BCC Minutes 02/14/1995 RREGULAR HEETING OF FEBRUARY 14, 1995,
OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS
LET IT BE REHEHBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners
in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of
Zoning Appeals and as the governing board (s) of such special districts
as have been created according to law and having conducted business
herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in regular session in Building
"F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following
members present:
CHAIRPERSON:
VICE-CHAIRMAN:
ALSO PRESENT:
Bettye J. Hatthews
John C. Norris
Timothy J. Constantine
Pamela S. Hac'Kie
Timothy L. Hancock
W. Neil Dotrill, County Hanager
Bill Harget, Assistant County Hanager
Ken Cuyler, County Attorney
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Call to order the February 14th meeting of
the Board of County Commissioners. Happy Valentines Day.
Mr. Dotrill, will you lead us in an invocation and the Pledge of
Allegiance?
MR. DORRILL: Heavenly Father, as always, this morning we pause
to give thanks for your wonder and your grace. We give thanks for the
glory of Collier County and the wonderful community that it is in which
to live and raise a family and enjoy retirement years.
Father, on this Valentines Day, we thank you especially for the
love and support of our families and the comfort and support that they
provide to each and everyone of us. And, as always, Father, we ask
that you watch over and bless the Commission as they make these
important deliberations that affect Collier County and that you would
bless our time here together this morning. We pray these things in
your Son's holy name, Amen.
(At this time the Pledge of Allegiance was recited.)
Item #2 and 2A
CHANGES TO THE AGENDA AND CONSENT AGENDA - APPROVED WITH CHANGES
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Hr. Dorrill, do we have some changes to
the agenda?
MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am. This morning I have only one, and it's
an add-on item. It will be Item 8-B (1), under Transportation, which
is a request to -- it should actually read, "Defer temporarily the
application fees consistent with a vacation petition for Dale Beatty."
We provided you with some back-up information from that. And
that's as a result of a meeting that the Chairman and I had on Friday
with this individual that is experiencing a hardship, and we've
explained that to you as part of the reason. That's all I have.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's all you have. Okay. I have a
notation from Judge Brousseau and Mayor Putzell that they'll give their
update on the work-release center at approximately 11:30, in that time
frame, and I'm asking this Board if that's appropriate. Do you want to
hear that as close to 11:30 as possible?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's fine with me.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mayor, you're on there; it's 11:30.
Any other changes? Commissioner Norris?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Nothing further.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I have one additional item. And if you
can direct me to the appropriate place, I'll motion the Board to take
action on it regarding the potential problem with the north canal
situation. I think you and I may be on the parallel.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, we probably are.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Why don't we have it under BCC?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Under Communications?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No.
MR. DORRILL: We intended to give you a little update on that,
under Staff Communications, today. And we can do it either under BCC
or Staff communications.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, if we want to give any direction, we
should do it under BBC.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's fine.
MR. DORRILL: That's fine.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Do you want to assign a place for that,
Mr. Dorrill?
MR. DORRILL: It will be 10-D as in David.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And that would be on the Coconut Palm
River.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's all I have.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie?
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nothing, thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, I have one item from the Consent
Agenda I would like to remove and continue for one week, and that is
16-C (4) -- I apologize for the surprise, Tom; I just found out about
this this morning -- the Animal Control bid.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Continue for one week?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Please.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let me mark mine. 16-C (4)?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
a motion --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
Agenda?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
COHMISSIONER NORRIS:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
There being no other changes, I would like
So moved.
-- to approve the Agenda and the Consent
Yes.
Second?
Second.
We have a motion and a second to approve
the Agenda and the Consent Agenda. All those in favor, please say,
"Aye."
(The Commissioners all responded simultaneously.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There being none, it passes.
The next item --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Excuse me, Ms. Chairman.
Mr. Dotrill, that 16-C (4), concerning the Animal Shelter bids,
will that come back on the regular agenda when it comes back?
MR. DORRILL: I think that dealt with the neuter/spay program.
My indication is that it would be.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm sorry?
MR. DORRILL: The item that Mr. Constantine asked to be
continued, it would be continued on the regular agenda next week unless
he otherwise gets an answer to his question.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is that correct, Tim?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So it will be on the regular agenda unless
he gets an answer?
MR. DORRILL: Yes.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: How about if it's on the regular agenda in
any case?
MR. DORRILL: That's fine.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Because we've had some inquiries about
that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's fine. Then it will be on the
regular agenda regardless.
Item #4B1
JOANNE SOPRANO, PUBLIC SERVICES DIVISION RECOGNIZED AS EHPLOYEE OF THE
MONTH FOR FEBRUARY, 1995
Next item on the Agenda is Service Awards. Commissioner Hancock?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Actually, did you want to --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Nobody knows up here.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, well, we know.
It is my pleasure to go through the monthly award of our Employee
of the Month Program. And is Joanne Soprano here? She sure is. Do
you want to come forward? Thank you. If you'll turn around and look
at the camera, I'm going to tell our audience what you've been doing.
Joanne has been in the employment of Collier County since August
of 1983 and began as a Library -- Library Page. She has been promoted
three times and is currently in the position of Library Assistant II.
Joanne has -- she was chosen to head the inter-library loan service.
And when it was assigned to the technical service section, she
completely reorganized the paperwork and has got it running quite well.
Although the task has added greatly to her workload, Joanne still
continues to perform her normal duties and continues to take on
additional responsibilities, all of which she performs in a highly
efficient and effective manner. She is a good employee is what we're
trying to say. Her commitment and dedication to the library are just
outstanding. She has tremendous customer service skills, and she
interacts very well with both her peers and the public.
So with no further ado, I will, Joanne, ask you to please accept
from us a letter recognizing you as Employee of the Month. I have a
plaque which I would like to read: "Collier County Board of County
Commissioners, Collier County, Florida, Employee of the Month official
recognition and appreciation is tendered to Joanne Soprano for
exception performance of February 1995." And along with this is the
proverbial, spendable $50 check.
MS. SOPRANO: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And now Service Awards. Commissioner
Hancock?
Item #4B2
EHPLOYEE SERVICE AWARDS - PRESENTED
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: This morning we have four. I would like
to start with Mr. Henry Bickford. Henry has been with Collier County
for twenty years in the Road and Bridge Department. And for Henry we
have a Service Award Certificate and a twenty-year pin.
Henry, are you here? Come on up, if you would, please. Thank
you very much.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Tim, what were you doing twenty years
ago?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I was -- never mind.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I was raising small children.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think I was one grade behind you,
Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, and both of us were out of
school.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Next we have, from Road and Bridge also,
Mr. Ted Bricker. Ted, are you here? MR. BRICKER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Ted, congratulations.
MR. BRICKER: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Congratulations.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Next, from Planning Services, someone who
started with the County about the same time I started in the private
sector, and I think we've been growing together. Wayne Arnold, a
five-year service pin.
MR. ARNOLD: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Congratulations, Wayne.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Congratulations.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And also with a five-year Service Award,
from Road and Bridge, Gilberto Garcia. MR. GARCIA: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And that's all the Service Awards for this
morning.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well done.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Commissioner Hancock.
Item #5
BUDGET AMENDMENTS 95-148 AND 95-158 - ADOPTED
The next item on the Agenda is Approval of Budget Amendments.
Mr. Smykowski.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record,
Michael Smykowski, acting Budget Director. There are two budget
amendments, county budget amendments on the report this morning that
require your approval.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to approve.
COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: Second.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve
the budget amendments. If there is no further questions, I'll call the
question. All in favor please say, "Aye."
(The Commissioners all responded simultaneously.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: All those opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There being none, the motion passes.
MR. SHYKOWSKI: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You're welcome.
Item #SB1
RECOHMENDATION TO WAIVE FEES FOR VACATION PETITION FOR DALE BEATTY RE
PROPERTY LOCATED AT 2815 BAYVIEW DRIVE - PETITION TO BE PROCESSED AND
DEFERRAL OF FEES TO BE PAID AT TIME OF SALE OF PROPERTY
The next item on the Agenda, moving to the County Manager's
Report, Item 8-D (1), consideration of an Alternative Impact Fee
Calculation for -- I'm sorry, 8-B (1).
MR. LORENZ: Board Members, 8-B (1) is a request by an
application to waive the vacation processing fee. The petition that
has been received involves a request for the County to vacate
thirty-five feet of 150 foot right of way that falls within the
Holderman Creek area.
The petitioner, as a result of a hardship, has made the request
of waiving the fee, which is $1,000. And that fee represents the cost
of staff to not only process the application but also follow through
with all of the advertising requirements that are set forth both by
State Statute and by County Ordinance. Staff would recommend that if
the Board does wish to waive the fee, that consideration be given to at
least subsidizing the advertising costs. And that advertising cost is
approximately $100.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: For the information of the Board, I had a
discussion along with Mr. Dotrill on Friday with the petitioner. And
the request is not for a waiver, but for a deferral. The property is
on the verge of bankruptcy and foreclosure, and they do not have the
$1,000 and wish to defer that to the settlement. They have a good
contract on the property. The title is clouded though, and they need
to clear the cloud on the title before they can settle. And that's
what they are asking us to do, to proceed with the request for the
vacation and to defer the $1,000 fee until settlement on the property
as opposed to it being a waiver.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is the settlement, the deferral, tied to
this particular settlement or just the eventual sale of the property
ever?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I believe they have a mortgage commitment
on it now.
MR. DORRILL: They have a mortgage commitment and contract, and
they have provided us with copies of that. They have scheduled a
closing -- I think they indicated to us -- April 1st -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: March 31st, April 1st.
MR. DORRILL: -- thereabouts. And there is enough time to
process a petition of vacation in advance of that in order to get the
necessary opinion of title to effectuate the closing. And then they
would pay us with the proceeds from the sale.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So basically the sale can't go through
until we clear up this title or cloud that comes from the vacation, and
they can't get the vacation because of the cash flow.
MR. DORRILL: It's an interesting situation. I guess there is a
road right-of-way or an easement in the fellow's rear yard literally
adjacent to the canal. And it's just an old, old issue. He has some
type of structure that is within that easement or right-of-way, and
they need to get that vacated in order to be able clear the title. The
structure is some type of small frame facility or shed or something of
that type.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: What are we being asked to do today? Are
we vacating today?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No.
MR. DORRILL: No, we need to process the vacation in the normal
course. You need to authorize us to receive the petition absent the
petition filing fee and postpone the payment of the filing fee pending
the sale of the property.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And this will be repaid to the County on
the sale?
MR. DORRILL: Yes.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Question. Should the sale not go through,
does the fee then become a lien on the property? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I would think so.
MR. CUYLER: Well, no, not the way things are structured right
now.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, do we have that option at that time?
MR. CUYLER: Let me talk to Mr. Archabald about a way to maybe
tie that up by the time the vacation comes to you. Maybe we'll get the
guy to sign a note or something.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That'll be fine.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Are we interested in amending the motion
then that the deferral be subject to a lien on the property?
MR. CUYLER: What you may do -- your vacation is still going to
come up before this gets resolved apparently. Why don't you save it
until that time? We may even put it in the resolution. And I'll talk
to Mr. Archabald about how to tie the paperwork up.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That'll be fine for me.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve
staff working -- staff continue working on this project and the
deferral of the vacation fee. There being no further discussion, I
will call the question. All those in favor please say, "Aye."
(The Commissioners all responded simultaneously.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There being none, the motion passes five
to zero.
Item #SD1
CONSIDERATION OF ALTERNATIVE IMPACT FEE CALCULATION FOR SHERWOOD PARK -
CONTINUED TO 3/14/95
The next item is 8-D (1), consideration of Alternative Impact Fee
Calculation for Sherwood Park.
MR. HCNEES: Good morning, Madam Chairman, Commissioners, Mike
McNees with your Utilities Division. What we have here is an
Alternative Impact Fee Calculation for a project called Sherwood Park.
We have been in negotiation and discussion with this petitioner over
the last, I would say, month or two. And my understanding is that
petitioner is going to ask today that this item be continued because he
feels like he would like to get staff to come to some sort of an
agreement that some relief is warranted, which at this point staff has
not agreed to.
We went ahead and put this on your agenda today because, as I
understand the terms of the Impact Fees Ordinance, we are required
within thirty days to bring this to you for decision. And there is a
provision in the ordinance for one thirty-day extension. That
sixty-day time clock, given that you were willing to somewhat
retroactively grant that thirty-day extension to us today, would have
expired tomorrow. So we felt like this was a good idea to get this
before you today. I know the petitioner would like it continued, and I
will leave that up to you. I'll either be -- go ahead and make my
presentation regarding the item or we can continue it if that's within
the provisions of the ordinance.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I have no objection to continuing.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have no objection to continuing.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll make a motion to continue it for,
what, one week.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I think they may need more than one
week.
MR. HCNEES: Give us at least two weeks.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. I'll make a motion to continue
it for two weeks.
MR. NORRIS: Second.
MR. CUYLER: Could we -- Madam Chairman, could we have Mr. Vines
or whoever is the representative indicate for the record that it is the
petitioner's request for a two-week continuance?
MR. VINES: Yes, it's true. I could -- I have prepared a brief
statement that I could either read into the record or we can delete
that. The end result is the request that you do continue and that you
do refer the matter to staff, both utilities and your legal staff, and
request that they give this matter the necessary attention to come to a
serious conclusion regarding whether the Sherwood Park application is
entitled -- meets the requirements for the Alternative Impact Fee
criteria set forth in the ordinance. That's really all we are looking
for, to get some serious attention to the matter, so that we can come
back to you with something of substance.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Is two weeks enough time for you?
MR. VINES: I think so.
MR. CUYLER: Madam Chairman, Mr. Pickworth just indicated if you
would make it four weeks, that might give everyone a little more leeway
in case we need the time.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do you want to amend the motion to four
weeks?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Sure.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Second?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second agrees.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There is a motion by Commissioner
Constantine and a second by Commissioner Norris to continue this item
for four weeks. There being no further discussion, I will call the
question. All those in favor please say, "Aye."
(The Commissioners all responded simultaneously.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There being none, the motion passes
five/zero. See you back in four weeks.
Mrs. Ericson (phonetic), we have already addressed your item, and
it passed. So you can go back to work.
MRS. ERICSON: Thank you very much.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Some days are better than others.
Item #BE1
RECOHMENDATION TO OBTAIN BOARD DIRECTION TO AMENDM THE COUNTY
PURCHASING POLICY - STAFF DIRECTED TO AMEND PURCHASING POLICY
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item on the Agenda, 8-E (1). That's a
recommendation to obtain Board direction to amend the County purchasing
policy.
MR. CARNELL: Madam Chairman, good morning. Members of the
Board, Steve Camell purchasing director. The recommendation before
you is to obtain direction to modify the County's purchasing policy,
which was last amended in 1990. The recommendation specifically is to
make changes in three general areas in terms of our policy.
The first would be to modify the procedural dollar limits
associated with making purchases. Those modifications are outlined in
your Executive Summary. The second would be to investigate the concept
of delegated project authority for County projects that we manage.
It's primarily capital projects; although, there is a possibility that
we could broaden that definition to beyond capital projects. We would
like to discuss that with the Board this morning and obtain some
direction regarding that concept. And, thirdly, we have some
housekeeping items regarding language contained within the policy that
we need to make clarifications on that pertain to a variety of
different administrative matters.
Briefly, what I would like to do this morning is outline to the
Board, focus our attention on the first two areas in particular with
regard to the limits. The recommendations before you have been derived
and put together based on examination by your purchasing department
staff of our current purchasing practices and also an examination of
survey data, both nationally and within the State of Florida in terms
of County governments and general government, purchase activities and
rules and regulations.
The benefits that we believe can be derived from implementing the
modified threshold this morning would be -- firstly, we would envision
fewer man hours involved in making purchases, particularly for your
operating department staff. Secondly, we would see that a number of
our purchases, we would envision, would take less calendar time to
complete because of the fact that we would be doing more activity for
the informal quotation process as opposed to the formal competitive
process. And we also believe that both of those things will enable,
particularly, your operating departments to devote more attention to
the larger purchases. And, secondly, and perhaps most importantly, to
devote more of their time directly to the business of service and
delivery to the public and maybe a little less time to procurement.
Those are the primary reasons why we recommend these to you.
With regard to the project authority concept, what we are
proposing here and what we need a little dialogue with the Board this
morning on is to investigate the opportunity of delegating more
authority to the staff. And I am going to focus on capital projects
primarily to give you some examples of how this would work. But,
again, we may ultimately propose language to you that is broader than
strictly capital projects.
We'll start with the concept of capital projects, and let me walk
you through that. What we propose to do, first of all, is maintain the
present project reporting system, which you have -- which is done with
the staff through the County Manager's office in terms of how the
Manager's office is formally apprised and kept abreast of project
progress or capital projects, that process would remain as is. In
addition to that, we would also maintain the present Board
appropriation and budgeting process, which means that expenditures
would be controlled strictly within budget limits that are established
by the Board.
And the -- really, the simple intent here is to -- we've got a
number of things facing us. We have a good deal of work to be
accomplished. We have the Board having expressed a policy intent to
see our staff do more in-house design work for capital projects. And
what we are trying to do is make our procedures just a little bit more
like the private sector, if you will. Because, in effect, we are
taking a little more work in-house; and a little less work is going
out, so we are trying to resemble more the way an outside firm would do
business while retaining accountability and controls and ability for
the Board or senior management to stay on top of what's happening as it
unfolds.
So we would retain that budget control process; we would retain
the reporting process they referenced. The idea would be that we would
establish projects as we do now through the Board's budgeting process
and through the adoption of the capital improvements element,
modification annually. And that through that the Board would, in
effect, create a project and authorize the staff to move forward with
it as they do now. The staff would then go through the necessary
procurement work.
And in a typical project -- let me just give you an example. If
we are building, let's say, a one million dollar building, and we are
going to need to design, construct and furnish it. And the idea--
that's three purchases, minimum, right there. And in all likelihood
there's going to be more than three purchases, many more in many
instances, but let's just say there are three purchases: Design,
construct, and furnish.
What we would be proposing here is that we would go through the
design procurement process that is called for under state law, no
change to that obviously. And as the staff issues the RFP and solicits
the letters of interest and qualifications from proposing firms, the
staff would go through the same evaluation process that it does now.
But rather than coming to the Board with a recommended short list, what
we recommend here is that the Board would delegate authority to the
staff to make awards and to enter into contracts, on behalf of the
Board, to initiate and instigate that work. Say, for the first step
being the design work, we would negotiate a contract, enter into the
contract, and proceed with the work. And the one qualifier here is,
the one overriding control, that would remain in force is that we would
do that within established budget limits set forth by the Board. So
the premise being, "Staff, go out there and get the work done, and we
don't want to hear from you unless you have problems or there's a need
to hear from you."
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Camell, this is an outbirth of the
discussion we had, I believe, at the workshop on January 5th where we
were --
MR. CARNELL: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- where we were looking for ways to -- I
believe what we were talking about there was that included in our
weekly agenda would be a progress report. It's not that we won't hear
from you, but we'll get a progress report. So if any one of the five
of us see something that is not going the way we envisioned it, we can
investigate.
MR. CARNELL: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's not correct in saying, you know,
"Staff, go get the job done, we don't ever want to hear about it
again," but we would be apprised each week in the agenda package with
what's called a progress sheet.
MR. CARNELL: Let me clarify that; that's an important point.
When I'm talking -- when I made reference to the staff not coming back
to the Board, I'm talking about agenda discussions and items as a
regular matter of habit. And, as you say, the notification, Madam
Chairman, could be through some kind of weekly update with the agenda.
Or as different key procurement decisions are made, a memo could be
provided to the Board.
And, again, I will be looking for direction from you all as to if
you're interested in the concept as to how you would like to see that
information assembled. But that is exactly correct. The idea would be
to keep the Board apprised but to not necessarily have to spend time
deliberating on the procurement decisions as a matter of habit, as a
matter of regular course. And we would repeat the same practice with
construction awards, which, again, back to my example where we talked
about design, and we go to the construction phase; the same type of
thing again where the staff would be following the normal bidding
procedures and award procedures.
Again, the difference being the Board will be advised of the
award as opposed to having been asked to make it and dedicate time to
having to consider each and every award. And, likewise, if we get to
the furnishing issues, the same type of thing would prevail again. The
staff would be able to make the award and advise the Board. And any
Board member at any time could ask for a discussion on an item if there
was a concern that there was a need for Board discussion or
clarification on any purchase that was being made.
And, again, what we hope to save here is primarily two things, as
I mentioned earlier, man hours and calendar time. We need to make a
distinction between the two. We have certain advertising and posting
requirements; we have a certain amount of lead time it takes to get on
the agenda. And those are things that whether you have one person or
100 people working on them still take a fixed amount of time to
accomplish.
And you'll be -- in each and every purchase I just listed, you
would be saving that calendar time. Just the mere lead time to get on
the agenda, which is three weeks, could be eliminated for each project.
And if you replicate that just three times, you have got six to nine
weeks saved off a project schedule. If you have more than three
purchases, you have potentially many more weeks that could be saved.
Likewise, we believe there would be some man-hour savings too in terms
of the actual staff effort that has to go into processing these things
by adopting this type of process.
At this point what I need to make sure that you understand is
that this is a kind of round idea, if you will, we don't have all the
edges defined on it yet. And the County Attorney's office -- I've had
some preliminary discussions with the Attorney's staff -- they were
generally aware of what we are looking at doing, but they have not
given a legal blessing to this yet. And we need to do some legal
research to be sure that the Board stays within bounds of state law and
that we aren't stepping beyond where we should be in terms of
delegation of authority.
So for that reason we are not really asking you to act or to
adopt this procedure today, it's really -- we're really seeking
direction if there is interest to pursue it and bring back a resolution
that would reflect a procedure and establish a procedure. I'm happy to
answer questions at this point.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any questions?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commission Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The -- I understand what you're trying
to do. And we always say we want to run more like a business, and I
think this is a step in the right direction. But as far as staff
putting together the final contract and signing that and doing their
thing, is there a dollar limit that you anticipate for that?
MR. CARNELL: We have not proposed it as of yet, a dollar limit.
If the Board would like to see one, we could certainly establish one.
The idea --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I would certainly like to see the dollar
limit.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think what he is talking about doing is
that when we move in a direction of a new project that we would discuss
and approve the project and approve the parameters of the costs, and
they would negotiate a contract within that cost.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And they would not be allowed to go above
it.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. My thought just being this past
week we did a two hundred million contract. And that probably would
have been inappropriate outside of this room. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Probably.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But there are many more that are
certainly appropriate to be done.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think -- I think I like the idea, but I
think in an effort of crawling before we walk, I would like to do it on
some very small initiatives first to make sure that we get all the-- to
make sure we get this round concept squared off. Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This -- I don't have any problems with
walking before we run or crawling before we walk. It's frustrating,
and it seems to be the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish. I
mean, my direction says it appears that's really what you're here for
is to poll whether or not we are interested. I am very interested in
this process; very interested in streamlining it. However it's
critical that we build in -- and I trust the County Attorney to build
in -- processes to be sure that we aren't getting rid of, you know,
authority that we don't -- that we shouldn't.
And it will be your responsibility to build in check points for
us to be able to monitor. Even though we want to streamline, we don't
want to close our eyes to the responsibilities. I strongly support
streamlining but with careful opportunities for checking back in, for
the Board to constantly see the status and be able to bring it back and
question it if we see problems.
MR. DORRILL: I think we recognize that, and that's why Mr.
Camell wants to build in that reporting mechanism and make it part of
the official record of the Board meeting process. But otherwise what
he has outlined here for you is very innovative and very streamlining
along the requests that you made of us. We need to bring back a final
proposal as it pertains to project authority with specific amounts and
what the reporting format will entail; but I think in general your
purchasing department -- and I think it helps the Board to know this.
They have a state-wide reputation for being very sophisticated, very
efficient for the work that they do. And I think that's a credit to
Mr. Camell and his support staff there. And I think overall this will
be a major benefit to procurement efficiency under the County
Commission. We need to bring back to you some final details on just
the project authority, because we don't really know yet how that will
completely work.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I have a few points, and I would like to
kind of go down the list. And those that you can address today, fine;
and those that are better addressed in a later forum are fine, also.
The first is, in looking at the process and looking at the dollar
figures, there is a level at which my stomach gets butterflies when we
start saying, you know, that staff can approve. And it has nothing to
do with my confidence or lack of confidence in staff abilities. But if
the public comes to us and says, "$96,000 and you didn't approve it by
a vote?" You know, the numbers get a little large. And I look at the
change order authorities being one of those. I personally would
recommend no change in that.
The bid RFP minimum going up to 25,000. I think it needs to be
higher than 6,500; but to me 25,000 seems a little high. And, again,
I'm going by gut feeling; and if the rest of the Board disagrees,
that's fine. I just wanted to put that on the table. Field Purchase
Orders -- we had a discussion when I first came on the Productivity
Committee about FPO's. They were $300. We had dropped down to 300,
and then we found that we caused more paperwork at $300 and more loss
in staff time, that by bumping it back to 500, the potential for any
indiscriminate losses was negligible compared to this -- to the staff
time saved.
I would like a similar comparison in looking at bumping that up
to a $1,000. There was obviously a nexus and a reason for going from
500 to 300; and now we're actually doubling in the other direction.
I would like that -- to go back to that report, if you would, fill in
the blanks. And, again, we need to be concerned a little bit about
field discretion there. So I would like to see that addressed. And
the last point is when we start looking at these noncompetitive areas
of $1,000 and verbal quotes of 10,000.00, I would like to know a little
more about the internal controls. We all establish relationships
through our jobs. And verbal quotes if you only have to get three and
there's seven vendors potentially out there, I would like to see some
sort of internal control to make sure that the same three aren't
requested for bids all the time. Those types of processes are
important to me. I'll just say that, and we'll get it addressed one
way or the other.
MR. CARNELL: I am prepared to address each of those, if you'd
like, right now.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: John, do you need --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: We are just going to give direction and
they're going to bring this back for discussion at some other time?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Right.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Wouldn't that be more appropriate?
MR. CARNELL: I would like to get some direction on the limits
today. The project authority will definitely need more discussion. I
am prepared to address your concerns.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Why don't we address limits specifically
MR. CARNELL: Right.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- and the rest are more appropriate for a
more complete discussion.
MR. CARNELL: Yeah.
MR. DORRILL: That's fine. And, Mr. Camell, if you don't mind
as part of the limit discussion, in terms of what the rationale for the
changes is, I need you also to incorporate in there the current number
of annual contracts that we have for goods and services. Because in
many instances, for example -- and pick a commodity. Even though the
actual purchase may be small, we have otherwise bid that. And we have a
selected vendor to buy PVC pipe for this year, so they may be buying up
to $1,000 for one particular order, but they must buy it from whoever
bid and won the annual bid. And I bet we have 100 different annual
bids now. But there is still the fairness in terms of the competitive
process. What we're looking for is a little better bureaucratic
mechanism to buy individual lots of items that have otherwise bid as
part of the Board's annual contract.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In those cases I would have no complaints
whatsoever.
MR. DORRILL: Okay. Let me give him as many answers to the
questions that you have and some of the rationale for the proposed
limits. I think that would help.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Camell, are you going to address
these limits?
MR. CARNELL: Yes. If I could start with the bid limit, the RFP
limits. I have handed to you a survey that we conducted just last week
of fourteen different counties, including our own, to give you some
kind of feel of where we are in the rat race of counties in Florida.
And just so you understand the logic of who I contacted and how, I
basically took out my map of Florida and went north from both coasts.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There is nowhere else to go.
MR. CARNELL: Yes, this is true. And I did the same on the east
coast.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Cuba would not be good.
MR. CARNELL: And I did focus on coastal counties, counties that
are similar to us demographically in terms of growth and expansion. But
if you look at the list, you'll see I pretty much got every county all
the way up to the Daytona Beach area. What this indicated to me, in
gathering this information, was a number of counties have moved their
thresholds up more along the lines of what we are recommending.
Now, when I last did this survey, about three years ago, a number
of the counties were at 10,000 for their limit. There were a few that
were higher and a few that were lower, but I would say 10,000 was
probably the mean or the median number. If you look here, you have
about half and half broken between 25 and 10. And you will also note
that a few of the counties have delegation authority -- award authority
higher than 25,000. Even where they are directing at 25,000 you obtain
this, they are giving staff the ability to award up to a certain amount
beyond that.
Now, the -- you'll see the same thing with the written quotes and
verbal quotes, that the limits tend to be more along the lines of what
we are recommending or thereabouts. And you will see with field
purchase orders there are a few counties that are up in that $1,000
range. Now, in addition to that, just to give you a little more data,
approximately 70 percent -- I think 72 percent of the counties
nationwide, according to the most recent survey available from the
National Institute of Government purchasing, 72 percent of the counties
are between 10,000 and 25,000 as their threshold. And there is about
15 or 16 percent that are over 25. So, again, that 10 to 25 admittedly
is the upper end of the range, but it is that range of 10 to 25. And
that's where most of the counties are in the state and nationally.
Now, with regard to a point that goes with that, that you raised,
Commissioner Hancock, about controls, what we envision doing at staff
level is if we raised the bid limit to $25,000.00, we would envision,
again, we're calling for written quotes above $10,000. That's
referring to what you get from the vendor, meaning three written quotes
from the vendor.
What we are going to do with that, hand in hand, is to require
that the purchase be solicited in writing as well. And that could be
as simple as just providing a scope of work if it's a service contract
or a brief product description or equipment description if it's goods
that are being purchased. And I think the idea too would be where
we're also contemplating, at least as an initial step and maybe
something we would do permanently, that all quotes would go through my
office -- my office would obtain those quotes from 10 to 25 or we would
reach agreement with the using department if they were going to obtain
them.
We would agree, for example, let's not do the same three vendors
each time; let's go beyond three; let's contact more than three; let's
make sure we are rotating the competition giving vendors enough
opportunity. So those are some of the things that we have in mind that
aren't spelled out in the Executive Summary, but they will be part of
the resolution that will be brought back if we were to raise the
limits, particularly if we were to go as high as 25,000. We would be
implementing those types of controls.
With regard to the field purchase order, you referenced the
Productivity Committee deliberations and your analysis as an individual
as part of that greater committee. Let's go back to the Productivity
Committee recommendations for a moment. What is important to remember
is that the committee did, as you say, recommend raising the $500 for
the reasons that you ultimately stated. What also went with that, if
you remember, there was a carrot and a stick.
The carrot was higher limits; the stick was you have to get on
the stick and get automated. And that means to -- we have asked all of
our departments to enter their field orders whether they were $10 or
$499 or $500 even. They were to enter them into the system. And by
doing that, that enhances control and reporting and analysis
capabilities not only for the purchasing staff but for the department
managers and senior staff. Because now every purchase is tracked in a
common data format; you can get reports by vendor, by department, by
just about any variable that you want, even by commodity, to a limited
extent, that would enable you to see trends and purchase much more
effectively than we used to.
Mr. Dotrill referred earlier to the term contracts that we have.
And he's right; it's about 195 right now, I think, is the actual count
of the term contracts that we have right now. We use those reports in
purchasing to try to identify opportunities for term contracts. If we
see one department out there repeatedly buying $200 of this or $150 of
that, it's probably calling for a blanket purchase order as opposed to
just issuing a FPO each time.
Now the important thing here is that in 1994 -- '93 -'94 fiscal
year we raised the limit for field purchase orders, as you pointed out,
to $500. That took effect in October of 1993 at the beginning of the
fiscal year. And yet field purchase activity dropped by 20 percent
with a higher limit. It went from 8,500 FPO's to about 6,900 FPO's
last year. Our purchase order activity -- those are the ones over
$500, the things that are issued by -- the PO's that are issued by
purchasing -- that require a requisition to precede it, those increased
slightly; but they didn't increase anywhere near 1,600.
In addition, our total dollar spending went up 5 or 6 percent.
When you take all those three factors together, that says to me that
people are buying more efficiently. Because, again, field purchase
orders dropping by 1,600; people are doing more buying through the
larger purchase orders, which is what we want them to do because that
is a more efficient way to do the paperwork. And it also enhances the
competitive aspect that they are actually out there getting competition
either through a term contract or obtaining quotes at the time for a
purchase.
What we -- what I guess I'm trying to say to you, in short, is
that we think that the departments have gotten with the idea of this
more efficient purchasing through the term contracts, through the use
of blanket purchase orders. And I've got a couple of good war stories
from the field, kind of a before-and-after comparison on workload that
they have experienced by using blanket contracts. And what I'm saying
there is I think there is some momentum that has built within the
departments, and I think the numbers reflect that.
Now, why go to $1,0007 Looking at our data last year we issued
about 4,300 regular purchase orders. Again, that would be purchase
orders over $500. Of that only 200 of them were between $500 and
$1,000. And it was our thinking -- that's about 5 percent of the total
purchase order activity.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll tell you what, Mr. Camell, you are
answering a lot of points, but the level and the depth at which you're
doing it is probably more appropriate for the final. I more or less
wanted to -- you have asked for Board direction here, and I kind of let
you know where I was coming from; and I think the rest of the Board is
just trying to do the same.
There is no doubt to the argument that if we raise it we can save
some administrative costs, but the question I want you to come back to
us with or the answer I want you to come back to us with is to the
question we went from 500 to 300 for a reason. Okay? We dropped it
for a reason. Was it indiscriminate spending? Was it another one? And
by raising it from 500 to 1,000 are we promoting those practices or has
our accountability of those purchase orders deterred that -- you know,
I just need to know that balance. And that's what I'm looking for in
that.
Other than that, the other two, which are simply -- the survey of
the other counties is fine. I'm not so sure in this area we want to be
the top dog, having the greatest flexibility, but I agree with
Commissioner Mac'Kie that there's a lot to be said and saved from this
process. Whether we walk or crawl into this discussion, I don't think
we want to run just yet.
I would personally like to see the staff change order authority
remain where it is and the RFP minimum justified, maybe to a lesser
degree, 15,000 or 20,000 instead of 25,000. And I would like to just
kind of leave those on the table to see if the rest of the Board either
agrees or likes what's here, and from there I think we can then take a
lot of information that you have and form a good strong final report so
we can consider this. And some of the very interested people in this
audience that love numbers would probably have a few things to say on
this in a final form.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That's fine.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I agree with that, except that I
think on the verbal quotations, rather than troubling it from
thirty-five to ten thousand, I would like to see something
intermediate, around seventy-five hundred, just so we do this in
increases that are controllable, so we can see what the effects are.
MR. CARNELL: Well, could I ask, is the Board prepared -- if we
set the project authority request aside for a moment and just look at
the limits, is the Board prepared to give the staff direction as to
what limits they would like to see drafted in the resolution for a
follow-up discussion at this point?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think we were just doing that.
Commissioner Hancock has asked you to do a comparison of staff time
for FPO's greater than $500 and less than a thousand so we see what
kind of savings we're going to be talking about --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's right.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- As far as staff time is concerned.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And that's the one I'm not prepared today
to make a decision on. The others I agree with Commissioner Matthews
on, verbal quotations. Again, it's just kind of one of those gut check
things. You look at it and if the numbers shock you, there's probably
a pretty good reason.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I would like to see how many quotations
staff has done or that have been awarded between 3,500 and 10,000 so
that we see what we're talking about doing rather than just raising the
number and saying, "Yeah, go do it." I would like a little more
information about exactly what we are talking about. And the minimum
RFP, again I think 25,000 may be too high; I would like to see
something along the line of 15 to 20, preferably 15. And the staff
change authority I agree on; I think 50,000 is plenty.
MR. CARNELL: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other comments?
(No response.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: All right, I guess we will see something
along those lines.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Does that provide you with sufficient
direction?
MR. CARNELL: If I could, could I get just a vote on the numbers
that you're interested in at this point? I'm hearing it's 15 or 20 for
the bid limit?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: For the bid minimum, I would like 15.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I would like 15. Commissioner Constantine
is saying 15, so you've got three there.
MR. CARNELL: And on the verbal quote limits, 7,500?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I would like to see 7,500 on that.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Good starting point.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Consensus on that also. And the staff
change authority I would like to see it remain at 10 percent of 50,000.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: As would I.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Concur.
MR. CARNELL: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Now the $500 increase to $1,000 we are
looking for some information before we can decide on that one. MR. CARNELL: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And of course that goes hand and hand in
the noncompetition, so please link the two in your analysis. MR. CARNELL: Right.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think, based on the comments that I've
heard today, the project authority we are all interested in and we
would like to see implementation programs set forth as to how we are
going to meet the requirements of the law if we go along with this. And
I would like to see the project start with some smaller projects so
that we get used to it and get a control on it so we know what you're
doing and so that we know what we're doing; okay?
MR. CARNELL: Okay, got you. Okay, I think that'll cover it for
the moment. We'll be back.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Was there public discussion?
MR. CUYLER: No, ma'am, no public speakers.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Camell, that was a good
idea.
Item #SG1
RECOMMENDATION THAT THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PROVIDE THE
NATURAL RESOURCES DEPARTMENT THE APPROPRIATE DIRECTION FOR FINALIZING
THE ADOPTION OF THE HANATEE PROTECTION PLAN - UPDATE TO BE PRESENTED IN
SIX WEEKS
Next item on the Agenda, 8-C (1), recommend the Board of County
Commissioners provide the National Resource Department with direction
on the Manatee Protection Plan.
