. It's currently, I
believe they just let a construction contract on that. And it will be a
series of wetland treatment ponds with pathways, boardwalks. There
will be an educational building facility there. It will be a passive park.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I tried to find it included in some of
your listing summaries. I didn't see it included for its acreage in here.
Do you believe it is?
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October 15,2007
MS. TOWNSEND: I am showing it coming into our inventory
as a regional park in 2008.
MS. VASEY: Page 63.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: What page?
MS. VASEY: Page 63.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I was looking on Page 67, 68 and 69 but
I may have -- under the City of Naples. But I thought -- is that in --
this considered the city or --
MS. TOWNSEND: It is within the City of Naples city limits,
however, it is a county asset.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, if you're looking at your
inventory sheets on Page 68 and 69, I know we're not there yet, but
this is going to drive the summary sheet, where would it be found
there?
MS. TOWNSEND: Sixty-eight and 69 depict current inventory.
We're showing Freedom Park into inventory in 2008, so that's why it's
not reflected there.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Brad.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You can find it on Page 22 in
stormwater if you really can't find it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know, and I --
MS. TOWNSEND: And let me address that real quickly, we did
coordinate with the transportation division. It's a 50-acre park. We're
only showing bringing 25 acres into our inventory, and they're using
the other 25 and some as part of their stormwater.
So we've split the park up. I believe that -- I can't remember
exactly which half -- who gets which half. But we made sure that we
did not double dip on that park.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any other questions on
Page 58?
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October 15,2007
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, we'll move to Page 59.
Go ahead Mr. Schiffer -- oh, Bob, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'd just like to call your attention
to a sheet that we received earlier, it says Florida State and County
Population Estimates, April, 2006 and Projections 2010 to 2030. And
it shows the county and it shows the Collier low, medium and high.
And I'm looking at 2010, and none of the numbers that I have, which I
assume this is an authoritative --
MR. BOAZ: Permanent.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Permit?
MR. BOAZ: Permanent population is what you're looking at.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Add 20 percent.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Add 20 percent. So, let's see, do
we get 2010. We have 424,913. What are we taking, the medium
BEBR?
MS. TOWNSEND: Community park acres uses an
unincorporated population. Unincorporated only.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: What is it we're taking, 20
percent? 455. I come up with a different number yet. But okay.
I guess what I'm trying to find out is -- and I can understand with
the potable water and I can understand with the sewer system that
there's a difference, but your calculation takes into consideration--
we had this last year as well, the question -- does it take into
consideration any part of the City of Naples and/or Marco?
MS. TOWNSEND: For comm -- these population numbers that
you see on Page 59 are going to be distinct from, I think, anything else
you see in the AUIR. As far as I know, community park acres is the
only aspect of the AUIR that uses unincorporated population numbers.
We do not inventory community park facilities within the
municipalities, we do not charge impact fees for community parks on
the municipalities. So it's unincorporated only. And that's unique to
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October 15,2007
community park acreage.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I hear you. Anyway -- I'm going
to pass on that, because I'm not sure where to go with it. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 59, any other questions?
I have one, Amanda. The 47 acres coming out in '07-'08 is for
that Randall curve, when are you going to show, or where do you
show on here the acreage coming in from the swap that you've got
going on?
MS. TOWNSEND: On Page 63 --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's not on Page 59, then?
MS. TOWNSEND: No. And the reason you see -- that is a little
confusing, it's a split between regional park type designation and
community. So we're losing community but we're gaining on the
regional side.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Gotcha. Thank you. Any other
questions on Page 59?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Moving to Page 60, it's a chart. Brad,
there's only two lines, they're pretty radical, so I don't think they can
combine them.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: They actually have it right. I
checked.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 61? Questions on Page 61? It.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That takes us to the end of community
parks.
Before we go too far, I'd like to ask Amy Patterson a question
about impact fees.
Hi Amy.
MS. PATTERSON: Hi.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. When we get into regional
parks, we're going to find the same thing in the community parks.
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October 15,2007
They're funded by basically impact fees. And there's not much of a
surplus, but there is a surplus in both. I shouldn't say not much,
regional parks has 66 million in surplus.
I know parks are important. I know we need them all over the county.
But there are other priorities in this county that may go beyond parks.
And one of those that has a deficit is jails. Jails is a problem that
we've got to deal with when we get to Category B. And they also
have an impact fee.
If the park impact fee was recommended for reduction so that the
jail impact fee could be increased, can there be reports, impact fee
studies done to accomplish that goal?
MS. PATTERSON: Amy Patterson, for the record.
Separately, yes. You could reduce the level of service in any
impact fee, as long as you don't reduce it below what has been
achieved. So you can't charge -- you can't have impact fee service
that's higher than your adopted level of service.
And that's -- we established that, that we don't have that
circumstance going on at all. We either have levels of service that are
the same or adopted levels of services that are higher.
But just lowering the level of service for parks, it may not help
the jails. There may not be a basis to raise the jails that much. Now
this is an update year for jails, which will go out in our typical three
year study and see what the conditions are and the basis for increasing
that fee or doing whatever needs to be done with that fee.
But just lowering the level of service on another fee would not
make way for increasing a different impact fee.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When you go out for another study like
you are for the jails, do generally those studies come back and
recommend reductions in impact fees?
MS. PATTERSON: They have not in the past. Not to say--
actually, probably the better person to answer that question is Mr.
Tindale from Tindale-Oliver. He does most of our impact fee studies.
October 15,2007
If you would like him to address other places that might have
lower impact fees --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No. I can probably get the information I
need from you at this point.
Another item we have that is a serious issue is emergency
services. There's all kinds of numbers there. I'm not saying that
they're valid in the way we've got them today. There may be a lot of
questions to be asked. But it looks like there may be a shortage in
EMS.
The EMS and jails are two really important issues for this county.
We can have all the fun we want in parks, but if we've got criminals
and people that are hurt, we're not going to have a lot of fun.
I'm trying to figure out away, when we've got something like
parks that it is more of a fluffy category that people can utilize to
enjoy themselves, versus their safety, how we can move some of the
money from maybe using it for one that isn't as important as a number
that derives our safety and our health.
And I was wondering if there's any possible way of doing it by
looking at a recommendation to reduce the level of service in parks.
MS. PATTERSON: Because parks doesn't have any ad valorem,
that helps -- ad valorem, you have more flexibility on how you use it
versus impact fees. If they used ad valorem then you could try to free
those kind of dollars up. But because their impact fees are their
primary source to pay for their capital improvement plan, that money
can't be moved any place else. So even if you reduce their level of
service, which reduced their impact fees -- and I don't know how that
would work out without looking at the numbers if that, it would even
happen --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You have to slow down a little bit. I
think she's probably having a hard time.
MS. PATTERSON: I'm sorry. That's just a loss of dollars to
parks, it's that's not money that could go to anybody else.
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October 15, 2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Every year we see our impact fees
increase, and we have indexing now that makes them increase even
more, and this year they've increased again, and our average price for
a home is well over $30,000 just for those impact fees. That hurts
everything, it hurts affordable housing, it hurts everybody all the way
around.
I know I don't want to see it get higher than that, but I do know
there's going to be a push for increasing impact fees. Now, one way to
accomplish increasing impact fees where we need them and not get as
much of a complaint from the private sector is lower them where they
can get lowered where they're not so essential.
I guess that's the thrust of my discussion with you. And you
provided me with information I now know. But I know you can't
guarantee a lateral transfer of monies, but it would seem to me that if
one segment was lowered, when it came time to raise the others, there
would be less animosity from the public, probably, because the
bottom line is still the same, or close to it.
That's kind of where I'm going. I understand what you've said.
Thank you.
Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I just wanted to try to clarify
one thing. This five-year surplus here for regional parks, the 66
million that we were talking about, that figure is a dollar figure only
with respect to the fact that it's acreage. This is all acreage we already
have, or is this acreage that will be bought?
MS. TOWNSEND: No, that is not all acreage that we already
have. And in fact, the reason that you see that surplus, and it
becomes very evident if you look at the graph on Page 64, we're
expecting to take 625 acres into inventory as a result of the
commitment of South Florida Water Management District to turn
over the other OHV land to us. That will satisfy our regional park
level of service for a very long time.
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October 15,2007
So the surplus that you see in the five-year window on the
summary sheet is reflective of that very large spike in regional park
acreage we're anticipating from SFWMD.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, community parks. I guess maybe
for the planning commission's benefit, why don't we finish out the
parks category before we make recommendations on any of them.
There's only two, so maybe that would help us understand the larger
scope of the whole issue.
With that, then, we can roll into regional parks and go back and
discuss any kind of recommendation on community afterwards.
Did you have a separate discussion you wanted to initiate on
regional parks, or is that part of your first?
MS. TOWNSEND: No, we'll just continue on.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Regional parks starts with the summary
on Page 62. Does anybody have any questions on the summary sheet
on Page 62 for regional parks?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I just want to see if I can--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray?
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: We're now up to $230,000 an
acre, and that's an ascribed number. Can we really support that
number and, given what's happened in the last year, or are we always
a year behind or how is it that we get to this?
I recognize it's a snapshot. I understand it's a structured item. I
appreciate all those factors, but because of those factors, we also can
determine what that number can be.
So help me feel comfortable, because quite frankly, just adding
145.3 acres brings another $33 million into the picture. And it's just
an astounding number when you think about it, especially when you're
not even going to improve much of it until considerably later. And as
the chair has pointed out, we do have some other problems.
Now, I'm not asking you to carry the water for them, but
certainly help us understand why that number is really a good number
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October 15,2007
today.
MS. TOWNSEND: We have not acquired any acreage at
anywhere near $230,000 an acre in a considerable amount oftime.
