Loading...
CCPC Minutes 10/26/2007 S October 26, 2007 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida, October 26,2007 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County Planning Commission in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 8:30 a.m. in SPECIAL SESSION at 2800 Horseshoe Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CCPC CHAIRMAN: Mark P. Strain Tor Kolflat Brad Schiffer Donna Reed Caron Bob Murray (Absent at roll call) Robert Vigliotti PRODUCTIVITY COMMITTEE: Janet Vasey Steve Harris Georgia Hiller Joe Swaja ALSO PRESENT: Jeff Page, Emergency Medical Services Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, Assistant County Attorney Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Page 1 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: First of all, I would like to welcome everyone to the continued meeting for the AUIR 2007. This is the October 26th meeting. The meeting is a developmental services for those who are watching this show on television. And I also want to let the public know that what you are watching is a rerun. It is not live. We're not here when you see us here. We're here days prior. There seem to be a confusion on the other way -- the way these other things were run and people thought we were actually meeting those particular days and we weren't. It's a tape. So, with that in mind, if you all could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison by all.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. We'll start with roll call by Mr. Joe Swaja. MR. SW AJA: Swaja. That's okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Joe, I always have -- I always like to call you by your first name. MR. SW AJA: You can call me Joe. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. SW AJA: Joe Swaja, Productivity Committee. MS. HILLER: Georgia Hiller, Productivity Committee. MR. HARRIS: Steve Harris, Productivity Committee. MS. VASEY: Janet Vasey, Productivity Committee. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mark Strain, Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER CARON: Donna Caron, Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Bob Murray, Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Brad Schiffer, Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Tor Kolflat, Planning Page 2 October 26, 2007 Commission. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Since this is a joint meeting between the Productivity Committee and the Planning Commission, the Planning Commission does have to have a quorum. We do have that. In fact one member is on his way. Mr. Vigliotti is running late today. Today's meeting will be focusing on one item of the AUIR that we did not finish up, and it was the Emergency Medical Services section, and we had just received, fortunately, just a couple days ago the back-up information we needed to read for today's meeting, so none of us were bored maybe for the last night or two to have all this good reading in front of us. And with that, Mr. Page, I'll turn it over to you for presentation. CHIEF PAGE: Good morning. I'm going to have -- I'm sorry. I'm going to have my assistant actually pass out a few of these grafts, these charts. They're similar to what you have in your book. What you have your book is a current level of service at more than 15,000. What we're going to provide today is level of services based on a one to 16,400 population, a level of service of one to 16,800, and a level of one to 17,000 population. It just gives you a little bit more of a variety to look at as far as what your recommendation would be based on. Obviously, we've spent quite a bit of money and a lot of time in this master plan, so we're not here to -- to speak against it. These guys are the experts. They came in and spent quite a bit of time, not just with us but with the local fire districts, in obtaining all this information. So -- and I don't see Artie, but she'll be here in just a second. So, there we go. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Chief, the people that -- the experts that you hired, are they the ones that will be making most of your presentation? Page 3 October 26, 2007 CHIEF PAGE: They're not here today. They were in town for that one day. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. CHIEF PAGE: The next time that they come will be before the board. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I understand. Thank you. CHIEF PAGE: But I am here to answer any questions you have about the study. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before you -- we get into your -- the questions on the study, there is a lady here from the American Heart Association, Miss Duncan, who has got to leave shortly, but she asked if she could address the panel before she left since it pertains to Emergency Medical Services. And since we haven't started questioning you, it might be a good time to hear her input first and then we'll go from the questions of you right after that. CHIEF PAGE: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Miss Duncan, thank you. MS. DUNCAN: Good morning. My name is Debbie Duncan. I'm with the American Heart Association. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. The American Heart Association Commission is to save lives. And one of our strategies and ways that we do this is by increasing access to Automated External Defibrillators. And as to an organization, we are committed to increasing this access in Collier County. For each minute that passes from the time of a 911 call to defibrillation, there's a ten percent decrease in survival. So, really, we only have ten minutes to save someone's life. And right now the response time is at eight minutes and we want to reduce that to five. So, we as an organization are doing several things to place AEDs Page 4 October 26, 2007 in this county. Through philanthropist foundations and individual donors, we are raising money for the placement of AEDs. We know that police and sheriff vehicles a lot of times are the first to respond. Because they are roaming the community, they're in the neighborhoods and they're the first one to arrive on the scene. So, what we are hoping to do is place more Automatated External Defibrillators in the police and sheriff vehicles. We've actually partnered and had a chance to talk to Sheriff Parker -- not Parker, I'm sorry, Hunter about this partnership and really working to place this. This year at the Heart Ball on April 12th, we will doing a specific fund raising, asking the guests of the Heart Ball to raise money for the placement of these AEDs. So, we really appreciate your support and know that this is a great partnership and that we're really both after the same initiative, which is to save lives here in Collier County. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you very much, Miss Duncan. I think that your comment and recommendation may be something we ought to ask the chief if this -- they're considering any possibility of implementing further programming in AEDs in sheriffs and police vehicles. CHIEF PAGE: We continue to do that. The Sheriff also seeks grants to do that. We -- as we obtain donations for AEDs, we get them out to the most appropriate agency at that point. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you know how many are in the field right now in those kind of vehicles? CHIEF PAGE: In law enforcement? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. CHIEF PAGE: Probably a couple hundred. MS. HILLER: Chairman Strain may I -- THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am. Page 5 October 26, 2007 MS. HILLER: -- address this issue also? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. MS. HILLER: Jeff, I think what Debbie said is -- is very important, and I think what's clear is that the American Heart Association is committed to seeing a widespread deployment of publicly accessible defibrillators. Have you considered that in your study, and if so, where, and isn't it clearly a -- a priority for you to commit to a, you know, public accessibility defibrillation program in this county? CHIEF PAGE: Well, we have a number -- there are a number of country clubs, churches that had gone out on their own and purchased these. And we -- we do keep that inventory. We do keep the training up to date with that. I mean, they -- not everyone has registered an AED like you're supposed due to the -- the county ordinance that we have in place here. But as we find those, shopping malls, things of that -- a dentist's office, there's quite a few dentists that now have them. It's gotten quite large. So, certainly we support that. We support AEDs. I know a number of people that actually have them on their boats now, larger boats, so there are a lot more out there than we actually know of. But the way that they're identified through the computer aided dispatch system through the Sheriffs Office is once that location is known, that comes up on the console of that physical address to, you know, work with -- or talk to people through that process of locating the AED and actually implementing it, so __ MS. HILLER: But where in your master plan have you factored in your public access defibrillation deployment initiative? CHIEF PAGE: Well, that actually isn't part of the study. I mean, the primary purpose of this study was to address a level of service standard. Page 6 October 26, 2007 I -- I don't know how much time they -- in fact, I don't believe they spent any time with our AED coordinator going over there, so __ MS. HILLER: I'd like to make one comment. I -- I read an article that V olusia County has made a -- a commitment through a widespread public access defibrillation, it's hard to say it, program commitment. And they -- they have actually as a county targeted to placing and/or seeing AEDs placed for public accessibility to the tune of one AED -- AED per thousand population. CHIEF PAGE: So, it's probably -- MS. HILLER: Maybe it's something that you may want to take look at. CHIEF PAGE: Sure. MS. HILLER: And it's-- CHIEF PAGE: And what county was that? MS. HILLER: Volusia County. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any questions I guess from -- Chief, you were finished with your presentation then? CHIEF PAGE: Well, basically, I'd just like to sum it up. The -- the study is basically saying that they suggest that we have one growth unit for the next several years marking out. We certainly support that. It's how do we get to that number? If you remember in their executive summary, they had a sliding scale, which I thought was pretty unique, and I like that, but for planning purposes, I guess planning really needs a fixed number, and so the sliding scale doesn't really work. And, so, what we're faced with is how do we come up with a number? Do we do an average number for the next five years and then re-Iook at it then, or do we just -- what I was trying to get away from is what we had in the past, one to 15,000, and we had that for 20 years. I think it needs to be adjusted. And whether that means we have Page 7 October 26, 2007 another study in the next five years, do it again, that -- that's certainly an option and something that I would suggest to do. But what we need to do or, certainly, what you need to consider is coming up with -- with a number that planning could use so that all of us can use to -- to get where we need to be, so __ CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we've got the standard AUIR summary form that you provided with our package and I think the best way to proceed with that is to go through it as we have in the others. But before we do, a night or two ago, we all received, or I hope everybody received, the master plan study that we've been waiting for. And that's 181 -- 190 pages, something like that. I don't -- I'm not going to walk through every single page of that book, but I think what we ought to do is discuss the book first so that any conclusions or concerns coming out of that discussion then will lead into the AUIR document that we have in front of us. So, I know it was a short notice for everyone. I know we were pressed to get it read by today and I certainly doubt that the public had an opportunity to review it. But, be that as it may, we still have to go forward with something today. So, has anybody got any questions from the master plan study that was provided to us a day or two ago? Okay. Steve, go ahead. MR. HARRIS: I was interested in the interlocal agreements with the fire and emergency rescue units since they're all being alerted to the need through the 911 system, I presume? CHIEF PAGE: Yes. MR. HARRIS: Are their performance criteria similar to ours in terms of their ratios of people to units? CHIEF PAGE: I would only be guessing to answer that. I mean, for -- obviously their -- their primarily responsibility is fire. There's not as many fires here. Page 8 October 26, 2007 They do a lot of -- 80 percent of their calls are really medical rescue based. So, their criteria for -- under 1710 is that they're to have a first responder basic life support unit on scene within four minutes travel time. I can tell you that's not happening, certainly not countywide. MR. HARRIS: So, to the extent each of these units is relying on other nearby units, it's -- it's questionable whether they -- that is really an effective cross the board. CHIEF PAGE: Well, I will tell you that 1710 is being reviewed. I just got a -- an e-mail two days ago. 1710 is being reviewed to see if the response time standards that they -- they set up as far as dispatch, turnout, travel time is a reasonable standard. In other words, expecting someone to turn out within one minute of receiving the call at 2:00 o'clock in the morning may not -- they're finding that nobody's making that -- that -- that effort, so they're revising that, and as that is reviewed, they're going to take a look at it. But, ALS engines are a main component of everything we do. And it has been that way for the 27 years that I've been working, so I can't do it without them. And I'm just hoping that the tax report doesn't have a negative impact on all of us to where we have to start cutting back. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Chief, in the back of your master plan book, Page 181, there are two pages of summary recommendations. CHIEF PAGE: I gave up my book, so I'm __ MR. SW AJA: I gave my book to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So, have you read it, Joe? MR. SW AJA: I got to Page 3, that's all. CHIEF PAGE: Okay. I'm with you now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Those are -- there's 24 recommendations that start on Page 181. And I've read them. A lot of Page 9 October 26, 2007 them make sense to me. Other ones -- obviously, some of them I don't quite understand. I'd like to know from you though how many of these recommendations have you incorporated into the summary AUIR form that was presented in our book to us that we are supposed to be reviewing today? CHIEF PAGE: The original AUIR book that you have? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it's the only one we have. That's right. CHIEF PAGE: Right. The -- I don't know that they're actually in that book. There's a lot of things that we are currently doing. There are a lot of things that were brought up during the process of the study that help us refine the way that we do business. For example, there are some measures that we were not tracking previously that we are tracking now or in the process. They had -- for example, they had given the recommendation that we not send a -- an ambulance and a fire truck to the same call when maybe only one unit should respond. Prior to them completing this study, we've already worked with the fire districts to identify -- I believe there's 33 different call sets where either one ambulance will go by itself and the fire truck will remain in-house, or the fire truck will go first and call us if they need us. Or one goes hot and responding with lights and siren and one goes en route or cold without lights and sirens. So, that's all been implemented. It's been approved by the medical director. And we're in the process of working with the Sheriffs Office to identify that in the computer-aided dispatch so that when that call comes up, the dispatcher knows to send just an ambulance or just a fire truck to this medical call. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think --let me explain the Page I 0 October 26, 2007 purpose of my question because maybe then we can focus on whether or not or how it was used. Some of the recommendations obviously would require more funding. Some recommendations would reduce funding needs. Some recommendations rely on joint use of facilities, some recommendations, the one I particularly thought was good consider the use of response zones which have varying response time standards. Now, those are all recommendations that I think will affect the bottom line of your operation. Whether it be a positive or negative, I don't know by reading it. And I think what I'm trying to find out from you is if you were to consider these 24 recommendations, which I'm not saying you buy off on all of them, but if you were to consider all of those and you found ones that are viable and beneficial to your departments in any way whatsoever, are they and have they been -- I would imagine -- I think I know what the answer is, but I wanted to hear you say it, incorporated into this form that we are now here to discuss today for the AUIR that was distributed to us about maybe a month ago. CHIEF PAGE: Let me respond this way. We know from the previous meeting, where I came to you, I had the slide that showed where countywide we're make that response 88 percent of the time. However, when you look at the rural setting, we're only making a 72 percent. And if you were to reduce as a suggested -- one of the suggestions were, is to have an urban response and a rural response timeline. So, if we were to take the recommendation, let's say, okay, we acknowledge the fact that we cannot, because of the size of the county, maintain an eight-minute travel time, perhaps 12 minutes is more reasonable. If -- if we accept that or if you propose that, that's certainly something we meet right now. However, does it reduce the amount of uni ts? Page I I October 26, 2007 In other words, I think they're saying you need to take our advice on a number of these issues. This is what you're performing at currently and if that's acceptable to you to have that 12-minute response time -- I'm sorry -- you're basically there, so __ CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And I guess, again, let me try to backtrack. I didn't mean to focus you on -- focus -- focus -- have you focus on that response to that issue. What I'm trying to understand is you're looking for a deficit of $20 million based on the document we received a month ago in the AUIR that we basically have to vote on in regards to this meeting. The 20 million was based on certain data known at the time, certain conditions under which you operated. The master plan that you have been waiting for finally has come out and in it are 24 recommendations that will improve your operations in some manner. They mayor may cost more, they may save money, they may spend more money. What I'm trying to found is -- find out is have the 24 recommendations of those that you think are applicable maybe in reality to your department because you may not agree with all 24. Have any of those or all of those been incorporated into this AUIR form for budgeting purposes? CHIEF PAGE: No. The AUIR form based on the one to 15,000 was just what it is. It did not take into effect any of the study because that was decided sometime ago. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. And that's exactly what I thought you were going to say, but I wanted to hear that loud and clear, and the reason it was so important is last year we had a similar concern with your department in the sense you didn't have the study done, and it was a necessary -- absolutely necessary to get it done, and you have done that. The last year because it wasn't done, the -- I think the findings of the overall two boards was that you're at status quo, and I don't think Page 12 October 26, 2007 much changed from last year until now in regards to funding and operations. You just were allowed to move forward and keeping gomg. And I'm wondering how we could change that position this year by the fact that we have the study you were waiting for last year. We couldn't do anything last year because we didn't have the study. This year we bot the study basically two days ago. You haven't had time to implement it, which I don't expect you would have had. I'm not -- certainly not finding fault with that. But to now suggest that we need to change our methodology or to increase our taxes or impact fees or anything to the tune of $20 million without having the benefit of the study that we couldn't decide on that same decision last year makes we wonder what we can decide on this year in regards to funding. CHIEF PAGE: Well, 1-- if you're asking me personally here what my recommendation is, I think we need to establish a new level of service standard, not the one to 15,000 that we've had for 20 years. We need to look at the -- the options in order to meet what the study proposes. They're recommending one growth unit per year. I have none this year, but marching out one growth year, and how we get to that number or level of service standard is -- is what we need to do. I mean, like I said, I've provided a few options. Currently we know that we're operating at one to 16,240. Okay. That's where we are today. If it's the opinion of the committee to proceed at that level of service standard, that's one option. If it is to reduce based on what the survey is saying here -- I mean, there's -- there's other options here. They -- one of the proposals they made is, is that you not respond to alpha and beta calls for 20 minutes. I don't know that the public would really like that. I mean, you're talking about somebody is having a seizure. Page 13 October 26, 2007 If -- you might as well put on the side of the truck same day service at that point. I mean, it does happen. There are areas in the United States, Wyoming, where they do have extended response times, but __ CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I didn't expect when I said that that you'd accept all 24. They may not be applicable to Collier County. My only concern was that those that are, how much would they have changed your budget value if your position now is that you need -- that based on this master plan, without understanding or incorporating any of those recommendations that aren't already incorporated, you still think one unit is the minimum you need per year for the next five years, well, then, I'm wondering how that affects on the number on the AUIR sheet that we're here to consider today. Because you have a base inventory, which I'm not sure if the one is above the 26 base or the 33 base. And if it's one unit per year, you're looking at five units, so now where are we at in regards to the 20 million you believe that you would need to at that -- at the time you wrote this AUIR. CHIEF PAGE: Okay. Ifwe were to maintain, let's say, 16,400 to one population over the next five years through 2011,2012, I would need for additional units more than I have currently. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And how much ofa budget deficit would the four units be over the five-year period? Do we know? CHIEF PAGE: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's the new sheet you had -- you passed out to us? CHIEF PAGE: 10,207,378. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So, it cuts your deficit in half. CHIEF PAGE: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And doing that doesn't take in -- that just basically is a level of service change. It still doesn't take in the 24 Page 14 October 26, 2007 recommendations -- well, you don't know if it does. Some are already incorporated. CHIEF PAGE: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But there may be others that are beneficial. We just don't know about it at this time. CHIEF PAGE: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That's what I was trying to get to and I appreciate the response. Thank you. Mr. Harris and then Miss Vasey. MR. HARRIS: The chart on Page 155 shows the underlying projections of population, which are driving us, and if the current conditions continue, its down fold will have a compound growth rate of four percent per annum of the population for the next five years which would further impact the number of units needed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Miss Vasey? MS. VASEY: Yes. I would like to talk about some of the charts in the study if we could. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You might want to pull your mic a little closer. MS. VASEY: Okay. Also, I'd like to just mention that if you got the book two days ago, you did really well. I got it at 2: 15 yesterday. Okay. Page 144, please. These are the pages that look at the comparison of the fire and EMS and -- and -- and what -- how long it takes to transport -- get a transport unit there for each one of the areas, the general areas. It goes on for like four pages, I guess, five pages. CHIEF PAGE: Yeah, it looks at different zones. MS. VASEY: Right. Different zones. Okay. On Page 144, I just wanted to ask a couple of questions so that I understand these charts. This shows what happens for response times or who gets there first when -- when you have concurrent calls. And I can understand it. Page 15 October 26, 2007 That's a problem. The first one is not a problem. It's the second and the third that's all happening at the same time. When -- when you do have the fire coming first, you've got the EMS coming pretty close afterwards, and you show here the little X mark for the average wait time for the transport unit. And it looks like in almost all of these charts, it's -- it's a very short time, like three minutes, four minutes, six minutes for the __ for the transport. So, that's not causing the problem. Is that correct? CHIEF PAGE: It would depend on the location. You know, some of these zones, you know, it can be quite -- quite a bit of time. If you look at the next page when you start getting out to seven __ seven calls consecutively in East Naples, it's 15 minutes. You know, certainly the fire departments have more depth. Typically at an EMS station we have one unit wherever we're located. In some cases we're doubled up. We're still waiting for a new station to be built, but typically in the fire department, you may have two, three, four apparatus running out of there so, concurrently, they can back us up that much faster. So, they do help tremendously. But it, again, depends on the district. Some of these districts, they're only operating one engine out of the same station we are, so at the point we have two concurrent calls, they're both tied up. Even if one breaks away from the same call, they're tied up in that district, and at that point you start looking at resources -- I mean, we have -- it's not -- we actually move units as units get tied up predictably in the cap. It will punch up what units needs to be moved up into another zone because too many units are tied up at that point. But, you need to have that, and the trouble you run into is when you get out to Everglades City, they get a call, there's one fire truck Page 16 October 26, 2007 there to back them up and then it's not ALS by the way. But at the point that unit gets a call, it's -- it's a good 40 minutes before I can get another unit into that zone, so __ MS. VASEY: I guess what -- what I'm kind of wondering is, it doesn't appear that the transport issue is a major constraint. And I know at -- at seven, you've got a l5-minute wait. But at six, you're under six minutes. And how many times do you have seven concurrent calls? You know, probably occasionally, but not a lot. Is it important that we -- I mean, is that a problem that we can't count all the AMLS units because, as -- as units, because they __ they don't have the ability to transport? CHIEF PAGE: No. I don't -- I don't think that's what we're based -- I mean, six minutes of delay for a transport to get there. And the -- and an instance of a cardiac arrest, a stroke, major trauma, yes, it's important that you get there as soon as possible, certainly. But that's not the basis that they're using, in other words, to define, well, another unit's needed. They go into great detail here about the concurrent calls and the impact that that has but, you know, as you're moving up additional units into an area like Immokalee, sometimes I can have four and five units tied up in Immokalee within the same time period because the calls drop that quick. Well, all ofthose units are coming out of North Naples. So, you know, I'm pulling units from the south up into the north area to try to buffer that out. There are occasions prior to us having a -- before breaking this, that we had an FY06. There were occasions where I had only one unit available in the county, and that was centrally located at that point, because you don't know where it's going to go. Page I 7 October 26, 2007 MS. VASEY: Okay. One of the things that has always concerned me is the fact that, you know, there are some -- some very good ALS units out there that have EMS personnel on them under the -- the transfer program, and -- and they're not being counted as a unit. And when -- when -- when I looked some of the data that you provided in the AUIR, there were five -- well, maybe as many as seven or eight zones that had significant improvement when you added in the ALS for response times, yet you don't count them in the number of units that you have. And it seems like if you -- if you have some major improvement due to units, then those units are not just improving your -- your response times from -- from 88 percent of the time you're getting there in eight minutes to 94 percent of the time, which I -- I wouldn't necessarily try to count that because it's -- it's just increasing the -_ the performance over your goal. But a lot of them had major improvement still under the goal. And it seems like those units should be counted in some way as against your required number of units because they're really having major contributions to the response times. CHIEF PAGE: And-- MS. VASEY: Why -- why isn't that coming out? CHIEF PAGE: Well, when the consultants were here, they do count -- they're using their response times __ MS. VASEY: Right. CHIEF PAGE: -- to say you only need one unit per year. If we didn't use theirs, it would be higher. So, although I can't count them as part of my inventory, I don't know them, they're of no value asset to me. They are counted in the sense that they help us keep the number of units, which goes back to why we even started the ALS Engine Program. We recognize that what we needed were not more transport units, we need more advance life support response units to tackle the Page 18 October 26, 2007 problem. And then -- and that's where it's been for -- since '99? We've been working on this with different -- at different levels. But, you know, when I went to the chiefs, I said, look, you've got paramedics, I've got firefighters, I need more life advance response units to downgrade the number of transport units. Back -- back in the eighties when this was first started, they did not AEDs. They did not -- well, there weren't any AEDs. But they didn't have defibrillators, so there was -- there is no way to really to count any improvement with them, say in a cardiac arrest. But now everyone has an AED. All the fire department do, all of our units do. And we recognize that and this study does recognize their -- their enhancement of our service, if you will. The fact that they get our response times to where we need to be is why we only need one unit as opposed to one to 15,000. That one to 15,000 was based just on EMS and not taking into account ALS Engines. MS. VASEY: Do think maybe that's why you're going from one to 15,000 now, the one that's 16 four or whatever we end up with? CHIEF PAGE: Well, whatever you decide. Yes. I -- I -- and I can tell you that my own advisory board, there were those that felt that we should not reduce the level, or the level of service standard because, you know, anything can happen; I mean, tax reform, things of that nature. If they should drop out of -- of the programs and we're going to be behind the curve and it's not easy to -- to make up that difference. So, we're -- we're taking a little bit of a chance here, but I think we need to count them. All of my staff does. And that's what the consultants said, too. They're an enhancement, let's factor in the response times and see where you are. That's what the study did. MS. VASEY: Well, as new -- as new ALS units come out __ I Page 19 October 26, 2007 understand Corkscrew and Golden Gate may be looking at it, too __ how will you -- will those units then change where you would need to place your units, your new units, or -- or even if you need them as quickly as -- as it might look right now? I guess it's -- this is going to have to be a very dynamic system as you -- as changes occur and more services provided by other areas? CHIEF PAGE: Absolutely, it would. And I mean that's the beauty of the AUIR. We come back each year and I think, you know, we -- we look over the same data to see where the performance is. And if there isn't a need for a unit, I'm not going to ask for it. I mean, you're going to be able to see the same thing I'm looking at, so -- now, that was -- that was where we were last year when we said, look, I think we're -- we're where we need to be right now. We don't need any additional units. And that's why in the AUIR book that you have we weren't requesting any, because I felt that at the level of service standard right now, 16,240, let's say, I think that's a good number. I understand that we're not meeting our -- our response or travel time in the rural area. You know, yes, it is taking us 12 minutes. It's not eight minutes. But, you know, in a county this large, it makes a big difference, and I don't know that you can ever meet that. There are some -- we are working with the Department of Transportation and looking at them providing maybe some -- a station or property out on 1-75. That would be a big help. You just -- you just have to take it, you know, and take a look at it countywide. I think for us to try and to provide the same level of service in the rural area, I don't think it's possible. It cost too much money to do it. I think that's what we're recommending here. We -- we think that a 12-minute rural response time is good, you know, for this county because it's just too vast. Page 20 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Caron. COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah. The whole issue here of concurrent calls is kind of an interesting one because when you did look at -- at that East Naples area, and you saw that call that took 15 minutes, in point of fact, if you read the text here, it says that only happened one time. I don't know because we haven't had this book long enough to really analyze. Is there in here the actual call numbers, the raw data for those call numbers, or is there just -- CHIEF PAGE: I wasn't provided -- I mean, they took this information right off the Sheriffs Office computers, so I never saw the detail of what they're working with. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. CHIEF PAGE: I mean, I would love to see it myself but __ COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, because there's got to be some -- some sort of a -- at some point it's really a factor. It's not a factor obviously here at seven concurrent calls, because that's really not happening enough to factor into anything. But maybe it is happening at three concurrent calls, and that's really where the focus needs to be as far as figuring things out. CHIEF P AGE: Well, I would just say, you know, I had -- I got this study maybe 12 hours before we -- we had it printed overnight. We spent over $1,000 to provide you these copies, so I mean, I need to go into this. We're going to take a look at that, too, because we recognize, getting back to the rural calls, okay, there's 700 calls there, so it's really significant. Maybe not. But, there's a lot that we're going to take them to study and try to duplicate and see how they came up with these numbers and __ COMMISSIONER CARON: Good. I just had one other thing. Page 2 I October 26, 2007 In the -- in the master plan under recommendations, one of the things was to utilize facilities offered by Ave Maria. Is that happening already or is that about to happen? When will that happen? CHIEF PAGE: They would like us there now. I don't have a growth unit to put there. Now, some of the options that we provided to the board is the first goal was to try and see if we could get an ALS engine or an agreement with the Immokalee fire to where they would provide a firefighter, we would provide a firefighter-paramedic and maybe put them on a rescue truck and do it on the cheap side. Their -- their funding got cut also, so the three additional personnel that he had for that location were not approved. I have no additional resources, so the other option is, is to take one of the two units in Immokalee and station it there, but understanding that I'm going to be doing a lot of travel time back and forth between the two. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: A couple ofthings, Jeff. In the AUIR, we have a unit cost of over $3 million, three and a half million dollars. In the study they came up with a number of651,000. What am I missing there? CHIEF PAGE: Where? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: On the last page ofthe book, it -- and the pages prior to that, it breaks down what it costs for a new unit. COMMISSIONER CARON: What page, Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The last page of the book. CHIEF PAGE: Okay. That's -- that's just the cost to transport the ambulance and the personnel with that. It has nothing to do with the station. Page 22 October 26, 2007 Like Ave Maria, that would be the cost of Ave Maria because they're providing their land, the station, the facilities, all of that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So -- okay. So, aren't the stations kind of paid for out of impact fees and stuff? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it's still costs, and impact fees are factored into your revenues. So, you still have to show the station's true -- the units' true cost as an expense. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So, the -- the station itself would essentially be almost the $3 million part of that, and the unit itself isn't all that much. But, I guess -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The impact fee study for EMS broke that number down pretty finitely, if I remember correctly from last year. I don't know if anybody has that, but that was one source of that breakdown. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, if you look at the revenue, the ratio total out the same thing. And, Jeff, you don't have to look that up. CHIEF PAGE: Yeah. In -- in your book, there's a station cost breakdown of what the land is expected to be. Now, we've been very fortunate with these last four units. Two of the -- well, one -- one, there was no land costs associated at all. It's -- it's property the county had. Another one we were able to purchase for 250,000 as opposed to, I think, the nine hundred or so thousand for the land, so when we're able to make savings, we utilized that, so __ COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The other thing the study does and is interesting is they came up with a new methodology to discuss the need. It's using an hourly base thing. It's summarized on 178 in the chart. CHIEF PAGE: The unit hour utilization? Page 23 October 26, 2007 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Correct. CHIEF PAGE: Yeah, that's -- that's something we definitely __ we're -- we're taking a hard look at that. Let me just explain this. It's usually -- basically they take the number -- the most simplest way to explain that is they'll take the number of hours that a unit is available, and then the time spent on a transport for that particular unit, and that varies from different zones. I mean, in Everglades City, you may not have a call for three days, so that's going to, you know, mess it up. But unit hour utilization, one of the things they're were not able to do in the study is actually when we were talking about units backing up into other zones, they weren't able to calculate that because that doesn't show in the cap. So, all they were able to do is really focus on transport zoning under that unit hour utilization, so __ COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But I think, you know, one of the things we do is recommend the change and methodology. Is that something you're recommending, that we go more towards that? I think the Figure 111 on Page 178 kind of is more realistic is terms of maybe what your needs are than the charts you handed out this morning, which are based purely on population. I mean, the concept of a methodology that takes in the fact of the ages of a population -- CHIEF PAGE: Oh-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- special distances and everything seem to make a lot more sense to me than __ CHIEF PAGE: And that's why we're very fortunate to have them do that study for us. But -- but part of that is why -- you know, that's why they have the sliding scale because they went into that population demographics. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. Page 24 October 26, 2007 CHIEF PAGE: But my understanding from planning is it's not something we can do as far as sliding scales. But Mike can speak to that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi with Comprehensive Planning. For the purpose of the AUIR, you have a media set standard. And -- and for the purposes of our collection of impact fees, it has to be tied to population. You can utilize that -- that that standard as the underlying factors that -- that dictate how your operations and __ and where placement of stations are utilized, but then you have to tie that back. You have to tie that back to an actual population. I mean, they actually do that within the -- within that chart. If you look at resulting population per unit, that is -- that is their -- the tie back that -- that the consultants realize that we needed that tie back to a -- to a population number for the purposes of impact fee. In the -- within -- within the recommendations, Page 177, the second paragraph, and it talks about the growth unit trigger. The growth unit trigger is the -- the green column in that summary part. But then it says -- and it talks about, it's important that the growth unit value in the table is not inadvertently misused. The growth unit trigger cannot be used as a divisor of the total population to determine the minimum unit -- and that goes into all the factors that -- that goes into how they -- they -- they determine what that they've triggered. They say, this value should only be used as a measure of population increase since its last additional unit of growth -- of a growth unit. The resulting population per unit column is included as a reference for those interested in a ratio of population per unit. So, that was where they -- they took their methodology that you had described with Jeff and then tied it back within that column for the Page 25 October 26, 2007 resulting population per unit. And that -- that -- that gives us that tie in to our collection of impact fees to make sure that we are -- that that -- that there's a correlation and a nexus between the two. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But, Mike, doesn't the -- the method they came up with to me is much more realistic and smarter. And essentially, according to the description, we took the City of Naples at the beginning of this process and figured that out to be, I think, so we're running around with an old denominator __ MR. BOSI: Well, that's that old standard and I think that's what we're doing here today. We're trying to see, is that old standard still a relevant standard today? And as -- as you described, based upon the way -- the methodology they utilized, they did not come up with the one to 15,000 population per unit calculation. They came up with the number that -- that differs from that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But -- but the point you made is that it has to be a rigid population number. There is no other way we can use a level of service? MR. BOSI: For the purpose oflevel-- of -- you can utilize response times as long as the -- the data can be correlated __ can be correlated, but even with response times it has to be correlated back to a population figure, because we collect impact fees. And the collection of impact fees has to be tied to a population figure that is translatable that can justify the fee that we're charging for every new resident that comes into Collier County. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. All right. MR. BOSI: And that -- and that's really the complication by itself without the impact fees or without the need to tie it to that population, we -- we can say, well, let's just utilize the response times as our guiding factor. But then that doesn't tell -- that doesn't tell the user who is being Page 26 - '--~,~-<~-_.".. October 26, 2007 charged that new impact fee that we are indeed providing at the same level -- the same level that we're being charge -- that they're being charged against. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And I think the concern I have is, and I guess we have to do that. But, for example, I think building something out in the rural area might be more expensive for EMS than building something in the urban area. And I think the way they did their methodology we'd finally have a pool to calculate the impact of something not purely based by a countywide denominator, but enough said. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Steve? MR. HARRIS: Chief, the chart on 171 is quite interesting from the standpoint that it points to what may be the need for the independent fire and rescue districts to, you know, step up and make some additions in areas that within their -- their geographic service area. Do you have a mechanism for coordinating with them on what their plans are for padding ALS units that contribute to meeting this demand? CHIEF PAGE: Well, that's a tough one. I -- I certainly tried to work with them. They're all aware of the ALS Engine Program. And we -- we do try and coordinate that, but when you -- you look at some of these areas, I mean, Immokalee, for instance, they don't have any more stations than we do. I mean, it's just -- so, I don't know to what benefit -- Everglades City would be a good example. If that wasn't was an ALS engine maybe I would not need to __ that would help with response times in that area for the concurrent calls because, obviously, they get on scene and they can start that protocol before I get there, so that's good for the patient. And maybe -- I'll give you an example with Marco. I have a unit Page 27 October 26, 2007 on Isles of Capri that typically before we had ALS engines, and we were able to work this out with the Marco fire chief, that unit would move back into Marco's zone, knowing that Marco has more calls than Isles of Capri. For concurrent calls, we would move that unit down. We don't do that anymore. I mean, right now if Marco gets the first call and my unit is tied up, I have two more ALS engines that are there to take those concurrent calls in that zone. So, basically, I'm keeping my unit where it needs to be, and I'm not shifting units down from East Naples to backfill Marco, because I have ALS engines there. That's the way it should work. But, you know, every district's a little different. You just -- you have to work with them the best you can and hope that it has a good outcome. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I think the -- we've talked about the master plan booklet as a whole. Why don't we work our way through the pages of the AUIR so we can look forward to what we've gotten, I mean, out of this meeting today. The first page of the AUIR addresses EMS. It's on Page 150. It's the AUIR summary form that we start off with in each category. Are there any questions on Page 150 from members of either panel? Miss Vasey? MS. VASEY: Yes. I guess you're going to have to do a new page because this isn't really representative anymore. Are you going to have that for the -- for the AUIR with the board on the 5th of November? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, I -- I'm going to let Mike speak after I make this comment. But my goal was I think we need to -- you know, we're not asking for anything this year, so it's a moot point. Page 28 October 26, 2007 But I think that, certainly, this page needs to be revised to reflect a new level of service standard, whether you make that recommendation to the board of what that should be or what the determines that new level of service standard should be. Then this all changes at that point. So, this -- this page is, in my opinion, out of date. But go ahead, Mike. MR. BOSI: And for the purposes of your planning, it's not out of date since they're proposing no new growth units. For the 2007 AUIR what's going to go before the Board of County Commissioners, because we don't have a new level of service, but there are going to be -- hopefully, there will be recommendations for what the appropriate level of service would be for each of these advisory boards. But until the board acts upon it -- until the boards acts upon it, there -- there is not a revised level of service. And the intention of EMS is -- and it's been stated has been -- we are proposing no new growth units for -- for '07. We are going to take whatever the recommended level of service based upon what the board decides as the appropriate level of service, and that will be included within the planning purposes and the planning process from -- from the '08 forward. Now, what we will do and what we intend to do is to leave this __ leave this as it is, but whatever the recommendation is from the planning commission, whatever the recommendation is from -- from the productivity committee, we will provide a sheet that has that level of service, and what that level of service would -- would result in the summary form within the -- the -- the tables, and within the corresponding graphs. So, the boards can -- could have a full understanding of what the -- what the -- what the recommended change to level of service from each of the bodies would be, so they can have a better understanding Page 29 October 26, 2007 of what your recommendation would have an implication upon the revenue situation for EMS. MS. VASEY: Okay. But it's a little hard to -- to make a recommendation if we don't see some of the numbers. You mentioned there it was about $10,000,000 if you use the 12.4 level of service standard -- I mean the sixteen __ CHIEF PAGE: 16.4. MS. VASEY: -- point four level of service standard. What would it be if you use the 17, because it looks like you drive out of the station at 17,000 per unit? MR. BOSI: I had prepared for -- for this boards -- for the boards. I had prepared a spreadsheet with various levels of -- of the level of service to be comparative towards the -- the -- at least the -- the chart that -- that -- that you have within your current AUIR book, and I provided it to Jeff. And, Jeff, we can-- CHIEF PAGE: Yeah. MR. BOSI: -- pass it to the advisory board, it will get you -- it will give you a much better feel for what -- what -- that the level of service and what our deficit is at one to 15 and -- and what it is to one to 17, but we also provided one to sixteen forty, and also sixteen four hundred and one -- and one to sixteen eight hundred. MS. VASEY: Okay. That's very good information. And in order to actually address this page, that's exactly what we did. MR. BOSI: And it's the -- it's the -- it's the chart on Page 153 that -- that you'll be able to provide with the comparison against. MS. VASEY: And, Jeff, when you're doing some of these costs, one of the recommendations in the study was to -- where -- where it makes sense, co-locate new units. Are you -- is that built in to any of the unit costs on this -- in this AUIR five-year period. Page 30 October 26, 2007 CHIEF PAGE: I believe in your book that was a blended cost associated with that. For example, we've got two units coming up on line or stations being built that are going to be co-located with North Naples Fire, so where we can and where they will agree to, sure. I mean __ MS. VASEY: Okay. I don't think that this, what we're handing out, is -- is the right thing. This is something that we already have. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Some -- some are in there. MS. VASEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Hiller. Oh, I'm sorry. Miss Vasey, I didn't know if you were finished or not. MS. VASEY: No. Go ahead. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Miss Hiller? MS. HILLER: I'm having the same problem as Janet in that for me I have to see a -- a -- a financial quantification of each of the recommendations and the impact on the proposed budget in order to be able to see whether the recommendations made sense. The -- the one thing that -- that I have found in my readings is that communities that have their EMS and their fire working well together along with police and -- and lay individuals who are trained in CPR and AED and are part of public access defibrillation programs are taken as a -- a total and then what's needed is based on that. And communities that have -- that have implemented that totality perspective have seen an increase in saved lives and -- and, you know, this is all about saving lives. And I -- I'm sure that we're all in agreement that that's how we need to look at this. So, whatever needs to be done to achieve that goal is what we need to do, but I -- I don't think you can -- you know, and I'm hoping also -- I'm listening to what Janet is saying, and I think she's making some very valid and interesting points. Page 31 October 26, 2007 And I'm -- I'm sincerely hoping that -- and I'm thinking I understand is that in calculating your numbers, you have calculated the positive impact fire has made and -- and they have reviewed these numbers with you and they agree that the numbers you're using to represent them is correct and properly weighted and all that? CHIEF PAGE: No, ma'am. I mean, the fire districts don't have a copy of this study. I just goes it but __ MS. HILLER: Okay. CHIEF PAGE: -- again -- MS. HILLER: It might be worthwhile considering some sort of coordination. I mean, just because, you know, we want to make sure that, again, we're talking about saving lives so, you know, the more accurate, that the more complete the information, the better we are in making recommendations to the board, who -- who highly objected to the saving lives -- CHIEF PAGE: Okay. Well-- MS. HILLER: -- to get this done. CHIEF PAGE: Okay. Well, the consultants took the information right off the dispatcher's computer, so rather than ask the fire departments or myself, what do you think, I mean, they did interview all the fire districts. They had their input about this whole plan. But as far as these data that they reviewed, that's undisputable. I mean, they went right to the source. And in regards to the survival rates, the cardiac survival rates, we've got the highest survival rates in the country. There's __ there's no other place in my -- that I know of that have this high survival rate in both arriving to the pulse -- or arriving at the hospital with the pulse. And, what's more important, how many people actually survive to walk out of the hospital? Our numbers are at the top of the chart, so in that respect, we know we're doing fine here. Page 32 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're still on Page 150, which is the summary page. Jeff, you had said something earlier that I want to understand. You said, you're not asking for any money this year. CHIEF P AGE: We're not asking for any additional units this year at all. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The summary sheet that I have shows you have a five-year deficit of $20 million. Is that a true reading of that paper? CHIEF PAGE: Based on one to 15,000, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, even on based of one sixteen four, you have a deficit of, I think you estimated, ten million. CHIEF PAGE: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But you're still not asking for any funding through this AUIR. Is that correct? CHIEF PAGE: Basically because -- that's correct. And the reason is, is that the study shows that we're not in need of the unit this year. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm not criticizing you at all. I'mjust trying to understand what you're telling us. This AUIR is for a five-year period. And the five-year period is important just because we weigh in how we look at a development for a five-year window. So, in your five-year window under -- if we were to modify the level of service, we'd still have a deficit of units, which equates to a $10,000,000 approximate number. CHIEF PAGE: If you use the 16,400. If you use the one to 17, I wouldn't have a growth unit until FYI0? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But you -- within the five-year window, you'd still need units. You'd still need funding. CHIEF PAGE: Right. At the -- at the population of 16,400, I would need four units in the five years. Page 33 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are you aware of the new CIE that was floated around DCA? You may not be, but it hasn't been adopted yet, but it was my understanding that that was the CIE that this planning commission was supposed to be reviewing this by or in regards to. And it was a subject of a discussion of a moratorium a couple months ago for deficiencies and categories of EMS, and I believe at one point jails. And I'm worried about it because the new CIE, unlike the old CIE, incorporates Category B and Category A together. There is no separate categories and the new CIE that struck Category B and it's all one category of public facilities. There are numerous policies in the CIE. I'm going to read one, and they all say about the same thing. The county shall determine prior to the issuance of final site development plan, final plats and building permits, whether or not they're of sufficient capacity of public facilities to meet the standards for level of service for existing population and the proposed development. Now, that theme is reiterated in several policies. What I'm concerned about is if we go forward and recommend no change to your system that changes your deficiency, and you still have a deficiency shown, then what I'd be concerned that it could be found inconsistent with the intent of the CIE, which means we may be locked into a moratorium inadvertently by a motion or by an operation that we do today, not thinking that this format of this form could get us there. I'm worried that it might. And maybe Randy or -- or Jeff could comment on that. MR. COHEN: Mr. Chairman, as part of the year-based amendments -- THE COURT REPORTER: Could you identify yourself, please? Page 34 October 26, 2007 MR. COHEN: For the record, Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Department Director. As part of the year-based amendments and also as part ofa board policy direction with respect to impact fee studies and how the AUIR is used, all the Category B facilities were removed from the CIE and are no longer going to be subject to state scrutiny. So, Mr. Page's operation, as well as jails and all the other Category B facilities that are in there effectively have been removed from the CIE. The sole purpose with respect to level of service in the AUIR is to have a rational nexus with respect to impact fees, as well as to be used as an internal planning tool for a capital infrastructure and capital operation planning and budgetary reasons within this county. So, that -- that -- that particular state scrutiny that used to exist, once we enter into a compliance agreement with DCA and C -- on the CIE, which will be relatively quick from my understanding, conversations with DCA, Category B facilities will no longer be part of CIE, so the part that you're talking about right there in that -- in the comprehensive plan will not be applicable. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Then a couple months ago when the issue of moratorium came up, why was the moratorium then validated by the concerns of our lack of reaction from the __ MR. KLATZKOW: With respect to the EMS issue of-- THE COURT REPORTER: For the tape, identify yourself, please. MR. KLATZKOW: JeffKlatzkow, County Attorney's Office. With respect to the moratorium, when it came to the EMS issue, this -- this is really a health and safety issue. For example, let's say you put a retirement community of20,000 people out in the rural area and you have no facilities there to service them. All right. The question then becomes, you know, should you wait on that development until you can have an EMS station out there Page 35 October 26, 2007 or should you just let them go and be at risk until somehow later you catch up. And, so, the issue really is overriding on public health and safety on this one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But my -- my whole point is still valid. We have a form in front of us that will be modified by a level of service adjustment. In any case that it's modified basically it sounds it could be still deficient. If it's still deficient and the deficiency is an argument for a moratorium, are we setting it up for a moratorium by accepting the deficiency in this forum today? MR. KLATZKOW: Ifin the opinion ofthe Board of County Commissioners a development should not be built because it would be placing the residents at risk until sufficient EMS stations can be placed, then it would be my legal opinion they would have the right to say you've got to wait on this. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That is a real difficult statement to understand because there are so many factors that factor into that decision that the board would have to weigh on that include, for example, an analysis of these 24 recommendations and whether and how valid they are to all parts of the county. It will include the split level of service consideration, reduction in level of service. When these implement -- when these items would be implemented, how we count the ALS units, and I think Janet's point was very well taken, you count them for response time, but you don't count them for physical units, which drives the costs up for the need for more units. How anybody could make a decision based on that, the lack of those issues all being worked out, that we may need a moratorium is my -- IS a concern. Ifthat's all it takes is, well, I think the public's at risk __ Page 36 October 26, 2007 MR. KLATZKOW: Now, you're calling this a moratorium. I'm calling this more on a development by development basis. I'm not saying this would be a countywide moratorium. My concern really is the rural areas where we've got large developments, you know, possibly taking shape, if we don't have adequate response time for those developments and that adequacy is going to have to be defined by the board ultimately, then I think the board would be within its prerogative to tell these developers you have to wait until we get you these EMS stations or we can get co-locations or however else we -- we protect these people. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I just would like to understand that the basis of this AUIR approval today, the chief is saying he does not need any money this year and that we have an AUIR form that says he may end up with a deficiency of $10,000,000 or more in the upcoming years. In any way, is that going to -- is that a reasonably item that could be used to justify a moratorium on its own in Collier County? One, you want to -- I mean, it's a comp planning question. And, Randy, I know you were talking to Jeff, and I don't know if you heard what I had that day. MR. COHEN: Yes, I did. I think from -- from an AUIR perspective, what -- what Jeffs doing is identifying a financial shortfall that would exist based on the existing revenue stream where impact fees would not pay for those particular units. And in order for those units to be accommodated, and Jeff could corrected me if I'm wrong, there would have to be another revenue source identified outside of impact fees to pay for those additional units. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I just don't want this to come back and bite us later because it's -- there's a lot of issues that are not being addressed in this summary form that, obviously, I think a lot of Page 37 October 26, 2007 us feel need to be addressed. Did someone -- go ahead, Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And, remember, I'm going to join with you, guys, so this might be some plans that -- in the expenditures, you have four units brought on line this year but not yet constructed. First of all, I'm not sure what that means, but what was the financing to support those things? In other words, in your expenditures, you have 12 mill for four units that are here but not in the -- I mean, describe that condition and CHIEF PAGE: Well, as -- as we move toward construction, we go from impact fees or in -- in some cases, go for a loan against future impact fees. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So, within the revenues, you know, that you're showing here is you have that 12 -- that 12 mill's coming out of the revenues here. You know, it just seems strange to be building something that cost $12,000,000 and essentially taking all the revenue out for the last five years. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Tindale. MR. TINDALE: Steve Tindale with Tindale and Associates. Maybe I can kind -- kind of put some kind of light of what's going on here. Number one, the county's made no decision to spend taxes to build -- to build the EMS. There's no new revenue. The tax revenues to build an EMS. So, this report basically is showing you that the impact fee is based on a standard of about one unit that you own for about 35,000 people. That's your current asset. The only revenue you're going to generate is to maintain that standard. Now, you're leasing space now and paying taxes to -- to Page 38 October 26, 2007 own some -- some space. So, this report is not a projection of anything other than the current policy is to collect impact fees at one for 35 does not identify the taxes to change that capital. So from a cap position, if you don't find new tax revenues to lease half the buildings that you need to buy, the impact fees aren't going to pay for them. This is more of a, showing you a lack of current investment than it is a projected plan or a policy. Now, it's my -- it's my understanding that before you're going to buy, and this gets back to our loan process, is a loan. It's not taxes, so the standard's not going to go up because you don't own them. You-- you borrowed money. So, you're going to make it a loan because this thing is money. You can't -- you can't bill a third of a -- of a response area, and you've got some things that have been decided. But you're going to make a loan that's not going to increase the impact fee. So -- so, you don't -- don't see a level service jumping over two or three years because of this loan and the fees going up. And then the fees of this -- of this really poor standard is going to try to pay back this -- this loan and you're still not going to improve or come close to not having royal service grade. That's what the document says. Your level service is projected to grade unless there's a policy decision change it will degrade. And this is the dollar value of the degradation. Now, the loan for 5,000 is a goal. The impact fee can't be set on that. And I can tell you, I worked all over the state with my -- one for ten, 12, 13, 15 becomes an issue, the age of this community is a whole lot the precedent. And I've got news if you go under 20 and they're -- they're scrambling, you know, so -- so, I know you have a lot of conversation about that, but this isn't, to me, a report showing you a lot of policies Page 39 October 26, 2007 of deciding to spend a lot of money or past taxes or whatever. This report is what you're planning to do in the next five years, at least at this point in time, and what you're saying is what we're planning to do is not add taxes, use the same impact fee, which is based on half the standard that you've already achieved, and we're going to have a degradation of a loan service. That's what the report shows, and I -- I think you're trying to adopt something that's -- or a fear about, you know, something because of the report there's going to be a change in something, but I think this is a snapshot of what the decision at this point in time is, and it's being put on -- in this document. So, 1-- if you adopt one for 17 or 18 or 19, the impact fee's not going to go down because you haven't achieved that. So, you're not having any effect. When you change these standards, you have no effect on the revenue projections. You'll have no effect on the impact fees. Now, if you change the standard and someone decides to start debating taxes, to start adding this, and they were starting to __ showing up in here, at that point in time, it might have an effect on my tax that you might be wanting to put in here, but I don't see anywhere in here that anybody's proposing to paying taxes. The building is capital in this document. So, to me, you're -- you're debating a potential of somebody in the future deciding to start trying to -- to get the capital asset and start owning it rather than leasing it and -- and something that might happen in the future. But it's not being proposed in this AUIR. I don't see any taxes in here. I don't see any increased level service. I don't see any resolution, including from one to 35 in terms of the asset you own to the one 15 or 16 or 17 in this document. So, I'm not sure what your concern is about your vote, because this is clearly saying current standard from the cap investment is one Page 40 October 26, 2007 per 35. That's what we're using. One to 15 is a good standard to try to achieve, and there's nothing in here that's moving you towards that one to 15 in terms of a -- of a __ of a tax investment or -- or any other kind of investment. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What is -- the level of service used in the impact fees is what? MR. TINDALE: I think it's one to 35,000 people, because that's what you own. I can't take something you're paying taxes for and leasing and charge the capital for. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. What is the level of end of the service -- what is the level of service used for the current AUIR/EMS standard for the AUIR? Do you know? Is that the one to 15? MR. BOSI: Let me -- let me put it in real blunt terms. We charge for impact fees one to 34,565. So, for every impact fee we collect, we can build maybe half of what our AUIR says our standard IS. SO, Jeff has -- has already mentioned that they have a tremendous nationally recognized EMS program, but their program every year that we go -- go into the future, every year that we issued a CO, we've become a little bit further into the -- into the hole in revenue and being able to provide what our -- what our AUIR says this is a standard we want to achieve. But we're only collecting fees that -- that pays for half of each new station that we're saying we want to achieve. So, the -- the -- the financial situation, whether we go -- and Steve -- Steve has mentioned, whether we keep it at one to 15, whether we go to one to -- to 17 or one to sixteen two four, which we currently have. Unless we would go to one to 34,565, we will not become whole functionally. So, what -- what the issue is, is because our impact fees are low, there is being a requirement for a general revenue right now Page 4 I October 26, 2007 to help support -- to help support the construction of the standard that the R -- AUIR says we as a community want to achieve. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. What I was trying to ask though is we have a different level of service standard in the impact fee than we do in the AUIR. MR. BOSI: Okay. Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The impact fee, is that an ordinance? MR. TINDALE: Yes. It's a -- it's a land -- it's part of your land development regulations and code. It's considered part of -- whether it's an ordinance or a resolution, it has the same instrument of a -- I think you had in mind it's an ordinance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Jeff, is the impact fee an ordinance? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Under the CIE, Page 28, it says, number two, impact fee. Impact fee ordinances will require the same standard for the level of service as is required by Policy 1.1.5. I'm wondering how the Policy 1.1.5 provides a level of service based on the AUIR, how it would justify an impact fee level of service at a different standard. MR. BOSI: The impact fee in sequence speak to -- the impact can only be based upon what the asset is at the time of the impact fee. MR. TINDALE: It probably could be reworded. And the impact fee -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. MR. TINDALE: This said he cannot -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Tindale, you're going to be able to talk my head off, so just give me a minute here. I specifically asked you if the level -- as to what the two levels of services are. Now you're telling me they aren't comparable. Is that -- MR. BOSI: I mean, there's a direct connection between them, Page 42 October 26, 2007 but what the AUIR is, is a standard that we would like to achieve. That's what this -- the community says. The impact fee is what we actually have. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But in Policy 1.1.5 of the CIE, that's set by the AUIR. Am I mistaken on that? And ifit is, that means it's one to 15, yet the policy that I'm reading in the CIE says, impact earnings is what required the same standard level of service as the required Policy 1.1.5. So, I'm wondering how the two correlate and if they have to be the same. If I'm reading this wrong, someone tell me. I'm not asking. I'm trying to find an answer. Mr. Tindale. MR. TINDALE: The -- the impact fee cannot be based on a -- a standard that exceeds your policy. So, the word "same" probably could be reworded to cannot be based on a better level service than you adopted. It could be worse and it could be the same, but it can't be better, but by law, so it probably -- the word "same" means the impact. Of course, I didn't write it, but the impact fee cannot use the double service better than the one in your plan. So, whether that's real clear or not, that's what most of them are written for, to be sure everybody understands we will not adopt an impact fee that has a level of service standard better than your plan even if you're achieving it in providing the service. So, if you were providing a service one to ten and you adopt one per 15, we would have to lower the impact fee. Now, that -- that may not be worded-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Tindale, I understand where you're going. I understand what you're trying to defend. You wrote the impact fee ordinances. Page 43 October 26, 2007 What I need is a legal opinion from the County Attorney that the CIE statement that says impact fee ordinances will require the same standard level of service as the -- as required by Policy 1.1.5. Does that have to mean that the impact fee ordinance we have at one for -- one for 35,000, whatever it is, is the same as the AUIR or as the CIE, we're in Section 1.1.5. And I'm reading it right now. It says one unit for 15,000 population. Are those two the same, and if they are, at some point I would certainly like to have staff tell me how they are the same and how we are either consistent or inconsistent with the CIE. MR. COHEN: Again, Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Development Director for the record. Let me go ahead and -- and -- and try to -- try to help a little bit with respect to how that policy is going to apply as of the approval of the alliance agreement with the CIE. That particular policy will only be applicable to parks, transportation, drainage, water, sewer and solid waste, because those are the only capital infrastructure programs that will remain in the CIE. So, the statement that you read right there will not be applicable to EMS, which is being removed from the -- the CIE. The only purpose ofthe AUIR with respect to how it relates to impact fees is to ensure that we have a rational nexus, okay, to establish an impact fee that meets the standards that Mr. Tindale just described. One of the questions that we asked legal counsel before was, we did not want our Category B facilities regulated by the state. That was a recommendation of this body as well as also the BCC, and Mr. Tindale's firm didn't recommend that. I believe it was White and Smith recommended the removal of Category Bs from the CIE. So, your statement that you just made right there with regard to Page 44 October 26, 2007 EMS will no longer be applicable because the Category Bs have been removed. So, hopefully, that explanation helps in -- in -- in that regard. So, when we look at that statement, it will only apply to those major Category A facilities. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It will only apply. So, that means in the past, it looks like we may have had an error in the way our impact fee ordinances could have been written. MR. KLATZKOW: No. I don't think -- I don't think there's an error. What we were dealing with, we were saying that we want to have one station, for example, for 15,000 people. Where we're dealing, we were renting half the stations and purchasing the other half. Impact fees were being used to purchase the stations, ad valorems were being used for rental. That's why the impact fees are half of the stations because we've been using a leasing program. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's interesting the way all this is coming about. And I don't if you ever saw Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory, but I -- I'm -- I think it's interesting that we've gone to a length to have certain things changed in the CIE, not really portraying how that may impact things, but it happens to open a door for a very strong argument that someone now can make in regards to needing a moratorium based on an element that was removed and is more or less now not part of the CIE. How can the EMS then be considered a factor for a moratorium if it's no longer part of the CIE. MR. KLATZKOW: What I -- I guess I'm not being clear. What I'm getting at is just the basic reason for having government, and that's the protection of public health and safety. If the basic protection of the health and safety, which comes under the police powers of the county, it's my opinion that if you have an inadequate response time -- let's say your response is a half hour, Page 45 October 26, 2007 just to be really out there, you can't say to somebody, okay, it's okay for you to put a retirement community out in the boonies when we can't support it. We do the same thing for roads and schools and everything else. We're to say, okay, you've got until we have the infrastructure right for you. I don't see any reason why we can't do the same thing for EMS. And, quite frankly, I don't see the reason why we can't ask developers if you want to develop now, you put in the EMS station. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I don't disagree with you. I'mjust concerned about the approach. But I'll rest my comment on that. I think I've understood now better what you were trying to explain to me. I'm not necessarily saying that it's right or I agree with it, but we'll move forward. We left off on Page 150. Miss Vasey? MS. VASEY: Yes. Ifwe -- in understand this chart, this page right, if we change the -- the AUIR deficit, Jeff, from 20 million into ten million or seven million or whatever we might do based on the level of service, it looks like we'll still have a general fund, a loan, that needs to be repaid. And I see that Susan is -- Susan Usher and Mike Smykowski are here. Do you -- did you have anything you want to say about the general fund loan and its ability to be repaid by impact fees? If not, that's fine. I just noticed you were here and thought you might want to address it. MS. USHER: Hi. Susan Usher from the Budget Office, Senior Budget Analyst. For the immediate four stations, yes, we need general fund loans to pay back because there is no -- there's not of an income stream coming in from impact fees to make the payments for the loans. Page 46 October 26, 2007 So, yes, general funds moneys will have to be used for the four stations that are being budgeted and being built today. MS. VASEY: And based on all the discussion, it's pretty clear that the impact fees will not be available to repay those loans because we're only collecting impact fees and what we need to build the stations. So, how will that loan ever be repaid? MS. USHER: It will just say on the books as a loan until some point in time the board forgives it, but we don't have that capability here. The board would have to forgive that. MS. VASEY: Okay. So, why -- why isn't that -- why isn't that number included in the -- the additional revenues required? Why -- why -- MS. USHER: It is. It says, general fund loan to make commercial paper debt service payments of five $28 million. MS. VASEY: Right, but we really don't have that money and we don't have the ability to repay the loan. So, why doesn't it come in at the bottom line which says, additional revenues required or level of service standard reduction, because you really don't have that money. And, you know, we're supposed to be looking at it from a fiscal feasibility point of view and the money's not there. It has to be a loan from the general fund. It can't be repaid. So, it should -- it seems to me it should be identified there as a __ we just have to have this money and we don't -- we'll never be able to repay it. MS. USHER: The board agreed to build the four stations. That's why it's on a separate line item. Weare proceeding to build those four stations. The 20.4 million deficit is for the 6.8 stations that the board has not said, okay, we're going to give you the budget, go ahead and start building those 6.8 stations. Page 47 October 26, 2007 I just wanted to keep them separated. When we have board approval for the four stations, but we haven't gotten board approval, nor have we started construction or buying land or hiring contractors to build the 6.8 stations. So, they're further out into the future. No commitment has been made on the 6.8. I just wanted to separate the two. And I've done that with all the impact fees. The items where the board said, yes, go build, hire your contractor, I've always -- I put them on a separate line item than the other items that are further out into the future. MS. VASEY: Okay. I can understand why you did that. But from -- from our -- from my point of view, and I guess we'll be discussing it in productivity committee, that it's -- it's not -- it's not financially feasible that way. I mean, it's -- you really have a bill of 20 million or whatever number of stations, plus the bill that can't be paid that's the loan from the general fund. And I think somehow it needs to be shown that that's really what's happening, because otherwise it looks like it's only a bill out there for ten million or whatever, whatever number we use, but it's really ten million or whatever number plus another six million. MS. USHER: Uh-huh. MS. VASEY: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Hiller. MS. HILLER: You know, there's an alternative perspective and that is that really what's happening since these loans cannot be repaid, the general fund should reflect these as expenditures and the EMS funds should reflect these as, you know, outright contributions. I mean, you just said we know that these general fund loans are __ are going to be defaulted on. MS. USHER: The board will have to make that decision. MS. HILLER: Right. I mean, and it's not a question of if, but just a question of when they're going to make that decision. Page 48 October 26, 2007 So, quite frankly, you know, the way this is all being reflected from an accounting standpoint isn't truly reflecting what the situation IS. I mean, we -- we -- this really should be restated. MS. USHER: Again, the board would have to make that decision. I can't make that decision. MS. HILLER: I mean, this -- this doesn't reflect what's happening. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But I think that's -- MS. HILLER: And that's material. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That sounds like it's-- MS. HILLER: It's very material. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- a board decision to make. We could recommend that to them if you want to put it in your -- MS. HILLER: Well, I -- I also -- I mean, I think it's also something that needs to be looked at, you know, from a recording standpoint. And, you know -- I mean, it's -- it's misstating the balances in these funds. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't disagree with you. MS. USHER: Well, we're not looking at one fund. I mean-- MS. HILLER: It's-- MS. USHER: -- a lot of these -- MS. HILLER: -- misstating the balance in more than one fund. MS. USHER: We're not just looking at one fund when we're looking at a page. You're looking at EMS and what it takes to make all those capital construction with EMS. I mean, some of these other pages, if you were to look at my spreadsheets, it would make your head hurt where all the moneys are coming from. You're not looking at one fund. MS. HILLER: I know. MS. USHER: So, it's just -- Page 49 October 26, 2007 MS. HILLER: And I'm -- MS. USHER: It's just putting everything on one piece of paper in it in an intelligent manner where you don't have hundreds of spreadsheets, and, you know, I didn't do it as an accounting. MS. HILLER: Right. And -- and -- and there's -- and I think that needs to be -- to be said. I think what we have to do is we do have to look at the accounting because looking at it this way, it doesn't reflect the reality as we know it. And, again, this is not in any way a negative reflection on Jeff and his department, because this methodology has been used for every single segment we have looked at, so it's nothing, you know, personal to EMS. It's just a, you know, cross the board approach, which seems to be as misleading, and will, you know, obviously affect how we make our decisions and our recommendations to the board. And not intentionally misleading but, you know what I'm saying, that there -- there's a better, more accurate way to reflect, you know, where these numbers should be. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think that's something we can take in your group's summary and ours as well. Steve, you had a question? MR. HARRIS : You may recall at our last meeting we asked Amy Patterson to look generally at all of these proposed loans from the general fund, and once we have a schedule of that, that should precipitate a review of the policy and how to account for it, when do you charge it to expense. MR. SW AJA: I agree. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think at this time we take a break for the court reporter. And we'll take a IS-minute break and be back at 10:15. Thank you. October 26, 2007 (A recess was had.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. If everybody would please take their seats. Okay. We have left off on Page 150 in discussion of the AUIR for the emergency services facilities. Are there any further questions on Page 150 before we move into the document? Okay. Miss Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Excuse me. Yes. I'm sorry. Back to what Brad initially talked about, which was the four units brought on line under expenditures. It's $12,000,000. We already know that that figure is not correct. Can we adjust that figure to the correct figures? The correct figures are in the back. We can take out a million seven fifty because we know what the land cost are. We don't need that -- the phony $900,000 per property. We can put in actual dollars there. MR BOSI: As long as -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Is there any reason not to do that when we know? MR BOSI: Unfortunately facilities management is not here, but as long as facilities management has an actual construction, an actual construction estimate, the practice within the AUIR book has been to utilize those actual construction estimates. COMMISSIONER CARON: This is strictly land costs, Mike, which are in the -- one, two, three, four, five, six, seven stars. MR BOSI: As long as we have for each one of those stations. When we have an identified project cost that -- that's in-house with facilities management, we can incorporate it to reflect the actual number that those projected costs have shown and get away from the standardized, you know, unit costs that we have identified. COMMISSIONER CARON: I mean, where we're working in. Page 51 October 26, 2007 deficits, this obviously helps. And it says here in the footnote that in reality two of the four have no land cost -- oh, it says may. Now, do we know? I was under the impression from the chief that they did have no land costs. One is 250,000 and the other is -- is under seven. So, I was just using the actual costs that you had -_ CHIEF PAGE: Right. COMMISSIONER CARON: -- that would get closer. CHIEF PAGE: The actual costs for those four stations would be the combination of the 700,000 and the 250,000 -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Right. CHIEF PAGE: -- for all four. COMMISSIONER CARON: Right. As opposed to using 900,000 times four. CHIEF PAGE: Well, I think Susan's going to be here to speak to this, but basically that -- that's what was budgeted. We had no idea we would do as well, you know. COMMISSIONER CARON: Understood, but just because we know now, doesn't it makes sense to use the real figure and get closer? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think we can make that as a recommendation at the end of today's discussion, so -- MS. USHER: The four stations that are on the line, the expenditure line that says four stations brought on line in the '06-07 but not yet constructed for $12,119,900. That dollar amount represents what's in the budget today to do those four stations. So, that is what we have budgeted. That is what we legally have to spend on those four stations. So, that footnote back there, I think, was just getting credit that they were able to do two at dollar amounts less than what the AUIR has as a -- what's this, a standard cost? But this is what we do have in the budget today and that $11 Page 52 October 26, 2007 million is how much money we are borrowing to build those four stations. And that, too, is in the budget, the 11,092,900 as a revenue. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. Got it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And it's really -- the fiscal year six seven ends at the end of this month; right? CHIEF PAGE: Actually, it ended September. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. All right. But it says four units brought on line but not yet constructed. I'm -- I'm confused at exactly what that means. CHIEF PAGE: Well, I -- I think you recall, you know, we had an issue before about how long it takes us to get these stations going. You know, as far fast as we can get it completed, we're all in the process of doing that, but -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So, you're never under construction now. In other words, their delivery date is obviously floating above us. CHIEF PAGE: I don't know that anyone of them has actually started construction at this point. Some are still going through -- I think we're ready to go ahead and start the -- the bid for the architect or the architectural work has been done but the actual construction has probably not started for another month. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right. Thank you. MR BOSI: And I believe the -- the chief had mentioned a couple of times, those -- those actual ambulances are being -- are operating within the system right now, but they're doubling up at stations. It's just that in the construction of the permanent stations -- their permanent stations hasn't taken place yet. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Thank you. MS. HILLER: May I? Page 53 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Miss Hiller. MS. HILLER: Can you explain to us when you have incoming 911 calls how you separate the -- the ALS from the non-ALS type of calls and -- and whether there would be in way, for example, that you could possibly -- I mean, one thing that we've talked about a lot as -- as a productivity committee is the possibility of like outsourcing for the non-paramedic calls. You know, for example, having private contractors as ambulance carriers and -- and things of that -- that nature. I mean, I don't know if that's necessarily a good idea or a bad idea. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it and -- and, again, you know, just to make sure that, you know, a paramedic usually doesn't go to, you know, a run away dog call or something like that, or a -- you know. CHIEF PAGE: Yeah. The -- the -- the dispatchers identify the calls Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, basically in the severity of the call with alpha being the lowest. So, that's -- that's already done, and I -- I had mentioned earlier where we got together with the ALS engine participants. Remember, there's only five actually participating in the program, but they had agreed to -- to work out the definition of who would respond to, say, an alpha call and who would respond at what-- some may respond by themselves, some would respond with lights and sirens. That's being done. And that should be implemented within the next few weeks, I believe. Now, as far as -- you bring up an interesting point. If you remember, the Board of County Commissioners gave Naples Community Hospital a COPCN, so they could provide transports between the facilities. You asked what my opinion is about that. That is revenue that's __ that's lost that typically has a high collection rate. Currently the EMS building ordinance allows us to build the Page 54 October 26, 2007 hospital directly for those type of calls. So, you're talking a hundred percent collection. When you -- when you start giving that out to private providers or, in this case, the hospital, that is a revenue. We probably lost about three million the first year that we did that in revenue. So, that's just another component to look at when you're looking at the big picture of overall costs, that if you go strictly to an emergency only, the amount of revenue definitely is going to be affected by them. Does that answer your question? MS. HILLER: Yeah, it does. Thank you. And -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. On Page 151, does anybody have any questions from the footnotes on Page 151? Page 152 begins an air narrative for EMS. Any questions? 153 is the peak season table. We've had a series of tables provided to us with replacement suggestions. Any questions on the table or tables? Brad, we have a simple chart on 154. Can I give you simpler? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The scales are all matched up. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Good job. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 155 is a map, 156 is a listing of stations, 157 and 58, costs involving EMS, 159 are the EMS zones, 160 our response times, and 161 is off the response times, 162 is the ALS agreement map. There are notes and analysis on Page 163. We have travel times statistics on Page 164. 165 is a bar chart, as is 166 and 167 and 168. And the final few pages of the document are emergency medical services actions from 2006 in regards to these boards and general discussion. Are there any questions on the balance of the emergency services Page 55 October 26, 2007 document? Randy, do we have -- are any members of the public wishing to speak on this issue? If so, all you've got to do is raise your hand. Okay. MR SUMMERS: I'll be public. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure. Go ahead, Dan. We always welcome your input. MR SUMMERS: Good morning. For the record, Dan Summers, Director of the Bureau of Emergency Services for Collier County. I hope my comments are not premature, but I just want to mention a couple of things briefly. I want to thank you for your patience regarding the nature of the delivery of the document. Emergency Services Consultants, Incorporated, they're hard to get. They're probably doing about 26 similar studies just in the State of Florida alone right now, so there was delay. We had to get into the cue. We wanted their top-notch researchers on there and an awful lot of this going on. And I think they've provided a very good internal look for us. We did narrow the scope. There were some areas that were not covered primarily for the sake of time, but we knew we're generally institutionally in pretty good shape, so I want to thank you for that. But I think we've got an excellent product and an excellent process. I wanted to ask you to remind the general public, although you all have done a great job of helping us find the nuances for improvement at Collier County EMS. By no stretch is Collier County EMS broken. It's a very healthy organization. It has some of the nation's finest trauma and prehospital care cardiac outcomes. And that's due to partners. That's ALS engines, that's our medical director, very aggressive in terms of medical performance,t Page 56 October 26, 2007 our medical director, and some very dedicated men and women in Collier County EMS, as well as our law enforcement partners. So, I would hope that you would be proud of the investment that you have, and I thank you for trying to chart a very solid future for Collier County EMS as well. I just want to mention one comment that Miss Vasey, has mentioned in terms of cost. And I think the biggest value that I want to share with you in your desire to measure the ALS Engine Program, and I think you were there and I wanted to restate. It's really almost future cost avoidance. And that's where I really think -- it's hard for us to put a number on that, but as we have balanced our system, which is something Chief Page and the fire district do every day, because they're so committed to a professional and timely response, that when you look at health care responsibility in general, and you see how those costs are -- are skyrocketing every day, what we had in fact done with some of this is done some cost avoidance. And I know we don't really count cost avoidance in the AUIR, but I hope that you might look at it in that perspective. And the other thing is, is that this -- you know, the talk about our continued commitment to public education and awareness, we have CPR DVDs and programs the fire department has, those programs from time to time and we'll continue to be aggressive with our public and citizen CPR I grew up in that environment at the university environment doing those CPR programs all the way back to the university base level, so -- and that is -- that -- that counts very much towards our outcomes. And just want to let you know that we're committed to that. But by many stretches Collier County EMS is in great shape and this document, I think, will help us continue to be better and to let you Page 57 October 26, 2007 understand that we have a thousand variables in our operation every single day, response time, climate, road conditions, concurrent calls and the list goes on and on. So, while we -- we like the idea of having the standard for planning, understand that we are working very hard every day to -- to refine and zoom in on areas where we see different changes in demographics, different changes in call types, addressing cardiac care or trauma care and general medical for a community that really has some very unique geographic challenges, so I just wanted to share those closing remarks with you. And thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Dan. Do you have any questions of -- go ahead, Mr. Cohen. MR COHEN: Mr. Chairman, I need to clarify something for the record. Miss Usher previously addressed this joint body with regard to the -- the debt service, the -- the line item where it says, general fund loan to make commercial pay for ES payments, and there was conversation afterwards between the acting manager and the Office of Management and Budget. The long-term strategy of both the board, and that being the Board of County Commissioners, and also the Office of Management and Budget working in conjunction with the County Managers, not to forget the debt, but actually to pay that debt back. I wanted to clarify that for the record. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Are there any final questions from the panel? Chief, I have one question and it probably was answered and I may have missed it in the documentation. User fees. How are you -- do you know -- do you know -- do you charge or have user fees and how they factor in the revenue stream? Page 58 October 26, 2007 CHIEF P AGE: Yes, sir, we do. Currently, I think that it's about 51 percent ad valorem draw right now and 49 percent is funded by user fees. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are the user fees at a hundred percent of cost? How do you charge? Or do you -- is there a possibility of looking at those for increases? CHIEF PAGE: We look at them every year. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. All right. CHIEF PAGE: And we are going to be making a recommendation to the board probably in January to increase those fees again this year and make up some of the time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Go ahead, Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Why do we charge impact fees to the construction of hospitals? To me that's impact fee humor to have an EMS charge when you're building a hospital. CHIEF PAGE: Well, they -- there are a lot of transports that are generated from the hospital. I mean, are you suggesting -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: When you're going out the door, come around and come back or -- CHIEF PAGE: Well, no. I mean, from facilities, both in county and out of county. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So, these are moving patients back and forth. And the hospital generates that need. CHIEF PAGE: They -- they generate quite -- quite a few calls. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Thanks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other -- Miss Hiller. MS. HILLER: I'd like to make a comment, if! may. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure. Go ahead. MS. HILLER: I believe we're going to go to a vote next? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I mean, the planning commission Page 59 October 26, 2007 needs to take a position on it. What your group does is up to you, guys. MS. HILLER: Right. I just want to make a -- an observation. First of all, I'd like to thank Jeff for -- he was giving us such an informative presentation and for taking the initiative to put together a master plan. What I -- I would like to recommend, if I may, is that if somehow EMS, fire, the Sheriff and -- and the community come together in a further, more detailed analysis. And when I say the community, I mean, getting the community involved in public access to fibrillation programs so that we have a total picture of, you know, what's really needed vis a vis the EMS program. I have to agree with what Jeff says. You know, it's all about public health and safety and that is a priority. And, you know, whatever we can do to make that the best we can, we have to commit to doing. So, I think all politics set aside, everybody needs to work together to come up with the most realistic number to save people's lives. CHIEF PAGE: We're very committed to the AED program, and we certainly recognize the benefit from having those units out there. We're very product of the fact that it was our EMS department and Collier County was the first to draft an AED ordinance in the nation, so there's a lot of communities that have since adopted that same policy, but we -- we still think that we're ahead of them. So, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that, we will -- I'll ask the planning commission on what the desires of that board is since we have to send -- forward a recommendation of some type. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, what I'd like to do is see that we do look into using the alternate level of services. Page 60 October 26, 2007 In the introduction, it describes that as one of our tasks. And I think that this report is starting to work on what would be a better method of establishing a level of service. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I would agree with you on that. I think that the -- an alternate level of service is something we certainly should consider, especially with the Chiefs testimony today in regards to how it could be more practically applied by using a different number. I -- I think that the 24 recommendations in this master plan would be very important to understand how they affect this overall program. The split level of service that's suggested as one of the recommendations -- I mean, I live in the rural area. I moved out there not expecting the same response time that you get in the urban area. Anybody that moves out there, if they have any understanding of where they're moving, would expect the same thing. So, I think that -- that the same level of service expectation countywide is certainly a concern, because you -- you've got an imbalance who's paying for what for what they're getting. And I -- I really don't think it's fair to go for all the taxpayers that way. I think the lack -- the duplicity that occurs because this department can't control the ALS units, therefore, they don't have as much of a way of factoring them in, it's the same excuse we got from the Parks and Recs Department. They don't control the state parks, so they can't factor them in. So, what happens is every agent of the government then comes back in and refactors in facilities that are duplicated by others because they won't cooperative in how they count them. That's a failing of this system, and I think because of that -- I think ALS units ought to be listed at least in the page. Maybe they won't be listed as a value, but listed so that we all understand they're out there and how they change year to year whether they go up or Page 61 October 26, 2007 down. I think that's an important consideration for the -- for this board. My -- my suggestion would be that we would recommend that this go forward on the basis that there's no impact in this year's tax base and that there is no surplus or deficit shown on the bottom line until such time that these other matters involving the master plan and reaction to the master plan are worked out, because I still worry that showing a deficit is going to have a -- going to come back and nail us down the road unintentionally. So, if we were to make a motion, I would suggest we make one with those comments in mind. So, Miss Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah. I think based on the Chiefs testimony today that we ought to be thinking, you know, in terms of a level of service based on the sixteen four, and that will change whatever deficit happens to appear there as well. So, he seems to be comfortable with that. It's what we're operating at currently essentially, and to make that recommendation as well as to incorporate the master plan recommendations I think would be the way to go. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, is there a motion from this panel then? I mean, my -- my comment to Miss -- to Donna really is that I agree the level of service needs to be changed. I just don't know if sixteen four is the right number based on the pending analysis of that master plan. That was the only -- only discrepancy I might have to your -- your comments. Not that I disagree -- I don't disagree with you. I'm just not sure that we -- we can't do even better or worse than sixteen four, and with the split level of service, how that will impact that number, so -- COMMISSIONER CARON: I would just say the only reason Page 62 __...__,......__w___ ,_. _ _ _..__..._ _~__ .._.___'__..__".___~__.__~..,__..._.._ October 26, 2007 for doing the sixteen four now is it gets us moving in that direction. If the caveat is also to incorporate what can be incorporated from the master plan, then I think we served that purpose, because if it says that our level of service should be one in 18, you know, so be it. It will get changed as well. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. I'd actually like to see us not make a recommendation other than revise the methodology of determining level of service. I think one of the things it does is show that there's other ways to do it other than population, and I think it's important. It's not just our population. It's the demographics of it. It's the location of it. And that's what's, I think, a more true need for a level of servIce. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, one of my biggest concerns is that if this page continues on with a showing of deficit, I don't -- I think that's an issue that I'm concerned about what that means. And the only way that deficit may have to be removed is to change some of the statistics enough to get there based on the outcome of that master plan study. And I wouldn't want to hinder our recommendation by fine tuning it so much that they can't be flexible enough to get there with this particular year's AUIR Mr. Vigliotti. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Well, I agree with you totally. I would like to make that recommendation with -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Bosi wanted to comment. I want to make sure we have all the comments before we go to motion. MR BOSI: Well, I just wanted to -- to state that currently we basically do have -- we have -- we have adopted a level of service within our AUIR of one to 15,000. But if you listen to everything that Chief Page says, what dictates Page 63 October 26, 2007 this system is response time. So, I -- I think maybe what -- what Brad is looking for is what -- is to exchange a constant level of service tied to the population to response time, but for the purpose of the AUIR, to show the projected population we expect in the next five to ten years. It's always going to have to be tied back to populations just for the -- for the purpose would be -- that the purpose of what the AUIR shows and that's again to mean that we're going to have the commensurate number of units with the projected population growth. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But my -- where I differ, and I think the table on 178 -- I mean, it shows that as the population changes, you know, depends on how the population changes at the level of service. And there's nothing that says I can't change per year. They did, like you pointed out, do a denominator for us to see how that matches up or that -- and it's changing. There's nothing wrong with that. It depends where the population arrives. So, I have trouble with that. CHIEF PAGE: Mr. Chair, if I could give -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. CHIEF PAGE: -- one comment and then I'll be done. I think that what they recommended and where we are right now is -- is pretty much even. We recognize that right now we're almost at or very close to that 90 percent in the urban, and right now, currently, we're at a 12-minute response time in the world. We know that presently. Trying to -- I love the sliding scale that they provided, but I understand why we can't use it in talking to planning. So, what we were hoping is, is that we adjust the level of service number to fit that model. In other words, if we can't have a sliding scale where it changes, what gets us to where we need to be as far as a rural and an urban response time? I mean, I think we're there currently. That's -- that's one of the Page 64 October 26, 2007 reasons we did not recommend any growth units. We think we're where we need to be and they justify that in that report. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But if you get to the level of service standard that you're suggesting, you still show a deficit of about $10,000,000. Is that not correct? CHIEF PAGE: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I -- I don't doubt that maybe we do need more units pending the outcome of the incorporation of this master plan. And if that's true, that's fine. I have a problem now, because I'm in a unique situation. I made it clear during the prior AUIR meetings that I felt the only way we could assist or recommend an impact fee increase, because I certainly wouldn't suggest an ad valorem taxes, but adding an impact the increase for a needed service like emergency facilities, what's to see corresponding decreases in others so that when the new studies were done, we would get another impact fee study that would hopefully show we would have an increased impact fees. But I wouldn't even attempt that if we had no -- if we had to break the ceiling on the current impact fee cap. Well, the vote on the Parks and Rec was critical to that philosophy because the Parks and Rec is not going to have any movement to reduce their expenditures, then there's no way that anything else can be increased unless it's the ad valorem taxes or we increase the ceiling we currently have in impact fees, which philosophically I -- I have a problem with that. It's pretty high right now. So, that's just -- that would have to be my position on this and that's why I'm trying to tow the line on the deficit figure. I don't doubt you need it, Chief, and I think you're a lot more important than Parks and Rec in my book, but I don't know how to get there today based on prior recommendations. Page 65 October 26, 2007 So, that's my only reason. IfI -- ifI vote differently, that may be the only reason I have. MR COHEN: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. MR COHEN: For the record, you know, just to make things easier with respect to level of service and population. I think it's probably important for Mr. Page. He says he's there right now. We're at one to 15. Obviously, he mentioned that he's there right now, I think at one for sixteen two forty. Do you have a recommendation to this body with respect to a population number that you feel more comfortable with than the one for 15, because I want them to make a -- obviously an informed decision based on the population number that moves forward and then I have -- I have something I want to discuss with them with respect to how to maybe fix these forms a little bit as they moved forward to the board. CHIEF PAGE: Well, let me just say this. In 2001, I was involved with the productivity study where at that point they were telling me I needed more units than I was requesting. For me to come up here and say I'm recommending that we lower our level of service standard and then, you know, in three or four years I'm proven wrong because, you know, response times are degraded, cardiac survival rates are degraded, I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that. What I'm saying now is currently we know we're operating at a one to 16,240. We feel very comfortable with that. I -- I certainly don't want to see more units than we need. I mean, that -- that would be obvious to anyone as soon as it happens. IfI had to make a recommendation today, my recommendation would be one to 16,400, I think, was one of the -- the grabs that we -- that pretty much brings us in sync with what we are right now Page 66 October 26, 2007 operating under. So, that answers that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Just so the note, you know, the only solution is may not be to change the population again. It may be to count the ALS units in a manner that -- that takes the bottom line. And I understand you're doing that in response time. But it's, again, like a suggestion of duplication of counting between agencies. Maybe they are more valuable. Maybe there is a way to count them into the AUIR-- CHIEF PAGE: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- through an interlocal agreement or something. CHIEF PAGE: If do you, it still doesn't -- I mean, we've calculated them in the response times. If you add their units, let's say we add 20 more units to our 26.5, well, then the number is we need 55 or whatever it is. I mean, I don't know how you can -- adding them to this AUIR is not going to change that the level of service standard still needs to be adjusted. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR COHEN: And the other clarification, you know, Mr. Chairman and members of the CCPC and the Productivity Committee, based on the discussion I just heard, regardless, we're going to still show a -- no matter what population methodology we would show, there would be some type of deficit in units. But based on the conversation that I heard, you would want a zero out that line, which is under value costs associated with that, to show that maybe these deficit in units, but no costs associated with that because of the current concerns associated with about potentially the words "moratorium" that you mentioned earlier and -- and -- and things along those lines. I just want to make sure how you want that -- that summary page to be reflected. Page 67 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hide the reflection of showing a deficit right now without a source of revenue to support that deficit concerns me only because it's either going to mean an increase in ad valorem taxes, an increase in impact fees or a moratorium. Now, to be honest with you, because of the conditions of the other elements that we've discussed and the lack of movement on some of the other department sites, I don't see any of those personally as acceptable to this county. MR COHEN: And I guess my point is, is that we would put a zero in there and asterisk it and basically put units are -- maybe units are identified as needed, but no funding source has identified at this point in time to -- to, you know, to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Randy, I don't think anybody in this room knows what that number is going to be. That's why for us to recommend an approval on a number that we don't know what it's going to be because we have a master plan that was received 24 hours ago that has not been digested by the very department presenting the document as far as recommendations and how they influence the document, the infinite bottom line, I just don't want to see a false number put there. Because if it is, it's going to be one of three things has got to happen, and we don't know if the number is valid enough for any of those to happen. MR. COHEN: So -- so, when it comes to -- and I just want to be clear on this. When it comes to both lines there, but we could put under units yet to be determined. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What did you do last year? I can't remember at the end, because last year I leave it status quo. They didn't take the money and nothing came as a result of it. I can't remember what we did last year. MR BOSI: Since 2005, the Board of County Commissioners Page 68 October 26, 2007 have been presented with an AUIR that has shown a deficit with EMS, and they -- and there's been no action taken upon that deficit. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But then we were always part of the CIE, which gave certain abilities to argue the point. Now we're not part of the CIE. We're pulled out. So, now, all of a sudden we don't become inconsistent with the CIE for reasons. Now we're health, safety and welfare reasons, which are more ambiguous than defined language in the CIE; hence, my concern. My heightened leve of concern over that deficit number. MR. COHEN: And my -- my concern is that it's reflected on that summary page in a manner that you want it to be reflected. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That's a fair statement. That's what I -- that would be my suggestion. And I think you understand my statement, but I'm -- that is not what's been voted on here yet. I'm expressing my views to you. I don't know if -- Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And -- and, Chief Page, tell me if I'm wrong, but essentially what you really want, but to cut to the chase, you want four more units within the next five years. Correct? CHIEF PAGE: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No matter how you play with it? Can't we just work with -- you know, change that deficit to four, back the numbers off and move on? In other words, we're showing the 6.8 deficit and it's because of population, so come up with the -- the unit. The unit really is -- is a disaster, but we're not going to change that this year. MR COHEN: You know, whatever -- whatever the desire of -- of the recommending bodies are with respect to the number of units, that's -- that's up to you and we'll carry those recommendations forward. MR BOSI: Brad, the -- the one to 16,400 basically expresses Page 69 October 26, 2007 new units needed based upon that standard of three -- three and a half, so -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, is there one that would give you the four he needs and just go with that? I mean, it's just a matter of playing -- backing the number around and we're playing with a number. MR BOSI: I mean, it's probably somewhere between six -- one to 16,400 and one to 16,600, somewhere in between there would probably get you closer to that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: 16,500. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Caron, did you have a comment? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah. I think that -- that using the one in -- in 16,400 is what we should have on here. I have no problem showing a deficit. I think the County Attorney has already weighed in on this issue, and I think it's -- I think it's -- I think that it's unnecessary as a -- as a spare topic or something, that suddenly there's going to be a moratorium because we have this deficit in EMS. And I -- I just don't -- I don't get that. I don't understand. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, let me -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And, Jeffs analysis of why we need a moratorium isn't fully complete, because like, for example, I did a psychiatric hospital in Middliville (sic) where we mitigated that problem of EMS by facilities we built on site. So, you know, he's describing the worst case scenario. There's a lot of ways to get around that concern, so it's not as scary as Jeff portrays it to us. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR COHEN: Miss Caron -- and if you do decide to with the route with unidentified revenue source, we will actually asserts that that -- that particular item and show that there's an unidentified Page 70 October 26, 2007 revenue source to fund those items. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, there's alternatives then. With that, this panel, this five -- what, we have six of us here today. Ready to make a motion? Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I think -- I think we need to move ahead and I now make a motion for approval. I just have a couple of questions. I don't want to add ad valorem taxes. I can't see us raising impact fees. And are you comfortable where this deficit here is going to be addressed so we don't wind up stopping projects? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have my own thoughts on that. Obviously, people disagree. I just have -- I don't want this turned into something it isn't, and for that reason I'm still concerned. But, Mr. Vigliotti, in your motion, if you -- your motion can include -- you could recommend approval, but not recommend any increases in impact fees, any increases in ad valorem taxes, and -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- you know, that we look at a readopted change in level of service and a implementation of elements of the master plan that are practical for Collier County. That might be a way to approach it. And in light of the conflict, put everything on the table. And my issue is my issue, so -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'm really concerned about those two or three issues, so if anybody understands my motion -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti's motion, I believe, and I'll restate it and I'll need you to confirm that it's your motion and get a second, is that you're not -- you're recommending approval subject to no increase in impact fees, no additional ad valorem taxes, implementation where practical of the master plan element, and reducing a leve of service that is recommended today to 16,400. Page 71 October 26, 2007 Is that your motion? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That's Mr. Vigliotti's motion. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I'll second it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Second by Mr. Schiffer. Now, discussion. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Shouldn't we also be changing that five-year surplus added to a four? You're saying that will automatically happen when we do the thing, that it will take the 3.8? MR BOSI: No. The -- the summer phase, that's going to go before the Board of County Commissioners. That's commensurate with the policy of EMS right now, meaning there's no new growth that's being planned within this AUIR There will also be provided a summary page with -- with -- that will show the one to 64,000 -- one -- or one to 16,400 and what the effect of that is upon the deficit and what the expenditures would be required at that level. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So-- MR COHEN: What will transpire, and let take that a bit further. We're going to have to modify that summary page to take into consideration all aspects of your recommendation as well as any charts that flow from that, we're going to have to modify those accordingly as well, too, including the graphics that follow. So, there's going to be a huge EMS section, is what it boils down to, but that's okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other discussion? Okay. I will-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm sorry, Mark. Can we recommend -- one of the recommendations is that we review the methodology for the level of service? Is that -- Page 72 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think they just -- Mr. Vigliotti's motion included reducing the -- oh, you said the methodology. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Methodology, not the number, so -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you feel that needs to be added, then you can ask the motion maker to -- to add it. If you want to -- you're specifically what? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Be able to split it? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, in the report it -- it really studied -- one of the major features of the report is studying a different methodology to determine the level of service. Again, who came up with this, I don't think that it's in this report, but it's a unit of hourly utilization, it takes into effect the demographics, the travel distances, all that stuff to come up with the deal. What? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm sorry. I'm fine. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Anyway, what's made a lot more sense than, oh, let's look at Naples in the eighties and figure out one station per 1500. CHIEF PAGE: Just a point of correction here. Now, a unit hour utilization is completely different than how you came up -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. CHIEF PAGE: You're talking about the population demographics. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. They ultimately use that methodology to come up with-- CHIEF PAGE: Right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- their chart, which they ultimately translated in population so we could understand it, I guess. MR COHEN: And to clarify, Mr. Schiffer's recommendation, I Page 73 October 26, 2007 guess what you would like more is more of an intense evaluation of the AUIR in conjunction with the study prior to you seeing it next year is what I'm -- I -- I think you're getting at, and then recommendations flowing from that? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's pretty simple. Let's just look at a different methodology to determine level of service, something that reflects the issues brought up in that recordance (sic). CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're suggesting that another stipulation -- another consideration that the EMS look at additional alternatives from methodology. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Correct. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: For next year. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Oh, of course for next year. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that acceptable to the motion maker? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes, it is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is it acceptable to the second since you made it? Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Let me think. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, we have everything discussed just so -- for the record's clear, I support all of the elements in the motion, but I still have a problem in not having a bona fide deficit number shown on this document as a result of this master plan. I'm not saying there won't be one, but we don't know what that is and, therefore, I can't support the motion and that's just my personal perspective on this issue. So, with that, we will call for the vote. All those in favor of the motion as stated and stipulated signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRA Y: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. Page 74 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those against, signify by the same sign. Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So, motion carries four to two. Planning -- or Productivity Committee, how did you want to handle it? MS. VASEY: Would you all like to talk about it a little bit? MR HARRIS: Motion, too? MS. VASEY: Okay. Who wants to start? MS. HILLER: In addressing the impact fees, I'd like to ask a couple questions, Jeff. On the documents that you handed out, you said discussions are underway -- as a footnote, I should say. Discussions are underway with the various fire districts; however, it has not yet been disseminated which units would be -- (inaudible) -- THE COURT REPORTER: I can't hear. MS. HILLER: -- (continuing inaudible) co-located and, therefore, the value, production and planning also co-located -- sorry -- at rate of two-thirds owned and one-third co-located would equal three million and whatever. It sounds to me like you're still working with fire on making that decision. Am I correct in interpreting that footnote in that fashion? CHIEF PAGE: At the time it was printed, but since then one of the stations will be co-located with waste-water. They have some property up there. There's one right across there and we're doing a joint building with them. North Naples fire has indicated a -- co-located with us at Heritage Bay up in North Naples and also a station at Old 41 and new 41. MS. HILLER: So, in fact, this -- these last set of numbers we had just received need to be further updated to reflect the economic Page 75 October 26, 2007 impact of these agreements? CHIEF PAGE: Why, I think that goes back to where -- that front page where we were listing the cost of what was budgeted for those four stations. MS. HILLER: But so -- then that page would have to be adjusted CHIEF PAGE: Yes. MS. HILLER: -- also? Okay. CHIEF PAGE: And we know that we came in lower than we were going to. MS. HILLER: Okay. So -- so, basically we -- we -- I mean, this is just reconfirming, but yet another perspective we need to revise the numbers in order to come to a -- a conclusion that you stated. Okay. That's great. The other thing I want to say, and this is not really related specifically to this study or anything else, but -- and -- and this will be a two-prong comment. The first is Chairman Mark Strain and I at our last hearing that you were not a part of pointed out the vast differences in the impact fees for the, you know, various level of service analyses. And I have to remark that, you know, he made the point that parks is $3,000 per dwelling unit. And when I look at your Page 35, your proposed fee for 2008 is $137.15. And I have to say that it ties in with what Jeff said, and that is, you know, health, safety and welfare of the public has to be Collier County Commission's number one priority. And, you know, what the number ought to be, I don't know because it just seems there are just so many open questions with respect to the figures, but I will say that -- that somehow there seems to be a -- I -- I guess, the -- the priority doesn't seem to be where I think it ought to be, which is in health, safety and welfare when you Page 76 October 26, 2007 look at a discrepancy like that. And, now, that leads into my next question, and that is whether that $137.15 per dwelling, is that -- that was based on an impact fees nexus study, and that assumes that you are -- that is the maximum threshold based on your studies? Am I correct in understanding that? CHIEF PAGE: Yes. MS. HILLER: Or is that a -- or, you know, because we -- we understand each other. We've spoken about this in the past where that number actually can validly be lower than the threshold and -- and still be an acceptable number. It can't be higher, but it can be lower. So, am I understanding that this is it? Okay. Well, ifit is-- CHIEF PAGE: Yeah. MS. HILLER: -- that's what it is. Thank you. Anybody else? MS. VASEY: Let's talk a little bit about the level of service standard that we would like to see forwarded to the board. We've talked about the one for 16,400 and the one -- they've given us information on one for 16,240 and one for six -- 17,000. Are there any -- or do we want to see any of that presented at our productivity meeting on -- on Wednesday, or do we want to recommend any of those levels be presented at the board meeting, the BCC next Monday? MR HARRIS: I think we should support Chief Page's recommendation, including the two different levels of service that seems -- and would be practical. MS. HILLER: I think-- MR SW AJA: I agree -- I agree with Steve. There's something wrong with the profit when all in-houses come down with the wrong answer. Page 77 October 26, 2007 Somewhere along the line we've got to get back to the right -- the right way of expressing level of service. And I understand why that has to be converted in population, but we've got to get back, and I think that Chief Page has this document on the right track, go back as to the response time. And we've got to do more than establish the point. We've got to go with the distributions. I'm a potential customer of yours in the future. CHIEF PAGE: I'm right there with you. (Laughter. ) MR SW AJA: I'm a potential customer. I'm concerned about how fast your response time is, but more importantly, what end of distributions are I'm going to be at? Okay. I want to be in the fast side, not on the slow side. And I understand also the difference between Mark and 1. He lives out in the boondocks and I