MR. CUYLER: We have several speakers.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you.
MR. DUGAN: Madam Chairman, Board Members, my name is Kevin
Dugan. I'm with the National Resources Department. This Executive
Summary was prepared in light of the Manatee Protection Plan that was
passed back in July. At the time that you approved the plan, you gave
us direction to send it directly to the governor and cabinet.
Because of procedures in Tallahassee, the governor and cabinet no
longer routinely review Manatee Protection Plans, and they sent it on
to the DEP.
DEP since then has disapproved of our plan, and so we are here
today looking for direction from the Board. The three options that
were outlined as to whether to go ahead and appeal it or sit down with
DEP and renegotiate or provide another plan. Now since I've written
this Executive Summary, the State has gotten together with members of
the Environmental Community and Marine Trade Association here in town.
And there has been some discussion, and both parties agreed that, you
know, something can be worked out. So I guess we are putting that out
as, like, a fourth option. So I need direction from you as to how to
proceed with this.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Knowing the makeup of the current cabinet,
my first thought was to go ahead and appeal it. However, the Marine
Trade Association and the environmental groups that have been involved
in this have worked so hard on getting something together. I think
this is probably a landmark that we had agreement across the board.
And I want to thank everyone involved on the initial production of that
plan.
Obviously if there is a way we could work it out with the DEP
without appealing it, I would like to do that. That's my personal
feeling. But if we hit a glitch in it, my personal feeling is just to
appeal it to the cabinet. I think the makeup of the cabinet is a
little more reasonable than the makeup of the DEP at this point; so I
would prefer to take my chances there.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Last July I voted against this in a
four to one vote. The discussion at that time from virtually everyone,
with the exception of Dr. Stallings, was that while this wasn't their
preference this was an acceptable compromise. The MArine Trade
Association said this is as far as they could go without damaging the
industry. And the environmentalist on the other side said they could
accept this, except for Dr. Stallings who said it was a good starting
point. And I think I made some sort of joke when he said that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How unusual.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. But I don't think what we
turned in was a starting point; I think it was the effort -- as
Commissioner Hancock said -- the effort of the two groups working
together for a long time. While my preference would be to see
something a little less restrictive. I think a lot of time and effort
went into this, and I would like to see us pursue this particular one
and go ahead and appeal the decision of the governor and cabinet.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Are there other comments?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I would have to agree that this was one of
the rare instances when it seemed like both sides, who have a natural
opposition to each other, just seemed to work this out in a reasonable
manner and agree to a solution, and now it's being blocked by the
bureaucracy in Tallahassee. So I'm not strictly opposed to the sides
coming back together and trying to renegotiate a settlement that would
acceptable to the DEP, but I don't -- it's really not my first
preference. I think that the work has been done, and everyone is in
agreement, and it's a workable and good agreement, and perhaps we
should appeal it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner MAc'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just since we seem to be testing waters,
that's the same impression when everybody seems to agree on something
that has already been worked out. But not having participated at the
time you adopted this, I would love to hear from the speakers before we
go much further.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That would certainly help me, also.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think we are going to hear from the
speakers. And I think what we are going to hear is that based on a
meeting last Friday there is a lot of encouragement that all the
parties participating in this are making the other parties more aware
of what the strengths are.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Let me ask one quick question, if I may,
of staff. By sitting down and talking with DEP, is there a time clock
that keeps us from appealing the decision? And what is that time table
if such?
MR. DUGAN: I don't believe there is a time clock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: So if we sit down across the table from
them and they say, you know --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think every six months it goes back,
doesn't it, regardless?
MR. DUGAN: I'm not sure.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I just don't want to lose a window of
appeal by getting drug into a long, lengthy discussion that goes
nowhere.
MR. DUGAN: This plan has never been presented directly to the
governor's cabinet; it was sent to the office.
MR. DORRILL: Just for the information of the Board and people
perhaps at home -- especially for people at home -- they run the State
of Florida similar to how this County Commission works. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, my God.
MR. DORRILL: And it may be an opportunity to test the water, so
to speak, because the people that would hear the appeal, if you would,
would be the cabinet aides. And the cabinet aides typically hear and
attempt to mediate these types of things, whether it's a dispute
resolution such as this or an appeal of the Sheriff's budget. You make
your presentation to the cabinet aides who then individually advise and
make recommendations to the cabinet members that they work for. So
there may be an opportunity to go test the water, so to speak, and have
a meeting with one or more of the cabinet aides to get a feeling for
the perspective of new cabinet members in the time that's, you know,
available to us. It's just a suggestion.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, we will certainly have that
opportunity as we move forward. Why don't we hear from the public.
MR. DORRILL: I will called these two at a time. Mr. Addison, if
you would, please, sir; and Mr. Perkins, if I could have you stand by.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How many speakers do you have, Mr.
Dotrill?
MR. DORRILL: We have about six, Mr. Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Addison, as I'm sure you're aware, we
limit our public speakers to five minutes.
MR. ADDISON: Don't worry about that. I have sat through a
number of meetings regarding this Hanatee Protection Plan, both as a
member of Eptab and as a biologist with the Conservancy, and I can
appreciate the amount of effort that has gone into trying to get
something together that is acceptable to all the parties concerned.
And I felt, when we got the final draft together, that we were fairly
close to something the State might be willing to accept; although, I
was not particularly optimistic that they would accept it based on
their track record with the other protection plans that have been
submitted.
By the same token I think that the gap between what the State is
interested in and what the County is interested in getting approved is
not really that -- that great. And I would try to encourage the Board,
before you go to the step of appealing it to the governor and cabinet,
would be to try and work out something with the people from DEP and see
if you can't close the gap enough so that you can understand better
what's going on.
That might entail having them come down here -- and I don't know
how much they've gone out on the waters of the County to actually see
what we're dealing with here. And I spoke with Hack Hatchet
(phonetic), and he was saying maybe once. And there's a lot of water
in this County, and I think it would help if they were out to see what
they were dealing with. The other question I have about the appeal,
having been involved with some of the appeals that go on with permits,
is that you might be delaying this even more if you just obviate the
idea of approaching it from a standpoint of "Let's sit down and try to
work this thing out," get closer, and then try it again and see what
happens.
And, again, as Commissioner Hancock said, you don't want to lose
a window of appeal like that, but it doesn't sound like you would. So I
would encourage you to try and readdress it with the representatives of
DEP before you go ahead to the level of appeal. You might end up
delaying it even longer than you would if you could talk to the folks.
Thank you for your time.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Perkins, and then Mr. Turner, if I could have
you, please, stand by.
MR. PERKINS: Good morning, Commissioners; good morning
everybody. I hope you are listening: Manatee Protection Plan. The
protection now -- we're talking about fresh water. And at the moment
we have a fish kill in the 1-75 canal, within two blocks there is about
thirty-five fish that are about two and a half feet long, along with
all the rest of them. Now, this canal empties into the Golden Gate
main canal to the south and then dumps into the Gordon River and then
it dumps into Naples Bay.
Now, if it's killing fish, what's it going to do to the people at
the Vineyards, Wyndemere, the new developments, the people who have
animals, the birds, and in particular -- and I have to yap about this
because I have horses. They are very expense horses, yet I have to
feed them -- or I give them water from my wells which are approved by
the Health Department. If we have a problem, people, we better get on
it, and we better get on it quick before someone ends up dead. Thank
you. That was short, wasn't it?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Turner, and then Mr. Lyon.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Turner.
MR. TURNER: Thank you, and good morning. I'm Duke Turner, and
I'm here representing the Marine Industry Association of Collier
County. I was in on the meeting on Friday with the two people from the
DEP that come down with the Manatee Protection Plan. We sat and went
over the plan for approximately four hours. We worked on it, and I
think possibly there has been a lack of communication with some of what
they look at on small maps.
And I think what we need to do is probably sit down and get them
on one side of the table and us on the other and explain our views to
them. They're in Tallahassee, and we live in Collier County.
So I think if we work on it and try to get by having an appeal
and so forth-- because they can string those out, bureaucrats have a
way of preserving their jobs. So I think maybe if we get at the table
and work it out -- we're not going to stop growth completely, and we
understand that. And I understand that because I have seen it go from
800 to what it is today.
So I think I would suggest to the Board that we instruct the
staff to go forward with some negotiations and see if we can't work
this problem out and work through out our County. We worked on it for
four hours. We started at the north County line and worked all the way
to the Everglades. There are some things we disagree on, but I think
that possibly we can work out those solutions with the help of the
Zoning Department so we know where the zoning is at and what can be put
in place in those areas so we don't start getting into property rights
and what people are allowed to do with their property.
So I would suggest that we negotiate further with them. And, if
we have to, put a group together. And I would be willing to sit on it
to help work between the County and them to see if we can't work
something out. Thank you.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Turner?
MR. TURNER: Yes.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Did you say you're an officer of the Marine
Trade Association?
MR. TURNER: I'm one of the directors of the Marine Industry
Association of Collier County.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay, thank you.
MR. TURNER: Thank you.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Lyon, and then Dr. Stallings.
MR. LYON: Yes, I'm Lee Lyon, the current president for the
Marine Industry Association. I would like to reiterate what Mr. Turner
had to say. At a meeting last Friday that, really, Dr. Stallings and
ourselves requested, we gave the State the opportunity for either us to
come up there or for them to come down here so we could try to clarify
the problems that they had with our Hanatee Protection Plan. Quite to
our own surprise they volunteered to come down and meet with us. The
biggest thing, like Mr. Turner says, is we feel that we got is lack of
communication.
To give you a quick example, up in Tallahassee, of course,
they're not familiar with our waterways; and we are. We are all
familiar with Clam Pass; they looked at Clam Pass on our charts, and
wanted to know why we didn't pay more attention to it as far as Hanatee
Protection Plan. It was quite obvious to them, after we told them that
Clam Pass was virtually impassable and not navigable that -- they
understood then why we had excluded it from mentioning it in the
Hanatee Protection Plan.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And did they request canoe depth
information?
MR. TURNER: No. We volunteered that information though.
Consequently, we took the waterways, basically, all the way from the
north end of Collier County to the south end and tried to go through
specific areas that they had problems with and tried to relate, you
know, our own experiences and knowledge of the particular areas. I
think quite to the amazement of everybody at the table we were all very
pleased with the outcome of the meeting, and it left the door open to
be able to possibly negotiate this thing out without a lot of hassle
and problems.
Mr. Turner and I would like to be appointed to the official
negotiating team so that we could be copied in on any information or
things like that. We would like to pursue further interest with our
members and everything to cover the rest of the waterways that we were
unfamiliar with be able to discuss it with Tallahassee. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you.
MR. DORRILL: Dr. Stallings, and then Mr. Neale.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Who's the last one?
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Neale. He will be your last speaker.
DR. STALLINGS: Fran Stallings representing Florida Wildlife
Federation. I would basically support what Duke and Lee said. The
primary goal that I think all of us have here is to expedite the
process and get it settled. There have been four appeals, I think, to
date to the governor and the cabinet, and none of them have been
upheld. And I think an appeal is just automatically going to add six
months to whatever we do.
I think the really worthwhile thing -- or one of the worthwhile
things that we got accomplished here by inviting these people from
Tallahassee or putting pressure on them to sit down with us was to
finally get them to write down on paper exactly what they wanted.
Because, I mean, obviously we can't go forward without that, and that
had not been done. So they did put down on paper what they thought
would be a satisfactory solution to the problems. And we had the
opportunity to sit down with them, and with a tremendous knowledge of
the local area that Duke and Lee have, with their input, a lot of
issues were resolved right there.
Now, I'm not saying that we are going to resolve all of the
issues, but I think at the very least a few weeks of negotiations here
that we can identify specific points -- and there may not be that much
difference between what they consider acceptable or what we consider
acceptable, but at least we'll know what the precise points are. We
will not lose the window of opportunity, I think we can appeal to the
governor and cabinet, basically, whenever we choose to do so.
Like I said, it does add something like six months of time there,
I think, automatically, because what they've done before is just to
send it back to DEP and say, "Sit down with the local people and work
it out." So, anyway, we would certainly like to move forward with it.
I would be very happy to work with this group in any way possible to
expedite it. I think we are really making some good progress here, and
I think we need to continue it. It may ultimately be necessary to do
an appeal, but at the very least, we can define the issues and we can
know precisely what those issues are and we can go from there.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Dr. Stallings, do you have in mind an
amount of time that we should leave the window open for continued
negotiations? It's my experience if you have a deadline, it sort of
pushes things along.
DR. STALLINGS: I would suggest that we would need about six
weeks to, you know, get the response back from Tallahassee. My
understanding is, in light of the discussions that we had with them
at the meeting last Friday, they are going to send their specific
response to us. And I guess the time frame sort of depends on how
quickly they get that here. But then we would want to look at it,
work with County staff, work with the Marine Industry people and
anyone else that is, you know, involved and identify more specifically
what the differences are and try to work them out. And then whatever
is left on the table, we would have to deal with it.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are you optimistic, from your
meeting with them, that we will get that written response from them,
say, within a month?
DR. STALLINGS: Yeah, and I think that we can push on
them a little bit. And I think it might be good if the Board sent a
letter to Tallahassee asking for a specific response as quickly as
possible. Because there are a number of projects sitting out there
that need resolving; manatees need protecting. So, you know, let's
get on with it.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
DR. STALLINGS: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Mr. Neale.
MR. DORRILL: He is the final speaker.
MR. NEALE: My name is Patrick Neale, and I'm here both
as a private citizen and also on behalf of a marina client of mine.
And here, sort of as a broken record almost, reiterating to a large
extent what the previous speakers have said. Because it's important
to note that the Hanatee Protection Plan is, of course, necessary
really to permit any future marine development in Collier County.
Our Growth Management Plan specifically sets out
guidelines for marina development to be in water-related spots and so
forth. And right now we are stymied -- developers are stymied from
going forward because of the fact that we don't have a plan in place.
The State imposes the one boat per 100 feet of shoreline rule. I
agree with the other parties that have spoken that we should go
forward with negotiation, but I feel it's important that we be careful
not to compromise private property rights and not to go in
contravention of our Growth Management Plan as we go forward with
these negotiations. So I think that's an important point to be
brought forward.
Further I think anything that is finally negotiated
should come back to the Board for a final review so that it can have a
full and complete public hearing. I also, along with the other
speakers, would be more than willing to work in an ad hoc group to sit
and help negotiate these things. I would like to see it done within
six weeks, because I have a client that has a project that has been
hung up in DEP for over a year simply because of this problem. So
it's certainly something that is vital to the interest of the County
and to the constituents here in the county. I thank you for the
opportunity to speak.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Commissioner
Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Obviously, I didn't get the
frustration of working as the three of the veteran Board members did,
and I can understand your desire to want to press ahead. However,
everyone that seems to be involved, is in agreement. And I certainly
don't want to go in the face of those people who have worked so hard
to bring this particular plan to where it is.
I'm sure that there may be some more discussion, but I
would like to go ahead and make a motion that we direct staff, in
connection with a citizen panel to include members of the Marine
Industry Association, Dr. Stallings, the Conservancy and Mr. Neale, to
sit down with the DEP over the next six weeks and try to produce an
agreed upon resolution to the Hanatee Protection Plan. And at that
point we can revisit the situation if it has not improved. We then
have the opportunity to appeal.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I will second that if you'll
require as part of that that we have an update in six weeks before
this Board.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I will amend the motion to
include that, and, in addition to that, I think Dr. Stallings
mentioned that it's a good idea that this Board fire a letter off to
DEP requesting a response within, what, four weeks?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE:
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK:
COMMISSIONER NORRIS:
get it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK:
Fed-Ex it back; how's that?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
As soon as possible.
Okay. As soon as possible.
Two weeks, hopefully then you'll
A response to what?
How about if we ask if they
A response to what?
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: A response enumerating the
specific points in the plan in which they have a problem or contention
with. So that is an all encompassing motion.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I second that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Motion and second. Is there any
further discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There being none, I'll call the
question. All those in favor please say, "Aye."
(The Commissioners all responded simultaneously.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There being none, the motion
passes.
MR. NEALE: Thank you.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Now you can work on the
baseball strike.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you to everyone who has
been involved in this; and thank you for being here today.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item on the agenda. Why
don't we take a quick break. It's twenty-five after; we'll reconvene
at twenty-five of.
(At this time a short break was taken.)
Item #8G2
EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL SITES FOR A NEW LANDFILL - STAFF TO COME BACK
IN 60-90 DAYS WITH SHORT LIST FOR FATAL FLAW STUDY; AND STAFF TO ASSESS
SITES #16, 17, 18 AND OVERLAND PROPERTY AND REPORT BACK IN FOUR WEEKS
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Reconvene the Board of County
Commissioner meetings for February 14th. And we will move on with
Item 8-G (2), Evaluation of Potential Landfill sites. Mr. Lorenz.
MR. LORENZ: Yes, thank you. For the record, Bill
Lorenz, Environmental Services Administrator.
This item is to bring before the Board a preliminary
assessment of staff's work to look at potential landfill sites in
Collier County. The Board requested, on January 17th of this year, to
come back to the Board within three weeks with a preliminary
assessment report; and that's the purpose of this agenda item. I
think -- the one thing I want to be able to state too, is these are
potential sites. This is for -- to start the ball rolling for a
fairly long and lengthy assessment process.
I think it's important to have good public input; input
from the environmental agencies, and also to be able to -- for making
wise decisions eventually, and develop much more detailed information
than we currently have in this report with regard to economic analysis
and data for environment -- supporting environmental permits.
The other aspect of it is, I would like to be able to
say, I think it's important that this is the beginning for the Board
to take a look at the general locations and establish some general
guidelines or policy for the staff to follow with regard to areas that
the Board may say, "Gee, we just don't want you to be this close or in
this particular area." And if you can establish those areas and
eliminate some sites from further consideration, it will cost less as
we go through some of the detailed engineering and environmental work.
The first thing that staff took a look at was how much
land should do -- should we be evaluating. And in your agenda packet
we made some general projections to try and go to the year 2050, which
in terms of projection, when you get that far out, it's -- it's -- I'm
not even sure you call it an educated guess. But we used the BEBR's,
Bureau of Economic Review, the State agency's projections, for
medium/high and medium population to make our projections and also
look at what the projections are for Collier County's build out to
then project the solid waste stream to that level.
And as a result of that analysis, assuming that you
have to have two and a half -- two and a half acres for every acre of
landfill capacity, which is about what we were looking at for the
expansion of the Golden Gate Landfill. We are looking at sites that
staff looked at in terms of two square miles, roughly 1300 acres. To
put that in proportion, the current landfill, the Naples Landfill, is
300 acres. So we're talking about a very much larger area to take us
out to that particular point in time.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Just a moment. Commissioner
Constantine.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How much acreage is still
unused or still available? What is it that we have left of the
current landfill as far as -- I'm just trying to compare. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Acreage or volume?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Acreage. What I'm wondering
-- you're looking 55 years from now, and we've been told what's left
there could be twenty-one years. And I know we have already used a
big chunk of that, so I'm wondering why two square miles.
MR. LORENZ: Okay. One of the assumptions -- and this
was a previous report -- was that the -- that the existing landfill
would be to capacity by the year 2001. Obviously this Executive
Summary, this analysis, was done prior to the Waste MAnagement's
contract just in terms of timing. So if you're looking at Waste
MAnagement's contract with, let's say, a ten-year early out, that
takes you to 2004. So you've got additional -- more capacity than
perhaps you need to for the planning.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm just trying --
MR. LORENZ: I think the answer to your question -- I
think it's either twenty-five to thirty-five acres of landfill
capacity right now that hasn't been filled, in terms of landfill area.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Why I ask is the Post,
Buckley Report assumed that we had seven to ten years left. With that
we found, we could stretch that longer if necessary. So I'm wondering
if that also would mean with today's technology we might need a
smaller tract than two square miles.
MR. LORENZ: I think that's -- obviously, that's a
valid point. When we get out that far, in terms of projections,
technologies could change. I know that if you have a volume reduction
technology that would be upward of to 80 percent. That would be very
ambitious, but to try to give you the other end of the spectrum, we're
looking at six-tenths of a mile.
So I think one of the policy decisions for the Board is
-- we're trying to give you some feel for the amount of area that you
are going to need. It's obviously a fairly large range of the area as
you get further out in time. But for the purposes of getting started,
we focused on the two mile -- two square mile sites, two sections of
land. We also used the Post, Buckley Report in terms of this
elimination assessment. Basically, they had established a criteria
which is in Table 1 of your Executive Summary on Page 5 of the
Executive Summary, of areas that were not considered for further
analysis in their assessment report.
We accepted that; however, we added to that that -- we
excluded from our book any area that would be one mile from any urban
or Estates' designated area on the future land use map. I noted in
the presentation last night -- again, this is an area for the Board's
consideration -- one mile may not be enough. If we go two miles I
think it doesn't exclude a lot of the sites. In hindsight, when we
look at it, some of the sites that have popped up in this initial
analysis are two miles away from these designated areas.
So the Board may want to comment and provide the staff
direction with regard to these types of criteria, especially I would
think in areas that you would indicate are major land use or major
policy decision areas that you would not want to see a landfill in.
And, again, having some specific direction from the Board on that
would be helpful as we go through this process. Matt, if you could
show that one sight, one map.
Going through the analysis we basically have found two
areas. This is a little bit busy, but I wanted to show it to be busy
because we have a lot of constraints that we have to meet. The
cross-hatched area, Group A, are some sites that dropped out as a
result of the elimination assessment criteria. Group B, which are
south of Immokalee Road and Route 858 and then Group C -- Matt, would
you push that up a little bit so people can see it. Group C is
another group of sites that dropped out as a result of applying the
criteria for the elimination assessment.
There are a couple of points to note on this map. I'm
sure it's not any surprise that Collier County does have a lot of
areas of environmental sensitivity. Those areas are shown on this
particular slide with the vertical cross-hatching. Matt, may be able
to show, for instance, where the True Trust area is located. These
are areas that we may also want to try and avoid locating a landfill
for obvious reasons; and the further we can stay away from those
areas, with everything else being equal, the better off we will be not
only for an environmental interest but, I think, for the sake of the
environment.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Mr. Lorenz. Do we
have any information at this point from the State as to how many
landfills have been permitted in the last five to ten years and what
that land might actually look like to see if we have something close
to it?
MR. LORENZ: I don't know that. I can get that
information for you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think that -- I would think
that if we tried to find something that we know the State has already
approved and then look to see if we have any land in Collier County
that -- you know, the closest to that that we can get as far as
hydrology and soils and so forth, we may be able to move the process
along a little faster.
MR. LORENZ: We can certainly look at that. I think
when we start talking about the process, too, the question for the
Board is do we -- the recommendation that I make as the next step is
to establish an RFP to get a consultant involved in the next step,
which would be to make the engineering and economic and environmental
analysis. And there could be some places where we could do a little
more prior to that before we come to the Board with that decision.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Lorenz, of course, in the
interest of looking at a lot of information in a short period of time
I think most of the Board has gone through your report, and a lot of
things that you have considered I think are vital. The one thing that
I don't see considered -- and I don't know if I wouldn't have thought
of it unless it was mentioned to me by Mr. Thomas -- we do look at
ground water recharge in the siting, and the siting criteria was
fairly comprehensive.
He mentioned the agricultural interest. Obviously,
most of the sites we're looking at are in areas where there is
significant agricultural production. And the statement that made a
lot of sense to me was, "Don't put your trash where your food is."
And I kind of like that. So there's not -- I don't see a specific
analysis. But was that a consideration, and if so, how much?
MR. LORENZ: It was not for the purposes of identifying
the twenty sites. However, that was an analysis that I was prepared
to bring to the Board that, as a general policy item, the sites that
actually rank out high on this particular list are sites that are in
active agricultural production right now, both citrus and vegetable
crops.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Surrounded by active
agricultural production?
MR. LORENZ: That's correct.
If you start to look at the cleared sites that are in
Collier County that, perhaps, violate some of the wetlands criteria
that -- they would not have shown up on this particular map. I know
Oberlin College has had contact with a number of Commissioners. And
we went out and looked at their sight, and that's an example of a site
-- the reason why it didn't come up on the list. Even those sites
are typically still within your agricultural areas.
Basically, in Collier County, if you are not -- if you
are not going to be in an agricultural area, you are going to be in an
area of environmental sensitivity or you are going to be in the
Estates or the urban areas. So its kind of pick your poison. And
that's why there's a lot of trade offs. And, obviously, I understand
that these decisions will be very difficult.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The double landfill and
those types of things are put in place, I am assuming, to protect the
ground water and other things?
MR. LORENZ: That's correct.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm going to assume that is
designed to protect.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Don't get me wrong, I'm not
saying that if we're within a stone's throw of an agricultural field
that it takes it off the list. I just wanted to know what
consideration had been taken in that regard and that we, obviously,
have one of the Country's largest production areas for growers and
vegetables and so forth. Three strikes and you're out. I just want
to make sure that was an element of consideration. That was really
for the statement, not necessarily to restrict but to warn.
MR. LORENZ: That is -- if we go down the steps, for
instance, if we were to pick three -- I mean, we have recommended two
sites here-- sort of to get started -- to say, "Okay, these based upon
the criteria that staff has selected, these are the two sites that
come up highest on the list." But when we start changing that
criteria, which we can and I think we ought to review that criteria,
that next step whereby we do the more detailed analysis with a handful
of sites, those types of criteria could then be added as part of a
ranking procedure.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Because personally I am rather
comfortable with the method in which you used and how you arrived at
the two sites, I don't know how the rest of the Board feels. I think
you recommended sites 16 and 177
MR. LORENZ: Correct.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Their physical location for
transportation purposes and otherwise seem to fit the bill also, so
I'm at least leaning toward the staff recommendation or in that
direction.
MR. LORENZ: Just to continue to go through this, to
get this information out for everybody. Matt, if you could show the
ground water recharge map. Again, a fairly busy map. The contours
that we are showing in there, the big numbers, 3.0, 2.5, those are
ground water -- estimates of ground water recharges in inches per
month.
This came from modeling that was done by the South
Florida Water Management District, and that estimates the ground water
recharge -- I think it's about an eighteen or twenty month period --
twenty-four month period. But it gives us some sense of where the
more important ground water resource areas are. And where it comes
out very important is that north of Immokalee is where the highest
ground water recharge in Collier County is. So everything else being
equal, we would try to recommend not locating a landfill in the high
ground water recharge areas, even considering that you have double
lined landfill. But if you don't have to locate it there, if you've
other places, it's better to move to the other places with your
controls.
The Group B sites are in an area of about one and a
half inches a month; and the Group C sites are in an area of one inch
per month, which is basically the lowest amount of ground water
recharge in the County. So the highest areas are up north. And
therefore the Group A sites, again, have a distinct mark against them.
Transportation impact, the Group A sites you won't be
able to get there unless we put another route through the Corkscrew
area, you have to do it through Immokalee.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: There might be a little
resistance with that one.
MR. LORENZ: Therefore that's got a mark against it in
terms of routing the solid waste truck through the Immokalee area
simply for transportation of trash. And we have already talked about
the significant environmentally sensitive areas. The one thing, also,
to note is the data that we used to take a look at the initial sites
with regard to threatened and endangered species is a result of
information that we have in our computer data base that we've gotten
from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We looked at a number of
endangered species. The data that we have used for that therefore is
-- is not site verified.
Again, as we go through the process for this particular
information, we will have to conduct environmental studies to ensure
that we don't have a problem on-site that is going to be, if you will,
a fatal flaw with regard to that particular site. That will have to
come with the next phases. Matt, if you can show the table now,
please.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have one question. The sites
16 and 17 that you're highlighting here in Area B, I see on this map
of environmental sensitivity -- how close to that is the Camp Key
Strand?
MR. LORENZ: Matt, can you get the other --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I mean, Camp Key is almost --
MR. LORENZ: I'm sorry, I missed you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: In the Camp Key Strand that goes
down the middle of the County -- MR. LORENZ: That's correct.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- I mean, that's -- that's wet
virtually all year long.
MR. LORENZ: That's correct.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And that -- it seems to me that
our ground water aquifers are possibly even exposed at that point.
MR. LORENZ: Matt, can you show the --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, that's it.
MR. HATCHER: For the record, Matt Hatchet, National
Resource Department. Both 16 and 17, those sites, there are at least
half a mile of active agricultural operations going on to the west of
those sites before you get into the forested area that is considered
to be Camp Key Strand.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: A half mile?
MR. HATCHER: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And it's active?
MR. HATCHER: Correct.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Go ahead, Mr. Lorenz.
MR. LORENZ: Matt, if you could put the table up.
We took a look at -- trying to make some sense of the
numbers out of the twenty sites that -- we went through the analysis
and looked at a variety of criteria that's on the left-hand side of
the table -- Wetlands, Wet Soils, Percent Cleared, Listed Species,
Habitat, Recharge, the number of dwellings that are close to the site,
the number of dwellings that are downwind, basically, if we looked at
the general wind patterns, and we have to consider present location of
the airport and transportation impacts.
In your Executive Summary, Table 3, we basically just
tried to be able to display this information as to what would be a
best and worst condition. So the best conditions are your circles;
the worst are your triangles; and somewhere in between are the
squares. There is -- I don't want to -- there is really no scientific
objective or standard that says that this is a number that is bad;
it's simply a relative ranking to try to come up with a relative sense
of order for the different sites for those criteria.
So those sites that have a lot of triangles and a lot
of squares are not as good as sites that, obviously, have all circles
or predominantly circles. And when we went through that particular
analysis, that's where our Sites 16 and 17 rank out fairly good.
Again, we did not have a criteria in terms of are these, you know,
agricultural operations. They happen to be active agricultural
operations. I have to refer to my Executive Summary. Those
particular sites kind of came out head and shoulders above the other
ones.
Sites 12, 13, and 18 have some additional merit for
additional review. Again, all those sites would be in that Group B
location. That's why the staff, based upon this particular analysis,
would recommend further -- definitely further study for Sites 16 and
17. We did have Real Property just give us some information with
regard to information that would be important for the feasibility of
acquiring Sites 16 and 17. The assessed value of Site 16 is $3.7
million. The assessed value of Site 17 is $5.9 million. You should
note that those costs are basically assessed value and the actual
market value at this time may be 25 to 30 percent higher.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Lorenz, one more question.
Sites 16 and 17, are they active agricultural property?
MR. LORENZ: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do your estimates include loss
of business?
MR. LORENZ: No. That would be the point to make, that
that would be a -- obviously, that is going to be a very large cost,
something that we are unable to assess in a short period of time that
we've worked on it. It would be an important factor to consider in
the next phase.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there any land in your Sites
16 and 17 that is currently for sale, where an active business may not
be a consideration?
MR. LORENZ: I don't know.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
MR. LORENZ: That kind of brings up -- maybe that is a
good transition to the Oberlin College site. Representatives are here
from Oberlin College.
Matt, can you show the general location of where that
is? They have indicated they are very willing to sell their property.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: The other one.
MR. LORENZ: This points out where that site is. That
would be in the Group C area. Also, Matt, show the environmental
sensitivity land so they can kind of see --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: How many sections north of Site
19 is Oberlin?
MR. HATCHER: It's immediately north.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's immediately --
MR. LORENZ: It's north of C.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's immediately adjacent to C?
MR. HATCHER: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And it only has a recharge of
1.07
HR. LORENZ: That's correct.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Where 16 and 17 have a recharge
of 1.57
MR. LORENZ: That's correct.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay, go ahead.
MR. LORENZ: That particular site did not appear in
term of our initial assessment for a variety of reasons. One is we
were looking at, basically, two sections -- Matt, face the other
direction, find on a map -- try to get two sections of land that we
could go for further analysis. So it's just 1,000 acres or 1,100
acres --
MR. HATCHER: It's 1,800 and 1,000 for the landfill
portion.
MR. LORENZ: 1,000 for the landfill portion. So it
just drops below that particular threshold that we're using for the
analysis. It's -- the majority or almost 100 percent of the site is
in wetlands soils which would not -- obviously, did not meet our
criteria.
But the reason why we want to stay away from wetlands
soils -- it is a cleared site. It's not actively farmed agriculture.
There's not necessarily a habitat concern as far as the wetlands. But
it indicates a presence of a very high water table. And the
regulations will require us to build our landfill so high above the
ground water tables; therefore, we would be looking at a lot more fill
for land development work.
To tell you exactly what the trade-offs would be in
terms of the economic analysis of that site you would have to go
through the more detailed work to crunch the numbers. The advantage
of that site-- and I didn't have a chance to look at the exact
difference in transportation. But, obviously, just looking at the map
you can see that it is closer, certainly, to our urban area and the
existing landfill. Therefore there would be a trade-off, a positive
benefit, in regard to transportation from a standpoint of what the
cost is of hauling the solid waste to a landfill site.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And you and/or your staff
walked that property as well?
MR. LORENZ: We walked the -- well, we drove up the
easterly side or the middle of the site, I believe.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The Oberlin College property?
MR. LORENZ: Yes.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Why I ask is you indicated a
majority of the property is wetlands -- and I know -- I'm sure Mr.
Bramberg will speak up on his own when we have public speakers -- but
he has indicated that of the 1,800 areas, 1,000 or 1,100 are not --
would be usable for our purposes.
MR. LORENZ: Let me make that distinction if it wasn't
clear. The distinction we're looking at are criteria. Wetlands, in
terms of vegetative, the wetlands themselves, or wetlands soils. And
when I speak to wetlands soils concerning the ground water tables,
that's what I was referring to.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Go ahead.
MR. LORENZ: In terms of future course of action -- and
I kind of alluded to this before -- I think one of the questions that
we can answer, certainty, is that there seems to be a sufficient
number of sites to move forward. The big question that we didn't have
earlier on is are there sufficient sites available for in-county
disposal. I think it's your staff's opinion that there are sufficient
sites in Collier County for in-county disposal that have a fairly good
chance of being permitted.
The next step is to identify a series of sites which we
have that pass certain criteria that we establish that we can move
forward and do a little more detailed site analysis work with the
engineering and environmental studies. That's the point that we are
at now. I indicated in the Executive Summary that it would be nine
months to come back to the Board with that kind of assessment. I
think that that's probably optimistic.
We go out to the site with the consultants -- just
getting through the process of getting the contract would be three
months. But that's the -- that's the timetable that I think is
somewhat consistent with what the Board tried to -- what the Board
presented in the January 17th meeting. I'm just saying that the
timetable is very optimistic.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How much is that contract
likely to be if we go outside with this, just a balipark?
MR. LORENZ: It could be upward of $300,000. It would
be -- I'll give you an example. The Post, Buckley Report -- I don't
have the number, but I think it was about $270,000. Now, they did an
environmental assessment that was part of that. They did a lot of
other work. So we are looking at -- we're looking at around a
$300,000 figure. We had budgeted this year for $200,000 to simply do
some additional environmental assessment work thinking we would be on
a little longer timetable. If we are going to accelerate the
timetable, I think it would be better to wrap that all up into one
consultant contract.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do you want to continue?
MR. LORENZ: In the Executive Summary -- simply to
provide the Board to have some sense of the numbers, and I think that
we covered that during the evening of the contract negotiations. But
you are looking at between twenty and thirty billion dollars in terms
of development of that -- of what we're saying are the first fifty
acres of the landfill site.
The fiscal impact of it, I think you understand the
strategy of the Board with regard to Waste Management's contracts.
Our tipping fees in eight to ten years we wouldn't be in bad shape in
terms of having the moneys available for it, but obviously these are
-- these are some gross estimates at this particular point. We
should have sufficient time as we get further along the studies to
understand what our financial plan ought to be. So that's pretty much
the formal presentation that I have.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I was, just based on your report
-- fairly comfortable with Sites 16 and 17 until Commissioner
Matthews asked the question have we incorporated the costs of buying
the business that is operating there. I would say I find that to be a
rather substantial number. So that tends to color the results rather
significantly. So I guess I'm looking for direction from my fellow
Board members at this point because it seems now that we are looking
at Group C and Group A to me --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's not acceptable.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- That ain't it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's not acceptable.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So I'm looking more toward the
Group C area and possibly including the Oberlin property in that Group
C as an overall view.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think one thing, too, that we
might want to look at is the area in Group B. While 16 and 17 might
be the preferential sites there has been no contact made with the
property owners I presume --
MR. LORENZ: No, there hasn't.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- as to whether we have a
willing seller.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's true.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And perhaps we may we need to
move in that direction. But if there's not a willing seller, we're
looking at business costs as well. Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I share your concerns, but before
we abandon looking at 16 and 17 we should at least get some idea of
the costs involved in buying active agricultural properties. And we
should, at the same time, not delete the Oberlin property until we
find out how much it would cost to put the fill in to bring it to the
level we would need to do. So those I assume, Mr. Lorenz, are part of
the questions that you want answered by having a review made of all
these sites.
MR. LORENZ: Those particular questions perhaps we can
-- the staff could answer those questions before we could --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay.