We haven't been doing a lot of very large acquisitions, but we are
acquiring land in the Bayview area to expand parking for Bayview
Park. And that land we're purchasing at about a million dollars an
acre.
So that 230 that you see is the conglomerate when you can buy
very large pieces of -- tracts of land for community and regional parks
out in the eastern area of the county at much less. But then if we take
our beach and boat expansion initiative seriously, that's going to cost
us a significant amount of cash in the urban area and on the coastal
area.
So that number becomes then a conglomeration of all those
acquisition activities. We feel comfortable with it at this point.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I understand that's the case. Did
you not finish acquiring the property for the Bayview Park?
MS. TOWNSEND: The acquisition continues.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Continues. You're not finished
buying all the property.
MS. TOWNSEND: No, we are not.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So you still have a potential to
spend those millions. But when that day comes when you're not
having to spend those millions and have no projection to bring new
parks into the western area at a high cost, would you still keep that
number or will you again average it to where -- or a conglomerate, as
you indicated?
MS. TOWNSEND: I don't see us completing the beach and boat
expansion initiative within the ten-year window. I think we'll
continue to try to strive to meet community need there as
redevelopment happens and opportunities become available.
If we ever really see our ability to purchase land within the urbany
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October 15, 2007
area completely shut down, and that is for some reason there is no
more redevelopment and there's just absolutely no possibility, then
we'll have to revisit that acreage cost. But at this time I don't see that
-- foresee that.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So you would use the numbers,
regardless. So that means that as the western Collier beach area, so to
speak, that grows in value, that's going to raise enough -- irrespective
of whether the rest of the county is going down in value in terms of
purchase price for acreage, okay, western Collier near the beach, cost
of land goes up, regardless of a recessionary issue that we're going
through, rest of Collier County is floating down. But tremendous
increase here carries extraordinary weight, bringing the rest higher
than it should.
MS. TOWNSEND: In fact, that's not exactly what we're seeing.
We're not seeing those prices go up, escalating at that kind of rate. I
mean, and Bayview acquisition is a good thermometer for that. We're
not seeing them go -- they're creeping up somewhat. Of course there's
always an issue. I'm trying to think what our most recent appraisal is,
has been. But I'm not seeing it happen, playing out the way you're
describing.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I remember last year when this
question was asked, what we were told was basically you guys take
some numbers, Mr. Tindale does, takes some numbers from the
western area, particularly around that beach area and so forth, and
they value that in. And those series of numbers become a composite,
and then he takes composites from other localities.
And I'm just saying that as it seems to be driven, western Collier,
and particularly towards the beach, those values are rising, continue to
rise, because they continue to sell high value homes, while the rest of
it is going down. And I'm just wondering whether we've looked at
that set of numbers again for this year and whether we've recast them
or whether we've just stayed with what we had before.
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October 15,2007
MS. TOWNSEND: For this year, no. For this year we went
with the indexing that we saw when we indexed the impact fees.
Now, of course, when it's time to do a new study, we might find
something different. That's how we got to the $200,000 an acre that
we started with. And we've indexed that up. And -- so when we do a
new study, it may play itself out.
MS. VASEY: Mark?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm waiting for him to get done.
Janet, go ahead.
MS. VASEY: I have a comment on that. Having seen the
impact fee studies as they came through, I'm pretty sure the park one
had two separate land values. One was for the land internal, which
was the 200,000, and I think the beach and boat access component of
the study had a value of land that was over a million dollars an acre,
maybe a million-two or something, I don't remember the exact
number. So they did have separate numbers. So I don't really think
you're going to run into a problem where they're trying to mesh them.
I think this, they've just taken the inland number, which was 200
and is now 230, and put it on the form. Because if you put the bigger
number, you know, an average of the bigger number on there, it's even
worse as to what we've got showing in dollar values.
It's not a good solution. But this whole level of service standard
is not good either. It shows you how many acres you think we should
have per capita, but it's -- it doesn't really attest to the value of the
land like we're going to get, what is it, 625 acres that mayor may not
have a lot of use and yet it counts as good as acres of ballparks and
beach access. So it's a very flawed level of service standard, and I
don't know, you know, what to do about it.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I thank you for that comment,
because you realize where I was trying to go with this. I think the 625
is intended for A TV use, is it not?
MS. VASEY: Yeah.
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October 15, 2007
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That certainly would devalue the
land in most people's minds in terms of raw use. So, okay, I agree
with you. Doesn't seem to be a way we can bring you guys down to a
dollar figure I can afford.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, and then Steve.
MR. BOAZ: I just wanted to point out that that, based on that
rationale, that 625 acres is valued at $153 million, and we're going to
receive it for free from the district is my understanding.
MS. RAMSEY: Marla Ramsey, for the record. Just to give you
an example of what the land really is going for in Immokalee, the last
one we just did recently was about $50,000 an acre.
And so what you're having here isn't really the true appraisal cost
associated with it, it's just a unit number put up against our acres. And
to be honest with you, I've always argued, why do we even put this
fallacy number on this chart. But it's something that someone wants
somewhere.
To me it would be better if it was an appraisal price rather than a
unit cost. But we don't necessarily think that everything we have is
$164 million worth. We don't know what that real cost is, to be honest
with you. But that's not what the AUIR asks us for, it asks us for a
unit cost, and that's a whole lot different than an appraised price.
So, you know, I know it's confusing, but as far as we're
concerned we only look at the acres, not necessarily unit cost
associated with that. Maybe you look at it differently, but that dollar
amount that's associated with it really isn't -- have a lot of substance
for us, anyway, in the parks department.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: If I may, just on what Brad's
saying, fact is, how do we book those acres? Do they come in as
booked acres. Do we take them in and book them at 230 or do we
take them in that the value that the transfer value was, that's the
appraised value by, I guess, South Florida Water Management? And
how does that work? I mean, that might be more realistic, as you said,
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October 15,2007
the appraised value.
And I don't wish to quibble, but it's just a crazy -- especially is
the indexing. You're rising in, what, one year, two years, 15 percent.
The inflationary costs are nowhere near that even, so we're just
building mountains of dollars here for justification. It's not reflective
of what you want either.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, did you finish your question?
MR. BOAZ: Yeah, I think so.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Steve?
MR. HARRISON: Coming back to the impact fee for a minute. I
assume that the 63 million on the supplemental sheets is what we see
built into the impact fees, not these inflated values that we see on Page
65? Because we're not going to build in that free land of 143 million
into the impact fee, I would presume. So it's just somebody's attempt
to --
MS. TOWNSEND: The 63 million that you see on your
supplemental sheets is a conglomerate of the development program of
the projects you see listed in the AUIR and what those will cost. The
impact fee element of that is 32, 444.
Does that help answer your question.
MR. HARRISON : You have two CP As sitting here and we're
wondering where the credit is for all these huge debits on the side of
what the land is being valued. Where does it go? Because that's not
cost, that's not market, it's an arbitrary figure.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, like the 62 acres for the big
Corkscrew Island regional park, that's a transfer into your department?
MS. TOWNSEND: That's a swap for the 47 at Randal1.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. Does that transfer in at a value
of 230,000 an acre? That's what I -- no, it doesn't.
MS. RAMSEY: Again, Marla Ramsey for the record.
To be honest with you, we don't really fall in that line of where
those numbers come in at. I know what transportation is going to pay
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October 15,2007
for those. We know what we've paid for the land that we have.
Whether we ever go back and then do an inventory as to the land cost,
I don't know, I'd have to turn to real property on that one.
But that land cost is going to be somewhere around $35,000 an
acre plus interest. That's the dollar amount that we're going to be
spending. Because we're paying what utilities paid a number of years
ago to pick up that 200-and-some-acre parce1. So they're passing it on
to us for cost plus interest.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Georgia, you had a follow-up?
MS. HILLER: Marla, based on what you said that we shouldn't
really be relying on these numbers, my question is, what is the basis
for the nexus on which these impact fees are being levied? I mean,
how are they being justified?
And secondly with that, what I was wondering is whether you
have any sort of study which establishes the usage of these facilities
relative to the acreage of land dedicated in each instance?
MS. RAMSEY: When you talk about the cost associate with the
facility, is that what the second part of that was?
MS. HILLER: The second part of my question is you've got
facilities. Have you done anything to evaluate the usage of those
facilities relative to the acres within each facility to see, you know,
what kind of return on your investment you might be getting?
But I guess my concern listening to what Brad and Steve have
raised, and what we've raised on this side of the table is I'm beginning
to lose sight of where the nexus is for the impact fees.
MS. RAMSEY: Well, there is a chart in the impact fee, which I
think you probably got last year but you don't have this year because
it's an old one. But the consultant on that did look at the number of
units that we had and then did go and get unit cost appraisals.
They went out and hired an appraiser to give them some kind of
numbers associated with land purchases in certain areas. And from
that, then, they came up with a dollar amount associated with it. And
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the unit cost for regional lands that were out in the Estates side were
about $200,000 an acre. It was about $4 million for lands that were up
against the beach. Beach parking elements, boat access was about a
million-four.
So there were different values placed on different types of land
purchases depending on where they were within the community.
That's how you came up with the unit cost of the 200,000 that they
used on this form.
MS. HILLER: But what we're looking at right here on Page 62
then is not correct, because the unit cost of 230 doesn't apply to -- or it
does apply to regional park land? I mean, based on numbers you just
quoted they don't apply.
MS. RAMSEY: We took the 200,000 which is the lowest
number, which is out in the Estates by large parcels of land --
MS. HILLER: Was that a median number, an average? What
was that?
MS. RAMSEY: It's an appraiser that did that. And I'm assuming
it's either an average or a median. I'm not sure which.
MS. HILLER: It makes a big difference.