live in paradise, Marco Island. So, I understand the difference. I'd like to see the analysis -- I'd recommend to the productivity meeting that we get this document, which I just received this morning, and we make this one of our projects to work with EMS to help them move this forward and convert what's in here into an operating time we can live with. Okay. And it's the right thing for the citizens of this county. I have the same problem Mark has in terms of understanding how Parks and Recreation $3,000 a unit versus 137 for EMS. I mean, just something's coming in wrong. And there's something fundamentally wrong when we can build a brand new community out in the boondock called Ave Maria, but then we can't resource it, to provide EMS service for people who are intending to live out there. And that's a nice community by the way. I'm -- I'm impressed with it. I've been there twice with it. Page 78 October 26, 2007 There's something wrong with our process in this county, the way we're doing this, also with the way we take care of debts. In industry -- if we did this in the industry, the last time I saw this type of thing happen, it was Stirling Home, and most of those guys went to jail. So, I have a problem with how we do things countywide in government. I mean, I can understand why you do it the way you do it, but it just blows my mind. How can you make the right decision? Sorry. MS. VASEY: Okay. Some -- some of the things I'm hearing I agree with. I'd like to recommend that we do the -- the level of -- some papers, like -- like this original 100, 150, Page 150 that we could have a summary sheet like that, that would show a proposed alternative to the -- to the Board of County Commissioners based on the one for 16,400 with all the appropriate costs information and everything, too, so that they'll have that information. If possible, we're going to be taking this up on -- at the productivity meeting on Wednesday, if it's -- if that kind of information would be available on Wednesday for the whole productivity committee to look at, we would really appreciate that. If you can't, you can't, but if you can -- CHIEF PAGE: We can do whatever you need to do. MS. VASEY: Okay. That would be great because I -- I think that -- that's going to be our -- our recommended level to discuss anyway at the meeting. I was also -- I -- I sort of like the one for -- one for 17,000, because if you look at your table on 180 -- 178 in the master plan, at the end of five-year AUIR period, the resulting population per unit is 17,000. So, even though it's -- it's different levels over the five-year period, I think you can make a -- an argument that it should be -- that Page 79 October 26, 2007 -- that you could take the last year and make that the level you're going to. But I'm not uncomfortable with the 16,400 as the current level of service, so that we would just continue for -- for this AUIR. So, it sounds like that's what the -- the majority of our group is interested in, so -- so, we'll -- I'm not -- I'm not asking for both. We'll just ask for the one. Yes, Randy. MR COHEN: Miss Vasey, could you clarify. The planning commission was very specific with respect to the value cost revenue side of things with regard to no ad valorem taxes being spent. Obviously there's going to be a cost associated with those units and that value cost added section at the end of there. Do you have any specific recommendations with respect to that, when we -- when we redo that page for you? MS. VASEY: Well, it would be my preference, and we can all weigh in on it, to show that amount of money. I think that level is around -- was it ten million? That would be an additional cost. MR BOSI: 10,207,378. MS. VASEY: Okay. Thanks, Mike. I -- I would -- I would like to see that number down at the bottom and -- and right at this point, that's just a -- this is what it costs and -- and there will have to be some discussion later of how that might be paid for. You know, we all know that there's not a lot of money available in impact fees. We know that the -- we're constrained on ad valorem taxes as a result of the Tax Reform Act. And, you know, where else do we go for the money? MR COHEN: We draw in an asterisk that would be like a funding mechanism, unidentified at this time. MS. VASEY: Right. I don't know where else you can -- you can Page 80 October 26, 2007 identify it right now. MR COHEN: Okay. MS. VASEY: And -- and we may have some recommendations on Wednesday at our meeting, but -- but right now, I don't think we would have anything. So, if you could have that -- that level and then I would also be recommending that we address the -- the funding issue of financial feasibility with the general fund blown, and -- and we've got that issue with several facilities so we can have some language in there. And then I would also like to say -- agree with Joe at least to the extent that I'd like to take another look at this. This is a -- this is a recommendation for this year's AUIR at this level, and I'd like to look at the master plan in a little more detail, see what you -- you end up saying about the -- the recommendations, also the PH- see will want to weigh in on it, and -- and before we lock in anything for future, I think we should take another look at this in a little more detail. MR SW AJA: I think you all have got to do -- support the investigative problem of revenue sources besides ad valorem taxes and impact fees, play catch up, get it back on track so we're not in the situation in the future. There's got to be a way of doing that. MS. HILLER: If! may, also, you know, say things. In other words, where other areas can contribute and help, that becomes a savings to EMS and we can consider that as well, like the director mentioned, you know, the costs that they have been able to own it because they were picked up in another area. MS. VASEY: And also kind oflook at how the ALS units are counted in terms of their response times. I know that -- I understand exactly where we are but, you know, we might want to take another look at that, too. And, also, Dan, I wanted to tell you that even looking at these Page 81 October 26, 2007 changes now, three or four units -- three or four units would be reduced from what we were talking about last year, so there are definitely some savings from looking at the -- the response times of the ALS units. So, I can -- you know, I can make that connection real easily. Anybody else want to -- this would be then -- I would -- I would put this together as part of the draft that we we'll be looking at on Wednesday. Joe? MR SW AJA: I think there are a couple -- couple EMS with Parks and Recreation. MS. VASEY: So, we've -- (Laughter.) CHIEF PAGE: I've tried. MS. VASEY: Yes, Steve. MR HARRIS: I was thinking that we would defer making a decision today pending the supplying the financial data, but I also like Mr. Swaja's suggestion that we offer to take on a project on productivity of working with EMS in the coming year to help them with operational suggestions as well as how we're going to fund these things. MS. VASEY: I would agree with that, too. Well, we won't -- we won't take a vote today, but just to show you what -- what we're thinking and -- and then to ask for that information for our Wednesday meeting. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR SW AJA: I would like to compliment Chief Page and Mr. Summers. Great job. CHIEF PAGE: Thank you. MR SW AJA: Randy, great job. MR COHEN: Thank you. Page 82 October 26, 2007 MR. SW AJA: I don't want to do your job. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That is the end of our AUIR meeting, and I do want to thank and compliment the staff. Each year gets a little bit better. This year was very good. The documents were very -- done very well and they were supplied to us and responded to us very well. I want to thank all of you for ajob well done. MR. BOSI: And we, as the staff, I -- I will collectively thank you for the kind words and comments. We do labor to try to get this document in the best working order and we understand some of the issues that surrounded. The one aspect of that that I am asking you, the last part of your staff report had six specific recommendations before we closed the -- the hearing related to the AUIR as a whole. Ask that the planning commission would -- would make a recommendation or recognition of those six requested recommendations at the end of the staff report. That's Page 8 of the staff report. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You said one article. MR. BOSI: One's already been done, correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Two is sufficient road capacity. That was done by approval of the transportation section, wasn't it? MR. COHEN: The specific recommendation was not made in that context and I would ask that you go ahead and do that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: From the planning -- and basically, I guess, it's the planning commission and they would -- MR. COHEN: The productivity committee would take that action at their meeting on Wednesday. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. From the planning commission, anybody have a problem with making a motion on number two? Brad, is that a motion -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes. Page 83 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- to approve number two? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Motion to approve number two. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second by Mr. Vigliotti? Any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? Motion carried. Number three, accept and approve the attached documents as a 2007 annual update and report on public facilities. I would suggest the caveat there is as we stipulated? MR. BOSI: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: As amended. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that a motion, Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's a motion as amended. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there a second? Mr. Vigliotti. Any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. Anybody opposed? Motion carries. Four is give the BCC direction by separate motion vote on Page 84 October 26, 2007 category -- Category B facilities relative to staff recommendations for projects and revenue sources, Category A facilities set forth inclusion in the FYO 708 schedule and capital capacity of the annual CAF date and/or amendment. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Didn't we do that by category? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Didn't we already -- you guys -- MR. COHEN: Not for inclusion in the CA, and I'd also probably add with the caveat that subject to potential changes in -- in the property tax, that -- changes that may occur in -- up in Tallahassee if there are going to be some major changes occur. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And, Mr. Murray, would you mind -- go ahead and restate your -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I just said we can't see the future. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I understand. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I don't think that applies. I don't think we can make adjustments. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I would agree with you. MR. COHEN: But as far as inclusion in the CA, it would be appropriate to make the recommendation then. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: See, staff -- staff recommendations would be contrary to our stipulations. I think four would kind of -- we'd have to go backtrack through this whole thing and see how -- I don't think -- I, personally, I don't think we can do four. MR. COHEN: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean, I can't. What's the -- what's the consensus of the rest? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm with you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Note that you're not going to get a response in regards to four. Five, provide the BCC with a recommendation upon the Page 85 October 26, 2007 appropriateness of the existing levels of service standards associated with either the annual component of the AUIR, provide alternative level of services where deemed appropriate. We did that as we went through. Six, recommend to the BCC the hurricane shelters with an alternative revenue source identified are not included within the five-year schedule of capital improvements. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I don't think we ever discussed that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We didn't discuss it, and they're not in here, so why would we have to make a recommendation to tell you that on here? MR. COHEN: And that's okay on that one right there as well-- MR. BOSI: As part of the introduction of -- of this AUIR process, I mentioned on that policy 4.8 of the -- not Policy 4.8, the 12.3.3 of the CCME has -- has -- has requested that in valuation of whether hurricane -- hurricane shelters would be included within the schedule of the CIE elements, we didn't -- the body did not take a -- an official position or a discussion point within that aspect. If -- if the body's uncomfortable with recommendation, I can understand that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Maybe I missed something. Did you provide us with a package of data on that? MR. COHEN: Well, what -- there shouldn't be a package of data. What basically happened is there's a policy added to the comprehensive plan that -- that said, should you include hurricane shelters in the CIE. Currently, Mr. Summers reporting structure ironically and who he works through goes through an ROPCA already, so why would you want this duplicity, and why would you want to add another layer of bureaucracy having, you know, hurricane shelters added to a Category October 26, 2007 The -- the policy exists. They asked us to add it and evaluate it. I -- I really think it's redundant and it's -- it's another layer of bureaucracy that we need to avoid. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Personally, I don't think you presented us with enough information to evaluate it. Secondly, hurricane sheltering is addressed in the school concurrency document that we're reviewing next week and the schools are the hurricane shelters. Evaluation of those pending any additional need not shown or shown is some data that we would have need relevant to any decision on that. So, I'm not prepared to respond to that. Does anybody else have anything? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: My point is we don't build and own shelters, do we? MR. BOSI: We have interlocal-- and Page 6 of your staff report is where that inter -- that hurricane shelter issue has been addressed. Obviously, it's deficient in all the support data that this body has stated that they're looking for. Within the way that hurricane shutters -- or shelters are -- are currently planned for is within the Collier County Emergency -- Collier County Emergency Management Plan and where there's interlocal agreements between the Red Cross and the schools. The schools are basically your hurricane shelters. MR. COHEN: I guess the point is, is that it's probably an inappropriate place for it to be an a comprehensive plan. That's probably the point on that that we would say. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think we've responded to the first three. We're not responding unless someone says otherwise to the last three, so we'll leave it like that. MR. COHEN: One other thing I would like to do, you always -- you'd make some comments with respect to the grafts, the charts, and Page 87 October 26, 2007 -- and how well you've appreciated it. There is a person behind the scenes and that's Beth Yang, and she's responsible for putting together a lot of your charts, a lot of your documents and stuff. And she's also probability the one that's muttering under her breath about the changes she's going to have to make now, but that's okay. And she can do that in Chinese also. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Beth, you won't have to worry about it because now that you've been identified as the one who's done this beneficial study for us, I'm sure the private sector is going to hire you away like they do with everybody. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, I've got one comment. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The last time we discussed these other things in my, quote, Category C, and Seth actually did follow through. They came up with a pretty good list. I'd like -- I'll be looking at it over the weekend and there's a couple I'd like to add. And then other than that, next year we'll probably have that answer, which is -- there is a lot of time items that we have to meet deadlines on that we should at least -- we don't need to discuss it as much as make sure we don't mess it up. MR. COHEN: Would you like us to come forward at a subsequent meeting and have David address all of those with you? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Good. It's not that big. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Something after the first of the year when our schedules get -- we have a -- CCPC has got a pretty busy schedule between now and Christmas, so -- MR. COHEN: Okay. Well, we'll schedule that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that then -- MS. VASEY: Wait. Page 88 October 26, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mrs. Vasey? MS. VASEY: I just wanted to say that I'm not sure that we will be making recommendations on all six of these either. I guess we're not in the business of sufficient road network capacity and things like that, even though we did see the -- the charts on -- you know, addressing that. Also, I wanted to thank you for your additional level of service objectives that you prepared, you know, over and above the population ones. I think there was some very good information in there. We did not address it individually with each facility, but I did appreciate the work -- the work that you did on that. And -- and I think it -- it does provide some reality to some of the -- the gross decisions that are made at population level. MR. COHEN: We thank you. And -- and in -- before next year's AUIR, ifthere's any additional operational data that you feel is necessary, just let us know. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. COHEN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, before everybody leaves, we are going to adjourn this meeting in a moment or two. We're going to take a IS-minute break. And those of you interested in discussing the continuation of the LDC cycle, one amendment that we have in front of us on the noise issue, we will be taking that up in a new meeting. We'll open up in about 15 minutes. So, with that, I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So moved. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion made. Seconded by Mr. Vigliotti. All in favor? COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. Page 89 October 26, 2007 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries. We will resume the next meeting at 11:35. ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 11 :20 a.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION MARK P. STRAIN, CCPC Chairman These minutes approved by the Board on presented or as corrected , as TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY ROSE MARIE WITT. Page 90 -------- --....-----..-