MR. LORENZ: -- before we subject that to a consultant
study, we could provide you with a little more knowledge on those
questions.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Commissioner Hancock, in
answer to your question or comment, my suggestion of the calendar that
I put forth January 17th was for this next phase to do exactly what
you are asking. And that is is there a fatal flaw that we can't see.
If we see it's going to be $15 million for a piece of property,
there's no sense for us have a consultant go look at it if we could go
through and look at some of the basic things like that.
My question would be -- and maybe someone could answer
this -- are the assessed values put forth by the tax collector, do
those take into consideration the fact that they're active? Because
if you look at these two sites they are -- as they're drawn on our map
anyway -- they're roughly identical in size, 16 and 17. Yet one is
valued -- assessed at 3.7 and one is assessed at 5.9. I was thinking
maybe citrus is more valuable than vegetable. I don't know. I wonder
if that's not already taken into account.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Could be.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't know if anybody can
answer it or not, but that's something we need to know.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But still you have, you know,
regardless of what the assessed value of the land is and any
improvements that were made on the land, if it's income-producing
property, the property owner, if he is not willing to sell --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I understand.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- You may have to pay some of
his profit over time in order to encourage him to sell.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I would also like to hear
from the representative from Oberlin.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, I think we will move on to
the public speakers soon as Mr. Lorenz is finished. MR. LORENZ: I'm finished.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You're finished?
MR. LORENZ: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Mr. Dotrill, are there
public speakers?
MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am, very few. Mr. Keller, and
following him, Mr. Bramberg.
MR. KELLER: George Keller representing the Golden Gate
Estates Civic Association. Number one, no matter where we put this
thing, unless we go and regulate our developing of property, we could
create a problem. We have to pick -- pick this site where the future
development is very improbable in the next twenty-five to thirty
years. Because no matter what we do if people move around these sites,
they are going to raise the devil with the future Commissioners and
say they were inappropriate.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And what would make you say that
Mr. Keller?
MR. KELLER: Now that particular Site B there, I don't
know what the possibility of that being developed into residential
land is. It appears as though that Site C -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You're talking about the Board
rezoning it.
MR. KELLER: It appears as though Site C, down below,
is surrounded pretty much by environmental sensitive land. If it
would be possible to put a dump there with the Department of
Environmental Regulations controlling it, that might be one of the
better places; because the chances of future development in that
particular site -- I believe that's the Belle Heade site. And they're
already talking about buying up a good percentage of that with the
federal -- with the state government buying it up.
So if we could get that approved, and if -- secondly, I
honestly don't see if we don't have any type of -- appraisal figures
don't mean anything. If we don't have any proposals by any of these
owners, what they're willing to sell the properties for so we could
build on, what it's going to cost us finally to develop it according
to the elevation of the property and the water problems, I don't know
how we could pick up the site. I couldn't -- I wouldn't like to buy a
house or piece of property if I didn't know what it was going to end
up costing me when I'm going to finally use it.
So I think the most important thing is to see if you
could get options. If these people are willing to give you -- and I
wouldn't say the option should be for five or ten years because we
don't know exactly when we're going to need to start developing this
property. So We have to have a long-range option so that we know that
-- so that we can plan in the future. We may not need another dump
for ten years. We may not need another dump for twenty years if we go
and get better control over our waste. So let's not be too jumpy and
jump at something unless we know all the facts. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Mr. Bramberg.
MR. DORRILL: Following Mr. Bramberg I have Ms. -- No,
Mr. Olds.
MR. BRAMBERG: Good morning. I'm Bill Bramberg; I
represent college properties. I brought some pictures here that I
will give to the Board. They were taken last Thursday.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You can give them to Mr.
Dotrill.
HR. BRAMBERG:
HR. DORRILL:
give them?
HR. BRAMBERG:
HR. DORRILL:
give them?
HR. BRAMBERG:
Thank you.
Do you have anything else you wanted to
I'm sorry?
Do you have anything else you wanted to
No, thanks, I already have. We were
visited last Thursday by Hr. Lorenz and his very able staff. It was
very kind of them to come. The point I want to make there is we very
much ask of you to keep the window open, to take the time to really
look at our property. Because among the things we are, we really are
a willing seller. Our property is large enough that you could do a
great many thing with it. Our property is remote, and yet it's
centrally located. I think our property will cost the County a great,
great deal less to operate than something in the Immokalee area.
Finally, we have no active agricultural use going on it right now. As
you can see, we only have grazing at this point in time.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Does the cattle come with the
property?
MR. BRAMBERG: There's a killer cow about to hit me. I
watched the car while the gentlemen went and analyzed the property.
But we can talk about steak. In any event we can also talk about
something that my co-consultant, when he came down from New York last
week mentioned, and that would possibly be to assist you in the
creation of a waste resource recovery facility of your effluent
activities of your landfill.
The possibility of underwriting or purchasing some of
the bonds of the County. I don't know if that's helpful, but it would
seem to me it would require less cash of the County to get into this.
And I know how seriously you are considering it. But the point,
again, is I would like further consideration; I would like the window
to be open a little further. Because, again, we are rushing to this
-- and Mr. Lorenz was kind enough to come last Thursday with his
staff. I would just look to be included in those groups of properties
that you do analyze.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Bramberg, do you have an
estimated value or an asking price?
MR. BRAMBERG: On what we call the Wiggins Tract, we
believe it would be something like $4,000 per acre. The college has
some 1,810 acres out there. But when we mention the subject of
additional fill needed, we also have an ongoing fill activity.
Therefore, it would be right next to you if that was necessary. I
have submitted to the Board a colored map that shows three different
colors.
One, the green is the -- what we call the uplands or
the Wiggins Tract; that's where we'd be talking about $4,000. The
yellow is what we identify as the wetlands. The wetlands is impacted
by the Belle Meade Cow Program; the Wiggins Tract is not included in
the cow program at all. I'd like you to know that. So we can work
together on that immediately. Lastly, I come down weekly; I would be
delighted to work with your staff or anyone of the Commission. Any other questions?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I just have one. I guess we do
have a little bit of a question about the hydric soils. Because the
parcels, 19 and 20, that are in Area C, according to our staff report,
the hydric soils there are, what -- what are they, 70 to 80 percent;
is that correct, Mr. Lorenz?
MR. LORENZ: Yes, 75 to 80.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: 75 to 80 percent. I don't know
whether yours would be in that area, in that same range. I would
expect it would. I mean, it's contiguous to --
MR. BRAMBERG: Comparable. But, I'm sorry, I'm not a
hydrologist.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Me either.
MR. BRAMBERG: Among the many things I'm not.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: One element I would like to add
to that is my experience with environmental permitting is that hydric
soils are an element of the establishment or -- the establishment of
the wetlands value of a property. In other words, the soils by
themselves do not constitute a certain level of mitigation or impact,
but a combination of that and vegetation. We don't have cattails and
cypress trees popping up, based on those pictures, so there is some
room in there even if the soils are hydric. MR. LORENZ: Correct.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And you're basing that on a
soils map and not borings; is that correct?
MR. LORENZ: Correct.
COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. So a preliminary boring
could show a whole other picture on the property? And if I were
asking $4,000 an acre in that area, I might go do some borings.
MR. LORENZ: The difference between wetlands and
wetlands soils is wetlands soils are indicators of high ground water
tables.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Agreed. But then, again, we can
also do well monitoring to determine the existing fluctuation during
wet season and use that to establish whether or not it truly is a
currently operating hydric area.
MR. BRAMBERG: Commissioner Hancock, I think borings
have been taken in the past. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Go ahead.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You will self destruct.
MR. BRAMBERG: It's not Hission Impossible.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It would be helpful if you have
that information to forward it to Mr. Lorenz' department.
MR. BRAMBERG: I will try to research it for you and
find out if we have it.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you.
MR. BRAMBERG: The other speaker, the prior gentleman,
made some very good saving points. The Belle Heade College, as you
know much more than I do, is coming into that environment. This is an
area where it would be very wise to locate a landfill, because that's
where growth is not going do happen. This is going to be a very quiet
area.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you.
MR. BRAMBERG: Thank you.
MR. DORRILL: I had one preliminary question for Mr.
Bramberg concerning access. Mr. Bramberg? MR. BRAMBERG: Yes, sir.
MR. DORRILL: The access to what you refer to as the
Wiggins Tract is -- legal access would be afforded through what
mechanism?
MR. BRAMBERG: Well, the way we came in last week was
through Six L's Farm Road off of 41 correspondingly -- other than what
we are experiencing right now -- Sable Palm.
MR. DORRILL: So specifically --
MR. BRAMBERG: There's two modes of access, sir.
MR. DORRILL: And they are legal accesses?
MR. BRAMBERG: I can't speak to that. Oberlin College
paid, as I understand it, for approximately one mile of the paving
which exists out there. We're three and a half miles east of 951.
MR. DORRILL: I understand that. The second question
is are you familiar with the history and difficulty in the County's
efforts to improve Sable Palm Road?
MR. BRAMBERG: No, sir, only by conversation.
MR. DORRILL: I don't have any other questions.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And the road, Six L's Farm Road,
I believe is a private road.
MR. BRAMBERG: I was told it was public and private. I
called down there and asked, and I don't have a definitive answer for
you. We were welcomed on to it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There's some rather heavy
traffic.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Obviously, access to a landfill
is key.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you. Next speaker.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Olds, and following Mr. Olds I have
Ms. Riner.
MR. OLDS: The name is Stanley Olds, and I'm speaking
as a citizen and taxpayer. First of all, I want to congratulate Mr.
Lorenz on what he's done. He's done a lot of really good work. But I
think the one thing we haven't thought about here -- and maybe I
haven't been around long enough. But have we ever considered an
incinerator? Now, I know that --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Does that answer your question,
sir?
MR. OLDS: Yeah, well, actually I still think it's a
good idea.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Many years ago.
MR. OLDS: Well, Lee County is doing it, and they are
doing a good job. Why couldn't we ship our garbage up to Lee County?
I mean, those are thoughts we probably should have thought about
before we had the Waste Management contract.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I talked to Lee County two years
ago about doing exactly that, and their excess capacity was only about
two or three year's worth. So it would be a short-term solution, but
not long term.
MR. DORRILL: At almost three times the cost. Because
I believe their tipping fee is about $70 per ton where ours is
currently $25.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Olds, we did think about
it at the beginning of this whole RFP Process. We said the only
technology we would not include was incinerators. So we did have a
discussion on that some 18 months --
MR. OLDS: I missed that one.
MR. DORRILL: And if I might add, in the mid-80's this
County spent almost a million dollars trying to develop a project with
Westinghouse Electric Corporation to develop a facility in this
County. It failed, primarily, as a result of the ability to sell the
excess electricity back to Florida Power and Light. So it failed due
to financial feasibility and widespread environmental concerns.
MR. OLDS: Well, that kind of knocks out my thoughts.
But one thing I realize is that with all the money that has been spent
-- and that could have been spent on this Waste Management contract
-- I'm just wondering why we didn't have Waste Management include in
that contract to look for a landfill for us. And we've never thought
about that. Why couldn't we have done that on the inclusion of the
contract?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We had enough other things in
that contract to worry about without throwing that in.
MR. OLDS: Well, I know. And not only that, you've had
two or three different contracts. And the last contract we saw, my
gosh, it was completely different. But anyway --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Mr. Olds.
MR. OLDS: Yeah, okay.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Excuse me, Mr. Olds, but we did
speak to Waste Management about that during the discussions. That
wasn't included as part of the contract because we felt we would
rather do it ourselves in the end. But we did talk about that. And I
have to take a little bit of issue with you when you say all the money
we spent on the Waste Management contract, actually it turns out we're
going to save, over a ten-year period, fifteen to twenty million
dollars not spend it. So I have to take a little issue with you on
that.
MR. OLDS: Well, I will take a re-issue on you. I just
wonder-- I just wonder where all this savings is going to come about.
Because, you know, over the many years we have done a lot of
supposing, presupposing, and many of those times those things just
don't happen. So I have to say --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Olds --
MR. OLDS: -- I have to say that maybe --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- you are using up your five
minutes to address this issue.
MR. OLDS: Oh, all right. I'm finished. Thank you
very much.
MR. DORRILL: He is your final speaker.
CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: As a point, and it's something
that we haven't addressed and probably will, as the contract for the
new operation landfill comes about the question of where that savings
goes and how it's put together will be answered at that time. I can
guarantee you. So that's not to be left to chance, sir, by any means.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other comments?
MR. DORRILL: We do have two additional speakers that
registered late.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Perkins.
MR. PERKINS: Goods morning, Commissioners; good
morning everybody out there. Here we are again. Okay. I need to
address some of the things -- now, I represent Belle Meade Group and
Citizens for Constitutional Property Rights. Now, David Russell
(phonetic), but needless to say, he's spread thin, too. He's the
president for Citizens of Constitutional Property Rights, and he asked
me to speak on his behalf.
A couple of things I need to address right up front,
and you have to keep it in mind. Because Commissioner Matthews
brought up about the 1 percent as far as the water. I need to read to
you and all you people an excerpt from March 17, 1974, Big Cypress
Basin Board.
"From a basin board water management prospective, the
Belle Meade area offers opportunities to redirect upstream drainage
from the northern Golden Gate Estates, reduce over drainage, increase
water storage capabilities, increase coastal recharge .... and they
just contradicted themselves .... and improve present water discharge
impacts to the Rookery Bay at 10,000 Islands."
Rookery Bay and 10,000 Islands is to the complete
western portion of the Belle Meade. Meaning that the Fakahatchee
Strand, the southern estates, and all the canals out there are being
forced to push the water to the west; and the natural flow falls off
to the south.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Perkins, quickly relate this
to the subject at hand, please.
MR. PERKINS: Right. Well, according to Oberlin
College Properties -- what I'm trying to drive at is the fact that the
water table has deliberately been raised to take and discourage
anybody out in the Belle Meade or the landfill. It's also filling up
all throughout the whole area. Now, let me just get on with the
landfill, per se. I can't see with these things on.
Immokalee already has a landfill. And I'm sure, on
Section B, when we have the County Fair, the people are really going
to love that smell. The distance --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's quite some distance.
MR. PERKINS: The distance to --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Six and a half miles.
MR. PERKINS: -- the new landfill is thirty-five miles
-- thirty miles, I'm sorry. From Immokalee -- from MArco Island is
another thirty-five miles, so we're going to be hauling trash and
debris trucks approximately sixty-five miles. Now this relates to
money, impact on the roads, danger to the kids who are at MAnatee
School and Golden Gate is going to catch all the traffic on the
trucks.
The road destruction you better take and think about,
because we'll have take and put in a new 951 because it's going to
tear it all up. Now by putting this water out there and creating a
problem for Oberlin College and creating for the farms and for the
Belle Meade area, we're going to take and increase the amount of
mosquitoes. That's encephalitis in case you don't know.
Nobody has addressed the fact that the EPA -- and I
would expect Bill Lorenz would have brought this up -- that the EPA is
going to push it down our throat that we are going to recycle, and we
are going to recycle big time. This is no if, ands or buts. Check
with Porter Goss or get the dog-gone pamphlets that's about an inch
thick, and they're going to tell you that we're going to put the
landfills out of business, per se -- they didn't say when, but over a
period of time. But recycling is going to be right up to the maximum.
Now, on the Oberlin -- I was out there; I walked around
up there because I wanted to know where it was that I was referring
to. Well, I went out there, and I climbed through the fence and there
was cattle all over the place. But I had a good time, because I have
cattle, but not those. The point is if we go to total recycling, the
tipping fee goes up, the amount of debris that we are going to
actually take and have to get rid of could be composted or there are a
lot of other technologies out there.
Now, the reason why I know this for a fact is on
account of I could take and put about this much (indicating) of a
stack of pamphlets from all over the world on Bettye MAtthews' desk up
there, and she will get a headache trying to read all this stuff from
all the different vendors and from the different states and from the
countries around this world. The technology is out there, and we are
going to be pushed to it.
Now, I'm advocating let's play it smart. Let's not
move a problem with from one place to another. Let's fix the problem.
If you look at the Oberlin site, it is centrally located. And the
reason why the existing landfill is where it is, is on account of at
the time it was the smart place to put it. Geographically it's the
right place to put it. Now the people that want it out of there
because of the fact we are going to be called -- can I finish?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Can you wrap it up?
MR. PERKINS: Yes. -- We're going to be the trash
county of the state. The location is critical. The transportation,
the school buses impact at that time in the morning with all the
trucks -- anyhow, I believe that the Oberlin site would be the best
site geographically and for everyone involved versus the other two
sites. Thank you very much for tolerating me.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Krasowski.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Krasowski.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Hi.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Hi.
MR. KRASOWSKI: A lot of interesting things going on
here. I'm Bob Krasowski. I'd just like to bring up one point. It's
probably on your minds already; it's been sort of referred to. But if
we were to identify an alternate technology and get involved in any
kind of waste reduction techniques -- and there's quite a few out
there. Oberlin, I think has one in mind. We've had proposals, and
there's others even past that that might suit our needs. But if we
were to do that then, of course, that lowers our volume and might make
it unnecessary to go for the two square miles. It seems like a lot of
land to me.
I think Commissioner Constantine was -- made a good
point that if we have this thirty-five acres available now at the
existing landfill site and we've projected an additional twenty-five
years on that, then why do we need two square miles to only go fifty
-- even less than fifty years. So I'd be interested to know if we
did identify alternatives and lowered the volume what other areas
might come into play as potential future sites based on a lower land
requirement. So before you spend the $300,000 a study on these sites,
I think maybe we should evaluate if there is any cause for an interest
in what I have just mentioned.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Commissioner
Constantine.
MR. BRAMBERG: Could I add a point?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Just a moment, sir.
Commissioner Hancock, I believe has a question.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: The implication from both Bob
and others is that this Board is sitting on its hands and not looking
at alternate technology, and I assure you, you're both dead wrong.
I'm having --
MR. KRASOWSKI: I didn't imply that at all. I think
your perception of my implication is dead wrong.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, it's not the first time
it's been said, Bob.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Yes, I was talking about --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It doesn't matter.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Okay, fine. I resent the fact --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Excuse me, Bob.
MR. KRASOWSKI: -- you're taking this opportunity to
attack me.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm not attacking you
personally, Bob.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Okay. Well, you said something that
was not correct.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Good.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: The bottom line is this Board is
not sitting around wait for doomsday to occur. I'm getting
presentations on new composting; we're moving ahead with different
ideas. The bottom line is we have to have a place for things to go.
And I would like, in this decision, very much the one that the Board
talked about in the form of deep-well injection for effluent. It's
not what you prefer to do, but you have to have a final place for
things to go should Option A not work out.
So things are happening at one time. There's more than
one thing going on here. And I just want to assure people that we are
not looking solely at landfilling, but we have to do the investigative
work on the alternate technologies, and that that's ongoing. I'm
personally doing it; I know the rest of the Commissioners have
received the same letters that I have. And I think there are things
moving on more than one front. So I just wanted to let people know
that because, again, I think the insinuation was incorrect here today.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Bramberg, because your
property is on the list -- or at least we're putting it on the list --
we'll hear a final comment.
MR. BRAMBERG: The only other comment where I was going
to tell you, the Commissioner just said it and Mr. Constantine too, we
would like to be a candidate for the effluent situation, as well the
Lely expansion, should that come about, because we are in direct
proximity. Proximity plays a lot of factor in this. And we think
we're handy, if that's the proper word to use, for all of your needs.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Mr. Dorrill is that
the last of the speakers?
MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there further discussion on
the Board?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a couple of comments.
I want to put this in perspective. Every time I see in the paper or
hear on the radio the, quote, "Immokalee sites." This is actually, as
the crow flies -- 16 and 17 are the two, quote, "favor sites." As the
crow flies, they're, like, five and a half to six miles to the nearest
point to what we'll refer to as urban Immokalee. This is not directly
adjacent to it. It's actually closer to the estates, and they're
still a ways there.
Somebody mentioned, "Boy, those are close to the fair
grounds." It's like six and a half or seven miles to the fair grounds.
So one of the appealing things of these sites -- and this needs to be
made very clear -- is they are indeed in the middle of nowhere. This
doesn't have an impact directly on any existing community or any
community that is zoned for the future.
The only way -- a couple of people mentioned future
growth. The only way there can be residential growth in this area is
if the Board of Commissioners fezones it and allows it. So I think
that is the appealing thing about 16 and 17. I would like to look at
18 as well. It has a couple of extra problems, but I would like to
look at 18 as well. And I would like to see us put the Oberlin
College property in as a finalist as well. I think that has many
appealing things, and perhaps if we follow Commissioner Hancock's
suggestion on soil borings --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Is that in the form of a motion?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll make that a motion: 16,
17, 18, and Oberlin.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I would like to ask a question
as to why 18. It seems to be too small.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What is the size on that?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It looks like one square mile.
MR. LORENZ: That is, and that was kind of an artifact
when we did the analysis. But, Matt, is there -- maybe you can show
where that site is. I'm not sure if that's a balance.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's only one square mile.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm going to say that 18 would
have to include a portion of 15 to be viable as an overall site size.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I guess why I raised the
question is earlier I asked about how much space we had left and how
that goes for twenty-one, and that's thirty-five acres. And I'm
wondering why we need two squares miles to go, roughly, double that
amount of time. So I'm wondering if maybe as part of this we can't
look at -- because the door -- what I perceive as either inaccuracies
or things have changed since that Post, Buckley Report was done.
I would like to see us have some idea whether or not we
really need that much space. Because I think under the technologies
we got back and just the way of landfilling that we got back in our
contract, we found that we could get more use out of less space. So
perhaps we don't need the full two miles.
MR. LORENZ: We could certainly look at that, and
presenting to the Board some rationale for something lower.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have one question. Mr.
Dotrill, when are the alternative technologies coming forward?
MR. DORRILL: We have them in. The evaluation is
essentially complete. I'm presume we are going to do that by the end
of the month, but I'm looking --
MR. LORENZ: We haven't put together a committee to
actually review them. We have summarized to some degree at staff.
But to present them to the Board in terms of ranking, I would suggest
that we could be back within four weeks with a formal presentation.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Of the responses we got on
those, what was the cheapest per ton? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Less expensive.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It was $40 to $50 a ton, is the
cheapest I saw.
MR. LORENZ: For the composting. However, the clean
earth -- that would have been the joint venture with Lee County --
they would basically take all the materials if we hit a particular
level so we wouldn't have an expense on that side for them. There
would have to be some additional discussions with Waste Management and
Immokalee Disposal, our current franchise haulers, to agree to take
the materials to Lee County.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Why I asked that question is
to make the point. I don't want any one's hopes to jump too high.
Those are two or three times more expensive than what we are doing
DOW.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The problem I have is that we
received three responses to the RFP, and I have already talked to two
people that have not -- that didn't respond to the RFP for whatever
reason, and there may be some more out there that we didn't receive
that I would like to see considered; that I'd like to see the Board
get some information on.
So before we get too deeply into that -- again, I'm not
sure what the proper process would be, but, yes, the cost is going to
be greater. But I think we're looking thirty or forty years down the
road of what is going to be better overall for the community. And
there are some processes that are coming on line that are expensive,
but in the long term, they will provide benefits. I'm not sure how we
can involve those in this process at this point.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I appreciate that. But
we heard all that stuff coming on line, new technology, we heard all
that two years ago, a year and a half ago, and we were very careful
when we issued the RFP for alternative technologies to include
anything and everything with the exception of incinerators. But we
went out of our way to try and open that up to virtually everybody.
And these are the responses we got. Commissioner Norris, Commission
Matthews I think will reiterate that we tried very hard to make sure
we did get a full scope of what was out there.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I will continue certain things
on my own. And if it looks fruitful, maybe I can be the vehicle for
bringing that to the Board.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
COMMISSIONER NORRIS:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
on it.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS:
Thank you.
Did we ever get a second?
I thought we did have a second
I thought I did second it, but
just to be sure I'll second it again.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just as part of this -- I
guess I need to make this part of my motion. I want to understand
where we are going with this rather than just give a blank check to go
and look for nine months. We talked about price, we talked about
certain other things. Could we see, within a certain time frame
perhaps at the same time we are soliciting for an outside assistant on
this, could we check the fatal flaws on each of these as far as price?
MR. LORENZ: Yes. I have a series of notes here. And
what we'll do is we'll go ahead and pull together some of this
information and any other information that we may think of ourselves
to bring to the Board. And at the same time I would like to involve
the Office of Capital Projects to begin drafting an RFP for outside
consultants to establish what the scope of the study would be.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm not suggesting this, but
I'm asking the question. We have an engineer or engineers of record
that do work for us. What is the limits -- what are the limits under
which we can award something and waive? And I'm not saying I want to
do that, I'm just --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: CCNA?
MR. DORRILL: CCNA'S expert is right here. We have
both annual contracts for small-scale projects -- engineers of record
are typically limited to those.
MR. CONRECODE: For the record, Tom Conrecode for
Capital Projects. Study activity is limited to $25,000. Any other
activities that involve construction or result in construction are
limited to a $500,000 project limit.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you.
We have a motion. And, Commissioner Constantine, would
you restate the motion for the sake of the court reporter.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We create the short lists
for a fatal flaw study and then for further study, assuming none of
them have a fatal flaw, by outside engineers. Site 16, Site 17, Site
18, and the Oberlin College --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And the Oberlin College
property.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- property.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And we have a second for that
motion. Do we want to put a time frame on the next report to this
Board since we're kind of trying to fast-track this a little bit?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: On the fatal flaw items, how
long do you think you need? Bill, we had originally, I think, said 90
days when I had my January 17th calender for that. I would assume
that would be roughly the time it would take to issue an RFP and get
responses as well.
MR. LORENZ: Well, staff could get back to you with
within four weeks, I think, for some of these specific points that you
have wanted. I'm not sure in terms of coming back to the Board with
an RFP, perhaps Tom might be able to advise a little bit better in
regard to a time.
MR. CONRECODE: Sixty to ninety days.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Sixty to ninety days for the
RFP, but you think you can be back in four weeks with some of the
questions that we've raised? MR. LORENZ: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do you want to include that in
your motion?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, I'll include that in
the motion, within 28 days we have an update as far as the detail
items on these particular properties and within -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Within 90 days.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- Within 90 days, sooner if
we can. But within 90 days we will have the responses from the RFP's.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We can have them short listed in
90 days.
MR. CONRECODE: Within 90 days we can have them
short-listed and have a contract ready for presentation to the Board.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: All right. I will include
that as part of my motion as well.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Does the second accept that?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you. We have a
motion and a second. If there is no further discussion, I'll call the
question. All those in favor please say, "Aye."
(The Commissioners all responded simultaneously.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The being none, motions passes.
Mr. Lorenz, I guess we will see you in four weeks on
this subject. Thank you.
Item #11A
WORK RELEASE RESTITUTION CENTER UPDATE TO THE BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS AND THE JUDICIARY - STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS #3 AND 4
APPROVED
We had agreed to hear from Judge Brousseau and Mayor
Putzell on the work-release program as close to 11:30 as possible.
This is as close as we can get. Is Judge Brousseau here? JUDGE BROUSSEAU: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, he sure is. I thought he
was.
JUDGE BROUSSEAU: Thank you. Good morning, Members of
the Board. The last time we were here on the work-release center you
requested that staff determine how to proceed with financing options,
procurement methods, capital expense, and the cost of operation.
Several things have occurred since we had that last meeting. Tom
Conrecode, Steve Camell and members of the County Attorney's office
have determined the legality and efficiency of several approaches to
procuring the construction and financing the center.
A group led by Ned Putzell, including Judge Wilson, Bob
Briggam, myself we went to Orlando to view their work-release center.
It was an inspiring visit. We found not only did it work as well as
we had been told, but it was being done so in a very economical
manner. I will ask staff to make the reports and recommendations in a
moment. I would like to talk about the philosophy of the center, the
cost of construction and operation, and the role you have in making
choices that effect these things.
We saw, in Orlando, a steel building that was run with
minimal personnel. Some of the expenses involved in their operation
were tied in with job placement and after-care services that went
beyond just the people that were being housed in the work-release
center, it served other parts of the criminal justice system, and
group and individual counseling on a daily basis for all the people
involved.
Now, how do you have control of the costs? Well, you
have to make a decision of whether you have a steel building versus a
fortress or something in between. Are the people being housed there,
are you going to have them heavily guarded with state-of-the-art
electronics versus minimally supervised barracks, which is what we saw
in Orlando? Are you going to provide minimal counseling and job
placement against intense counseling?
Do you have any guidance for this decision, or is it
something new we are proposing? Well, Orlando has had a work-release
center since 1975, and they've been in this building that we saw since
1982. Twenty years ago Don Frank (phonetic), a local attorney and
retired judge from Minnesota told me about his work-release centers
and his experience up there.
The day I was elected I saw Sheriff Rogers, and I was
all enthused, and I said to him, "What do you think of work-release
centers?" I mean, "What do you think of work release?" And he
said,"I don't like it." And my shoulders sagged, and I said "Why?"
He said, "Because you let these people out of jail during the day,
they come back, and you've got a security risk, you've got a
contraband problem." And I appreciate what he said and probably never
had more than one or two, maybe three people per year on work-release
out of the jail. We are operating in a work-release function; always
have been in a very limited degree.
This weekend I was visited by a friend, a judge from
Minnesota, who has work release right in his community. It's an
abandoned or vacated mental health mental hospital facility that they
took over. It's very minimally staffed and, of course, it's just the
structure that was there without much security other than a fence,
probably, around it. He recommended that approach.
We recommend a modest building of conventional
construction, a minimal supervision, relying on good screening for
admission into the facility, and the fact that they are there on their
best behavior or else they are across the street to the jail.
Counseling and job placement services, not the minimal but sufficient
to break the vicious cycle we find so many caught in.
We know that cost is a concern, and well it should be.
But we urge you to move ahead on this today because it deals with
something that just won't go away. This is not being forced upon you
by some State mandate, rather a combination of the weakness of human
nature by the defendants and fear of never ending crime by your
citizens, make this a necessity today. Your choice is to pay now and
deal with recitatives -- I'm sorry, I added a note there -- or pay
later with continuing and increasing crime and the increased costs of
law enforcement and jail associated with it.
Thank you. And if you have any questions, Ned Putzell
and I are available to answer any of them, otherwise I'll turn it over
to the staff.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Staff, are we going
to get some alternatives for costs? Is that what we're going to get
here?
MR. CONRECODE: For the record, Tom Conrecode for
Capital Projects. Our office has looked at their project in two
different perspectives. One is the permitting, because the proposal
right now is to locate it on the existing campus here. We have land
available for that, but because of our historic building here on this
site, we are on a threshold of doing a development regional impact for
the site. We are in discussions with the state agencies on that, the
regional planning council, and are discussing the possibility of this
being exempt from the process as if we're going forward with the
process otherwise. Regardless of that, we need to consider it for
future expansion, buildings on this campus.
MR. CUYLER: Tom, could you pull the microphone a
little closer; the court reporter is having a little problem. MR. CONRECODE: Sure.
In addition to the DRI process, we have also looked at
an alternative for costing this project at $8,000 per bed, which is
the quote that came back from Orange County, would be roughly a
million dollar facility. The facility that was proposed as a part of
the group is approaching a three million dollar facility. There are
some operating considerations that the Board and Sheriffs' office need
to let us know about in order for us to consider, really, kind of a
better estimate on what type of facility would be constructed; whether
it's hardened; whether it has high electronic security; whether it
just has physical security such as fence.
So we need some guidance along those lines to define
what it is that the Board and the Judiciary and the Sheriffs'
Department would like to construct. But, roughly, a three million
dollar facility for the 110 beds is currently contemplated.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any questions?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Not a question; I have
comments before we go too far with this discussion. The concept here
is great, and I applaud Judge Brousseau and Mayor Putzell for the work
they've done. I know they've put a lot of work in on this and
travelled around and done a lot work. However -- and I heard the
argument "pay now or pay later," but I'm concerned, I guess.
Seven days ago our budget director stood in front of us
and said without some very careful planning, without some
belt-tightening, without some cuts we are going to need a 29 percent
increase in taxes over the next three years just to maintain what we
have. We are talking about 1.1 or a $3 million building; we're
talking about 850,000 a year to operate -- and I realize some of that
will be offset. But I -- I'm not sure I can support adding that in
when we are going to have to find things to cut in the budget in the
next couple of years. So it's a big, big chunk of money.
I have spoken to the Sheriff about this, and while he
likes the concept of the work-release center, he is not anxious to
operate it himself. Maybe he's changed on that since three weeks ago.
JUDGE BROUSSEAU: Yes. I spoke to Greg Smith the last
part of last week, because I knew we were coming here, and he got back
to me yesterday. He said the Sheriff is interested in running it. In
answer to Mr. Conrecode's questions, they support the low maintenance
and conventional construction on the building of it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. He also
mentioned, in the Sheriffs' opinion, this does not slow down the need
for his jail expansion.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That doesn't make sense, though.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This doesn't make sense.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's what he told me.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That just doesn't make sense.
JUDGE BROUSSEAU: Okay. I'm not here to sell this as
an alternative to jail expansion. However, I am here to sell this as
a concept to break the vicious cycle that I have seen over and over
and over in criminal courts. And Greg Smith said the last time he was
here, when he came forward from the Sheriffs' Department to support
this, that he can see down the road less need for future expansion of
the jail because we are going to be taking people out of the system.
We saw one -- when we toured Orlando, and one of the
teachers-- they have a great program that I want to talk to you about
after we got down with this one that is all encompassing.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do you realize we're running out
of money?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We are out of money.
JUDGE BROUSSEAU: Well, you run out of money and
burglaries and everything that we've got in the community, and you
know, I deal with it and you need to deal with it. But one of the
things that we saw -- and this is just an example -- was one of the
teachers that taught a computer course to these inmates. And he was
telling about how one of his students of a couple of years ago really
took to computer usage.
The last month or the month before we were there he got
a call from this student who wanted to hire him at a salary higher
than he was getting paid as the teacher. He had gone out, been
successful, got in with a computer system somewhere, and now needed
employees. You won't see that person back in the criminal justice
system. That way, I believe, it will impact the jail if not
immediately.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I wish the Sheriff was here
since we've both had conversations with him and heard different
things. But what he told me was many of the people who would be
eligible for this are not currently sitting in jail anyway; this would
be an alternative thing. So it's not taking the people out of the
jail that are there now and putting them in this. It would be
organizing, for lack of a better phrase, a new program -- and perhaps
a more effective program than what currently exists.
I have a great deal of concern about where we're going
to get the money; how we're going to get the money. I don't have any
doubt that it's a wonderful program, I just don't know if we have the
money for it. What concerns me -- last summer Ned and I sat down --
and with a slip of the tongue, it's funny how communication can get
mixed up. At the time he said private funding for this, and I think
what he -- I know now what he intended was private financing so we
could have assistance financing it. But in the end, we still pay for
it. It excited me at the time thinking private funding, thinking
somebody from the private sector is going to fund the entire thing.
Gosh, who wouldn't like that?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Sounds good.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So my enthusiastic response
last summer comes from that misunderstanding on my part. Again, I
don't have any doubt that it's an excellent concept. I have a great
deal of doubt that we have the money to do it right now.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand it and respect what
Commissioner Constantine is saying, and he's been through the
budgeting process and I haven't. But we have to be broader minded
than it's a new million dollars; we can't spend it. We have to have a
broader vision than that and find something else that we can save
money on when an opportunity is presented to us that in the long run
will not only save money, but most importantly -- we can sit up here
every Tuesday and talk about quality of life and how many units we
allow in a PUD, but nothing is more essential to quality of life than
this issue. This is critical, and we have to have a broader vision
than just it's a new million dollars.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, we're being told both
sides of the argument because you said -- the example you made was
burglaries. But my understanding is burglaries or violent offenders
won't be the ones who are using this anyway. This is Joe's father who
had a few too many pops and drove home drunk one night, and now rather
than putting him in a jail cell the idea is have him in work-release
programs. Those aren't the people who are a great danger; obviously
they are if they're on the road. But they're not the same danger as
the burglar, as the mugger, as the rapist and so on.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think last week was a wake-up
call that we do need to be very cautious about what we're going to
spend on, especially our ad valorem money.
Mr. Dotrill, is there in your opinion any way to
finance a facility like this without going to the ad valorem base to
do it? Can you think of anything? Should we take some time and look
at it? What's your first impression?
MR. DORRILL: First impression is no, because
ultimately it comes back to a general revenue. Can we do it other
than property taxes, the answer is "yes," but you'd have to use
whatever available sales tax or state revenues that you receive. They
are also going to the general fund, too. So if you take that money
out of the general fund, you're going to have to replace it. And
typically that is going to be property taxes.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Is there any opportunity that
we're aware of at this minute for perhaps some sort of grant money for
a program of this nature? Has this been explored?