MS. RAMSEY: Yeah, but I'm not sure which. I couldn't -- I
suppose I could read this and find out for you, but --
MS. HILLER: And you know, the other -- and I mean, maybe--
I think -- I just -- the numbers just don't seem to be reconciling in my
mind.
The other thing that kind of concerns me is that these analyses
are based on peak season county-wide population. Is there a reason
peak season population was used as opposed to an average
population? Because it seems like we're servicing at the highest level.
And again, going back to what Mark was saying earlier, there are
other needs. Maybe we need to be servicing an average level of
population for the year as opposed to a peak level.
MS. RAMSEY: Well, I can tell you that the board has made that
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determination that we will use the peak; is that not correct?
Yes. So that is a board-directed population number.
And of course we do get heavy uses during seasons, so -- just
maybe not as much as maybe flushing a toilet. But we are Category
A, and we are ranked right up there with utilities as far as importance
to -- as far the state is concerned because of quality of life that parks
provide.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, did you have a comment?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And Mike, isn't one of our
duties here today to discuss whether the level of service we're using is
appropriate, so could we not change to an appraised value?
MR. BOSI: Specifically recommended by the Board of County
Commissioners that you do just that, look at the levels of service and
how you get there.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. So I think since you
have appraisals from last year, we could easily turn this into an
appraised value, maybe with some inflation update, and come up with
a true Value for the --
MS. RAMSEY: We could do that, but remember that the level of
service is acres per thousand. It really has nothing to do with the
appraised value of a piece of property --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. And it also has nothing
to do with your --
MS. RAMSEY: -- it is acres per thousand --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You guys have to talk one at a time.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And it also has nothing to do
with the 230 thou per acre either. So I'm saying, so get off of that and
use the appraised value.
MS. RAMSEY: If I could just take off all numbers on here
except for acres per thousand, we would be -- you know, on our side
we're happy with that. But I think that somebody else needs to have a
dollar value associated with that. I'd have to turn to these guys to
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make that determination, why we put a phantom dollar amount up
against that. I don't know.
MR. COHEN: I don't necessarily know if it's a phantom dollar
amount, but the reason the dollar amount's there is we have to
demonstrate to the state that parks and recreation are financially
feasible. So there has to be some dollar amount.
When we talk about where did that dollar amount come from,
originally it came from an impact fee study. Would a new study based
on land values decreasing change that number? I'm sure at this point
in time probably that would be the case. I mean, if it was the
recommendation of this body that a study probably be done at this
time, you might find that the value for land go down and that impact
fee be adjusted accordingly, as well as the unit cost that's shown here.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Brad?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But wouldn't it be easier just to
use the inventory you had last year and just keep that up to date. That
makes impact fees in the future easy to determine also.
MS. TOWNSEND: I'm sorry, explain the question again.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: If! understand it right, there
was an impact fee review last year and they -- hold on.
MR. TINDALE: I'm Steve Tindale with Tindale and Associates.
I did not do the parks fee but I've read it and I understand it, and I can
-- I think I can clarify your issue.
If you want to reduce the impact fee, I think you need to take a
position on the parks you'd like it reduced. If you technically try to
reduce it, it's not going to happen.
What they did is they took -- and you asked the question about
can you borrow from one and use to the other one, like can you
borrow from parks --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Not borrow, no, that wasn't the
suggestion.
MR. TINDALE: Well -- and they actually have state laws iny
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other states that allow you to take one impact fee that you've got a
surplus of and use it to build other facilities by law. In Florida you
can't do that.
This is almost the same issue. You have some assets, which is
beach property is very, very valuable. And when they calculate the
impact fee, it could have been astronomical. And what they did is
they weighted the land value just a little bit by the beach property and
cranked the fee up just a little bit. And the fee could have been
probably five times higher based on the value of what you have
already created.
You've purchased some very expensive land and you own it, and
your impact fees could be huge. And what they did in the study is
they weighted the land, amount of land, very little towards the
beaches and very heavily towards your other ones and come up with
200,000, not 600,000, so you have a much lower fee then technically
could be supported.
And I think your best bet, if you want to reduce the fee is to say
you want to reduce the fee. And if you try to do it through some
technical analysis of cost or whatever, I can tell you, I've looked at
the numbers, it's not going to work. The assets you've created,
existing people here created assets that are well beyond what future
people can afford to buy in terms of a technical impact fee for your
parks program. I mean, it's never going to happen --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're saying that we cannot reduce an
impact fee?
MR. TINDALE: You can reduce it. Just say you want to reduce
it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right.
MR. TINDALE: Reduce it 15 percent. You can make that
recommendation. If you try to do it through a technical analysis, the
land's cheaper or you made an error or use a different value, you're in
a losing battle, because the asset you have of what you've already
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purchased is so valuable that new development legally and
technically could be charged probably two to three times what you're
calculating.
So you need to take a position if you don't like the fee,
recommend reducing it, but if you pick a per acre cost or asset cost or
whatever, I can just tell you when the studies are done, all that's going
to be documented is that your fee compared to your legal ability to
charge new development is very, very conservative.
Not that it's low compared to other communities. But in your
community, you've got some land and some things you've done that
people that are already here have paid for that you legally and
technically could charge new development for that you're not going to
get reduced.
That's just a comment. I'm just suggesting to you if you want to
reduce the fee, your best bet is to take a position you'd like to see the
fee reduced. You're not going to get the fee reduced through a
technical analysis, from what I've seen.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any--
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Let me continue.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, and then let's get--
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: My question really was is the
inventory value. In other words, last year when you studied the
impact fee, you came up with a value of all the parks land. Obviously
some was very expensive, some may have been free. And then you
divided the acreage to come up with this 230, correct?
MR. TINDALE: They weighted that very heavily towards the
actual number of acres you owned, and it's very few acres of beach
front. And I think if they had to put the full beach front value in and
not just, you know, pulled it down, and actually put the total acreage,
the cost per acre, or the value per acre you currently own -- and you
asked about replacement value, which is different -- would have been
higher.
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October 15,2007
So just from my review, that number is conservative.
Now, the other question is, for example, that 600 acres, it should be
valued as open space and not -- and when they do an update, they
won't take that 600 acres, they will weight that. And if you do have
six hundred acres, the first question is going to be do you really want
to put the whole 600 acres and charge it. That's going to be a policy
decision because the fee would jump up. Many people just put it in
open space or mix a little bit of parks in with it.
But they won't put that 600 acres in an inventory and an update at
200,000. They'll put it at -- you know, they'll weight that in terms of
the real cost when they do an update. And it will have some effect on
the fee, but it won't be weighted at 200,000 an acre, unless that's the
actual real value of it.
So when they do an update they will use legitimate purchase
values and what it's going to cost, what it's currently valued if they
went to sell it. And if it's not 200,000, they won't be putting it in an
update for 200,000. It won't be done that way.
But it should be put in there. Then the question's going to be
asked -- and I do this many times. When I go into the county, the first
question is, do you have a bunch of open space versus parks. Because
what you don't want to take is a bunch of open space and come up
with this huge fee for park land because you happen to have some
environmental land or land that people kind of visit. That'll be asked
during the update, is that 600 acres an open space function or is it a
parks function. And it will legitimately be answered before they just
throw that in there and crank the fee way up.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Russell, did you have a follow-up on
that?
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Not necessarily on that but -- just, I
can --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Mr. Tindale, while he's up here.
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Well, I may, too. I don't know how it
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falls. Everybody in the whole state uses, they have one baseball field
for 10,000 and on and on and on, and we say we have a $270 facilities
value per capita. And is that -- I think we're just using the whole
wrong way to figure out -- so we say we want to drop impact fees,
but maybe there's -- out in the Estates there's -- we need to build ten
more but we don't know, based on values, and that's -- I think we're
going the wrong direction all together. I don't know the answer either.
Maybe he does, though.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's ask some specific questions and if
you --
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Well, just that --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Georgia now, I think she started--
Georgia started this, let's see where she's going to go with it.
MS. HILLER: Back to the expert. If I understand, there are two
things I'm getting from what you're saying. It seems to me that we do
need to have some sort of usage analysis. Otherwise, we are going to
have a problem where green space is being counted as a park. And I
think that would go further to, you know, validating the nexus
argument as opposed to relying on these appraised values.
The second thing I'm getting from what you're saying, which I
think is very interesting, is that if we want to reduce the parks and
recreation impact fee, that we don't really have to have a nexus
argument. We only need the nexus argument if we are planning on
raising it. But if we just want to recommend that it be lowered, we
can just say let it be lowered. Is that correct?
MR. TINDALE: Correct. The impact fee calculates the
maximum. Don't adopt anything above that, don't charge more than
that. And the county commissioners consistently have a right to
discount the fee. So that was my comment about doing that.
MS. HILLER: What you're saying makes so much sense, so
what we really need to do then is --
MR. TINDALE: I'm not recommending discounting the fee, by
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the way, I'm just --
MS. HILLER: Right, I understand.
MR. TINDALE: -- telling you can --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're responding to the questions
we're asking.
MS. HILLER: Maybe what we need to do to answer your
question is we need to analyze where our real needs are based on
projected usage by population like in Golden Gate Estates and focus
the acquisitions in that area, deferring the other acquisitions until
prices drop even further and capitalize on that.
MR. TINDALE: I'll let her answer. Let me -- I'll give an
answer about the issue around the state and what I see, which is, I
think, maybe different than you, so I have to be very careful.
What happens in most communities, they start out very rural and
very land based, and then they have to move into a recreational
program. And if you took impact fees and said you have to prove
here's your land and all -- you own land so you can't build a park,
well, nobody would ever have any ballparks, because impact fees, if
you have land you can only buy land.
So I think what the courts ruled is you take that value and you
have a legal right to transition from a parks program to a recreational
program as long as you don't charge more dollars per person than the
current value you have.