MR. DORRILL: That has not been fully explored. The
only thing that would even be remotely eligible would be some type of
demonstration project through the Department of Justice and a national
clearinghouse and training facility that they have in Bolder,
Colorado. But we have not researched that.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think this is a great idea. I
really want to do this project. Unfortunately, we have to face
reality at the same time. We may have to delay this project for a bit
until, at least, we get a better idea of where we're going through the
budget process. It would be nice to go ahead and do it. I'm afraid
we're going to have to look at it a little harder than just to go
ahead at this point in time though.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: These kinds of decisions are the
toughest ones, because you sit here trying to balance the dollar
versus crime recidivism and things that are good for the community.
And it makes it, probably, one of the most difficult things we have to
do. But I am inclined to agree with Commissioner Norris that although
right now we don't see a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes
to budgeting for the project, it's the right time for it to be planted
in the back our of minds as we enter the budgeting process for the
upcoming year.
We are being very creative in some areas to find funds
we otherwise couldn't find. Assistant County Manager, Bill Hatget,
has done that. As much as I laud his efforts, I am already concerned
that we've been overly creative in some areas, and that creativity is
going to come back and bite us on the back side. So I'm a little
concerned about going back into our budgetary process and reworking
some numbers to make it appear as if we have money that we didn't know
we had the day before. And that's the only way I see us funding this
at this time.
I would rather than make a decision to approve or deny
this today, I would much rather see how the budget process for the
upcoming year looks to find out what we can or can't do. Because I
think just everyone on this Board wants this project to happen. But
to proceed without identifying specific funding sources and also in
knowing that we have a potential $7 million shortfall two years from
now already, it wouldn't be prudent to do so.
I wish I could give you a better answer than that,
Judge Brousseau, because I really -- I don't think support is the
right word. I would really like to see this get done. I, personally,
in good conscience can't allocate the money when we're already sitting
behind the eight ball for funding in the next two or three years. And
I'm sorry, but that's where I am on this.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have a question. And I guess
that-- it's not really a question, it's a comment. And I don't think
we yet know the answer to that. But it seems to me that I'm hearing
the Republican Congress wanting to readdress the crime bill and change
some of the parameters on it. Instead of telling us what we must
spend that money on, they're talking about allowing us to decide
whether we want to and how much we want to commit to law enforcement,
to criminal justice, to prevention and so forth. And this may be
where the money will come from in the end. We don't know that right
now, and I would kind of like them to work through what they're doing
and get us a little more flexibility with the money that will be
coming down from Washington, should it ever get here.
But I agree; I'm not sure this is a time to actually
kill this project and not have it move forward. I would like to see
it go forward. I'm not sure that criminal justice is the area we
should be looking to cut our budget in, but I certainly would like to
continue to look at the budget process and see if we can't find some
money with the private financing available that we can fund it in
smaller chunks over a four or five year period. Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This is, I guess, for Mr.
Dotrill. What would be the cost of getting this project into the --
even the, quote, unquote -- contract agencies we sent away before and
said if you fit yourself into a departmental budget, come back and go
through the process with us. What departmental budget would this
program fit into, and is that an avenue that is available to us? So
we can look at the big picture.
MR. DORRILL: The first impression would be
corrections, within the Sheriffs' budget. You might be reminded,
again, as I've been focusing on general revenues for some time. I
shared with you preliminary an evaluation that's being done in Lee
County with the thought of either privatizing their corrections as a
way of gaining or picking up some additional money and/or some type of
regional jail expansion. Because Lee County is undertaking the same
jail expansion analysis that we are preliminarily. Both Sheriffs are
desirous of having a 300 bed plus expansion. I know the Sheriff has
some response to what preliminarily we felt the costs of corrections
to be, but I would have to say within the corrections budget.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And this --
MR. DORRILL: And this -- in order to give you a
complete response, the expansion of our jail facility currently
anticipates general obligation, bond referendum where people would
need to vote to raise their property taxes in return of expanding the
jail project which is currently in the County's Growth Management
Plan.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: After making my summary
statement, if you will, I looked again at the recommendations; and
none of them say commit to build it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Right.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The recommendation say,
basically, take the next step and look further. The one I have a
problem with is staff continuing to pursue permits. There is
obviously a relative cost to that. This has all the questions that we
asked. Directing staff to pursue available federal and state grants
to supplement; direct staff to evaluate the operational considerations
and make a recommendation. In other words, we're being asked to go to
the next level of detail.
I want to know -- like I said, I don't want this
project to stop and die here today. I want to find out first of all
if it is viable. And if we find out that physically it is not viable,
then that's the time in which we have to make that decision. So I
look at these recommendations, and with the exception of pursuing
permits, which may have a very hard cost to it, I can support the
other three for the simple reason it does give us those hard numbers
we may need to say "yes" or "no."
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One of the other
recommendations is to develop and publish an RFQ or an RFP, and I'm
not sure we are able to do that yet if we don't know that we're going
to build it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We've got to find the money.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That seems a little
premature. I don't have any objection I guess to pursuing federal and
state grants. If somebody wants to assist us in going this, I think
all five of us have said we like the idea of the project but we don't
have the money. I would just underline the word -- and this is a
reality check -- is to supplement the building and operations. It's
going to cost us some money regardless; nobody is going to build the
thing for us.
Commissioner Mac'Kie made the point that we should be
able to find a million dollars or more elsewhere in the budget. Yeah,
I hope we can. But until we do, I can't say yes on this. I agree
with Commissioner Hancock, let's go ahead and pursue the other
avenues. If there are other ways to help pay for this, we should know
what they are. But I think it's premature to build it. I don't think
anybody is saying kill it.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I agree with you, and I think we
all certainly want to see this thing go forward. So I'll make a
motion that we approve the Staff Recommendations Number 3 and 4.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Did you read those, John?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Did I read it? Yes. "The BBC
directs staff to evaluate within reasonable consideration and make a
recommendation." And Number 4, "The BBC directs staff to pursue
available federal and state grants to supplement the building and
operation of the same."
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Question on the motion. Would
Number 1, by doing that, would it help us get a more finite cost?
Because I think that's important, the start-up cost, and it may be a
response to an RFQ that gives us a better idea. I know it's not an
RFP, but I think we need that cost to be a little more finite if we
are going to say "Nay" or "Yey." And I would like to know the best
way to do that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Why are we asking for an RFQ or
RFP if we already know what we want to build?
MR. DORRILL: Typically you can go to two proposals.
The only time you want to go to an RFQ is if you want to prequalify
the people that you'll take proposals from, i.e., their financial
stability or their past experience.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Dorrill, how much staff
time, and what does it equal in dollars, does it cost to put together
and send out and look at the responses for an RFP? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: RFQ?
MR. DORRILL: $1,000. There's mailing and advertising.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How much does it cost of our
staff's time? I think every time we want to do an RFP we are told
it's going to take thirty days to put it together and -- before we can
send it out, I'm assuming somebody has put together --
MR. DORRILL: By the time you go through the evaluation
process, you know, there's always a staff committee and an evaluation
of the proposals that are received. So I'll say it could be $5,000 or
more.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: This seems premature to me.
We don't know what we want to do, but could we get some balipark
figures? It seems premature to me. It seems we're rolling the train
out of the station before we know if everybody is on board.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: But I think we can get the cost
analysis close enough. The staff has had plenty of experience in
building buildings. And the market values are certainly out there to
pick from, depending on what type of building we want. I think the
suggestion has been made by the presenters here to go with some sort
of metal building for economy sake. And I'm sure Mr. Conrecode can
come up with a pretty close estimate of what that's going to cost.
And that certainly would be close enough for our discussion purposes.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I second the motion as it
stands on the floor.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I was going to ask if you would
amend to include the information by staff regarding construction
costs.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: It's my understanding that that
would be done as part of the evaluation in Number 3 Recommendation.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay, as long as that's
understood, because I do want a more finite number on the costs.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have one question before I
call the vote on the motion.
Mr. Dotrill, when do you anticipate having your first
CIP budget available?
MR. DORRILL: The end of Hay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: End of Hay?
MR. DORRILL: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That far ahead? Okay.
We have a motion and second -- Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Judge Brousseau, is it a
worthwhile effort you need to coordinate this through the corrections
department and budget? It seems like it would gain some validity in
front of this Board if it is the Correction Department saying this is
going to save you money. With all due respect to your honor, it would
go through the normal budgeting process that way and might have more
Success.
JUDGE BROUSSEAU: I'm not here -- first of all let me
say, I'm as conservative, I think, as anyone on this Board, okay. I
won't go into my political history, but I think I am as conservative.
And I appreciate, I really appreciate the way you are approaching
this. And what I've heard here today is fine, but I think it was -- I
can't remember if it was Commissioner Hancock or Mac'Kie who said, you
know, you've got to bite the bullet sometime and you can't weigh
certain things.
And I just want -- you know, you're putting this on the
back burner. And I'm glad what you're doing, what you're going
forward with today. But you're going to have to come back here in a
short time and make a decision. I just want to tell you I've been
living with this since 1988; it went on the back burner because this
whole country went into recession. And I appreciated the financial
strain that was put on government.
What really brought it back on the front burner was a
bus load of kids up the way and a few deaths from a drunk driver and a
Reverend Mallory (phonetic) who came and said what can we do to get
these people off the street; and what can we do to fix this problem?
I just want to give you two examples of who this center is anticipated
to serve.
One is DUI. I don't do much DUI. Unfortunately by the
time I do them, they've killed somebody. But the County Judges handle
DUI's. And I know how much I struggle when I have someone in front of
me as to whether I'm going to put them in jail, as I want to do, get
them off the street, versus ruin their family; ruin their income and
all the domino effect that comes from that. They lose their job if
you put them in long enough; you've got all these things as a judge
you have to weigh.
Too many times I'm afraid we end up putting them on
probation, not in jail, and try to get by that way. Unfortunately
they show up again. I just heard this morning on the news someone
who's prominent got rearrested on possession of cocaine just last
night or in recent history. It happens; it's a recycle thing.
So who would go into this thing? A lot of people right
now that are going out on probation. Because I can look someone in
the face and say, "You know, Iwm going to put you in here for the next
sixty days, and I don't have to worry about you losing your job; I
don't have to worry about your family losing support; I don't have to
worry about the victim getting their restitution paid, because I know
you can keep doing it because you're going to have a job, but I'm
going to have you at night."
And let me tell you most people get in trouble in their
off hours, not while they're working. And at night we are going to
try and, quote, fix you. That's one element. Another example is
domestic violence, which is right at the forefront. I see women are
primarily the victims. I see women come in -- they're arrested
Saturday night, and by the time I get to the jail on Sunday -- a judge
has to check everyone in, you know -- when I see them, she's out front
saying, "I want him out; I want him home. Please, drop the charges."
I am convinced that one of the reasons, again, is this
domino effect. They realize they're going to lose support; they're
going to lose all these things; and they don't really want them to go
to jail. When they do come in front of me they say, "I don't want him
to go to jail, Judge, I just want him to stop hurting me." I believe,
and the State Attorney will tell you, there's a lot of women who drop
the charges and won't pursue it. I firmly believe in my heart that
when they know this is an alternative, not jail, that they will be
more inclined to stick to it and help us who are trying to protect
them.
Those are just two examples. You've got to make the
decision on money, I understand that. I hope you can find some to
save. Remember that we are looking for a five-year plan; that you pay
interim along the way. We're not looking -- and I applaud you for
looking at the costs, because if it costs a million dollars versus
three million that, certainly in my mind, would be a totally different
perspective.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have two comments. One, I
certainly didn't make light of DUI when I made that comment. I was
trying to offset -- you had mentioned burglary, and I think that's
what we were targeting here.
JUDGE BROUSSEAU: Let me address that real quick.
Burglary-- my intent was to say that if we could get them quickly
enough and off of crack, they're not going to be out burglarizing.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And the other thing, I think
your explanation is well taken. And I don't think -- I think we
should inquire here as far as does this hold some potential? Yeah. I
think all five of us have said, "Yes, it does." It was just a
question of what you said, is it a million? Is it three million? And
where do we get that money?
JUDGE BROUSSEAU: Thank you for your interest and
support.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. We have a motion and a
second. If there's no further discussion, I'll call the question. All
those in favor of the motion say "Aye."
(The Commissioners all responded simultaneously.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Opposed.
(No response.)
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There being none, the motion
passes five/zero.
Let's take lunch. Be back at a quarter after one.
(A lunch break was held.)
Item #SH1
STAFF REPORT ON FEASIBILITY OF PERCOLATION PONDS FOR EFFLUENT DISPOSAL
AND RECOMHENDED ACTION TO PROCEED WITH AN IMHEDIATE INCREASE IN
EFFLUENTDISPOSAL CAPACITY BY CONVERTING THE LAKEWOOD RESIDENTIAL
IRRIGATION SYSTEM TO RECLAIMED WATER REUSE - STAFF TO AGGRESSIVELY
PURSUE REUSE SYSTEM; CONTINUE TO NEGOTIATE W/HUBSCHMAN'S AND COME BACK
IN TWO WEEKS; ALSO USE OF DEEP WELLS
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let's reconvene the board of
county commission meeting for February 14. Are you okay?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, I'm fine. Just had to
get that out of the way before the mike came on.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Glad -- glad to hear that. Next
item on the agenda -- we're still working in the morning agenda --
item 8-H-l, staff report on the feasibility of percolation ponds. Mr.
HcNees.
MR. HCNEES: Hello again. Good afternoon,
Commissioners. We're back this afternoon with one of, I'm sure, your
favorite items which is effluent disposal options at our south county
regional waste water treatment facility. Hopefully this won't be a
continuing saga, that we can get some direction and begin to move
forward today.
The first thing I'd like to do is orient you as to where
we were when we last spoke on this issue, at least as staff
understands it, and explain to you essentially what the decisions are
to be made today and tell you a little bit about what's happening and
what we know.
And then I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr.
Conrecode from the capital projects office who's going to walk through
the specifics of some investigation that we've done, and we're
eventually going to get to some specific recommendations.
When we last spoke on this issue, the board had
identified and staff continues to take it as our number one priority
to maximize the tense of this effluent water for irrigation purposes
everywhere where it's cost effective and where it makes sense.
And I'd like to preface the discussion today with the
clear understanding for all of you that what we're talking about today
is how we're going to dispose of effluent that we are unable to
tense. And at every step at every turn our first choice, our first
option, and our first research effort will be to maximize tense
whenever possible. You have made that message very clear.
In fact, we're going to talk to you today about
something we've already come up with. It has a slight change in what
has been your policy to take us in that direction.
So I want to make sure that that's understood, that the
options we're talking about today are options for the water that we
are not yet or have not yet been able to find a way to tense. And we
-- we don't represent that we will ever be able to consistently day
to day tense 100 percent of our effluent. That's just not realistic,
so we need to have these back-up options.
When we last spoke, again, you had expressed as a loose
consensus, I'll call it, a preference for percolation ponds over what
had originally been the staff proposal which was the concept of a deep
injection well that would allow us that back-up disposal capacity.
When we asked you about could we as we analyze the
percolation pond issue into more detail keep the issue of an injection
well alive and perhaps continue the permitting, what we understood you
to say was, you can keep it on the table maybe barely breathing or
gasping somewhat but at least on the table and that we were to proceed
no further with any expenditure towards further permitting of that
option.
And what you asked us then was to develop some more
site-specific costs of what we had very roughly estimated for
percolation pond costs and to come back to you so that you could
review that site-specific information and better refined numbers for
the percolation pond option and weigh that more carefully against the
other alternative which is the only two that we have left at this
point which is the injection well.
And what we're here today is to present you with that
analysis and let you make the decision then of what you believe to be
the best alternative in terms of your concerns about the well and the
cost effectiveness of all the options. And that's what we're here to
present to you today.
A couple of things I would like to point out before we
begin, one, representatives of the Department of Environmental
Protection are here today. As you all know, they are quite concerned
that we begin to move forward because we are straining the seams of
our effluent system throughout the county. And they have worked with
us diligently and bent with us I think as much as they can.
And they're here today kind of in -- I think for two
reasons. I won't speak for them. But one is they have a great
interest in what this board decides and which direction we're going to
proceed, and I think they're as much interested that we do proceed in
some direction; and secondly, as an informational source in terms of
permitability, feasibility, and their opinions perhaps if you want to
hear them on what the various options are.
The last thing I'll throw at you, before we finish
today, we're going to talk to you about the concept of one individual
reuse customer, that being the Lakewood subdivision, that staff has
entered into negotiations with. In fact, their board has formally
approved at least the negotiation, and we would like for you to do the
same thing today. That would be the negotiation that we look at
converting what is a lake-fed subdivision-wide irrigation system, pay
for some pumping improvements, and convert that to a reuse system.
Now, in the past, the county has not funded on-site or
what you might call private pump system improvements to provide
irrigation. And we're asking you to reconsider that policy today in
light of the cost of effluent disposal and the economics. It makes
more sense for us if we can pick up a good reuse customer. And we'll
present some more detail on that for you today.
So ultimately I'll be back up here to try to focus some
of the decisions. But the big picture decision today is do
percolation ponds in your opinion represent the best overall solution
for our back-up disposal needs as you've expressed preliminarily that
you believe that they do. And we're going to bring you the numbers.
Or then alternatively, do you still feel like or do you feel like
there is any validity to our proceeding with an injection well as --
as had originally been planned in part of this facility.
So that's the decision today, and I'll turn the floor
over to Mr. Conrecode who's going to present you the site study.
MR. CONRECODE: For the record, Tom Conrecode from your
capital projects office.
When the board last heard this item on January 3, they
directed staff to do an analysis and consider percolation ponds as the
alternative for effluent. You've heard all that already from Hike.
Staff has done that in conjunction with Hole, Hontes who
is our consultant on the south plant expansion project. And there's
representatives of Hole, Hontes here today to address some of the more
technical issues of permitting-related issues associated with this.
Staff had identified a total of 15 sites, and you all
have received a handout which provides the detail that -- just to
provide some sort of a confirmation to the board that we really did do
the homework on this, reviewed the sites, looked at some of the
specific siting criteria that we'd have to go through, looked at the
permitting conditions, and so on and so forth. And a lot of that
level of detail is provided in the handout that you've all been given
outside of the agenda packet.
From that, the site selection screening criteria was
used. The best estimates of land value and improvement costs
associated with each of the different sites was considered. And staff
had completed basically an economic evaluation to come up with what
the best possible options are.
Now, I'll tell you right now that at this stage of the
game, our numbers aren't in concrete. But we think that they're good
and reasonable numbers. And you'll see some variations in site
development costs between the thousand-acre site and a hundred-acre
site. Obviously we think there's some economy of scale associated
with that. We think our piping numbers are pretty reasonable and
well-considered numbers.
There are some easement acquisition issues that aren't
addressed because we're not going to go into that process until which
time we've identified sites and can provide the board with the
appropriate level of analysis that's required for that.
So in that regard, I will tell you that we have
considered 15 sites. From the discussion earlier this morning, we've
added a sixteenth site that we've kind of penciled in on our diagram
that came out in the discussion this morning. Our site analysis isn't
exhaustive. We haven't considered every possible option out there but
the ones that we thought provided the board with some -- some
reasonable considerations.
So with that, I'm going to turn the floor over to Ron
Benson to talk about some of the technical issues associated with this
and then come back and summarize with Hike and try and steer you into
refining some of the options that are open to you right now. Ron?
MR. BENSON: Thank you. For the record, I'm Ron Benson
with Hole, Hontes, and Associates. In your handout package behind the
first blue page, there is a diagram showing a typical section through
a percolation pond. We've talked with the fellows from DEP in the
past. We know what the regulations are regarding percolation ponds
and have developed this exhibit to give you an idea of what we're
talking about as far as requiring modification of existing property to
make it suitable for a perc. pond.
You'll notice what we're -- have identified as a current
high water table -- MR. DORRILL: Ron, you're going to need to use the
handheld mike if you turn away from the podium.
MR. BENSON: Is this -- okay. We've identified the
current high water table because that's a concern of DEP. The
regulations for percolation ponds require that the bottom of the pond
-- there be a three-foot separation between the high water table.
In order to accomplish that on the properties that wewre
investigating, wewre assuming that between one and a half and two feet
of clean fill would be required to bring that bottom elevation of the
pond up.
The type of construction depends on what the existing
use is. Is it a farm field thatws already been cleared or wooded?
But it would be requiring either way a cleared site before you start
construction.
Then there would be construction of berms to hold the
water in. The state requires a three-foot separation from the top of
the berm and the high water inside the percolation pond. So those are
some of the criteria. We use those then to come up with a estimate of
how much it would cost per acre to construct percolation ponds of
various sizes.
And that leads me into the next page after your next
blue sheet which lists the criteria that we use. We did receive some
information from the Hubschmans. There was information provided by
Law Engineering and by Grady Minor and Associates regarding their
property that they had available, what would be an expected
percolation rate. We utilized that for all the sites because at this
point we do not have any specific -- site-specific data.
In doing this, wewve used a hundred acres per million
gallons per day of total site, of total usable site, because we didnwt
consider if there -- if there was wetlands on the site that the
mitigation for that is hard to predict up front and may likely be much
more than the cost of just finding some more uplands land. So we
excluded land that we thought would be difficult to permit and only
used that we thought was suitable.
You can see here that we have the information that we
assumed for doing our analysis including your real property management
office coming up with a market value for the property, not the
assessed value. They came up with a market value. That was
utilized.
The next page is a summary of all the sites on your map
ranked from lowest cost per million gallons per day. Sites 12 and 13
are the lowest cost, and thatws because theywre sites that have a
reasonably low price per acre, but yet theywre land thatws already
cleared. Itws in agricultural use.
Land that was a higher price per acre closer into the
developed area obviously would have a higher price but yet lower cost
for construction of the pipelines.
So therews a real quick range between 2.8 million
dollars per million gallons per day and some sites in excess of 10
million dollars per MGD.
The following pages Iwm not going to go over here but to
let you know that theywre just some of the back-up information on the
analysis of the sites.
If therews any questions about what we did in this quick
analysis of the sites, Iwd be glad to answer those at this point.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Commissioner
Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Just real briefly, the maximum
MGD wewre looking at for disposal currently is --MR. BENSON: Okay. Currently you have an eight
million-gallon-per-day facility. Some of that is currently in reuse.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Right. The minimum reuse versus
maximum output, what's the difference? What are we talking about?
MR. BENSON: Okay. The maximum difference between --
would be probably eight million permitted treatment capacity and
somewhere approximately two million gallons per day of reuse.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. So in the wet season when
we have a lot of rain, less effluent is being used, we're still
generating -- we're talking about a six-million-dollar spread -- or
six million-gallon-a-day spread. Is that accurate? MR. BENSON: That's pretty close.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. So anything under six
million gallons a day probably doesn't merit a tremendous amount of
consideration unless we look at it in conjunction with the existing
sites?
MR. BENSON: Or combinations of these sites.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. BENSON: And that's why you've noticed some of these
are com -- combinations of multiple sites. They're kind of close
enough together that the piping costs would be shared.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. That's all I had for now.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other questions? Apparently
not.
MR. CONRECODE: Commissioners, from that, staff went
ahead and went with the lowest cost option for percolation and came up
with the value to implement the program to get rid of in this
particular case, including the combined sites of 12 and 13, eleven and
a half MGD. Quickly note that that's beyond what your requirement is
for today's lows. But if you're going to look at this as a long-term
strategy, you may want to consider the entire operation in the event
that you're going to do future expansion at that south plant.
In any event, the costs that we arrived at using the
criteria that Ron has just gone through came up to 2.8 million dollars
per million gallons per day. The other options that we had considered
range through -- the Hubschman properties that we've currently been in
discussion with as part of settlement talks with the Hubschmans as
well as the highest priced site which was considered site 4 at 15.6
million gallons -- 15.6 million dollars.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Conrecode, can you talk a
little bit louder?
MR. CONRECODE: Sure. I'm sorry. And then finally that
staff, again, just reincluded the numbers, the estimated costs, for
the two deep injection wells. From there and on page 2 of your
executive summary, we've outlined the fiscal impacts associated with
the board pursuing any one of three alternatives.
Option number one is -- is strictly percolation pond
alternative. Option number two that we've laid out includes a
combination of perc. ponds and deep -- one deep well. And then option
number three includes a two deep well proposal and the costs
associated with each of those.
Subject to any further questions of the board, I'll turn
back over to Mike McNees so he can summarize up kind of the issues and
what direction he'd like the board to give.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: For clarity's sake, sites 12 and
13, are those the Hubschman properties? MR. CONRECODE: No, sir.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. That's -- that's what I
thought. And yet when we look at the cost, we have a paragraph or a
parentheses that says including Hubschman property with park. If
we're looking at required funding based on the recommendation of sites
12 and 13, what does the statement regarding the Hubschman property
have to do with that? I'm a little confused there, Tom.
MR. CONRECODE: Well, the board has been involved with a
lawsuit with the Hubschmans. And as a part of the process and in
settlement discussions with the Hubschmans, we felt that it would be
fair to consider that site in addition to just randomly going through
and picking any other sites. We listed the lowest, the highest, and
the Hubschman site in the event the board wanted to consider that site
any further. And I think you're going to hear from representatives of
the Hubschmans today anyway with regard to their site. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other questions?
Mr. McNees?
MR. MCNEES: I think it would probably be appropriate to
hear from the -- the Hubschman representatives at this point because
they're going to, as I understand from my discussion with them just
this morning, throw an option at the board that's not exactly one that
we have considered. And they have something to add about the terms
under which they're considering our property. And I'll clarify.
The difference between the two numbers here of the
required funding that you asked about including the Hubschman property
is if we do buy that property, it's obviously not enough disposal
capacity, so we'd also then have to buy pieces of 12 and 13. So to do
that as well is the extra cost.
And the question becomes is the settlement of those
issues and gaining a park in East Naples at that site worth that
differential? So that's why we've shown you those -- those two
costs.
I think probably it would be appropriate to hear from
those folks at this point if the board so chooses. And then we'll --
once they've made their presentation, we'll lead you through or hear
your discussion on our alternatives and how you want us to proceed.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Is the representative from
the Hubschmans here?
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Siesky's here or Mr. Hubschman maybe,
depending on who speaks next.
MR. HUBSCHMAN: My name is Harrison Hubschman, and I've
been before all of you before. I went over this little di -- little
option page that I worked out with Grady Minor yesterday, with Carl
Boyer, and we made a few corrections. Obviously the first two options
do not include a park; okay? And neither does the option on the next
page, option number 3.
The other correction I want to make is that at the
bottom of page 2, paragraph says the F -- the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection will require 10-day storage capacity if you
have reuse as your primary method of disposal. That's -- according to
him, that's incorrect. It's only three days. I got that number from
Grady, so I'm not sure which is actually correct. It's not really
important; okay? Whatever's correct is correct; okay?
The first two options -- and I'm going to jump right to
the heart of the matter here. We live in an area where rainfall is --
is almost like a daily occurrence, okay, especially in the summer.
There's no way that you can go to a total reuse plan and -- and end up
disposing of your water unless you want to pay outrageous amounts to
do it.
To spend eight million dollars to run a pipe first out
seven and a half miles out to the site 12 and 13, it's my opinion
you'll never recover that money. That's money down the drain. And
the sites themselves, if you pump the water out there, you will not
tense it. It's too far away. You'll never spray irrigated on the
golf courses around East Naples. It will never come back.
If you're going to do that, if you're going to spend
eight million to get it there and another ten million or so to buy
that property -- I'm not sure what the numbers are because I don't
have it in front of me -- you may as well go to deep well. If you're
going to just get rid of it, get rid of it cheap.
If you finish reading this, you'll see that my opinion
is the deep well is probably safer than -- than dumping it out there
anyway. If you dump it out there, it could come back to haunt you in
the aquifers that we drink from.
The aquifers that you're going to put in -- that you're
going to put into deep well are two twenty-eight, three thousand feet
down. They will travel, you know, a lot further away from us than it
would if you were to put it on 12 and 13, sites 12 and 13.
It's -- you know, and I've talked to Grady, and I've
talked to Hike HcNees, and Hike and I are in agreement that what
really makes sense here is that you go to a combination of tense and
deep well, that you go to a storage that you use -- and we've worked
it out where our property works into this pretty well.
If you use our total property for storage and only put
five feet of water on the property, you will end up with a hundred and
twenty-two million gallons of storage. That doesn't mean you can put
a hundred and twenty-two million gallons on there a day. It just
means that you can put a hundred and twenty-two million gallons on
it.
You don't have to line it. You don't have to build it
up three feet like a perc. pond. And the cost of that is less than if
you built perc. ponds.
The benefit of it is is that when it rains, you put
water in this storage facility, this land. And then when it's not
raining, you can spray irrigated again. You can use it up, use it
back up.
The other benefit is you will get some percolation from
that hundred and -- from that hundred-acre site. It's not just going
to sit there in a -- in a tub waiting to be used.
If you run into a problem where you fill that storage
up, well, then -- and it's still raining out, you're going to have to
go to the deep well as a back-up to pump down the deep well.
Now, right now you've only got two million gallons of
tense in effect that you can use right now today. The Lakewood system
would give you another million gallons, so that's three. You need
eight now to make this plant operational at eight million gallons.
In order to do that, you have to put in a deep well.
You have to cite the deep well as your primary source of effluent
disposal. And you have to put in the second deep well as a back-up.
Although you're not going to use the deep well as your primary source,
you're going to use the -- you're going to use tense as your primary
source when it's not raining, when it's available to be used. And
it's going to have to be a flexible -- a flexible program like that.
There's not enough high land in Naples to get rid of the
kind of water that you're going to produce. And this plan, option
number 3, if you put in two deep wells now, you want to expand this
plant to 16 million dollars -- 16 million gallons somewhere down the
line. This will get you there. You gotta put in some more deep
wells.
And over the next 10 years when you get to that 16
million or 20 years, whenever -- whenever it happens to be that you
get there, you have to hook up these other golf courses. You have to
build that reuse up over the next 10 to 20 years so that it matches
what you can do with the deep well. And the deep well's always there
for when it rains and when the storms come and when the hurricanes
comes through. When a hurricane comes through, you're looking at, you
know, probably ten days that you can't spray irrigate at least.
Our property will get you that storage so you don't have
to pump it seven miles out and spend eight million dollars to get it
-- eight million dollars just to get it there. It's my opinion you
just don't have a choice about this.
Deep well is -- is -- is probably the only economical
way to go unless you want to spend some really crazy amounts of money
on land and pipes and then not reuse the resource. And if you don't
reuse the resource, desalinization will be the next type of pot --
potable water system that we're going to go to because the golf
courses and everybody else pumping out of the ground will eventually
create salt water intrusion.
And I've -- I've drilled oil wells in Oklahoma; okay?
When you drill a well and you're pumping oil out, you pump it too
fast, you pull water from below. Once you pull that water, it creates
a channel. Once it creates a channel, you will never get rid of it.
You create a salt water intrusion channel in a well, and you can
abandon that well and move somewhere else. And wells cost a lot to
drill.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: They do. Commissioner Hancock,
you have a question?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes, a couple of things. One of
the points that you talked about is -- is using your property for just
storage. My understanding is one of the functions of perc. ponds is
that they have to be rotated so that they can be cleaned and
scrubbed. If there is a mishap where things get into a perc. pond
that shouldn't be there, they have to be allowed to dry out, if you
will, so that area can be worked.
So the property -- that's the reason property has to be
raised with clean fill so it will percolate. It has to be designed to
percolate. If it's just flat out storage and it gets contaminated, we
then have to pump it and go back and clean it, and that's an expensive
process I don't think we want to undertake.
So the idea of perc. ponds is more than just storage.
It's a rotating system that allows us to give a check and balance to
potential contamination and a way to clean it. So there's a very --
there's a big difference there between storage and percolation, and I
believe our experts would say that storage is not the answer.
MR. HUBSCHMAN: No, it's part of the answer. It's --
that's my opinion.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It may very well be. The second
part of that is -- and something that I just want to point out that
we've kind of lost sight of is we definitely have said we don't like
the idea of deep well injection. I do want to point out that this
effluent is for -- I wouldn't recommend it, but it's nearly
drinkable. I mean, this is not a water that is -- is toxic, you
know.
Okay, Mr. Hubschman, you can disagree. But I imagine
there are some people in the field that -- that would disagree with
you, sir. There are limits on effluent. That's why it can be used
for median irrigation. That's why it can be used for -- in some areas
they're experimenting with crop irrigation. If it's toxic, I don't
think that would be happening.
So I just want to put into perspective we're not dealing
with nuclear waste here, so let's -- let's be a little reasonable in
how that's applied.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
COMHISSIONER NORRIS:
McNees.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
COMHISSIONER NORRIS:
Any other questions?
Yes, I have a question for Mr.
Commissioner Norris.
Mr. HcNees, how will this affect
the rate base? Let's say a proposal here for under 10 million dollars
compared to a proposal of 28, how will that affect the rate base?
MR. HCNEES: I haven't done a specific analysis of debt
coverage and -- and how that would affect rates, but roughly we have
-- seven million dollars is -- I think we definitely -- even if debt
were necessary which to fund a seven million dollar project, we might
not need debt in the first place. Our sewer capital reserves are
pretty healthy. A good part of that is probably impact fees, so it
may not all be available for this type of a project.
But impact on rates even if some debt were required is
probably non-existent. We could probably have the capacity under our
existing rate structure to -- to fund that size of debt.
When we get up to a 20 -- 20 to 25 million dollar issue
or a debt requirement, there would probably be some minimal rate
impact. But given the size of our rate base today and the size of
that debt service, it would not be huge. It wouldn't -- it would be a
relatively small percentage, but I can't give you an exact number. We
haven't gone through that in that depth with the analysis.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have a question. Sites 12 and
13 which seem to be the optimum sites at this point, that -- they're
in the middle of the Belle Heade ag. area, aren't they, or very close
to it?
MR. CONRECODE: Yes, they're very close to it. They're
-- it's -- the site's known as Six L Farms. I think that's the one
that we'll bring --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there -- is there any
opportunity of talking with the -- with the owners of various farms
there about tense of this product if we do pipe it out that far?
MR. CONRECODE: I think the opportunity exists, yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I mean --
MR. CONRECODE: But we haven't specifically talked.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We haven't done that yet.
MR. CONRECODE: No.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So if -- if that were possible
and the -- I mean, the -- the various farms down there -- Six L Farms
is there; Gargulio is there, Thomas. There's any number of farms down
there that -- I mean, I don't know how much water they use a day, but
I'm sure they use quite a bit of it. Even in the rainy season they're
having to control the amount of water that they need. Some days they
get more than they want, but other days they don't. I -- I guess 12
and 13 is not all that unappealing to me considering that the ag.
area's there.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's assuming we can use it for
spray irrigation on food crops. I -- I don't know an answer to that.
MR. CONRECODE: Right. I'm not that certain about how a
lot of the -- the irrigation works for -- for farming in that part of
the county, but I know --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Some of it's drip.
MR. CONRECODE: -- out towards Immokalee it's done off
of water table level -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah.
MR. CONRECODE: -- adjustments, not as spray irrigation,
so I think there may be some options. And we'd probably have to
pursue what that is. To this point the board policy hasn't been to
run pipes to -- to do that use.
MR. MCNEES: Let me provide a couple pieces of
information, and there are certainly more experts in the room that
know more about this than I do. We may want to call on a couple of
them.
But for one, certain food crops don't -- we're not able
to do direct application of this product. And for those crops that
use underground or whatever it's called, drip irrigation, or that type
of system, they're relatively low-volume consumers.
Now, if we were to put in the main to take this water
that far out, we would then absolutely look for every person in the
neighborhood who could take the water. That would be good, and that
would allow us as a conservation measure to use more water. There's
no capital cost avoidance because if we hadn't built a line to get out
there, we can't do that and use them as a reuse customer.
So yes, that would be a fringe benefit, so to speak, of
the ponds. It's really not going to save us any money.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Hike, would we be able to use the
water on its way out to the perc. ponds, or does it have to meet its
storage requirement out there before it can be used?
MR. HCNEES: We would find every thirsty blade of grass
between here and there that -- a golf course or -- or --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: A new Collier County green way;
right?
MR. HCNEES: -- a large sized customer that wanted the
water, that then it would be cost effective, absolutely. And perhaps
there would be some -- I know what's between here and there, and there
aren't a lot of country clubs out in that Sable Palm Road neighborhood
and in that south blocks area.
So yes, we could probably eliminate maybe a piece of the
perc. pond size or something. But I don't think we're going to
materially affect our capital costs at this point.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: The question wasn't directed to
that but merely a functional question of can we use it right off the
line for irrigation on the way out, or does it have to go to the perc.
ponds and sit for a period of time --
MR. HCNEES: We certainly could.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. HcNees, I -- I'm assuming that
that -- that rectangle that you've penciled in there is the Oberlin
College property?
MR. HCNEES: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Be careful not to count it
twice.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: We -- we have not yet, I assume,
also looked into whether that's suitable property for a perc. pond.
MR. HCNEES: We did not study that site.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: You did not.
MR. HCNEES: No.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Is it your opinion that it would
be just as suitable as any other place out there than 12 and 137 MR. HCNEES: I would expect.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: You would expect it to be?
MR. HCNEES: We -- the same assumptions have been
applied cost-wise to all the sites, and so there would be no reason to
say that -- that one would be different.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Would it be more cost effective
for the county, do you think, if we purchased that property to also --
if we were going to purchase that property for use as a landfill,
wouldn't it be cost effective then to go ahead and put our perc. ponds
on that property?
MR. HCNEES: Well, assuming there was enough land for
both --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Two square miles I think ought to
do it.
MR. HCNEES: -- and that you're going to buy all of the
two square miles anyway, from an overall standpoint perhaps to the
solid waste fund there's a benefit of having utilities pay for a piece
of the two square miles so that we use it instead of having it sit
vacant or as -- as buffer or whatever, absolutely.
To the utilities customer that's transparent because
he's going to have to buy the same amount of land either way. So I
guess from a big picture perspective, yeah, there's benefit to solid
waste. From the utilities side it's -- it's -- it's a wash.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, without separating it into
the different funds, so overall -- MR. HCNEES: Absolutely.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: -- you'd only be buying one tract
of land rather than two.
MR. HCNEES: That's correct.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other questions?
MR. HCNEES: I'm told we can't use the site for both.
I'll let --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah.
MR. CONRECODE: If -- if you use the site for a
landfill, you obviously can't put perc. ponds on it. Likewise you
can't --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think next to each other, not
on top of each other.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Side by side. I mean, if there's
enough land to put both uses separately if the proximity's not a
problem, it's just a question of is there enough land for both. I'm
asking.
MR. CONRECODE: Yeah, I don't think that that's a
concern.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
MR. CONRECODE: I misunderstood.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Although at 108 feet we'd have a
heck of a lot of percolation there.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. McNees, I have a -- a
question. On this map we were handed, I see the -- the south county
waste water treatment plant is a round dot, the black -- black dot I
presume. Right. And I note that southeast of that dot is the Lely
development.
MR. HCNEES: That's correct.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Have -- have we had any
conversation with the developer there about as he builds that out and
puts the -- puts the infrastructure in of a tense for their
irrigation?
MR. HCNEES: We have had extensive conversations with
them. In fact, they are already under agreement with us to take
effluent at the courses out there and for their irrigation system.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I wasn't thinking about
just the golf courses. I was thinking about -- I mean, they -- they
probably will have a -- a master irrigation system for the homes.
MR. HCNEES: And that --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And rather than draw from the
lakes, why not --
MR. HCNEES: For their common areas they do have and we
will be providing that water. And one of the things, in fact, given
your previous direction is they're running a little behind in terms of
connecting some of the customers they already have to the tense
system. And there's a cost to them for that.
We'll be meeting with them this week to suggest that
perhaps if the county would advance them the cost which is the -- the
hold-up for them, not give but advance as a loan, the cost to do those
improvements, could we go ahead and get them effluent today? And then
when they -- when it would come along in their schedule, then they can
pay us for that. And so yes, absolutely, that's a real good tense
customer, one we're counting on.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there any -- is there any
estimate at this point -- I know that Lely development -- Lely Resort
is probably a project that will build out over 10 or 15 years. But is
there any estimate as to what the tense gallons would be?
MR. HCNEES: Mr. Clemons tells me at build-out we're
talking about four million gallons per day, and that build-out is
somewhat more delayed today than we would have predicted it to have
been a couple years ago.
And I need to reemphasize here that again what we're
talking about is what are we going to do with this water when the
tense customers aren't using. And absolutely they're going to be a
good one, and we're -- we're all over them as far as can we get them
hooked up more quickly.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The only thing I can say to that
is that my personal irrigation system at my home runs off of a lake,
and it runs rain or shine so --
MR. HCNEES: That's -- that's why we like the folks at
Lakewood because we find that residential customers do exactly that.
They're not nearly as attentive --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Persnickety about --
MR. HCNEES: -- shall we say as some of the golf course
managers and as -- as attuned to the -- and when it's off a lake and
they're not paying anything or they feel like they're not paying
anything, you're absolutely right. And that's why we're anxious to
connect Lakewood. When we finish with the conversation about overall
disposal, we're going to talk about Lakewood for a minute.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I -- I guess my concern is
-- is that, you know, there's a lot of options here that we're trying
to examine, but I'm not sure that we've examined them thoroughly
enough to make a decision of whether we should pump this stuff eight
miles out or whatever.
MR. HCNEES: There's one more piece of the puzzle I'd
like to throw at you, and I do this hesitantly, but I feel like it's
my responsibility as utilities administrator.
In my conversations, one of the things I've asked -- and
I've asked the -- the folks from the Department of Environmental
Protection, our own staff, and some of the other waste water experts,
can you find for me a waste water treatment facility somewhere in the
state of Florida or somewhere in the southeast or anywhere that's of
any kind of similar location that disposes of the volume of waste
water that we're talking about here that we're permitted for at this
facility through either one large or a series of -- and in one
location or a scattered series of percolation ponds.
And I'm told that type of facility doesn't exist because
percolation ponds on that scale don't work very well. And I have to
tell you that. And I -- if the folks from the DEP -- I'm kind of
hoping they'll -- if I'm wrong on that, please correct me. But if I'm
correct, I'm kind of looking to them for -- to say --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: In other words, back him up,
guys.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Please, change your mind.
MR. HCNEES: I'll happily stand corrected.
MR. YOUNG: My name's Harley Young. I'm with the DEP.
I've just looked at some of these figures just today very briefly and
just to say I agree with what Mr. HcNees said.
And the other thing is I think that the numbers here are
rather optimistic based on the percolation rates. If you -- if you
look at the rates compared with what we typically see, they're
probably about a sixth of what typical percolation rates would be, but
we're talking about huge areas here.
And I would have -- I would have some real reservations
about how successful these would be at the rates of percolation that
they've listed, you know. And from the department's permitting point
of view, I think we would want to see some more assurance that they
would work properly.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other -- okay. Commissioner
Norris?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Young, Mr. HcNees has told us
and you verified that -- that percolation ponds are not being used
anymore in this part of the country; is that correct?
MR. YOUNG: Well, no, I would say on the scale that
we're talking about here.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Not on the scale, okay. Are you
-- are you telling us then that -- that the disposal method of choice
nowadays is deep injection?
MR. YOUNG: Well, I've -- from the department's
perspective, I think that's really your decision. Those are both --
we can permit both deep well injection and -- and percolation ponds.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Perhaps you misunderstood my
question. What are the other plants using, the other communities?
MR. YOUNG: Oh. Cape Coral is -- is an example. Cape
Coral has instituted a large residential tense system, one of the
largest in -- in the world actually.
COHHISSIONER NORRIS: We're aware of that.
MR. YOUNG: And to point out that they have had to back
off to control the amount of water that people are using. During last
year's wet season there was -- there was no discharge. I think one
period in late September there was a limited amount of discharge to
the river from that plant. So they've been fairly successful.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Uh-huh.
MR. YOUNG: Other large facilities have a combination of
-- of tense, deep well injection, some perc. ponds on a smaller
scale.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. We -- down here we're aware
of the Cape Coral project with their tense system they put in. We
could hear the screaming from here.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do you have a question,
Commissioner Hancock?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It appears to me -- and correct
me if I'm wrong, Mr. HcNees -- but what you've done is bring back to
us three scenarios listing primary and secondary discharge options.
And what we're looking for today is this board to determine which one
is the preferred combination but not necessarily make a specific site
selection; is that correct? I know you'd rather us decide everything
today, but is -- is that what I'm reading in the staff report?
MR. HCNEES: I suppose if you -- if you were to say to
us, we will not approve the construction of an injection well; bring
to us a perc. plan option that will work, if you're not prepared to
select specific sites today, we can do some more detailed analysis and
hopefully relatively short term and get back to you and maybe get that
decision in another week or two. I think these folks are not anxious
to hear, go do more study. They're anxious to hear, what are we going
to do?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: The reason -- the reason I ask is
obviously there are -- at least one or two commissioners have
questions about which site truly is the best, and -- and we may not be
ready to make that commitment today. We may. I may be in the
minority there.
As much as -- as we have talked about deep well and the
-- the evils of it and so forth, I look at a recent situation where
we had a breakdown at one of our ponds. And had we had some form of
disposal method, even though it may not be what we primarily would
like to use, we probably could have avoided that.
I look down the road at -- at the potential cost of
construction of -- of ponds on a scale that we're talking about. And
even though we may not use all of it, I'm -- I'm really starting to
look back at the deep well idea as a secondary or a fall-back for the
simple reason that it may not be what we want to do all the time. But
in a pinch when other things are going wrong, when we've got clogged
perc. ponds that are not releasing the water the way they should and
we have to get rid of it to avoid fines, it may be the only other
way.
And to do that in combination with a tense such as the
Lakewood area I -- I -- I'm seeing that as probably one of the more
viable alternatives. And I'll leave that out for discussion of my
colleagues.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie?
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just -- just basically ditto what
Commissioner Hancock said. If we're starting with the premise of --
of tense wherever possible and we're looking at how to fund that,
perc. ponds as the primary. But we have too many people standing in
front of us telling that all perc. ponds doesn't work. You know, it
just doesn't work. We can't keep asking the same question 85 times.
We've asked it every way we can and been told you can't do it all with
perc. ponds.
Deep wells are scary. But -- but, you know, if -- you
guys from the DEP are here. If there's another alternative besides
reuse, perc. ponds, and deep wells for this community, please speak
now or forever hold your piece.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That would be the water fairy.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah, the water fairy. There you
go. So faced with the alternatives that we have, it seems to me we
don't have very much choice. We're prioritizing appropriately when we
have reuse as first, perc. ponds as second, and deep well as an
emergency back-up. And I'm -- I'm ready to go forward and make some
decisions based on that.
MR. DORRILL: Just as part of complete disclosure, one
of the things I was talking to Dr. Woodruff about recently is he is --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Dr. Woodruff? I'm sorry.
MR. DORRILL: He and I talk and confer occasionally.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm glad to hear that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's good.
MR. DORRILL: That is good. Dr. Woodruff has got the
city contemplating to going to what I would call a tertiary level of
treatment and then continuing to be able to discharge their effluent
into the Gordon River. That's one of the things that always astounds
me. You know, we spill 20 gallons in the north end of the county, and
-- and the wrath of God comes down on us. The city's been dumping
effluent into the Gordon River for 50 years on a daily basis, and
that's part of their permitted activity.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Of course, it's because they've
been doing it for 50 years and they're grandfathered in.
MR. DORRILL: Without a doubt. My question is, can you
surface discharge into another body of water that is under the state's
jurisdiction or water of the state? And if so, is it even feasible to
consider going to an advanced level of waste water treatment in order
to surface discharge? And if so, does that still get us back on a
cost comparison to what Commissioner Mac'Kie said is some combination
involving a deep well?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That was my question, Mr.
Dotrill.
MR. DORRILL: Sorry.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Let the record show Commissioner
Norris actually asked that question. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Young.
MR. YOUNG: To -- to -- to paraphrase my -- my
supervisor, basically surface water is out of the question.
Technically it may be permitable, but realistically I think it's --
it's more of a problem than a solution. MR. DORRILL: Okay.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you for a direct answer.
That's great.
MR. MCNEES: I'm so happy that he was here to say that
instead of me say, when I asked him last week, what he said was.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Although your tap dancing is
getting better, Mike.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Who's responsible for the
numbers that we were told just now that aren't accurate, one-sixth?
Is that our consultant? Was that Rob? Or did we do those ourselves?
MR. HCNEES: Which numbers are we talking about? I'm
not sure what --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think he said the perc.
ponds, the numbers we came up are -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Conservative.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- one-sixth of what --
MR. YOUNG: I just felt they were very optimistic
numbers.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: To the tune of one-sixth of -- is
what you think is realistic and -- MR. YOUNG: Correct.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I wish you would clarify that
Some.
MR. CONRECODE: Let me answer that just by way of
putting it in perspective. We didn't have anything specific to go
by. We didn't go out and do a soils analysis on any of these sites.
What we did do is we took the soil analysis that was done on the
Hubschman parcel, considered that a hundred-acre site and the
percolation rate available on that particular site, used that same
data so we were the same across all the sites.
Obviously when we build a thousand-acre site as a perc.
pond, the percolation is going to be -- the percolation
characteristics are going to be different on that site than they are
on ten or a thousand, you know, smaller sites. So that was how we
arrived at that number.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you.
MR. CONRECODE: Again, just for comparison.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. McNees, if we went -- if we
deleted perc. ponds -- let me first ask would there be any perc. ponds
that we now have that would continue to be available, or are we trying
to get away from perc. all together?
MR. MCNEES: We don't have long-term perc. ponds --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay.
MR. MCNEES: -- that are -- that we own that we're
committed to stay on. So we would need to develop some further ponds.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's why we're having this
discussion even as we speak. MR. MCNEES: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: If we went to an aggressive reuse
program that -- that you've outlined here, when we were not able to
dispose of all of our reuse water, we would have to deep well inject
it to dispose of it.
MR. MCNEES: Correct.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: On an annual basis, give me some
idea of what percentage you think would realistically go into the deep
well.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE:
had no perc. ponds?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS:
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
aggressive tense program.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS:
Just so I can understand, if we
If we had no perc. ponds.
Okay.
And a -- and a -- and an
An aggressive reuse. In the dry
season, we should be able to get rid of all of our reuse. It's the
wet season that we're concerned with.
MR. HCNEES: That's an interesting question. If I can
take us all the way back to the first piece of information in our
first presentation that we talked about here, the folks from Hole,
Hontes, I don't know if they have any of those numbers with them. But
they've done quite a bit of work in terms of our tense capacity versus
our -- our disposal need. And I don't know if they have those numbers
today. They're certainly available.
MR. BENSON: I believe at this time --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Can you identify yourself again,
please?
MR. BENSON: Yes, Ron Benson with Hole, Hontes. At this
time approximately a half or more of your water is -- is not being
tensed. If you go to an eight million-gallon-per-day facility --
that's doubling the amount of water treated -- you'd have to have a
lot of tense additional just to keep it that same level.
Probably if you did go to what the DEP would determine a
high level of tense, at least 25 percent may still go down a well
because of matching up the seasonal fluctuations and demands in
production of the effluent.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: So somewhere between 25 and 50
percent would -- would be deep well disposal.
MR. BENSON: That'd be a good guess at this point.
MR. HCNEES: And that's based on somewhat our current
tense capacity.
And one more thing I'll throw at you, with the money --
let's just say you decided for whatever reason today to go ahead and
construct the deep well. With the difference in the cost between an
injection well and what we would have to spend on percolation ponds,
there is then that capacity or that funding ability within the rate
structure to instead of building more percolation ponds work harder
and spend money to encourage and develop tense.
So there -- you give yourself that resource by saving
money on an injection well to make that money available then to be
more aggressive and to maybe pay for more of the pumping, maybe --
maybe give some relief to people who will -- are willing to connect
and help us be more aggressive because we all know that it's very
expensive to get into residential tense.
And if you start talking about rate impact, the concept
of getting into large scale percolation ponds plus large scale
residential tense, now you're starting to talk about some impact and
some very large numbers.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm beginning to -- to question
whether in the -- in the end this board is going to have to address a
mandatory tense program similar to the mandatory regional water
hook-up that as we expand our waste water treatment system and as we
get the pipelines out to different areas that we may very well have to
look at a mandatory tense program just to be able to handle this
because as our population grows, this is certainly going to become a
problem that's worse than it is now certainly. And I'm just beginning
to think that we've -- we've got to go in that direction.
MR. HCNEES: And we absolutely want to make tense
available. The way I understand the process today, when someone asks
water management district for a withdrawal permit for irrigation of
water, the first question they're asked is, is tense water available
to you?
And one of the outs a builder or developer has is to
say, it's not financially feasible for me to use reuse water. In
other words, we charge 13 cents a thousand or we're going to make them
build a storage tank or we're going to make them build a pump makes
that financially infeasible. And that has been a good enough answer
to this point as I understand the process.
And -- and we may get to the point where the county will
want to say, fine, we'll pay for the pump. We'll pay for the storage
because it's a cost effective way for us to get rid of the irrigation
water.
And beyond that then obviously is the concept of
mandatory where people don't have an option. And that's something we
have almost begged -- and in meetings I've been in with water
management district officials, we've said, will you back us up? Will
you refuse withdrawal permits in cases where reuse is even remotely
available? Well, so far they're not willing to take that step. And
that's certainly a battle that needs to be fought.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I hate to see anything interfere
with individual's lives in making anything mandatory. But, you know,
we're talking about significant problems here that we're headed for.
MR. MCNEES: Well, it's their water to start with.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I know. But mandatory --
mandatory is mandatory is mandatory, and it's -- it's very difficult.
But I threw the word out. And I'm not particularly willing to eat
that word right now. But I see a day that it may go there.
MR. MCNEES: Well, it's already mandated that those
people pay to dispose of the water. It's just a question of how
they're going to pay and in what direction we're going to send it
really.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other questions?
MR. DORRILL: You have two additional speakers.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other questions? Speakers?
MR. DORRILL: Ms. Riner. Following her I had Mr.
Perkins, and I didn't know if Mr. Siesky is still registered or was
interested. Ms. Riner.
MS. RINER: Commissioners and MAdam Chairman, I'd like
to comment on the effluent percolation ponds located at the Falling
Waters development. I've suffered impact from these ponds in the loss
of use of my property, from increased run-off of these ponds, and
particularly completed district 6 drainage plan. I would like to
present a letter from the South Florida Water MAnagement as it
addresses the percolation pond and to ask you to carefully consider
the location of any new ponds and their impacts of the surrounding
land use.
I would ask the board to relieve the problems created by
the percolation pond as the upsizing of the culverts in '94 did not
collect -- correct the flooding problems. My land's been under water
since June of '94, and this is the second week of February of '95,
approximately eight months.
You have recently created a special taxing district to
correct the problem, and can the water management -- let's see. Can
the South Florida Water MAnagement report be entered as record? Or do
you want me to read it in its entirety?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It can be entered into the
record.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think that's an easy decision
for us.
MS. RINER: I thought so. These sound like real small
problems compared to what you're talking about, but they're not small
to us.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No. We -- we realize that. Mr.
Perkins.
MR. PERKINS: A1 Perkins, Belle Meade Groups, Citizens
for Constitutional Property Rights. Well, here we are again. We're
totally against deep well injection because I can't see where it is
going, and I can't -- in other words, if we put it down there, it
could be coming up in Lee County or Broward or anyplace else. There's
no way in the world to take and when you have a problem just to make
it go away. If you can't see where it's going, you could create
another problem for somebody else or even ourself.
The locations on the map over there, one of the things
that has not been addressed is the future development along 951 which
is PUD, Planned Unit Development, for one mile inland from -- from the
parkway -- not from the parkway, from 75 clear down to and sweeping
around to the -- the eastern part of the Belle Meade which that's all
going to be developed.
Right at the present time there's country clubs --
country clubs with golf courses on both sides of the road. On both
sides of 951 you can look for the same thing. On the north side of
the college, we've got new developments which you passed for the --
the permits. So the reuse of the water is critical.
Now, I want to touch base on the impact fees. Nobody's
mentioned it. I don't know where it fits on that, but is this --
could this be part of getting rid of the water? Now, I don't want to
throw the water away because South Florida Water Management is out
there trying to take and save water, and now we're talking about
throwing it away, eight million gallons. We have big problems with
that.
The land values, on the section -- there's three
sections there that is on Sable Palm Road right at Jason -- and I
can't hardly see it from here -- to Oberlin College properties is
already developed with numerous homes and with a -- nurseries. Some
of it's grazing.
Now, as far as getting rid of the water, now, as we move
to the east, you have Oberlin College sitting right there. And just
south of it, it's not Six L Farms. It is Thomas Farms. To the south
of that is Six L Farms.
Now, they were talking about the -- the percolation
ponds per se. I got the impression -- and I could be wrong -- that
they're talking about one gigantic percolation pond. Needless to say,
I would take and highly recommend that you take and learn a lesson
from the farmers. When they put the rows in, they put the water in
between each one of the rows. So this way here they can control what
they want to flood, what they don't want to flood, and how they want
to handle the water.
If you go with the percolation project on Oberlin and if
you go with recycling and possible composting -- now, don't forget.
I'm not hard and firm on any of this. I want to get the information.
I want to do the job right. I want to fix the problem.
If you go in that direction, then you -- recomposting
only takes 100 acres. That leaves you 900 acres left that we can
certainly if we take and use some smarts about this thing to take and
apply this thing to it. Then they can use that water to take care of
the farms.
Now, to the north of that we have grazing land, and to
the east of it there's grazing land. Now, if we need be, if it gets
push come to shove, the southern estates is bone dry most of the
year. Ask anybody who lives out there. It catches on fire.
But anyhow, there's a way to get rid of this water.
There's a way to use this water. And what I -- something that's been
bothering me all day about this, I'm looking at staff. I don't think
we hire idiots. We've got some of the best staff there is. Let's
utilize them. They've got the answers. But let's ask them all the
questions, and let's get all the answers.
I didn't -- I didn't like it when they were aiming at
the staff not doing their job; okay? I want to thank each and every
one of you because today is the best meeting I've been in in 15 years
in this place seriously, seriously. Tim, you surprise me, Hancock,
that is, you surprise me because all of a sudden you come in with some
good stuff. I'm sitting here saying, man --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Now wait a second, A1. What have
I been doing the last two months?
MR. PERKINS: Well, no, no, I mean today you surprised
me at times. And, Pam, you even surprise me. So there's hope for us
yet, guys.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I can't win by getting a
compliment from you.
MR. PERKINS: No, seriously.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you, A1.
MR. PERKINS: I've told you guys the very first day I
met you that I'll take you on head to head. But at the same time,
too, when you're doing something right, I'm going to let everybody
know and including in that stinking camera back there because they're
the people that are paying the bills. And it is important that they
know that you're doing a good job; just that simple.
One question --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Give him another five minutes.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: You figure he'll work his way to
my right?
MR. PERKINS: But the only question I have is the
leachate system from the existing landfill, where is it going to go?
I can't find anything on it in the contract.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The leachate on what? The
landfill?
MR. PERKINS: Yeah. Where is it going to go?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You're really distracting us, Mr.
Perkins.
MR. PERKINS: No, no, no, because it's all part of this
problem right here.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's going to eventually go to
the south county waste water treatment plant as soon as we get the
lift station and the piping done.
MR. PERKINS: Okay. Every bit of that water's usable;
am I correct? Every bit of the water's usable?
MR. MCNEES: Once it comes out the other side of the
waste water plant, yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's usable, yeah.
MR. PERKINS: I thank you. Keep up the good work.
Seriously I can be proud of you guys today. Thank you, guys.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Perkins. Anybody
have any comments after that? Mr. Siesky.
MR. SIESKY: Thank you. Jim Siesky representing
Hubschman Associates. Excuse me, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Go ahead, Mr. Siesky.
MR. SIESKY: One of my problems here is I'm not an
engineer. I don't understand everything that the engineers try to
tell me about waste water treatment and what needs to be done.
But listening to some of the things that they said, it
sounds like at 8 million gallons per day, if you're going to lose half
of that down the deep well each year, that's about 1,440 million
gallons per year.
The question I have is, if you had a storage facility
for a lot of that water, how much would that decrease that loss down
the well because my understanding for you -- or of your prior actions,
rather, is that your desire was not to put it down the deep well but
to reuse it.
And, Commissioner Hancock, if you would, I understand
you have some misgivings about a storage facility. But if you would
not take that off the table just as you did not take the deep well
injection off the table the last time for the staff to look at, I
would request that the storage facility on the Hubschman property be
looked at as well as the deep well and how it can be used in concert
with it. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Siesky.
MR. HCNEES: Madam Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Just a moment. Commissioner
Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I did want to point out, Mr.
Siesky, that assuming even reduction that we're only putting five
million gallons a day out, that we have to find a place for five
million gallons a day, the hundred and twenty million gallon capacity
of a storage facility lasts a total of 24 days. Granted when we only
have one or two million gallons in it a day, you know, I don't know
what the perc. rate is. But obviously it's slower at that level than
it would be at what a perc. pond is designed to.
So I'm not throwing it away. I'm just saying it becomes
less attractive as we look at the limit of the storage capacity versus
that of percolation ponds where there is a place for things to go.
That's -- that's the differentiation between the two for me anyway.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: John, question?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No, I'm ready.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You're ready? Mr. HcNees has a
final comment.
MR. HCNEES: I'd like to throw one more piece of
information at you, and hopefully it won't confuse things.
Something that we understand is available to us but we
have not pursued aggressively because of the board's -- kind of what
your prior direction has been is that if we identify tense irrigation
as our primary disposal option and if we can develop, quote, adequate
storage, rainy day storage, so that we can demonstrate the capacity to
dispose of our effluent or shall I say store the effluent during that
rainy day event, the DEP will perhaps allow us to only construct one
injection well. And the back-up well then would not be necessary
which would kind of change the -- the equation a little bit in that if
we do have the injection capacity and the reliability of that, that
that's possible.
I'm not going to say that I know the parameters of that
or that we can ever find, quote, adequate storage, but it would
certainly be something we'd work on as a parallel effort as we proceed
here.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So what you're telling us then --
and let me make sure that I get this right. If we go into an
aggressive reuse program and have a storage facility to store the
effluent in until a non-rainy day, that the DEP could possibly not
require us to build the second deep injection well.
MR. MCNEES: Correct, that's correct. And I guess the
reason I bring it up now is it may be -- there may be some benefit if
this is an appropriate storage facility that the Hubschmans are
offering us, to continue that negotiation with them. And I know that
there are ancillary benefits, the park that you're interested in and
the settlement of all these other waste water-related and
Hubschman-related issues. That may not be something we want to throw
out at this point. We want to continue to work with them if that's a
direction we're going.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just it's certainly not something
I want to throw out at this point. My -- my preference, as I've
stated before, is that we have tense as a first phase, perc. ponds as
a second. And -- and I've always understood and -- and frankly thank
you for correcting me for my presumption being wrong that if we had a
primary storage system of perc. ponds that only one well would be
necessary because it would be our emergency back-up system. And I
sure think we ought to be able to make a strong argument to the state
about that, that if we can produce adequate storage through the perc.
ponds that the well is only -- my -- my support of the well is only as
the back-up. And in that case we don't need two. We need one.
MR. HCNEES: What we would be proposing at this moment
-- and again, this is all subject to your approval -- but there
wouldn't be an intermediate there of percolation ponds as a
secondary.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just storage.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Just storage.
MR. HCNEES: We would develop storage. And the storage
pond is built -- constructed differently, is cheaper. And there's a
different standard there. And then that last ditch disposal effort,
again, would be the injection well.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. HcNees, are you recommending
to the board that we attempt to procure a storage site and a single
deep injection well as back-up? Is that what you're proposing?
MR. HCNEES: What I would be recommending is that --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I see Mr. Young may have a comment
about that.
MR. HCNEES: What I would recommend is that you advise
us to research that as we proceed in that direction to see if that's a
better alternative than building two deep wells immediately, yes.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Young?
MR. YOUNG: I just wanted to comment. I want to be
cautious about what I was advising. I think that's a prudent interim
step, a direction to go, that makes a lot of sense to me in listening
to what you're saying. As regards whether it really will work or not,
whether we can provide enough storage, whether the well functions as
primary or back-up, I think we need to look at more carefully.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: But in your opinion, that would be
an acceptable way to go? Excuse me. From the DEP's perspective, that
would be an acceptable way for us to approach it?
MR. YOUNG: You know, I think in light of the fact that
we're interested in getting a direction, in getting something
established now, it certainly would, yes. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I agree with Commissioner Mac'Kie
in that the reuse as primary -- and I want to point out something. In
our past discussions when we talked about reuse, Mr. Taylor gave us an
estimate of approximately three to five million dollars to put a
million gallons per day into a reuse irrigation system in a
residential neighborhood.
We have an opportunity here -- and I'm willing to guess
there are others that when we look deeper and harder similar to
Lakewood where we get a million gallons a day for a million and a half
instead of three to five million.
In other words, we're seeking out those opportunities
that provide us the greatest bang for the buck. And I -- I commend
you for that, and I challenge you to find others.
I will -- and I'll wait. I know Commissioner
Constantine has questions, possibly Commissioner Matthews. So I'll
wait a little bit.
But I agree with Commissioner Matthews that the deep
well is the back-up -- the only back-up to avoid us having to be in a
fine situation, to avoid us having accidents that flood over into
other people's property, that that is the only way in which I will
support it, but I support it wholly in that effect and that we
aggressively pursue the reuse such as the Lakewood situation. We just
got rid of one out of eight million gallons when we constructed that
system. We just got rid of 15 percent right there, a little less than
that.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Twelve and a half percent.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Pardon me?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Twelve and a half percent.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Twelve and a half percent. I
wasn't going to -- I was rounding.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Rounding -- rounding up no
doubt.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: She's the CPA. I'm the planner.
But anyway, so I agree with that path, and that would be
where my support lies.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine --
Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mike, a little while ago you
said if we aggressively pursued reuse or you used the word aggressive
and reuse. And I just wondered if you can help me define what we mean
by that.
MR. MCNEES: How much are we willing to spend? When I
talk about aggression, I'm talking about how big a commitment is the
utilities division or the county willing to make to fund on-site
improvements to subsidize residential improvements, to mandate
residential reuse.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's why I bring it up,
because I'm not ready to mandate it to residential use. And I don't
want us to --
MR. MCNEES: Aggressive is everything from legally to
financially.
MR. DORRILL: And in some instances like the Lely Resort
where you could enter into agreements with a condominium association
which would be beyond whatever current scope that we might have,
that's one thing.
If you go and start digging up the streets in the
original Lely subdivision -- and Commissioner Norris's street in
particular -- and then compelling people to hook into and separately
meter effluent for irrigation purposes in lieu of their using potable
water or a private well that they may have dug on that property, then
that gets it on that Cape Coral sort of vein. And I can't tell you
how difficult those types of projects are.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's my concern. I don't
want us to take any steps toward that direction. And when you said
aggressive, I wanted to make sure that's not what we're talking about.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think -- I think that's exactly
the point, though, that if we get into an aggressive program and our
-- and our staff goes out and finds just seven more Lakewoods, if
seven more -- if seven more exist. Look what you've done.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And can you do it by next
Tuesday?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But that would be an aggressive
program, and -- and -- and I -- I -- I could easily support that.
MR. HCNEES: And to give you an example, as Mr. Clemons
reminds me, there are seven effluent agreements at some stage of
negotiation today. And the more leeway we have as a staff, at least
the more understanding we have that maybe we have the ability to
grease the wheel here or maybe provide a benefit there to make these
things happen, we have that much greater ability to make them happen.
And when I talk about aggression, that's exactly what I'm talking
about.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One other question. Is it
Mr. Young? Is that right? You just mentioned a moment ago in answer
to Commissioner Norris's question you said something -- and I'm
paraphrasing. But you said something to the effect of, well, yes, if
deep well was used as back-up or as primary, that would all have to be
worked out but if you want to approach it this way initially. And I
just wondered if you could elaborate a little because I would hate to
have us pass something thinking that it was going to be the back-up
system and have DEP come back and say, no, I think we're going to have
you use that as the primary system.
MR. YOUNG: You know, in my mind I guess the real
question arises is that when you construct a storage facility that
there is some degree of percolation that takes place with that storage
facility typically unless it's a lined pond.
And the real issue of what goes where is not established
at this point. The question about whether or not the well would
function as a back-up or a primary -- and you're using the word
primary for the tense system which is the way the department would
like to proceed it, would like it to happen, my feeling is and my
motivation in making these comments is that this would be an interim
step that would be going in the right direction. From a permitting
standpoint I think it's sensible.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, did you get an answer? I
didnwt really get -- I didnwt understand it if there was an answer
there.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I think what -- what Mr.
Young was saying -- and correct me if Iwm wrong -- but the -- the
state agencies as well as the Governor and the cabinet and the
legislature in the last couple of years has signed on to reuse as
being the number one disposal method, the preferred method. And I
think what hews telling us is that while we -- we may have to do a
deep injection well now in order to handle our current problems that
our signing on to a primary reuse system in the future is not going to
be a problem. I believe thatws what hews just saying.
MR. YOUNG: Well, I think, you know, youlre -- youlre --
youlre committing right now to an aggressive reuse system. And
presumably as things develop, you may find that -- that -- that the
injection well is functioning as a back-up disposal method and not a
primary.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: As we build the system.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Question for the board. What
if we donlt find seven more Lakewoods? What do we do?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think we have -- and I think
this is what Mike is trying to point to -- that we have the
opportunity as new developments come on line to make it mandatory in
new developments. In other words, as a condominium is built, before
the roadways are put in that the lines can be installed for reuse
systems opposed to going in and tearing up existing neighborhoods and
placing assessments on people that didnlt have it before. I think we
can find ways in new developments to -- to approach reuse that we
otherwise canlt in existing neighborhoods.
So Iim not closing the door on saying that the existing
Lakewoods have to be there. What Iim saying is the Lakewoods can be
developed as we go on in time. And -- and thatls what I consider
aggressive reuse is looking ahead at reuse, not necessarily looking at
all existing developments. I wouldnlt omit them, but Iim just saying
I donlt think welre going to find seven more Lakewoods out there to be
honest with you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It would be great if they were
there, but I think weill find our seven Lakewoods in the future, not
so much in the past. Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: If I may make a comment on that,
if welre going to a deep well injection and anticipating using it
some, it really doesnlt matter once youlye made that step whether
youlre using it as a secondary or tertiary disposal. I mean, to -- to
break our back to try to find either storage or percolation ponds to
be an interim between reuse and deep well doesnlt make as much sense
as trying to find percolation to take the place completely of deep
well injection. Once youlye gone into deep well injection, in other
words, it doesnlt matter whether youlye put --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Youlye gone there.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- twenty-five percent or fifty
percent of your waste water -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Once youlre there youlre there,
huh?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Right. So --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: But I do think itls important to
note we want the reuse to be primary, that thatls a focus of the
board --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thatls true.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: -- because we want to put as
little in deep well if we construct one as possible. I think that is
the important part of this discussion. And the deep well
unfortunately is, as I see it, the only feasible way of avoiding the
fines and the potential mishaps we had with percolation ponds and the
troubles of -- of constructing them on the scale that we're talking
about.
So as has been said, I don't know that we're left a lot
of choice with the secondary disposal, but I think the reuse is -- is
what we're focusing on.
MR. MCNEES: And to clarify one item, the only reason
we've begun to talk about storage in conjunction with an injection
well and developing that would be if that would allow us to only
construct one well instead of two, if we can find some way to either
completely avoid or at least phase that in. And technologically-wise
or from a regulatory mode, the state may decide eventually that --
that a surface water discharge is okay for this, you know. I don't
know they will.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Let me see if I can make a motion
and wrap this up. We've been on this for quite a while here. I'll
make a motion that we direct staff that water reuse is our primary
source of disposal and that we would like for them to aggressively
pursue that and at the appropriate time, perhaps in the land
development code amendment time, bring us back some proposals that we
can put in to perhaps mandate that new development -- new developments
of a certain size coming on line will have to use reuse and make some
allowance for -- for volunteer retrofit, no mandatory retrofit; number
two, that -- to go ahead and continue to negotiate with the Hubschmans
concerning the property they have that could be used for storage and
bring that back to us. When would be appropriate, Mr. McNees? How
long will you think that will take?
MR. MCNEES: I'd like to have two weeks. I think we can
probably --
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Four weeks?
MR. MCNEES: Two weeks is fine.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Two weeks? Bring that back to us
in two weeks. And for the third preference of disposal, we will go
with deep well. If -- if we're successful in negotiation with the
Hubschmans, we'll use one deep well. If we're not, we will skip that
step and go to two deep wells. That's the motion.
MR. MCNEES: And I would --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Why do we need two? Excuse me.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: If we don't have storage, we have
to have two.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But we're going to commit to a
reuse program, and -- and Mr. Young has said if we commit to an
aggressive reuse program that we only need one well.
MR. MCNEES: I think that the clarification Mr. Young
was trying to make before was that's all contingent upon DEP agreeing
that yes, storage is adequate. And there's sort of a negotiation
process there. He doesn't want to guarantee today they'll allow us to
just build one deep well. He says that's something we may be able to
work out. We'll sure try.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I -- I can support the motion if
we amend it so that it doesn't rest solely on the success or failure
of the Hubschman property because there may be other properties that
we can develop. If that falls through or we find that that's not
acceptable, there may be other properties in which a perc. pond as an
interim measure --
MR. HCNEES: Storage alternative.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- is a storage alternative. If
you would amend the motion accordingly --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. That's fine. I'll make
that amendment.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- I will second.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there discussion?
Commissioner Constantine?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm just -- I'm going to
oppose the motion for two reasons: One, I'm still not completely
comfortable with deep well. But more importantly the -- this, quote,
aggressive stance on tense I don't like. When we have new
developments with single-family homes, for example, that is going to
put yet another additional financial burden. Our homes in Collier
County are artificially high when you compare to other areas because
of the impact fees and because of other things. And, you know, I look
at people trying to get into a home. And as these developments go up
now, if we have -- that cost will obviously be passed on to whoever's
purchasing the property or the homes.
I don't like that statement that we're going to have
this aggressive tense because the ultimate person to pay is everybody
in Collier County or people who move into those areas. So I'm going
to oppose the motion.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie?