Now, the different issue operationally is are you making good
decisions about where you're building your parks and what the usage
is. Different issue. From a legal perspective from impact fees, you
have an absolute right to have 100 percent land, no ballparks, and then
for the next ten years do nothing but build ballparks, not even have
one. Because if you couldn't do that, you couldn't operate. No court's
going to tell the government they can't operate.
You need to separate two different issues, technically and legally
they have an impact fee, it's defensible. Your next question is, are you
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making really good decisions about what you're doing with that
revenue. Are you building the right number of ballparks versus tennis
courts. Separate issue. Two distinct different issues.
So you have a standard. You have to adopt a standard for impact
fees, but we use land. But we throw everything into it, the parks, the
pools, and everything, to come up with a dollar per acre. And then
you can legally spend it on whatever you want to as long as you don't
charge more money in terms of the fee than you've created. No court's
going to tell you can't go from ten ballparks to 15 and not build a pool.
Because you have to have a pool every time you add 20,000
people and you can't change that. They're not going to tell you that.
So your fees in my mind, in terms of your asset, I'm not saying
they're not low compared to other counties. In terms of the asset you
have, you have a very conservative fee, it's legally defensible and you
need to separate that issue from are you making the right decision on
the number of pools or ballparks you're making.
And you need to separate the issue in my mind, if the fee is
legally defensible, of whether you like or dislike fees and do you want
them discounted.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you.
Ms. Hiller, did that get all your questions at least answered?
MS. HILLER: I thought that was well answered. Thank you
very much.
MR. HARRISON: I was going to ask Mr. Tindale one more.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir, go ahead.
MR. HARRISON: Mr. Tindale, if we reduced an impact fee, do
we run the risk of a class action suit by people who paid the
predecessor a higher fee?
MR. TINDALE: I'm a lawyer, and as a matter of fact, I saw an
e-mail here recently where a lawyer told one of the staff that if you're
not careful, I'm going to take you to the bar. So that's a legal
question, to be honest with you.
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But I do testify, and I have been involved in supporting the
lawyers who use most of my testimony to make decisions.
I've never seen anybody sued because -- well, first of all, if that
was the case, at one time you had no impact fees, so when you had an
impact fee, everybody who had impact fees for the first time would
sue you because the people before them had no impact fees.
And then you have people paying 100 percent. And if you cut
that down to 75 percent they could sue you because they -- the answer
is I've never seen a court case that someone can sue someone else
because of a policy decision you make about how much you -- what
percentage you legally charge someone.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Welcome to Collier County.
Mr. Schmitt.
MR. SCHMITT: I just want to make sure folks have an
understanding that if we reduce impact fees just by a board direction,
and they'll done this in the past where they'll accept 75 percent of the
recommended value proposed by staff, that difference is going to have
to be made up with ad valorem, or at least some form of funding,
because we still have to provide a fiscally feasible plan to the state.
Or we'll proffer a plan that basically is going to show that we
can't maintain the level of standard because of lack of funding. So
those are policy decisions. Yes, we can summarily reduce an impact
fee, but then we have to identify are we then going to not sustain or
maintain a level of service. And then we get into a whole other issue.
So it's kind of just knobs. It's one or the other. You've got level
of service, you've got impact fees.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Joe, it wouldn't be wise to reduce an
impact fee without correspondingly reducing the level of service so
that you can then take their savings and move it to a more vital area.
The overall package remains the same, the lump some impact remains
the same, but you've just juggled around enough so maybe some truer
or stronger needs get serviced. That was my point in bringing it up.
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MR. SCHMITT: I would have to defer to Steve or Amy on the
technical side. But if we just summarily reduce the level of service,
then we somewhat get into a problem with what we had charged over
the years based on a level of service. And that's again a policy
decision.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Vasey and then Brad.
MS. VASEY: I'd just like to bring in some information. At the
last update on impact fees, we recommended in the productivity
committee that we delay implementing the increases with the
exception, I think, of roads. And the commissioners got our
recommendation and increased all the impact fees. So they are not
particularly interested in using less than 100 percent of what's
defensible in the studies.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That doesn't mean we shouldn't advise
them to what we think.
MS. VASEY: No, I just wanted you to know that has -- we have
recently done that.
And also, it seem to me, Marla, are there -- I really like the
comment, I think it was yours, Georgia, about the open land issue.
Maybe we shouldn't be counting all the open land. Are there other
things comparable to the 625 acres that we're getting in terms of open
land?
MS. RAMSEY: Let me explain a little bit about that. Most of
the lands that we have in the park system have some preserve element
to it. I'll use north Collier because a lot of people know about north
Collier regional park. But it's 208 acres there. And of that, there's 90
acres in preserve, but the other 80 acres is very heavily utilized.
So I don't know if you want to take a site and split off the 90
acres from the entire whole. It doesn't necessarily seem right. But in
all of our parks there is going to be a preserve segment of it and then
there is going to be an active segment of it. Tigertail is an example.
You have the beach element of it, then we have some mangroves that
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are up against that.
Barefoot Beach is another one whether we've got about 350
acres, you've got so much of it on the beach that's usable and then
you've got some islands in the back that are part of that park parcel
that are mangrove.
So we really don't have in our inventory anything that's just
passive preserve. That really has gone underneath the Conservation
Collier, which we do not include in our inventory.
MS. VASEY: I'm just wondering if it wouldn't be useful to try to
use only that part of our parks that are usable by people. And that way
-- I mean, it would create a new level of service standard. But it
would be more representative of actual usage of the community,
unless -- well, that might be a possibility to --
MS. RAMSEY: Another example, though, would be like Eagle
Lakes. In the back there's 90 acres of utilities, and on top of those
berms, there are pathways, they're about eight feet wide, that are used
for recreational purposes. But the actual holding ponds themselves are
-- have about 150 different species of birds, which is the recreational
element at that location. So do you just put the pathways in the
inventory or do you include all of the water area or do you exclude all
of that because it was a utility parcel?
So there's a lot of questions I guess that comes into that where
you could split park lands up, if you wanted to.
But if you look at our chart, I believe, you'll notice that today
without that 625 acres we are in a deficit in regional park lands, if you
look at that. Where we sit right now today is in a deficit.
But that when we jump -- the 640 acres, 400 of that acres will be
actively used for ATV. The other parcel will be boardwalks through
preserves and the outlook over gopher tortoise areas, and so there will
be some passive picnicking element of it.
So we try to put people throughout those preserves, with
pathways or boardwalks or whatever, so that people can get into them.
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But they're not necessarily walking on every square inch of that piece
of property.
MS. VASEY: I was just looking for some kind of a solution that
made a little more sense, that would actually reflect something that
would be usable.
And maybe -- you know, maybe it's not everything could fall into
that. If you wanted to have the lakes included because of the birds and
the passive use of looking at the birds, that would be one thing, but,
you know, a big chunk of the ATV land that isn't used for ATV and
isn't used for boardwalks maybe should just be taken out and then you
can kind of get things down to a smaller level.
It does cause a lot of questions when your surplus is 290 acres
and that represents about three years worth of increase based on
population.
MS. RAMSEY: And that's why you see that conflict between
regional lands and community parks because we try and put, you
know, mostly our active fields fall into the community parks, but not
all of them. There's a little bit of a mixed bag when it comes to --
regional has to do with large volumes of lands or a specialty like
beach access, that's regional.
And then communities, are like Veteran's, Vineyards, et cetera,
smaller parcels that are heavily utilized.
And one of the questions I think that Georgia asked earlier was
we should maybe be looking at where we're putting them. Well, all of
our parks that we're coming on line with are part of the East of 951
study, and they all fall on the other side, whether they be Manatee,
Kaufman, Big Island, two in Immokalee, everything is on the east
side now. We have very little happening on the west side of951.
We're about built out except for a few parcels of land in the -- to do
some additional parking at Bayview.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, I think you were next, then
Georgia.
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MR. BOAZ: I'd like to question the rationale that on a technical
basis the numbers wouldn't go down. Our existing inventory of 1,000
acres, I believe we use that to justify the $200,000 an acre. I have not
known us to understate numbers for impact fees. I think that was done
in a manner in which we felt it was fair.
And I'd like to question if we add 625 acres at five to $10,000 an
acre, does not that reduce the average price per acre?
MR. TINDALE: Yes, it will. And it will increase the inventory,
the asset.
MR. BOAZ: And I think if we're going to report this to the state
that this is part of our inventory, then I don't see any rationale for not
using that in the calculation of impact fees. And it would reduce the
average cost per acre.
MR. TINDALE: The total value, and this -- it took me ten years
of -- and I'll say this ten times -- the total value you have per person in
this community, when you put that on your inventory will go up.
Now you will weight the multiplication of different lands and
different acreages and whatever, but the asset per person when that
thing hits your inventory and you put it in your calculation, the asset
per person -- and after all these calculation of acres and ballparks and
all the things we do and we call them standards, the bottom line is
they add up all your inventory, some of it's land, some of it's
whatever -- I know she like to talk, you know, we talk about land, but
the asset you have when that thing hits your books is going to go up
and your population's not. And if somebody does an impact fee study
MR. BOAZ: I agree with the assets.
MR. TINDALE: -- the fee could go up, and if they don't use the
right dollar per acre, it could go up incorrectly. If they use too high of
a value for the actual value of that 600 acres, then not only will it go
up, it will go up faster than it should.
But putting that land in your inventory and not increasing your
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population, and when they do an update is not going to reduce the
impact fee. It can't. I mean, it's an asset without an increasing
population. When they get through doing their calculations, the dollar
value per person is going to go up. And that's what the fee is. It's the
rational nexus between the asset you've created, the persons per
household, and a fee. And it's the asset, whether it's lands or ballparks
or whatever.