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a -- just a quick comment. I
think that we're doing the best we can with what we have. And yes,
there's a lot of loopholes. There's a lot of problems here. What is
aggressive and what is aggressive tense and what is sufficient storage
and those things are gray, and we don't know. But I think it's our
responsibility to move forward, and I'm ready to vote.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Just a quick comment. I --
again, Commissioner Constantine, I -- I -- I would like to agree with
you, but I look at what you remove. If you remove deep well, if you
remove aggressive tense other than strictly voluntary, and you remove
the fact that we can't do perc. ponds on a mass scale because
physically not only they're not being done elsewhere because they
don't make sense, there's nothing left.
So I -- I agree with Commissioner Hac'Kie. You know,
maybe there's a way to build a better mousetrap, but no one can show
it to us yet.
So I don't -- I certainly don't dismiss your comments.
I'm just looking for a solution in there and can't see one, so I'm
going to continue my second and support the motion.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I'm also going to support
the motion because I'm looking at a cost here of sites 12 and 13, when
you calculate it out, 32 million dollars. And that would be an
immediate cost, I presume, because we have to do it right now.
I like the tense. I've always been a supporter of it.
I'd like to see it be more aggressive, but I like the voluntary
retrofit as well because I particularly don't care for mandatory
anything.
On the deep injection well, I don't like it, but it's an
alternative that I don't see a lot of choices for either. So with
that I will call the question. All those in favor please say aye.
Opposed?
Motion passes four to one, Commissioner Constantine
opposing.
MR. MCNEES: Thank you, Madam Chairman. We have one
more item on this subject. And first I'll say we will be back to you
very, very shortly with contract approvals to proceed in the direction
that you've just stated.
And, Commissioner Constantine, just for your benefit,
there is no individual piece of this, quote, aggressive program, be it
either an approval to build a mile of pipeline to get to a specific
golf course or an approval for a specific mandate in either the land
development code or utility regulations that won't come back to you
for future approval. So you'll have a chance still to --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You'll have ample chance to look
at the land code.
MR. MCNEES: The last item, I think we're just looking
for a conceptual approval -- and I may not even need to ask at this
point -- to continue the negotiation and be willing to put a million
to a million and a half gallons on the table -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Gallons?
MR. MCNEES: Dollars, excuse me. I'm getting too many
inputs here -- dollars on the table -- I'll give you the gallons, too,
if you want them today -- to make that happen in terms of its cost
effectiveness of the disposal-ability.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mike, if I may, Madam Chairman,
we've kind of talked about the Lakewood thing all, you know,
throughout this entire discussion. And I for one don't have any
questions relating to should we continue to pursue it as a way to get
rid of a million gallons per day for a million and a half dollars.
I'd like to make a motion that we direct staff to -- to continue with
investigating that as part of an overall reuse system for the county.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We've got a couple of seconds. I
have one question on it, though. Mr. McNees, we're not anticipating
putting a meter on this, are we, at this -- at least not yet.
MR. MCNEES: We are currently anticipating that. Now,
that's up for discussion with them. They -- they recognize that they
do have a cost today of operating their lake system. They have
pumps. They have maintenance. They have issues involving that. So
it's a little --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Won't they still have those
costs, though?
MR. MCNEES: Well, they won't. They'll -- the --
maintaining their withdrawal structures in the lakes and the quality
of the water that comes out and what that does to their distribution
system, there's an avoided cost for them. And they're out there
penciling hard now to find out whether it makes any sense to them to
pay 13 cents a thousand. And if it doesn't and if there's just a
little bit of gray area there, we'll sure be back to talk about
whether or not we want to charge them.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So you are anticipating putting a
meter on the Lakewood. Would it be a master meter?
MR. MCNEES: Yes, it would be a master meter, certainly
not individual meters.
MR. CLEMONS: We would need to meter it -- Tim Clemons
for the record. We would need to meter it either way just so we can
keep track with south Florida as to how much we put at different
locations. Whether we bill or not would be your decision.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine?
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm all set.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to
proceed with the Lakewood reuse negotiations and feasibility study.
I'm going to call the question. All those in favor please say aye.
Opposed?
Motion passes five to zero.
MR. MCNEES: Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item on the agenda -- do you
want to take a break? Ten minutes to three? Let's take a break until
three.
(A short break was held.)
Item #8H2
CONSIDERATION OF A PERMANENT FINANCING VEHICLE AND AN UNDERLYING
BONDING SOURCE FOR THE 800 HHZ RADIO SYSTEM - STAFF TO UTILIZE THE
COHMERCIAL PAPER PROGRAM
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Reconvene the board of county
commission meeting for February 14. Next item on the agenda is the
consideration of permanent financing for the 800 megahertz radio. Mr.
Hargett.
MR. HARGETT: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Bill
Hargett, assistant county manager.
This item's in follow-up to your November the 8th
meeting in which the board directed the county manager to be back to
you within 90 days with a permanent financing option for the 800
megahertz radio system.
Since that time the finance committee has met on a
number of occasions. We initially identified ten different options
for permanent financing. Through the process of discussion and
elimination, we really natrowed that down to two, one being a
tax-exempt commercial paper program, a variable rate program, and a
revenue bond with a fixed rate.
I will say to you that we had considerable discussion
between those. I have provided you our financial advisor's analysis
of all the financing options that we looked at. You have a copy of
the finance committee meeting as well as the agenda item that pretty
much takes you through the various considerations that were made in
arriving at a recommendation that you proceed with a revenue bond as a
permanent financing mechanism for the 800 megahertz system.
That primarily is the result of the concern that the
finance committee had with a move in the variable rates in the -- in
the near past, also as we look to the future and what might happen to
the fixed rates if we did not lock in.
And so it was our recommendation that the risk that the
county would be looking at could be minimized by fixing the current
rate. And we would recommend to you that you look favorably at a
revenue bond.
The next subject that we looked at was how would we
service such a debt. And I might say to you that we were looking at a
period of seven years as a -- for a permanent financing vehicle.
We then turned our attention to how you would service
that debt over the next seven years. We identified two possible
alternatives. One was an existing line item in your fund 301 that is
currently budgeted for the 800 megahertz radio system at a million
three hundred fifty thousand dollars.
The second funding alternative that we identified was an
existing fund 214 which is a debt service fund which was -- which is
used to service a debt on a 1990 bond issue that will be retired this
coming December. The -- the amount of that debt service is
approximately a million dollars.
Between those two projects we were able to identify 2.38
million dollars from existing expenditures. It was our recommendation
that you use the 301 funding of the million three hundred fifty
thousand dollars as you did this year and that you would budget that
amount for the next seven years on a recurring basis. And that would
be sufficient to service the debt.
One final thing, we -- our next task, should you approve
this financing recommendation, will be to size the issue. As you
know, there's eight and a half million dollars on our interim
financing plan. The projected cost for the system is right around
eight million. When you remove the enterprise funds, the independent
dependent fire districts, you'll recall that that got us down to about
7.2 million.
One of our recommendations to you was that we use the
existing 1.35 million in your -- this year's budget to buy the
principal down further, so we were down to somewhere in the
neighborhood of six million dollars. And running debt service on that
at 5.8 percent, we could more than service the debt from your existing
appropriation and would so recommend.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: In -- underneath summary in the
white pages of your report you have the difference between a general
obligation and a revenue bond. MR. HARGETT: Yes, sir.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Would you explain to me the
difference between the -- both on -- on five, seven, and ten year, you
have a difference in the size of the general obligation bond and the
size of the revenue bond. I don't -- I don't understand that.
MR. HARGETT: I would ask Mr. Samet who prepared this to
speak to that for me.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I guess what I'm asking is, for
instance, the five-year bond, why is the size under general obligation
8.6 million and the size under revenue 9.17
MR. SAMET: It has to do with -- for the record, this is
Hark Samet, S-a-m-e-t, with Raymond James and Associates serving as
the county's financial advisor. It has to do with the structure of
the general obligation issue, the amount of capitalized interest
that's anticipated because of the timing of when the referendum occurs
and the amount of borrowing that you have to do and the interest rate
differential between five, seven, and ten years.
We were just showing that the underlying rating of the
county we think would be A-1-A plus. And if the issue were --
received insurance, then theoretically we'd have a slightly smaller
amount of debt service for a general obligation bond than we would
with a revenue bond issue where we anticipate an underlying rating of
an "A", slightly --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: So in essence the revenue bond is
costing us more in the long term.
MR. SAMET:
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK:
between the --
MR. SAMET: Yes.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
COMHISSIONER NORRIS:
presentation, Mr. Hargett?
A little bit more.
And that's the basic difference
Okay. Thank you.
Are there other questions?
Are you through with your
MR. HARGETT: Yes, sir.
COHHISSIONER NORRIS: You are. What -- what is our
available line on that commercial credit right now? How much do we
have?
MR. HARGETT: On the tax-exempt commercial paper
program?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah.
MR. HARGETT: Hark, do you know that?
MR. SAMET: I'm not certain there's actually a specific
number. The letter of credit bank that provides enhancement to the
tax-exempt commercial paper program apparently was approached in -- in
the fall, and they said they would have no problem underwriting an
additional eight and a half million dollars if the county pursues that
as an option.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So it's not a set amount that we
can draw against? It's not a set line? MR. SAMET: No, sir.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: What's our percentage rate on
that, Mr. Hargett?
MR. HARGETT: It's running about 4, 4.3, Mark, 4.17
MR. SAMET: Well, the -- the last six month historical
rate through the end -- through January 13 we're told was about -- all
in was about a 4.01 percent which means it ranged from about three and
a half to four and a half percent over that period of time.
And as Mr. Hargett pointed out, the finance committee
was concerned about interest rate risk over the period of amortization
of an issue to finance the radio system. And so the notion of locking
in what are reasonably favorable long-term rates at a fixed rate was
sufficiently attractive for the committee to make the recommendation
for the board's consideration to go that route.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: In your opinion, Mr. Samet, where
are we in the interest rate cycle?
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: On the record.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: In Raymond James' opinion.
MR. SAMET: Thank you, sir. We think rates will trend
upward till the summer and then modulate and then perhaps come down.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: For over what period of time?
When would you expect to see another upturn in rates? Two years?
Three years?
MR. SAMET: I think that will depend on what Congress
does with the budget deficit amendment suggesting that one action will
allow rates to go down. Another action will send rates the other
way.
COHHISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Hargett, in all due respect to
the finance committee, my -- my opinion on this is that since it's a
small issue and, therefore, the initiation costs are proportionately
higher per dollar than borrowing and because we are a full point and a
half below what we could bond today by going with commercial paper and
taking into account Raymond James and most other analysts as well
think that we're fairly near the peak of interest rate cycle for the
moment, my preference would be to go ahead and go with the commercial
paper knowing that we have a full point and a half of slack.
And there's another -- there's another thing too. We
can dedicate our 1.3 million dollars annually that you pointed out to
us. But we also have flexibility. If we come two, three years from
now to a point where we would rather use some of that money for
something else, we would have that flexibility where if we go with a
bond, we would not.
MR. HARGETT: I think the finance committee felt I'll
say strongly about the two options. We discussed it. I think we
could have gone either way. Mr. Samet shared the same information
with us that he just provided to you.
We felt that -- that typically and generally speaking
that that long-term rate was going to track or the short term was
going to track the long -- in fact, the fixed rate has actually come
down since we met about a week ago.
But at some point as they go up -- and we were really
looking for a vehicle in which we could take advantage of the variable
rate today and if it tracked upwards as it was being projected some
way we could possibly switch over and lock in a fixed rate.
The only difficulty that we had in making that analysis
is what was going to happen to the fixed rate, that it more than
likely would also track up. But certainly I think for a full point
and a half it's something that you need to look at.
It was very attractive to the finance committee. I
think there was a risk there. And I think you can always look back at
it and say, well, I told you so. And if it turned out that the rate
didn't track up to increase by a point and a half, we will look
extremely smart.
On the other hand, you could look back and say you could
have locked it in at five eight and it's now six something. So it was
that level of risk, and as far as the variable rate, I think we had a
comfort level with that as well.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, one thing that we do know
for sure at this point in our discussion is that for the next payment
we will be below what we could lock it in. And so by the time we
knock this thing down for a couple of payments, even if the rate does
track up into the sixes, the overall interest cost is going to be
totally less.
MR. HARGETT: Right. Mr. Samet also told us that those
people that were making that recommendation in terms of what was
happening to the interest rates were still sitting behind a desk as
well so to bear that in mind.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm not sure what he said, but I
like it.
MR. HARGETT: It was the risk issue we were looking at.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, if you -- my point is, if
you lock in a rate, you guarantee yourself five point what was it?
5.8?
MR. SAMET: Well, we ran numbers at the time. The
all-end cost was --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: 5.82 did you say?
MR. SAMET: About 5.82. It's comes down, as Mr. Hargett
said, in the past week.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: So if you issue a bond, you have
guaranteed yourself you're going to pay 5.82.
MR. SAMET: That's correct.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: So if we pay four point -- what
did you say? -- three?
MR. HARGETT: That was --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: 4.3, that means that for the next
payment or one at some point in the future you could pay 7.3 and still
be even except that it would even be more because you'd be paying 7.3
on a smaller amount of principal. So it would be even more than
that. It would be closer to 8 before you'd even break even. MR. HARGETT: Correct.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's true.
MR. SAMET: That's accurate. I'd just call the
attention of the board to the fact the county does have about 16.2
million dollars outstanding in commercial paper already, so as Mr.
Hargett said, the board was -- the finance committee was cognizant of
that.
We just wanted -- in either case the recommended
repayment source is a cumulative covenant to budget and appropriate
legally available non-ad valorem revenues which gives you the option
of using or not using the capital outlay millage now dedicated to
paying the special obligation issue for the campus parking facility
that matures December '95.
Our notion was if we went to a fixed rate issue, we'd
seek an underlying "A" rating from the rating agencies and thus
qualify the issue for insurance and then let -- through a competitive
bid process let the bidders decide whether they wanted insurance and
then pay for it if -- if -- if they so wanted.
As Mr. Hargett pointed out, you know, rates could very
well be under the five-eight at the time that the bids come in. The
unknown.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: What Commissioner Norris has said
makes a tremendous amount of sense to me, and now I'm going to try and
bring this down to a non-financier's way of -- of saying, okay, how
are we going to pay for this?
We have already budgeted 1.35 million dollars in the
coming budget for start-up costs.
MR. DORRILL: In this year's budget.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: In this year's budget which has
not been spent. And that fiscal year terminates at --
MR. DORRILL: End of September.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: September.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Chances we will be
spending that money before September or will not?
MR. HARGETT: We will be spending some of that, yes,
sir.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. We continue that budget
item into the next year or we don't and we allow the termination or
the conclusion of the million dollar issue for the parking area to
take over at that point. And in essence we have -- let me see if I
understand this. In essence we have taken a 1.35 million dollar item
out of our budget, let the other million dollars come up. In other
words, we're just going to allow that to continue, and that'll go
towards 800 megahertz.
MR. HARGETT: Correct.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And eight, nine years down the
road there we are. Is that -- is that a fair summary of -- again, I'm
putting this in layman's terms because they're the only ones I
understand when it comes to financial --
MR. HARGETT: In non-ad valorem revenues that come into
your general fund, right now you are appropriating, budgeting 2.38
million dollars, one for the 800 megahertz and one for this debt
service.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Uh-huh.
MR. HARGETT: When the debt service goes away, that will
be about a million thirty thousand dollars in your general fund that
you would not otherwise appropriate over to fund 214 which is debt
service and would be available for the board to budget as you -- at
your discretion or --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Or that would be a million
dollars that as we look at a seven million deficit in two years that
we can take right off the top and still meet the requirements of our
commercial paper program.
MR. HARGETT: That's correct.
MR. DORRILL: That's correct.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have one question.
MR. DORRILL: You have one speaker also.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Mr. Dorrill, when Mr.
Smykowski was giving us all this bad news last -- last week, I -- I
note that in September when we approved the final budget we had
approved a 15 million dollar borrowing issue to pay for this system at
that time because we had to provide a funding mechanism for the F --
FCC.
If we're only going to actually borrow eight million
dollars and if we're only going to repay that at roughly a million or
a million two a year, were all those numbers of that magnitude taken
into effect when Mr. Smykowski built his budget news for us last
week? Or did he use the 15 million dollar number with -- with
amortization of that?
MR. DORRILL: I don't know. I'd have to ask whether
that was one of the assumptions that he had factored into that or
not.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So we -- we may have a -- we may
have plugged that 8 million dollar hole a little bit just in not
having spent all 15 million dollars of that bond issue.
MR. DORRILL: And then if I could give you an answer, I
would. I can probably have one before the end of the afternoon.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I think if we could
just --
MR. DORRILL: I understand.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- share that because we're all
being inundated I think right now with questions on -- on this budget
-- budget issue. And -- and I -- I would like to show individually
some things that we're doing to avoid -- MR. DORRILL: I understand.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- millage increases.
Commissioner Constantine?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Hargett, related issue, I
understand you have some good news for us as far as participation from
the fire districts?
MR. HARGETT: Yes, sir. As of today, of the six
independent fire districts, four have notified me that there has been
action by their board to participate. There is a meeting of the fifth
district tonight, and two weeks from tonight is the final fire
district meeting.
Iwve only talked with one with direct respect as to
whether or not they wanted the county to finance. And they indicated
no. But I have not spoken with the other three as to whether they
actually wanted to have us finance it or not.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is there any preliminary
indication from the two who have yet to discuss it?
MR. HARGETT: Iim told by Mr. Ijams that both of the
fire districts, a spokesman, a commissioner for each of the remaining
two districts, has indicated that the action would be for them to
participate.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Great.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That the action would be for them
to participate?
MR. HARGETT: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So we have all six on board then
essentially.
MR. HARGETT: All six on board.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thatls good news.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thatls good news.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think we should at least take
the time to thank those individual fire districts for responding to
our requests and working together with us on this. Thatls terrific.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That is good news. We have one
speaker, Mr. Dotrill.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Pointer.
MR. POINTER: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is
Jack Pointer, and Iim about having passed out to you some statistics
concerning the 800 megahertz radio system.
As you know, a few months ago you authorized the
purchase of this system with a contract with Ericsson Incorporated.
In front of you you have the figures to show you exactly what that
contract is for $8,232,000. Youill notice the infrastructure is
$5,500,000 with a credit of four mill -- $1,419,000.
On the left-hand column going all the way down is the
various agencies and the various departments in the county, how much
they will be expected to pay for the system, $2,426,000, making a
total of 8 million dollars.
What you were never told was that there was another
proposal and another proposal bid that was never shown to you. The
five-member radio evaluation committee plus the two -- two clandestine
members that participated did not let you know that there was a bid
much lower by far, a compliant bid much lower by far.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Pointer --
MR. POINTER: And the total is 8 million dollars versus
$3,700,000.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Pointer, just --
MR. POINTER: Yes, malam.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Just a moment. Commissioner
MacIKie.
COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: Just a question, not having been
on the board at the time, there was a five-member radio committee and
two clandestine members?
MR. POINTER: Yes, malam.
COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: Can you enlighten me about who
were the two?
MR. POINTER: Okay. There were five members who were
appointed, duly appointed, by the county manager and -- as they should
be. I announced to that particular board that I was going to attend
all meetings. I was called in by the president of the committee and
asked not to because I would be a inhibiting factor knowing full well
that I would discuss with each of the commissioners what was going on
in there.
After a very persuasive pitch, I agreed and said I would
not come which I did not come. Immediately after that, Mr. David
Craig and Mr. Chris Nind (phonetic) became the two clandestine members
attending at all times. If you will look at the tapes, you will find
Mr. Craig being thanked by the committee for his participation. And
there's a letter in the -- in the dockets from Mr. Ijams indicating an
illegal action by Mr. -- Mr. Nind.
So there is your seven members who participated making
the entire group -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Pointer, what was the
illegal action?
MR. POINTER: What was the illegal action? That two
members who are not appointed took place, participated, made
judgments, and talked and -- and voted on the -- on the particular
program that was going on.
On the second page you've got --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Actually -- well, let it go.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. His question's answered.
I'm sorry. Go ahead.
MR. POINTER: On the second page here you've got some of
the prices that you're going to have in front of you. At the present
time your contract is 45,000 a year to maintain your system. Two
weeks ago you proposed and you said that you were going to pay
$405,000 per year for a 20-year contract or about 8 million dollars
you're going to pay to maintain the system.
The -- one of the fire department people asked were they
going to have to pay. The county manager said no, this will be paid
for by the county. So you committed yourself at that particular time
to $405,000 a year maintenance over a 20-year period, another 8
million dollars on top of this 8 million dollars.
You also are going to take care of maintenance of the
repeaters. The contract that you have is for $192,000 a year compared
to $5,000 a year that you're presently paying for the same thing.
Over a 20-year period that's 4 million dollars versus 100,000. Who do
you think is going to get the other 3.9 million dollars as a
retainer? It's just not there.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I didn't understand that. Where
is that three -- where are you alleging that the 3.9 is going to go?
MR. POINTER: Okay. I didn't allege. I just said where
do you think.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. And what does that mean?
MR. POINTER: Somebody is going to be paid 3.9 million
dollars more than the cost of actually maintaining these repeaters.
The cost of maintaining the repeaters is $100,000 a year. And
somebody is going to be paid and Ericsson is going to be paid 4
million dollars -- I'm sorry, $100,000 for 20 years. Ericsson is
going to be paid 4 million dollars for that same 20-year period, a
difference of 3.9 million.
The radios are going to come. Some small ones are going
to come in a cardboard box. They are taken out of the cardboard box.
You pass them across a computer. You take the cardboard boxes out to
the landfill in Golden Gate. And we're going to pay -- for about 100
pounds of cardboard we're going to pay $40,950 to take those radios
out of the cardboard boxes compared to no charge at all had you bought
this other thing.
If you will look on the next page, you will find that in
effect this is a bait-and-switch affair. The county has said if you
will join us, fire departments, if you will join us, city, if you will
join us, school board, we'll charge you $1,536 a radio. However, as
soon as you join, all the radios you get in the future we'll increase
by $900 a piece to $2,400.
Had you stayed with the system and heard the system that
was -- the expansion of your own system which you never heard, the
price was to begin with and in the future $1,180.
I'm out of time at this particular time. I ask that you
cancel the contract that you have and start back over. This is a
waste of the taxpayers' money by the millions of dollars. You're up
in the range of 20 to 30 millions of dollars over the next 20 years,
just what I predicted over the years.
And you'll notice that John Lunsford this morning in his
particular column also pointed out to you that you had not been shown
that particular contract. It was a valid contract not there.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I've got fingers everywhere.
MR. POINTER: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Pointer, I've said this
to you privately before. But the problem I have with this is during
the entire process when we had the three different people here
pitching their radio systems, E. F. Johnson had representatives here.
MR. POINTER: That's right.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: They did not stand and
object. They did not stand and make this an issue. They did not
stand and say, wait, one of ours hasn't been presented. They didn't
stand and say, wait, those numbers are inaccurate. At no point did
they stand up and do that. At no point during the protest period
afterwards did they file that.
And I'm thinking if it's me -- and I do marketing for a
living. And if I put in a bid for something and there are three other
companies or two other companies and whoever is doing the
presentations of all of our bids, if they have mine inaccurate, I'm
going to be the first one to stand up and raise hell about it.
And I'm wondering why we haven't heard one peep from
E. F. Johnson. I appreciate your persistence and your tenacity with
this, but I haven't heard one word from E. F. Johnson. And if it was
me and if it was my company and it was a multi-million dollar bid, I'd
be raising all hell.
MR. POINTER: Sir, may I -- Madam Chairman, may I answer
his question?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes.
MR. POINTER: Two things. One, RAM Incorporated or RAM
Communications stated to you when you were the chairman, sir, that
only 55 percent of the county can be covered by the Johnson system.
You as the chairman stated something to the effect that this bothered
you very, very much and you were much concerned about that.
The people from Johnson said exactly this: Ours were
done by pro -- our propagation studies were done by professional
transmission engineers. We've also run them outside with outside
consultants. We based ours, these calculations, on 75-watt
transmitters. So it appears that they, RAM, have based theirs on
48-watt transmitters. So we, Johnson, can only assume that RAM has
built in some loss in the system.
At the other end, at the very top, E. F. Johnson used 12
DB gain antennas. RAM used zero DB gain antennas. The difference in
that design is somewhere in the range of 325 watts of effective
radiated power which definitely affects your design adversely as well
as with the existing system we know that we're getting better than 55
percent. Out of your existing one we are getting close to 70 percent
out of the existing system.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So we were made aware then --
MR. POINTER: Yes, sir.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- of any objections. So we
had the information on which to base our -- MR. POINTER: You had it right there. This is off of
the tape, sir, word for word. And then on top of that, the --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Jack, if we had the
information and if they provided it to us that day, then we still made
the judgment based on all the information. You're arguing both sides
of the issue.
MR. POINTER: No, sir. You did not -- you did not hear
the particular -- the particulars or the dollar sign. They never told
you what the dollars were. You were not given that.
MR. DORRILL: And the reason for it, if I can interject
just a second, Mr. -- and I admire Mr. Pointer a great deal, and I
think he's a fine man. I meet with him throughout the course of every
month.
When he makes the statement that we prevented you from
seeing a bid, that is an inaccurate, erroneous statement. We received
three bids for this project, and your bid specification allowed a
mechanism for any vendor in this country to bid an ad alternate. We
didn't get any. We got three bids from three manufacturers.
I don't discount the fact now after everyone has again
divulged their bid that E. F. Johnson may have thought up a different
way to skin this cat. The fact remains they didn't bid on that when
they had an opportunity to bid on that.
And I want to correct one other thing Mr. Pointer said.
Our normal procurement practice allows and requires me to appoint an
evaluation committee before you see the recommendations. We did
that. And the people that I appointed are a matter of record: the
one representative from the sheriff, the sheriff's communications
official. And Mr. Nind was not one of those particular people who
were selected. And it's my information that he never attended any of
the meetings during which the deliberations of the committee.
So to suggest that somehow that -- that he circumvented
or was a clandestine member and influenced other people on the
committee again is just inaccurate. To my knowledge -- I wasn't
personally there, but we can go back and get the minutes -- Mr. Nind
never attended any of the valuation meetings during which the
committee was deliberating.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah, this whole discussion is --
if you'll excuse me, Jack, is pointless because for the simple reason
that the decision was made long ago to go with a simulcast system
which E. F. Johnson can't supply us. I mean tech --
MR. POINTER: Sir, sir --
COHHISSIONER NORRIS: That's not what you responded in
the bid. It's too late to come back now and say that you can do
that.
MR. POINTER: Sir, E. F. Johnson supplied a bid for both
simulcast and multicast in deference to what he said.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And we long ago rejected yours as
not being technologically what we wanted. MR. POINTER: Sir --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And, therefore, we have made the
decision long ago to go with Ericsson GE.
MR. POINTER: You never saw it. You never heard of it.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I never saw it? I never heard of
it?
MR. POINTER: That's right.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, then certainly then it
wasn't in the bid, was it?
MR. POINTER: It certainly was. I have copies.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: How could I --
MR. POINTER: That's where I got all these numbers.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: How could it be in the bid and I
never saw it or never heard of it then, Jack?
MR. POINTE: Because it was taken away from you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, excuse me. Let's stop
this arguing back and forth. Mr. Pointer, unfortunately we -- we did
see three bids. We did see E. F. Johnson, Ericsson GE, and Motorola,
and we did make a selection. Our county manager tells us that we have
met the bid process that we selected. I have asked him if we -- if
E. F. Johnson was somehow prevented from bidding an expansion of the
existing system. He assures me they were not.
MR. POINTER: They bid it. It's right there, and he
never saw it.
MR. HARGETT: Madam Chairman, may I clear this up? I
have a copy of the bids that were presented to the Board of County
Commissioners.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I remember seeing three bids.
MR. HARGETT: There were three bidders as the county
manager indicated. E. F. Johnson submitted three bids themselves, a
base bid and two alternates.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh. I remember seeing them.
MR. HARGETT: This is the document that you received
that has all three of E. F. Johnson's bids on it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And I - and I seem to remember,
too, on the day that we awarded the bid that we listened to a bid
protest from Ericsson GE, not from E. F. Johnson.
MR. HARGETT: Further, I don't know if you want to
address the technical issues that Mr. Pointer's raising.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No, we've made that decision.
MR. HARGETT: I'd be happy to address those if you
desire.
MR. POINTER: Thank you very much, ma'am.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Pointer. Is there
another speaker?
MR. DORRILL: There was Mr. Roberson.
MR. ROBERSON: I don't know if it's -- Robert Roberson,
Everglades Communications. I sold the original 800 mega cycle system
you have now. There were four bids. Three of -- the first bid that
Johnson submitted was for simulcast. The other was a multicast.
That's the one we're discussing now.
I had a little thing going here, but it's obvious that
you -- you guys don't want to save any money. I heard here today of
all kinds of ponds and all kinds of things that you're going to have
to spend the money. We have an opportunity today to save over four
million dollars initially and ten million in ten years. But
apparently --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Mr. Roberson. Why
didn't you protest within the protest period?
MR. ROBERSON: I'm not -- I'm not a -- I'm the service
representative here. I didn't -- we did protest it. We even tried to
take it to court, but it was thrown out because the lawyers fought it
and -- and forced themselves in -- in front of a federal judge. I
mean, we did try to fight it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They did what?
MR. ROBERSON: We stood here -- we stood here before --
before you, and -- and I wrote a speech telling you the expansion of
the -- of the present 800 system was the most cost effective way to
go.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I remember there being an
injunction, and it was lifted rather quickly. And we addressed it --
the contract the next day.
MR. ROBERSON: Yes. And at the time that we was -- we
was up for the -- the -- the bid process, only Mr. Constantine brought
up the fact you don't have to be a rocket scientist nor do you have to
be electronic wizard to understand that if you're getting 70 percent
with the present system that adding several more towers is going to
shrink it to 55 percent. It doesn't work that way.
So something was definitely wrong. And Mr. Constantine
picked up on it. He even questioned it. He said something's wrong.
And it was wrong.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner MAc'Kie?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- I just -- my -- my only
question really sort of tags along with Commissioner Constantine's,
and that is, is anybody here from Johnson? Has anybody -- if -- if
Johnson has been mistreated or if they have some legal rights that
have been abused or if somehow they -- they weren't treated properly
in the bid process, then Johnson is the only one who has the right to
raise those issues, I mean, the legal concept of standing. If they
have a complaint, they should make it.
MR. ROBERSON: Well, they tried to make it when they
made it, and it couldn't go, and it went to court, and it got thrown
out.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Why aren't they here? Where are
they today?
MR. ROBERSON: They cannot come and interfere with the
contract you already signed with Johnson. They would be liable.
They'd have to have an invitation from you first to come down here and
explain their position. They're not going to do that on their own.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because they had a process
available to them which was protesting the bid, and they have
exhausted that process and lost, so now it's over.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The bid protest was not from
Johnson. It was from Ericsson.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So they -- they didn't protest
during the time that's allowed for protest.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Right.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: So their -- so their -- their
opportunities are gone, and they had rights, and they should have
exercised them.
MR. ROBERSON: Well, then you just are going to waste
four million plus and approximately ten million over the next ten
years.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: You know, this is what I object
to. The public doesn't know probably in all cases the technological
difference between what you're talking about and what we bought. MR. ROBERSON: Yes, sir.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And that's a disservice to the
public to sit here and tell them that you're going to supply them for
3.7 million dollars what we're going to get for 8 million. That's
just not the case.
MR. ROBERSON: It is the case.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: It is not the case.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, the
discussion today was supposed to be on financing, not on who we were
going to award the contract to. That was decided. That legally has
been exhausted. I don't argue with you, Robbie. There were some
questions on that thing, but that -- those questions should have been
done, and you had a legal mechanism in which to raise those questions,
and they weren't. And so --
MR. ROBERSON: Okay. Thank you.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- we don't have a whole lot
of choice from a legal perspective now.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We really -- we really don't at
this point.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: E. F. Johnson's not
complaining.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock, do you have
a question?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: My only comment -- and I'll make
it very quick, and it piggybacks on what Commissioner Norris just said
-- we have a letter from the State of Florida Division of
Communications stating that multicast systems are far superior and the
preference to a simulcast system; is that correct? That's the
paperwork I've seen. Do I have it backwards?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Backwards.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm sorry. That's why Mr. Nind's
face was getting all screwed up over there. The simulcast, excuse me,
is far better than multicast. And when we're dealing with the life of
a police officer, my brother's a detective in Hillsborough County.
And if he ever got shot and didn't get help because he was in a
warehouse and his radio couldn't transmit, that's worth four million
dollars to me, ladies and gentlemen. We're talking about the lives of
our police officers. Let's not be cheapskates about it. Let's do it
right.
MR. HARGETT: Madam Chairman, if I could --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes.
MR. HARGETT: -- for the board's benefit as well as
people who might be listening, I think the numbers that Mr. Pointer
used are accurate but out of context in terms of what we may be
paying.
The eight million that you saw as a capital cost, we
currently have two systems that we're operating. One is maintained by
the sheriff. One is maintained by our EHS department. Those are
operating costs, costs that are not in this capital project that
you're talking about. And he did some -- some fast numbers for you,
and they seem to be accurate.
But the -- we've done our own look at what it will cost
us to operate the new system as compared to our present two systems.
We've been in consultation with the sheriff, and all of those items
are outside of this. There are maintenance costs which are, in fact,
shown in the contract and included in the capital cost as part of this
warranty work that is provided. And Mr. Pointer's pulled those out as
if they were add-ons. There are add-ons when you start talking about
operating costs, but it's really not apples and apples when you're
comparing the capital cost of the system you selected versus the
capital and operating costs of some other system. So with that
clarification, I appreciate it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I think we discussed this over the
years long enough where we don't need to get back into technical
issue, so I'm ready to make a motion.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just want to say one thing,
and that is, it's misleading -- and that's being kind. It's
misleading to say -- when you stand up and say, well, apparently
you're not interested in saving four million dollars because there was
a whole process we went through. There were different technologies.
There were all kinds of little side issues.
And to try to pull that out of the woodwork now, I don't
want to read a headline tomorrow that says, commission decides to
spend extra four million dollars, because that's not accurate. We've
been through a full process. There was a manner in which to protest
if the vendor thought that an error was made, and they didn't protest
it.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: The thing is, if we're going to
stay in the stone age with multicast, we might as well go down to
Radio Shack and buy walkie-talkies and save a lot of money. But we're
trying to get some technological advances here.
I'm going to make a motion that -- that we use the
commercial paper program as our funding mechanism and continue to
budget the one million three hundred fifty thousand currently budgeted
in fund 301 as our funding source.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And my understanding is that will
allow us to retire the one million that we talked about that Mr.
Hargett said in case we should happen to need that in the near future
to answer a deficit, so that's --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Just the near future. Mr.
Dotrill, I saw Mr. Smykowski come in and talk to you, and you shook
your head no. I presume that it's not what I wanted to hear.
MR. DORRILL: He's going to elaborate on that. He said
preliminarily that they had taken that into an assumption that it
would roll over and be necessary for some purpose, either to continue
with the -- the commercial paper program that was there as part of
this financing, but you -- you didn't get to count it twice.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Shucks.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It was a nice try, though.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I know. I keep trying. We have
a motion and a second to fund this program with the commercial paper
program; is that correct?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Uh-huh.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm going to call the question.
All those in favor please say aye. Opposed?
There being none, motion passes five-zero. Thank you.
Item #10A
RESOLUTION 95-138, APPOINTING DISSELER, BILES, NEALE, DUNNUCK,
BLANCHARD, MEYER, HAYNES, MARZULLO, CORIACI & VANN TO THE MARCO ISLAND
VISION PLANNING COHMITTEE - ADOPTED
Next item on the agenda, 10-A, which is appoint --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Miss Chairman, on this one --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: -- we had more applicants than we
do slots, and I think that the fair way to handle this is to take them
in the chronological order that we received them. And, in fact, that
happens to be the way they're -- they're notated with asterisks in our
back-up material.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: The three that were not with
asterisks were the last ones to come in and came in I think, Miss
Filson, on the day before and the last day of the -- is that about
right?
MS. FILSON: I received them last. I don't -- I
haven't --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: The very last ones. In any way --
MS. FILSON: I can check for you if you like.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: In any case, I think chronological
order might be the fairest on this, and I'll make a motion that we
appoint the ones notated with asterisks there.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll second that also noting that
the visioning process will encompass the entire community. So those
three people are certainly not exempted by not being on the
committee.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Certainly not. We have a motion
and a second. All those in favor please say aye.
Opposed?
There being none, motion passes five-zero.
Item #10B
DISCUSSION RE PRESERVATION 2000 RESOLUTION - LETTER TO BE SENT TO CCPR,
INC. STATING LACK OF SUPPORT FOR THE PROPOSED RESOLUTION
Next item is 10-B. This is a letter that I received
from David Russell, Citizens for Constitutional Property Rights,
asking us to put this on the agenda, and I was asked to do it. I did
so. That doesn't necessarily mean that I am in favor of its
contents. So -- and I think that we probably need to discuss it.
This is a limitation of 25 percent of the lands of any particular
county be limited to federal and state ownership. And in Collier
County we're already close to 50 percent.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We well exceed it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So we already exceed it, and I'm
not sure that we particularly want to have to manage the Everglades
National Park or the Big Cypress Preserve.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll tell you what. This
doesn't stand a prayer passing in Tallahassee. However, I think it
would generate a great debate on private property issues.
And with that in mind, I'd support perhaps not the exact
25 here but some sort of resolution or some sort of debate on the
issue because I think you get to a point where -- 25 percent's not it,
but you get to a point where perhaps it's too much. I don't know what
that point is.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But that would certainly --
perhaps through the debate we could define -- the state could define
what that is.
MR. DORRILL: You have two speakers.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: My -- my feeling on this -- and I
agree the property rights issue is something that on a national scale
we're going to be seeing more and more of. I'm more interested in the
equity issue of being compensated fairly for takings of property. And
I'm not so sure an arbitrary percentage is even the right avenue to
approach there.
So I'm -- I certainly don't want to oppose the idea of
investigating this and looking for a resolution. But I find the
resolution will probably fall more in -- in the takings issue
legislation that is coming about and that is being worked on. I think
it was defeated or never made it to the floor last year in the state.
I would appreciate it if this organization would
redirect their efforts in that sense as opposed to a -- a percentage
cap. That's my personal opinion and what I would like to support.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I -- this -- as I read
through it, it's got a little bit of something in it for everybody.
But I am having difficulty with the 25 percent cap. I don't have any
problem at all with the Preservation 2,000 funds and the fact that
it's borrowed money without a funding source for repayment. Where
have we heard that one before? But I -- I do have -- have some
trouble with that.
I do have trouble with the listing of property and the
not purchasing it within a defined period of time. But I'm just not
sure that we as a county commission should endorse this particular
piece of paper because of all of the contents of it.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I might suggest we send a
letter --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: If we can pick and choose --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- under your name as chair
picking the items we're comfortable with, and I think you're right.
The 25 percent is -- that's too much of a cookie cutter thing to put
into effect to every county statewide, but there are several good
points in here. And maybe we can send a letter endorsing those
points.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The points that we do agree
with?
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd like for us to discuss what
those are because I have absolutely no interest in a percentage cap on
what is an appropriate amount of property for -- for government to
Own.
I have a great deal of interest in what's the process
for acquiring the property and whether or not people are adequately
compensated and how the amount of time that a piece of property sits
on a list affects their compensation.
But -- but these kinds of decisions, the private
property right is to be adequately compensated if, in fact, there is
an overriding governmental interest that requires us to take the
property.
So I have no interest in a percentage cap. I have a
great interest in pursuing something for adequate compensation. But
-- but these aren't choices that should be made based on a percentage
of the total property.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think we have some speakers.
Do we have some speakers, Mr. Dotrill?
MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am, you have two. Dr. Gore.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Dr. Gore?
MR. DORRILL: And following he I have Hiss Straton.
MR. GORE: For the record, I'm Jim Gore. I'm with the
Conservancy here in Naples. And I just wanted to point out a few
things about the resolution, and many of these things you've already
expressed concern about as well.
I suspect that part of the resolution was -- has
originated, as you have mentioned already, from frustration with the
speed with which the CARL program and a number of the other land
acquisition programs have been administered.
As a matter of fact, we discovered that ourselves in the
Belle Heade work group hearings this past year when we were examining
alternatives to acquire the Belle Heade or get the Belle Heade
properties acquired by the CARL program. We were told that, in fact,
at that point that the lands division at its ranking of 46 would take
approximately 50 years to acquire the Belle Heade. And I think
everybody on the work group, whether they were conservationists or
environmentalists or land owners, were quite dismayed when they heard
that.
On the other hand, we did ultimately work to arrive at a
situation in which the Belle Heade was increased in ranking from 46th
to 4th. And in that position it can be acquired in about five years'
time which is, at least as far as the Conservancy's concerned, an
adequate time period.
And it may be that what needs to be done is the land
division needs to be approached and prodded into determining what kind
of protocol might be adopted which would accelerate this procedure.
And that's certainly something that we would endorse as well.
It's certainly unfair to the land owners to say 100
years from now or 50 years from now we might be able to purchase this
property. It makes it unfair to the land owners, and it certainly
makes it unmanageable from a conservation viewpoint. So that's
something that needs to be considered.
However, that doesn't mean that we need to throw out the
baby with the -- with the bath water. P 2,000 is indeed a valuable
process to assure the protection and management of large blocks of
unique ecosystems in Florida, and that's something we still need to
consider. And it extends beyond the boundaries of those public
lands. The Belle Meade and the east blocks through the -- the --
excuse me, the south Golden Gate through the Save Our Rivers program,
if it's ultimately restored to its original flow patterns, assures and
maintains a lot of the ecological integrity of the 10,000 Islands,
Rookery Bay. That's all part of the quality of life that Florida
residents enjoy.
It is a willing seller program. There should never be
any kind of threat of condemnation or any kind of coercion involved.
Nevertheless, condemnation has been done, and that's up to the state
legislature to adjust.
The other thing that needs to be taken into
consideration just in passing is that the resolution as it's stated
now says 25 percent to federal and state ownership. It doesn't just
-- it doesn't say just the land purchased through P 2,000.
So I assume then that this also includes federal
highways, state highways, their easements, military facilities, the
Native American reservations. All of those things also have to be
included, I assume, as the resolution is written now. And that's
going to cause a great deal of problems for you, I would assume, in
determining which of those properties you would also want to give up
to meet that 25 percent cap.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Does that mean we can get the
gaming palace back if we --
MR. GORE: Well, you'd have to talk to the Caloosas
about that, I suspect. At any rate, that's something else that needs
to be taken into consideration.
One of the other things which I'd like to point out is
there is a concern about loss of the tax base. It's true that the
public land doesn't create a tax or doesn't necessarily create revenue
for the county.
On the other hand, to manage conservation lands is
considerably less expensive than to measure -- to serve that same land
if it's private property. Recent studies have shown, for example,
that the cost to taxpayers to maintain and manage conservation lands
ranges between about 35 cents and 65 cents an acre.
If that same land is developed in public or private
property, the taxpayer's going to have to pay about a dollar
twenty-five cents per acre to provide services like fire, police
protection, utilities, and all of those kinds of things. And so the
taxpayer still pays more even though the hand is -- the land is in
private hands.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Actually I gotta disagree
with you there. The -- a couple of years ago when the water
management district was -- raised the millage to pay for some of the
crude land, that question was asked of someone from Palm Beach. How
much does it cost to administer this? And he said 18 to $22 per acre
for those type programs. So at 20 bucks an acre, they're looking at
55,000 acres for the two trusts. That's 1.1 million bucks a year to
have the land sit there. That's a far cry from 35 cents.
MR. GORE: That's true. I'm unaware of those -- of that
so '-
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We could probably get today into
a very long discussion on the CARL project. I personally feel that
yes, 1,500 years is too long to wait on a list. So is 30 days. If
you're going to buy somebody's land, buy it. If you're going to tell
the world you're going to buy it and you're going to diminish his
value over a long term, you owe him. It's that simple.
So land acquisition by itself is fine, but let's do it
the right way, and let's not create lists. Those are the elements of
this that I would like to -- to support. Is it -- the listing of
properties for potential acquisition is a true diminution of value on
those properties, and it should not be allowed.
So if we want to narrow this down -- I -- I -- I don't
think you're going to see this board supporting 25 percent. I don't
think there's any interest in getting into that. But I -- I do think
there are sections of this that are a reiteration of private property
that this board has made past statements regarding. And if we want to
reiterate those again, I'm all for it.
MR. GORE: I think you'll find that the conservation
groups would support some of those private property owner rights as
well.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I don't think it's totally
adverse. I think there's some middle ground there, sir.
MR. DORRILL: Ms. Straton and then Mr. Perkins.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In a hurry, Chris?
MS. STRATON: Make it real fast. Coincidently today the
cabinet -- Governor and cabinet are voting on the CARL list. And
through lots of efforts within the community, we have moved Belle
Meade from 46 to 4. And indications are that it will be there.
As you move forward in whatever correspondence you send
on this, I would like to take issue with the issue of the devaluation
of private property by listing. I think before this county commission
takes a position in that they might want to check with counsel. I
understand in talking just casually with David Bryant that the federal
courts have ruled that putting land on a CARL list does not amount to
a condemnation blight which is what is being alluded to in this
document. So before you take such a position, you might want to check
with counsel.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Excuse me, Miss Straton. I'm
aware of that ruling. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it. MS. STRATON: Oh, okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Also, Chris, the -- the listing
of the property may in and of itself not create a condemnation. But
it does create a cloud over the ability to sell the land.
MS. STRATON: I have great sympathy for people. That's
why I personally worked so hard to get the Belle Meade property moved
up on the list so that there would not be inordinate amount of time.
It's just -- just in terms of if you're aware of the ruling, I don't
want --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That was exactly my point was
that yes, there is a diminution was the word I used, not condemnation,
but in my opinion a diminution. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Good word.
MS. STRATON: Okay. And the other thing is in terms of
-- just as a way of reminding, this -- that there are Preservation
2,000 dollars that the county itself have applied for for part of
mitigation with Belle Meade. We did not receive that particular
grant, but there are dollars that are coming to the county itself to
be a benefit to him -- to us.
And Mr. Gore did talk about the fact that there are
studies that have looked at the cost of community service of
residential development versus industrial versus commercial and versus
vacant land. And while it may be off the tax rolls, we also are not
providing those services that everybody wants.
So on behalf of the League of Women Voters who's taken a
strong position in support of Preservation 2,000 as well as the
Audubon people, I think that we will continue to see in Tallahassee
efforts in private property rights issues. They have been looked at
for years after years after year, and those issues will be coming up
again. And hopefully we'll be able to -- to support something that
everybody will buy into that would be beneficial.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Miss Straton. Mr.
Dotrill, on the other side of this -- this coin of property coming off
of the public tax rolls, for this -- this property, the Big Cypress
Preserve, the panther preserve -- and I don't think it's true with
Everglades -- maybe I'm wrong -- but don't we get Pilt funds for --
for portions of -- of this land?
MR. DORRILL: We get Pilt funds for both Big Cypress
and Everglades National Park. We get a separate type of Pilt from the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the National Panther Preserve.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: For the panther preserve? And
those funds are -- I think the last -- when I last read about them,
they had doubled last year. And they're like a dollar and sixty or a
dollar and seventy cents an acre now?
MR. DORRILL: They -- they did for the panther
preserve. I'd have to check and see what the actual Pilt payments
were for the Department of Interior.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So, I mean, I'm just trying to
lay out both sides of the same picture. That's all. Mr. Perkins.
MR. PERKINS: Good afternoon. We're still here. A1
Perkins, Belle Meade Groups, Citizens -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Have you changed your mind on
us?
MR. PERKINS: Citizens for Constitutional Property
Rights. I'm speaking on behalf of David Russell, president.
Naturally we would like to see you pass this resolution, right.
Now, let's go back to some particulars. The south
blocks have been on the CARL list for the last 16 years, and they're
still there. And they're still on the -- haven't been paid for and
haven't been bought. The Fakahatchee Strand is still there, and it
hasn't been bought.
Now, as far as the Belle Meade goes, it's still there,
and it hasn't been bought for the simple reason they don't have the
money. Yet they see fit to take Preservation 2,000's money and supply
it through Save Our Rivers to supply it to the South Florida Water
Management to flood out the people in the Belle Meade area. We are
under water, and it's because they've raised the weirs out there, done
deliberately just in time. Lawsuits are pending.
I want to make a statement right now. As a veteran of a
foreign war -- and some of you people are veterans -- I want to take
and repeat something that Rush Limbaugh and Walter Cronkite said.
Communism and socialism is still alive. And we have it right here as
far as the environmentalists. They are here to pad their own pockets
because if they were on top of it, we wouldn't have had that fish kill
today. You wouldn't have had the doggone deer dying out there.
There's a lot of things. They talk out of both sides of their mouth.
Taxes, the Belle Meade and the southern estates generate
over two million dollars' worth of taxes, and we get nothing for our
money.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We do put out those fires, A1.
MR. PERKINS: Yes, you do. And I have to take and say
to the fellas that go out there to fight a fire around a house who
hasn't been there, the fires are up 40 feet. And if you get close
enough, you singe your eyebrows while a guy's house is going up in
smoke. This is because they can't get to the fire because --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Didn't mean to divert you there,
A1.
MR. PERKINS: Yeah, but you made a very valid point
whereas they're trying to stop and plug up all the holes, all the
roads so we can't get in and use a place that's under the CARL
project. And CARL is conservation and recreation. But they don't
want you to use it. You can't get into any of the places across the
Alley.
Let's go to the money. Three billion dollars of
borrowed money with a nine billion dollar debt service? We can't even
support our schools. And the state of Florida has lied to you about
the lottery. They distorted the doggone money. Yeah, you people out
here are as old as I am. What about your grandchildren? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: A1, A1, over here, please.
MR. PERKINS: Okay. What about your grandchildren?
What about your grandchildren?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't have any.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We're two generations behind
that, A1.
MR. PERKINS: That's very important. But, I mean, are
they going to end up paying for this while some people take and pad
those pockets because that's what it amounts to? We can't support the
schools. We can't support our jails. I don't know where we're going
to go with this. Land values do go down.
Now, they moved it up to fourth on the list, and that is
because we would not negotiate or sell out. We're still not going to
sell out. There's a lot of people out there who have built homes and
are willing to fight for it.
Now, when I say fight for it, I want you to remember one
thing. When you're being shot at -- and you veterans know what I'm
talking about if you've been down that road -- just remember what you
did. You didn't stand there and took it. You shot back. This could
come to this. It's just that simple.
With that, while all of the new taxes -- I understand in
the paper you got 29 percent new taxes. Where are you going to get
the money?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Not yet. Not yet.
MR. PERKINS: Where are we going to get all this money,
and who are we going to put it on?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We're working on it.
MR. PERKINS: Now, with everything I heard here today in
theory, in theory, along with the landfill and all the rest of the
stuff, I really don't have to worry about it because I will never live
long enough to survive it. But my grandchildren and the rest of the
kids in this neighborhood will.
So with that, I will close. Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Perkins.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think Mr. Hancock will
probably make a motion in a minute, and I'll probably second that
motion. But I just want to say one thing. What we're being asked to
do here is for a statewide initiative. So when the argument is that
Belle Heade's being moved up from 46th to 4th, that means somebody
else is just going to have to wait that much longer wherever they are
in the state of Florida to have their property purchased. So to
shuffle it to somebody else doesn't solve the problem.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm not going to assume a second
at this point because I've changed tag a little bit. I look at this
-- and I didn't look at this and try to pull out little individual
pieces that I liked and little pieces that I didn't. So I'm not
prepared to take section 2 and 4 and say, let's support this and not
support the other.
I think because of some elements such as the 25 percent
cap that I can't support this overall, so I'm going to make a motion
that the board not enlist its support to this particular document.
But I think some of the discussion we've had today may lend itself to
statements to be made to the state legislature at some other point or
a more appropriate mechanism. So that's the motion I'm going to
make.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That we not endorse this program.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That we not endorse it and not
that we go pulling out pieces. We may want to come back and do that
later.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that. Might I
suggest -- and this is just something that popped in my mind -- but we
have sent a couple of fairly strong-worded letters in opposition to
Belle Heade even appearing on the CARL list. Perhaps we should just
send a copy of that to Mr. Russell in response.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I will amend the motion to
include that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion. Second? Is
there a second?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, sure. Sorry.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I was just ready to kill the
motion. We have a motion and a second not to endorse this particular
resolution but to instead send to Mr. Russell letters that we have
previously sent I guess to other state agencies --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Before we vote, let me ask one
question that I need to know.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think I need something a little
more clear.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Is it appropriate -- these people
sent us this resolution and asked us to support it or not support it.
It's probably not appropriate for us to amend it and then say we're
supporting the amended motion -- I mean amended resolution; is that
correct? What would you think on that?
MR. CUYLER: I think that probably what you should do
taking the position you're taking is probably write a letter back to
Mr. Russell saying, you know, we certainly don't object to all -- to
all of the resolution. There were some parts that during -- during
discussion were brought out as being good points. However, there's
some things the board would not be in a position to agree to.
Therefore, we didn't adopt it. Attached is the letter that
Commissioner Constantine mentioned about Belle Heade.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, my point is that I think
that this board has been asked to support this resolution. We either
do it in toto or we can't do it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh.
MR. CUYLER: I think if they're looking for statewide
support, yes, it has to be something --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That simply is a reason for my
motion not to support it is because we can't support each element of
it. Therefore, I think it's our obligation to either support in whole
or not. And I -- I think it's -- it's the something we don't want to
support in whole.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We'll still send him a copy
of that old resolution.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think Mr. Cuyler's suggestion
is correct is that we -- if the chairman would be kind enough to draft
a letter and include the response that Commissioner Constantine has --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There is a resolution that was
passed I want to say 1993 -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- mid-year opposing the listing
of Belle Heade property on the CARL list. And I would be glad to
draft a letter to David Russell explaining the position that we have
taken and that we can't support the resolution in -- in toto but
attached is a resolution that we did support 18 months or 2 years
ago.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just -- just --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie?
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just to clarify, I wasn't on the
board when you -- when you passed that Belle Heade resolution, and I'm
not sure I would have voted in support of it. And so I would
appreciate it when you send it if you clarify that this is something a
former board, not -- because I'd like the ability to rehear the issue
before I endorse that former resolution.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's a good point. If all that
can be enclosed in a motion, so be it.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: She -- she could vote against this
particular motion.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right, and that's why I'm
asking. If -- if the motion is that this board is going to restate
its support of the former position --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm just saying send him a
copy so he knows.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- then I'm going to oppose the
motion. So I've got to be clear about that.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: My suggestion when I asked to
amend the motion was simply rather than send a blank letter that says
we've denied this resolution or we're not interested in supporting
this resolution so that at least we give them the courtesy of knowing
yes, we do have some of these same concerns, we send them a copy of
this resolution we passed in the past. And it will be dated
appropriately. And if you want to include in there it was a past
commission --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll amend the original lengthy
motion to include that this is a -- a position adopted by previous
boards.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
second accept the --
Okay.
Okay.
Thanks.
We have a motion.
Does the
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Oh, absolutely.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I'll call the question.
All those in favor please say aye. All those opposed?
Motion passes five to zero.
I will -- I will get a letter off to Mr. Russell again
with a copy of the resolution that was passed in 1993 with the
appropriate comment in the body of the letter. How's that sound?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Just dandy.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Does that mean -- just
kidding.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Shut up.
Item #10C
A RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF COLLIER COUNTY,
FLORIDA, URGING THE REPEAL OF THE NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION ACT
(NVRA), OR ALTERNATIVELY, THE DELAY OF NVRA IMPLEMENTATION UNTIL FUNDED
BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT - CONTINUED TO 2/28/95
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Item 10-C, resolution by the
Board of County Commissioners urging the repeal of the National Voter
Registration Act. Again, this is on the agenda. There has been much
discussion about it. I'm having some difficulty.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah. Madam Chairman, we might
be able to kind of -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, I've got some additional
wording. Mary, did you want to address this issue?
MS. MORGAN: Commissioners, I want to thank you for
offering to support a program letting Congress know how we feel about
this. But after much deliberation, I'd like to request that we not
adopt this particular resolution because I don't think any of us
intended for it to appear that we were trying to deny anyone the
right, the opportunity to register or to become a voter and
participate in the election process. So I think that we can resolve a
lot of concerns if we don't adopt that particular resolution.
And there is another way in which we could go. I would
like to urge you to adopt a resolution which is aimed towards our
legislative delegation here in Florida that would ask them to repeal
the provision of Florida's driver's license law that allows the
issuance of licenses to people who are not considered full-time
residents of this state.
And with over twelve million licensed drivers,
approximately one million people hold a valid Florida only license.
They do not forfeit their out-of-state license at the time. They
obtain that valid Florida only license. And so there's the potential
there for those people to be registered in multiple states.
Representative Livingston has agreed to sponsor a bill,
and I would like to urge you to urge all the members of our delegation
to sign on as co-sponsors of that bill. That way we have bipartisan
support in both houses of the Florida legislature to repeal that
measure.
The next part of my recommendation is that you adopt a
resolution or a letter and send it to the members of our federal
government of Congress asking them to in the spirit of action that
they've taken recently which indicates they would not pass any more
mandates without providing funding if they would go back merely and
revisit the National Voter Registration Act and provide the funding
that's necessary to implement that.
The national bill initially made provisions for some
relief to local governments with respect to discounts on postage. And
the same Congress that passed that act failed to make the necessary
appropriations to provide us that relief.
And so at this point let's just urge them to revisit and
provide the funding for the measure. And if they don't make some
accommodation, then in a year let's come back and consider a
resolution that would send them the bill for these additional costs
that we've had to foot this year.
But at that point in addition to sending the bill, we'll
have a better feel for what types of real problems there seem to be
with the bill. And perhaps they will be more willing to listen to
areas that perhaps need some adjustment.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Obviously our intent is not
to prohibit any eligible U.S. citizen --
MS. MORGAN: It's not to prohibit anyone, huh-uh.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- to prohibit any eligible
U.S. citizen the right to register to vote -- MS. MORGAN: Correct.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- or to participate in the
voting process.
But I'm not sure what you've suggested goes far enough
because it is possible -- while you are correcting the out of staters
who may have Florida licenses, it's possible for someone to be a
resident or part-time resident of Florida to have a license in Florida
and not even to be a U.S. citizen. They can have a driver's
license --
MS. MORGAN: You can have a license and not be a U.S.
citizen. But the driver's license bureau began asking each person
who's licensed on January 1 of '92 about their citizenship. That was
done with a totally unrelated measure. It was done in preparing the
change-over for the source for your jury selection to come from the
driver's license list as opposed to the voter registration list. And
they've been doing that since January 1 of '92.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I want to follow up. My
point is just there are other areas of potential fraud here.
MS. MORGAN: There are, but I don't think the federal
government would be willing to address those until we're able to
provide them with some hard facts about where those areas exist. It
may differ from one state to another.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let's wait till the problem
happens before we try to correct it.
MS. MORGAN: No, I'm just saying give us -- we've got
time as those problems arise to go back and address them.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock was next,
Mr. Norris.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I want to echo some of what
Commissioner Constantine said because as -- as you've stated, the idea
of more and more people given the opportunity to register to vote is
terrific. The inherent problems that it's creating are going to
become cumbersome and costly for this county. So we need to attack
the problems and not the idea of increased voter registration.
So, again, just addressing the two points you brought
out, my gut feeling is that that's not enough, but it's at a minimum
what we should do. I would suggest that a resolution come back to us
with the wording addressing those two things as opposed to trying to
hammer it out by discussion here today. MS. MORGAN: That's fine with me.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is that a motion to
continue?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Ms. Morgan, before this so-called
motor voter bill was enacted, were we denying anyone their
constitutional rights to register to vote?
MS. MORGAN: No, sir, we were not. But I will be real
candid with you and tell you that not all of the 67 counties in
Florida were making the opportunity to become registered voters as
easily available as those counties in south Florida tended to do.
The counties up in the panhandle tended to have a single
office for voter registration with occasional special drives where we
in south Florida were so inundated with this large population that we
were forced to look for alternative ways to process the people since
we were restricted by the physical plant at our courthouses.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. But my point being that
before this bill we were registering everybody who wanted to
register. And there was very, very little fraud, would you say,
because of the ability to check that we had?
MS. MORGAN: In terms of whether or not there's fraud,
as items were brought to our attention, we've -- we've forwarded those
to the state attorney's office. But again, people who register are on
the honor system, and they're on their honor system to tell you the
correct information. And some people choose to misrepresent that at
the time they register. They did that under the old system, and
they'll continue to do that under the new system.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. So my point is that we were
not denying anybody their right to vote before, and we had a much
lower rate of fraud than we do after this bill which allows people to
maybe inadvertently misregister themselves, let's say.
So I don't see that we have gone in a positive direction
by having the motor voter bill. It seems to me we've gone in a
negative direction by increasing the amount of unauthorized voters,
people that don't -- don't really have the right to be Florida voters
or Collier County voters. So I support this resolution perhaps as it
sits without modification.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- I'd like, if it's
appropriate timing, to move that we continue this for a couple weeks
to get some revised language on a resolution. I -- I don't support
the blanket resolution that's in our packet, but I do recognize that
there are serious problems that have to be addressed. And I think
Mrs. Morgan has identified some solutions to them, the first step
perhaps being this valid Florida only issue. And there may be
others.
So -- so I would move that we continue this for two
weeks for further consideration.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll second that motion. I -- my
initial action was a repeal. But like Miss Morgan, I think we may be
sending a message there that isn't necessarily true. MS. MORGAN: Right.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: And so I would like to get the
bugs worked out of it, and I think that's probably the -- the attack
that we should take.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll support the motion to
continue, but I hope that we can perhaps come up with a hybrid. If we
don't want to pass a full repeal, I don't want to be quite as soft as
I think Mary has suggested today either. I'd like to be a little bit
more aggressive.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Agreed. I'd like to attack the
particulars a little bit more.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I would suggest -- I mean,
I don't have any problem continuing it. But I think I would suggest
that we ought to give our staff direction as to what we want them to
bring back. I'm not hearing anything in the motion related to what
staff is to accomplish over the next couple of weeks.
MR. CUYLER: If -- if I hear nothing else, you will see
probably this resolutions -- this resolution and the two resolutions
that Hiss Morgan spoke about. And then if you want, you can pick and
choose from the language in those resolutions.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Hancock.
MR. CUYLER: Unless you can give me some --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, I might ask Commissioner
Hac'Kie to amend her motion to include a punch list for Miss Morgan of
those areas that she sees of potential difficulty that we may want to
address in a resolution to the law makers.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Each one of us can do that.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, I'm just saying that you
are obviously the person that foresees those.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: She needs to work with the law.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: She's the one who needs to
provide that to Mary.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Oh, okay. Well, again, I would
like to see that as a part of what we get back so that we can revise
the resolution accordingly to put a little more teeth in those areas
that are, in fact, rife with fraud or could be.
MS. MORGAN: Please bear in mind that the form that was
prepared for voter registration on the national level had to take into
account the existing requirements among the 50 states. And that's why
it is something less than what we've been used to in Florida. A lot
of states don't have the inmigration of new residents that we have,
and so they've not been faced with those types of problems.
But I'll be happy to work with your staff in coming up
with a different resolution. And I would strongly urge you to support
the repeal of the valid Florida only license.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Any other questions?
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Except for Mr. Hancock asked
about amending the motion. And if -- unless you feel real strongly
about it, I'd like to leave the motion as it is and have all of us
have the opportunity if we feel strongly about it to propose some --
some issues for Mr. Cuyler and ask Mrs. Morgan to do that also and --
and to do that within a week so that two weeks from now he will have
some idea of what to put in the packet.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's fine. That's fine.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second.
I'm going to call the question. All those in favor please say aye.
Opposed?
There being none, motion passes 5-0 to continue for two
weeks. Mr. Cuyler, you'll bring it back.
MR. CUYLER: Yes, ma'am, although my agenda cut-off is
Monday. So if you're going to think about it, think about it quick.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Think about it by Monday, okay.
Item #10D
UPDATE RE COCOA PALM RIVER - STAFF TO PURSUE TESTING AND DETERMINE IF
SIGNAGE IS NECESSARY
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item, 10-D, which is a
discussion and possible direction of the Cocoa Plum -- Coconut Palm
River pesticides problem. Mr. Lorenz.
MR. LORENZ: Yes. For the record, Bill Lorenz,
environmental services administer.
Back in 1991 the department -- pollution control
department conducted a pesticides survey of a number of locations in
the county. One of -- one of the areas, which was the Coconut Palm
River, came up very high with regard to chlordane levels. Those
levels were reported in a 1991 report. That particular ef -- study
was done for the Big Cypress Basin Board which we -- they've basically
funded it, and we presented that information to them and presented the
report to them.
Subsequent to that we had -- have gotten some additional
information from -- from other state agencies that -- that indeed --
we knew that those concentrations were very high. And they are some
of the -- they are the highest recorded in the state from the
officials from the Department of Environmental Protection.
We are -- we are prepared to do some resampling of that
area. Sediment and water quality sampling would -- would cost $12,000
to do. We could have the information back within two week turnaround
time.
If we wanted to have a -- and that's what we would
recommend after discussing the issue with the health department. Some
of the details may be worked out a little bit. But the health
department has been brought in, and they indicate that they need to
have some additional information to make an evaluation of public
health concerns.
One of the things we will be doing within our department
which -- which we didn't do in this particular case even though in
July of 1994 a Department of Agricultural official was quoted as
saying that there was not a public health concern. The Department of
Agriculture is responsible for regulating pesticides.
We should have got the health department involved and
asked the health department for their assistance in terms of is this a
high number. What is your advice to do? We typically do that for our
ground water samples. But we don't do it for our surface water
samples, and I think that would be an improvement for our department
operations.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So are there potentially other
surface water samples that -- it troubles me to hear you say that this
is the policy of -- of your -- of your department that we don't ask
when we get these kind of reports. I was hoping you were going to
tell me this was just a shock. How did this happen? It slipped
through the cracks. But now you're saying it's the policy?
MR. LORENZ: No. We have a policy for ground water
samples.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm talking about for surface
water.
MR. LORENZ: For surface water we don't. The staff --
if we come up with a number, the staff should be responsible for
asking the question. We missed that. I missed it. I reviewed the
data. I did not ask the question of staff, have you sent this to the
health department?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So how -- is there a proposal for
resolving that in the future so that there is a surface water policy?
MR. LORENZ: Yes, we've discussed this with the health
department just recently. The data that we -- that we collect,
they're going to take a look at the type of information they collect.
They may want to get all of it. They may just want to get parts of
it. That -- that decision will be made in the next couple of weeks so
that they can then be properly informed of the water quality results
that we receive.
MR. DORRILL: Let me -- in order to be a little more
complete in your response, we do routinely provide all of our
scientific report data in this type of case to the South Florida Water
Management District and the district office of the DEP in Fort Myers;
is that correct?
MR. LORENZ: I -- I'd have to ask my staff in terms of
what the exact mailing list is for all the reports. Some of these --
this particular report did go to -- to those agencies.
MR. DORRILL: Okay. And we can ascertain that. I don't
want to create unnecessary alarm in the minds of the public if
somebody thinks that there is a particular problem here. I think that
it may be a prudent thing to retest the area. We're not dealing with
contaminated levels of material that are in the water.
The original report -- and, in fact, essentially the
same newspaper story by the same reporter attributing the same
comments to what is now a former employee of ours appeared last summer
around the 4th of July. And it's essentially the same story. If --
if we need to do some additional sediment or mud samples to ascertain
chlordane levels, I think that may be a prudent thing for us to do.
If we in the future in addition to the water management
district and the envir -- Department of Environmental Protection
should also as part of our protocol contact the local public health
unit, that may be a prudent thing to do. And I think that's what Bill
is suggesting.
It just never occurred to us before to contact the
environmental health section of our health department when we're
otherwise coordinating these things with the other two agencies that I
mentioned.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: While -- while I agree --
MR. DORRILL: And we think that was an oversight on our
part.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm still in the middle of my
last comment; okay?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: While I'm, you know, happy to
hear that we're talking about it going forward and while I agree I
don't want to create unnecessary, you know, concern, it troubles me
greatly that this is something nobody thought of before. And it makes
me wonder about, you know, who's in charge of these issues and -- and
what are the policies.
It seems to me to be a very serious problem, a very
serious problem if this has not been addressed before and hasn't been
a part of the protocol. And, frankly, it troubles me too. I hope
that the reaction is not just, well, here's another newspaper
article. We had the same one a year ago. I don't care what the
newspaper article said. I -- you know, this is a factual scientific
analysis that has to be more carefully reviewed than it has been. I
think we've done a bad job. And we've got to do -- we've got to
create a protocol to solve it. And I'm not getting a great deal of
encouragement from what I'm hearing right now.
MR. LORENZ: Oh, we -- no. I said that we will create
that protocol.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And bring it back to us to review
or something? I mean, how will we know when it's in place?
MR. LORENZ: I can provide you a memo after we have the
-- we're going to have a meeting with the health department -- I
believe it's scheduled for the 22nd -- in which case those details
will be worked out. And I'll provide you a memorandum concerning that
-- that meeting shortly thereafter.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think staff fully understands
the board's position on not being very happy about this. But I think
our key now is to move ahead and how we move ahead with it.
First of all, you have told us that you will begin a new
round of testing in that area to do a comparative level study, so I
expect that.
Two, we are going to receive some form of a staff
report, a summary of how this happened, how it's not going to happen
again, and how we're going to move ahead with it; okay?
And third, this is something Dr. Polkowski might be the
more appropriate person to answer. If we do, in fact, have some
levels, whether it's in the mud, if it's a potential contaminant in
that area that we're knowledgeable about, we need to begin an
immediate signage program to keep people from either playing in or
fishing in. And I need to know what those potential dangers are to
determine whether or not a signage program is warranted so that we
can, again, protect the public.
MR. DORRILL: That's what I'm saying, and I hope that my
response here is not intended to be avoidance or cavalier. I'm just
saying that we ought to abide through this in a prudent manner.
The procedures that are in place I think are typically
very good. I think that if -- if we need to broaden the list of those
people that contact and review the scientific data that we undertake,
we need to do that. Mr. Lorenz admitted that.
We have already obtained the cost to do the additional
baseline sampling. If you want it done quicker, we've got a cost to
do that. We can have it done in three days. It's going to cost you
$36,000 to do it in three days. I'm not recommending that today. But
if you're interested in undertaking that type of analysis, it can be
done.
I otherwise think that we ought to take two weeks. We
ought to determine if, in fact, the high levels are still there, what
is a prudent course of action as it pertains to either abatement,
signage, notification of people specifically who own property along
the canal that separates -- I think it's the River Oaks subdivision or
that portion of Palm River and the adjacent golf course and
condominium projects that are to the north and to the east of there.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's -- that where I need Dr.
Polkowski to tell me a little about what are these chemicals, what are
their potential effect. And if we do have residual levels anywhere
near what was previously tested, do we have a responsibility
immediately in your opinion to perform some form of signage or warning
in that area? And I'd just kind of like your -- I know it's an
opinion, but I would like that.
MS. POLKOWSKI: Yes. I'm Jane Polkowski, director of
the Collier County Public Health Unit. And I think what certainly
Neil's indicated and Bill and -- we will be looking at this in greater
detail.
Just generally what -- what has been found is in the
sediment. And it's unclear, you know, as to what the relationship is
right now in terms of the elements which could have potential human
concerns, and that would be like the fish. You know, we don't have
the information on the fish at this point. I think just prudently,
you know, with canals as they are and draining off the lands, it's
just, I think, prudent not to eat the fish. I mean, you can catch
them and toss them back.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could you say that to the camera,
please, ma'am? Don't eat the fish.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: My mother and father told me that
from the day I was born till now. You know, I don't need to be told
that fertilizers and everything else go into those canals, and that's
not good fish food. But not all parents are -- are that on top of
what their kids are doing, and I fear for -- we can put a sign up.
That doesn't keep somebody from fishing there.
MS. POLKOWSKI: Uh-huh, and we will have more
information on -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, fishing and eating are two
different things.
MS. POLKOWSKI: Two different things.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Agreed.
MS. POLKOWSKI: Fishing and tossing them back versus
eating because what we're -- what we would be really concerned about
is the ingestion.
And if you wanted, you know, any more information in
terms of sediment, Bob Bibbler (phonetic), who's our environmental
health engineering director, is here, and he can answer any questions
relative to that. He has some experience in his prior work in that
area.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I guess I just want to react
prudently but not necessarily overreact.
MS. POLKOWSKI: Uh-huh, that's -- that's right.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Sounds like that's what we're
doing.
MS. POLKOWSKI: Right.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Any other questions? I
guess not. So -- MR. DORRILL: Is there any desire on the board's part to
accelerate the sampling?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: What's the difference in cost,
Mr. Dotrill?
MR. DORRILL: $24,000 in difference in cost for
essentially two weeks.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And -- and, Dr. Polkowski, do you
have a recommendation on that?
MS. POLKOWSKI: Well, we'll be examining information
over the next couple weeks. I don't know that it's so -- it's not
what we call an acute situation. But certainly I think we -- we do
need to study it and evaluate it a little bit better.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And that's going to take you some
time even to gather the information much less before the test results
are in. You don't see any need to -- to accelerate the test?
MS. POLKOWSKI: If we can do it within a couple of
weeks, I think that would be good. That would be very good.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And -- and one last question. In
the mean time, it would be an overreaction to post signs or -- or do
any -- do you have any recommendations in the interim?
MS. POLKOWSKI: Well, I think, you know, right now, as I
said, it would be very prudent not to eat the fish certainly from the
canals. And this is also, you might say, common sense based upon what
canals are and -- and certainly not fish there -- swim, you know,
because of the potential of getting water inside and ingesting it.