And when you pop that asset up in there, you've got to be very
careful in terms of recalculating because the fee -- we have a natural
tendency once it gets on your books to raise the fee.
MR. BOAZ: Ifwe assumed we were going to pay 200,000 an
acre to buy it and we actually acquire land at $10,000 an acre.
MR. TINDALE: No, no. If you -- but they'll put it on at $10,000
and your asset's still going to go up.
MR. BOAZ: But it's going to go up less than it what it would
have gone up under the assumption.
MR. TINDALE: Right. No, it needs to go in there at the right
value.
MR. BOAZ: That's all I'm saying.
MR. TINDALE: The fee won't go down, though. The average
pnce per acre --
MR. BOAZ: I think the fee will be whatever it comes out to be.
MR. TINDALE: The average price per acre will go down
because of the total acres there but the total asset's going to go up.
When you get through the fee study, you'll see that will happen. You
go from 200 to maybe $180,000 per acre on average because you
threw some land in there. But the asset's going to go up per person
when they get through doing the calculations.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Georgia.
MS. HILLER: I have to agree with Brad, I don't understand how
that would work. You're looking at a weighted average calculation.
And if you're increasing the total number of acres added to the pool
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at a substantially reduced price and you're doing a weighted
calculation, then I have to agree with Brad, I don't see how that would
increase it overall per capita or, you know, per unit of impact fee.
MR. TINDALE: Probably inappropriate for me to have even,
you know, guessed, you know, told -- we're talking about what may
happen in the future, so I'm not sure what I want to, you know, keep
responding -- you need to be very careful.
One thing that's going to happen is the actual level of service is
going to go up versus what's in your impact fee, right?
MS. HILLER: Well, not necessarily. Not if all those acres that
are being contributed are going to be used for parks and recreation.
Because if you bifurcate using Janet's approach, which I think is
brilliant, then what you have is part for, effectively, conservation and
open space, which is really very important for drainage, and we have a
very significant issue with drainage.
MR. TINDALE: These are all great questions. When they go to
do the update of the study, these are all great questions you need to
bring up and make sure you get really good answers about what you
put on, why you put on it, how you classified it and how you valued it.
And again, it's probably inappropriate for me to kind of
speculate in terms of what's going to happen, but in general, when
you put some asset on your inventory and you don't increase your
population it has a tendency to technically justify a higher fee. But
you need to be very careful by asking all those questions.
And that will be asked and answered when they do their update.
MR. SW AJA: Mark?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Who said Mark this time? Okay, Joe,
go ahead.
MR. SW AJA: Could we have somebody just go through and do
the calculations, the math, and show us with all the things we think
are worth a million dollars an acre and the ones that are worth
$10,000 an acre, run down through the numbers and come up with a
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October 15,2007
bottom line number. Somebody do the math rather than guessing.
Can we do that?
MR. TINDALE: You want somebody to show you how the
200 000 --
,
MR. SW AJA: I'd like to see somebody just lay down the
numbers: You've got 10-acres worth, $2 million an acre, you got
5,000 acres worth $10,000 an acre. Just run the numbers down and
give me the weighted average and do it by the numbers rather than
let's sit here guessing on them.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Just so everybody understands, we'll
take a -- I just was asked by the court reporter to take a break, so it's a
little earlier than I was planning, but let's take a 15-minute break and
resume the meeting at 4:00.
And maybe during the break someone can get Joe his answer or
break it down so he can have his answer when we return.
Okay, we'll take a break till 4:00.
(A break was taken.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, everyone, the meeting needs to
get back to order. Everybody come please resume their seats.
Okay. The first line of business, I'd like to resolve a scheduling issue.
Based on the speed at which we're rushing through the regional
park one, I don't think we'll get past parks Category A today. I mean,
if we finish that one, I hope we could today.
And based on that, I'd like consensus that we won't start any
Category B's at least until tomorrow so that those people interested in
Category B don't have to sit around here the rest of today.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: You have my agreement.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that okay with everyone?
Okay, then we will not go past Category A today. So all those here
wishing for any Category B projects, they will be tomorrow morning
at 8:30. Thank you.
With that, we left off with a question by Joe concerning numbers.
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Everybody's been into numbers this afternoon. So, maybe we'll try to
have an answer now.
MS. RAMSEY: For the record, Marla Ramsey, Public Services
Administrator.
We went through the impact fee study and took the numbers that
we had for units per cost for regional park land, beach parking land,
boat access land. We took those three numbers and added those
together, divided them by the number of units, and the total came in at
$506,000 per acre.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Joe, does that get the answer you were
looking for -- you needed to obtain?
MR. SW AJA: Not surprising. That's the answer.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Hiller.
MS. HILLER: Does that consider the 600-plus acres -- that
doesn't consider any prospective purchase. So that's just based on --
MS. RAMSEY: History.
MS. HILLER: History.
MS. RAMSEY: History as of January of 2006, which we're
probably using somewhere around 2004, 2005 historical numbers
would be my guess.
MR. SW AJA: That really didn't answer the question that I was
asking.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It really did not, or did?
MR. SW AJA: Did not.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Did not. Do you want to re-ask your
question or is it something you don't think we can get to?
MR. SW AJA: I guess I'm trying to support both Brad and
Georgia. I don't understand how we can have all these acres being
added at $10,000 an acre and not see a difference, a reduction. So.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, that didn't -- 506 is a lot more
than 230.
MR. SW AJA: Yeah, it certainly is, last time I checked.
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October 15,2007
MS. RAMSEY: Again, remember, this is historical acres that we
have on the books when the study was done times the appraised value
of those parcels that was done by a land appraiser, input into the
formula. And then that's how we've done it, we've divided by that
number, it comes out to 506. Not my numbers, just I'm doing the data
for you, so --
MR. SW AJA: I believe your numbers.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're still on Page 62, which was the
summary form for the regional parks.
Georgia, yes, go right ahead, that's what we're here for.
MS. HILLER: Marla, may I ask. Maybe this has already been
asked and answered, but just for my own understanding, in developing
your five-year budget, have you factored a decrease in the price of
land over that period of time?
I mean, that seems to be the trend. Has that been contemplated in
your analysis?
MS. RAMSEY: The actual cost of land is not included in this.
We use the unit cost. And the unit cost has been indexed in this AUIR
from 200,000 to 230,000. We indexed it because the board approved
an increase in impact fees for January of 15 percent for parks and
recreation. So it is an indexed number.
We wouldn't have to index it if you didn't want us to. We could
drop it back down to 200,000, which was the last approved acreage in
the study itself.
MS. HILLER: Could you use a different basis for coming up
with this valuation? In other words, could you use usage instead of
population to come up with this impact fee?
MS. RAMSEY: You mean--
MS. HILLER: Like for example, the number of times people
frequent a facility and use a facility, like a count of -- like a usage
count, as opposed to a population count or a door count.
MS. RAMSEY: Well, I think we've looked at that across the
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October 15,2007
state. And I think that's in your data, the data was provided there that
we have been on the cusp of doing something that the park system
across the state does not do. And that was the $270 per capita for
facilities, which was very cumbersome to us and not necessarily a true
indicator of the value that each individual would receive.
So we've looked at that and we do feel that population is the way
to deal with the growth element of it. If you're going to go by usage,
that's a shot in time today, so how do you look at the growth element
associated with that. So population is the number that is the standard
across the state in all of the parks systems that are doing AUIR.
MS. HILLER: How is the -- how -- and this is just for my
education, but how is conservation land like open green space paid
for, valued, how is that typically done?
MS. RAMSEY: Are you talking about park land that we put into
preserve or are you talking about Conservation Collier land, which is
basically purchasing sensitive lands with some access to the public?
MS. HILLER: The first.
MS. RAMSEY: We look at that the land is being an asset to the
park itself. A park should have a number of elements in it, active
elements as well as passive. People want to come to the park, and
instead of going to one park for one activity and to another park for
another activity, our goal has been since probably for the last ten years
is to look at larger parks parcels so that we can have preserve and
active in both of those, so that the whole family can be involved in one
location.
And that's where we have gone in the last few purchases. North
Collier at 208 acres. Now the Big Corkscrew island is about 160 acres
and the Kaufman is a little over 100 acres. Those are the ones that
we've purchased in the last probably eight years.
MS. HILLER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we're still on Page 62. Are there
any other questions?
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October 15,2007
I have a couple.
North Naples park, the one with the water slides, the large park,
that is considered a regional park?
MS. TOWNSEND: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That park is closed most of the time
right now, it seems. Is that fair? It's not open during the week.
MS. TOWNSEND: Just the water park part of North Collier
Regional Park is open weekends only at this time of the year.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How do you feel you've met the
required level of service to list it as an available inventory when it's
not open?
MS. TOWNSEND: North Collier Regional Park is 207 acres.
The water park element of it only comprises about nine acres.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You based the development of that
water park on the standard that you used from that acronym that the
state provides for use for different facilities. So how does that meet
the requirements?
I mean, if you're only open weekends, and I knew that to be a
fact because I know someone who tried to utilize the facility and they
couldn't, and they were told it wasn't even going to open until after
the first of the year.
I'm just wondering why we created it when we're only open such
short periods of time.
MS. TOWNSEND: I'm going to let Marla address Sun-N-Fun,
specifically operations.
MS. RAMSEY: Just so there's not confusion, that North Collier
Regional Park is not Sun-N-Fun lagoon. Sun-N-Fun lagoon is a
portion of that park. And the park -- you know, with the budget cuts
that we have received over the last year, we're looking at our assets
and what we have to do in order to maintain some kind of balanced
budget.
We've been to the productivity committee with this prior to
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October 15,2007
opening. We talked to them about hours, cost, et cetera, associated
with that. The Board of County Commissioners has adopted a certain
fee for that facility which, then, there's a certain amount of revenue
that we'll get off of that.
We then close during periods of time when we do not have
enough people in the park in order to pay for the staff that stands on
the deck. And there were times last year when we did our seasonal
test, we were open every weekend and Christmas and whatnot for the
entire year last year, and there were periods of time when we had less
than 50 people in the park, and it was really a drain, you know, to
offset the costs.
So we're looking at it from a business point of view as to what
the hours should be and the usage that the public has been using that
facility. So we look at it as a business process.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But based on the level of service we
created the park. But based on the lack of use we do not open the
park.
MS. RAMSEY: I don't believe that the level of service is there is
a level of service just for one facility. We look at their level of service
is much larger than that, than just one facility.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that included in the available
inventory?
MS. RAMSEY: The water park? It's included in the North
Collier Regional Park inventory, that's correct. But, again, it's just one
segment of that large, very busy facility.
If you had been there this weekend, we had soccer tournaments
and flag football and the child safety fair, and the Sun-N-Fun was
going and we had a softball tournament going at the same time, as
well as regular users using the pathways along the backs. So. Fitness
center gymnasium was going with basketball. They were parking
along the two-lane road coming into that park. So it is a heavy
utilized facility, yes, sir.
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And then the people that use it, do you
keep track of where they're from?
MS. RAMSEY: If they're in a paid program we do, sir, yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you know the percentage of county
residents that may use the park versus outside?
MS. RAMSEY: If you're looking at the number of facilities as
far as leagues go, we're running about 80 percent local.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Next question I have that's still to finish
up my questions on this page really is of Amy, if she's available.
Wake up. Can't blame you.
Do you know what the typical residential unit for our impact fee
is for parks?
MS. PATTERSON: I don't have the current schedule in front of
me, but I can just walk to my office and give you the exact number.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, can you give me the nearest
$10,000?
MS. PATTERSON: For parks? Parks and Recs fees? I think it's
about $3,000 for the average single-family home. For the both fees.
There's two parks fees, regional and community.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What about jails?
MS. PATTERSON: Jails, about $240 a unit.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What about EMS?
MS. PATTERSON: EMS is about 130.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you.
Page 63, are there any questions on Page 63?
(N 0 response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm not going to hesitate. Sixty-four. I
get on to the next page, we'll move.
Page 65?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 66?
(No response.)
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 617
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm going to break the trend. On Page
67, you're adding the Vanderbilt extension to the community parks but
taking it out of original. Is that right?
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Why?
MS. TOWNSEND: We did explain that we were going to do
that in last year's AUIR. We projected to make that acreage type
designation in this year's.
And what that reflects basically is that we bought that 120 acres
as a joint purchase of 240 with the schools, and we expected to be
able to develop a regional park in that area, based on that amass of
120 acres.
We know that when Vanderbilt Beach Road extension comes
through we will lose about 20 acres to the road. That's going to put us
at a hundred acres by the time you figure in preserve -- areas to be set
off in preserves and whatnot. You really don't have enough land there
to merit calling it a regional park anymore. It's going to function more
like a community park, so we've changed the acreage type
designation.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, like the Paul PUD is 90 acres.
You've got that as a regional park. Isn't it?
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct. That will be combined with
the 62 to make a 150-acre park. And that also will provide water
access. And water access almost bumps a facility into a regional park
type because it's something that people will travel a significant
distance to access.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There are other parks in your 2007
inventory that are less than the 100 acres you'll have remaining that
are still regional. I just don't understand why you wouldn't leave this
in the regional, even though it's 100 acres.
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October 15,2007
MS. TOWNSEND: An example of another park that's regional --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You've got in the Naples zoo and the
Gordon River Greenway Park and central Naples.
MS. TOWNSEND: Those are generally passive facilities. You
know what might help is if you look on page 70, we have -- nope, I'm
sorry, that's not true. I remember that in our LOS workshop, we made
a definition of community and regional park type acres. And I could
look that up for you if you wanted to know.
Generally, one of the ways we look at whether we determine--
whether something is community park acreage or regional park
acreage is we consider about the service area. Generally, it's how far
would someone drive to access the amenities at that park. So that's
why a tiny park like a boat ramp or a beach access would be
considered regional. Anything with water access, as I said.
And then the community parks generally have a suite of facilities
that serve several surrounding neighborhoods, and of course a
neighborhood park serves only it's immediate surrounding
neighborhood. So that's sort of how we divide those up.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You factor in the access points along the
end of the streets within the City of Naples as a regional park or any
kind of park?
MS. TOWNSEND: They are -- when we get to looking at
facilities type, we are inventorying them as beach access facilities.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 68?
Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I'm not sure if it actually--
if I should be asking it on Page 68, 69 or wait until we get to 71. This
inventory is just what you currently have, it's nothing future?
MS. TOWNSEND: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. And is it just what we own
as a county as -- well, no, the City of Naples is in here and City of
Marco. So then my question would be, I don't see anywhere here that
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October 15,2007
Delnor-Wiggins state park is there.
MS. TOWNSEND: No, we do not inventory either
Delnor- Wiggins or Collier Seminole.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Why not, when we do everything
in the city -- in the City of Naples and all of Marco?
MS. TOWNSEND: Historically those parks had been part of the
inventory. We moved to -- we went to removing those from the
inventory for the same purpose that we just were discussing about that
625 acres ofOHV land. And that is that they were very large
acreage-wise pieces of property that were serving -- it was a small
footprint within them that was serving an active recreation activity.
And what we found, particularly on regional park acreage, is that
the large areas of passive lands were satisfying need but the
recreational needs of the community were not being met.
So by taking those large areas of land that are in preserve out of
the inventory, we could meet demand for developable recreation acres.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How do you justify putting in the
Barefoot Beach preserve and not including Delnor- Wiggins?
Delnor-Wiggins is more popular and much more easy access than
having to go through that crazy neighborhood to get to --
COMMISSIONER CARON: And may I just add, it gives you,
Delnor, for example, gives you beach access, fishing access and
non-motorized boat launch area.
MS. TOWNSEND: However, we have no management plan or
no access agreement for the public with the state. Barefoot Beach
preserve is included because we own half of it and we have a 50-year
lease with the state on the other half. That is land that we are
providing to the citizens as a county.
Those two state parks that I mentioned, we do not have that
management agreement with the state on those.
COMMISSIONER CARON: So you're telling us that the state
could just come and shut the doors and we would lose all of our access
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October 15,2007
to those?
I don't understand.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I can tell you that Collier Seminole park
has got a lot of uses that go far beyond simply water access. And it's
actually a very well-used park. And Delnor is as jammed as the other
park you guys were just telling me you have people lining up for, so
not counting those certainly is contradictory to establishing a viable
level of service. But I understand your answer.
With that, we're still on Page 68 and 69.
Ms. Vasey.
MS. VASEY: Oh, yes. On the top of Page 69 there's Big
Corkscrew Island Regional park, but it says community, and there's 47
acres. Is there a community park there, too, or is that -
MS. TOWNSEND: I changed the name there. That 47 acres
represents that Randall curve and that may have been confusing to
have changed the name, because really that's what that represents.
MS. VASEY: And that was the one we're getting rid of.
MS. TOWNSEND: I'm sorry?
MS. VASEY: That's the one we're transferring out.
MS. TOWNSEND: Precisely.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Page70?
Brad?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And now we're getting in the
specific kinds of recreation. When does the for charge come off of
this list. In other words, if you're charging $5.00 an hour for a tennis
court, is that public? If you charge ten, well, now I can go down to
private clubs for the same amount. So if you're charging for some of
these recreation activities, when does it not become accessible to the
public? Or does it ever?
MS. TOWNSEND: No matter whether it's a fee-based use or a
first come, first serve use, it's always all available to the general
public. There's no exclusivity, other than obviously the individual
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October 15,2007
public's -- member of the public's ability to pay the fee.
And really, paying the fee. If you take a pavilion, for example, a
picnic pavilion, anyone can come into a park and use a pavilion, first
come, first serve.
The purpose of the fee is really to reserve that first come, first
serve right for that particular amenity.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But if! was a kid in Naples
Park, didn't have a lot of money, I couldn't go play tennis down at
Vanderbilt Beach or Pelican Bay, I'd have to go out to Veterans for
free tennis.
So are you really providing tennis to that kid? Even though you
count that tennis court as available to him, it's not available to him
because he can't afford it or he doesn't want to pay for it.
MS. TOWNSEND: That's an operational question that I'm not
exactly sure about. But I believe that those tennis courts -- I'm going
to look to Marla, who's behind me -- at Pelican Bay would still be
available on a first come, first serve basis.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That I know they're not.
MS. RAMSEY: Pelican Bay it is a membership based. But there
is a junior program, and they do try and pull in from the community to
provide junior lessons and junior court time. How much, I don't know
in accordance with the hours available there.
But the rest of our facilities are on a first come, first serve. And
that is an anomaly, that is the only place that we have actually have a
fee on the tennis courts.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And the reason for that is just
for operation cost?
MS. RAMSEY: Operation. And it's clay. Those are clay courts
at that location. They're higher maintenance. And so there's a lot
more of -- every so often we have to redo the lines and redo the clay,
and there's water associated with it so it's a higher cost facility. And
that's the facility that Pelican Bay developed and put in at that location
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October 15,2007
that we accepted.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So in this chart with all these
other facilities, how many of those are fee based?
MS. RAMSEY: Tennis courts?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, not just tennis courts, the
other stuff, too.
MS. RAMSEY: Well, specifically -- give me some more
examples.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, boat launch is that fee
based?
MS. RAMSEY: What is?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Boat launches, are they fee
based or are first come.