And as far as, you know, putting up signs, I think what we'll do is
examine the information and determine just what further needs to be
done as far as information whether signs or some other means.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But just for clarification,
generally notwithstanding this particular situation, it's your
recommendation not to swim in the canals and not to eat the fish.
MS. POLKOWSKI: That's right, right now.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Thank you.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I saw Hiss Ross scribbling
furiously when those statements were being made, so somehow I have a
feeling they just might show up in the paper tomorrow. MS. POLKOWSKI: Hope so.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We would like to see that
happen.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So that statement is not just for
Coconut Palm River but for all canals.
MS. POLKOWSKI: Right.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Generally.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So I presume we'll have a report
when we get the test samples back on what the protocol is or at least
have some sort of a memo of what's going on.
MR. LORENZ: That's correct.
PUBLIC COMMENT
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Dorrill,
do we have a public comment?
MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am, you have two today. We have
Mr. Kanter who is here and would like to read a -- a statement, and I
have copies of it, and I'll pass it out. And then you have Ms.
Straton as well on a separate matter.
MR. KANTER: My name is Sidney Kanter. I'm secretary of
the Glades Country Club Steering Action Committee.
If you had looked out of the north window an hour ago,
you would have seen several hundred older people, some in wheelchairs
and some in crutches, parading carrying placards with their objections
to the building of a homeless shelter in their neighborhood. It was
hot, and so they did come up to the stairs down -- down below. But at
my request I asked them not to come marching up in here into the --
into the chambers here with their placards because I thought it would
not be in dignity with the Collier County chambers.
I -- they have appointed me, however, to be their
spokesman, and I have here -- and it says a statement presented to the
Board of Collier County Commissioners by -- by residents of East
Naples, February 14, 1995.
Be it understood that we recognize, we do recognize the
county commissioners have gone on record as opposing the construction
of a homeless shelter on Glades Boulevard. However, we deplore the
lack of action on the part of the 1994 commission to take steps to
protect the safety and the investments of the citizens in their
jurisdiction.
The lack of leadership, foresight, and sensitivity of
the commissioners in allowing a facility whose avowed goals are to
bring addicts, both of alcohol and drugs, and homeless people of
questionable repute into a community of retired citizens is
reprehensible beyond measure.
We, the citizens of the Glades and surrounding
communities, deplore the fact that the commissioners have allowed this
controversy to develop.
We deplore the fact that the commissioners do not
actively support the citizens who have expressed their concerns.
We deplore the insensitivity of the commissioners to the
valid fears of the people for their personal safety.
We urge, we really urge, the current commissioners to
exercise your authority to prevent this facility from becoming a
reality. I know that you have the power.
If you hadn't had an opportunity to read John Lunsford's
column this morning, please be advised that I do not believe this. I
do not believe that the county favors regulation over common sense.
These are his words. Ladies, I'm sorry that I couldn't have been
bringing you as a Valentine's message instead. Thank you for
listening to me.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Kanter. Are there
questions or comments?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just have one question for the
county attorney. Do we, in fact -- this says that they urge us to
exercise our authority to prevent this facility from becoming a
reality. And my question is, do we have any legal authority to do
that? I think I know the answer, but I want you to answer.
MR. CUYLER: The St. MAtthews group has purchased the
property. They got a building permit under the existing zoning
regulations. The permit, unless there's something I don't know, is in
effect, and they're authorized to build under it.
My understanding is they've publicly indicated they're
going to build a homeless shelter and not run the soup kitchen. But,
you know, I'm not sure about that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The point being we don't have.
If we had some authority and some power, maybe we could exercise it,
but I don't think we have any legal authority at this point.
MR. KANTER: I think if you -- if you look deep down
into your hearts, you can find -- you can find a reason. I mean, if
you were to check here recently, you had a group talking about zoning
and land and what was appropriate and what was not appropriate. I
mean, I'm sure that you realize that this situation is not right. And
somewhere you've got power. You people are the law. We depend upon
you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But we have to obey the law also.
MR. KANTER: Right, right, right. But if you look deep
enough, I'm sure that you can find a way that this could be stopped.
I really feel that. I'm sure if you were to put it -- I'm sure
perhaps if you were to put it to a vote today that you people, if you
had this power, you could go ahead and cancel this thing out.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't think we can pass ex post
facto law any more than our Congress can.
MR. KANTER: Will you -- will you -- will you promise me
this? Will you promise me to study the situation seriously? Now, I
know that you're going to say, but they're already building. That's
okay. I'm sure that sometime in the past you people have seen fit to
stop a person who was building because something was wrong. They're
either a few inches over the line or something was wrong. If you --
if you -- if you look deep down, I'm sure that there is a place
somewhere where this can be changed.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock, do you have
a comment?
MR. KANTER: I hope you'll try.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: No, I -- I don't have any
comment. To be honest, Mr. Kanter, you say if we look deep down --
MR. KANTER: Do you think it's right?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Kanter, if you'll let me
speak.
MR. KANTER: I'm sorry.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You're in essence castigating the
people that are your supporters. You're standing here castigating the
commission when we have stated that we wish that somebody had the
foresight before 1994 not to allow that.
Now, we not only are required to abide by the law but
are also required by ethics not to circumvent it. And as much as I'd
like to say that -- that we can do that, I won't. Whether -- whether
in my heart what I want is more important than -- than not
circumventing the law, that's another issue. But we are bound to do
certain things. We're going to do those, and I guarantee you one
thing. What is built on that site will conform. MR. KANTER: Thank you.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: If anything is built, it will
conform, Mr. Kanter.
MR. KANTER: Thank you.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Cuyler --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: -- Mr. Kanter has asked us to --
to stop the building of this shelter by any means available to us.
And we need to know is there any means available to us.
MR. KANTER: Hay I -- may I say something?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No, you may not, Mr. Kanter.
MR. KANTER: I'm sorry.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: You've had your time. I'm asking
Mr. Cuyler this, please. Let him answer it.
MR. CUYLER: I -- I usually draw the analogy to the
55-mile-an-hour speed limit. If you say to me, can I go over 55, the
answer's yes, you can go over 55. But that's not what the law is. If
you're asking me can you cancel the building permit, the answer is
yes, you can cancel the building permit practically, but you're going
to, in my opinion, suffer the consequences of that cancellation.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: What would be the end result in
your opinion?
MR. CUYLER: I think there would be litigation. And
based on what I've seen, I think you would -- well, I hate to in
public -- you as the client I hate to say you're going to lose the
case, but I haven't seen anything that would give you any good chances
of being successful.
If you just said, you know -- I think Mr. Kanter's
right. A moral issue or a -- or a practical issue as opposed to a
legal issue and he's saying search yourselves, you know, tell me this
isn't right to do this, and that's not really the question presented.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I know it's not right to do
that. What if we -- would there be a possibility of invoking some
sort of health, safety, and welfare issue or an inappropriateness in
zoning issue that is an anomaly in our zoning code?
MR. CUYLER: The answer is yes if you had a basis to do
that. But I'm fairly familiar with the project, and nobody to date
has told me that there is an overriding health, safety, welfare, an
emergency or anything of that sort. You know, if there's an outbreak
of some sort, you can address those types of situations. If there's
an emergency situation, you can address those.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In other words, we would have to
find that a similar circumstance in another community with similar
geographic elements caused -- in other words, if there -- there's
really no case. There's no precedent for us to say this same thing
has happened elsewhere, and it was a -- in other words, we can prove
that it was a detriment. I guess -- I guess I'm asking the difference
of whether we'd be flying by the seat of our pants or whether we would
actually have legal standing in -- in making that type of assertion.
MR. CUYLER: I think you'd be flying by the seat of your
pants. I haven't seen anything that would allow that finding. I'm
not saying that it's impossible, but I can't think of a set of
circumstances under which you could come in and really establish that
basis to take that kind of action. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. KANTER: I thank you for listening. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Kanter. It's a
tough one.
Next item on the agenda --
MR. DORRILL: You had Miss Straton as well.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm sorry. Miss Straton.
MS. STRATON: Chris Straton, League of Women Voters. I
hate to go back to the motor voter act, but the league did present --
prepare a position. Mr. Dotrill has a copy of our statement.
In addition --
MR. DORRILL: I passed them out.
MS. STRATON: Oh, they've been passed out?
MR. DORRILL: They all have them.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have them.
MS. STRATON: Okay. Fine. I just wanted to make sure
that you were aware of it with all the other stacks of paper you
have. And read it over.
One of the reasons that Collier County has done such an
excellent job in registering voters besides Mary Horgan's work is the
work that the league has done. And they've worked very hard
nationally on this issue. And they would urge you to -- it's only
been in effect for six weeks.
Before we jump to conclusions that it's fraught with
problems, perhaps we -- we need a little more time to study it. Thank
you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you.
Item #12C1
RESOLUTION 95-139, RE PETITION ST-94-9, ROBERT WILEY, COLLIER COUNTY
OFFICE OF CAPITAL PROJECTS MANAGEMENT, REQUESTING A SPECIAL TREATMENT
DEVELOPMENT PERMIT TO ALLOW CONSTRUCTION OF A PARKING LOT AT THE SOUTH
TERMINUS OF LELY BAREFOOT BOULEVARD FOR THE LELY BEACH PRESERVE
(COLLIER COUNTY PARK) - ADOPTED, SUBJECT TO STIPULATIONS CONTAINED IN
THE AGREEMENT SHEET
Next item on the agenda is 12-C-1, petition ST94-4. Mr.
Wiley?
MS. BURGESON: For the record, my name is Barbara
Burgeson, project planning, and I'm here to present petition ST94-4.
This is to allow the construction of additional parking at the south
terminus of Lely Barefoot Beach parking -- the Lely Barefoot Beach
Park, Lely Barefoot Beach Preserve.
Staff has recommended approval of the plans that are
submitted. The design and the layout of the parking minimizes impact
to the existing native vegetation. They will be abiding by the state
management plan on the park which will be to minimize the areas with
existing native vegetation. They'll be going through more of the
areas with exotic vegetation which they're required to remove.
In areas that native vegetation is being removed, if it
can be transplanted, it will be into those areas that will become
denuded when the exotics are removed.
They will have a management plan design during the SDP
phase to protect the gopher tortoises on site, and I understand that
there is a member of staff that -- who will be at that time authorized
by the state to handle the tortoises herself. She's with the natural
resources department. Staff recommends approval with the agreement
sheet as attached. There's three stipulations that staff would like
to see accepted.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: This is -- this is for the
additional parking lot at Lely Barefoot Beach that we've been talking
about --
MR. BURGESON: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- for a year? Are there
questions?
MR. DORRILL: You have a member of the public who's
registered under this. Mr. Hazzard?
MR. HAZZARD: Thank you, Commissioners. My name's Bill
Hazzard. I'm with Cummings and Lockwood. I represent a couple of
home owners' groups that are familiar to you, the Lely Barefoot Beach
Property Owners' Association and the Lely Barefoot Beach Master Home
Owners' Association. I know it's been a long day, and I'll keep my
comments as short as possible.
But as you are all aware, my clients have filed a
declaratory judgment action against Collier County related to a number
of issues at the Barefoot Beach subdivision. Count 3 of that action
asks the Court to establish the number of parking spaces the county's
permitted to have at the county park. We believe that adding the
spaces contemplated in this measure will cause the county to exceed
the maximum number permitted.
And my purpose today -- I really have four purposes.
The first is to urge the commission to table the planned addition of
parking pending resolution of the lawsuit.
The second is to note for the commission that a
hearing's been set for Hay 30 on my client's motion to enjoin the
additional construction pending the outcome of the suit.
The third is to alert the commission of the possibility
that funds expended in this effort could be wasted depending on the
outcome of the suit.
And the fourth is to -- is to set aside all the -- all
the legalese and to urge the commission to ask the staff to reevaluate
the decision to add more parking paying particular attention to the
impact that increased parking will have on the traffic use of Lely
Beach Boulevard.
I recognize that we're trying to preserve vegetation and
we're trying to preserve tortoises. But I really believe that the
road as designed is simply not equipped to handle the increased
traffic that's going to be flowing down it.
And so even if the county maintains that there's no
legal limit to the number of parking spaces allowed, there is a
physical limit to the capacity of the road to handle additional
traffic, and that limit's already been exceeded. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you.
MR. CUYLER: I don't have any comments unless you're
going to talk about something.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I guess -- unless we're going to
talk about something?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: You'd like to close the public
hearing?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have two attorneys here to
shush us up if we get too far astray; is that right? MR. CUYLER: I'll let David go ahead.
MR. BRYANT: Oh, I'm sure you'd never get too far
astray, Commissioner.
Mr. Hazzard has filed a complaint, and he is asking the
Court to enjoin the county from doing certain things. It's your
decision today if you want to go forward. And if you do want to do
that, that's fine. I'm sure he will move on an emergency basis to
have that heard. Then we can make -- have the judge make that
determination. And if he says we can't do it, we can't do it. He
might say, go right ahead if you want to do it. So it's really your
decision to make if you want to go forward today.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
that we have?
HR. CUYLER: It is.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
public hearing.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS:
Is that the only public speaker
I'm going to close the -- the
Hotion to approve.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to
approve. Is there further discussion on the motion?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Quick comment. A lot of the
complaints in Barefoot happen to be from people, overflow from the
parking, parking on the side of the street. It seems to me more
parking's going to keep people from parking on the side of the street,
so I'm going to support the motion.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Being no further discussion, I'll
call the question. All those in favor please say aye. Opposed?
There being none, motion passes five-zero. Thank you.
Item #12C2
BUDGET AMENDMENT RESOLUTIONS 95-1 THROUGH 95-5, AMENDMENTS TO THE
FISCAL YEAR 1994/95 ADOPTED BUDGET - ADOPTED
Next item on the agenda is item 12-C-2, recommendation
to adopt resolutions approving fiscal year adopted budget. Mr.
Smykowski.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Good afternoon. For the record, Michael
Smykowski, acting budget director.
Within the contents of your executive summary today,
there are 27 budget amendments which in essence increase fund totals
of a -- within the budget. State statute requires that a public
hearing be held to increase -- to increase the total of the budget in
terms of appropriating supplemental revenue.
Each of these 27 budget amendments the board has
previously seen via an individual executive summary and has approved
them. The overwhelming majority of them are for capital projects
funds for -- to roll over -- reappropriate funds for projects which
were budgeted in FY '94.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Smykowski, did I hear you
right that the board has already seen these and already approved
these?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Is this basically a summary
approval?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Cuyler, are there any public
speakers?
MR. CUYLER: No, ma'am, no public speakers.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll close the public hearing.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll make a motion to approve
staff recommendation.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I will second that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second.
Is there further discussion?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: One quick question. The first
item shows a new fund total of over 100 million. Is that a typo, or
is that correct?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. I just wanted to make sure
I wasn't going the wrong direction there. MR. SMYKOWSKI: No.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Proceed.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll call the question. All
those in favor please say aye.
Opposed?
There being none, motion passes five-zero.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Thank you.
Item #15
STAFF'S COHMUNICATIONS
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. We're down to staff
communication at the end of the day. Mr. Cuyler, do you have
anything?
MR. CUYLER: No, ma'am.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Dorrill, do you have
anything?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Anything maybe brief, something
in a small-worded version?
MR. DORRILL: Following up to the request last week
concerning coordination between the commission and the schools with
respect to the Gulfview reef, I did pursue that over the course of the
last week, and I wanted to -- to update you.
At the end of the summer, the beginning of the fall, Dr.
Hunz and I had assigned certain people on our staffs to monitor the
progress of the construction and demolition and renovation at Gulfview
Middle School.
The -- I think this is going to be real touch and go,
and I wanted to provide you -- Dr. Hunz indicates to me that the
project is delayed -- their project is delayed, and their project is
essentially a million dollars over their original budget.
His current schedule, if it is maintained, will not have
demolition commencing until June the 13th. They want to wait now to
the end of the school year -- and June the 13th is the last day for
teachers -- before they begin demolition.
Previously the school's engineer said some of the
material has objectionable aspects to it. There's some old asbestos
in the material. And they are not promising us anything at this point
in terms of being able to have material available.
We typically will be placing material in the early first
two weeks of June. Our grant -- I have staff here to confirm this if
necessary. Our grant requires us to have all of the material placed
and for us to be finished and submit our final monitoring report no
later than the 30th of June. And that's an absolute. We don't have
the discretion. We cannot get an extension. It's the window of
opportunity that our reef construction grant affords us.
The school board is meeting Thursday. And the
suggestion -- and Mr. Hancock has already asked me would it be good
for him to be there and express our -- our concerns because their
project is now behind schedule and over budget.
They, according to superintendent, are not willing to
incur any additional costs to try and accelerate the demolition; nor
are they willing to accelerate and pay additional costs to sort the
material because of some of the objectionable aspects of it.
I think it would still be good -- and I don't mind going
and Mr. Hancock perhaps at their meeting on Thursday to express our
concerns and at least evaluate what perhaps they could do in order to
maintain the schedule that we originally started with on this project.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: For the balance of the board, I
will be there Thursday night. And, Mr. Dotrill, if you can make it,
that will be great.
I will express our desire for the completion of this
project, and I will then follow up with Mr. Faerber individually to
discuss how we can pursue it. I think working with the board members
individually I -- I think we can -- we can find a -- a way to get this
thing moving. And maybe there's a community volunteer program that we
can throw in on top of it to get people involved. I just think
there's some solutions out there, and we'll begin the process of -- of
communicating those.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Perhaps you've already done
this, Commissioner Hancock. But if not, Mr. Dotrill, maybe you want
to get a copy of the tape or tapes from the joint city-county meeting
in particular where we both passed little resolutions because that
will have all the details you need for them on Thursday.
MR. DORRILL: At -- at this point the project is not
going to happen unless the school board does something to make it
happen, and it's just as simple as that. They will need to begin
demolition in certain areas. I don't honestly know when the last day
of school is for the students versus the last day for teachers. But
it's going to take an effort on their part now. And the
superintendent's not in a position to recommend any additional costs
either to try and accelerate demolition or the sorting that's
necessary because of some of the asbestos and other things.
My understanding is you can't place roofing material,
can't have shingles, tar paper, that type of thing. It's got to be
inert rubble. And they're going to need a little push. We'll provide
that information to Mr. Hancock if he can be there Thursday.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And we'll work board to board and
see if we can come up with something. That was the whole idea of this
liaison, so I'm optimistic. I think we can do it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Good. Sounds good.
MR. DORRILL: That's all that I have.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Dorrill.
Is there communication from the board? Commissioner
Norris?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. I'd like to just express an
opinion here. We -- we had really a fairly short agenda today, and
it's now five o'clock. This seems to be a pattern generating where
meetings that should be fairly short are getting longer and longer.
There's -- part of the problem I noticed today is we had
three or four issues that we've seen multiple times. And yet we sit
and discuss the entire issue over and over again rather than just the
singular point that we're looking at.
And I -- I'd just like to ask everyone to -- to see if
we can't be aware that the meetings are going too long and see if we
can't take steps to shorten our conversations or shorten our -- make
more pointed questions, whatever we need to do to see if we can't
shorten it up.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I think that was one of the
discussions behind this morning, the project evaluation and so forth
that staff is -- is considering to -- to find ways to make this whole
-- whole process more efficient. And hopefully we'll move in those
directions.
But I -- I -- I agree with you. These -- I thought -- I
really thought we'd be finished today at 2:30, 3:00. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Me too.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just sometimes -- in
reference to John's comment, there are times today and the last
several weeks where -- and I'm as guilty as anyone -- but where we
have repeated -- Commissioner Hancock says something and then three of
us will say, you know, well, I agree, and we say almost exactly the
same thing. And we do that on almost every item all day long, and I
don't know that we need to all say that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We just have to say ditto.
That's all. I agree.
Commissioner Hancock, do you have anything?
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Guilty as charged.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner --
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I will -- I'll do my best to keep
my comments to a minimum. I always fear getting misquoted so badly
that I overstate things time -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But if you don't say anything,
you can't get quoted.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah, what's Hancock doing? I
don't know. He never says anything.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Wait a minute. That's my theory.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's John's role.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll work on it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner MAc'Kie, do you have
anything?
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, ma'am.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One item. Mr. Dotrill, do we
have a schedule? This board has indicated an interest in
investigating and perhaps taking back over the control of rates for
private utilities. Do we have a schedule for that? And if not, I'd
like to set one. And perhaps if there's no objection from the board,
if we don't already have one, I'd like to come up with a proposal for
next week for that purpose because April 11 of this year -- I think
it's the llth -- is the first day we can legally take that back.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's the first day of the llth
year.
MR. DORRILL: I'm looking to Ken. He'll need to give me
a little advice on the ordinance aspect. I think it requires an
ordinance.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We don't have anything
scheduled right now as far as hearings? MR. DORRILL: No.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd like to kick that off, so
maybe between the three of us we can come up with a proposed schedule
for the board for next week. MR. DORRILL: Okay.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: That schedule will be preliminary
discussions before preparation of an ordinance?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Correct.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is that all?
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's all. I assume you got
the MArco field trip report.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, I've got the MArco field
trip report. And what I've handed out is for each of us to read. Let
me explain what we have here, and then after that I think it's self
explanatory.
The block print, so to speak, is the agreement as it
originally came down last Thursday from the DEP. And I think as you
read that you'll see the concern that I had.
The bold print is -- they're insertions of things that
we wanted to see changed. And then the cursive print under that is
what the actual changes -- my recollection of what we agreed to do
yesterday.
It's our intention, I believe, to have this on the
agenda for next Tuesday, Mr. Dorrill; isn't that correct? And as
you'll note, we have a -- at the back of the agreement once this is
agreed to, there's a memorandum of agreement to agree to several other
agreements down the road because we don't have all of the agreements
worked out yet. But we're running out of time because grants are
beginning to go away, so we have to move on it fairly quickly.
MR. CUYLER: But it does contemplate the delivery of the
deed.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm sorry. I didn't hear
what you said.
MR. CUYLER: It does contemplate the delivery of the
deed quickly.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: This -- this agreement will
trigger the delivery of the deed, and they will deliver it within five
days after this is signed off on.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can you elaborate what you
mean when you say we will agree to future agreements? That's not how
you said it but --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. What this -- what this
agreement is and as you read through it, you'll see that there's talk
of provisions to be included in the 99-year lease for Jane Scenic
Drive such as a permitting process and appeal process, members to be
included in the appeal board, ordinances that are to be enforced,
patrols by the sheriff.
All these are items to be included in -- in the lease
itself. When that lease comes back to us, these will at a minimum be
included in it. And the things that the airport needed included are
item 6 -- items 5, 6, and 7 were not included in the original
agreement. Five and six were agreed to, and six is the most
important. That's that they'll be able to maintain the mangrove area
around the runway in accordance with federal aviation regulations part
77. So expecting to have an agreement in sometime between tomorrow
and Friday?
MR. CUYLER: We're hoping for tomorrow to Thursday and
see if we can't look at it, talk to the state, hopefully get something
to the board by Friday. If not, then it's going to have to be Monday
but definitely try to give you as much time as we can.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I wanted to pass these out today
so that you can read them and have some idea of what we're going to be
looking at next Tuesday so you can ponder and think about it.
Commissioner Constantine?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: My only reservation -- and
perhaps when that comes back, it will fill in enough details so I'm
comfortable. But you having just been through thinking you had --
verbally having an agreement that didn't come that way in writing and
me having been through that last year, I don't want to leave too many
assumptions open.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Because I'd hate to -- I
suppose once we get the deed we can struggle over those forever. But
I hate to leave too many assumptions open just because there've been
so many times we thought we were in agreement.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't think there's many
assumptions left in this as to the meat of the lease agreements and so
forth. The meat is here.
MR. DORRILL: An example, they want us to incorporate on
the signage that the state -- that -- there's a different set of state
park rules, things you can and cannot do in state parks. And they
want us to be able to reference and incorporate those in signage
similar to county park rules as they relate to firearms and alcohol
and things like that. And they just want those incorporated into the
lease under the management agreement section.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. The bottom line on this is
that the road will be open 24 hours a day. Anyone can use the road in
the daylight hours. Permit holders will use it in the evening hours.
People who are denied a permit will have an appeal process, and it
will be a local appeal process as opposed to Tallahassee.
There will be no gates. We've even negotiated a clause
in here that in the event of a declared emergency -- and this road is
used as an evacuation route -- we can do that and the permit process
is set aside for that period. So I mean, it's -- I think it's a very
-- very favorable agreement based on what we discussed yesterday.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Sounds like you got us back
to pretty much where we wanted to be originally.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think so. As I say, we'll wait
for the final -- final agreement to come in. I -- I'm very, very
pleased with -- with what -- what we did yesterday, and I found that
the staff at the DEP that we talked with were -- were most helpful and
really almost bent over backwards to -- to move through this quickly.
I was pleased.
MR. CUYLER: I think the big difference between the
position now and formerly is that even though there's some things to
be tied up, they're willing to show the good faith in giving us the
deed even though some of the other things aren't tied up. So --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Good.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So as we move forward, the last
thing that I need to discuss is with the lobby coalition, and we need
to move forward on that. Our apartment becomes available on March the
5th, and I thought I would take the first week up there because we
have some housekeeping, no pun intended, to do.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You realize I would never say
that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But we -- we need to get some fax
machines and -- and -- and computers and stuff set up. So I thought I
would take the first week to get that underway. Then we need to cover
the week of March the 22nd. Commissioner Constantine is going to
cover the week of April the 12th, and then we have the week of Hay the
3rd which will be the final week. And, again, that will be a wrap-up
and additional housekeeping because we have to disassemble
everything. So I'm looking for volunteers for March 22 and Hay the
3rd. Anybody interested?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK:
get back with you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
I'll have to check schedule and
Okay. That would be fine.
I'll certainly take one of them.
Okay. I don't mind doing Hay the
3rd again because, as I say, it will be a breakdown period of --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You'll know where all the boxes
are anyway.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, I'll know where the boxes
are and who they go back to and all that good stuff.
So if you'll let me know who wants to do March 22, I'll
appreciate it, and I guess that finishes it. Are we finished?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS:
HS. FILSON: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
Ask Miss Filson.
We're adjourned.
***** Commissioner Constantine moved, seconded by Commissioner Hancock
and carried unanimously, that the following items under the Consent
Agenda be approved and/or adopted: *****
Item #16A1
FY 94/95 YEAR END REPORT ON THE CERTIFICATE OF PUBLIC FACILITY ADEQUACY
PROGRAM OF THE COLLIER COUNTY CONCURRENCY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
See Pages
Item #16A2
ACCEPTANCE OF REPLACEMENT SECURITY (LETTER OF CREDIT) FOR THE
INFRASTRUCTURE WITHIN "SILVER LAKES PHASE TWO-A"
See Pages
Item #16A3
ACCEPTANCE OF WATER FACILITIES FOR BEAR CREEK APARTMENTS - WITH
STIPULATIONS AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND LETTER OF CREDIT
See Pages
Item #16A4
ACCEPTANCE OF AMENDED SECURITY (LETTER OF CREDIT) FOR EXCAVATION PERMIT
NO. 59.475 FOR "MUSTANG PLANTATION"
See Pages
Item #16A5
ACCEPTANCE OF WATER AND SEWER FACILITIES FOR NORTHBROOKE DRIVE - WITH
STIPULATIONS AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
O.R. Book Pages
Item #16A6
ACCEPTANCE OF WATER AND SEWER FACILITIES FOR QUAIL WEST, PHASE I, UNIT
ONE, BLOCK C, STAGE 1 - WITH STIPULATIONS AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
O.R. Book Pages
Item #16A7
AUTHORIZATION FOR RECORDING THE FINAL PLAT OF "NORTHBROOKE DRIVE" AND
ACCEPTANCE OF LETTER OF CREDIT
See Pages
Item #16A8
ACCEPTANCE OF SECURITY (LETTER OF CREDIT) FOR EXCAVATION PERMIT NO.
59.522, "QUAIL WEST PHASE III GOLF COURSE"
See Pages
Item #16A9A
RESOLUTION 95-117, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF
THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: CAROL L. GOODLAD,
TR.
See Pages
Item #16A9B
RESOLUTION 95-118, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: NIVARDO HARTINEZ AND
ELBA HARTINEZ
Item #16A9C
See Pages
RESOLUTION 95-119, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF
THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: NOEL H. WILLIA_MS
See Pages
Item #16A9D
RESOLUTION 95-120, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF
THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: STEVEN F. BRAY
See Pages
Item #16A9E
RESOLUTION 95-121, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF
THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: WILLIE HAE POSTELLE
See Pages
Item #16A9F
RESOLUTION 95-122, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF
THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: WILLIAM H. BERNER
See Pages
Item #16A9G
RESOLUTION 95-123, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF
THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: O. L. SNYDER, ET UX
See Pages
Item #16A9H
RESOLUTION 95-124, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: PAUL L. RIDDLEBERGER,
JR.
See Pages
Item #16A9I
RESOLUTION 95-125, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: RONALD C. WALLIN AND
ROSE MARIE WALLIN
See Pages
Item #16A9J
RESOLUTION 95-126, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF
THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: DAVID A. ELDRIDGE
See Pages
Item #16A9K
RESOLUTION 95-127, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF
THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: HNH VENTURES
See Pages
Item #16A9L
RESOLUTION 95-128, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF
THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: PHILIP CARLTON, JR.
See Pages
Item #16A9H
RESOLUTION 95-129, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: WILLIE HAE POSTELLE
See Pages
Item #16A9N
RESOLUTION 95-130, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEHENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: HAURICE R. SKIFFEY AND
KAREN C. SKIFFEY
See Pages
Item #16A90
RESOLUTION 95-131, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: ANCIL R. GANN, ET UX
See Pages
Item #16A9P
RESOLUTION 95-132, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, OWNER OF RECORD: SOUTH TERRA CORP.
See Pages
Item #16A10
AUTHORIZATION FOR RECORDING THE FINAL PLAT OF HAWKSRIDGE, UNIT TWO AND
ACCEPTANCE OF CONSTRUCTION & MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT AND PERFORMANCE BOND
See Pages
Item #16B1 - Deleted
Item #1682
BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR VANDERBILT BEACH ROAD DESIGN AND PERMITTING
SERVICES, CIE PROJECT NO. 042 - IN THE AMOUNT OF $39,000.00
Item #16C1
BID #95-2317 FOR THE PURCHASE OF ARTS AND CRAFTS SUPPLIES - AWARDED TO
TRIARCO ARTS AND CRAFTS AND S & S ARTS AND CRAFTS
Item #16C2
AUTHORIZATION FOR THE PURCHASE OF ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE LICENSES FROM
DATA RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
Item #16C3
PERMISSION TO APPLY FOR BLOCK GRANT FUNDING FROM THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT
OF COHMUNITY AFFAIRS, WHICH WILL BENEFIT THE PUBLIC HEALTH UNIT'S
OBSTETRIC PROGRAM
See Pages
Item #16C4 - Continued to 2/21/95
Item #16C5
BID #95-2316 FOR TROPHIES, PLAQUES AND AWARDS - AWARDED TO GOLDEN GATE
TROPHY CENTER IN THE ESTIMATED AMOUNT OF $15,000.00
Item #16C6
CONTRACT FOR FY 1995 LIBRARY OPERATING GRANT (STATE AID) ADMINISTERED
BY THE STATE LIBRARY OF FLORIDA
See Pages
Item #16D1 - Deleted
Item #16D2
SATISFACTIONS OF NOTICE OF PROMISE TO PAY AND AGREEMENT TO EXTEND
PAYMENT OF SEWER IMPACT FEES FOR LAWRENCE AND LUCY BENNETT; CHARLES C.
COLVIN; MARY F. DAVIS; JOHN D. FRANKIS, SR.; KEITH AND LELY FRANKLIN;
TIMOTHY J. LENNON; PAUL J. MARONEY; RONNIE AND BRENDA RAY; VIVIAN F..
SCHAAL; WILLIAM AND SHARI SMITH; THELMA C. WATKINS; PAUL WIPERT AND
RICHARD SMITH; AND THOMAS J. LIZIO
See Pages
Item #16D3
NOTICE OF PROMISE TO PAY AND AGREEMENT TO EXTEND PAYMENT OF SEWER
SYSTEM IMPACT FEES FOR HERBERT C. POHLHANN
See Pages
Item #16D4
SATISFACTIONS OF CLAIM OF LIENS FOR CARL AND MARLENE CALABRESE; DOUGLAS
DANGLER; TIMOTHY FLOCK; GREAT WESTERN BANK; DONALD MAHONEY, JR.; ALAN
REYNOLDS; CHARLES AND CECILIA HANLEY; SCENIC INVESTMENTS CORPORATION;
GEORGE N. SCHHITT; U.S. SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT;
CRAIG AND HELISSA WOOD
See Pages
Item #16El
RESOLUTION 95-133, RE LEASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND
REPRESENTATIVE BURT L. SAUNDERS FOR THE USE OF OFFICE SPACE WITHIN THE
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AT THE GOVERNMENT CENTER COMPLEX
See Pages
Item #16F1
BID # 94-2292 FOR THE PURCHASE OF MEDICAL EQUIPMENT FOR THE EMERGENCY
MEDICAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT - AWARDED TO VARIOUS VENDORS
Item #16G1
CERTIFICATES OF CORRECTION TO THE 1994 AND 1995 SOLID WASTE COLLECTION
SPECIAL ASSESSMENT ROLLS AND AUTHORIZATION FOR REFUNDS, AS APPROPRIATE
See Pages
Item #1662
RESOLUTION 95-134, ADDING UNITS TO THE 1995 COLLIER COUNTY MANDATORY
SOLID WASTE COLLECTION SPECIAL ASSESSMENT ROLL
See Pages
Item #16H1
SUPPLEMENTAL AGREEMENT TO R.F.P. #93-2059 WITH AGNOLI, BARBER AND
BRUNDAGE, INC. FOR THE GOLDEN GATE ESTATES COHMUNITY PARK
See Pages
Item #16H2
BID #95-2324 FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE ROYAL COVE II STORMWATER DRAINAGE
RELIEF - AWARDED TO KYLE CONSTRUCTION, IN THE AMOUNT OF $29,240.00
Item #16H3
AGREEMENTS BY AND BETWEEN HC DONALD'S CORPORATION, D/B/A HC DONALD'S
CORPORATION, RIDGE PORT PLAZA PARTNERS, LTD., AND BARNETT BANK OF
NAPLES, CONCERNING THE SIX-LANING OF AIRPORT-PULLING ROAD AND PINE
RIDGE ROAD
See Pages
Item #16H4
FINAL BUDGET AMENDHENT TO COHPLETE THE CLAM PASS PARK BOARDWALK AND
UTILITY PROJECT - IN THE AMOUNT OF $55,700.00
Item #16H5
BUDGET AMENDMENTS RECOGNIZING ESTIMATED CARRY FORWARD FOR PROJECTS IN
FUND 412 AND FUND 414
Item #16J
MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE - FILED AND/OR REFERRED
The following miscellaneous correspondence as presented by the
Board of County Commissioners has been directed to the various
departments as indicated:
Item #16J1
CERTIFICATES OF CORRECTION TO THE TAX ROLLS AS PRESENTED BY THE
PROPERTY APPRAISER'S OFFICE
1994
No's. Dated
120/121 1/31 - 2/1/95
Item #16J2
SATISFACTIONS OF LIEN FOR SERVICES OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER
See Pages
Item #16K1
INCREASE IN THE NUHBER OF 1994/95 SHERIFF'S OFFICE BUDGET APPROVED
SWORN LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER POSITIONS FROM 349 TO 355 FOR THE UNITED
STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE THREE YEAR COPS AHEAD GRANT PROGRAM
See Pages
Item #16L1
RESOLUTION 95-135, RE SATISFACTION OF LIENS FOR CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL
ACCOUNTS WHEREIN THE COUNTY HAS RECEIVED PAYMENT AND SAID LIENS ARE
SATISFIED IN FULL FOR THE 1992 SOLID WASTE COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL
SERVICES SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS
See Pages
Item #16L2
RESOLUTION 95-136, RE SATISFACTIONS OF LIENS FOR CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL
ACCOUNTS WHEREIN THE COUNTY HAS RECEIVED PAYMENT AND SAID LIENS ARE
SATISFIED IN FULL FOR THE 1993 SOLID WASTE COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL
SERVICES SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS
See Pages
Item #16L3
RESOLUTION 95-137, RE SATISFACTIONS OF LIENS FOR CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL
ACCOUNTS WHEERIN THE COUNTY HAS RECEIVED PAYMENT AND SAID LIENS AER
SATISFIED IN FULL FOR THE 1993 SOLID WASTE COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL
SERVICES SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS
See Pages
There being no further business for the Good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by Order of the Chair at 5:10 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS
CONTROL
ATTEST:
DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK
BETTYE J. MATTHEWS, CHAIRPERSON
These minutes approved by the Board on
as presented or as corrected
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING
BY: Sharon Landis and Shelly Semmler