MS. RAMSEY: Yes, they're fee based. That's correct. Parking,
if you don't have a beach parking sticker, is fee based, even if you're a
resident. If you don't have a beach parking sticker you pay to park.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So when we see the statistics,
the comparisons you make, how many of those -- is it noted in there. I
didn't remember it being noted, whether they're fee based or not.
MS. RAMSEY: Well, fee based doesn't necessarily take it out of
the public side of it. Remember that the Board of County
Commissioners wants us to have fee based to help offset the costs
associated with the operating expenses. And the goal that we've been
given is a 30 percent return in fees against our operation expense, and
we're running right at 29 percent, I think, this year right now.
So we have a goal of fees associated with our facilities. A lot of
it has to do with leagues, mostly, though.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So it's run like a business then.
In other words, our parks, the people pay to use them. You're
generating a profit, essentially.
MS. RAMSEY: Never a profit. We have a 70 percent subsidy.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. Your 30 percent isn't a
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October 15, 2007
30 percent profit, it's 30 percent of the operation.
MS. RAMSEY: No, no, no. Thirty percent ofthe operation.
And again, those are based on program fees. If you want a specific
program, like you want to come to a basketball league, there's a
specific small fee associated with that, $30 a kid or something like that
to help offset the cost of trophies and T-shirts and all of that.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So nowhere would the park be
unaccessible to low income families?
MS. RAMSEY: No. If you're going to come in and utilize
thefacility?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right.
MS. RAMSEY: We have a sliding fee as well if you have -- for
example, in Immokalee, if a child can't afford a $30 fee, we have a
sliding fee. Matter of fact, I would say 90 percent of our after-school
program is on the sliding fee in Immokalee, which gives them about a
50 percent reduction in cost.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. All right, thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, that's page 70. How about Page
71, 72 and seventy -- oh, Janet, I'm sorry.
MS. VASEY: I'm sorry. I've got a couple on 70. I think this
was an excellent first start on putting these guidelines together.
I had a question on where you're spending some of your money.
The fourth -- fifth column over is the current surplus or deficit. And,
for example, in water access, you have 36 surplus right now. And
then you're going to be putting some more in over the five-year period
and end with a 43 water access excess.
And with the indoor recreational facilities, you've got at surplus
right now, and you're going to have a much, much larger surplus in
square footage at the end of2012.
And it sort of begs the question of are you putting the money in
areas where you already have sufficient facilities?
MS. TOWNSEND: I'm so glad you asked. No. When I was
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October 15,2007
doing an introduction, I did mention that this is a chart that I think we
can have some discussions about. And I also mentioned that what I
plugged into that -- the five-year program was exactly what I saw on
the conceptual site plans for the various parks that are coming on line
within the five-year window. There probably is some room to relook
at what those conceptual site plans include, based on what this chart
reveals.
In the case of water access, however, that is a case where we
know that the window is closing. We talked about it a little earlier
with Bayview. Maybe not within five years, maybe within 10 years.
Certainly we know that that land is not getting any cheaper. And so in
that instance, I think it's smart to ramp up beach and boat access now,
because the redevelopment projects are more difficult to achieve and
the land is going away.
Also wanted to note that surplus that we see, that does include
those 30, 41 City of Naples beach accesses at the street ends. So I just
wanted to make sure that we noted that part of that inventory includes
those City of Naples beach accesses.
MS. VASEY: What about the indoor recreation facilities?
MS. TOWNSEND: That's something that we can revisit. And
I'd have to look carefully at -- if you look on Page 73, we can examine
a little bit more. The second to the last column will show the specific
projects that are bringing recreation facilities on line. And there may
be some economies that we can achieve in some of those individual
parks to look at the community centers that we have proposed there
and decide whether that's the appropriate amount of square footage
there or not.
MS. VASEY: It sort of makes me wonder, if we like what we're
providing, maybe the LOS guideline is a little low or something. Or,
you know, on the water access I can agree, but it might be better to get
it now rather than later.
But is the level of standard guideline good or not? Maybe it
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October 15,2007
needs to be higher.
MS. RAMSEY: It's a little bit complicated. When you look at
the water access, for instance, I believe that Amanda looked at it at
build-out and said, if we kept this level of service and at build-out of a
million, would we be able to get there. And yes, we may have a little
bit of a surplus today, but it's going to be harder for us to gain. So she
picked a level of service that she thought would get us through to
build-out. And so that's why that one maybe seems maybe a little bit
high.
If you look at the facilities one, the indoor facilities, it's about a
two percent increase right now. That's less than a half a building that
we have in surplus at the end of five years.
So I would have to also then look at how many additional park
sites with indoor facilities do we have planned between now and
build-out. And we might find that this takes care of most of that
build-out. So maybe that level of service might be low. I mean, we
might need to do something different there. So we tried to look at it to
build-out to see if our level of service was obtainable. And there
might be some surplus now, but as we move forward it might change.
I don't know if that helps you or --
MS. VASEY: Yeah, that's reasonable. And you're right, as a
percentage, the indoor recreation facility square footage is probably
not that big a deal. It just looked like a big number. Sorry.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on Page 70?
I have one. School facilities, they have ballparks and they have
gymnasiums, where are those located in here?
MS. TOWNSEND: Ifwe have an interlocal agreement with a
school, then we will take those athletic fields into inventory. We do
not take into inventory for example the baseball fields, the football
fields that the high schools use, because generally they take a lot of
ownership in those facilities and they generally are not available to the
general public for use. The same goes with the schools gymnasiums.
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are you familiar with the school
concurrency documents that are coming forward for approval on
Thursday of this week, at least to the planning commission, that they
have a new interlocal agreement and they have GMP amendments and
things -- does your department review those?
MS. TOWNSEND: We have.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And have you offered language in there
that would provide access for parks to count the facilities within the
school system, or have you made that argument with the school staff?
MS. TOWNSEND: We've looked at those documents. As far as
I know, we were comfortable with the way joint use of facilities was
proposed in those documents.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Also, next year then in the AUIR we
can include their facilities?
MS. TOWNSEND: No, sir. Not -- particularly not those high
school facilities, because they are not accessible to the general public
for general recreation use.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schmitt?
MR. SCHMITT: Mark, there's significant restrictions based on
the Jessica Lunsford Act that prohibits those facilities from being open
to the general public.
Now, maybe there are non-school hours, but the school is--
under state statute has very restrictive standards in regards to
accessibility of those facilities.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it's something maybe we could
explore on Thursday --
MR. SCHMITT: Well, certainly you can bring it up on
Thursday, absolutely.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any other questions on
Page 70?
Georgia?
MS. HILLER: Following up on the question with respect to the
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schools, similar to my earlier question about, you know, community
facilities that are available, are you considering what the schools have
to offer when you're calculating your level of service standards in
your presentation today?
MS. TOWNSEND: Yes, we considered those that we operate
jointly with the school. But here again, if the general public is not
accessing those facilities, then they're not taken into consideration.
MS. HILLER: Except that you've got a portion of the general
public which is in that school using that school facility, so in effect
you're double counting if you're calculating, you know, a need for a
facility for a population that is already being serviced by a different
venue.
MS. TOWNSEND: I think that those numbers are going to turn
out to be very, very negligible. We have five, six area high schools, I
believe. It's just a very small segment of the population that's
accessing those facilities and using those facilities.
Another example would be when we did our inventory of
recreation facilities that are available privately, and I said that the
number of athletic facilities that are available privately are very
negligible, we did come up with one or two soccer or softball fields
available privately, for example, at a private school and whatnot. But
the numbers were just negligible. They didn't affect the overall
community need.
MS. HILLER: But we are not double counting community
facilities like, you know, DiVosta's tennis courts and pool and
whatnot. We're definitely considering that and that's being --
MS. TOWNSEND: And we're adjusting our level of service
guidelines on Page 70 in accordance with that; that's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now we're on to 71, 72 and 73, they're a
set of tables. They're written in very, very small type. So if you have
questions, I'm going to ask how your eyesight must be to have read
those, so -- tables after that are on Page 74 and 75; operational data.
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October 15,2007
And 76 and 77. Any questions?
Janet?
MS. VASEY: Yes, I have a question on 76, the second
horizontal chart, Beach Users FY '06. It's beach, Beach Users FY '06.
The numbers just really increased a whole lot from '05, and it seems to
be in February, March and April. And I was kind of curious whether
that was really an increase in use or whether somehow something got
double counted or --
MS. TOWNSEND: We noticed that as well. There seems to be
a few anomalies in that data there. And that's the data as reported.
However, it does appear that there are a couple of errors in there.
MS. VASEY: I would also suggest that maybe something
happened with the boat launch users, a couple of lines down, in
February. It just went up from like 17,000 last year in February to
66,000. I thought, wow.
MS. TOWNSEND: Again, another anomaly in the data, I'm
certain.
MS. VASEY: Also the park visitors '07 March. That's your last
horizontal line there. And it was -- it jumped up to 200,000, although
you've added some new softball, soccer and recreation areas. So
maybe not. But it just looked like it was a little high to me.
MS. TOWNSEND: North Collier came on line there too. And if
I'm not mistaken, you might see Country Jam reflected in that, that's a
March event. So you may have some very large numbers associated
with a special event there.
MS. VASEY: Just some anomalies. Basically, I thought it was
very good information, though. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 78?
Mr. Kolflat.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Mark, following up on your
comment about the small type, can we make a suggestion that in the
future reports they make it a larger type, because some of this is
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October 15, 2007
completely illegible.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We can make the suggestion, but
whether or not happens, that's -- by next year it might be forgotten but
we certainly can ask. I certainly agree with you, that was a little hard
to read that one chart.
So maybe in the future, Randy, if staff set a standard for a certain
size type, maybe we could make sure all documents are be consistent
with that.
Page 79 is a map of the state, and the remainder of this element
all of way to 89 are comparables from other parts of the other counties
in the State of Florida. And that would take us to the end of the
regional section and the overall section for parks and rec.
Are there any remaining questions from anyone?
Are there any questions from anybody in the public that would
like to have anything to say at this point?
Silence.
Okay, as far as the planning commission goes, we are needing to
move this in some direction at this meeting. And I'm sure that the
productivity committee is going to have their own discussion, and
again their recommendation after they bring back to their group
meeting.
Mr. Kolflat?
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Mark, I would like to ask you to
articulate a little more on your comments that you made earlier in the
discussion relative to standards and the possibilities that exist for
properly correcting those.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, throughout the discussion today
we got a lot of information on impact fees and level of service. The
impact fees for the parks on a per unit basis in Collier County is
estimated at about 3,000 a unit. That's an important Category A
element. And it was put in Category A, I understand, by the state
because they wanted to make sure that we paid a lot of attention to
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parks and we didn't move the money to other areas.
But there are other areas in Category B that we know are
deficient. I shouldn't say we know, we've been reported in this
document as being deficient. One of those is jails and the other is
EMS.
For those two categories to see more money, it's either got to
come out of ad valorem taxes or cut somewhere else, or what I'm
thinking of is a reduction in the level of service with a corresponding
request to reduce impact fees in parks so that some of that offset can
be then looked at as a new study in jails and EMS with possible
increases in those so that the overall impact fees in Collier County
don't go any higher.
It's not saying we need to give back impact fees. I'm saying we
need to maybe reallocate priorities, especially when parks is $3,000 a
unit, jails are only 240 a unit, and EMS is 130. There isn't a balance
there from basically what I think are priorities. Jail and EMS are
equally as important in my book to parks and people in being able to
enjoy a park.
So my thought and my process in this meeting today was to point
out those issues and suggest to the planning commission members at
least that we should look at a recommendation of reducing the level of
service in parks with the intention of reducing the impact fees with the
idea that that would be used to help alleviate the ad valorem impacts
for jails and EMS.
And that needs to be rolled together into one idea so that it's not
being used to reduce impact fees and therefore the money is not being
utilized. I'm certainly saying not reduce the overall impact fee
package, but maybe find a way to reallocate it.
And that may mean new impact fee studies for EMS and new
impact fee studies for jails. If so, fine, at least the business community
isn't being hit with greater impact fees, the bottom line still remains
the same and the ad valorem tax base for the citizens may not suffer as
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October 15,2007
much to help out jails and EMS.
That's kind of where I was going with the standards today. And I
see Ms. Caron's got some comments to that.
Yes, Mr. Kolflat?
COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: I'd like to make a motion to that
effect.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's see what Ms. Caron has to say first
and anybody else that might want to weigh in on that subject,
including the productivity committee.
Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I think that I certainly agree
with that premise. My suggestion here would be that we put off
voting on parks until after we have gone through jails and EMS. That
way we'll be better able to know exactly how much we might want to
recommend. And that if we put off making that determination until
after we've gone through those categories, then we'll have a better idea
of just what we should do.
I certainly agree with the premise.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't mind putting it off, I just don't
know if we'll ever be able to determine how much without the studies
being done. But if that helps us get to the goal, that works fine for me.
COMMISSIONER CARON: But I think our recommendation
will be clearer once we've gone through those two categories.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, then the other second point I was
going to make too is that I think it surely challenges the validity of the
recreational space in Collier County available to the public when two
of the, what I consider more the important facilities aren't counted.
And Ms. Caron pointed this out.
Delnor- Wiggins state park and Collier Seminole. I mean,
Delnor- Wiggins is packed. And not counting that, regardless of the
reasoning, to me should not really sustaining a credibility with the
public as to what's available out there.
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October 15,2007
Collier Seminole I know I go to every single week. And that is a
fabulous park. It's not as crowded as Delnor- Wiggins but it is a
valuable asset to this county and I don't think it's going to be closed
down just because we don't manage it. It doesn't mean it isn't
something we ought to somehow factor into our levels of service
standards in regards to the AUIR.
But those are some of the items that I would think we ought to
make in our recommendation, Mr. Kolflat. And maybe Ms. Caron's
right, we ought to wait until after tomorrow when we come back, and
make this one. As we round out tomorrow we'll learn more about jails
and EMS.
What's your thoughts?
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: We did have some testimony to
the fact that those could not be interrelated, the impact fees from one
to the impact fees or something else.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I wasn't thinking of -- they wouldn't be
interrelated. I agree with you. That's not -- wasn't the intent.
We have a basket full of money. The basket can only get so full,
and it's so full from contributions from impact fees by the business
community. What I'm saying is don't increase any more going into
that basket. Leave the impact fee ceiling what it is, lower it in this
one, so that through studies we can raise it in the other, and the
business community isn't suffering anymore because of any increases
in impact fees. In actuality, the impact fee level is staying the same.
That's what my intention was.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: But what do we gain by waiting
until we very review these others?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron has a good point. We might
learn through the jail exercise and through the EMS exercise that there
may be other sources of income that are there that -- where impact
fees may not be helpful or something like that. I don't think it would
hurt to wait till tomorrow, we're not far from it.
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October 15, 2007
So -- I know Brad had a comment as well. Brad.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The other thing I'd like to do is
make a recommendation that we remove the unit cost out of this --
every time we do that. Every year we spend at least two hours and
have a fruitless conversation. It's almost the same conversation. Let's
just play back the tape of this year if we keep it in there for next year.
But there's no -- that number doesn't really mean anything. The
more you look at it, the less it means. So I think we should stay with
level of service and remove the unit cost in parks and rec.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's also decide today -- first of all, if
you take out the unit costs, what's your other multiplier? You have to
have --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The level of service is based on
some fee per --
MR. BOSI: Population times level of service. Doesn't enter into
the equation. The only thing I would say is because it's the basis for
your CIE and your CIE has to be found financially feasible. You have
to have some unit cost to be able to show that you're able to obtain the
necessary funding to provide for the acquisitions that --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The CIE can't use something other than
unit costs? You mean like in transportation, are they using unit costs?
Are all categories unit costs in the CIE?
MR. BOSI: There has to be some factor for a cost of whether it
be a road mile or whether it be a library, or whether it be an acre of
land. There has to be a cost associated with whatever it is you're
showing on the CIE.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Then let's change it to be a list
and an appraised cost. They had an appraisal last year for the impact
fee, let's just start with that. We could add inflation onto that.
But this going round and round on, is it 200,000, I can buy a
piece of land for 400 thou, I can buy a piece of land for 35, I mean,
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October 15,2007
we do that every year, and it doesn't come to any conclusion.
So either we have a really true appraisal, which is what you
asked for, or we dump it entirely, if we can. But if we can't, then I
would change that to be an appraised -- a list of appraised values.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does the productivity committee have
any comments they want to weigh in on to help us?
Yes, sir.
MR. HARRISON: I think we have a very murky situation here
when we've omitted the two major parks and yet we've included other
things like interlocal agreements on school grounds. We ignored the
Collier Conservation component of this.
And yet the operational data on 74 through 77 does provide a
basis to compute some usage numbers the way Mrs. Hiller was asking.
And if we have the liberty of using a different formula for
computing level of service, as I understand we do under the law, why
don't we do some divisions here to see how much we're actually using
this stuff, instead of being beholden to this legacy cost that's driving
us to keep this number high.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I would agree with you.
Any other comments?
From the planning commission, since we have to vote -- Ms.
Hiller, go ahead.
MS. HILLER: The only comment that I would like to add is that
we not lose sight of the needs of Golden Gate Estates. And however
these impact fees are readjusted, that the deficiency that currently
exists in Golden Gate Estates remains a priority for the parks
department.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, I've been out there 30 years and
I've never seen a deficiency in parks.
MS. HILLER: No?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No.
MS. HILLER: The statistics look like they are--
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October 15,2007
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, but see, when you have every
home on nearly five acres of land it does make it a different ball
game, so -- I have a ballfield in my backyard, practically.
Okay.
MS. HILLER: Just reading the numbers.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: From the planning commission side of
it, I think there's been a good suggestion to delay the recommendation
on this one until after we get through a couple of the elements to
Category B. Does that sound okay with the seven planning
commissioners here?
Brad?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Question, Mark. What would
we do, would we change the level of service or would we recommend
the reduction in the impact fee?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think they'd go hand in hand. I think
you'd want to do them both together as a joint recommendation,
because if one didn't happen, you wouldn't need the other.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm not a big fan to logical
nexus, but are we going to somehow connect the EMS to the parks or
jails to parks? I'm sure we could get some psychiatrist to --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That wasn't the intent. I've said that
repeatedly, that was not the intent. Again--
MS. RAMSEY: Commissioner, just one clarification if! could.
Because I'm not sure if you're aware of this. You talk about the
business community. And maybe you mean the bigger of that. But
parks is only assessed on residential homes --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I realize that.
MS. RAMSEY: -- there's no commercial associated with parks.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Building residential homes is big
business.
MS. RAMSEY: I asked for clarification on that so that--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's the kind of what I was aiming for,
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October 15, 2007
so -- again, does anybody have any objection of holding on this until
after we get into some Category B elements?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then we'll do that, then, if that's okay.
Mr. Kolflat, we'll just hold off on our motion until after we get
through jails and EMS at least tomorrow.
That takes us to the end of Category A. Tomorrow morning at
8:30 we're scheduled to take Category B. So I guess ifthere's a
motion to continue this meeting, we can do so.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Moved.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So moved.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye.
COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye.
Motion carries. We're off and running til tomorrow morning at
8:30. Thank you.
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October 15,2007
*****
There being no further business for the good of the County,
the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:48 p.m.
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
MARK P. STRAIN, Chairman
These minutes approved by the Board on
as presented or as corrected
,
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